Making and Fulfilling Your Dreams as a Leader: A Practical Guide for Formulating and Executing Strategy
174
Making and Fulfilling Your Dreams as a Leader: A Practical Guide for Formulating and Executing Strategy
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Overview
You will be able to apply the strategic framework model presented in Making and Fulfilling Your Dreams as a Leader on an ongoing basis to establish your organizational identity and direction to anticipate and constructively address business opportunities and challenges.
"Carl is the most creative, pragmatic, and thoughtful organizational consultant I know. He has helped me address numerous organizational problems and situations"
-Tom Bjornson, president, Claremont Behavioral Services
"Carl and Clay were able to take strategic planning in our branch business units from nowhere to somewhere during a time when we needed a clear vision of growth. As a NTSE company of $3 Billion in revenue this was no small task. We were on a tight schedule and needed their expertise. Their process was a terrific help in allowing us to achieve our long term objectives"
-Mark E. Boitano, executive vice president and COO, Granite Construction Inc.
"Carl always adds breadth, depth, and clarity to any strategy discussion. I am particularly impressed with his realistic, fad-free perspective"
-Nort Croft, project manager, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781957203171 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The Ewings Publishing LLC |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2022 |
| Edition description: | 2nd ed. |
| Pages: | 174 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Making and Fulfilling Your Dreams as a Leader
A Practical Guide for Formulating and Executing Strategy
By CARL WELTE
Balboa Press
Copyright © 2014 Carl WelteAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-9059-2
CHAPTER 1
Shared Aspirations: A Leadership Imperative
Leaders get people moving. They energize and mobilize. They take people and organizations to places they have never been before.
—Kouzes and Posner, The Leadership Challenge
The work of the organization can be divided into three broad categories: technical work, management work, and leadership. Technical work is the direct application of physical and mental effort to provide the organization's or organizational unit's products or services. Management work is the coordination of diverse activities to achieve desired results. Leadership, as defined Kouzes and Posner, is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations.
All three categories of organizational work are critical. The importance of technical work, doing the work of the organization, is obvious. But without the coordination provided by proper management, confusion and inefficiencies abound. And without effective leadership, the organization will be mired in the status quo, if lucky. The status quo is not an option, especially in today's fast-paced world.
My focus in this book is leadership, specifically crafting shared aspirations to take the organization where it needs and wants to go.
Based on their extensive global research spanning more than twenty-five years, The Leadership Challenge, by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, identifies "the five practices of exemplary leaders." These practices are:
1. Model the way
2. Inspire a shared vision
3. Challenge the process
4. Enable others to act
5. Encourage the heart
These five practices and the six behaviors ascribed to each practice have withstood the test of time and have proven to be valid in all cultures around the world, and at all levels of the organization.
Making and fulfilling your dreams as a leader gives you practical and proven methods to successfully use all of these practices, especially the first three: model the way, inspire a shared vision, and challenge the process. Effectively applying these first three practices is essential if you as a leader are going to energize and mobilize people, the essence of the last two practices. Without shared aspirations, you cannot be successful in taking your organization and people to new and better places.
To further make the case for the criticality of shared aspirations, we turn to the seminal work of Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, captured in their book Built to Last.
In this groundbreaking book, the authors looked at what makes the truly exceptional companies outperform other companies in their respective industries. Based on their research, the authors destroy the commonly held belief that only charismatic, visionary leaders can build visionary companies. What they discovered in their research is that the exceptional companies are passionate about both defining and preserving their core ideologies (what I refer to as the "identity" dimension in this book) and stimulating progress in the marketplace (what I refer to as the "direction" dimension in this book).
These important findings greatly shaped my critical thinking about strategy and the resultant application with my consulting clients. The genesis of my Strategic Framework Model that forms the foundation of this book, and is shown below to a large part, sprang from this research.
Strategy formulation consists of the identity and direction dimensions in the Strategic Framework Model. Both dimensions are critical, and they complement one another.
The identity dimension defines the organization's core ideologies. This includes why it exists (purpose or mission) and what it stands for (core values). The identity is the foundation upon which the organization is built. Once appropriately defined, the identity is relatively timeless. The organization may, however, need to rethink its identity when faced with major changes in its relevant external and internal environments.
The direction dimension, on the other hand, changes as the organization defines and redefines its ideal future state (vision) and resultant strategies (strategic path) to move toward achieving the desired state. The purpose of the direction dimension is to help the organization define how it can best stimulate progress in its relevant external environment. To do so, the organization needs to continually plan "from the outside in" so it can best influence, adapt, and align with its unique external context. This continual need for the organization to pace with its external world is why I prefer the term strategic thinking and its dynamic connotation to the traditional term strategic planning and only the periodic attention to the future that this term means to most people.
Situation analysis is an important prerequisite for crafting a powerful direction. It refers to the need for the organization, both on a continuing basis and formal basis, to periodically assess what is going on in its relevant external environment and its resultant capability to effectively take advantage of or respond to identified opportunities and challenges.
Even if they do a good job of formulating strategy, a large majority of, if not most, organizations fall when it comes to the need to work the strategy. Living and working the strategy on an ongoing basis needs to be priority number one for the organization's leadership. Leadership needs to give due diligence to establishing and using helpful mechanisms and defining and requiring important organizational patterns of behavior to catalyze the achievement of the strategy.
Leader Behavior in Developing Shared Aspirations
Developing shared aspirations begins with you, the leader, and your leadership team. You will want to interact with your team in a genuine and qualitative manner throughout the entire process of formulating and executing strategy. This does not mean, however, that your actions will always be highly participative, for true leadership starts from within you as the leader. And the strategic process is not necessarily meant to be a democratic process. This is especially true when it comes to clarifying values.
To be an effective leader, you need to vary your behavior to fit the situation. At times, you should be highly directive. At other times, participative behavior is best. And yet on other occasions, delegating decision making is most effective. This principle, of course, is true not only in formulating and executing strategy but in exercising your leadership in general.
In choosing an appropriate leader behavior to use, you assess the various situational variables at play. The most important of these variables are the importance of the decision, the importance of the acceptance of the decision, and who has the requisite knowledge to make an effective decision.
But again, in most instances, you will want to engage in quality thinking and interacting with your leadership team in developing and implementing strategy.
"People tend to own things they help create." -Dan Madison
The model below identifies the various decision-making options available to you as a leader.
Another important thing to realize as a leader is that as you plow new ground, not everyone is going to be with you. Consequently, you need to develop an "edge." In other words, you need the courage to see reality and act on it, to make the tough decisions, even when they may be unpopular.
Once you as the leader have completed the required quality thinking and interacting with your leadership team in formulating your organizational strategy, you need to engage the organization as a whole in an effort to get everyone aligned behind this set of shared aspirations.
What you do not want to do is to just "roll it out," as so many organizations do. Rollouts do not work. What you and your leadership team need to do is to make the execution of the strategy you have developed your ongoing chief priority. The most important thing you do. Because it is. You and your leadership team lead the way in executing the strategy by living it on an ongoing basis. You are diligent regarding using the recommendations described in "Strategy Execution," chapters 9 and 10, to have the entire organization follow your leadership to "struggle for shared aspirations."
Formulating Strategy: Identity
Strategic Framework
Strategy Formulation
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Strategy Execution
The identity dimension of formulating strategy is about defining who we are (purpose or mission) and what we stand for (core values). These two components of identity describe your core ideologies and provide a foundation from which to operate and plot the future. As one client described it, identity provides guardrails for you to propel forward in crafting and achieving your vision. Identity allows you to stay on course and not wander off in pursuit of opportunities that on the surface look appealing but do not really align with what you are all about.
Chapter 2 shows how to articulate a powerful purpose or mission. Chapter 3 shows how to clarify a set of core values to serve as an everyday behavioral guide for you and your organization.
CHAPTER 2Defining Purpose (or Mission): Who Are We?
An organization's Purpose would seem to be obvious ... but rarely is. —Peter Drucker
What Is Purpose (or Mission)?
Purpose: The fundamental reason an organization or organizational unit exists.
It answers the questions: Who are we? Why do we exist? What is our business? What should it be?
I prefer the term purpose over mission. Purpose is clear, whereas mission can refer to an organization's reason for being, its purpose, or a particular time-limited strategy, like "take the hill."
But I find in my consulting experience that mission is used by the majority of organizations. So, despite my preference, I concede and will use the word mission from here on in this book to refer to an organization's reason for being.
Mission is timeless. It serves as a perpetual guiding star. Attempting to achieve it is a never-ending journey.
As stated in Peter Drucker's statement above, an organization's mission would seem to be straightforward. A steel mill makes steel; an insurance company underwrites risks; and a bank lends money. But, "What is our business?" is almost always a difficult question to answer. And the right answer is usually not obvious.
Drucker emphasizes specifically answering "What is our business?" is the first responsibility of top management, be it the organization as a whole or an organizational unit. He stresses that this critical question rarely gets the reflective thinking it deserves. This question often sparks dissent because there is never one right answer. This inadequate attention to mission, Drucker argues, is the single most important cause of business frustration and failure.
The Value of Purpose
Everything flows from the mission. It alone enables an organization to set a sound strategic direction and go to work. Unless a group's mission is explicitly expressed, clearly understood, and supported by every member of the organization, the organization is at the mercy of events. The lack of a well-crafted and supported mission leads to divergent decision making throughout the organization. Decision makers will act on the basis of their different points of view, unaware of how doing so hurts the performance of the organization as a whole.
I find images about common purpose very powerful. If you believe deep down that you and the others you work with have common purposes and values, you can still certainly pursue different objectives. Inevitably people will have different goals. But, if I really can believe deep down that, in spite of those practical differences, we still have an enormous amount in common that we actually care about, then that changes my whole view. In that case I start to see myself and others less as separate beings, and more as parts of a greater whole. —Peter Senge
Until thought is linked with purpose, there is no intelligent accomplishment. —James Allen
Guidelines for Drafting a Mission
• The effective mission statement is short and sharply focused. It should be limited to one sentence.
• The mission says why you do what you do, not how you do it.
The why question is answered by stating the mission from the customer's, client's, or user's point of view: What do they (the customer/client/user) find of value or use? It is okay, in fact desirable in most instances, to include the question of what we do in the mission statement as long as the result, why we do it, is also stated.
• The mission should be far-reaching and timeless. It should be broad enough so as not to restrict quality thinking about strategic direction in alignment with the organization's essence; but it should also be specific enough to provide meaningful direction.
• The mission must be clear and inspiring.
• "Making money" is not the mission of an organization. Making money, or raising money, is a requirement. For if an organization is not profitable, it will not be around to achieve its mission. In addition, "making money" provides little business focus or definition. As Drucker points out, profitability is not the purpose of a business enterprise or activity, but a limiting factor. Profit is not the explanation, cause, or rationale of business behavior and business decisions, but rather the test of their validity.
Examples of Mission Statements
Shown below are a few examples of mission statements for organizations you are likely familiar with.
Enhance society by creating, collecting, and distributing high-quality news, information, and entertainment. —The New York Times
To use our imagination to bring happiness to millions. —Walt Disney Company
Provide you with the most useful and ethical financial services in the world. —Charles Schwab
Organize the world's information and make it unusually accessible and useful. —Google, Inc.
Shown below are a few examples of mission statements from organizations or organizational units I have consulted with.
Help employees better serve our customers and be more productive by providing technology solutions and access to needed information. —Information Systems
Provide safe, clean facilities for children, families, and staff that support their quality of life and enhance the effectiveness of the agency's work. —Facilities
Contribute to the ongoing success of the Business School by providing a continuous link for graduates and friends through quality alumni programs and services. —University Alumni Association
Assure that the general public, industrial, commercial, and residential customers understand and accept their responsibilities related to maintaining water quality and behave accordingly. -Inspection
Create confident, competent young cooks armed with the knowledge to make healthy food choices for life and share this knowledge with their friends and families. —A nonprofit organization
Defining Your Mission
Whether you are doing some initial quality thinking, and hopefully, interacting regarding your organization's mission, or want to critically rethink your mission, answer the questions below to define a powerful mission.
Remember that truly defining mission is not easy. You may have to reflect on it and come back to it several times before you are satisfied. You will also want to get constructive inputs from constituents.
The questions:
1. Who are our primary customers, client, or users?
2. What do they (customers/clients/users) find, or what could they find, of value or worth? (the value proposition)?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Making and Fulfilling Your Dreams as a Leader by CARL WELTE. Copyright © 2014 Carl Welte. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments, ix,Introduction, xi,
1. Shared Aspirations: A Leadership Imperative, 1,
I. Formulating Strategy: Identity, 9,
2. Defining Purpose (or Mission): Who Are We?, 11,
3. Clarifying Core Values: What Do We Stand For?, 21,
4. Identifying Distinct (Core) Capabilities: Is There Anything We Are Really Good At?, 35,
II. Formulating Strategy: Direction, 41,
5. Conducting a Situation Analysis: What is Going On in Our Relevant Environment?, 43,
6. Crafting a Translatable Vision: Where Are We Going, and What Does It Look Like When We Get There?, 55,
7. Charting a Strategic Path: How Are We Going to Get There?, 63,
8. Planning Action: How Are We Going to Make It Happen?, 75,
III. Executing Strategy, 105,
9. Enabling the Organization: Integrating and Aligning Efforts, 105,
10. Monitoring and Modifying Progress: Working the Plan, 115,
Conclusion, 135,
Notes, 137,
About the Author, 141,