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Yet, one simple "rule of business" remains constant. Your organization's ability to execute is the ultimate determinant of your success. And, when it comes to effective execution your potential roadblocks are many.
At Ford Business Consulting, our specialty is helping organizations overcome obstacles to superior execution by tuning the human system to support the business strategy.read more...
At Ford Business Consulting, our specialty is helping organizations overcome obstacles to superior execution by tuning the human system to support the business strategy.read more...
Delegation - It's Whack-a-Mole Season
Remember the Whack-a-Mole game? For many organizations, the end of the fiscal year is prime season for Whack-a-Mole. In case you aren't familiar with it, Whack-a-Mole is a children's arcade game where the child stands with a rubber mallet in front of a table, waiting for the Moles to pop up. As they pop up, the child scores points for banging them down with the mallet before they retreat.
As year-end heats up (or any time things are hectic), you can easily leave your staff feeling like they are playing Whack-a-Mole. Something comes to your attention that just has to get handled. You email someone on your staff and ask them to handle it. No big deal; you're just delegating. But as things pop up more often, if you don't prioritize, pretty soon your staff is playing Whack-a-Mole.
The downside of having your staff play Whack-a-Mole is that it undermines their ability to make progress on any one thing. They spend so much of their time trying to catch what you're throwing at them before it hits the ground that they can't get anything done. And, if you're not careful this becomes part of your culture. Your 800 pound Gorilla sees how much fun Whack-a-Mole is and pretty soon the whole organization is spending so much time juggling that productivity takes a nose dive.
Linda Ford, PhD
read more...
As year-end heats up (or any time things are hectic), you can easily leave your staff feeling like they are playing Whack-a-Mole. Something comes to your attention that just has to get handled. You email someone on your staff and ask them to handle it. No big deal; you're just delegating. But as things pop up more often, if you don't prioritize, pretty soon your staff is playing Whack-a-Mole.
The downside of having your staff play Whack-a-Mole is that it undermines their ability to make progress on any one thing. They spend so much of their time trying to catch what you're throwing at them before it hits the ground that they can't get anything done. And, if you're not careful this becomes part of your culture. Your 800 pound Gorilla sees how much fun Whack-a-Mole is and pretty soon the whole organization is spending so much time juggling that productivity takes a nose dive.
Linda Ford, PhD
Labels: accountability, delegation
read more...
Shake things up
If you’re in a leadership role, you should regularly ask yourself if you are making a decision that someone else in your organization could make. Get the decisions close to the customer, close to the problem. When William Wrigley, Jr. took over the Wrigley empire from his father (who took over from his father who took over from his father), he was soon asked to decide about the color of the carpet on the 12th floor. He recalls thinking, “I don’t want to make this decision. And I don’t want anyone who reports to me to make this decision.” (Wall Street Journal, March 11-12, 2006, “Father, Son and Gum”) Had Wrigley not had that insight, he might not have been successful in pulling out of the slump the company was in.
Not long after that, he created shock waves by letting folks know that he was unaware of one of the company’s initiatives – heresy under the old regime. Wrigley sent an email to his workers that said, “If we never make mistakes, then we are most likely not being very innovative and not taking enough risks.”
Wrigley seems to have understood that decisions need to be close to the problem and risks are a vital ingredient for innovation. While neither of these is a startling revelation, neither is easy to implement in a culture that likes to do things “the way they’ve always been done.”
Take a look around your organization. What are you doing the same old way? Where do you need to shake things up a bit?
read more...
Not long after that, he created shock waves by letting folks know that he was unaware of one of the company’s initiatives – heresy under the old regime. Wrigley sent an email to his workers that said, “If we never make mistakes, then we are most likely not being very innovative and not taking enough risks.”
Wrigley seems to have understood that decisions need to be close to the problem and risks are a vital ingredient for innovation. While neither of these is a startling revelation, neither is easy to implement in a culture that likes to do things “the way they’ve always been done.”
Take a look around your organization. What are you doing the same old way? Where do you need to shake things up a bit?
Labels: delegation, innovation, leadership
read more...