Is it Time for a Different Approach to Strategic Planning?

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

This is the time of the year that most companies begin their strategic planning process.

While it’s fun to host and participate in an off-site, the end result sadly is often put on a shelf until next year.

Mostly the plan is a continuation of the last one, and mostly the plan calls for growth, usually growth that is based on internal expectations. And, unless the plan is translated into numbers and then becomes part of the budget, expectations are infrequently measured against actual outcome. No wonder the reality of strategic planning and the hope are often not aligned.

If you are interested in doing it differently this time… Chris Bradley of the McKinsey Consulting firm offers four practical suggestions to tackle the particular problem of bold forecasts and timid actions:

  1. Don’t hide the hairy back in the bottom drawer
  2. Calibrate your projected results to the outside view
  3. Build a momentum case
  4. Focus on moves, not promises

This short article Hockey Stick Dreams and Hairy Back Reality should be required reading for anyone who makes plans, or is charged with approving them.

Consensus Gives You Beige

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

When a leader asks for input and then makes a decision, the result is vivid color, i.e. a better decision. It is a better decision for several reasons.

First and foremost, your team feels valued when they are asked to participate in the decision process.

Second, there is value in the wisdom of crowds; many times the group will surface ideas that the leader hasn’t thought about. As a leadership coach and Vistage Master Chair, I see this happen each month during the executive sessions I lead with CEOs. This, of course, is why 23,000+ people around the world are members – we understand the value of seeking input.

Where it all goes awry, is when we seek consensus instead of input. With consensus, all the colors get mixed resulting in a dull beige, i.e. a mediocre, watered-down decision.

Sometimes this may be okay when the goal is more about participation that it is about making decisions. The key is being mindful of your goal.

So, the next time you are asking for input, ask yourself, “is it vivid color I want or is beige okay?” And, if it is color you want, don’t settle for beige. Make the final decision yourself.

Let’s work together. You can learn more about my leadership coaching and peer advisory boards here.

That’s Not What I Meant

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

In my work as a leadership coach and peer advisory board chair, I am constantly reminded that despite the fact that we are all the same species, with many characteristics in common, we truly do see the world differently.

We expect this to be so when we interact with people who speak a different language than we do. In these situations, most of us have a heightened awareness of our differences and most of us realize we need to pause, think about what the norms are for the other person, think about what we have learned about their culture and modify our interaction and our behavior accordingly. An easy example is how we exchange business cards. In the U.S., we simply toss our card on the table. In Japan, a business card is “presented”; held in two hands and a formal exchange takes place.

Yet, when dealing with people who speak our same language, we often forget to pause. I remember a colleague of mine from the UK saying, “we are two countries, divided by a common language”.

We forget that just because we speak the same language, may even come from the same community, we see the world differently. And the closer a person is to us, the more likely we are to forget. We simply carry on, behave in a manner that comes naturally to us and when it works, it works. And when it doesn’t, we leave a wake. Sometimes we recognize the wake we are leaving and work to repair it; sometimes we don’t see it.

When we are in a leadership position and leave a wake with our folks, it is rare that it is brought to our attention directly. Rather, we learn about the impact we had, from actions and behaviors exhibited by our staff. Often we don’t connect the dots and see that it was our wake that caused the behavior in others that we don’t want to see.

So, what to do? Here are the questions I am asking myself:

  • Can I slow down, so that I have this heightened awareness in all conversations?
  • Once I notice the conversation is one that requires special attention, like the business card exchange, what do I already know and what do I need to learn about the other person, that will help me handle my delivery in a way that lands as intended?
  • When I leave a wake, what do I need to do to clean it up?

Elisa K Spain http://elisaspain.com/leadershipcoach/

Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner and want to learn more about my Vistage Group, click http://elisaspain.com/impact/

Bridging the Communication Gap

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

When we think about communication, we tend to think in terms of what we say and how we say it.  While clearly the what and the how matter, equally important is our ability to bridge the gap, what psychologists have labeled psychological distance— gaps between ourselves and other people (social distance); the present and the future (temporal distance); our physical locations (spatial distance); and imagination and actual experience (experiential distance).

In this HBR article, Rebecca Hamilton, suggests we use two specific strategies to reduce—or sometimes increase— psychological distance and thereby improve outcomes.

First, she suggests we move from abstract to concrete.  In the case of temporal distance, for example, we can shorten the time frame. If we give ourselves less time to make a decision or take action, we are less likely to over analyze or procrastinate.  Conversely, if we want our team to take more responsibility, we could use more-abstract language, challenge them to develop ideas for increasing revenue instead of asking them to close more deals.

Second, Rebecca suggests we consider substituting one for the other. When searching for common ground during a negotiation, one might use temporal distance by setting a deadline perhaps when there isn’t one. We aren’t doing anything to change the social distance —we don’t feel closer to the other person—but the urgency of reduced temporal distance may alter how we and they approach the deal.

Perhaps the most obvious substitute for spatial distance is social distance. If you are physically separated from people you’d like to influence—customers or colleagues—you can reduce that distance not only with a face to face meeting but also by emphasizing your common attributes and interests. Zappos makes a point of connecting with geographically distant customers by listing the Zappos Family Core Values on its website and sharing photos of the teams who work to deliver orders. You can narrow the spatial gap with far-flung colleagues by connecting on a personal level at the beginning of phone calls or e-mails and, when possible, using video calls.

As leaders, we face challenges related to social, temporal, spatial, and experiential distance every day. The more we can understand the common thread that links each of these and then learn to either adjust the distance or substitute one type for another, the more successful we will be with our communication.

Elisa K Spain

Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner and want to learn more about my Vistage Group, click here

It’s All About Style

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

There are lots of tools available for assessing personality style, and each has its nuance. Stripping away the nuance, with few exceptions, the assessments produce a matrix of 4 primary personality styles.

These styles result from an understanding of extroversion vs. introversion, the relationship of each to detail orientation; and then adding to this, a person’s proclivity to focus on an outcome or to seek harmony.

In my experience, no matter what your leadership role, knowing and understanding your own style and that of each person you work with is the key to achieving the results you want.

I had a conversation recently with a friend that drove this home for me once again.  My friend is an advisor to the CEO of a large company. This company is in the midst of a reorganization, and my friend is struggling with one of the leaders of the new organization.  As we talked through the situation, it became clear to both of us that the root cause of her challenge is style.  She is outcome focused; he is harmony-focused; she is an introvert (goes within to process); he is an extrovert (processes out loud).

The result: he is talking, too much from her perspective; she is trying to move the project moving forward, he has unresolved fears and is resisting.

Once she began to realize it is their style differences that are causing her challenge, she had the answer, I could see it in her face. We then moved into a more extended discussion about the characteristics of each of the primary styles and then a plan of action.

Bottom line. For me, when I am struggling to communicate, and I pause long enough to get some perspective, I’ve come to realize the answer is always, I need to modify my style to adapt to the other person’s style. Easier said than done I know, and like everything else, its a journey.

Elisa K Spain

Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner and want to learn more about my Vistage Group, click here

Making the Visible, Invisible

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

I love dining out. I love live theatre and for me, restaurants are theaters. Like theatre, restaurants create a show for us to experience, including director, actors, staging and lighting.

A couple of weeks ago I had dinner at a local restaurant that is part of a restaurant group. It was an experience in innovation and leadership that I feel compelled to share.

I have eaten at the original restaurant a couple of times and I described the experience as “dinner & a show”.  It’s a fine dining restaurant so one expects special, and they delivered. The “show” in this case is visible, it’s in your face. The goal is to show the patron how creative they are. It is mostly about the way the food is prepared, e.g. molecular gastronomy, liquids that taste like solids, or foam that tastes like celery or the like, but it also is about the presentation (packaging) and the delivery.

This newer restaurant in the group is casual. The menu is simple, the atmosphere is lively and casual. On the surface, no different than many other restaurants. And, yet, from the moment we walked in, I sensed a difference.

What I first noticed was the atmosphere. There was loud music playing, but the room didn’t feel loud. Conversation was at a normal level, we could easily hear each other. The lighting was perfect, bright enough to read the menu, dim enough to be soft and calm. We were seated at the bar which wraps around the kitchen. Again, subtle but significant differences. The chairs had wide soft seats, in short, comfortable. When was the last time you sat on a comfortable bar stool?

Next, was the service. The server was friendly and engaging, dressed in jeans and a cowboy shirt. And yet, much like the atmosphere, it was clear, he was a professional, except for his attire, he would have easily fit at their fine dining restaurant.

Last, of course was the food. And there was the same subtle, yet profound, difference here. The menu was simple, I even questioned my husband for ordering salmon, which we make all the time. I should have known better. Like everything else, the food was anything but ordinary. And, the best part was we got to watch them make it over a roaring fire right there in front of our eyes. There were 5 cooks preparing all the plates, one was the leader, and it took us quite a while to figure out who he was, again, subtle but different.

In short, they delivered an incredible customer experience. And, unlike their fine dining partner, if I hadn’t been looking closely, except for the cooking over the roaring fire, the “show” was invisible. I wouldn’t have even noticed the parts, yet, I would have felt the wonder of the experience.

None of this was accidental, the leadership of this organization knows the business they are in and they ensure they have the talent, culture and process to consistently deliver. They start with the same ingredients as their competition, then they add their secret sauce to the food, to the atmosphere and the service, thereby creating a unique experience. So unique, that it caused someone, me, to blog about it two weeks later.

What this restaurant group teaches us is that customer experience can be delivered visibly or invisibly. It’s up to us to figure out what works in what situation and then, in the words of one of my Vistage members, Gallant Building Solutions, “deliver a WOW experience for every client, every time”.

  • Does your culture allow team members to operate both independently and as a team?
  • How is your product differentiated, even if it is a commodity like salmon?
  • What is your equivalent of atmosphere? Can your customers converse in a normal tone or do they need to shout?
  • Do your customers perceive your  “servers” as true professionals?

Elisa K Spain

You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

The Dark Side of Habit

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Last month, I wrote about the power of habit.  I recently had two experiences with people I know well that reminded me there is also a dark side to habit.

The closer the relationship, the more we think we “know” a person, the more we form habits or patterns in those relationships. If they do X, we respond with Y. If they say Z, we respond with A and so on.

Sometimes it isn’t even the person in front of us that triggers habitual behavior, but someone else, a former boss perhaps with whom we had a great relationship; and we pattern our behavior with our new boss based on that experience and wonder why it isn’t going as well.

Habits are shortcuts. As I shared last month, activity habits can serve us by making us both more efficient and more effective in our daily lives. Response habits on the other hand, can inadvertently damage our relationships.

A couple of weeks ago, I had two experiences that reminded me of some of my response habits and how often I use them.

The first was with a client who was in the midst of a big decision. He is the sort of person who likes to “think out loud”.  I know this about him, and what I forgot was when he says “I want to run this by you”, what that means, I want to think out loud.

Instead, in my zeal to be helpful, I forgot what I knew. And, started asking questions and offering my perspective. After all, what he said was “I want to run this by you”. When he reminded me for the third time that “he had already considered that”, I finally got it and went back to listening. And, responded based on who is in front of me. What a wonderful reminder, yet again, to pause.

The second experience was with my husband. We both love to cook and over the course of nearly 27 years, we have slipped into a pattern. He is the chef, I am the sous chef. This works. And, every now and then, I am the chef and he is the sous chef. This doesn’t work so well. The reason is our response patterns are based on the first scenario, i.e. he leads, I follow. Here’s what usually happens. I start prepping, he comes over to look at what I am doing, I feel “supervised”, I don’t like being “supervised”, so I get huffy and what started as a fun couples activity, ends up, not so fun.

After the situation with my friend, and the blow up about cooking the next day, I tried something different the next time we cooked. When my husband asked me to do something I thought was obvious, and I was already planning to, instead of saying “do you really think I wasn’t going to do that?”, I simply said “okay”. The result, we had fun cooking together. I tried it again the next time we cooked, this time working together on the same dish which historically has been a danger zone. It worked again, we were laughing and having fun. Not easy to break those response habits, and the positive reinforcement certainly is reminding me to keep trying.

Perhaps next time a friend or a family member, or an employee, starts to behave in an expected manner, what if instead of responding with habit, we looked with fresh eyes, and asked questions, just as we would do with someone we don’t know at all and for whom we have no expectations?

On November 14, my Vistage CEO group is hosting one of our semi-annual guest days. If you or someone you know would like to learn more about Vistage, this is a low-key way to meet our members and hear a great speaker, Andrea Simon, who asks “Who will be your customers in three years?” Please contact me directly for an invite: Elisa K Spain.

For more about the members of the group click here

For more about the speaker on November 14, click here

You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

Radical Transparency

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

In publicly held companies, company performance and executive compensation is, just that, public. All shareholders receive both an annual report and a proxy statement and this information is contained within these documents. Additionally, it is a simple matter for a non-shareholder to obtain this information, sometimes with a simple web search, or at least with an inquiry to the company.

Yet in many, perhaps, most, privately held companies, this information is closely guarded and not shared.

Why not? Lots of reasons.

The reasons differ depending on the stakeholder we are discussing. Focusing on employee stakeholders, some of the responses I typically hear are:

  • Why do they need to know?
  • They won’t understand the financials.
  • There will be resentment if they know what the owner(s) are paid.
  • There will be resentment if they know what their colleagues make.

What if instead, you considered radical transparency? What if:

  • you educate your employees so they understand the balance sheet and the income statement?
  • employees learn the investments the owner has made and the risks she has taken, and continues to take, to finance the business?
  • employees understand the expenses the company must incur to operate the business, beyond the COGS?
  • employees begin to understand the relationship between labor utilization/efficiency and profitability?
  • compensation was based on a combination of market data and performance so that employees understand why they are paid, what they are paid?

Transparency without the accompanying education will not work. Thus, radical transparency requires an investment. The good news is, it’s an investment of time, not dollars.

As the war for talent continues, with no apparent end in sight, is radical transparency an investment that may lead to employee loyalty and therefore increased retention?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Begin At The Very Beginning

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

I am often in conversation with people I coach where the person is focused on action. I hear things like…

  • I am experiencing turnover, what can I do to stop or reduce it?
  • Not sure if my people feel valued or are contributing to their full potential?
  • We have a diverse group, wondering how do I get them to bond and behave like a team?

Much has been written including various techniques to answer these questions. While these are important questions, and I am sure techniques for monitoring and evaluating these challenges are valuable, for me, it is difficult to address these issues without a pause. For me, asking these questions is starting in the middle rather than starting at the beginning.

If we were to start at the beginning, these are questions I would ask:

  • What is the purpose of this team or workgroup?
  • What do I as the leader expect, what is my vision of success?
  • Do I and the team have a shared vision of success?

Once these questions are answered, then we can begin to address the questions above. For example,

  • Does each member of the team understand and support the team purpose?
  • Does the team feel ownership for the project or work effort?
  • Did the people who exited fit the team purpose? If so, did they understand it?
  • Do the team members need each other to succeed, or are they actually a workgroup with individual expectations?

There are many more questions to add to the second list, and the answers only become useful when we begin at the very beginning.

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

What If I Can’t Today?

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

We as leaders are told all the time that everyone is always watching us. A smile, a frown, silence, all are interpreted as “a sign”. And since most of us think in terms of impact on ourselves, our followers interpret these “signs” as a sign of something that impacts them. This of course frequently results in “absent information, people make stuff up”.

As leaders, we hear this and interpret it to mean, we need to be “on” all the time. Yikes, especially the introvert leaders say, that is exhausting!!

What if instead, when we are feeling pressured, angry, sad, depleted, we let our folks know that we are working on whatever problem has put us temporarily out of commission, “I had a tough conversation this morning and I am distracted by that, I will look for you later this afternoon so we can talk about your issue”.

For me, time and time again I have seen this sort of human response draw people toward their leaders…

What has been your experience?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain