Measures: Good or Evil

Back in my days as a corporate planner, our department used to joke about whether we would use our powers for good or evil that day. We used to assign good and evil days.  On Week 1, Monday, Wednesday and Friday were good, and Tuesday and Thursday were evil.  Then we would switch the rotation the next week.

We would joke about it and then go off to meet our clients to help them unravel the mysteries of their respective universe, because that was our job. We held in our hands, and by the power vested in us, the responsiblity of helping to make things better in the world of work.

One of the mysteries of the universe leaders face is that of measures. Usually questions like how many, which ones, how to use them and how to measure them come into play.  

But there are other questions about leadership integrity that are not so easy, or popular, to ask. Is the leadership measuring to reveal issues and opportunities, or measuring to hide them? Are the leaders up to the challenge of finding the truth in the issues, or hiding the truth?

On the question of leadership integrity, 99.9% of the time, the answers to the questions of are: yes, no, yes, no. 

I have always been an advocate that measures in balanced scorecards hold the key to universal harmony in the business when the measure expresses the intent to improve a given situation.

If this were expressed in a linear process, it would look like this:

1. Describe your Big Hairy Audacious Goal 
2. Set Objectives 
3. Research to find out what the current state looks like and the issues 
4. Establish strategy to resolve the issue with desired and specific measurable outcomes. 
5. Communicate it and make sure everyone understands, is on side, and ready to roll. 
6. Implement. 
7. Measure against the strategy.  
8. Report 
9. Begin again . . .

Properly chosen measures inform the decision makers about important trends that could be occurring so that decision makers can determine the course of action.   Measures are used to gauge the performance of a given strategy and strategies are employed to create a desired outcome.  

For example, if the objective is to increase employee morale, and actions are taken, the measures should tell the story of whether the strategy and its application are working or not. 

In this scenario, if employee satisfaction measured before the strategy was 52% and 49% after the strategy, one might surmise the following: 

1. That not enough time as lapsed for the strategies to take hold.
2. That the strategies are counter productive to the objective. 
3. That perhaps the issues are misunderstood and a new strategy is needed.

In my experience, if the executive is truly concerned about the actual issues behind the results, and the measure is used for "good"  then the outcome (49%) would not be a surprise because they would know whether the strategy is having any impact at all prior to measurement. They would be adjusting the strategy progressively to create a sustainable and positive impact.   

To continue the analogy of "good versus evil", sometimes measures are used for the latter. That is to say, sometimes measures are set for appearances, but with no intention of making a difference.

Employers who are in this camp may change the measure as opposed to the strategy and possibly justify their decision by saying that the measure was not the correct measure, or the measurement tool was all wrong, or that the receivers of the strategy were out of line in some way. 

A shell game ensues at this point making the truth hard to discern. If the measurement tool were based on the strategy, then the measure is of the strategy itself, and the creators of the strategy are by design guilty or to be celebrated for their strategy, except when external reasons are affixed to its failure, in which case, neither the measure, nor the strategy, nor their creators are responsible for its failure.

The problem with this line of reasoning is this: every strategy assumes the environment can shift, so it is expected that the strategy adjusts to these challenges.  Failure to adjust is a failure to lead. 

Sometimes strategy measures reveal uncomfortable findings, such as lack of trust in leadership and lack of communication regarding direction. These are clearly top leadership issues. Findings of this nature create an opportunity to prove leadership integrity.

Enter the good and evil conundrum and the role of governance accountability. Given that human beings can make mistakes from time to time, it begs the question, where does the final word come from on the measures of the company?

According to good governance practice, the governing body accountability (Board, Shareholder, etc.) has a responsiblity to ask questions about the actions of the leadership team and its strategies, and to make the changes in leadership when strategies continue to deliver ineffective results. This is called Performance Management. 

  

Business Planning: What horses know that cowboys don't.

I love working with entrepreneurs and start ups for one reason. It is a time of absolute freedom and possibility. Like a horse running free, we stretch our imagination on the open road of what's next. It is exhilarating, exciting, terrifying and rewarding.

When we start a business, we first tend to focus on the product or service that we think we should be delivering. Our focus is on how to make money.  So we put our energy into getting the product into the market and find customers who want to buy it or use the service we are offering.

At the end of the day, that exercise of developing the menu of products, services and prices does not a business make.

The business is made by the way it is constructed - with the vision of a defined future in mind.

I always say that a business should be built in its desired state from the beginning. For example, if you envision centre of well being and wellness, then the business plan must be about what would sustain that centre in its envisioned state as opposed the "here and now".

It needs to tell the story in a progressive and logical manner that begins at the end with the vision, expresses the day to day focus (the mission), the way the participants interact and act (values) and how it stands out in the market place (strategic positioning).

The plan must explain the environment in which the business functions so that risks and opportunities can be identified.  The plan must have goals that focus on the areas that will make the business successful - like its people and culture, focus on clients, business management and financial sustainability. Within each goal, measures are set, risks are identified, objectives are set and strategies formulated.

Plans are road maps that chart the future course and help you to control and manage your money and your message, and inspire your staff, your customers, your suppliers and maybe even your mother.

Some people say the plan is in their head. To that I say, that's great if you don't need anyone else to work it with you.

Others try to run their business cowboy style and hope for the best with no vision, strategy or structure.  That's a bad idea. Failure is imminent because customers, suppliers and employees will revolt, your time and money will begin to work against you, your quality and product will suffer, and then the bottom line crashes.

So before you get on that horse and ride, remember that starting at the end is the only way to begin in order to create a business that has a chance of being successful.

Time travelling on open roads and stubble.

I like open roads, blue skies, the smell of dirt, the feeling of my boots sinking in the dirt after a rain, the smell of a fresh green growth and the crunch of stubble in the fall. 

I have a penchant for white steeples against the blue sky and the sight of an open field takes my breath away every time.  

My inspiration for the endless sky comes from the rural playgrounds of Saskatchewan. From this place called West Bend, Saskatchewan where I spent my summers as a child with my grandparents, my parents and my brother and sister, I learned to think big.

I remember running through the fields of wheat at harvest, chasing chickens, gathering eggs and playing ship on an old hay wagon that sat in the middle of our farm yard. 

To this day, I can't pick up an egg without remembering my grandmother's directions: "slide your hand under the chicken, palm up, then gently turn your hand and take the egg".  

Sadly, some of us never get to see these places as more people have moved into the cities over the years. West Bend, once a bustling town is now very small in population. Nevertheless, these towns and villages are the patchwork of our history that was borne out of hardship, horizons and freedom.

This hankering for freedom has been with me as long as I can remember, which I why I was never very good at jobs that confined me to a desk or a single activity. My work has been about helping business owners, entrepreneurs, founders, corporations and non-profits reach out and touch the future, and write about it so that others could see it too. 

That's why I do strategy. It's all about not only seeing the horizon, but reaching out and touching it. It's about bringing people together to make things happen. It's about asking why, and how. It's about seeing the big picture and making connections and adding new dimensions.  

I would love to plan in an open field.

I do bring the open sky into my planning.  I take my planners into a journey of tomorrow, today.  We stand in the future, and speak about it in the present tense. But we are not dreaming. We are stretching and we are realistic. We talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. The things that work. The things that don't. The things that will be, and what we need to do to make that happen. 

Not only is it an exciting way to move forward, it is the only way to move forward.

My next adventure is to explore the world of community based planning and economic development to work with cities, towns and community based businesses  to find their new horizons.

Gone are the days of secret strategy sessions and closed door meetings.  These days, people are engaged in the decisions that our elected officials and business leaders make.  We want to understand how they got there, why, who was consulted, what they thought and why, what were the options, what was chosen and why.

This is apparent in the stadium announcement at Saturday's Saskatchewan Roughrider Game where we heard we will have a new stadium in Regina by 2017.  Of course we cheered. We love the Saskatchewan Roughriders and we love to watch them play. In fact, most of Canada loves them, so share the love. But getting there was tough slugging. I think our politicians and bureaucrats heard the message loud and clear.

But community based planning is not just for the stadiums and football teams. Community based planning is about creating viable futures that are socially, environmentally and economically responsible and sound.

Strategy is a conversation to be had with the people who have a stake in the future, so it's not meant to hide in a board room. Nor is the point to produce a document that never sees the light of day.

This is about inspiration. Engagement. Possibility. Performance. Alignment. Clarity.  Strategy is an exciting conversation for real people, who really care about the future, and who want to be part of making it happen.  

I am so lucky.  I get to help make those conversations happen. There is nothing like seeing the light of possibility shine when we open our eyes to it and dare to time travel over the open roads and stubble into tomorrow. 

Do you have vision, or a craving for cheese cake?

There are times when I actually see a flash of brilliance in an entrepreneur's vision that goes beyond mere money and material growth to making the world a better place. When this happens, I know exactly why I love helping bring great ideas to life.  






I get excited about vision because quite often it is desire that shows up to the meeting.  So how do you know if you have a desire, or a vision?  Here are some indicators. 


Vision perseveres.
Desire cuts in and out, like a love / hate relationship with chocolate and cheesecake. 
Vision finds a way. 
Desire wants to know the way. 
Vision is the inspiration from which everything flows. 
Desire needs to be justified, manufactured, defined and aligned. 
Vision is about making a difference in the world. 

Desire is often defined as something material, earthly and in some way individually cathartic. 

In the past 20 years of working with organizations who are either in search of the light, defining the light or following the light, I have found that good thinkers, good thinking and good intentions almost always leads to great visions. 


Leadership is about having vision, and visionaries are not necessarily the promoted. It is also not true that all leaders via position on the org chart are leaders. Organizational performance structures and top - down leadership styles tends to exclude real visionaries from coming forward. Top down hierarchical structures can foster an environment of control. Control leads back to desire, and desire wants what desire wants, hence we begin to feel a sense of entitlement. And so the story goes. Companies inject employee satisfaction tactics when all they really need to do is lead and inspire with vision. 


'Finding visionaries is not that easy.  But when I do come face to face with a true visionary who has a desire to make a difference in people's lives, that's the sweet spot where the sun shines the brightest. When I have experienced this, I know that I have seen a rare light, and everything else thereafter dims in comparison.


Mama always told me not to look into the eye's of the sun.

But mama, that's where the fun is.

 - Manfred Mann's Earth Band. 

Thumper's Rule for On-Line Etiquette

When I am researching a topic, or helping a client with a communication plan, I often research the on-line chatter to discern what the issues might be that are not often communicated in formal communications, like news releases. Reading some of these comments can be akin to watching a train wreck.

These days, there are thousands of ways to get an opinion out there in the blink of an eye. I am often taken aback by what people will say without understanding the impact their words might be having.

Expletives are not the worst of it. I have read comments that people should be fired or publicly humilated in some way.  The comments that make me wince are those that demand we end a person's life, or assume people are lazy and deserving of suffering.

In the world wide web of never ending access to information and communication, it is important to remember that what we say on-line lives on forever, and chances are, the commenter does not have the full picture at hand to make an intelligent, helpful comment.

Regardless of the fact that we may be interacting with the world in a room by ourselves with a computer and keyboard or a 1 x 2 square inch screen on a smart phone, it is important to remember that we are all connected as people and what we say may be personal and hurtful to someone. I wonder if the people who leave these comments would say the same thing if the person they were affecting was sitting in front of them.

There is a rule of thumb in communication that I learned when I was about five years old.  It precedes the Internet and it goes like this:

"If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all".  - Thumper

Virtues of a rock and a rolling stone

Ponder the virtues of a rock. It is an inanimate, non living thing that seems to just sit there. Not so, says the rock. Rocks erode, crack, crumble and wash away. They become mountains, and then filter streams. Rocks are the sands upon which we walk. Rock causes quakes. They destroy and they protect. There is no such thing as a good rock or a bad rock; a rock does not decide. It just is. And we accept that and respect its power.

People are made of flesh, bones, hearts and souls. Our existence is both fragile and powerful. Unlike the rock, we can take some control over our change. We can decide what we want to change to and from. We can decide what we want to accept or not. We can decide what to put into our mouths. When to exercise. What to read. What to think. Who to like and who to ignore. We have the power to walk away from a bad situation, and the power to stay.

People have the power to alter another person by the things that are said and done, and we each have the power to choose how it affects us. The only thing we cannot control is time and the fact that every day we get older. But we are powerful, more powerful than the rock.

The thing about people, however, is that we seem to lack knowledge of ourselves. We all know someone with untapped potential. We all know that we ourselves feel that way. Unlike the rock, we are capable of feeling fear. Some philosophers refer to this as ego. As mere mortals, we are flawed, imperfect and fraught with the free will, such that we can create havoc or heaven for our self and others.

I like to think that most people aspire to be good people who act with the best intentions. I like to believe that we are all in this together. But sometimes things happen that can weaken us and test our resolve. That's when we demonstrate our the virtue of a rock.

I ain't no template girl.

The other day, somebody asked me for a planning template, to which I replied, no thank you.

The truth is, planning templates are available literally at your finger tips.  So fill your boots, I say, because there are thousands of them at your disposal on the world wide web.

But here's what the template experience looks like, in case you are wondering.

You sit down to your computer, cat at your side and best intentions.  You download the template and you begin.

The introduction tells you all about the benefits of the business plan - creating a clear path for the future, mapping out goals, objectives and targets and a sprinkle of initiatives, topped off by a healthy and satisfying budget.

The first section asks for your vision.  You stare at it, your fingers grazing the keyboard, in search of a thought. Something grandiose.  A cause worth fighting for. Something that will get you out of bed in the morning. Something in the neighborhood of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.

You google "Vision", and lines and lines of vision references pop up about how to create visions and great visions of our time. You read about them and their dreams, and you think, what the heck is mine? What does this have to do with cupcakes or fixing cars? Who needs a vision anyway, you say to yourelf. I just want to sell cupcakes or build cars.

It wants to know your Mission now.  What the heck is the difference between a vision and mission, you ask yourself.  You google mission.  A myriad of references pop up on your screen. Wikipedia says it is a grape, a practice, a statement and a style of furniture. Sigh.

Values.  That's easy. The top three that you heard your former boss talk about fall from your mind to your finger tips - honesty, integrity, respect.  Eager to fill in blanks, you go on.

Goals. Objectives. Measures. Targets.  What is the difference? How do I know, you ask. You walk away, frustrated.

Later, someone asks you for a business plan, and you say, "Oh, yea, we are working on it". The fact is, "we" are stuck and in "our" own way.

Here's the problem and the solution.

First, we think creating a business plan is a one time event. Business planning is a process. Rarely do we sit down and bang it out. There is work involved.

While a template tells what the components of a plan are, it does nothing more than that. Creating a business plan is not facilitated by a template. You actually need a facilitator - someone to guide the process, challenge your thinking, and help you in the documentation process.

Business plans are technical documents that represent your business mind. To put the best foot forward, I would recommend using a business planning facilitator who actually knows how to get from A to Z, from Aspirations to the bottom line and who can bring in experts as needed, such as accountants, lawyers and other professionals.

Your business planning facilitator should have a resume of having created actual business plans for numerous organizations. If you need a business plan, and you and your template are not getting along, give me a call.