Strategic planning methodologies are like shoes – one size does not fit all.

Some companies use a top-down, autocratic approach, where the plan gets created by a small group of senior managers and handed down to the rest of the organization. Some prefer a more democratic approach, with employees at all levels contributing their ideas and input to the plan. Most companies employ a hybrid of these two models.

The best approach for your company depends on several factors, such as size, industry, culture, type of workforce and management style. Regardless of which approach you choose, however, every strategic plan needs five key elements in order to achieve the intended results.

1. Mission. This defines why you exist as an organization. Specifically, it tells others (not just those in the organization) why you exist. Ideally, it describes some noble purpose that is both inspirational and aspirational, so that it instills pride in all those connected with the organization.
2. Guiding principles. Also called organizational attributes, these describe how you expect people to behave with each other and with other stakeholder groups. Guiding principles broadly define which types of behaviors are acceptable and which behaviors will not be tolerated. In particular, they describe how you will behave when faced with difficult situations or challenges.
3. Value propositions. These explain the value you provide to your organization’s different stakeholder groups, both internal and external. For example, why do customers buy from you? Why do employees come to work for your organization? What kind of return can shareholders expect? How does your community benefit from the work you do?
4. Destination points. These identify where your organization wants to go within a specified time frame. This is perhaps the most critical element in the whole process because the more clearly you define your desired end state, the greater your chances of getting there.
5. Areas of focus/strategies. These define, in a broad sense, how the organization will get to where it wants to go. They are the three to five areas everyone should be focused on to get to the destination points. What cuts across several destination points; where should the majority of energy be focused; what must everyone keep in mind as they make investments in people and other resources; and, what guides you on what to do and not to do are the core questions answered.

These five elements form an essential foundation for the strategic planning process. If even one of these bedrock elements is missing, your chances for success become marginal at best.

Once these elements are in place, the next step involves action planning and breakthrough modeling to determine what it will take to get to where you want to go. Here is where you get down to the nitty-gritty to figure out what organizational capabilities (systems, tools, processes, people and technologies) are needed to reach your destination points. Effective strategic planning also requires that you set goals and define team and individual accountabilities, as these link the big picture to individual goals and competencies.

Ultimately, strategic planning is like a jigsaw puzzle – all the pieces must be in place in order to complete the picture. The mission and guiding principles inspire and energize employees, while creating pride and connection throughout the organization. The value propositions provide a touchstone for staying focused on what matters to stakeholders. The destination points provide clear goals and milestones that provide the big picture employees want and need. And the strategies/areas of focus create alignment and ensure that everyone in the organization is working toward the same goal.

Have you got your five must have’s in place? And is everyone clear on what they are?

Today’s business leaders understand the importance of growing their people. They know that with so many demands on everyone’s time, employees won’t acquire the knowledge and skills needed to move the company forward unless management makes people development a strategic priority.

Accordingly, smart leaders take the time to set clear performance expectations with each person they manage. They review performance on an ongoing basis. And they devise action steps to develop the appropriate knowledge, skills and competencies for each position.

But what about your own growth and development? Do you leave it to chance or do you engage in a similar process with yourself?

When working with clients, I recommend a quarterly self-review process that involves asking a series of questions designed to help leaders assess what they have learned over the previous three months, how they are doing compared to their stated goals, and how they can improve their performance going forward. The result is a personal development scorecard that offers a quick and easy way to assess your own performance while identifying areas to enhance your leadership and people management skills.

What questions should you ask?

The Short View

The short view focuses on what you have learned during the most recent quarter. Ask yourself:

• How have I stayed focused on key strategic goals?
• How much progress did I make toward my destination?
• What didn’t work and why?
• Which of my assumptions do I need to challenge or change?
• How did I overcome any barriers?
• Knowing what I know now, what could I have done differently?

The Long View
The long view identifies patterns and trends you noticed during the past several quarters. These can be especially valuable in identifying areas where you seem to be stuck or making little progress.

• How do my current competency, skill or knowledge levels compare with three months ago? One year ago?
• How are my abilities helping me get to my destination?
• Am I enjoying the journey?
• What progress over the last year can I feel good about?
• What challenges keep arising?
• What underlying beliefs do I need to change in order to resolve these challenges?

The Context
The context examines how your actions relate to factors in the environment. Here you start to look at what you can change that will improve your ability to achieve results through others.

• What around me, such as people, tools and process, is helping me perform at my best?
• What people or situations do I handle best?
• What people or situations present the toughest challenge for me?
• What are the common elements among those people or situations?
• If I change my underlying beliefs about them, how would it help?
• What can I do differently in the future? Am I willing to do that?

To be effective, a personal development scorecard must be employed once a quarter without exception. If too much time elapses between the self-reviews, it can be hard to spot trends, patterns and causal relationships.

To make it easier to follow through on a consistent basis:

• Make a firm appointment with yourself. Set up a year’s worth of personal development scorecard meetings and write them in ink on your calendar. They don’t have to be lengthy – a 15 minute pause can work.
• Keep a brief learning journal. Writing down your learning in some sort of organized fashion helps you to keep perspective, remember lessons and demonstrate your progress. Highlight the key points in bullet fashion, adding minimal detail where necessary. The longer and more detailed the journal, the less likely you will be to keep up with it.
• Make it personally meaningful. This is your personal record; don’t worry about how others do it.
• Have fun with it. A personal development scorecard doesn’t have to be a formal or lengthy process. Make it something you look forward to and enjoy.
• Track the most important lessons. For example, keep a running list of the 10 most important things you need to remember to remain focused, or a list of your prioritized competencies, skills and knowledge areas.
• Don’t overlook the positive. Note your accomplishments and give yourself credit for making progress in key areas.

One of your key roles as a leader is to guide and direct your employees’ professional development. You’ll be a lot more effective when you take the time to direct your own growth as well and it will speak volumes to others about how critical it is to ongoing success.

Have you ever attended a meeting where people promised important deliverables but never followed through? Conversely, have you ever committed to a deadline knowing full well that you couldn’t meet it but that no one would hold you accountable for it?

According to recent research, 78% of all company leaders identify “getting the right things done” as a significant problem in their companies. It’s not surprising, then, that accountability has become a critical competency missing in many companies.

Some of this is due to the fast-paced nature of today’s business environment. With so many demands on our time and attention, we can barely keep up with the never-ending crises of the day; much less accomplish everything we have committed to doing. But a lack of accountability also stems from the absence of a (formal and informal) performance management system. Without such a system in place, clearly connected to strategic goals and objectives, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to engage people in following through on doing the right things in a timely manner.

A structured performance management process can strongly support ongoing efforts to build accountability into the organizational culture. It helps to keep everyone aligned with the strategic goals, and it focuses people’s attention on what needs to get done, by when. Without it, management can easily get off track and forget to measure and reward what we have told everyone is important.

Specifically, an effective performance management system:

• Communicates how individuals contribute to business success and how they will be evaluated.
• Aligns individual goals with key business priorities, resulting in greater focus, more efficient use of resources, and less time wasted on non-value added activities.
• Provides a comprehensive system for recognizing what gets done and reinforcing how it is achieved.
• Creates a discipline of measuring progress against specific goals and making adjustments as necessary.

In most companies, performance management consists of a once-a-year performance review session that is dreaded by manager and employee alike. To achieve the desired results (i.e., improved accountability), performance management needs to be an ongoing activity, not a one-time event. It requires two-way conversations between manager and employee so that both are working from the same page in terms of what is being managed and how it is being managed.

A good performance management process involves five key steps:

1. Establish Goals. Start by linking what needs to get done to the strategic planning framework. Align the competencies, skills and knowledge of the employee to create specific action items that will guide the employee’s behavior going forward.
2. Plan Development. Discuss short- and long-term development needs, including agreement on how and when development will occur, as well as prioritization of development to support more immediate business needs. Create a plan to accomplish the required and the desired learning and growth.
3. Take Action. Provide ongoing and frequent direction and support while the employee applies energy and focus toward accomplishing the goals.
4. Assess Performance. Evaluate the progress being made toward the goals and provide ongoing feedback to the employee on a formal and informal basis.
5. Provide Reward. Acknowledge and reward employees through organizational programs, local recognition, and other approaches tailored to individual employees. This may also involve consequences and disciplinary action for poor performance.

Who has time to do all this on a regular basis?

Consider the consequences of not doing it: Lack of trust between employees and management; declining productivity and lost business due to missed deadlines and broken commitments; lower employee morale and higher turnover. These are just some of the more obvious consequences of a poorly implemented performance management system.

Perhaps the most overlooked, and costliest, of consequences is the loss of top performers. When superstars see poor performers getting a free ride because no one holds them accountable, they start looking for another place to work. And make no mistake, even in a bad economy, top performers can almost always find a job elsewhere.

Performance management is a joint effort. Leaders, managers and employees all have a role to play in creating performance excellence. Having an effective process in place, coupled with the skills and abilities to conduct it effectively, to manage performance makes it easier for everyone to perform well in their roles and to achieve your organization’s strategic goals.

Don’t spend time doing it over! Pause and focus on getting this basic right from the beginning.

We are pleased to have another guest blog, this time by Amy Rasdal, founder of Rasdal Associates, Inc. and Billable at the BeachTM.

Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to say “no”? Some people find it nearly impossible and end up with too many commitments. We’ve all done it at one time or another. Do you ever say “yes” and then regret it?

Most organizations struggle more with saying “no” than saying “yes”. Oddly enough it’s far more risky to say “no” than to say “yes”. What if you were the one who said “no” to the billion dollar idea? Isn’t it less risky to say “yes” to everything? Of course I’m exaggerating the point…

It is important to say “no” earlier rather than later because we’ve learned that to wait until something reaches a higher value stage and then abort due to lack of capacity means losing more money and time. You can obviously say “no” either explicitly or implicitly, because by not delivering you end up saying what amounts to “no”. Remember too that time is your one finite resource, and when you say “yes” to one thing you are inevitably saying “no” to another.

If we try to focus on everything we focus on nothing.

The Importance of Discrete Priorities

As a professional project manager, priorities are always an issue. Priorities should drive the tasks, due dates and critical path for every project. How often do you feel like you have too many top priority items? I work with (or force) my clients to develop a list of discrete priorities. There can only be one #1 priority. It doesn’t mean that you can’t do more than one thing but only one thing can be #1.

Once you establish discrete priorities you will be amazed at how quickly things start getting done. The entire organization falls into alignment with much less effort. You will realize that each member of the company makes several little decisions each day and these discrete priorities will appropriately direct each step.

If you don’t make decisions, decisions will make you.

A Challenge from Me to You

I’d like to challenge each of you to make discrete priorities. Force yourself to have only one #1. I’d also like to challenge you to say “no” on a regular basis. I promise things will fall into place more easily if you adopt these two simple philosophies.

About the author: Amy Rasdal has over 20 years of experience in Operations, Product Development, Corporate Development and Marketing. Amy Rasdal started her own company, Rasdal Associates, Inc. (www.rasdal.com), eight years ago. Rasdal Associates specializes in the other side of entrepreneurship – implementation and execution. Focus areas include program and project management for the Internet software and medical device industries. Ms. Rasdal also recently founded Billable at the BeachTM (www.BillableAtTheBeach.com) to give people a jump start in independent consulting.

We are pleased to have a guest blog by Miki Saxon, RampUp Solutions while Holly is off on vacation!

How many times during your career have you attended training, or read a book, that offered tools and taught techniques that fired you up only to find yourself unable to implement them?

A frustrating experience and even more so when others seem to apply them effortlessly. That’s especially true when those who do succeed are less experienced or skilled than you.

What’s going on? Most likely the difficulty lies in your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy^TM) and it is your MAP that needs to change.

People can’t implement any method unless their MAP is synergistic with it.
Unfortunately, most management and leadership training assumes that participants have a certain kind of MAP or they wouldn’t be there.

But that’s not true-MAP is as individualistic as snowflakes-no two are identical.

MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy^TM) is the basis for everything you do-it’s the why of life.

Everything you do and say is a mindset, grounded in your attitude towards others, which, in turn, is based on your personal philosophy.

MAP is learned, not innate, and it changes, either passively, through the influence of those around you, or actively, in ways that you consciously choose.

That’s why learning better management, leadership, parenting, etc., is a far cry from actually accomplishing it. The difference is similar to the difference between stain and paint.

• Paint learning means coating what you already think with new ideas or approaches. The problems arise when the underlying attitudes and thoughts, i.e., MAP, are inconsistent with the new ideas-the greater the discrepancies between the two the more difficult it is to successfully implement them.
• Stain learning means that the new ideas sink in and actually become part of your MAP. That also means being willing to modify or change your MAP when the value of the new ideas is greater than the cost of change.

The greatest thing about MAP is that it’s completely within your control.

Changing it requires a strong desire, the right catalyst-awareness-and a journey through each of the four levels of competence:

1. unconscious incompetence,
2. conscious incompetence,
3. conscious competence, and
4. unconscious competence. (Most people believe they never reach this level since, by definition, when they do reach it they aren’t aware of it.)

Although there are as many types of MAP as there are people, I’m often asked what comprises “good” MAP.  Keeping in mind that my answer is totally subjective, I think good MAP is (in no particular order) positive, open, flexible, honest, secure, interested, enthusiastic, patient, sincere, encouraging, caring and loves creativity (its own or others).

Once your MAP is on board and you start implementing, be careful not to confuse process with bureaucracy.

• Process is like MAP, it gets you where you want to go, whereas bureaucracy stifles whatever it touches.
• Process, like MAP, is ever-growing/ever-changing, while bureaucracy is carved in stone.

Finally, remember that in the high stakes employee productivity, motivation and retention game MAP is worth more than money.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the author: Miki Saxon is founder of RampUp Solutions, Inc.

Miki has been coaching startup executives on their cultures and communication skills for 10 years using a system she developed called MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy^TM) that’s predicated on the belief that every outcome starts with a thought, so “To change what they do, change how you think^TM”

In 2003, she shifted from consulting to a virtual coaching model to accommodate both her clients’ preferences and a move to southern Washington State.

RampUp Solutions is also developing Option Sanity^TM, the first program to provide an automated, CEO-defined approach (based on the founder’s philosophy) to awarding stock options for any company instituting a stock plan. Beta testing is set for mid-Q3, with full release in Q4. Interested parties should contact miki@RampUpSolutions.com or call 866.265.7267

Miki writes two blogs, MAPping Company Success and Leadership Turn.

Social media and trust are two concepts not often used in the same sentence. But in a linked-in world where applications and sites including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are rapidly changing the way people communicate with each other, social media and trust will play increasingly important roles in determining how your company is perceived by employees, customers and other stakeholders. They may also have a real impact on your company’s ability to achieve its strategic goals.

The explosion of social media and social networking tools has fostered two fundamental changes in the business world. One, consumers now have at their disposal a wealth of information about your company and its product or service. As anyone who has spent some time on the Internet knows, some of this information is more accurate and reliable than others.

Two, and more important, you can no longer control the communications messages the public receives about your business. You still have to put your message out there. But now it is just one more message amidst all the social media “chatter” about your company. In order for your messages to have credibility, people must trust you, which is why trust has become one of the new business imperatives.

Low trust can inflict organizational damage on many levels. Low trust makes it harder to:

• Recruit, hire and retain good employees
• Attract needed investment
• Build customer loyalty
• Secure strong vendor relationships
• Develop efficient internal processes and systems
• Motivate high performance
• Resolve interpersonal conflicts
• Develop effective relationships with government and regulatory agencies

Conversely, several studies have shown a direct link between high trust and financial performance. Companies with high levels of trust tend to have stronger brands. They enjoy more positive word of mouth advertising. And when they make mistakes, stakeholders are quicker to forgive, as long as the company acts quickly to rectify the mistake.

So, what is trust and how do you get it?

In organizations, trust is the belief that management’s actions, words and deeds are intended to benefit and enrich all stakeholders, not just those who run the company. For trust to exist, your customers, employees, suppliers and stockholders have to believe that you are acting in their best interests as well as your own.

Strategies for building trust include:

• Act with integrity. In other words, walk your talk.
• Develop a strong, unifying mission and vision. Let people know why you exist and how that will make the world a better place for everyone involved with the company.
• Define and clarify organizational values that determine how you will behave internally and externally. Live those values on a daily basis.
• Communicate constantly, not just about the decisions being made but why they are being made.
• Treat people with respect. Create an environment where people are encouraged to express their opinions, and listen when they do.
• Provide ongoing feedback. Let employees know what you expect from them and tell them how they are doing on a regular basis.
• Develop a culture of accountability. Reward high performance and hold people accountable for improving poor performance.
• Communicate constantly and cascade key messages throughout the organization. This includes telling employees how the business is doing overall and where you see it headed in the next one to three years. It also includes constantly updating employees on shifts in the external environment (markets, competition, regulations, etc.) and defining why you will still win.

Perhaps the biggest change wrought by the advent of social media is the demand for transparency. In the past, many companies controlled public perception by limiting the amount of information people had access to. With social media and the resulting flood of information, transparency in business has become an expectation.

In today’s world, secrecy breeds suspicion. When you withhold information, both the intent and the actual content become open to misinterpretation. In the absence of information, today’s bloggers, twitterers and forum posters will make it up for you. The last thing you want is for others to dictate how the public perceives your business.

Creating trust as a strategic objective represents a new way of thinking for many of today’s business leaders. But the next generation of market leaders will be those companies that do the best job of building and maintaining trust with their key stakeholders.

Have you told an employee what a great job he/she is doing recently? Have you received positive feedback for going above and beyond in the past month? Have you overheard others in your organization praise someone for doing more than was expected?

Positive feedback has long been recognized as a critical element in high performing workplaces. During these tough economic times, when job security has vanished and employee trust in their employers has sunk to an all-time low, it has become more important than ever.

Interestingly enough, one of the greatest problems with positive feedback is that many managers don’t feel comfortable giving it. It takes too long, feels insincere or “too soft”, or it just gets in the way of day-to-day activities. Some managers don’t like discussing another person’s behavior, or giving feedback just “isn’t their style.” Yet, few actions will do more to build trust and boost morale than ongoing, sincere feedback of a positive nature.

Humans have an innate need to seek feedback on how we are doing. Without it, people tend to make up information — almost always negative — to fill the void. Giving positive feedback helps to prevent destructive “information gaps,” and strengthens relationships between employees and their supervisors. It also leads to improved work quality, increased accountability and a higher-performing work environment.

Positive feedback starts with knowing when and how to praise employees. Specifically, it involves recognizing and praising employees for particular behaviors and accomplishments that go beyond the everyday expectations of their jobs.

For example, praise employees when they:

• Turn a difficult customer into a promoter
• Reach new levels of accuracy
• Produce more than the amount produced by any predecessor
• Develop or contribute significantly to another colleague
• Create a new process, product or approach
• Present an idea for doing something differently (even if the idea is not implemented)
• Do an exceptional job of influencing internally or externally
• Excel at a presentation
• Participate significantly in a community event on behalf of the company

The idea is to let employees know that you are paying attention and that you appreciate their efforts. Taking a few moments to express your appreciation can have a powerful impact on employees’ self-esteem and their attitudes toward their work and the organization as a whole.

To maximize the impact of your positive feedback, make it:

• Immediate. Give the recognition as soon as possible after the event.
• Specific. State specifically what the person did that met or exceeded your expectations.
• Impactful. Explain how the event or behavior affected you, the team or the organization.
• Encouraging. Focus on the positive only. Be appreciative without mentioning other things that might need to change or be adjusted. These should be saved for times when you are giving constructive feedback.
• Focused. State how the performance or action was positive and contributed to success. This will help prevent other messages, often made up, from taking the employee off track.

For example, “Susan, I really appreciated the way you stepped up to the plate and filled in on the XYZ contract when Richard was out with the flu. Your efforts helped us land a new customer that should increase sales by 10% over the next year.” Or, “Paul, nice job on the presentation today. You got the message across in a way that enabled everyone to have a much better understanding of our objective and why it is important.”

Most of all, positive feedback must be sincere. Never give positive feedback unless you mean it. And don’t praise employees for showing up on time or doing the basics of their job. Employees have very accurate “b.s. detectors,” and will quickly see through any false praise. Insincere positive feedback will just make recipients wonder what your real agenda is or what you are trying to hide. And the next time you give legitimate praise it will have far less impact.

Also, the time has come to jettison the “sandwich” technique, whereby you say something positive, sneak in something you want the employee to do differently, and then finish with a positive. For years, this approach was used to soften the impact of critical feedback, and it worked reasonably well with Baby Boomer and Traditionalist workers.

Gen-Xers, however, quickly saw through this strategy and openly questioned the hidden agenda behind the positive feedback. And the youngest generation, the Millennials, are so accustomed to direct (and often brutal) feedback that they see no point in wasting time by trying to sneak positive feedback into a constructive feedback conversation.

So keep your positive feedback positive, focus on specific events and behaviors that exceed your expectations, and let employees know how much you appreciate their efforts. You’ll improve morale and enhance trust while encouraging higher levels of performance. And today’s stressed-out employees will appreciate your efforts to meet their workplace needs.

Our current recession is good for one thing. Many companies are focusing on “employee engagement,” an approach to more consciously value and act on connecting with passionate employees who truly care about the company.

With businesses failing at a record rate, who doesn’t want to convince nervous workers to remain calm and hang on through the tough times? Research finds, however, that employees seek more engagement with company leaders regardless of the economic situation. Consider some facts from a recent Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study:

• Four out of 10 workers are disenchanted or disengaged today. One-third of employees are looking for greener pastures even in this economy where jobs are scarce.
• Only about 20 percent feel they have full discretion on how to handle their job. In other words, employee empowerment is still a distant dream for most.
• Overall perception of leadership effectiveness is down significantly, yet a strong display of leadership is one of the most critical pieces of keeping a company viable.

Employee Engagement Is No Longer A Nice To Have

Companies like Zappos, an online mega shoe store, have learned how to make employee engagement a competitive differentiator. In 10 short years, Zappos has bootstrapped itself up to $1 billion in sales by creating service-obsessed employees.

The Zappos’ staff actually make less-than-market rate salaries and receive fewer perks compared to many high-flying midsize companies. But Zappos’ employees get something bigger in return. They get access and complete engagement in the business at all levels. CEO Tony Hsieh’s cubicle is in the sea of other work spaces where he’s available to listen to ideas and/or explain where the business is heading. The entire team is in shouting distance of invites to frequent impromptu after-work drinks or dinner.

Zappos and other employee-obsessed companies will drive competition for the best people in the future, and drive productivity and focus today.

Engagement: Creating It and Keeping It

When I work with companies to define an engaging work environment, employees universally tell me they’re looking for five simple (and mostly free) things:

• A challenge. The vast majority of people want to make a difference; knowing they can personally impact the business, even in a relatively small way, is extremely intoxicating.
• A little appreciation. Receiving praise for a job well done every week or so is among Gallup’s famous 12 Elements of Great Managing. The power of a simple “thank you” can’t be under estimated.
• Accountability. Most people want to be in charge of something, large or small, for which they have real responsibility to make decisions.
• Being included. Most people desire to be involved in something greater than themselves; in business, employees want to know how their role fits into the big picture.
• The right work and fair outcomes. Leaders and managers have to pause long enough to define excellence up front so that they stage others for success versus catching them doing it wrong a week from now. This alignment also is the base from which a leader can get employees engaged so they voluntarily want to stretch outside their comfort zones to make an even bigger impact over time.
• The key to extraordinary performance comes down to understanding each employee on six important levels: their spirit, identity, values and beliefs, capabilities, behaviors and effective working environment. The Six Levels of Engagement will be the focus of a future blog entry.

Engaged employees contribute significantly to an organization’s focus. Focus creates energy. Energy creates more engagement. Employee engagement contributes to a perpetually fueled winning culture that is impacted less significantly by the economic conditions outside.

Where to begin? Leaders, of course, get the ball rolling to create a culture of engaged employees. So, first things first… here are two other blog entries to help get started:

How Do You Keep Up as a Leader or Manager Today?
How to Inform, Inspire and Engage Employees in Today’s World

Creating Your Destination Statement: How to Get From Here to Where You Want to Go

When Roger Bannister was attempting to become the first athlete to break the four-minute mile, all the “experts” told him it was impossible. Some even suggested he risked death by pushing his body beyond human limits. Of course, we now know that not only did Bannister not die, but the week after he broke the barrier, another runner followed in his footsteps, followed shortly thereafter by several more.

Clearly, the sub-four minute mile wasn’t impossible; someone just had to envision doing it. When asked how he accomplished the feat, Bannister replied, “Physiologically impossible or not, I just saw myself doing it.” To this day, many Olympic athletes use this type of success visioning to achieve their goals. The difference in skill levels at premier levels is often not discernible. What is different is the mindset, the clarity of vision on what winning looks like.

Leaders and managers don’t often employ this approach in strategic planning or even in simple delegation today. Most of us are running so fast, we don’t take the time to get clear on winning, we just run and hope we are on the right track, running the right race. But organizations are now beginning to understand what world-class athletes have long known – if you can picture the destination and get clear on what winning looks like, your chances of getting there dramatically increase.

One tool for painting a vivid picture of where your organization needs to go is destination modeling. Designed to create powerful visions in the mind of each and every employee, destination statements provide cohesion, direction and behavioral guidance. They tell people what you are doing, what you are not doing, and what you will be doing when you get to where you want to go.

Some companies develop one over-arching destination statement for the entire company. I find it more useful to develop a number of statements, or destination points, for each critical area of the organization. In fact, I often use these statements as a starting point when working with clients.

Examples of destination statement categories include:

• Key operating achievements (the big three or four).
• How the workplace culture will be, including attitudes, beliefs, values and operating principles.
• What skills, knowledge and abilities will exist in the organization? In each business unit?
• What organizational structures will be in place, company-wide and at each business unit?
• What work processes and metrics will be used?
• What tools, systems and technologies will be necessary, both internally and externally?
• What products will be in the market? What products will be in development?
• Who will our customers be? How many will we have?
• Who will our competitors be? What type of companies will we compete against?
• What will be our greatest competitive advantage? Our biggest threat?
• How will we be known?
• What will our brand represent?

Remember, your goal as a leader or manager is to paint as vivid and rich a ‘picture’ of success or winning as you possibly can. To create your company’s destination points, draw a vertical line down the middle of a sheet of paper. On the left side, put all the categories listed above and any others you come up with. On the right side, describe for each category what it will look like when you get to where you want to go.

A few short years or even months ago, companies frequently looked out five and even 10 years into the future. In today’s fast-paced world, three years makes more sense. Recently, all of my clients are doing one year destination modeling and plans. The rate of change today is so great that anything beyond that and you are likely just wildly guessing as to what is possible.

Once you have identified your destination points, measure each one against the following criteria:

• Consistency. Is it consistent with the mission statement (the why you exist)?
• Clarity. Is it easy to understand? Is it easy to tell what is in and what is out? Does it tell you what you need to do (directionally)?
• Specific. Does it provide enough details to initiate a level of measurement? Does it paint a picture employees can relate to and a place they can envision?
• Flexible. Is it flexible enough to include evolving business needs?
• Pride. Does it make you feel proud to be part of the effort?
• Inspiration. Does it compel you to want to go there?

Once you have clarity on your destination points, repeat the process (using the same categories) to define your current state. This will identify any gaps that need to be addressed and enable you to plan appropriate action steps and time frames. Always start with the end state and then compare to current reality. When you work from the end state backwards, the likelihood of you getting there increases exponentially.

To get the best of what your employees have to offer, it is essential to make sure that your organization’s future is more compelling than the past. Picturing your destination and describing it in vivid language will make it easier and much more likely your organization will achieve its goals and break its own four-minute mile.

With small signs of an economic recovery in sight, I have noticed many companies making preparations to shift back into high gear. But simply returning to old practices could extend the downturn if one’s business is not aligned with key stakeholders and their evolving needs.

The recent economic turmoil has undoubtedly made customers, employees, suppliers or other key stakeholders look at products and services through a different filter. And new stakeholders may emerge that have greater influence in the future:

• Do the company’s value propositions resonate in the new leaner, meaner era we’re entering? Can stakeholders get excited about it?
• Has technology pushed the IT department above the customer service group in terms of priority?
• Are some key customers still stumbling while new market segments are prepared to move forward aggressively?
• Which suppliers are innovating and could provide a sustainable differentiator in terms of efficiency, pricing and/or willingness to collaborate so you both can grow stronger together?

The New Survival Instinct

By all accounts, Springfield ReManufacturing Corporation in Missouri should have gone bankrupt during the 1980′s recession. Instead, the company embraced a survival instinct born out of necessity when a few employees bought the company in 1983 as a way to save their jobs when International Harvester announced it was closing the facility.

Springfield’s core business is to bolt components together into engines that are used in cars, heavy-duty equipment, tractors, or anything else that moves. The vehicle parts industry is suffering badly these days, but Springfield remains a vibrant company because it constantly re-evaluates its stakeholders and value propositions. This preparation has helped the company quickly switch to adjacent markets of manufacturing natural gas pumps and retrofitting U.S. Postal Service vehicles as the auto industry tanked.

Three Preliminary Steps to Take

The Springfield example emphasizes how revisiting with stakeholders can drive success even when the world outside is melting down. A leader’s first responsibility is to communicate a clear vision of where the company is headed. But the right stakeholders can provide the fuel that will help drive to that vision.

• Step 1: Every stakeholder will ask the “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM) question when evaluating a value proposition. Progress will be difficult if the company values don’t line up with the stakeholder values. Getting stakeholder feedback will help validate whether you’re on the right course or not. Help stakeholders articulate their view by using starter phrases…
  • As an indispensable business partner, we provide….
  • As a trusted source, we provide the best experience and expertise to…
  • As the leader of innovation in X, we establish the standards and…

• Step 2: Analyze what each group of customers, staff and suppliers expect. Judgment calls are then made to determine whether expectations can meet realities.
  • Are there new opportunities or different stakeholders that offer a better promise for success? Or are these alternatives too far from the core mission?
  • What changes do stakeholders need to significantly increase the company’s value to them? What can be eliminated? Are there inefficiencies that have emerged as the business has evolved? What critical success factors must remain regardless of anything else?
  • Which stakeholders can make a lasting impact based on the mission? Which stakeholders’ roles need to be changed, or eliminated?

• Step 3: Success can be found where the organization’s mission and value statements intersect with stakeholders’ needs. Distill the final value proposition into clear language that resonates with both internal and external stakeholders. It’s a fine balance. Make it too simple and the value proposition becomes meaningless. Too complicated and the value proposition can be misinterpreted Powerful value propositions have several common characteristics:
  • Consistency with the organization’s mission statement. Stakeholders can become paralyzed if the mission is to market “Blue Widgets,” but the value proposition screams “Green Gadgets.” Seems simple, but many companies miss this part.
  • Compelling value that answer the stakeholders’ “WIIFM” question with confidence.
  • Specific enough to be measurable.
  • Flexible to adjust to changing stakeholder needs.
  • Pride is created among stakeholders; they feel honored to be part of the effort.
  • Inspiration pours out to compel stakeholders to buy into the value proposition, either philosophically or literally.

Determining and constantly evaluating your stakeholder value propositions is an important step to thinking strategically on an ongoing basis. And in tomorrow’s economy, it is a skill set you won’t want to be without.