In a recent post, we began a discussion of the lessons for owner/CEOs of companies in transition from Alan Lafley's turnaround experiences as CEO of P&G. Successful companies have "aims and aspirations" as do successful people. Lafley argues for "achievable aspirations" in two ways. First, a company's operational and financial goals must be:
- realistic - they must be seen to be achievable by your people, while
- stretching the organization to perform at a higher level - status quo performance is not acceptable.
Lafley also employed a common management device here - he set internal management targets that were higher than the targets communicated to the larger organization and to Wall Street, thereby increasing the likelihood of achieving the public targets.
Second, Lafley reined in the company's big-picture aspirations by:
- defining the company's core businesses and markets (where we will invest and where we won't), and
- communicating those definitions clearly and continuously at a "Sesame Street" level.
In addition, to dealing with the sheer scale of P&G (100,000 employees), such clarity of communication disabuses people of wayward notions and allows them to focus on the critical business issues at hand. Managers and employees, like teenagers, crave boundary setting and leadership.
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