POWERHOUSE PARTNER MODEL STEP 2: BUILD A PARTNERING INFRASTRUCTURE
Leadership by itself does not make a great organization. Great leaders have been brought to their knees by dysfunctional, misaligned, and entrenched bureaucracies encumbered by years of mismanagement.
Partnering Culture
Structure often evolves haphazardly based on power and control, and budget and headcount rule. Little attention is given to how the parts of an organization structure interact, and alignment is commonly an afterthought.
Strategic Framework
The first step in building a partnering infrastructure is to create a grounded, compelling strategic framework (see the Holistic Organization Model, p. 47). This organizational framework interconnects the ethereal energies with the material outputs, creating an interactive, self-reinforcing system. A strategic framework has three principal components:
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Vision
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Mission
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Strategic directions
A vision statement describes the desired destiny of the organization—not a point on a timeline, but rather a navigational reference point guiding the business for the long haul. A vision is a "guiding star," not an X on a map. A short, compelling description of a valued outcome, a vision reflects the passion of the stakeholders and defines the meaning they give to their enterprise. It is buttressed by the values and ethics espoused by the organization's leaders as manifested in the behavior they demonstrate to others. For example, the vision for the U.S. Army reads in part, "Soldiers on point for the Nation … persuasive in peace, invincible in war." 3M's vision is, "To be the most innovative enterprise and the preferred supplier." FedEx's is, "Committed to a People-Service-Profit philosophy." The vision is the compelling force that drives the mission, thus linking the ethereal energies to the material outputs in the form of strategies, tactics, and processes. Excellence is achieved when alignment occurs between and within these forces and people's energies are connected to what they do on a daily basis.
A mission statement describes how an organization will achieve its vision. The mission identifies an enterprise's area of expertise and may target a specific industry or population. The mission of the U.S. Army is to "find peaceful solutions to the frictions between nations, address the problems of human suffering, and when required, fight and win our Nation's wars" (abridged). When Dell was Dell Computer, its mission was, "To be the most successful computer company in the world at delivering the best customer experience in the markets we serve." Nordstrom consolidates its vision and mission into one statement: "Offer the customer the best possible service, selection, quality, and value."
A strategic direction specifies a broad area of organizational focus, the specific things the company needs to do over the next two to three years to achieve its mission. Collectively, an enterprise's strategic directions define at a high level how the organization intends to allocate its resources (people, money, time, technology). Often, strategic directions fall into one or more of three categories: customers, products and services, and operations. Here are some examples of strategic directions:
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Deliver national solutions through next-generation broadband networks
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Achieve end-to-end management of customer experience by end of year
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Deliver market-leading content, application, and Internet services in targeted markets within eighteen months
Following is a case study about a telecommunications company that concluded that it needed to create a new strategic framework.
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Creating a Strategic Framework
A large telecommunications company launched a wireless division in the late 1990s. The specific goal was to achieve a market share position of number one or number two in each of the markets it served within the first three years of business. The overriding challenge was to create an aggressive team that would break through the bureaucracy of a firmly established telecom company to win in a competitive marketplace. As it happened, the company attained a number two or number three position in most geographic markets within eighteen months. The executive team attributed its success to a superior product and, in part, to individual heroics and the entrepreneurial spirit of the wireless team.
In the third year, challenges began to emerge. Subscriber growth was slowing, and the market was becoming hypercompetitive. Prices were plummeting as each player matched the next in what seemed like a rapidly moving chess game. The company's focus blurred and the lack of processes began to strain the organization. In some instances, people were working at cross-purposes. The company needed to be reenergized so that its entrepreneurial sprit could be sustained, but within the structure of an established organization moving out of a start-up mode toward profitability. Faced with this challenge, the executive team committed to redefining the purpose of the organization.
To ensure clarity of purpose, the executive team took the lead in defining and communicating a grounded, compelling strategic framework. The president elected to base the new strategic framework on the Holistic Organization Model. Communications, vision, and objectives had been transmitted easily up and down organizational lines when the company was small. But the adrenaline-driven growth organization was maturing into a complex company that needed to build employee loyalty while increasing subscriber satisfaction with its products and services. Leaders knew they needed a consistent message, but they did not agree on where the enterprise was going.
In a series of facilitated sessions-supplemented by subteam meetings and employee focus groups-the executive team developed a vision statement, mission statement, and strategic directions(see Table 4). It rolled out the strategic framework in face-to-face sessions with employees. Employees responded enthusiastically to the strategic framework, commenting on its power, and its boldness. Managers reacted more cautiously, however, wondering privately whether the executive team was "really serious" about building a global wireless communications business.
| Vision |
| Mission |
| Strategic Directions |
How the executive team went about creating the strategic framework offers practical instruction on executive dynamics. The main obstacle was getting sufficient time and energy from executives. It was overcome by using a series of facilitated half-day conversational meetings with the entire executive team-only for general discussions and for decisions. Three-person subteams guided by a facilitator met in iterative one-hour sessions to has out precise wording for the vision, mission, and strategic directions. Having subteams prepare working drafts for discussion and decisions allowed the entire executive team to focus on reaching consensus on the big ideas. This multiple short-burst approach permitted the periods of incubation, testing, and retesting so crucial for building gut-level ownership of the final strategic framework.
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EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 94