This final element, what I call the defining element, is most often missing from well-intended vision statements that sound so much alike, as in , "We are the leader in our markets by providing our customers with superior products and services, our employees with meaningful work and competitive compensation, and our shareholders with an exceptional return on investment." Yeah, yeah, isn't everybody.

To be truly defining, a vision must say, in effect, we will be at the top of this particular mountain. It's what marketers call positioning. For example: "We are the leading health-care architect in the Southeast specializing in wellness centers." Or this: "We are the leading manufacturer of lithium compounds and products in the United States." In other words, define your expertise and then narrow your scope to an area small enough that you can actually dominate it. That is truly defining your vision, and because it is realistic and achievable, your people will find it believable.

2. A challenging mission. Many organizations consider vision and mission interchangeable. We prefer the distinction that a vision states "what we want to become" and a mission states "what we must do to achieve the vision." With a little thought, certain logically necessary courses of action follow from the commitment to a defining vision. For example, if you want to be the leading health-care architect in the Southeast specializing in wellness centers, your mission might consist of things like:

• Continuously educating our people on innovations and best practices in wellness centers worldwide.
• Attracting, retaining and developing architects who are committed to wellness center design and highly talented at doing that.
• Monitoring competitors in the Southeast, including out-of-region firms seeking to do business here, so that we know what type of work they are doing and can make sure we stay ahead.
• Attending or presenting seminars on wellness, the principles behind it, and how that translates into good facility design.
• Seeking news media coverage highlighting our expertise in wellness centers, and engaging in other promotions such as direct mail to potential clients and a dynamic Internet presence

Again it is great to get a high degree of participation from throughout the organization in developing the mission statements, but the list should be short, typically between 4 and 8 action items.

3. A few challenging but achievable goals. We like the SMART goal concept: a goal should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed. Many people set goals such as "Increase our revenues" or "hire more people" that are in the right direction but are not really SMART. One author calls these vague goals "fuzzies." An example of a SMART goal (depending on the organization) would be: "Increase revenues by 10% in the next 12 months." Or "Hire at least two new professionals within six months."

Too many goals can lead to analysis paralysis. This is actually fairly common when organizations try to do their own planning. To make sure there is something for everybody, small organizations create pages and pages of goals which are really no more than wish lists, because they cannot all be achieved. In today's intense, busy, fast-changing workplace, it is far better to have a few key goals to help people focus their improvement efforts. The more those efforts are spread thin, the less progress you'll see a year from now. Even some large organizations have only about three key goals a year so they can really focus on making them happen. That is so important. They must be challenging, but if they are not achieved, it will be an emotional downer for the whole company, and hard to get people excited about other goals anytime soon.

Goals should challenge people to stretch, to do their best, but not create unbearable pressure and add to their stress. A balance between easy and impossible must be carefully struck by the goal-setting process.

4. A specific strategy for each goal. Just as the mission explains how the organization will achieve the vision, strategies explain how the organization will achieve the goals. That rhythm of "pick a target, figure how to get there" can resonate all the way through objectives and tactics, but increasingly companies are leaving those details to departments and not trying to set them in stone at the corporate level.

One of the main reasons many organizations' plans fail is because the goals are not backed by realistic how-to strategies. Current thinking is for upper management to set the top key goals, bounce them off the responsible people to make sure they will be supported, then let those responsible for implementation work out the strategies, again bouncing them back up the line to make sure executives approve. Strategies should include four key elements:

• Actions to be taken, stated in broad terms but adequately specific to give direction.
• Responsibilities for those actions, with responsible people fully committing to the actions.
• Timing - when they will occur.
• Budget - where the money is coming from, and how much.
• Metrics - how progress toward the goal will be measured and communicated.
  
  Another check to be sure you've got a full strategy is the ask the old newspaper questions, Who, What, When, Where, Why, How and (one I always add) How Much.

The best strategies are worked out in authentic brainstorming sessions. Participants create alternative solutions in a free-wheeling, no-criticism creative process. (It is forbidden to judge or criticize someone else's ideas in the creative session.) Then they step back and choose the best strategy, or combine several elements into a new one.

5. A real-time guidance system. A major reason most strategic plans fail is because they are thick documents that (a) people can't keep in their heads and (b) can only be changed once a year — when in reality some kind of change happens weekly if not daily to many organizations.

In the 21st Century organizations are increasingly measuring their progress toward a few key goals all the time. An increasing number of companies have adopted The Balanced Scorecard* system which emphasizes measuring four key areas of progress: Learning & Growth (human resource development, employee satisfaction, information systems etc.), Internal Business Processes (quality control, cycle time etc.), Customers (satisfaction, market share etc.) and Financial (income, profits etc.).

The point superbly made by The Balanced Scorecard* is: If you are only measuring financial results, you are using past-performance data and "driving by looking in the rear-view mirror." Financial results are lagging indicators of progress. By contrast Learning & Growth, Internal Business Processes and Customer Relations are leading indicators--they come before the profits roll in (or not).

The idea is you need an "instrument panel" of key measurements that are constantly updated to let you know how you are doing. This system is by definition objective, and it should be open to all key personnel. Even if you don't want to share all financial details, you can share a few key numbers like sales and profits for the month. But even more important is to measure other dimensions of performance that better enable you to predict the future rather than reflect the past. This is the greatest "missing element" of most strategic plans and one reason they do not work. Be sure to include a real-time guidance system in your strategic plan and implementation.

6. Putting it all together: The Learning Organization. Strategic focus is not complete until it is all interconnected into a true system, with interdependent parts acting as a whole. Peter Senge influenced thousands of people with his recent-years best-seller, The Fifth Discipline*, which is about systems thinking. When an organization works as a united system, and understands systems thinking (which is not the same as logical thinking!), it constantly learns from its experiences and shares that learning throughout the organization. Like a whole body, if the hand gets burned by the hot stove, it is not necessary for the face to learn the same lesson the hard way. Larger organizations are particularly vulnerable to a fragmented, learn it over-and-over cycle. But even smaller ones generally do a poor job of sharing knowledge, or Knowledge Management as it is commonly known today.

One of the most frequent complaints in all employee surveys we've done over the years is that internal communication is poor. Leaders don't tell the people what's going on, and how things are connected. So people operate in a vacuum and make needless mistakes, which often waste time and money, and may even cause the company to lose customers. As a general rule, the people DO NOT KNOW nearly as much as the leaders think they know. Human communication is so difficult, the only way to avoid costly mistakes is to over-communicate, especially on critical projects or processes. A central shared database, password-protected, is one of the best ways to do that. But the higher the possibility of misunderstanding, the more important face-to-face communication becomes.

"People" are the key to business success, as all us people know. But "people" as a success factor is like the weather -- everybody talks about it, but no one does anything about it.  Since subsequent chapters in this ezine report on the very impressive people-management principles of First, Break All The Rules, we will try to share with you some practical insights we've gained from experience, as we continue our series on the Top Success Factors of All Time.

Recently I saw an interview of legendary GE Chairman Jack Welch, one of the most admired manager-leaders of modern times, on the Charlie Rose Show.  It was interesting that, while GE famously aspires to be No.1 or No. 2 in every market it competes in, Welch claims that their core competence is developing people.  GE and a few other big companies have cultures that strongly encourage effective management and people development, but in the vast majority of companies, that does not happen.  Here are a few key truths about people as a success factor which may be helpful for you:

1. That which gets reinforced gets repeated.  Michael LeBoeuf a few years ago wrote a book called, The Greatest Management Principle in the World*, and that is his key point.  The reinforcement principle of behaviorism was discovered by B.F. Skinner and has been rejected by some people because it applies as much to rats in a cage as it does to humans.  And guess what? It works just as well on both (including kids). If you want somebody to repeat a behavior, reinforce it with some type of reward that they will appreciate.  That might be as simple as saying "Well done."  If you want somebody to stop a behavior, withdraw the reinforcement. And interestingly, the most powerful way to sustain a behavior is through intermittent reinforcement. If a child (or employee) wants something that is not in the firm's best interests, and you give in just a couple of times, that habit will be more deeply ingrained than if you gave in every time, then suddenly stopped.  Consistency is extremely important.

2. Different strokes for different folks. Because people are fundamentally unique individuals, what one considers a reward, another may consider punishment.  The most widely used personality profiling system in the world, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, features 16 different personality types, each with their own preferred strokes (a similar version is available for free online at http://www.keirsey.com).  If you know your people's types, you can give them the strokes they want; if not, you can stroke against their grain by treating them the way you want to be treated, not the way they want to be treated.

3. You cannot not communicate.  That axiom, from The Pragmatics of Human Communication*, refers to the fact that not communicating with someone says to them, "I don't care about you." When my firm does studies of nonmanagerial employees, we always find that they consider internal communication to be inadequate.  Managers get busy putting out fires and trying to be sure customers' needs are met, and they forget the importance of communicating with everyone about what's going on with the company.  They may rationalize that by thinking, "I’m in charge and I know what I'm doing," but all the employees see is the stone wall of silence.  
    People want to know what is going on and how it does or will affect them, and you cannot overdo that.  It shows people you care about them. Not communicating says you don't care about them, even if you really do.  The most effective communication is always face to face.  Face time says "I care about you" like nothing else.  Avoid emails or memos for any information which might be misunderstood or possibly construed as negative.

4. You can't change people; change the system.  By the time someone is 21 or 22, their personalities and behaviors are so set that nothing is going to change them except a significant emotional event.  Such an event might be marriage, divorce, the birth of a child or the death of a loved one, or getting fired from a long-held job.  It is hard to engineer positive emotional events at work that are significant and appropriate. Some teams go whitewater rafting or wilderness hiking to share emotional experiences.  But generally speaking, you cannot change people, so instead you change the system of rewards that reinforce desired behaviors, or in rare cases, punish unacceptable behaviors (generally punishment backfires and creates deep resentment, even rebellion). 
    For example, if quality is important, you create a system that measures and rewards high quality.  You don't preach to your people or put up signs that say, "Remember, don't make mistakes!"  And you walk the talk by demonstrating your own passion for quality -- or whatever behavioral change you are trying to instill.

5. If you want it done, ask the doers. Before initiating change or "improvements," let the people who will be responsible for implementation have a say in the way the changes will be handled.  That is obvious but so often not done. Even if you go against their preferences, people appreciate being heard, respect you for asking, and will be more likely to follow whatever the outcome.  If you do not ask, it is amazing how people can resist in many subtle ways that ultimately sabotage the outcome.

6. When you ask for people's input, respond quickly. We've been involved in a number of situations where employees' hopes were raised through focus groups or other input, but in spite of our recommendations, management did not act on what people said. Again you do not have to do what your people suggest. But employee emotions are extremely time sensitive.  You lift their hopes when you seek their input, and if you act on that input, you sustain their enthusiasm and energies. If you wait too long, the emotional peak passes and you will not have another chance like that for a long time. 
    This is one reason GE has been so successful with their "workout" sessions.  Everyone involved gets in one room and one manager is in charge. Discussion focuses on one problem. No one leaves the room until the top manager decides what action will be taken on the problem.  The decision may be to act now or to delegate the problem to a task force if more information is essential, but some action is always taken.  This is one way GE keeps their people "generally electrified" and loyal.

7. It's all about human energy. Human energy is the ultimate resource for any business. People are not just bodies but energy systems with minds, feelings and spirits.  Any planning effort or change effort will succeed best if you channel people's natural energies in the direction of the new activities. (Refer to 1 and 2 above.) Find out how each person naturally uses his or her energies through instruments like Myers-Briggs or Keirsey indicators.  Try to give them roles in the new activities that let them use their natural energies effectively.  Communicate with them often -- up-front and on-going.  It is amazing what people will do when you work with their natural energies and encourage them along the way.

Here are a three references if you want to read more; all are classics:

The Greatest Management Principle in the World (has new title) by Michael LeBoeuf, Ph. D.:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0425113973/wwwlciwebcom

The Pragmatics of Human Communication by Paul Watzlawick:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393010090/wwwlciwebcom

Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey (the bible of Myers-Briggs typology):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1885705026/wwwlciwebcom

To keep current with constantly evolving management and leadership issues like the ones presented in this e-book, subscribe to my free monthly ezine, The Managing-Leading Edge at:
http://www.lciwebcom/MLEdge

Top Success Factor No. 2: People
Part 2: What The World's Greatest Managers Do Differently

What do the world's greatest managers do differently?  That question was
recently asked by the Gallup Organization through in-depth interviews of
over 80,000 managers in over 400 companies. This is the largest study of
its kind ever undertaken, and the result is one of the top-selling books in
the nation recently:  First, Break All The Rules: What the World's
Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman.

The authors identified 12 questions which absolutely nail the practices of
best managers.  See if you think people working for you would answer "yes"
to them:

"1.   Do I know what is expected of me at work?"
"2.   Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?"
"3.   At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?"
"4.   In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?"
"5.   Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?"
"6.   Is there someone at work who encourages my development?"
"7.   At work, do my opinions seem to count?"
"8.   Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?"
"9.   Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?"
"10. Do I have a best friend at work?"
"11. In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?"
"12. At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?"

The authors of "First Break" note that these questions emerged from
exhaustive statistical analyses and do not represent all that workers want.
Surveys my firm has done asking personnel "what is most important or
valuable to you in your job" invariably come up with answers relating
to pay, benefits, good internal communication, getting along with fellow
employees and other topics. But because people at virtually all companies
want these things, questions on these matters do not separate well-managed
companies from poorly managed companies. So if you were to ask your
people, "Is it important for you to have good pay and benefits?"
practically all except the independently wealthy would answer "yes."

The 12 questions above are discriminating questions -- they discriminate
well-managed organizations from those which are not. They also point out
what is very important for all managers and leaders to practice to get the
best performance and to retain good employees. We encourage you to read
the list again and think about what would be required for your people to
answer "yes" to all of them.

The management approach prevalent in many organizations today is what I
call the "military/parent model."  That is, management's task is seen as
controlling or directing employees, keeping them out of trouble, and trying
to care for them in a manner that is somewhat paternalistic or maternal. 
Most of us have the best intentions, it's just that this is all we know, from
being parents or observing other managers, or in increasingly rare cases,
serving in the armed forces. First, Break All The Rules shows a better way!

*First, Break All The Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684852861/wwwlciwebcom

To keep current with constantly evolving management and leadership issues like
the ones presented in this e-book, subscribe to my free monthly ezine,
The Managing-Leading Edge at: http://www.lciwebcom/MLEdge

Top Success Factor No. 3: Customer Relations

1. Managing Customer Value. If you haven't read the marvelous book by that name (see link below) by Bradley Gale, I highly recommend it. It has had a huge impact on the marketing profession and my practice. "Customer value" is the whole package of what customers want from you -- generally some combination of quality, price and service, but always uniquely expressed by each customer or market segment.
    We have conducted many customer surveys for our clients, exploring customer value, and we have always found this process to be very illuminating. After asking customers what they value most in a supplier of X (the product or services of our client), we then ask them to rate the importance of each factor. Then we ask them to rate their satisfaction with how well our client provides each value component. The result is a neat bar chart which shows the relative importance of each factor, overlayed by a line graph which represents that company's average "score."
    For one manufacturer, we discovered that, while customers were quite satisfied with quality and service, there was a big dissatisfaction gap in price. This was something our client was vaguely aware of, but when they saw the chart, they were motivated to act. They rolled out a lower-cost product in time for the next national trade show, and it was a huge success.
    There's much more to Managing Customer Value than this, but the point is: "value" used to be a vague concept, but thanks to Bradley Gale, it is now measurable in several ways, a "metric" every bit as solid and useful as sales and expense numbers. And just like financials, customer value and satisfaction should be measured and charted continuously.

In closing, I'd like to say "thank you" to you for reading this e-book and sharing it with others.

*References:
Managing Customer Value: Creating Quality and Service that Customers Can See: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0029110459 /wwwlciwebcom

Customer-Centered Growth: Five Proven Strategies for Building Competitive Advantage:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201154935 /wwwlciwebcom

Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446347949 /wwwlciwebcom

The One to One Future : Building Relationships One Customer at a Time http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385485662 /wwwlciwebcom

To keep current with constantly evolving management and leadership issues like
the ones presented in this e-book, subscribe to my free monthly ezine,
The Managing-Leading Edge at: http://www.lciwebcom/MLEdge

Top Success Factor No. 4: Operations
...Or, What You Do All Day

Recently we conducted a Customer Value & Satisfaction Survey for a small-business client. His customers told us that they were generally satisfied with the company’s people and professionalism, but they felt improvements were needed in quality control, attention to detail and follow-through. These are common operations issues, though by no means the only ones, concerning what your people do all day. In this issue I’ll share with you what I told my survey client, and what I’d tell you if you want to improve your operations and success.

1. Improvements must be driven from the top. Operations improvements cannot be delegated to a committee (unless you lead it) or left to a consultant’s intervention. You as the manager-leader model the corporate culture of those who report to you. So you must have a passion for operations improvement in your gut, or it will not happen.
   Essentially, changing any organization requires a new energy force moving in a direction different from business as usual. You might conjure up that energy within you just by thinking about how messed up your operations are. Or maybe you get the results from a customer survey that show distinct dissatisfaction. All too often it takes a crisis like a big drop in income or the loss of a major client to shake an organization into a state of readiness for operations improvement.
   In his excellent book Leading Change*, John Kotter advocates that you stimulate energy by creating a sense of urgency. Maybe there is indeed a crisis. Or maybe you engineer one to make your point. However you get the energy going, you the manager-leader have to drive it.

2. The fundamental purpose of operations is to align what people do all day with what customers value. In previous chapters we’ve talked about the importance of customer value. If you want to improve your operations, build a system to guarantee the value which customers want. If your customers want quality, build a system that checks quality at every key step, not just at the end. If your customers want speed, study ways to cut out time-wasting steps and replace them with consolidated simpler ones, perhaps using computer systems to make things move faster.
   The key point here is, don’t just look at your operations and ask yourself, "How can we improve this?" Start instead with what customers value most, step back from day-to-day habits, and try to design an ideal system for delivering that value consistently. Again you’ll find some excellent tips on this in Bradley Gale’s Managing Customer Value*. I also recommend reading at least one good book on Total Quality Management, such as the Portable MBA Series’ title by that name*.

3. Involve your people in operations improvement. Don’t come down from the mountain like Moses with your new Ten Commandments. Let all your people get involved in analyzing and designing how operations can be improved to deliver greater customer value. It never ceases to amaze me how "ordinary people" can come up with great insights for improving operations. After all, they’re often the ones closest to the action, or the ones who hear the complaints. Involving your people will not only yield a much greater abundance of good ideas, it will also greatly strengthen the likelihood that improvements will happen.
   If you have a big company and it’s not practical to involve everyone in the whole change process, then organize what John Kotter calls a "guiding coalition." This is not just the top people but a cross-section involving all levels. Be politically shrewd and include people who have a lot of personal power and influence at lower levels even if they are not managers. Consider involving even your chronic rebels. They often have a lot of energy and strength, and by being involved in the improvement process, they will come to support it and advocate it with others.

4. Measure what matters. Some companies have found a comprehensive measurement system like The Balanced Scorecard* to be a great way to measure performance of all the success factors we’re writing about in this series. Others try to measure too many things and get bogged down in minutiae. I recently read about a financial company that expected managers to monitor and be judged based on over 200 measurement points! So the trick is to pick just a few key indicators of improvement, count them religiously, and share the results.
   I like the analogy of driving a car with simple measurements such as the speedometer, odometer, gas gauge, and warning lights which flash when something is wrong. In fact some people use the term "dashboard" to refer to the ideal small set of measurements that help people stay on course. (Contrast that with the controls of a 747 jet, which require a crew of people to monitor and control.) For example:

5. Control products and services differently. If you are a manufacturer, controlling operations by measuring physical products is fairly straightforward compared with measuring services. Most books on quality, operations or business process improvement are written from the manufacturing perspective. If you’re in the service business, don’t think these books are going to do you much good. A few determined service businesses have indeed been successful with TQM or ISO9000, and my hat’s off to them. But the amount of time wasted by service businesses (including mine) trying to adopt manufacturing-based operations methodology is staggering.
   One of the best, classic books on service quality is Delivering Service Quality* by Valarie Zeithaml et al. This research/authoring team was the first to define service quality as a matter of "balancing customer perceptions and expectations." Since then there have been a bunch of books on the subject, as you’ll see if you type "service quality" into the search window at amazon.com. Service quality essentially:

*References:
Managing Customer Value: Creating Quality and Service that Customers Can See: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0029110459 /wwwlciwebcom

Leading Change:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201154935 /wwwlciwebcom

Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446347949 /wwwlciwebcom

The One to One Future : Building Relationships One Customer at a Time http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385485662 /wwwlciwebcom

To keep current with constantly evolving management and leadership issues like
the ones presented in this e-book, subscribe to my free monthly ezine,
The Managing-Leading Edge at: http://www.lciwebcom/MLEdge

Here you see the Top 5 Success Factors arranged in what looks like the crosshairs of a rifle or a radar screen. The point is to demonstrate that all factors are aligned, with Operations (what we do all day) in the center. But actually it does not matter that much how you position the 5 factors, since all are interrelated and important. Here’s how this concept can help you:

To keep current with constantly evolving management and leadership issues like
the ones presented in this e-book, subscribe to Buck Lawrimore's free monthly ezine,
The Managing-Leading Edge, at: http://www.lciwebcom/MLEdge

How To Maximize Your Success, Step by Step

This e-book would not be complete without revealing to you the step-by-step method I've developed over more than 20 years to help any organization get quickly on the path to greater success and Strategic Alignment. So here it is:

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" section earlier in this e-book for 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 chapter 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

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