Wayne Wilson on Companies in Transition

Planning pitfalls for the unwary

Developing effective and executable strategic plans is hard, especially if one of the goals is to bring about significant organizational change.

In a recent article, Why Strategic Plans Fail, Shamis and Nisberg list some of the factors which can cause your great sounding plan to slide off the road into the ditch. They include:

• Change is always hard
• Change threatens those invested in the status quo
• Insufficient buy-in during plan development
• Organizational "short term-ism"
• Founder resistance to change
• Lack of concrete goals and accountability

Truly effective strategic planning requires:

• Clear executive sponsorship
• Evidence-based analyses
• Broad organizational participation and buy in
• Executable strategies with clear implementation plans and accountability
• Extensive alternative scenario planning to prepare for changing circumstances

And remember the old saying often attributed to Dwight Eisenhower: "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything."

 

Are you looking for "unicorns" in all the right places?

"Not to be confused with unicorn companies—startups valued at $1 billion or more—“unicorn” employees... are staff who possess a unique set of qualities that make them extremely rare and valuable. Like actual unicorns, they’re hard to find, but once hired, offer up enormous benefits in the workplace."

- Ryan Holmes, CEO at Hootsuite

Read Ryan's article on LinkedIn.

The "network effect" Is a key driver of prosperity

Technology companies have for years demonstrated the economic multiplier effect of increasing numbers of users in a given network: the larger the number of users, the greater the benefit to individual users. Facebook and other social networks are prime examples.

Cities have similarly been the centers of economic and intellectual development throughout history because they bring together people, resources, and ideas which leverage each other to create more economic value than is possible in smaller, more isolated areas. Young people leave the farm and go  to the city for a reason: better jobs and greater opportunity. 

Thomas Sowell's Wealth, Poverty and Politics builds on extensive international empirical research to demonstrate his thesis that it is the confluence of many factors including geography, demography, and knowledge (their network effect) which drives increasing prosperity while isolation and other forms of separation frequently result in lower prosperity or poverty. 

Sowell's work does not bode well for the economic  futures of Brexiteers and other nationalist political movements.

GRIT makes the difference

“There is an unfortunate myth that success is mainly determined by something called ‘ability.’ But research indicates that our best measures of these qualities are unreliable predictors of performance in academics or employment. Psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth says that what really matters is a quality she calls ‘grit’ — an abiding commitment to work hard toward long-range goals and to persevere through the setbacks that come along the way. [emphasis added] One aspect of grit that I think is particularly important is the willingness to take a stand when circumstances demand it. Such circumstances may not be all that frequent, but in every life, there will be crucial moments when having the courage to stand up for what you believe will be immensely important.”

- Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve chairwoman, at New York University Commencement

Doing is everything

"What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do."
-- John Ruskin,
   British art critic, writer and philanthropist

You are never too old

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."

--C.S. Lewis,

  Irish writer and theologian

Driving high achievement

High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation."

-- Charles Kettering,
    American inventor

Board service: finding your niche

Board service can be professionally, intellectually, and sometimes financially rewarding. Over the ten years I have served on public company boards, people have often asked me, how did you get / find a public company board to join? But that's really the wrong question.  

The better question is what do you have to contribute and who can benefit from your skills and experience. The "who do you know?" of years past has become "what do you know?" as well as "who do you know?"

Today's boards are frequently selecting new directors based on assessments of the skills and experience existing directors believe the board needs to add to perform effectively.

For example, Citigroup recently added two new directors to strengthen the board's technology and financial oversight functions. ARIAD just announced the addition of a prominent clinical research scientist, and Hologic recently recruited the former chairman and CEO of a leading biomedical testing company. And chemistry, or fit, will always be an important consideration when recruiting a new director.

So what are boards looking for these days?

A recent article published on the Harvard Business Review Blog Network listed the following top three commonly missing skill sets based on a global survey of more than 1,000 corporate directors:

1. Technology
2. HR-Talent management
3. International-Global

suggesting a greater focus of director recruiting in these areas going forward.

They would join three other prized skill sets still sought by boards:

• Industry knowledge
• Strategy
• Financial-audit

Director candidates offering two or more of these attibutes will be highly sought after.

Leadership Lessons from Gettysburg

"A leader must communicate, inspire, execute today's plan while thinking about tomorrow's and all the while considering how to better himself or herself. All of this collected wisdom must then be passed on, so that there are leaders in place for the future."

- Ed Ruggero, "Battled Tested Leadership: What Gettysburg Can Teach Today's Financial Executives," Financial Executive, July/August 2013

 

Ruggero offers fascinating insights about what really happened at the Battle of Gettysburg. Today's business leaders seldom experience the catalyzing fire of life and death struggles on the battlefield, but we can all learn from the experiences and mistakes of the leaders tested in those fires.

Roggero's leadership lessons:

• Support decisive leaders

• Coach according to the needs of the team member

• Teach creativity and support it with resources
  

• Practice making compelling business cases with your team
  

• Inspire and engage your team
  

Focusing on the things that matter

"...researchers broadly agree that four major points have a big impact on making people happy:

• Control over what you're doing.
• Progress in what you're pursuing.
• Connections to other people.
• Having purpose and meaning.

That's it."

- How to Be Happier With Your Money [regardless of the amount]

 

Holiday periods are often a time for reflection as well as relaxation. Freed temporarily from the daily schedule, these are times when we can think about what we're doing, why we're doing it, and even whether to keep doing it.

We have a finite amount of time, and for the most part, we are the ones who decide how we spend it.

Are you consciously choosing your path or are you just being carried along?