What is the difference between invest and spend? In the end, the resources are consumed whether we are investing or spending them. Distinguishing between investing and spending can help you make better decisions.
Are You Spending All Your Time?
Conversations with the C-Suite
The most significant discussions impacting the future of your organization are those that occur between C-Level (CEO, COO, CFO etc.) leaders. What are you doing to improve your skills for leading and participating in these discussions? How do you find the time to work on yourself while still meeting the demands of the day to day?
Differentiating Strategies is pleased to have a partnership with Fox Valley Technical College and specifically the Business and Industries Services team that allows us to jointly offer Conversations with the C-Suite as a complimentary executive development series at FVTC’s Appleton and Oshkosh campuses throughout 2016.
Resolutions
How well did you do on last year’s resolutions? What are your resolutions for the coming year?
A new year is an opportunity to reflect on what we learned in the past and make resolutions for the coming year. Whether you start with the winter solstice and the beginning of the sun’s slow return to the northern latitudes or the change of the calendar from December to January now is the time to adjust.
Stretch Objectives
Are you spending more time trying to reach this year’s objectives or set next year’s objectives? I suppose that depends on how progress is going in meeting this year’s objectives.
Have you ever asked a team to provide stretch objectives? What does that mean anyway? Does that mean you want them to sandbag their regular objectives and then give you a matching set that makes them look like miracle workers? Or does that mean you want them to critically consider the performance they can deliver with the resources you allocate and then develop a set of objectives they cannot reach? Or is there another way?
Why Yes, I am a Rocket Scientist!
Have you ever felt like you needed to be a rocket scientist to understand a topic?
I think sometimes we get too buried in detail. We fail to see the simplicity in what we are experiencing. In doing so we end up solving the same problem over and over again.
Do We Have a Decision?
What is a decision? We talk about decision making all the time. We tell people they should “just make a decision.” But just what is a decision and how do we go about making them. If you have had trouble defining what constitutes a decision and what does not, read on.
What Form Will That Take?
"Can you send me the form and we will get going?" How many times has a misadventure started with those words? How did we end up with forms being a form of work output?
I run into the forms question a lot. It usually happens when trying to lead a team through some kind of critical thinking exercise. It often occurs when teams are doing something for the first time. The question can arise out of a misplaced sense of urgency; perceived pressures to just get on with the work. The attention deficit driven call to just do something can create an anxiety that inhibits strategic thought. Why is this and why should we care?
What Did We Miss?
How many times have you participated in a SWOT analysis only to set it aside and not use it again? How may SWOT exercises miss big issues? Why is that? What are we missing? What would we be able to do if we had a robust SWOT and knew how to use it?
What Is Your Policy?
Do you have an open door policy? If so, what does that mean to you? What does it mean to your employees?
In a recent conversation, a senior executive confided that she was receiving criticism from employees. The team felt she was not honoring her open door policy. They stated that her door was often closed. As our conversation developed it became clear that the employees were emphasizing the word “door” in open door policy.
Can You Say That in Five Words?
What is your company’s headline? When someone asks you what you are trying to accomplish do you have a concise response? Can you answer it in five to seven words? Or do you find yourself launching into a paragraph long description that turns into a several minute monologue before you become self-conscious and quit?
Why is this important? It is important because as a leader people will be turning to you to provide direction. That does not mean they are looking for orders. It means they need some grounding that allows them to allocate their time and company resources in a way that makes progress toward target outcomes.
What's The Risk?
What is risk? How does risk management work? How is risk incorporated into business decision-making?
“What’s the risk?” is often interpreted as what can go wrong? The answer to that question is a scenario. However a definition of risk as something going wrong limits our ability to manage risk.
I Thought I Made Myself Clear
Does your organization have its own jargon? Maybe it has a set of acronyms. Perhaps there are euphemisms. I once worked in a company where “coaching and constructive feedback” was a euphemism for getting chewed out. In another organization being treated “with dignity and respect” meant you were going to get fired. It seems kind of bizarre that an employee had to get fired before being treated with dignity and respect.
How often do we use common words only to later learn that there was a misunderstanding? Failure to arrive at a shared understanding has many causes. Language is the means of conveyance for the substance of communication. Language includes many forms of conveyance including words, gestures (which finger were you holding up?), the tone of voice, the timing of delivery and the setting (your office versus mine?). Today I want to look at the role of words.
What's Your Perspective?
What is an executive perspective? How does it differ from the perspective of managers or individual contributors? Are you spending your time on the right things?
You'll Just Have to Prioritize
How many times have you told your team to prioritize? How often is the response an excited and engaged energy that convinces you the team is grateful for that direction? How often do the outcomes match your expectations?
What is the problem with prioritizing that makes it so hard?
Not Right Now, Maybe Later
How do you balance working on your business with working in your business? Do you find that day-to-day issues take priority over longer-term preparation and planning?
Senior executives understand the need to define long-term goals and establish the capability to realize those goals. They understand that without a description of benefit for a long-term goal it is hard to decide on what investment is possible while still delivering value. We know what needs be done. The funny thing is, despite what we know, we often plan to work on long-term goals, just not right now, maybe later.
Conflict Management: 4 Rules to Fighting Fair
What does it mean to fight fair? Fighting fair is conflict management in a way that allows individuals to contribute their perspectives. Furthermore, fighting fair encourages participants to consider perspectives other than their own in the development of work products and decision making. But what does a team have to do or not do to fight fair?
Change Trajectory
How does your organization experience change? Is it a disruptive force driving business outcomes? Or is it just disruptive? What can leaders do to make change a force for performance improvement?
The words forming, storming, norming and performing are part of the business speak (BS) thrown around every day. But what does this process and what can we do as leaders to use it to help us lead change?
I Even Followed Up With an E-Mail!
What is the definition of communication? Is that definition shared throughout the organization? Is there a system of defined communication processes? How much waste is being created by miscommunication? What is the outcome of communication?
Communication is one process used to bring everyone into shared understanding. You’ve arrived at shared understanding when all parties can verify their understanding. Everyone receiving the message should have a similar understanding to other message recipients. The exact measure of understanding depends on the level of tolerated variance while maintaining target outcomes.
Who’s Accountable and Who’s to Blame?
A lot of people talk about the need for accountability, but what does it mean? When people ask, “who are you accountable to?” What do they really want to know? It is tough to be accountable if we cannot define accountability. It can move from being tough to being confusing if there are multiple definitions for accountability.
I define accountability as keeping the agreements we make. If you and I make an agreement for me to mow your grass for $50 per cutting you should expect me to mow your grass when it needs it, and I should expect $50 for each time I fully mow your yard. I am accountable for mowing. You are accountable for paying. That seems simple, right?