Change Management Starts With Changing How You Think.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

About a year or so ago I wrote an article entitled the “Biggest Problems Facing Small Business Today”. Based on the number of downloads and visits to my blog it was of significant interest and must have resonated with many business leaders.

I have since revised my thinking somewhat. The biggest problem most business leaders face isn’t what they think it is.

I listed the top issues at that time as:

• Lack of a clear plan– the SBA says that over 50% of businesses that fail don’t have a plan. I can say from my 30 plus years of experience not only is that number conservative, but worst many businesses don’t know how to plan.
• Ineffective leadership – this issue takes many forms. In my experience it is frequently in the form of depth of leadership. The founder of the company is hands- on and effective but has little or no management depth behind him or her.
• Sales / marketing effectiveness- this leads back to planning and leadership. Part of the planning process should include a very clear answer to one simple question, “with all of the products and service available to my customers why should they buy from me?”

• Lack of execution- this may be the biggest of all. Research has shown and my own experience backs up the following facts:

• Over 90% of strategies that are developed are never executed. % of improvement initiatives fail.   85% of leaders spend less that 1-hour per month on strategy.
•  Over 90% of employees don’t know the company’s strategy. (This is a direct result of top management not documenting and communicating it)
• Well over 90% of organizations don’t have meaningful performance measurements in place.

I said at that time execution may be the biggest issue of all. I was right.

The biggest problem facing business of all sizes today is the inability to execute. The issues I listed can all be solved through planning and execution.

Numerous studies have noted the very weak relationship of strategy formulation to strategy execution. Fortune Magazine stated “Less than 10% of strategies effectively formulated are effectively executed.” Companies large and small worldwide spend billions of dollars each year on strategy formulation. A search of the World Wide Web using Google took less than 1/3 of a second to return more than 1.3 million hits on strategy consulting, ranging from the “Big 6” firms to boutique firms specializing in strategy. Interestingly, a similar search for strategy implementation consulting returned less than 500,000 hits. Even allowing for overlap this is a significant disconnect.

I did some research on execution independently, looking for tools and methodology that I could offer my clients to help them.

I have since expanded my practice to include a proven execution process and methodology. Success of any methodology begins with how leadership thinks about their business.

I have refined my focus to and philosophy to: Everything I do is to get business leaders to think differently so that they can create more and better options for their organizations and stakeholders.

Change management starts with changing how you think about and see your organization.

 

change management, effective leadership, effective strategy execution

 

The biggest problem facing your business may not be what you think it is.