Maximize Your Success, Step by Step

Volume 1, No. 10

Proven Strategies to Help You Stay On The Leading-Edge - A Free Ezine

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What's New on The Managing-Leading Edge:

In this issue, read "How To Maximize Your Success, Step by Step"-- the "final chapter" in our "Top 5 Success Factors," now available as a complete ebook ($19 value) for you as a free download.
We've added to our website a very concise set of top books, ones we've recommended in previous issues, all very worthwhile reading.
We've added a thorough, professional Organization Profile & Dynamics Analysis which you can use to analyze your company's overall situation, or submit it to us for review (free) and comment. (It's long, but there's no way this can be both good and short;-)
If you are interested in ultimate reality (philosophy, metaphysics), you might enjoy our new online article, "How To Understand Ultimate Reality And Use It For Increased Business Success."
Currently we are searching for the best business ebooks available, for adding to our website. If you know of any you can recommend, please pass along your recommendations.

How To Maximize Your Success, Step by Step

In this special issue, I want to reveal to you "the final chapter"--the step-by-step method I've developed over more than 20 years (and a ton of books) to help any organization get quickly on the path to greater success and Strategic Alignment. It is not quick and easy, so here is a concise summary:

1. Conduct an in-depth analysis of your present situation, positives and negatives, internal and external. Use the 5 success factors as a guide.

2. Ask your customers what they want through a professional survey.

3. Ask your people what they want through a written survey or focus groups.

3b. Optional: Analyze the operating environment through trade publications or existing reports.

4. Convert the research information into new directions for your future through a manager-leader group discussion of the research results.

5. Draft a rough strategic plan in the same work session as No. 4. It should include a vision statement, mission statement, and rough goals for the future (specific, measurable, with timeframes). I believe the best strategic plans for small businesses and organizations are only 2 pages long!

6. Refine the strategic plan. Let everyone on staff who participated in the initial planning (Step 3) see a copy of the early draft and make suggestions for improvement.

7.    Work the plan. You've got to walk the talk now. You've got to refer to the plan frequently in conversations with your people. You've got to have it in front of you at every staff meeting.

8.    Do it again. At least once a year, review and update your plan. Create measurement and feedback systems which enable constant input from customers, employees and other key groups so you keep in touch with what they want.

And now for the full-text version...

Step 1.    Conduct a Dynamics Analysis© of your present circumstances. The "situation analysis" has been around for decades, but as Albert Einstein said, "The secret is not in knowing the answers, but in knowing what are the right questions to ask." You might not discover the Principle of Relativity in this process, but you will discover far more important truths if you analyze the 20 most dynamic facts of your present situation through what I call a Dynamics Analysis©. Here they are in brief; for more details plus the free use of an online questionnaire, go to: www.lciweb.com/MLEdge/OrganizationAnalysis.htm

PART A. VALUE DYNAMICS

1. INPUTS--List the products, services, people, information, supplies etc. which your organization purchases or leases from the outside.
2. VALUE CREATION--Describe the primary steps or processes your people follow to add value to the inputs and create additional value for customers.
3. PRODUCTS--List the primary products or services which your organization provides--its outputs, the things customers (or those you serve) pay for.
4. CUSTOMERS--Identify your main customer groups or categories.
5. PROSPECTS--Identify any potential groups or categories which you would like to have as customers.
6. BENEFITS--Explain the benefits your products or services provide to customers. A benefit is the experience or gain customers receive from having or using your product or service.
7. DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS-Describe how and where your product or service is distributed or delivered to your customers.

PART B. FORCE FIELD DYNAMICS
8. POSITIVE INTERNAL FACTORS-What are the company's strengths or advantages from an internal standpoint? Do not include anything outside the walls of the company.
9. NEGATIVE INTERNAL FACTORS-What are the company's internal weaknesses or things which need to be improved? Do not include anything outside the walls of the company.
10. POSITIVE EXTERNAL FACTORS-What are the company's strengths, advantages or opportunities in the external marketplace?
11. NEGATIVE EXTERNAL FACTORS-What are the company's weaknesses, disadvantages or threats in the external marketplace?
12. COMPETITIVE POSITIONING-How does the company want to be perceived in the marketplace versus your competitors? This has three components:
a) Identify your main competitors.
b) Explain your primary competitive advantage over them, something that is objectively true, and not just "we have better people," please.
c) Describe your desired image, how you would like your company to be perceived in the marketplace, in a way that builds on this competitive advantage.

PART C. IMPROVEMENT DYNAMICS
13. IMPROVEMENT HISTORY-List the steps or actions, if any, your company has taken in the last 3-10 years to improve its success in the marketplace.
14. HIERARCHY OF PURPOSES-What are you trying to accomplish? List the various purposes, starting with the company as a whole, working down to include your marketing objectives, then at the bottom list the simplest, most basic thing you want to achieve in the near future.
15. DOMINANT COMPANY VALUES-What company values actually drive behavior day-to-day?
16. CRITICAL ISSUES-Based on the information you have provided above and related facts, identify the issues which are critical to your success. An "issue" is something that is unresolved or undecided.
17. VISION ELEMENTS-Describe the ideal future for your company, the way you would like it to be if your vision came true, 5-10 years from now.
18. MISSION ELEMENTS -Describe what your company must do if it is to achieve each vision element.
19. ROUGH GOALS-Identify some concrete, measurable goals which you would like your company to achieve in the next 1-5 years, moving toward and consistent with the vision elements.
20. NEXT STEPS-What are the next steps you would like to take in the next 1-6 months to move you in the direction of your rough goals? Again be very specific. This concludes the first step in the process.

Step 2. Ask your customers what they want. Some questions will naturally flow from your Dynamics Analysis, especially the Critical Issues which relate to customers. Look back at the "Customer Relations" issuefor more insights into asking customers what is most important to them, how satisfied are they and related matters. This is best done by an objective professional research firm, but if you have very limited funds, do it yourself by mail or phone. If yours is a nonprofit or government organization, be sure to seek input from people who are primarily responsible for approving or providing the funding for your organization.

Step 3. Ask your people what they want. Again, our earlier issue on People should give you a lot of direction. Even more than customers, your employees will be reluctant to talk openly unless they have a neutral facilitator or their written responses can be completely anonymous. Be sure to ask them what they think could improve customer satisfaction as well as their own.

Optional Step 3b. Analyze the operating environment. Research trends in the external operating environment, your industry or community which do or might impact your success, to be sure you are on the cutting edge of where things are going as you plan for the future. Sometimes reports like this are regularly published by trade journals or trade associations. Check with them for recent reports.Now you have the input, perceptions, wants, needs, satisfactions, and ideas for improvement from all the people who are important to your organization's success. This information should be summarized so everyone who participates in the next step can have it at their fingertips.

Step 4. Convert the research information into new directions.
    a.    Review the information summaries with your co-managers, including your initial Dynamics Analysis and all other surveys, and identify the key points which stand out and suggest directions for the future.
    b.    Express desires for the future. Let participants brainstorm what they would like the future to hold. Encourage bold thinking. Have someone write ideas on a whiteboard or easel pad for all to see. Withhold judgment of ideas until the creative brainstorming session is complete.
    c.    Develop a rough vision statement. Summarize desires for the future into a rough vision statement that expresses "what we want to be" with good group input and involvement. Seek consensus.
    d.    Develop a rough mission statement. Determine what you must do to achieve the rough vision statement points.
    e.    Identify a few key goals. Select a few measurable goals which will serve as milestones on the way to your vision following your mission.
    f.    Suggest one or more possible strategies for each goal. Again brainstorming followed by selection is good procedure.Now you have all the elements for a rough strategic plan.

Step 5. Draft a short strategic plan. I believe strategic plans for small organizations should be about two pages long. You can back the plan up with all your research data and steps, but if you try to write a long document, it will never happen. You will be setting yourself up for failure. Keep it very simple and focused. Far more plans fail because they are too long than because they are too short! Think of your plan as a scorecard or checklist that you can refer to at least every week to remind yourself of the directions you set and help you stay on track. Remember that each goal-strategy pair must have specific timing, budget, responsibility and measurement built in or it won't happen.

Step 6. Refine the strategic plan. Let everyone who participated in the initial planning see a copy of the early draft and make suggestions for improvement. Try hard to free them from worrying about the consequences of "correcting" upper management and instead suggest that unless they come up with some idea for improvement they are not really participating. Of course shy persons still may not, but you get the idea. Be sure those who are responsible for implementation, and that should include everybody, willingly accept their responsibilities and are not set up for failure.
    One way to celebrate the finished plan is to have a company luncheon or dinner. Have the key elements of the plan, such as the vision and mission, enlarged by a sign company and hung on a wall in the room. After brief remarks encouraging everyone to make it happen, ask every single person in the room to walk up to that sign and put their name on it. This act of "coming forward" or "making a pledge" can be one of those "significant emotional events" which bond your people together and enhance your chances of success. It may sound hokey, but I've seen some very serious, highly educated professional people take such an event seriously and participate earnestly. After all, they participated in creating it and now they "own" it.

Step 7. Work the plan. You've got to walk the talk now. You've got to refer to the plan frequently in conversations with your people. You've got to have it in front of you at every staff meeting. You've got to put charts up on the wall or your intranet that track progress. You've got to live this plan and breathe this plan or it will die on the vine, an exercise in futility. Consider building in a reward system, where those who make valuable steps in the plan are recognized and maybe given a bonus or other tangible reward. Remember the Greatest Management Principle of All Time: "That which gets reinforced gets repeated." It's up to you and your fellow manager-leaders to make it happen.

Step 8. Do it again. At least once a year, review and update your plan. Create measurement and feedback systems which enable constant input from customers, employees and other key groups so you don't have to spend quite as much on surveys every year. View the plan as a living system and update it continuously throughout the year as circumstances change. After all, the thoughts and desires of you and your people, and certainly the external environment, constantly change, so the plan should change as well, continuously, to reflect that. And that's how you stay on . . .

The Managing-Leading Edge

Do you have a question you’d like addressed in The Managing-Leading Edge? Want some help getting your company or organization strategically aligned? Write me anytime at buck@lciweb.com. Until next issue ...

With best regards, Buck Lawrimore

Copyright, Lawrimore Communications Inc., a strategic marketing, management consulting, and creative communications firm based in Charlotte, N.C. 704-332-4344 * info@lciweb.com