Developing a Strategic Mindset

Strategic Themes

Strategic themes are building blocks that provide structure, boundaries, context, objectives and metrics to leaders and team members. They take direction from and rise to challenges sparked by mission goals, while feeding results and value through differentiation and enablement. 

They span across all aspects of the business – financial, customer, internal process and organisational capacity. They are the elements that if excelled in, drive the success of the company.

Common strategic themes include concepts such as Growth, Excellence, Innovation, Sustainability; these high level concepts are most effective if they are further defined and distinguished to best serve the vision of the individual organisation.

High level roadmap concepts

Intrapreneur; the creative Change Agent

Not everyone wants to start their own company. But creative, innovative change agents are everywhere, hungry and passionate about what they do, happy to wear multiple hats and dream big about their day jobs.
 
During a conversation I had recently about mentorship programs the term “Intrapreneur” was discussed. It’s not a new word, apparently the term Intrapreneur was first coined in 1982.  But I do love it, such an aspirational notion!

Meet the Intrapreneur...those self-educating, self-motivators who are willing to take risks, set goals and challenge their peers and superiors to think and act differently, for the good of a company that is not their own. 

Those inventors and departmental protagonists who think about solving problems or creating new revenue streams in the car on the way home, over dinner, in the shower.

During the course of their careers, these characters are from time to time asked “Why don’t you start something up on your own?” 

Mitigating risk and maintaining stability are both valid reasons why most don’t go it alone. And that’s okay, the world needs Intrapreneurs!

It’s worth investing some time into finding out more about this character profile, to either better understand yourself (if you are one) or better understand how to manage, grow and inspire them (if you have one working for you).

Are you an Intrapreneur? If you’re the business owner, do you have one working for you?

The Entourage

Today I read an article in StartupSmart about The Entourage; according to their website, Australia’s largest group of entrepreneurs and executives under 40.

“With an obsolete education system that was designed when the world was flat, we believe that people are better off learning from people with “been there, done that” experience in their chosen field.”

The Entourage are focused on providing opportunities for entrepreneurs and executives to network. They also appear to have a vision and mission that revolves around creating a better future.

“We believe that creative solutions to pressing problems will come from entrepreneurial endeavors. When you combine commerce with charity, you can begin to offer a hand up rather than a hand out. This is what is required if we are to overcome the challenges we face.”

If you’re a young entrepreneur you might want to check out their “Young Entrepreneurs’ Unconvention”. Sounds like it would be an eye-opener!

8 Influencer snippets on Life & Leadership

From Time's Top 100 Influencers for 2013, I picked a few names and went searching for inspiration...

Valerie Jarrett (Senior Adviser to Obama)

"Anytime I was hesitant about taking a chance, my grandmother would say, “Valerie, put yourself in the path of lightning.” You can have it all, just not at the same time and all in the proportions that you may want."

Elon Musk (American entrepreneur, founder of SpaceX and co-founder of Tesla Motors and PayPal)

"You've got to communicate, particularly within the company, the true state of the company. When people really understand it's do or die but if we work hard and pull through, there's going to be a great outcome, people will give it everything they've got."

Kevin Systrom (CEO of Instagram)

"Work/life balance…Inherent in the term is an assumption that work and life are diametrically opposed. I actually think some of my best moments in life have been while I was with people from Instagram – whether it’s super late nights getting a release out or being able to travel to places I’d never visited and meeting some of the most interesting people I’ve ever met."

Ted Sarandos (Netflix Chief Content Officer)

"As if anything in life is not execution dependent. Breathing is execution-dependent. So yes, we have all the elements of a good show that lines up with the viewing data that we have. But it still has to be well executed."

Sheryl Sandberg (Businesswoman & Author; Chief Operating Officer of Facebook)

"I don’t believe there are stereotypical forms of male and female leadership. But I think there are things we’re encouraged to do as women that can be good for all leaders. Women are often very good listeners. They are often good consensus builders. They can make teams cohesive."

John Brennan (CIA Director)

"They really were trying to do what they thought was the right thing to do, based on their sense of morality. So who am I to judge them? Because they were operating on what they think. I like to give them the benefit of the doubt that they really believe this."

Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo!)

"I always did something I was a little not ready to do. That feeling at the end of the day, where you're like, 'what have I gotten myself into?' - I realized that sometimes when you have that feeling and you push through it, something really great happens."

Mary Nichols (Environmentalist)

"I am committed to completing the work I am doing here, whenever that is. I've never had any desire to think of myself as a retired person. I will always be working; it is just a question of where. Whatever the job description is, I can't imagine not continuing to work on the issues and for the causes that I've cared about all of these years."

Kai-Fu Lee (Computer scientist)

"The size and scope of the organization is limited by two things. One is how many great people can you hire and mentor. And second, how many ideas can you generate."

History of Management

When you review the history of management, you get an interesting perspective on current management techniques and trends.
 
American mechanical engineer Frederick Taylor (1856 – 1915), known as the father of Scientific Management, was one of the first “management consultants”.

The scientific approach to management is the art of gaining efficiencies by increasing the output volume of workers.  When you consider the era, this approach was born at a time when workers predominantly used their backs to produce results.

Frederick’s fundamental principle revolved around maximum gain for both employer and employee by effectively training each individual employee in a role that was most suited to their capabilities.  Of particular interest was investigating ways to increase output by reducing unnecessary movement.

German sociologist Max Weber (1864 – 1920) developed what is known as the bureaucratic approach to Management.  The principles of this style of management centre on job specialisation and clear job descriptions, where qualifications determined positions.  Clear hierarchy and control along with the uniformity of applied regulations created formal rules and performance indicators.  Clear pathways for career advancement were designed to promote long term employment with a single company.

Elton Mayo (1880 – 1949) approached management from a more social aspect.  Coined human relations management, the theory he developed was more concerned with employee motivation, team building, communication and leadership skills. He theorised that employee motivation stems from relational factors such as feedback and team dynamics more so than simply pay and environmental conditions.

French mining engineer Henri Fayol (1841 – 1925) took an administrative approach and developed six primary functions of management; Forecasting, Planning, Organising, Commanding, Coordinating, Controlling.  These are closely aligned with 14 principles of management that cover off the division of labour, authority, discipline, unity, remuneration, order, equity and initiative.

Management consultant, author and educator Peter Drucker (1909 – 2005) was interested in the social ecology of man, exploring the way we organise ourselves and interact.  With an extensive body of work (39 books and countless articles) he was and remains incredibly influential when it comes to management by objectives; believing that by setting clear goals and with effective collaboration and communication, it is possible to allow staff to do a job in their own way.

A retrospective look at management evolution enables us to see how modern management borrows aspects from each of these theories.  Management today is a healthy mix of science, bureaucracy, administration, human relations and goal setting.
 
Good managers should be borrowing techniques and theories from all these approaches and applying them as best determined by the particular situation.

Choosing to be Great takes discipline.

The thing that struck me the most about Great by Choice – Jim Collins & Morten T. Hansen’s handbook on choosing greatness over mediocrity – was the sheer weight of the research involved.  All good books undoubtedly require a lot of research, even those based purely on fictional characters and events require some level of research to build plausibility.

It was the minutiae of the research that impressed me; the dedication to trawling through years of corporate records for indications of luck, discipline, creativity, risk and reward.

The basic premise of the book entails taking two like coins and turning them over and over under a high wattage desk lamp, looking for irregularities and differences.  What is it that makes one coin infinitely more valuable than the other?  Why, when flipped, does one coin seem to come up heads, the other tails?  What dictates whether that was a lucky flip?

The coins are company comparison cases; two similar businesses in field and opportunity over a set timeframe – one experiencing extraordinary results of greatness, the other fading into mediocrity if not complete obscurity.

The research examines the key physiognomies of each company and why one rose to fly in the face of luck; maximising their returns regardless of events being fortuitously beneficial or unexpected calamity.  The insights that this research uncovered formed a set of characteristics that those who choose to be Great exemplify.

 

Key concepts that I took away from this reading:
 

• Choosing to be Great takes discipline and a consistent approach to vision, mission and execution.
• A leader’s job is to set out for their team firm guidelines about how far they need to travel each day; set boundaries and targets so they don’t overreach or underachieve, and make sure they have reserves for whatever the next day brings.
• The most effective creativity is that which is based on evidence and facts.  Research and pragmatic understanding of a situation helps with strong and sensible decision making. 
• Innovation must be timed so that it happens at the right point in the curve.  Innovation should meet market demand rather than pre-empt it; crest with the tide rather than after it.  Learn how to experiment so that riding a large wave of innovation is simply the culmination of many smaller test runs.
• Luck will find you; it is an absolute certainly in a chaotic business environment.  It’s what we do with our luck and how we prepare for that luck (good or bad) that counts.

Out of all of the concepts, this was the kicker; keep an eye open for the people who will be game changers for the company.  Out of all of the strategic and methodical plays a business can make, finding and keeping Great people is the single most important one.