Leading Strategy Execution

How to Engage Employees and Implement Your Strategies

Suresh Mistry, Christine Antunes, Christophe Korda, Philippe Korda

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780749460563
• eBook ISBN: 9780749460648
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Leading Strategy Execution demonstrates to senior executives ways in which they can successfully enthuse their employees so that they willingly implement essential company strategies. Having a good strategy isn't enough to guarantee a company's success - executives and managers need to ensure that their strategies are implemented correctly throughout the company, and that all staff are on board.The book is divided into three sections: 1.Energy of Engagement: This section demonstrates how to engage and energise your employees so that they really want to implement your strategy, and so that they accept their role and contribution towards making the strategy a success.2.Energy of Change: This section illustrates ways in which executives can persuade employees to alter their habits, which may have been reinformed over a number of years by business processes and systems. Managers will learn how to give staff the exact skills and confidence needed to apply the new ways of thinking that are required to turn today's new strategy into tomorrow's business culture.3.Energy of Management: This section reveals to executives how to energise and employ the middle managers within the business. This book will explain how to ensure that the middle managers are focused on the execution of crucial company strategies, so that they become ambassadors of change rather than instruments of inertia.Including tools, 'how to' checklists and real life examples, Leading Strategy Execution is an accessible title for busy executives, which takes a practical and light approach to the topic of strategy execution through employee engagement.

Part 1

The energy of engagement

Wouldn’t life be easier if people wanted to do what you expect of them?

A major corporation is adopting a new strategy based on the quest for top-quality customer service. It launches an ambitious project, ‘Quality First’, with the aim of ensuring all personnel focus on this priority. Six months after the launch, a staff survey is carried out. Some of the interview scripts sent to head office by the research institute responsible grab the attention of senior executives.

Firstly, there are those revealing a profound ignorance of the project: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, to be honest’; ‘Quality First? I’m sure that I’ve seen that slogan… it must be an advertising campaign for customers’; ‘Yes, I know what it is, but I’m not involved because I work at head office’; ‘Yes, but they haven’t talked about it to front-line staff like us – I reckon that it’s more a head office project.’

There are also those comments that demonstrate great scepticism: ‘Yeah, Quality First, that’s the official corporate position, but the truth is that for top management it’s all about profits.’ ‘That’s all very well, but we don’t get the resources to provide real quality.’ ‘Slogans and bosses come and go, you know, but we just carry on as before.’

Lastly, there are those comments that indicate some support in principle, but without this engendering any action in practice: ‘I don’t plan to do anything myself, but I think that the project is a step in the right direction’; ‘We’ll see where it leads, but it certainly can’t do us any harm’; ‘It’s a great idea in itself, but the new indicators mean that our bosses are even more stressed out than before, so we let them worry about it and carry on as usual.’

Whatever the relevance of the Quality First project and whatever the abilities of those who designed it, it currently has almost zero chance of yielding any positive results for the customer. The energy of engagement is missing. Five red lights stand in its way.

Firstly, the message from top management has not reached all those people responsible for converting it into new priorities, new methods and new behaviour. Secondly, where the message has been delivered it has not always been heard. Where it has been heard, it has not always been understood… and, where it has been understood, it has not always been accepted. Lastly, even when it has been accepted, it has not generated enthusiasm for action.

The first part of this book will help us to turn those five red lights to green. Chapter 1 is entitled ‘Open the box of secrets’ and addresses the difficulty that you may sometimes experience in conveying difficult messages to your people. ‘Chapter 2, ‘Capture everyone’s attention’, explains how to ensure that your key messages get through. Chapter 3, ‘Spell it out in words of one syllable’, offers you some tools to enable your plans and instructions to be better understood. ‘Chapter 4, ‘Mould opinion’, explains how to ensure that your people show more commitment to your priorities. Lastly, Chapter 5, ‘Provide an emotional spark’, shows you how to turn that commitment into a desire to act.

1	Open the box of secrets

Perhaps it really would be worth talking to them about it…

A candle loses none of its light by lighting another candle.

Japanese proverb

Summary

Enter our ‘energy of engagement’ section and discover how to build commitment by providing inspirational communication. Learn what to include in communication to enable all your people to act and how to design the communication to appeal to different perspectives and values. Finally, find out how to ensure all your people are clear about their specific roles and what they must do now.

‘There’s an ill wind blowing, Carl. We need to make even more cutbacks. I hope that you have other clients.’

Carl rocks on his heels. He runs the New York office of an advertising agency and he could be just about to lose his principal client. Two-thirds of his people work on this account. For months now, Carl has been dreading this moment. He has been trying to get the whole agency behind an ‘Everyone’s a Salesperson’ project so as to quickly pull in more business, but without great success to date.

Carl is anxious for two reasons. Firstly, he has developed very close ties with his client’s opposite numbers: it hurts him to see them in turmoil when he is powerless to help. Secondly, he feels a close bond with the people at his agency. He feels responsible for their jobs and really wants to continue to offer them projects through which they can grow and develop.

When he gets back to the office, Carl is struck by the lively, happy atmosphere. Vigorous discussions are taking place, the phones are ringing and there’s laughter everywhere. Not only has the agency racked up the best growth rates in the sector over the past three years, but Carl has also put together a real team here.

When he explains the situation to Tom, his finance director, his colleague interjects: ‘I hope that you are going to talk about this at the team meeting tomorrow. They all need to understand that, if they don’t get their fingers out, they are going to be out of a job.’

Carl is quick to respond: ‘We can’t preach doom and gloom. If we tell the whole truth, they will be completely demoralized. It would cause panic. We’ve already launched “Everyone’s a Salesperson”. They’re a great bunch, so let’s trust them to deliver. Success is just around the corner.’

Yet, deep inside, he is not convinced. Yes, the project has been launched, but old habits die hard. For a moment Carl closes his eyes and wonders in frustration: ‘What on earth are they waiting for?’

Carl’s problem is also your problem. It is a problem for each of us whenever we find it hard to admit that words are no substitute for action or whenever we find it difficult to get people to do what we want.

So why do intelligent people with responsible positions within an organization refuse to acknowledge the truth? Why do we remain silent or in denial when in reality we need to speak up loud and clear?

When the situation requires us to roll out an initiative within a company, we often ask ourselves the same questions: ‘Should we come clean about everything?’, ‘Should we tell them everything about the project?’ or even ‘Do I need to tell them what we expect of them?’ Later, when we look back, too often we find that no real progress has been made or that the progress has been too slow or too feeble. Despite universal support and the will to move forward, the habits of the past are deeply ingrained.

So, we sigh to ourselves, ‘What on earth are they waiting for?’ Well, in the first instance, the problem might simply be that we have not been totally up front about the situation, the project or our specific expectations.

Provide true inspiration… and explain the situation

Everyone knows that the search for meaning is a key motivational factor for individuals. You are probably prepared to tackle many difficult and demanding challenges in your life, provided that you know why you are doing it. That is why so many senior executives cite transparency and genuine communication among their key operating principles. It is a pity that so few of them seem to mean it. ‘Tell them the truth’; ‘Inform without excluding’; ‘Never stop explaining and communicating’: the intentions are always the same… So why do we often do the opposite?

From a practical viewpoint, there is no shortage of reasons. When it is an opportunity that lies behind a company initiative, communicating is a pleasure. ‘This new market is just right for us.’ ‘This new technology offers us great prospects.’ ‘This acquisition will make us market leaders again.’ So it is quite easy to explain, to reaffirm, to motivate and to inspire commitment. However, when the initiative is motivated by a problem, it is quite a different matter. ‘We must take action because our profits are crumbling’, ‘… because our competitors are overtaking us’, ‘… because our customers are voting with their feet…’: not a message to inspire people!

If Carl is hesitant about sharing vital information with his team, it is not out of a desire to conceal or to manipulate. He simply does not want to worry his people. Essentially, he wants to protect them.

It is true that spreading bad news can affect the morale of the troops. Some of our people may withdraw from the fray at the very moment when we need them most. Others, often our best people, may even think of deserting the sinking ship. This risk is particularly great in certain business sectors and certain occupations: those where good people are hard to find. So there is a real risk of further aggravating a difficult situation. Thus the fear of demoralization sometimes leads us to downplay problems. This risks making it more difficult to mobilize our teams to implement solutions. If we minimize a problem, no one will work 100 per cent to resolve it.

Another cause of hesitation is the risk that information will be leaked outside the company.

On a factory tour, the new CEO of an automotive group is waxing lyrical about his desire to produce quality cars: ‘Even my own company car has broken down twice!’ The message is received loud and clear by staff in attendance. Unfortunately, the next day several media organizations have picked up on this. The manufacturer seeks to deny it, but various employees confirm that they heard the CEO say just that. The company’s brand image is badly dented.

It is true: raising a problem in front of staff involves taking a risk that it will become a subject for gossip with third parties – customers in particular. However, it is a risk worth taking: if a problem exists and we do not inform those capable of resolving it, then we are preventing them from providing a solution.

Sometimes, it is also the fear of being singled out that leads us to restrict the information flow. As a senior manager of six years’ standing at a ready-to-wear clothing distributor, Laura had persistently resisted her people’s arguments that they should grow online sales: ‘That’s not what we do.’ Her direct competitors saw things differently and gained market share. Within two years, Laura’s brand had lost ground. When she finally bit the bullet and authorized a vast online sales project, Laura baulked at spelling out the reasons for this decision. She explained that she did not wish to fuel pointless controversy within the company. She added that action was all that counted now. Yet deep down she was well aware that she felt uncomfortable with colleagues who might have accused her of a lack of vision in previous years.

Kings and queens rarely start revolutions. Similarly, for a manager who has been in post for some time, it requires considerable courage to inform staff that something is going badly wrong. However, if we do not have the courage to say what is going wrong, things will not get better.

In other cases, we may believe that a situation is complex and that our people are not really capable of understanding. This is particularly true where the workforce is made up of people who lack education or skills. ‘Why confuse them by raising issues that they do not understand, when all that’s needed is to tell them what to do?’

Yet every experiment carried out over recent decades has demonstrated that our people are much more capable of comprehending economic challenges than their senior managers believe – provided that management takes the time to explain the issues to them. If we trust our people to implement a solution, we must also accept that they are capable of understanding the problem.

Lastly, and this is what mostly happens, we may not inform people about the situation because we are convinced that ‘they already know’. It is true that employees have access to a glut of information (television, radio, newspapers, internet, etc), so they probably are aware that their business sector is subject to centralization, new competitors, new low-cost suppliers, regulatory changes and shifts in customer demand. They have heard about it. They may even have heard a great deal about it. Yet there are thousands of different ways of interpreting information. Is this new information or does it merely confirm what they already knew?...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Title page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1: The energy of engagement
• Part 2: The energy of change
• Part 3: The energy of management
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Checklists
• References
• Further reading
• Index