Strategic accelerants – get through the mud

In his last 5 Minute Strategic Mindset newsletter, Andrew Hollo suggests three ways in which speed needs to be manifest in any business, or organisation.

Decision speed: Shortening the time needed to weigh up a direction towards a destination, against known criteria.

Speed of action: Directly acting, or delegating, immediately the decision is made: “What will change before the day is out?”

Speed of learning: Not every action will work. Therefore, speed up the cycle-time of evaluating action against desired direction. And, then, accelerate your course-correction.

This week’s newsletter follows up on his question, what are your deliberate accelerants?

A feature of great strategy is that it builds the conditions for its own success: as well as value creation, it addresses the how of culture and process. Here are some possible deliberate accelerants I’ve implemented successfully - perhaps one could be deployed in your strategy?

Addressing “Decision Speed” with Directional accuracy

A staff member leading a complex digital change introduced this to me while I was a CEO: we don’t need to know the full route; we need to know that we’re heading in the right direction. Standing at the crossroads teaches us nothing. Choosing to head “north-ish” enables us to find more information; we might need to veer east to get to the right destination, but we’ve made progress in the right direction.

This made sense to me, but I found it challenging to explain to the Board, who operated in a (not unreasonable) plan-decide-act mindset, which in this case was preventing implementation. (The answer, by the way, was to quantify the cost/risks of doing nothing vs the cost/risks of acting.)

Define a focus of effort on: building tolerance of ambiguity

Useful if: your organisation has perfectionist tendencies 

Addressing “Decision Speed” with Preliminary decisions

If you’re an Exec or Director, you’ll never be presented with an obvious, clear-cut decision. Because an easy choice would’ve been taken already.

Your core purpose is to take decisions to enable others to act, so just take a deep breath and make the call. It doesn’t even need to be right - just the best option from the evidence you have right now multiplied by your instincts. (Though some evidence suggests tossing a coin is a better method!)

Tell everyone and get going - and visibly own the potential correction. It’s a provisional decision and you’ll revisit to confirm or change in two weeks. With the decision made, the team dynamic shifts. Fretful debate stops, now you are the one accountable if the ship hits the rocks, and the doing uncovers information that thinking never would.

Encourage naysayers. They’ll bring you clearer reasoning, now everyone's out of the paralysis. Give them two weeks to bring you a proposal to change course. Be open to it: holding the complexity of possible outcomes is why you’re the leader. In a few weeks, review the decision and either confirm the course or change it. Often, through action, a ‘version 2’ or hybrid emerges that’s even stronger.

Define a focus of effort on: building bias to action

Useful if: your organisation gets stuck between multiple equally promising paths

Addressing “Speed of action” with assumptive approval

In the classic Prince2 project management methodology, each end-of-stage review includes approval of the next stage’s plan. This means the project leader has spent some of Phase A planning for Phase B – and to do so, they must assume Phase A will be approved. Of course the Executive/Board can say ‘no’. But when they say yes, the next piece of work begins the next day.

In a high-performing organisations, product and project teams pass the baton to already-running operations and marketing teams.

Define a focus of effort on: building leaders that read the runes and move early

Useful if: your organisation’s leaders take a long time to spin up when asked to act

Addressing “Speed of action” with better action requests

Asking for a decision is a leadership skill. It needs to be developed.

Requests for approval are often received by Boards as if they’re the first time the issue has ever been discussed. As an example, when I worked in Museums, and then again in Cemeteries, major contracts requiring Board approval would be met with ‘but why are we doing this project anyway?’. Board papers assumed Directors had perfect recall of all previous decisions, and failed to frame the decision in the context of previous decisions. Better is to include a ‘Decision Context’ section in the Board paper template summarising the project history. Once the Board are reminded they’ve already approved spending $20M, this is simply contractor A vs contractor B, the process becomes far easier.

This requires management to be very clear in their upwards communication. Context, proposal and request for decision are three distinct categories in your presentation and documentation. And you’ll get better responses if you front-load with the decision (I’m going to ask you to decide between three options today) rather than make them at the end (Having listened to my half hour presentation, what option should we pursue?). Everyone listens better if they know why it matters that they do.

Define a focus of effort on: developing clarity of communication in upward leadership

Useful if: your approval bodies ask for more information more often than take decisions

Addressing “Speed of Learning” by framing ‘no’ as a question

When a decision-maker just says ‘no’, the organisation stops. A no doesn’t allow any future movement. The proposer doesn’t learn, and doesn’t know what to do. Too often, a ‘no’ is accompanied with ‘we’ll tell you what to do when we’ve discussed in camera’. Don’t do this.

Frame a negative decision by stating what would make the next decision positive. Examples might include:

• We can’t approve this due to the upfront costs. Can you bring us an improved proposal with a better ROI?
• The partnership you propose carries too much reputation risk. Could you bring us a new proposal which reduces this risk, either with this partner or with a different one?
• This proposal might upset our core customer base, while not bringing in enough new customers. Please could you reassure us with market research and an outline sales strategy?
• I’ve never heard of a project like this, I don’t feel we understand it well enough to approve. Could you give us some benchmarks/examples to prove the concept?
• It’s a no due to the scale of risk. Is there a small proof-of-concept experiment we can do quickly and cheaply to prove the idea?
• We like this idea but not at this cautious level of ambition. Can you come back with a proposal on how this could be delivered at scale?

Define a focus of effort on: say no with a question that leads to a yes

Useful if: your leaders don’t know what to do when they don’t get approval

Addressing “Speed of Learning” by shifting KPIs to open questions

Since most decisions exist in a place of uncertainty and risk, develop greater skills in framing questions about the reservations. Approval should also include questions that encourage assurance and learning along the way. Too often Boards or Execs lay out Key Performance Indicators rather than Key Performance Questions.

Instead of monitoring: is Project X proceeding to schedule? ask for reflection on:

• what is most challenging in keeping Project X to the planned pace?

Instead of monitoring are stakeholders and partners supportive? ask for reflection on:

• what is our most supportive stakeholder loving about our work?
• what is our most sceptical partner saying they’re concerned about?

Instead of monitoring are we on budget? ask for reflection on:

• what do the team see as the biggest obstacles to delivering within budget?
• could you improve the project outcomes if you had another 10% budget/time?

 Instead of monitoring have we met quality criteria? ask for reflection on:

• are these still the right quality criteria to measure?
• are the team loving what they’re making?

The follow up to all of these is what do you recommend we do about that? And generally, the approval body should default to yes, please do that.

Define a focus of effort on discovery-weighted monitoring

Useful if: governance bodies know teams aren’t hitting the mark but they don’t know why.

Fin

If you really don’t know what to do, go to the beach.

Maybe twenty years ago, in an interview process for an Exec role at the Natural History Museum, London, the final shortlisted candidates were invited to present to all staff. All were asked the same questions, including how they would steer complex creative decision-making. One candidate told a great story.

He had been responsible for a group of public servants working with a design agency on how to develop a stand for trade show to ‘show off’ British-made products. Reputations on the line, but they were stuck. Their research didn’t help, the ideas weren’t landing, and the deadline to produce collateral was scant days away.

Staring failure in the face, at 9.30 in morning, that they were all getting out of the office and going to Brighton. Two hours of travel later, he has ten or so public servants awkwardly standing in office shoes on Brighton beach. One of them gets excited – reliving his childhood he persuades them to walk onto the pier and buy sticks of rock. Another sees the rainclouds rolling in from the sea and buys an umbrella. And a light-hearted and instantly recognisable British trade show stand was born, featuring deckchairs, umbrellas and with giveaways of Brighton rock.

Sometimes, when you feel stuck, stare defeat in the face and go to the beach anyway. Inspiration can be everywhere.

See you next biweek.

Paul

PS – he got the job!