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The Four Foundations that Should Frame Every Business Strategy

If you look closely at the inner workings of successful companies, you quickly come to the realization that truly solid market-leading organizations and business strategies are built on four critical foundations: a set of core values; a mission or purpose statement; a timed vision statement; and a clearly articulated customer or stakeholder value proposition.

While this list won’t represent a new insight or a “rocket-science” approach to business strategy for many of you, it still surprises me how many companies seem content to cherry pick from this list of the four essentials and how they rarely incorporate all four elements into their business strategy. By not taking steps to incorporate all four foundations in their strategic thinking process, organizations are setting themselves up to sub-optimize their business strategy and strategy execution results.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these important foundational elements and talk about how they fit into the strategy picture.

 

Core Values

Core values represent the basic, shared beliefs that govern individual and group behavior in any organization. They both define and represent the way things get done and, as a result, form the foundation for the strategic objectives in a company’s business strategy and on its strategy map. Every action an organization takes should be in absolute alignment with its stated core values. In fact, the difference between successful and unsuccessful organizations is that the successful ones actually live up to their values all the time in everything they do. It is important to note that a company’s core values ideally remain stable over time.

Because you want your employees to put your core values into action every day, you need to keep your list of core values to a short, focused one – three to five core value maximum is usually a good number. In addition, it’s not just good enough to simply identify your organization’s core values. You should also write a clear behavioural definition for each value – that is, what it is and what it looks like in action. This is often a missing piece in company core values statements. By defining your core values in actionable terms, you make it much easier for your employees to make decisions and behave in ways that are in complete alignment with the company’s core values.

Successful organizations take their use of core values even further and build the expectation that employees will act in alignment with core values into the performance management process. They go so far as to include an assessment of employees’ performance against core values behaviour standards as part of performance review discussions. Taking this approach (1) communicates the importance of a company’s core values; (2) supports the requirement to align individual actions with core values at all times; and (3) evaluates and rewards behaviour and performance that is aligned with values and helps move the organization forward.

Imperative: It’s not good enough to go through the motions of creating a list of organizational core values. To achieve real business success, it is critical to take the time to identify and define core values and then ensure that they are put into action by all employees at all levels of your organization every day.

 

Mission

An organization’s mission defines why it exists, describes what business it is in and the contribution it makes, and states the value it adds to either society or the corporation it operates within. A good mission statement communicates the purpose of an organization and, importantly, it aligns with the organization’s core values. Mission statements endure over time and do not change unless a change in organizational direction results in a change in the nature of your organization’s purpose.

A winning mission statement is short, inspirational, and lofty – companies should always be striving to deliver on and achieve their purpose however they never actually get there. A typical mission statement says a lot and provides direction in broad terms but still leaves room for creative thinking about how to take action and actually achieve the mission or purpose.

Here are some sample mission statements that I particularly like:

3M - To solve unsolved problems innovatively.

Merck - To preserve and improve human life.

St. Mary’s Duluth Clinic Health System - Bringing the soul and science of healing to the people we serve.

Mary Kay Cosmetics - To give unlimited opportunity to women.

Many people believe that mission statements only apply for public sector and non-profit organizations largely because their ultimate purpose is to do good for society. The thinking is that, in the private sector, the ultimate goal is to make money/a profit – full stop. And while the making money bit is true, smart for-profit organizations realize that making money isn’t a purpose that truly inspires customers and employees. Most progressive thinking companies believe that if they focus on achieving an inspirational purpose that adds real value, the money, and if they plan right, the profits will follow.

Imperative: As you can see from the mission statements provided above, even private sector organizations today take the time to define an ultimate purpose for their company. By ensuring that its core values and mission are aligned, a company is setting the stage for the development of a more coherent business strategy.

 

Vision

An organization’s vision is built on its core values and is an extension of its mission. A vision should include a clear timeframe (often a three to five year horizon) and acts as a signpost on the journey to achieving the mission. It paints a clear and measurable picture of what a company wants to achieve by a defined point in the future. As a result, a vision provides an organization with a tangible way of assessing its strategic progress over a specific time period.

A vision stretches the organization’s capabilities and image of itself and it clarifies the direction of the organization. In addition, a clear vision helps all of a company’s stakeholders understand why and how they can support the organization as it strives to achieve these specific goals and objectives. Because they are time-limited, vision statements change after the vision period has been completed.

Imperative: Because an organization never achieves its mission, a time-limited vision offers the ability to assess progress on the mission journey against some clear measures of performance. The thinking goes that if the progress measures included within the vision have been set in the context of the mission (and, by extension, the values), achievement of the vision implies forward progress in the achievement of an organization’s mission.

 

Customer Value Proposition

An organization’s customer value proposition (CVP) is the combination of benefits it is going to provide to its customer. In other words, it is the big promise it makes to its customer that differentiates it from its competitors in the market place.

The key to success with customer value propositions is to leverage your understanding of your target customer AND the value propositions of your competitors to differentiate your company in the eyes of your target customer.

There are three classic customer value propositions that vary slightly based on the business sector but generally revolve around the same three ideas of value creation:

Operational excellence (leading to lowest price/cost for our products and services)

Product or Service leadership (by continuously updating products and services to keep them on the cutting edge)

Customer/Stakeholder intimacy (customizing our products and services to meet each customer’s/stakeholder’s unique needs)

Successful organizations (1) can clearly state their CVP and (2) every employee in the organization knows what it is. In addition, a company’s CVP, mission, vision, and core values must all be in alignment if it hopes to define and execute a successful business strategy.

Imperative: A company’s customer value proposition is the fourth fundamental for strategy success. Unfortunately, making the effort to define a clear and differentiating CVP is the most frequently skipped element in the strategy creation process, regardless of sector. I think this is largely due to the fact that developing a CVP requires multiple steps, a complex thought process, and the willingness to make a bet on a focused customer strategy – all of which can be daunting in a competitive marketplace. Even when companies do define a CVP, they rarely take the step of creating a customized CVP statement that is clearly communicated and understood across their organization. While better than not defining a CVP at all, failing to follow through in this way can also result in the sub-optimization of strategy development and execution success.

 

Once they have been defined, the four foundational elements of core values, mission, vision, and customer value proposition should be arranged on the strategy map in this way.

With the four foundations in place, they can be leveraged to define the value creating business strategy an organization is going to execute to satisfy its target customer or stakeholder and achieve its mission/purpose and identify the strategic objectives that populate the strategy map. Practically, strategic objectives are identified by keeping the four foundations top of mind as these questions are answered in the following order (in the case of a for-profit company):

Financial: How must we perform financially and what returns must we deliver to our shareholders?

Customer: What must we do for our customers and what benefits/big promise must we deliver so that they reward us with their business and loyalty?

Internal Process: What processes must we excel at to give our customers what they what, need, and expect from us?

Organizational Capabilities: What skills, capabilities, people, culture, technology, tools, and infrastructure must we have access to/in place to execute our processes and deliver our customer promise/value proposition?

    

There are four foundations that are essential for building a sound and solid business strategy: core values, mission, vision, and customer value proposition. By keeping these four elements in mind while answering the critical questions outlined above, companies are virtually guaranteed of creating a business strategy that is aligned with their core values, is geared to delivering their differentiating big customer promise, and gets the company moving on a path to mission and vision achievement.

 

Though simple enough in concept, in my experience, companies frequently fail to follow through on defining the four foundations. As a result, organizations that actually make the effort to complete this work find that they are able to lead and win in their selected markets more easily than they might have imagined.

 

The Essentials of a Great Balanced Scorecard Report

I frequently get asked for examples of really effective balanced scorecard reports. It seems that many people are unsatisfied with their initial attempts at balanced scorecard reporting. The usual complaints I hear about BSC reports include: “it doesn’t help us focus on what’s important”; “there’s still too much information in the report”; “it’s not easy to read and/or understand”; “it doesn’t include the “right” information”; and “it’s just plain ugly to look at”.

While there are lots of other areas of dissatisfaction, these are the main ones.

 

The key to creating a better BSC report is to rethink the idea of a results report all together. It is essential to start with the purpose of a BSC report first and then, with this in mind, create a new “style” of report that fits optimally with that purpose.

The biggest mistake I think people make when designing their BSC report is to assume that the format of the typical financial or MIS report will work for BSC results reporting. In almost all cases, if you think about the objective of the typical financial report versus a BSC report, you will not come up with the same answer. This should tell you something about the need to design a better BSC report.

 

So let’s take a closer look at the various purposes of the balanced scorecard and talk about the elements of a BSC report that align with/support them.

Measure and assess strategic objective health in “real time” – supporting BSC report elements: a color-coded strategy map; access to strategic objective definitions and “owner” names (i.e. accountability information); color-coded results data; results data versus performance targets (i.e. graphs, tables, trend charts, etc.); results commentary; and historical performance results data

 

Actively manage and improve the execution of your strategic objectives – supporting BSC report elements: a color-coded strategy map; results commentary including root cause analysis and corrective action plans; active links to root cause operational information; active links to critical business documents such as project charters and progress reports and process management information; active links to accountability information (i.e. who in your organization has accountability for various aligned strategic and operational elements of the business); and active links to internal discussion forums (including information on and ideas for improvement)

 

Evaluate and manage the progress and effectiveness of your business strategy – supporting BSC report elements: a color-coded strategy map; results data versus performance targets; results commentary; active links to internal discussion forums; active links to key internal information and external environment/market/industry and customer/stakeholder information and feedback, and information sites 

 

A catalyst for discovery, learning, problem solving, and the refinement of both operations and strategy on an ongoing basis/adjust and refine your business strategy as required – supporting BSC report elements: a color-coded strategy map; results commentary including root cause analysis and corrective action plans; active links to root cause operational information; and active links to discussion forums and relevant documents

 

A communication vehicle – What are key the elements of great communications? They are focused on the information needs of the audience so they give the audience the information they need, when they need it, in the format they need/want it in. They feature clear and focused messages. And, they are easy to understand. A great BSC report keeps all of these elements in mind by being uncluttered and easy to read/navigate and understand, and by presenting information to unique users in a way that works for them.

 

So – a great BSC report contains certain information elements presented in a logical order that is designed to help focus the viewer on layers of information that progress from the high level to greater amounts of detail. This approach helps viewers focus their attention more easily. However, a great BSC report must also be flexible to individual user preferences.

 

Here are some of the “must have” elements for a BSC report to be GREAT in my mind:

A “color-coded”* strategy map – I feel strongly that your BSC report should start here. Your balanced scorecard is all about your business strategy and measuring and managing strategic objective health - a color-coded strategy map gives you an overview of how each strategic objective is doing based on the performance of the associated balanced scorecard indicators. Further review of balanced scorecard results should proceed from there.

Some companies like to guide viewers from their strategy map and have them progress to the next level of detail/information following certain criteria. For example, they might look at all strategic objectives performing in the red and/or yellow zones; or they might look at all priority strategic objectives performing in the red and/or yellow zones; etc. Whatever criteria your organization chooses to use, your BSC report should guide your viewer to the next level of information and detail  in a focused way.

* just a reminder – a certain percentage of your viewer population is color blind. Rather than color-code performance results (strategic objectives and BSC indicators), consider using icons instead of colors to give viewers a quick way of assessing whether performance is under, at, or above target.

 

BSC indicators and their strategic objective – When your viewer looks at a BSC indicator, they should always be able to see the context for that indicator or where it fits in relation to the business strategy. Including strategic objectives in your balanced scorecard hierarchy keeps that relationship front and center.

 

Strategic objective and BSC indicator definitions – It is easier for viewers to make sense of what they are looking at, as well as the implications of certain performance results, when they can access strategic objective and indicator definitions. Make them easily accessible to your viewer.

 

Color-coded BSC indicator results – Before your viewer even sees results data, let them see color (or a performance icon). Color gives your viewer important information quickly and allows them to decide whether they want to go to the next level of detail of indicator performance results to investigate further.

 

BSC indicator performance data – Performance results should always include an actual result and a comparator. If you are using multiple comparators, your BSC report should allow viewers to see actual results versus their preferred comparator with just a click. Performance results should be available either by measurement period or in a year to date format – viewers should be able to toggle between views. Last but not least, results data should be available in your viewer’s preferred display style – for example, graphs, trend charts, table, etc. Graphical presentation should always be your starting point because it’s just easier for your viewer to assess performance quickly when there’s a picture involved. More detail oriented viewers can switch to a table presentation, for example, if they prefer.

 

Embed results commentary and other relevant information with indicator results data – Your BSC is meant to convey strategic information. “Information” is a combination of data, analysis and commentary, and other relevant documents. It is critical for learning and improvement that your BSC report present your viewers with a combination of data, commentary, and other relevant information, where available, for each indicator.

 

Other – A great BSC report is dynamic, is easily customizable to viewer preferences and needs, and “remembers” a viewer’s unique preferences from report to report.

 

By now, I’m sure that you are wondering how the typical BSC report can do this. The answer is that, in my opinion, it can’t.

 

The way we traditionally think of a “report” just isn’t conducive to great balanced scorecard reporting primarily because it’s static. And while you might be able include some of the elements outlined above in a traditional BSC report, you will never be able to give your viewer the ability to interact with the traditional BSC report in a way that is customized and meaningful to them (not without a great deal of time and effort that is). This is a critical limitation because having this ability is critical for really engaging your viewers/employees and stakeholders with your business strategy.

 

In fact, a great BSC “report” isn’t a report at all! A great BSC report is a dynamic interface on, for example, a computer, tablet, or mobile device that provides viewers with access to a defined suite of important strategic information that is presented in a way that helps the viewer navigate from high level information to detailed information while ALSO allowing them to have a customized experience with that strategic information.

 

However, your balanced scorecard report isn’t just a tool for displaying business performance results – it’s ultimately a vehicle for engaging your viewers/employees and stakeholders with your business strategy and getting them involved in the strategic conversation. Most importantly, a great BSC report facilitates the best use of the balanced scorecard within your organization and allows you take full advantage of the power of the balanced scorecard.

 

Organization’s that are truly committed to getting the most out of their balanced scorecard must rethink their approach to balanced scorecard reporting and make the transition to a dynamic type of “report” (like the ones provided by BSC software applications). To make the most impact, this new type of report must be accessible by all users and give individual viewers the option to quickly and easily customize their view of strategic information so that they can interact with it on their own terms and then participate in the process of shaping and executing your business strategy, on an ongoing basis.   

 

Using Social Media Tools to Super-Charge Your Strategy Execution and Business Performance Management Investments

The use of social media and social networking tools is exploding outside, and more recently, inside the business world. A few years ago, many business leaders were wary of using social media and networking tools in their company – they couldn’t really see the applications. Generally, the feeling was that things like Facebook and Twitter were for socializing outside of work and keeping up with your group of personal friends. And blogging and Wikipedia were simply interesting and potentially useful external information sources.

It didn’t take long, however, for savvy business leaders to see that you could transfer the concept of connecting with your friends to connecting with your company’s “friends” – AKA customers! Once people made this leap, we started seeing Facebook fan pages for companies and began hearing about businesses using Twitter to connect in “real-time” with their customers. Some leading companies were even able to harness social media for innovative and profitable marketing campaigns; to drive customer traffic to their businesses; to dialogue with customers about new products that will meet their needs; and to respond to customer inquiries pro-actively and quickly. These are just some of the examples we have all heard about. The best part is that social media and social media tools allow companies to get really innovative about how they connect with their customers.

 

With this experience under our collective belts, the time is right for business leaders to take the next leap and think about how social media and networking tools can help them connect with their company’s “internal friends” – employees, business partners, and suppliers. More specifically, there is a huge opportunity for companies like yours to leverage these powerful tools to connect with the other key players in the equation that drives business success, and get them intimately involved in designing and implementing your organization’s strategy for success.

If you’re going to take the time to make investments in strategy creation, execution, and management and change the way your organization works to produce better business performance results and sustainable success, why not consider taking action to multiply your efforts? Let’s look at the four key ways that social media and social networking tools can do this for you and your company.      

 

Supporting Better Strategy Communications

It is impossible to execute your business strategy if your stakeholders, including your employees, business partners, and suppliers, don’t know about/understand it. Not surprisingly, this is where communication comes in. The first thing that always astounds me is that so many companies don’t have a cohesive, formalized, and adequately funded strategy communication plan. So if you don’t have one, you need one. A good strategy communication plan addresses the communications required before, during, and after your strategy launch. A clear plan for ongoing strategy communications is absolutely critical for strategy execution success – don’t assume that after you launch, everything will take care of itself. Ongoing communications keep your strategy vibrant and alive in the minds of your stakeholders.

When companies do have a strategy communication plan, the next problem I see is what I call a “flat” plan – one that includes few, and possibly dated, approaches to, and vehicles for, communication. Do your communications revolve primarily around emails, town hall meetings, and hidden updates on your intra and internet? If this describes your approach then it is almost guaranteed that you are sub-optimizing your investment in strategy communications. What you need is a better balance (i.e. in face to face versus electronic modes; in long and detailed versus short and quick communication methods; etc) - this is where social media tools come in.

If, for example, your favorite communication method is email you should think again. I know some people who easily get 150+ emails each and every day and I expect that it’s the same for your employees, suppliers, and business partners. No wonder communications via email never get to these people! Short, targeted messages that are prioritized and customized based on each audience’s information needs, sent via Twitter and/or by instant messaging, have greater impact and are more likely to get through to busy, distracted people.

Many people prefer to watch their information rather than read it. Posting short and informative videos on a YouTube-like platform can help get key messages across to your target audience better and faster. While face to face interaction is a critical must in strategy communications, town halls can be replaced with web conferences, Skype sessions, and online chats from time to time. These alternatives are particularly useful when time, distance, and availability to participate make face to face communications challenging.

I could go on but I think you get the idea. Leveraging social media tools, blending them thoughtfully with other communication vehicles, and using the best combination of communication modes and content to get your messages out will only serve to enhance the uptake and effectiveness of your strategy communication (and execution) efforts.

 

Creating Two-Way Dialogue and Building Employee Engagement

While effective one-way strategy communications are good, two-way communication and dialogue are even better! You know that you have really moved your strategy management efforts forward and that your strategy has become the “way we work” (a key goal for strategy execution success) when your employees, business partners, and suppliers are talking about your business strategy with you and with each other. Until now, there weren’t many effective ways of getting the conversation going. And while some organizations have been able to facilitate excellent conversations of this type in group meetings, many more meaningful strategy conversations go on between colleagues as sidebar conversations. Unfortunately, these never filter up and throughout the organization. Essentially, most strategy conversations that happen throughout an organization go unleveraged and most employees don’t get the opportunity to benefit from the great discussions that happen in group meetings they can’t attend.

Social media tools can play a critical role in (1) getting two-way dialogue going; and (2) getting more people aware of, and involved in, the conversations. For example, online groups, discussion forums, and chat rooms can facilitate more frequent and broader conversations about strategy and strategy execution between people from across your organization while also capturing these conversations in a format that can be shared, searched, and leveraged as part of a company’s strategic learning and strategy re-creation processes. Where appropriate, group discussion meetings can be broadcast over the web and/or video-taped so that non-attendees can either participate virtually in a discussion or benefit from seeing what others are thinking and saying about the business strategy and the opportunities for implementation and improvement (for example). These are just two ways that social media and networking tools can be used to facilitate better two-way, strategy-focused dialogue in, across, and beyond an organization. Best of all, these tools can both enhance the opportunities for employee, supplier, and business partner engagement with the business strategy AND build greater levels of employee engagement.

And why should you care about employee engagement? High levels of employee engagement have been routinely shown to translate into high levels of customer and stakeholder satisfaction and loyalty which, in turn, translates into strategy execution success and better business performance results.           

 

Facilitating Learning and Knowledge Sharing

Let’s be honest. You never get your business strategy right the first time. Plus, things change – your external operating environment, your customers’ needs and expectations, and your internal capabilities. All of this means that your business strategy must be dynamic, agile, and flexible to change. How do you do this?

 

How do you capture the important changes that require a strategic response?

 

How do you funnel customer and operational insights, that could have a meaningful impact on your business strategy, into the strategy refinement process?

 

How do you share knowledge and information about what works best to execute your business strategy, including customer and operational best practices and imperatives, effectively across your organization and with suppliers and business partners? And how do you do this quickly when a key direction or strategic business priority has changed?

  

In most organizations, there is simply no easy way to do these things well. As a result, learnings never get passed along, insights never get shared widely, and opportunities to keep your business strategy relevant and effective in the current environment are lost. All of this costs money and slows down the progress of your business.

Social media and networking tools such as blogs, chat and discussion forums, document and site links, and wikis (a website whose users can add, modify, or delete its content via a web browser using a simplified "markup language" – thanks Wikipedia!) are just a few examples of tools that can help facilitate organizational learning and best practice sharing. Essentially, tools such as these can begin to FINALLY make the concept of knowledge management, as it relates to the essentials of your business strategy, a reality in your organization.      

 

Making Collaboration and Innovation a Reality

If we all waited around for the CEO and senior executive team in any organization to come up with all the best ideas about strategic direction and strategy execution and improvement, businesses would move forward at a snail’s pace! Most successful companies know this and that is why they take action to harness the brainpower of the collective group (including employees, suppliers, and business partners) and get them thinking about, and working together on, meaningful ideas and initiatives that will transform the company strategically.

These companies have found ways to get collaboration and innovation going smoothly across their organization. And while they can and do form innovation teams, they also realize that great collaboration and innovation activities often happen organically - coming and going in a very dynamic way.

In order to remain responsive to the prospect of spontaneous collaboration, these organizations implement such tools as employee profiles, groups, chat rooms and discussion forums, and wikis to facilitate connections and make collaboration easy for everyone. When sanctioned innovative teams leverage these tools in their work as well, the result is optimized collaboration and the generation of new innovations that will move the organization, its business strategy, and performance results, forward in a positive way.    

 

A Final Word on Social Media and Networking Tools

There is no doubt in my mind that companies that choose to leverage social media and networking tools to support their strategy execution and business performance management efforts will see a huge ROI on their investment. However, I must point out that there are some risks associated with social media tool use (a quick search on the topic on the internet yields numerous articles by lawyers on the risks and mitigation strategies organizations should think about when utilizing social media platforms in business). For example, security and privacy concerns related to using external platforms such as Facebook and YouTube should be considered. Also, questions exist about content ownership when using external platforms for business purposes.

However, the good news is that applications that provide secure and highly functional internal social networking platforms are now available (check out: www.igloosoftware.com).

 

I predict that this is just the beginning of a wave that will give early social media tool adopters a huge business advantage. I hope that you will consider catching this wave and riding it now in an effort to realize the benefits - super-charging your strategy execution and business performance management investments!

 

If I Could Set the New Year’s Resolutions for Your Organization, I Would Choose These 3

I read an interesting article in The Globe and Mail (Canada’s national newspaper) last week on setting New Year’s resolutions. It said that evidence shows that more people keep and achieve their resolutions for the upcoming year when someone else sets them for them! I found this really interesting.

It seems that the key pre-requisites for success are (1) that the person setting the resolutions for you knows you and has unique insights into what you could benefit from working on (things that we as individuals often can’t see for ourselves); (2) that the person receiving the resolutions find them reasonable and accept them as being worthy of the effort; and (3) that the person setting the resolutions provide ongoing support and encouragement as the other strives to achieve the resolutions.

It turns out that the two-way accountability that occurs in this situation plays a critical role in the successful achievement of the New Year’s resolutions.

 

Now, I know that many people don’t bother to set resolutions. “They’ll just get broken before the end of January” they say. Others think that using the turn of the year as the trigger for choosing to make a change in behavior is a ridiculous idea. When you think about it, resolutions are really just goals and, by custom, we give our goals a special name at the beginning of the new year – probably to give them greater importance (and to increase the chance that we’ll actually stick with them).

Goals are critical for people AND organizations, no matter what time of the year you choose to set them. Goals give us something to strive for and generally drive us forward, whether it be in our personal lives or in the performance of our companies. Whatever trigger you use to decide to establish goals, and whether you call them resolutions or not, I support anyone who wants to strive for better performance and outcomes through goal-setting.

 

Getting back to the idea promoted by that article I read – I started wondering whether having someone from outside an organization set resolutions or goals could work in the same way as it does in personal situations. I think that it could so I thought that I would make some suggestions for your organization.

Recall that the first pre-requisite for success in this effort is that the person setting the resolutions knows the person, or company, and have unique insights into what they could benefit from working on.

Do I qualify? Maybe…..

Though I may not have the luxury of having personal knowledge of your company, I have worked closely with many organizations over the past year – giving me the chance to notice some similarities in opportunities for improvement across businesses. I have also had lots of conversations with business leaders and colleagues about the critical improvement areas for companies in a variety of industries and sectors. Finally, I have been keeping my eye on the trends in business over the past 12 months and have added these insights into the mix.

Based on what I have observed in, and about, organizations over the past year, here are the goals or resolutions I would make for your organization if you were to invite me to do so.

 

Resolution 1: Break Free from Your Focus on Short-termism

Short-term thinking is a big problem in many organizations. In the private sector, it seems to be driven by the demands of the street and shareholders to see continually improving financial performance quarter after quarter. In the public sector, it is often driven by the election cycle and the term of the existing political administration. For those jurisdictions where there is the chance of frequent government and policy change, many public servants feel that they have no choice but to adopt a short-term view in their work.

While I know that it is important to deliver short-term results in any organization, I never believe that a short-term decision (and result) is worth it if it destroys the long-term value of a company or will severely limit an organization in its efforts to successfully achieve its mission.

You will get no argument from me that there can be serious tensions between short-term and long-term objectives and decisions in any organization. The key to success (and the gist of this suggested resolution) is for business leaders to get back to managing this tension rather than focusing on short-term matters and decisions almost exclusively.

Sometimes short-term decisions will have both short and long-term benefits. More often than not, a short-term objective or decision will have negative consequences in the long-term. In this scenario, tradeoffs are required by business leaders. The key to doing a better job with these tradeoffs is to make both the short and long-term objectives of your organization visible at all times and to place them front and center in the conversation when business decisions are being made. This is called conscious decision-making – making short-term decisions with a full understanding of, and consideration for, their long-term impact on the objectives and direction of your organization.

 

So, here is how you can put this resolution into action:

Do not shy away from managing the tension between short and long-term objectives in your business decision making process by always taking the short-term route. Acknowledge that both the short-term and the long-term need to be actively considered and managed in every key strategic business decision and do it in an informed and transparent way as frequently as possible. Leverage such tools as a weighted strategy map and the balanced scorecard to do this more effectively. Model this behavior to all business leaders in your organization and help them do the same in their business decision making. While you will still find yourself making short-term decisions, you may find that you make different short-term decisions that provide a good short-term result while also benefiting the long-term objectives and prospects of your business.       

 

Resolution 2: Focus on Leading, Not Managing

Are you a manager or a leader? According to a definition offered by about.com, a manager “is a person responsible for planning and directing the work of individuals, monitoring their work, and taking corrective action when necessary.” This definition suggests a top down approach where the manager controls the work of others and that the thinking about what should be done and how to do it is the sole responsibility of the manager. Because of their propensity for action, many managers are very hands-on, controlling or micro-managing every decision the employees on their team make.

Does this sound like you? Most organizations have too many managers, even at the executive level.

Successful strategy execution and business performance is built on a different model – one where leaders lead. Leading includes: establishing the playing field and boundaries for employees (i.e. what’s in and what’s out in terms of behavior, direction, and work); opening up the lines of communication across the team and organization; facilitating, connecting, and integrating people across the organization; and getting out of the way so that people from all over the company can create innovative ways of putting the business strategy into action and make aligned business decisions that will move your organization forward in the right direction.

Leading in this way requires new skills including looking out, looking in, and looking ahead. It also requires asking “Are we doing the right things right?” and thinking strategically (i.e. thinking about the impact of today’s actions and business decisions on the future of the business). Leading successfully means helping managers and employees at all levels of the organization start thinking in this way and seeing that they are actually able to spend time on this as an expectation of performance (that is, making it a part of their regular work activities).  

 

So, here is how you can put this resolution into action:

First, consciously make the switch from managing to leading behaviors. Every time you catch yourself controlling the work and decisions of those who report to you, stop and take the time to change your approach whenever possible. Next, encourage those managers who report to you to actively become leaders. Model the desired behavior for them and coach them in the fundamentals of leadership. Finally, always ask employees knowledgeable questions, with a focus on strategy, about the fundamentals of proposed decisions and action plans. Test the validity of these decisions and plans and their alignment with strategy, probe on the progress of action plans (and the impact they are having on moving the business forward), and publically praise and recognize employees who engage with the business strategy, model strategic thinking, and lead effectively.    

 

Resolution 3: Look at, and Do, Communications in a New Way

Internal and external communication is a problem for many organizations. Not enough time and/or resources are placed on communications and there is often no clear plan. Limited communication vehicles are used to drive information throughout the organization. Communications are not created within a clear framework of objectives and desired outcomes, are reactive rather than pro-active, do not reach or capture the attention of the intended audience, and are uni-directional in nature. Sub-optimization of communications is the road to sub-optimized business performance.

Your internal and external communications play a critical role in the strategic success of your business. At the very least, it keeps internal and external audiences “in the loop” with what is going on across your organization. In the best case scenarios, your communications both inform and engage audiences so that you are able to engage in two-way conversations and dialogue that move your organization forward further and faster than you ever thought possible. Unleashing the ideas, thoughts, input, and feedback of as many people as possible from inside and outside your company is very powerful and has a transformative effect on the execution of business strategy and the achievement of business performance results.

To “do” communications in this new way, it is critical to develop a solid internal and external communication plan that clearly outlines: communication triggers; messages; target audiences; vehicles; tactics; timing; timelines; spokespeople; and action owners. In addition, the new style of communication leverages such interactive vehicles as social media (e.g. twitter, blogs, videos, and Facebook) and internal business community software. Internal group conversations, wikis, and other collaboration tools are new vehicles that are key in making two-way dialogue a reality.

 

So, here is how you can put this resolution into action:

Begin by assessing the performance/success of past and current communication efforts including an inventory of communication mechanisms, approaches, and infrastructure and then evaluate the capability of each. Determine required communication campaigns including key objectives, calls to action, desired outcomes, and measures of campaign and communication success. Leveraging your knowledge of audience communication needs and preferences, as well as your communication objectives and goals, review and assess possible communication mechanisms and vehicles. With this information, create appropriate communication strategies and develop a comprehensive communication plan. Resource your communication plan (i.e. assign people to implement and manage the plan AND ensure that the plan is supported with the necessary budget) and then execute. Measure impact and adjust the plan as required as you go. Doing this will revolutionize both your organization’s approach to communication, and the success you achieve through it.

 

So, there you have it - my three resolutions for 2012 for your organization (if you would allow me to choose them for you of course!). I hope that you think that they are reasonable and worthy of effort in the upcoming year.

I have kept the list brief so that you will have the opportunity to successfully implement all of them over 2012. Based on my experience, no matter where you currently are on any of these three items, your organization will be further ahead by the end of this New Year (i.e. more effective strategy execution and better business performance results) if you focus on your particular opportunities for improvement in each of these areas.

Just a reminder – be sure to find someone to provide you and your organization with support and encouragement as you strive to achieve these resolutions (it’s a critical part of the success formula).

Here’s to a successful New Year!   

 

Don’t Bet on Strategy Maps and the Balanced Scorecard ALONE Translating into a Prosperous 2012

Are visions of strategy maps, balanced scorecards, and/or any other organizational performance management tool dancing in your head as you plan for a better business year in 2012? While adopting any combination of these tools will probably result in some improvements in operations and business results over the next year, you won’t achieve the transformational organizational shift that translates into sustained levels of exceptional business performance if implementing these tools alone is all that you do.

In fact, at the risk of sounding extremely Grinch-y as we close out 2011, you are actually better off not even starting down the strategy map-balanced scorecard adoption path if you aren’t prepared to go all the way with your commitment. That is, to achieve business success in 2012 and beyond, you need to implement the “new way to manage” - it's required if you want to unleash the full potential of all those business performance management tools we seem to grab onto in our quest to achieve the next level of business performance.

Let’s look at the key elements associated with this “new way" to manage.

 

Engage in Open Communication

Successful organizations are open and communicate their business strategy and objectives clearly, concisely, and completely with all of the internal and external stakeholders including employees at all levels of the organization, their customers, and their business partners. To do this, they get to know the communication preferences of each audience and use numerous communication vehicles to get their messages out. In addition, they focus on building mechanisms that encourage meaningful, two-way communication and dialogue, not one-sided messaging.

This level of communication doesn’t happen by accident – it takes planning, adequate support and resourcing, appropriate funding, and a dedication to focused execution and improvement. If communication in your organization is haphazard or sub-optimized, a new business performance management tool will most likely get lost in your organization. Few people will know it exists, limiting the impact it can have on the performance of your organization.        

 

 

Change the Conversation

What do conversations look like in your organization? What do they focus on?

If you are like most, they revolve around operational matters and fighting today’s crisis. Discussion and decisions are likely top down in nature with senior management determining direction, strategies, and tactics with the expectation that employees will execute them as directed. When you take the time to look at business results, you might find that you and your colleagues debate the accuracy of data, argue about the interpretation of the results, and speculate on whether an unexpected result is a one time occurrence or a trend. If this sounds like your organization, you are not alone.

While successful organizations do deal with operational activities and decisions, and firefighting, they also make sure that they spend adequate time exploring and discussing strategic matters on an ongoing basis. They engage employees at all levels of the organization in an ongoing dialogue about what the organization should be, how it should get there, how it’s doing/performing, and what should be done to improve. They create multiple venues and opportunities for these conversations to take place including business results review sessions where the root cause drivers of performance results and the impact of current performance on the future success of the organization are discussed, and evidence-based corrective action plans are created and debated.

The introduction of a new business performance management tool such as the strategy map or the balanced scorecard offers an organization the opportunity to engage with new business information and stimulate new kinds of conversations across the company. Organizations that introduce these tools without changing the nature of their conversations never reap the full potential the tools were meant to deliver.     

 

 

Set Clear Business Priorities

Success in business is as much about deciding what NOT to do as it is about deciding what to do. This is critical when defining direction and business strategy. And it is equally critical when making business decisions about relative work efforts, resource allocation, and dealing with day to day work demands. Successful organizations determine a small set of strategic priorities and then leverage their business performance management tools to communicate, test and validate, and revise their business priorities. They also use these tools to give employees at all levels of the organization the information they need to make day to day business decisions that align with organizational strategy and strategic priorities.   

If your organization doesn't do a good job today at prioritizing work and decisions, and does not use the introduction of business performance management tools as an opportunity to develop this capability, you will find that implementing any tool puts an additional and unwelcome strain on the overall capacity of your organization. Rather than seeing your business performance management tools as a help, you run the risk that employees will become resentful of them because (1) the tools have added additional strategic considerations to the overall work of the organization; and (2) utilizing the new tools has created additional administrative work for them.

When introducing business performance management tools such as strategy maps and the balanced scorecard, be sure to also take the opportunity to use them to identify and communicate a focused set of business priorities for your organization. These tools were designed to help you do this – wise adopters take advantage of this opportunity to focus the work of their entire workforce and organization.     

 

 

Build New Leadership Capabilities

Leveraging business performance management tools to get the most out of them and make the new way of managing “the way we work” at all levels of an organization is a new skill for many leaders, managers, supervisors, and employees. Managing in the new way often requires a complete change in behaviour from the previous operating and managing style and generally demands new levels of accountability from leaders and employees. Do not assume that simply introducing the strategy map or rolling out cascading balanced scorecards will automatically change the way managers lead and the types of discussions they have with their team members.

Successful organizations make their new expectations for manager and employee behaviour explicit and will then provide everyone with the education, training, and ongoing supports they need to live up to new expectations. In addition, they will offer everyone incentives to manage and work in the new way, including building behavioural and performance expectations into personal goal plans, and basing compensation on success in adopting these new skills and behaviours and building advanced levels of capability in this regard.

Don’t expect the introduction of new business performance management tools to magically transform the way your organization works. To achieve the changes outlined above and make them "the way we work", you must support tool implementation with a formalized programme that builds the appropriate skills and capabilities in every employee in your organization.

    

 

Many organizations implement strategy maps and the balanced scorecard in the hopes that these business performance management tools will provide them with the silver bullet they need to achieve improved business results over the long term. Unfortunately, the landscape is littered with stories about companies that abandoned their selected tool because it failed to perform to expectations and/or deliver the desired business results. In the majority of cases, when you dig deeper into the failure, you discover that the adopting organization simply rolled out the tool while managing in the same old way. Essentially, the sub-optimization of the tool was a result of failing to support it with the behavioural, cultural, and systemic changes required to receive the maximum benefits of business performance management tool utilization.

I think that there is one critical reason why organizations fail to go all the way when implementing a business performance management tool. While some just honestly don’t realize that the new way to manage is a key element of success, I believe that many organizations and business leaders are searching for a quick fix to their problems. Implementing a tool requires action, can be done relatively quickly, and the result is tangible – you can see a new strategy map or balanced scorecard when it is in place and it feels like progress. Culture, behaviour, and organizational systems are more intangible in nature. They can be difficult to change and often leaders are worried that it will take a long time to effect the change (particularly if they are unsure about how to do it). And when the change does happen, you often can’t see it easily (though there are some great assessment tools out there that can help you measure that the change is indeed happening).

Bottom line? Implementing a new business performance management tool is sexy while effecting the required cultural and behavioural change feels like work. However, without these fundamental changes, the business performance management tool you choose to implement will never live up to its potential for you and your organization.

 

Looking for better business performance in 2012?

Go ahead and adopt the business performance management tools that interest and inspire you the most - but also make a commitment to implement the new way to manage across your organization. The maximization of your return on your investment in business performance management and the achievement of sustained performance success in 2012 and beyond are dependent on it.

  

Why Focusing on Your Target Customer and Defining Your Value Proposition Isn’t Enough for Business Success

Have you identified your company’s target customer yet?

Based on all I’ve been reading lately, your organization is behind the eight ball in this economy if you haven’t. In all honesty, there is nothing special about the current business environment that makes identifying your target customer more critical today than at any other time. It actually turns out that the power in the marketplace has been shifting for some time to the customer and, incidentally, their service expectations have been rising. Essentially, knowing who your target customer is has been a requirement for some time but it feels like it has turned into a business imperative in a tough, and suddenly tight, economy and marketplace.

Identifying your target customer gives your company someone (or a group of someones) to focus on. It gives you someone to get to know really well, allowing you to develop an intimate understanding of their evolving wants, needs, and expectations. With this information, you can identify and create products and services that will suit your target customer AND you can design a customer experience that will appeal to them on an emotional level. In other words, knowing who your target customer is allows you to gain a comprehensive understanding of what they value.

At a basic level, customer value can be looked at as a simple plus-minus equation. On the plus side are all the benefits your product or service and customer experience provide to your customer. On the minus side are the costs to the customer that are associated with using your products or services and interfacing with your company. Costs include money, time spent/wasted, and other intangible, non-monetary costs. Benefits include the product and service features that your customer is looking for as well as other benefits you deliver that exceed your customers’ basic service expectations. When the benefits offered by your product, service, and customer experience outweigh the costs in the eyes of your customer, you meet or exceed customer expectations and add value. When, however, costs outweigh the benefits, you fall short of customer expectations and your company destroys value for your customer. Customers are usually attracted to companies and products/services that provide value and are generally repelled by companies and products/services that destroy value – no real surprise here.         

However, here’s something that’s important to remember: Value is defined by your customer. That is, perceived benefits and costs are in the eyes of the customer – not yours.

Not surprisingly, different target customers buy based on different perspectives of the cost-benefit tradeoff. For example, some are looking for great products that offer high levels of quality for a low price while others want to receive a consistent product and/or service experience at a predictable (often low) price. Some customers are willing to pay a premium price just to look cool or have a first run or limited edition product or experience while others want to buy from a company that really understands them and can fulfill a variety of needs by offering a one stop shop model. Identifying your target customer and really understanding them positions you and your company to hone in on their perspective on value. And, with this understanding, you can craft your customer value proposition – the combination of benefits you are going to provide to your customer.

As you likely know, there are three classic customer value propositions. While there have recently been suggestions that there are additional value propositions (including market or niche creators/new market leadership such as seen with Cirque du Soleil), let’s stick with the big three: Operational Excellent; Product Leadership; and Customer Intimacy.

 

Operational Excellence: Companies adopting this value proposition focus on delivering exceptional levels of quality, price, and ease of purchase and they put together an offering that represents an attractive combination of these three elements. They have a reputation for executing reliably and with consistency, usually providing their customers with low prices and expedient, dependable service.

 

Product Leadership:  Companies pursuing this value proposition excel at creating new products that are on the leading edge and are highly desirable. Often, successful companies in this category seem to create and market products that the customer wants before they know they want it (often said about Apple’s products). The focus is on product innovations (not incremental improvements) that explode existing paradigms and boundaries and these companies consistently provide their customers with the newest and most innovative products and/or services, often at a premium price.     

 

Customer Intimacy: Companies with this value proposition build close bonds with individual customers within the customer group. Customer-intimate companies leverage their knowledge of what their individual customers’ needs and pain points are to create customized solutions, often at very reasonable prices. The hallmark of these companies is giving the customer more than they expect and going above and beyond to provide customers with a total solution. As a result of their focus on the individual customer and their relationship with them, these companies enjoy high levels of customer loyalty.  

 

It is important to note that while successful companies will choose one of the big three as their primary customer value proposition, they do not exclude the other two in their operations. They will, however, perform at threshold levels only on these subordinate value propositions because they realize that some of the elements in the individual value propositions are in direct conflict with each other. Determining their leading customer value proposition allows for easier prioritization of work efforts and more focused decision-making – translating into a real ability to deliver on the primary drivers of customer value.    

The key to success with customer value propositions is to leverage your understanding of your target customer AND the value propositions of your competitors to differentiate your company in the eyes of your target customer. To do this you can either choose to adopt a different customer value proposition from your competitors OR excel on different attributes within a shared value proposition – these are the two primary ways to differentiate your company in a competitive marketplace.   

 

While knowing your target customer and adopting a compelling customer value proposition are critical for business success, these two things alone are not enough. In fact, it turns out that, besides identifying a target customer to satisfy, excelling on a specific dimension of value and delivering a compelling value proposition, and performing at threshold levels on other customer-defined standards of value, to achieve sustained business success, you must deliver and improve the value you provide year after year on an ongoing basis. The only way to do this, and successfully deliver on your promised value to your customer, is to build and implement an operating model that is fully aligned with your customer value proposition.

Interestingly, the elements of a company’s operating model have a lot in common with many of the balanced scorecard’s perspectives. These elements include the organization structure and peoples’ skills and capabilities, the company’s culture, the nature of strategic information technologies, the types of management systems employed, and the range of business processes implemented. The elements of the operating model have synergies with the learning and growth/organizational capabilities and internal processes perspectives on the balanced scorecard (hold this thought).

The key to success when implementing a specific customer value proposition is to ensure that it is supported by the appropriate operating model. So, what is the right operating model for a given value proposition?

 

Operational Excellence: This value proposition features highly centralized functions with the most skilled resources residing at the core of the organization and a command and control approach to management. The organization is very disciplined and process focused with conformity with defined cost and quality specifications being highly valued. Information technology features integrated, transactional systems that support business processes that are focused on delivering products on a predictable service cycle using standardized assets. The operating model in operationally excellent organizations is built on conformity to standards and specifications rather than flexibility and is designed to deliver predictable levels of performance and profitability.

 

Product Leadership: This value proposition features a more fluid organizational structure where ad hoc teams are formed and then re-formed and high skill levels reside throughout the organization. Management is comfortable with risk and it rewards the innovation capacity of individuals within teams. Experimentation and out of the box thinking are musts and the culture is built around going for broke and playing to win. Information technologies are focused on enabling communication, co-creation, and knowledge sharing, and key business processes include invention, research and development, commercialization, and marketing. The operating model of product leaders is dynamic and agile so that new ideas are created, tested, and commercialized and profit is realized as quickly as possible.

 

Customer Intimacy: This value proposition features client-focused teams with high skill levels residing as close to the customer as possible. Management is focused on deepening the relationship with the customer and expanding wallet-share. Customization to customer specifications is the force driving company-client interactions and employees are experts at learning about the needs of their clients. Information technologies are focused on the customer and feature the ability to integrate relevant internal and external information in one knowledge hub. Key business processes are flexible and responsive and are focused in the areas of customer acquisition and relationship development, and custom solution generation. The operating model of customer-intimate organizations is client-specific and customer-focused, is geared to supporting maximum solution customization, and is focused on the lifetime value and profitability of each client relationship.

 

With the obvious synergies between the elements of a company’s operating model and the classic balanced scorecard perspectives, it is easy to see how the strategy map (which leverages the balanced scorecard perspectives) becomes the best tool for formulating, displaying, and communicating the operating model associated with a company’s primary customer value proposition. When you think of it in this way, strategy map use becomes as critical to success as defining your target customer and your primary customer value proposition.

Popular thinking about the foundations for business success is currently focused on the need to define a company’s ideal customer and the customer value proposition. However, actually delivering on that customer value proposition isn’t as easy as making a public statement of your current value proposition. Success requires an aligned operating model that is specifically designed to deliver the differentiating elements of your primary customer value proposition.

A best practice approach for success includes (1) clearly identifying your target customer; (2) identifying your primary customer value proposition and determining which specific attributes to excel on to achieve differentiation in the market place; and (3) creating a strategy map that clearly defines and lays out the operating model required to deliver that specific customer value proposition.

With all three components in place, and a approach dedicated to keeping them relevant to customer and market needs in an evolving environment, your company will be well positioned for business success over the long term.

 

Why does your customer buy from you? Why do your employees think your customer buys from you? Are the answers the same? Is your current operating model helping you exceed customer expectations?

To avoid business failure, you must be confident that your company can deliver. Interested in testing your company’s current capabilities quickly and accurately?

Find out how you can by simply clicking here.

 

When Did Strategy Become a Four Letter Word?

After several meetings and discussions with colleagues and business leaders over the past few weeks, I’ve come to the sobering realization that strategy and, more specifically, strategic planning, has developed a bad name out there. More and more frequently, I seem to receive friendly advice telling me not to use the “S word” because it turns business people off. Just call it something else, or better yet, don’t talk about it at all they say – just convince “them” to do it without naming it strategy/strategic planning.

The unfortunate reality seems to be that, in many cases, executives and business leaders deal with strategy making and management because they know they should but they do so with a hesitation based in a real dislike for the process and the resulting plan (and distractions) it produces.    

Now, for me, someone who feels passionately about the value of strategy formulation and execution in driving higher levels of organizational performance success and more sustainable business results achievement, it’s really confusing, and worrisome, to think that strategy has become a dirty word in our businesses and organizations. So, I began to think about it and found myself wondering: Why is this the case? What is turning business leaders off?

How did strategy become a four letter word?

This is what I came up with.

 

1. Strategic planning can feel like a waste of time

The Problem: In a rapidly changing business environment, strategic plans are often out of date before they are rolled out. When this is the case, it’s easy to start to question the time, effort, expense incurred, and value associated with strategic planning activities. As a result, some organizations are swearing off the 3 – 5 year strategic plan and opting to complete 90 day plans that are really more tactical than strategic.     

The Root Cause of the Problem: The traditional approach to strategic planning no longer works in this dynamic business environment -

● It takes too long (6 months from start to plan production is simply too much time);

● It is too reliant on historical data (which doesn’t really help you move forward in uncharted waters) and doesn’t involve the people who know how the business really works in the strategy creation process;

● The plan it produces, as well as the annual planning cycle approach, aren’t dynamic and agile to change (reducing the relevance of the strategic plan as an effective business management tool) and the plan often ends up sitting on the shelf;

● The strategic plan is often a short to mid-term tactical plan that isn’t guaranteed to move the organization forward towards its long-term business goals; and

● No one in the organization (often including the executives that created the plan) really understands how to implement the strategic plan locally/in their everyday work activities (largely because it is written at a very high level and, though it seems to make sense, it’s unclear what implementation looks like below the corporate or executive level).    

The Turnaround Plan: Changing times require a different approach to strategy creation/formulation – one that works with, rather than against, a dynamic, often unpredictable business environment while still helping to chart a clear and understandable path towards the ultimate business goals of the organization. This new strategic planning process -

● Must be completed in weeks, not months;

● Leverages some data but is more reliant on their interpretation by, and the wisdom and intuition of, a broad range of stakeholders, including employees and key business partners, who participate hands on in the planning process;

● May involve an annual planning event but focuses more on quarterly strategy progress review and refresh/refinement sessions AND has mechanisms to identify, make and incorporate, and communicate required changes in the business strategy quickly, effectively, and efficiently at any time so that the strategic plan is always relevant; and

● Clearly lays out the long-term strategy to achieve the organization’s mission and vision AND both the mid-term (3 – 5 years) and short-term (12 – 18 months) business priorities, within the context of the long-term strategy, in an accessible roadmap format so that all employees and stakeholders understand what the key elements of the strategy are and what they look like in action. 

How to Learn to Like Strategic Planning Again: Drop the traditional approach to strategic planning and start formulating strategy using a fresher, faster, more dynamic, and agile approach.  

 

2. Strategic planning/formal plans introduce too much structure into the way we work

The Problem: While some people like process and structure, many do not. Strategic planning is a process that often produces a fairly prescriptive plan. As a result, those who have a more spontaneous approach to management can struggle with the rigor demanded by strategic planning.

The Root Cause of the Problem: On the surface, there are many perceived characteristics of strategic planning that seem to turn people off –

● Strategic planning is a deliberate process that is followed by a group of people to produce a certain result – if you dislike following processes, you probably won’t like strategic planning much;

● Strategic planning activities can be highly data driven with little to no opportunity for intuition and insights from a broad range of sources to make their way into the process – this makes strategic planning feel like a clinical process that is disconnected from the day to day realities of the business at the front lines; and

● A documented strategic plan can feel like it limits your options for individual creativity and innovation in your work.

While I see these concerns from time to time, and hear them presented as a rationale for disliking strategic planning, I think that they are really just convenient excuses. What I think is the true root cause driver here is a reluctance to (1) commit to a plan, (2) work together with others to implement the plan, including planning and possibly modifying personal actions based on their impact on others, and (3) be held accountable for one’s part in the successful completion of the plan and the achievement of targeted business results. Working with a strategic plan requires all this of everyone in the organization – no wonder it can feel like a scary proposition that is best to be avoided.  

The Turnaround Plan: Overcoming this particular problem requires a fundamental change in organizational beliefs and attitudes about strategic planning. To achieve this goal, co-operation is required from three sources which must be aligned with, and designed to support, the goal of helping people embrace the strategic planning process and its associated discipline.

Organizational and Management Processes 

● Business leaders, managers, and employees must commit to: adopting a strategic planning process that provides some structure and produces the desired results, follow and improve it moving forward, and stick with it over the long-term;

● Add strategic planning process and discipline to your organization but resist the temptation to go too far - the key is to add just enough structure to ensure that everyone is moving forward together in the same direction but not so much that there isn’t room for innovation and creative thinking, at all levels of the organization, about the best way to implement the strategy and get the organization to its intended goals;

● Management processes must integrate seamlessly with the strategic planning process, and the resulting plan, so that the business strategy (including strategy formulation and execution) becomes just a part of the way the organization works every day;

Supports and Rewards

● The organization must support business leaders, managers, and employees in their efforts to work on and within the strategic plan – this includes facilitating their involvement in the process by giving them the time away from their work to participate, and providing them with back up on the job;

● Business leaders, managers, and employees must be rewarded and recognized when they demonstrate the desired new attitudes and behaviors – this reinforcement helps sustain change across the entire organization; and

Leadership Behaviors

● Business leaders, managers, and employees must walk the talk and model the desired behavior at all times.

How to Learn to Like Strategic Planning Again: Focus on creating an organization, from top to bottom, that embraces the structure strategic planning provides and the commitment it demands.

   

3. The strategy execution failure rate is high

The Problem: Statistics have shown that the majority of organizations fail to actually do what their strategic plan says they’re going to do, so, many think: “Why bother planning in the first place?”

The Root Cause of the Problem: While strategy execution failure is a complex problem, there are typically four critical stumbling blocks that exist in the majority of cases including:

● Lack of employee buy-in for the plan;

● An unclear strategy execution roadmap;

● Unclear ownership accountabilities or no accountability framework; and

● Low levels of organizational alignment with the business strategy (including core processes and strategic projects, human resources and their skills and capabilities, and the plans (e.g. learning and development/human capital plans), tools and technologies, and resources (including budget dollars) that support the work being completed) 

The Turnaround Plan: Steps can be taken during the strategic planning process to reduce or prevent strategy execution problems including:

● Involving employees (as members of the strategic planning working team) in a meaningful way in the strategy creation process including making decisions in the key elements of the strategy and what they look like in action;

● As members of the strategic planning working team, help employees play the role of strategy ambassador throughout the organization and involve them in the roll out and implementation of the strategic plan;

● Develop your strategic plan in the form of a strategy execution roadmap that includes key strategic objectives, aligned business processes and strategic projects, and linked performance indicators – aligning processes, projects, and measures with your business strategy effectively links action with the strategy;

● Assign ownership (for strategic objectives, indicator data, indicator commentary, core business processes, and projects) across your organization, including clear responsibilities and target dates, that leverages current work responsibilities intelligently and build a culture of follow through within your organization; and

● Strive for maximum organizational alignment at all levels of the business with the elements of your strategic plan.

How to Learn to Like Strategic Planning Again: Leverage the strategic planning process to set the scene for strategy execution success. 

 

Strategy formulation and execution management are critical activities for any business that wants to achieve maximum organizational performance and sustained business success. The act of collaborating, talking about, and writing down your organization’s goals, and plans to achieve them, has a powerful effect on the amount of time and effort required to reach those goals, reducing them significantly for most companies.

If you want to avoid using the “S word” in your organization, I’ll leave that to you. However, the fact remains that successful companies have made peace with strategy (and the strategy formulation and execution management process) and have embraced it for the invaluable business management tool and process it is.

I believe that the key to success is not to avoid strategy but to adopt it on terms that make sense for your organization so that your business strategy/strategic plan can provide your organziation with all of the benefits it has the potential to deliver.

 

Measure What’s Important, NOT What’s Easy

Most of us buy into the need to measure performance.

Whether it’s the score of our team in a baseball game, your time in the last 10K run you did, or the average profit per employee in your organization, measurement helps us evaluate the current level of performance, determine whether we are moving forward in the right direction, and identify whether improvements are required when performance isn’t at the level we expected.

However, once you get on board the measurement wagon, it’s critical to realize how important it is to measure the RIGHT things. Unfortunately, it seems that many organizations measure what’s easy to measure with little thought about whether what they’re measuring is actually worth the effort. That is, few companies seem to consider whether they are measuring what’s important to measure.

The truth is that many organizations are swimming in data but, in many cases, it’s “legacy data” – data they have always captured because someone thought it was a  good idea once.  In many organizations, this legacy data no longer really serves an obvious purpose however everyone is afraid to give these measures up.

It’s almost like they think that some data is better than no data.

However, this thinking doesn’t work. Particularly if the measures you are currently measuring and the data you are collecting aren’t delivering value to your organization. Measures and data that are easy to get and deliver little in the way of informational value are a lot like candy – it makes you feel good, doesn’t deliver much in the way of (nutritional) value, and is hard to give up.

What if your organization measured LESS by focusing on what’s really important? What if your company focused on the vital signs that added the most informational value to your use of measurement?

Think about how much time and effort could be saved and how much capacity could be freed up in your organization if people eliminated the time spent on collecting and looking at valueless measures. What if some of that time could be spent looking at and discussing the impact of measures and results with high informational value? Think about how much your organization could do and how much further ahead it would be if you measured less that told you more! This is what can happen when an organization focuses on measuring what’s important.    

The first step in determining what’s important to measure is to be clear on what exactly you are focusing on in your company’s measurement efforts. Is it the performance of your business strategy? Is it the ability of your organization to execute your business strategy as defined by its various operational plans? Is it the ability of your sales team to execute your sales strategy and produce defined sales results? Is it the ability of your packaging line to perform at optimal levels? Is it the quality and efficiency of your claims adjudication and payment processes?

Essentially, this first step involves defining your measurement “playing fields” as well as the purpose behind your various measurement activities.    

Once this has been defined, the next step in selecting important measures is to apply a few criteria that will help you identify ones that are high on the information value scale.

 

 They should be specific. A good measure relates very closely to the thing you are trying to measure. It helps a great deal to have very specific information about the thing you are trying to measure in place before you try to choose relevant measures. For example, if you are trying to measure quality, it’s important first to agree on what you and your colleagues mean by quality. Is it just fewer or zero errors or is a combination of product cost, on time delivery, and delivery of a product to customer specifications? Essentially, what does quality look like in action at your company? Defining the essence of the thing you are going to measure makes it easier to select a good measure that tells you what you want to know about the thing you are measuring.

 

They should be simple. A good measure is simple to calculate and simple to understand and analyze. Measures that have complex calculations often produce results that people don’t understand and can’t relate to. More importantly, when you use complex measures, people at the front lines of your organization, where action takes place, don’t know whether they should, and how to, respond to the results. Finally, complex calculations can hide performance trends that would normally drive early action. For example, something I am seeing in my hospital clients is a move away from traditional infection rate reporting (rate per X patient days) - an externally driven measurement that is hard to take action on. Instead, they are reporting number of infections because a straight count makes it easier for nurses and doctors to quickly see whether they have a problem that needs further investigation.

 

They should be sensitive to change. Most companies measure things to keep a finger on the pulse of the organization. When you are measuring the vital signs of your company, you want to use measures that will pick up changes as soon as they happen. While you may choose not to respond to a change immediately, good measures let you know that a change has in fact occurred, giving you the option to respond based on your assessment of the nature of the change.

 

They should be timely. Good measures give you information to look at on a regular basis and quickly enough that you can take meaningful action in response to results when required. What is a good frequency for results availability? The answer depends on what you are measuring and why. If, for example, you are measuring the performance of a process and are using the results to make performance better tomorrow than it was today then a daily frequency may be appropriate. If, however, you are measuring employee satisfaction, quarterly may be the ideal frequency because it allows the impact of your action plans to be seen in subsequent survey results. Whatever frequency makes sense for what you are measuring, be sure to select measures that produce results data as soon as possible after measurement has taken place. For example, throughout my career I have generally observed that most financial results aren’t available until 3 – 6 weeks after the end of the measurement period. When this happens with your measures, you are essentially making decisions today based on very old information – things may have already changed! 3+ weeks is simply too long to wait to get performance results information for a measure. In contrast, a good measure is one where results are available <5 days after the end of the measurement period.

 

When you use this measure selection criteria, you will find that you are able to make more informed choices and select the best measures for your measure set. And, when you find a good measure or two for the thing you are striving to measure, you will all of a sudden feel ok about not measuring it ten different ways. This is because you have the confidence that those one or two measures are telling you what you really need to know about the critical performance elements of the thing you are measuring.

This is how focusing on what’s important to measure allows you to reduce the number of measures you have to look at to stay on top of the vital things in your organization.              

 

Let’s be honest - measuring the right things isn’t always easy to do. For example, if you want to measure the performance of your internal learning and development program, you could measure the number of people who signed up and came for each course. That’s easy to measure. However, what you really want to know about the performance of your L & D program is its impact on the development of employee competencies and the degree of application of new skills on the job. This is much harder to measure but it’s worth working towards because it’s got a significantly higher information value rating than the attendance measure. As a result, it's important to measure.

Sometimes you get lucky in your measurement efforts and you discover that what’s important to measure is also easy to measure. When it happens, that’s good. However, in my experience, it doesn’t usually happen this way. More often than not, the most important measures are a challenge to get but it’s almost always worth the effort and investment.

Remember: Putting together a set of measures with high information value should be your goal and it’s often a journey for an organization. Your challenge along the way? Don’t settle for what’s easy to measure – focus on what’s important to measure!

 

Why Organizational Alignment Should Matter to You (and how to get it)

After several years of good but not great business performance, perhaps you decided that, this year, it was time for a change. So you drew a line in the sand, declaring that your organization was FINALLY going to achieve stellar business results. However, now, more than half way though the year, it looks as though, yet again, it’s not going to turn out that way. So, what's happened?

A closer look at the levers that really drive better organizational performance and improved business results reveals that, while a clear vision of where your organization is going, an actionable roadmap to get there, and a system of measurement that provides feedback on progress and identifies opportunities for change are all important for success, organizational alignment is the secret ingredient that is often missing for many businesses.

 

What is organizational alignment?

Organizational alignment relates to the degree to which the components of a company are arranged to optimally support the intent, objectives, and goals of the organization (i.e. the business strategy). The components of the organization that must be “aligned” include:

● The work being completed (i.e. key business projects and work processes);

● The goals, skills and capabilities, and the hearts, minds, and behaviors of BOTH the people doing the work AND organizational leaders; and

● The plans (e.g. learning and development/human capital plans), tools and technologies, and resources (including budget dollars) that support the work being completed. 

Organizational alignment is both a process and an outcome. Building and ensuring organizational alignment requires focused action and is an ongoing activity. In addition, the outcome of these organizational alignment efforts - the degree of organizational alignment present - can be assessed in a company at any point in time.

Organizational alignment is BIG and covers a lot of ground - that is why I think many organizations struggle so much with it or just give up on it all together.  

 

 

Why Organization Alignment is Critical for Business Success  
 

 
 

Have you ever watched the rowing eights event at the Olympics? Now, think about the performance of the top teams – what do you see? Look closely and you'll see nine people (including the coxswain) working together in synchrony to achieve their primary goal of crossing the finish line first.

To achieve success, the rowers must stroke at the same pace with the blades of every oar pulling at the same depth in the water. They all know the overall game plan for success and they are ready to respond to the orders of the coxswain (who’s job it is to quarterback the execution of the race strategy and communicate the adjustments that keep the boat on course in changing wind and water conditions) as individuals AND as a cohesive unit. Each member of the team knows what their job is during the race and that they can rely on their coaching, training, boat, and equipment, and the skills, technique, and commitment of their teammates while the race is on.

With all this in place, teams power their boats on a straight course, translating 100% of their effort into the forward movement that moves them closer to their goal. However, when team alignment and cohesion is off, the boat strays off course, essentially wasting time, energy, and the resources that were invested in trying to achieve the goal of winning the race.       

It’s very much the same for an organization. Without alignment, the best strategic plan will never be fully achieved because organizational alignment is the glue that makes strategy execution excellence happen. An aligned organization works together as a unit in a new way (i.e. more efficiently, effectively, and dynamically) on the right things that deliver the greatest business value. An aligned organization gets things done faster, with less effort, and with better results, and is more agile and responsive to changing business conditions.

Ultimately, a high level of organizational alignment is essential for achieving increasingly better business performance results now and in the future!

And THAT is why organizational alignment is so important for your business.

 

 

How You Can Build Organizational Alignment in Your Company

There’s no doubt about it - building organizational alignment is a big job. However, there are just six essential activities that contribute to the organizational alignment process and they must be completed on an ongoing basis as you work to build and raise the level of organizational alignment in your company.

 

(1) Define What Your Strategy is and What it Looks Like in Action

Organizational alignment is built on your business strategy so you must begin here. To be effective, your business strategy must clearly define your primary value proposition, your future results destination, and the values and behaviors that will guide your actions on the journey to business results achievement. While this content is important, it is also critical to describe the actions, in the form of strategic objectives, your company must focus on to get from the present to the future destination. A strategic plan that provides a specific but flexible roadmap for action serves as the guiding star for your organization and its alignment efforts moving forward.  

 

 

(2) Communicate Your Strategy

Your organization/people can’t align with your business strategy if they don’t know what it is. Strategy communications are a critical, ongoing requirement in the drive to build organizational alignment. Communication must be frequent and two-way at all levels of the organization using multiple communication vehicles and a variety of targeted messages. It is important to remember that there is no such thing as over-communication or too much business leader involvement when you are striving to create an aligned organization. 

 

 

(3) Cascade Your Strategy across the Organization

Results-producing action rarely happens at the corporate level of an organization alone – results are usually achieved through the combined contributions of business units, departments, and teams. As a result, it is important to cascade strategy vertically and horizontally across your company and define the local actions and contributions each area of your organization must make to achieve business success. By defining these unique contributions and clarifying the shared ones, your organization will become more integrated, efficient, and successful in executing your business strategy.

 

 

(4) Link All Work Activities with Your Strategy

No organization has the capacity, time, or resources to waste on work that does not support strategic objectives and business success. As a result, it is necessary to take an inventory of key business processes and projects and determine whether they link to and support the elements of your business strategy. Sometimes you will find that work only indirectly supports the completion of strategic objectives – work of this kind is worth continuing because a link with the strategy still exists. However, when non-strategic projects and processes are identified, business leaders must seize the opportunity to stop doing them and re-invest organizational work capacity into more strategic work. Making decisions about the strategic value of the work completed in your organization can make the difference between a more efficient, high performance organization and one that wastes effort unnecessarily.

 

 

(5) Link All Employees with Your Strategy

Work gets done in your organization by people – either through the processes they play a role in and/or the projects they work on. Once business processes and projects have been aligned with your business strategy, it’s an easy next step to link the people who do that work to the strategy through their daily process and project contributions. Alignment at the employee level begins by helping them see how their work links with the business strategy – this makes strategy more meaningful to everyone in your organization. Next, it is important to let employees know what they need to do in their work to contribute to the overall results. Do this by creating individual goal plans that have clear linkages with your business strategy and provide performance guidelines that will help them move the business forward. Finally, give employees the opportunity to generate and share their insights and ideas on local ideas for improvement that could have a big impact on your business strategy. All of this plays a critical role in solidifying organizational alignment at the employee level. 

 

 

(6) Ensure that Necessary Financial and Non-Financial Resources are in Place to Support Your Strategy

Strategic plans usually involve doing something new and/or different. Why do companies expect to make the associated changes when they don’t put adequate resourcing behind the required efforts? New business strategies often require new employee skills and capabilities – this in turn often requires an investment in training, learning, and development. New directions may require new tools, equipment, and technologies and/or new roles and new people - all requiring budget support. Ensuring the alignment of your company’s budget development process, and the budget itself, with your business strategy is a fundamental but often forgotten component of building organizational alignment.

 

 

Organizational alignment can’t be achieved overnight but it doesn’t have to take a long time either. It just requires a solid plan and focused effort.

Chances are good that you have some of the required elements in place right now in your organization so your first step is to conduct an organizational alignment assessment. A good assessment tool will give you an idea of the current level of organizational alignment in your company AND pinpoint key gap areas and/or opportunities for improvement. With this insight in hand, you will then be able to create the targeted action plan you need to improve the level of organizational alignment in your business and get everyone mobbing in the same direction – producing extraordinary business performance results!

 

Is your organization aligned and ready to execute your business strategy? Are you sure? If you would like to be able to answer these important questions quickly and with confidence, click here to find out how.

How to Implement Business Performance Measurement Flawlessly in Any Organization

Business performance measurement is critical for every organization – big or small. From the biggest corporation to the one person shop, without performance measurement, you simply don’t have a handle on whether your organization is working in a way that is moving it forward productively towards its goals. Just as important, you are missing a critical feedback loop that allows you to: learn more about how your organization REALLY works to produce results; identify and explore areas of underperformance; see whether targeted interventions are actually producing the results you want/expect; and pro-actively discover when improvements and/or a change in business direction may be required.

As the ever insightful Seth Godin pointed out in one of his blogs last week (click here), you just aren’t running your organization professionally without a system of measurement in place. To me, if you want to really be, and be seen as, a professional business leader, AND reap the benefits of professional business management, you MUST introduce and/or expand the use of business performance measurement in your organization without delay.

Whether you are thinking of implementing an approach such as the balanced scorecard or another business performance measurement framework in your organization, here are the steps I have learned, through experience, you must go through if you are going to introduce performance measurement within your company both effectively and successfully.

 

(1) Determine your business goals and define your performance measurement philosophy

Before you begin measuring you need to decide what to measure. My advice is to only measure the important stuff because otherwise you just end up measuring what you can whether it adds value or not. Since no business has the time and resources available to measure just for the sake of measuring, the best advice is to start with your business strategy, goals, and objectives – knowing how your organization is doing in relation to these key elements is the basis of good measurement.

It is also important to take the time to think about and discuss your company’s performance measurement philosophy. This includes the purpose of measurement, who will use performance results to do what, how you want to share performance results, and your indicator selection criteria. Taking this step early makes indicator selection and business performance measurement process design decisions easier when they come up later on and in the future.  

 

(2) Select indicators that align with business goals

It seems obvious to tell you to choose indicators that line up with your business strategy and goals but how can you make sure that you actually do this? The key to success is to have a really good understanding of each business objective in terms of what it really is, what’s included and what isn’t, and the outcomes the objective is meant to produce. Once these “definitions” are in place, it becomes much easier to select indicators that relate to your business objectives. Selecting indicators that closely align with your business objectives is the only way to get the feedback you need on progress on those objectives.

 

(3) Define each indicator

Selecting your indicators is just the first step. You must also define each indicator including a word definition and, when applicable, a mathematical calculation. Why? Because it’s the only way to be clear about what is being measured.

Here’s a short story from my past to illustrate:

Revenue – seems clear enough, right? Well I was working in my BU in an insurance company and we had revenue as an indicator on our BSC. The corporation also had a revenue indicator on their BSC however the revenue results on our BSC and for our BU on the corporate BSC were never the same number! Needless to say, the auditors came knocking one day to point out the disconnect. After a little investigation, we discovered that the corporate definition of revenue and our definition of revenue weren’t the same. We got it all sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction but it really brought home the idea that, even with supposedly common indicators, being clear on an indicator’s definition is absolutely critical.

Clear definitions also ensure the consistent production of results that are measuring what you think they are measuring. Indicator definitions also include information about data sources, the frequency of data collection, data consolidation procedures, and data and commentary owners. Essentially, you cannot produce business performance results without clear and full indicator definitions.    

 

(4) Assign one person to oversee your organization’s performance measurement activities

A new business process like business performance measurement won’t gain a foothold in an organization without someone to guide and manage its implementation and use. It’s important to identify the one person in your organization who will take on this accountability and the associated responsibilities. For more information, check out a recent blog post on this topic by clicking here.

 

(5) Spec out and build or buy your performance measurement presentment/reporting tool

Business performance results are no good to any organization unless they are visible and shared. How will your organization do this to the best effect? This question should have been answered in your performance measurement philosophy and should guide you in defining the specifications for your performance measurement results presentment and reporting tool. Once the specs have been created, you must make the decision whether you are going to build or buy a tool that will meet your needs (check out a previous blog post on this topic by clicking here). Just remember that excel isn’t a “free” option and that there are many high quality performance measurement software applications available at every price point. Once the best tool has been identified, it must be implemented in your organization – time for implementation will dictate the timeline for completion of many of the steps outlined below.      

 

(6) Design your business performance results data and commentary collection process

How will data get into your presentment tool? When does it have to be there by? How will commentary owners know whether commentary is required? Who is going to post interim results and by when? What processes does your performance measurement presentment tool/application require? Basically you need to map out the steps that will take you from the start to a fully populated set of business performance results and commentary as well as the accountabilities and timelines for step completion. The result is a process map that can be communicated to, and followed and improved by, everyone participating in the business performance results production process.  

 

(7) Design your performance measurement results review meeting

Once your business performance results are ready, how will you review and discuss them? Will you create a new meeting to do this or re-purpose an existing one? How frequently will they happen and who will attend? What will the standard agenda look like and who will do what at the meeting? Thinking this through, communicating it to participants, and coaching attendees for participation success is a critical step in a successful business performance measurement implementation process.

 

(8) Create data and commentary collection sheets, online forms, and/or repositories (if required)

Once your business performance measurement presentment and reporting tool has been selected and your data and commentary collection processes have been defined, you may have manual data and commentary collection processes that require the creation of data and commentary collection vehicles and tools. Create them now so that they will be ready to share with data and commentary owners. 

 

(9) Identify data and commentary owners, define their role accountabilities, and create role documentation

Who is providing data and commentary for each indicator? What is the role of the data/commentary owner? What do they have to do by when? It is important to ensure that every indicator has at least one data and one commentary owner identified – creating a list helps identify ownership gaps and capacity concerns, and will make managing the data and commentary owner network easier. Role accountabilities will have been defined by the data and commentary collection process – creating clear role documentation for data and commentary owners that tells them what they have to do when helps data and commentary owners play their role in the business performance measurement process flawlessly.

 

(10) Let people know that they are data and commentary owners and provide them with training so that they can play their role

Data and commentary owners cannot play their role unless they know: that they have an accountability, what that accountability requires (including submission requirements and timelines), what tools they have access to (i.e. data and commentary collection tools, root cause analysis tools, etc.), and how to use them. Education and training will take care of this and must be included in your performance measurement implementation process.

 

(11) Decide if you want to collect historical data and, if you do, collect it

Will historical data add value in helping you evaluate the trends in your business results? If so, and if historical data is readily available, you might wish to collect it and then upload it into your results database. If you are going to take this step, do it at this point in the business performance measurement implementation process.   

 

(12) Run a performance results collection process in “slow motion”     

The business performance measurement process introduces many new responsibilities, tools, and requirements to your organization – often with very tight completion timelines. It’s a good idea to do a data and commentary collection trial run on a lengthened timeline before your first real results collection process. Doing this gives everyone the chance to get to know and practice their new roles without time stresses, and tests out both your results collection process and presentment tool. A trial run can often highlight opportunities for improvement that can be incorporated before you officially launch your business performance measurement efforts.  

 

If you follow these 12 steps, I promise you that you and your organization will be ready to start collecting your business performance results in earnest and that the process will run almost perfectly the first time (I hesitate to say absolutely perfectly because, in my experience, something invariable comes up that you hadn’t anticipated, even with your trial run!). The benefit is that, with solid processes in place and some practice under your belts, you and your team will be freed to focus on understanding what your business performance results are telling you about your business and determining required next actions.

Business performance measurement facilitates the transformation of an organization into a flexible high-performance system that excels at: constantly aligning and re-aligning the activities, projects and resources of the organization with its business objectives; understanding how the business really works and what levers produce the desired results reliably; demonstrating agility in the face of an evolving business environment; and consistently achieving business performance results.

And hey – who doesn’t want that anyway?