Who speaks from your body?

When listening to talks and speeches by managers of mid-size and large corporations, I sometimes get the impression that somebody else is speaking from their bodies.

It is as if a “corporate virus” has taken over the manager’s brain.

Indicators:

• Meaningless corporate buzzwords are added to each sentence. “We will achieve these strategic goals by focusing relentlessly on our employees as our most important resource.”
• The presentation slides all look the same, with way too many words per slide or all compressed into the corporate design.
• The presenter does not connect at all personally to the audience.

The consequences for most organizations are messages that do not come across and missions that are not shared by the staff—in short, people who don’t understand each other in anything beyond pure technical facts.

Underperformance is the result.

Consequently, if you as a leader want to change this issue for the better, then take these steps:

• Clarify for yourself which corporate messages connect to you personally and then present them personally to your audience. Example: If you want to talk about the new customer centricity in your organization, then you might want to share a personal story about your latest bad treatment as a customer.
• Skip the standard PowerPoint presentations. Instead, tell more stories, use a flip chart, or use innovative slide templates (no problem for internal use).
• Align the presentation content to your style. If you are in introvert, then you should avoid jumping on a table and screaming, “Let’s all rock now!” Inauthenticity is the first thing everybody will notice. It undermines trust.

By applying these techniques, you will become an authentic person to whom people like to listen, instead of just a corporate message transmitter.

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This post is from our Friday noon memo #118. Interested in regular updates? Sign up here.
© Copyright by New Pace Consulting SA, 2011. All rights reserved.

About Captains and Jack Welch

The recent disaster of the cruise liner Costa Concordia off the Italian coast demonstrates how dramatic can be the shortcomings of the leadership culture:

• The accused captain certainly did not break the rules for the first time in his life. Nobody follows the rules all the time and then suddenly puts a few thousand passengers in danger by approaching the coast much too closely.
• He presumably has an excellent education and training record. Nobody is promoted to such a position overnight. Probably he owns numerous certificates proving his skills and competencies.
• During his career, he was assessed by several supervisors and colleagues, but apparently not on accountability.

Consequently, we may assume that his professional qualifications are adequate. What’s missing?

Leadership guru Jack Welch implemented a simple matrix for the assessment of General Electric’s managers: each one had to demonstrate business performance AND adherence to the corporate values. Even the best sales manager was fired if he or she did not behave according to the core values.

Either the ocean carrier does not apply such basics in its organization or it overlooked the issue repeatedly−or both.

Accidents like this disaster happen every day–fortunately mostly without physical victims.

Leaders drive their business units or even whole organizations into the ground because, although excellent technically, they lack the discipline of values, are not able to appraise the overall situation, and do not master the consequences of their actions.

I think we need more courage to implement real accountability in organizations, instead of increasing the number of experts who know everything but cannot judge correctly and ignore basic values.

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This post is from our Friday noon memo #117. Interested in regular updates? Sign up here.
© Copyright by New Pace Consulting SA, 2011. All rights reserved.

How to avoid execution

Much has been written about the execution gap: Too many good intentions never get implemented.

Estimates and several studies show that up to 80% of strategies remain unexecuted. Even if you lower this number, there is a tremendous amount of unexecuted strategies and plans created in leadership teams around the globe. What is the reason?

In many organizations, leaders and managers receive more rewards for strategies and plans than for successful execution. This culture leads to an increasing number of strategies and plans with little to no execution.

Here are some tips for leaders who do NOT want their plans to be executed:

• You prepare a strategy document in fifty pages, cluttered and packed with details. If execution fails (and it likely will), you can blame your colleagues for failure.

• You put impressive-sounding personal objectives, such as “more collaboration,” “teamwork,” and the like in your performance management plans. Yet, nobody helps the staff really execute this. Nobody really measures the success. It is like wanting to construct a building, but not providing the instructions on “how to do it.”

• You are always too busy creating your next plans to improve your and your staff’s execution capabilities. No time for instructions!

As a leader, you have a choice:

Reduce planning exercises, PowerPoints, and talks.

Improve execution, work on clear instructions, and answer the question, “How?” Be generous in sourcing and providing help, sometimes externally.

Monday morning task:

Estimate how much time you spend on planning, reporting, PowerPoints and the like. Reduce the number of hours by half. Invest the released time in executing the planned changes or in helping your people turn the plans into reality.

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This post is from our Friday noon memo #116. Interested in regular updates? Sign up here.
© Copyright by New Pace Consulting SA, 2011. All rights reserved.

No time for decisions

Many managers and leaders feel insecure, and at times, scared, when it comes to making decisions.

Even though they are in their position for this very reason–to make decisions–leaders often experience discomfort and anxiety, as decision-making involves loosening of control, potential mistakes, and ambiguity.

The fear of consequences results in a behavior of refusal:

“I refuse to even listen to you because you might want to demand more of my time."

"Your new ideas might increase uncertainty."

"Your ideas for higher efficiency might require that I align with other departments.”

Here are three common decision-avoidance tactics that I see repeatedly practiced by managers:

1. The non-decision: Do nothing. Just wait and preserve the status quo. Typical statement: “I am too busy [to make a decision].” Note that making NO decision is also a decision.
2. The “pro-forma decision”: Decide something, leave it unclear and do not take care of its execution. The manager’s hope: People will see my good intentions; however, the failing execution is not my fault.
3. The forever-postponed decision: This is the favorite tactic of many. Ask your controller or other people to gather more data, get more information, and prepare another detailed PowerPoint presentation. Advanced tactics: hire expensive external consultants to do more analysis. This gives your delaying tactics even more credibility.

The culture of indecisiveness is a significant root cause of organizations’ underperformance.

As a leader, do not tolerate this behavior by yourself or your managers. Ask for all decisions to be made: “Will I be in a better position by postponing this?” If the answer is “no” (what it will be in most cases), then go and MAKE THAT DECISION NOW.

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This post is from our Friday noon memo #115. Interested in regular updates? Sign up here.
© Copyright by New Pace Consulting SA, 2011. All rights reserved.

How to kick-start 2012

The early bird catches the worm. The only non-reproducible resource is time, so start building your success in 2012 as early as possible. No matter if you plan something for your own career, organization, or personal life, always execute these steps, either for yourself, or with your leadership team:

1. Top three priorities. If you haven't already done so, write down your top three priorities for 2012: just three, no more. What do you definitely want to accomplish this year? Be specific, and ambitious but realistic. These goals must be part of your personal or corporate strategy.
2. Key execution activities. Define the execution activities for the first quarter of the year. Again, be very specific. Immediately assign due dates and responsible people to each task.
3. Specific measures of success. State the measures of success for each objective in the first quarter. Determine the target values.
4. First targets. Decide what you want to accomplish in January, and clarify the first concrete steps in the next week. Don't wait for another week to begin. Start now!
5. First results. Set up a first control point for the last week of January. This might be a meeting or just a check of progress toward your targets. What is important is to set up this milestone NOW.

Don't leapfrog. It is essential to do all five of the described steps, in this sequence.  Does this sound too simple? Believe it or not, ninety percent of people and organizations lose precious time during the first weeks of a year, and wonder about the success of those who move ahead.

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This post is from our Friday noon memo #114. Interested in regular updates? Sign up here.
© Copyright by New Pace Consulting SA, 2011. All rights reserved.

New Year Resolutions

An estimated ninety percent of new year resolutions never get executed. The same applies to organizational strategies, which, in many cases, resemble wishful thinking more than serious commitments.

Why is that?

1. A new year resolution is nothing more than a goal–and goals are accomplished only when executions are directly linked to them. A goal without an immediate execution plan is a dream. The same applies to strategies that remain intentions unless and until they are connected to specific implementation plans.
   
2. Setting goals and stating wishes is fun. Getting things done is work. Who among us would not prefer the former and wish to avoid the latter? The issue is that execution avoidance can become a part of the corporate culture, resulting in stagnation and decline.
   
3. Many cultures in society and business value announcements more than results. Each unrealistic promise of politicians as well as each PowerPoint slide deck represents a high probability of promises that will never turn into reality.

What to do?

1. ALWAYS set goals with concrete plans for execution, starting within the following week (or a month, in cases where there is an ambitious organizational objective).
   
2. For each resolution or goal, write down (the writing bit is important!) the first three execution steps, including due dates. Do this immediately after stating the goal. In corporate strategy meetings, insist on identifying these three steps without delay. Do not close the meeting before you have decided on them.
   
3. Start to act within one week, better yet, on the same day. Begin to do something, even if it involves taking only a micro step toward the goal. The first three steps are often the most difficult ones.

Happy new year! May your new year resolutions become true. Now you know how.

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This post is from our Friday noon memo #113. Interested in regular updates? Sign up here.
© Copyright by New Pace Consulting SA, 2011. All rights reserved.

My Holiday Wishlist

With year end approaching, I wish ...

1. Organizations will have more leaders and less managers.
2. People recognize that there are no limits to excellence, perfect service, and outstanding leadership. Excellence is more a question of commitment than capabilities.
3. All leaders and managers understand that their clarity of vision, strategy, and processes are not only “nice-to-have,” but also essential for employees’ commitment.
4. Managers focus more on real execution instead of endless concepts on PowerPoints.
5. CEOs understand that most people will give their best if the leadership team sends consistent signals and “walks the talk.”
6. HR does not hire the most adapted people but those who have inspiration and unique value to provide. Best leadership is NOT based on MBAs and the like.
7. Everybody understands that the main purpose of all organizations is to serve clients.
8. Every customer service representative realizes that response time is the number one satisfaction factor.
9. Leaders acknowledge that what is clear to them is not necessarily clear to others and that knowledge sharing and communications are the keys to success.
10. All meetings have clear objectives and documented next steps.
11. All decisions are real decisions and not just statements to be re-discussed.
12. More leaders step out of their comfort zone to achieve results that matter.

Happy Holidays!

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This post is from our Friday noon memo #112. Interested in regular updates? Sign up here.
© Copyright by New Pace Consulting SA, 2011. All rights reserved.

The surprising truth

All organizations, profit or nonprofit, large or small, exist for only one reason: to serve their customers (you can call them clients or beneficiaries). Only by serving your customers will you get an appropriate compensation and fulfill your mission. 

Does that sound too simple?

Then, why do so many leaders and managers (or those who think they are) ignore this simple fact in their jobs and their decisions on a daily basis?

Why do most organizations NOT focus on their customers – and, as a result, struggle with their businesses and blame other forces for their failure?

The list of poor practices is endless and includes many hotels, banks, telecommunication service providers, airlines, governments, and so on.

There are two key reasons:

1. A conscious decision to ignore customer needs to maximize short-term profit or to go after some political reasons. This can only work for a short while and in a monopoly situation.
2. Amateurism, uncertainty, arrogance, or all combined. This applies to most organizations. The underlying issue is that too many leaders are afraid to hear the answers when asking their customers about expectations, and have no idea what they will do with all the good ideas for improvement that they might receive. Isn’t it much easier to bury oneself in operational stuff and pass most of one’s time in internal meetings?

If you are really serious about the long-term success of your organization, then:

• Ask your customers systematically if and why they would buy again from you.
• Ask your staff regularly what they would do differently to serve the customers better.
• Each day, pick up the phone or write a personal (!) email to one of your customers and thank him or her for having used your services or products. Ask all leaders and managers in your organization to do the same.

The good news: It is never too late. Start next Monday.

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This post is from our Friday noon memo #111. Interested in regular updates? Sign up here.
© Copyright by New Pace Consulting SA, 2011. All rights reserved.

Do you walk your talk?

I just returned from a European summit of an organization that promotes the development of professional speaking and leadership skills worldwide. But when one of the honored senior executives stood up to deliver a keynote on leadership, I saw a boring PowerPoint show with lists of bullets.

The issue here is that the executive obviously does not take the goals of the organization he represents too seriously.

Therefore, he undermines people’s trust and confidence in the purpose of the whole organization.

If you are a leader, be aware that you must demonstrate credibility every day.

A couple of ideas:

• If your goal is high performance, then run EACH meeting with clear objectives, on time, and with documented next steps.
• If your goal is high employee commitment, then provide your staff with a clear vision and strategy that they can easily understand and buy into.
• If your goal is more simplicity, then streamline business processes. Be able to explain your business model on one page and to summarize your strategy on two pages.
• If your goal is faster response time to customers, then answer each internal and external email request within several hours and respond to quick questions within 90 minutes.

Demonstrating your authenticity with these little steps is worth 1,000 times more than any big transformation concept.

Start now. Walk your talk!

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This post is from our Friday noon memo #110. Interested in regular updates? Sign up here.
© Copyright by New Pace Consulting SA, 2011. All rights reserved.

Your biggest performance potential

It is easy to run an executive meeting and discuss a new marketing strategy on fifty or more slides. It is also easy to speculate why things are not working as intended, why “the numbers” are not as expected and who should work on what to improve the situation.

This is where most executive meetings end. Everybody is happy that the meeting is over, and we can go back “to work” (nota bene: a meeting is often not perceived as work).

Not much will happen. Just before the next meeting, somebody must again prepare some PowerPoint slides for presentation and discussion.

This meeting scenario is what I see over and over again, at all levels and in all types of organizations.

The effect of such meetings is close to zero, just a waste of time and energy. Scrap them.

Instead, do the following:

1. Before setting up a meeting, ask: “What will be different after the meeting?” The answer to this question is your meeting objective. If you don’t find an answer, then don’t run a meeting.
2. Ask: “To achieve these objectives, do I need a joint agreement of several people?” Only schedule a meeting if your answer is yes.
3. Invite only people who (a) contribute to the decision, (b) will be accountable for execution of the decisions made, or (c) provide needed backup information for making the decision.
4. During the meeting, discuss ONLY those topics that directly relate to the achievement of the objectives. I see many meetings derailing at this point.
5. Most importantly, NEVER ever leave a meeting without WRITTEN and agreed next steps: WHO does WHAT WHEN? And WHO monitors this action list? Ninety percent of meetings fail at this point, which makes all the above efforts useless.

Don’t cheat yourself by hoping for good meetings. Instead, CREATE them.

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This post is from our Friday noon memo #109. Interested in regular updates? Sign up here.
© Copyright by New Pace Consulting SA, 2011. All rights reserved.