How to change when change is hard

What do you do when most of us know we have a problem, but are not convinced enough to change anything? Or when the problem is huge and it's too easy to wait for somebody to appear with a huge solution? The answer is not providing more information about the problem to convince you about the need of change. It is to appeal to your emotions and give you examples of small solutions to motivate you to start the change.

Chip and Dan Heath give a good framework for this in their new book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. I have copied their framework below. But first take a look on how Jamie Oliver is motivating you by appealing to your emotions and giving you examples of small solutions to fight the huge obesity problem.



The Switch framework with my comments about Jamie Oliver's project:
Download the framework here.

HOW TO MAKE A SWITCH

For things to change, somebody somewhere has to start acting differently. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s your team. Picture that person (or people).

Each has an emotional Elephant side and a rational Rider side. You’ve got to reach both. And you’ve also got to clear the way for them to succeed. In short, you must do three things:

DIRECT the Rider

• FOLLOW THE BRIGHT SPOTS. Investigate what's working and clone it. (Home made food)
• SCRIPT THE CRITICAL MOVES. Don't think big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors. (Cooking lessons on main street, small extra budget for schools to use better incredients, weggie class for children to know the difference between potato and tomato!)
• POINT TO THE DESTINATION. Change is easier when you know where you're going and why it’s worth it. (No need in this case)

MOTIVATE the Elephant

• FIND THE FEELING. Knowing something isn't enough to cause change. Make people feel something. (Notice how Jamie is not talking about you, but your children!)
• SHRINK THE CHANGE. Break down the change until it no longer spooks the Elephant. (Milk)
• GROW YOUR PEOPLE. Cultivate a sense of identity and instill the growth mindset. (Our parents ate real home food, our grandparents ate real home food, but our generation is no longer giving that example to our children. Cooking lessons on homestreet together with your neighbors.)

SHAPE the Path

• TWEAK THE ENVIRONMENT. When the situation changes, the behavior changes. So change the situation. (Start with the school lunch. Moving to the same direction Pepsi announced this week they will cut sugary drinks from schools globally. See also how NYC Health authorities appeal to your emotions on their three month old ad about fat and soda drinks.)
• BUILD HABITS. When behavior is habitual, it's “free”—it doesn't tax the Rider. Look for ways to encourage habits. (Jamie Oliver calls for supermarkets to give more info about healthy food, the habit needs to start on what kind of food you buy.)
• RALLY THE HERD. Behavior is contagious. Help it spread. (The main street cooking class, and school lunch again. My peers are changing, I'd better follow their example.)

The book. uses tens of examples like this and is a nice read. One of the examples is the opposite problem of obesity - malnutrition in Vietnam -but the solution is exactly the same: cooking lessons in villages for how to make healthier food from simple incredients, and how to have healthier eating habbits.

What made the book even more interesting was that I had just finished reading two books about motivation and the emotional right brain side of us by Dan Pink - his new book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us and the classic A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future.

Dan and Chip Heath's earier book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die was one of the books that made me look at communication from a different point of view two years ago.

Earlier I always tried to convince the Rider with more facts (because the facts convinced me), but I had trouble motivating the Elephant - now I try to do both.

The Hazards of Leading Culture Change

I just received the latest ChangeThis newsletter including one manifesto on my favorite topic leading culture change. I decided to just quicly blog the manifesto as is (under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License).



"When great starts have poor endings, it can leave change pioneers disappointed, hard working organizers disheartened, and skeptics with proof they were correct all along. It makes the next initiative more challenging to launch and the next set of resistors more defiant. However, without needed change the organization risks losing its competitive advantage. Losing its edge makes it harder to attract and retain the best talent and resources, and in today’s economy, the death knell begins.

Planned change takes courage and tenacity. Even organizations with a burning platform, effective leaders, and well-crafted plans can sometimes miss the mark because they fail to recognize early signals that the seeds for derailment are being sown or they fail to realize the power of the signals they are sending via decisions that are unsupportive of the culture change commitment. Derailment is much more likely during periods of organizational anxiety from economic challenge, organizational shift (like a major merger or new competitor), or a change in senior leadership. However, these high profile hazards are easier to spot and therefore simpler to combat. It is the more subtle shifts that can do the most damage before their presence is even noticed.”

by Chip R. Bell & John R. Patterson. Their newest book is Take Their Breath Away: How Imaginative Service Creates Devoted Customers. They can be reached through taketheirbreathaway.com.

Your options in change

I have been writing a lot about organizational change from the organizational point of view, but this Nevin Danielson's ChangeThis Manifesto looks at change from the individual's point of view.

He is talking about organizational change, but you can actually apply his thoughts to political change, economical change or other types of major changes happening around you. Nevin examines the options you have for participating in that system. And submits this challenge: Will you flow with it, flee from it or fight it?

Our radar is constantly on, sensing the cues that we’ll synthesize to decide if we’re actually going to be engaged at work. The end result of our synthesis is
a feeling, a feeling of whether we’re content within the system. Are you accepting the status quo? If not, what are your alternatives?

The Flow Option

If you work in an optimal organization, you like it and how it allows you to contribute at your best level, then naturally you can flow with it - unless there is room for continuos imprvoment which is a form of slow change, not flowing.

Or are you just comfortable with the system and flow with it because you are less comfortable with the other options - flee or fight.

Nevin's manifesto argues that we should make the deliberate and courageous choice to NOT flow. You owe it to yourself to find true meaning in your effort. Flee if you must, but consider what it looks like if you choose to fight. It may be a watershed event that defines your career.

The Flee Option

In today's labor market you are free to flee the existing system if you want. By flee, Nevin means choosing to leave the system, ostensibly to go to another system more suited to your needs. But there are risks and challenges with this approach - you do not actually know how the other system looks form inside and it will take time for you to earn credibility in the new system.

Fleeing could be the best option when you know the system you are in is too entrenched to change. It will require too much energy from you to see meaningful progress. Shifting your energy to a new system can be valuable for you, the organization you leave and the organization you go to.

This is actually what I did seven years ago, when I had a mismatch of values and did not see any meaningful future for in at the system I worked for at that time - not even after a period of coaching and partly because the coaching made mee see I was not able to fulfill myself at the system I was in. I have never regretted that decision to flee - it opened me a whole new world in a system where I am able to contribute, and where I am allowed to fight for change.

The Fight Option

Fighting is a pretty strong word. Please forgive the alliteration. By fight, Nevin means that you can work to change the system. If you’re in the system and disagree with it but are passionate about the outcome the organization is pursuing, this may be more of an obligation than a choice.

The variables Levin sees in fighting the status quo:

Loud or Quiet? Are you going to state your intentions and go on the offensive? Alternatively, are you going to disagree with the system and choose simply to not participate? The quiet non-participation does not lead to anything except maybe to you been seen as a non-performer and to change resistance when the system will further develop to something you disagree even more.

Fearless or Pragmatic? If you choose to fight, it really boils down to deciding how much you’re willing to challenge the system. This choice is best envisioned as a continuum. At one end, you fearlessly behave the way you believe you should, even though the system may have consequences, either expressed or implied, for those who behave that way. At the other end, you gingerly select the safe route, expressing your displeasure at the system when you’re not stepping on toes, or perhaps toes of people who can’t hurt you. There can be a feeling of accomplishment if you lean towards the pragmatic option. You see that you are not flowing and you have not fled, ergo, you must be fighting.

Earlier I was more fearless, was about to step on too many toes and became more pragmatic. The pragmatic approach has led to the results I was hoping for. Slowly but surely. Slower than my fearless change agent would have wanted, but I have achieved them at the end anyway.

It’s a delicate balance, but Nevin believes a thoughtful blend of compassionate articulation, well-founded arguments and insightful behavior can be seen as an effort for a greater good. You can stir a change movement that affects the system and creates positive results for the organization.





Photo by bizior

The Atomic Rules of Kaizen

Lately I have been thinking about Kaizen (continuous improvement), and came across shmula.com blog by Pete Abilla. Earlier this year he wrote a post about The Atomic Rules of Kaizen. The post was so good I will quote it as such:

Systems that are internally consistent and externally pragmatic stem from just a few rules. Systems with exceedingly many rules typically fail or will not endure. For example,

• Most mathematical truths stem from just a few axioms
• Music stems from just a handful of finite notes
• Most Martial Arts stem from a few principles of angle, attack, force, etc.

This same approach is true for Kaizen. In Kaizen, it is important to have fidelity to just a few atomic rules, from which a range of behavior will originate. Below are the rules that I subscribe to:

1. Spend no Money
2. Add no People
3. Add no Space
4. Add no Steps (Touches)

These four atomic rules collectively form constraints, leading to some creative tension. For example,

• We will be compelled to use creativity
• We will be compelled toward elegance
• We will be compelled to respect people
• We will be compelled to question the status quo
• We will be compelled to think “we can, if…” instead of “we can’t because…”
• We will be compelled to focus on processes, instead of finger-pointing at others
• We will be compelled to make many small improvements, instead of big, water-shed changes that take a lot of time and resources
• We will be compelled to seek the collective wisdom of many people, instead of a few, select heroes

In a tough economic climate in which we all find ourselves, a Kaizen worldview is needed more now than ever.

By Pete Abilla, shmula.com

What Toyota has learned?

Earlier this week Toyota president Akio Toyoda gave a speech which was almost like an answert to my previous post about How should business leaders learn from GM's latest turning point?

In HBS Newsletter last week Nancy F. Koehn, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, highlighted three fundamental management issues on which GM has failed for decades:

1. First, pay close attention to what is happening to consumers' lives in the context of the larger environment—not only their stated preferences, but their hopes, dreams, wallets, lifestyles, and values.


2. Second, keep an equally close eye on the competition.


3. And third, understand how a company's structure and culture relate to its strategy.

In his speech this week Mr Toyoda addressed all of these fundamental issues and outlined how Toyota is going to move forward. His speech covers many things from company philosophy to recovering from past challenges, from current challenges to realigning the organization and re-segmenting the market to overcome the challenges.

There is one paragraph I want to highlight from the speech, but you should read the whole speech.

Rather than asking, “How many cars will we sell?” or, “How much money will we make by selling these cars?” we need to ask ourselves, “What kind of cars will make people happy?” as well as, “What pricing will attract them in each region?” Then we must make those cars.

Matt May said it well in his blog: If every company leader thought and acted in the transparent manner you will hear in Akio-san's message, I dare say the world would be in a far better position today.

Photo by Current News Stories

How should business leaders learn from GM's latest turning point?

In this weeks Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Newsletter several faculty members write about GM: What Went Wrong and What's Next. Nancy F. Koehn, Professor of Business Administration, highlights same fundamental leadership and management issues I have been blogging about earlier.

General Motors was formed in 1908, the same year Henry Ford brought out the first Model T. Ford Motor Company became the undisputed leader of this young market and by the early 1920s, it was producing 60 percent of all the motor vehicles manufactured in the United States and half of those made worldwide. All of these automobiles were Model Ts, offered in one color: black.

Beginning in the mid 1920s, GM staged an astounding victory against Ford Motor Company. Alfred Sloan, Pierre Du Pont, and other GM executives placed a series of important bets on what American consumers wanted (different makes, models and prices; cars that were status symbols and identity holders as well as transportation sources) and they did so with careful, consistent attention to what the competition was—and was not—doing. As company leaders rolled out this daring strategy, they also created an organizational structure and culture developed to support a multi-product, vertically integrated enterprise. By the mid 1930s, GM's market share had risen to 42 percent while Ford's had fallen to 21 percent.

In this context, it is interesting to consider the root causes of General Motor's decline, which has been under way for 30 years. Although there are many factors that contributed to the company's long, slow bleed, the three fundamental issues are management's consistent failure to do the very things that made the business so successful initially.

1. First, pay close attention to what is happening to consumers' lives in the context of the larger environment—not only their stated preferences, but their hopes, dreams, wallets, lifestyles, and values.


2. Second, keep an equally close eye on the competition. (Look close at the picture above and you will see a hybrid Prius among the pick up's and SUV's.)


3. And third, understand how a company's structure and culture relate to its strategy. Use all this understanding to place innovative bets. This is what the early leaders of GM did. And this is what several generations of executives—beginning in the 1970s with the first oil shocks and the entrance of Japanese imports—have consistently failed to do.

It has been a failure of leadership as astounding and momentous (and ironic) as the company's early achievement, Professor Koehn concludes.

In my earlier post Link Between Strategy, Culture, Change and Leadership I quoted Edgar Schein from The Corporate Culture Survival Guide:

The organization clings to whatever made it a success. The very culture that created the success makes it difficult for members of the organization to perceive changes in the environment that require new responses. Culture becomes a constraint on strategy.

This is what happened to GM. At the moment GM is changing their strategy and structure dramatically. Their survival will depend on wether they are able to change also their culture - and that requires a lot of leadership and quite some time. But there is hope – the same thing happened to Ford (in the 1920s) yet today they are the only US car manufacturer not needing government bailout.

Change Your Thinking > To Change Your Results!

Today I found another good manifesto from ChangeThis. It is based on concepts discussed in Tony Jeary’s latest book, Strategic Acceleration: Succeed at the Speed of Life

He is on spot writing how business as usual is unrealistic in our current economic climate. Leaders must accept the fact that success is likely to become a moving target and their organizations must become faster, leaner and better equipped to compete and change quickly.

He determines three basic strategic concepts that directly impact achieving superior results. The concepts are Clarity, Focus and Execution. These are the keys to achieving superior results on both professional and personal fronts. These three keys also reflect a new way of thinking you need to embrace, to better frame your strategy building process. Here is a quick description of each of these strategic concepts.

Clarity:
You must be clear about your vision and what you really want!

Focus:
You must focus on high-leverage activities that will move your results needle!

Execution:
You must execute by elevating your ability to persuade and influence others!

Clarity, Focus and Execution must become the foundational framework for all that you do.

This is the new action template he is suggesting for your mind. Get Clear! Get Focused! Execute! When you are committed to this approach, the next step is to wrap them in a powerful concept that can transform your life and work. The concept he refers to is this: Always exceed expectations!

Good leadership is required to put all these pieces together. For a vision to be executed, it must be understood and supported by the business as a whole. There must be unity and there must be clarity. All of this comes together with one primary goal: To get results! In the most basic terms, that is what leadership is about: Creating organizational environments capable of getting superior results. To get results there must be a high level of organizational energy.

Tom lists seven things for a leader to do NOW to change results
1. Recognize that “Business As Usual” is not an option.
2. Create strategies based on what can actually be seen.
3. Reevaluate the Value and Purpose of your Vision.
4. Identify and disrupt organizational comfort zones.
5. Conduct Quarterly More-Of-Less-Of Reviews.
6. Commit to exceeding expectations and providing value.
7. Abandon activities that won’t move the strategic results needle.

In other words stop doing what is comfortable but not necessary, and start doing what is necessary even if it feels uncomfortable in the beginning.



Tony's text reminds me of two earlier manifestos I have been blogging about - Leadership in Hard Times and Achieving Business Excellence.

Leadership in Hard Times

I was reading the latest issue of Harvard Business Review in the train on my way back home. The editorial was giving some advice for leaders during these hard times

Leadership is never easy, but it’s incredibly tough right now.

Some of the advice sounded familiar as I have been blocking about similar topics lately.

Hire the best possible people to work for you, even if they fought you for your job. Surround yourself with a team of people who can challenge your thinking and whose strengths make up for your deficits. Share credit with your closest colleagues, so that they’re fully committed to your mission. Be sure to communicate, often and authentically, with your larger public. And don’t forget to relax. Says Doris Kearns Goodwin in Leadership Lessons from Abraham Lincoln.

I have been blogging about this in my post Right People On The Right Jobs, but maybe should go a bit deeper.

If you’re leading an organization through this downturn, you’re undoubtedly introducing major changes—and inevitably encountering resistance to them. It’s wise to engage with the resisters, learn from them, and alter your course if they suggest smart adjustments to your initiatives. Your biggest critics can be turned into your best advocates if you have the courage to listen carefully. This advice feels all the more important right now, given that an organization’s very survival may depend on making the right changes. Say Jeffrey Ford and Laurie Ford inDecoding Resistance to Change.


I have been blogging about this in my posts Leading Change, Change Resistance and Lessons in Organizational Resistance.

Leadership on tough times is a topic everyone writes about now. Dan McCarthy blogged about it in February "long overdue" as he said. But Lee J. Colan was early, he published a ChangeThis manifesto in December repeating his article from 2001.



His basic message (in the manifesto above) is

1) Change is an opportunity to improve our business
This results in leadership behavior like upgrading the workforce and strategic cost cutting. Greater employee commitment and a strengthened ability to sustain growth are the outcomes.

2) Involve personnel in the change - everybody needs to understand
- Where are we going? (Strategy)
- What are we doing to get there? (Plans)
- How can I contribute? (Roles)
- What’s in it for me? (Rewards)

3) Don't panic, focus and keep doing what you do best

I actually have nothing to add on these articles.

Lessons in Organizational Resistance

This week I have again had several discussions about change resistance - at home, in the office, company wide, ... It always amazes me how

People use a lot of time, energy and innovativeness on resisting things.
If only that time, energy and innovativeness could be used
to develop things and create something new.

Some days ago I read an interesting post about Lessons in Organizational Resistance by Cheri Baker at The Enlightened Manager Blog. With her permission I just copy her text here.

Lessons in Organizational Resistance

So what happens in an organization when you go picking at something that is off limits? KA-BLAM! Organizational resistance shows up.

• The process is questioned (Should we really be using focus groups? I hear that....)


• The participants are questioned (He doesn't have the experience to be managing this project...)


• Delays are built in (I'll call you when I'm ready to meet.)


• Resistance to Decision Making (Let's run a few more analyses....)


• Silence (He won't return my phone calls.)

There are a few problems with organizational resistance.

1. The "types of resistance" above don't usually point to the real cause. (These may include lack of trust, lack of urgency, lack of need, issues of power and control, etc.)


2. They are sand-traps, designed to capture the unwary. They become distractions to the real issue at hand.

There is a fine line between valid discussions of process and objections that mask the real issues. I had a real blunder recently when I interpreted objections as a series of unreasonable attacks instead of seeing them for what they were - just a source of resistance to be further explored. I compounded my mistake by reacting to the situation instantly, instead of giving myself 24 hours of perspective.

So here I am, feeling pretty deeply stupid and unsure what will occur next. Ick. Ick. Ick.

Live and learn. See organizational resistance for what it is - data - and don't respond from an emotional place. I wish you the best at learning from my mistakes, to save you the pain of committing too many of your own!

from Cheri

Change Resistance

Many wise people have said many wise words about change resistance. Jack Welch, in his book Winning says "What you have heard about resistance to change is true." I prefer more what Michael T. Kanazawa says in his ChangeThis manifesto People Don’t Hate Change, They Hate How You’re Trying to Change Them:

If you believe that people hate change and that it is your job to change them, they will hate it.
If you believe that people thrive on change and that your job is to unleash it, you will tap into a limitless source of ingenuity, energy and drive that will allow you to consistently take your big ideas into big results.

Kanazawa mentions Apple, Google, Nintendo, Starbucks and IBM as examples of “companies [whose employees] have thrived on change, bringing out their best talents, creativity, ingenuity and determination.” He continues “Why can’t we all work in organizations like these? We can, if we focus on the right challenges.” Check his manifesto for his view of the challenges.

Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP, talks about the dynamics of fear and change – how “change has to have enough force and enough energy to overcome people's fears and to overcome the power of the status quo.”



INSEAD professors Stewart Black and Hal Gregersen believe "that an organisation changes only as fast and as far as the front-line individuals implementing that change. Therefore, they need to be considered first, in the change paradigm." You can find a 2 page introduction to their new book It Starts with One: Changing Individuals Changes Organizations, and a 25 minute video where they chat about change here.

John Spence mentions adapting to change as one of the foundations of Achieving Business Excellence. Jack Welchdoes the same by saying that "Change is absolutely critical part of business. You need to change, preferably before you have to." Apple got that right with iPod – Sony failed with Walkman... What happened to Sony? Last December Newsweek published an article about why they failed to change.

Leading change is a critical part of every leader's job. Leaders need to help everybody overcome their fears. Every successful company needs to change, and an organisation changes only as fast and as far as the front-line individuals implementing that change. At the end, it becomes a question of enough leadership to change the culture.

To the end, my favourite quote from Peter Drucker, from his article Management's New Role (HBR November 1969).

We will, therefore, increasingly have to learn to make existing organizations capable of rapid and continuing innovation.
How far we are from this is shown by the fact that management still worries about resistance to change.

Do you fear change?

Or are you driven by change?

Do you worry about change resistance?

Do you help others overcome their fear and resistance?

Is your organization capable of rapid and continuing innovation – or should you change?

Leading Change

There is a lot of talk about the need of change, but much less about

How To Lead Change

John Kotter presented his model of Leading Change in Harvard Business Review in 1996. In 2006 he slightly updated the model in his book Our Iceberg Is Melting - Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions.

I created a presentation about the model, which is rather simple and universal. It can be applied to any change - global or small.

Our Iceberg Is Melting - Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions

SET THE STAGE

1. Create a Sense of Urgency.
Help others see the need for change and the importance of acting immediately.

2. Pull Together the Guiding Team.
Make sure there is a powerful group guiding the change— one with leadership skills, bias for action, credibility,
communications ability, authority, analytical skills.

DECIDE WHAT TO DO

3. Develop the Change Vision and Strategy.
Clarify how the future will be different from the past, and how you can make that future a reality.

MAKE IT HAPPEN

4. Communicate for Understanding and Buy-in.
Make sure as many others as possible understand and accept the vision and the strategy.

5. Empower Others to Act.
Remove as many barriers as possible so that those who want to make the vision a reality can do so.

6. Produce Short-Term Wins.
Create some visible, unambiguous successes as soon as possible.

7. Don’t Let Up.
Press harder and faster after the first successes.
Be relentless with instituting change after change until the vision becomes a reality.

MAKE IT STICK

8. Create a New Culture.
Hold on to the new ways of behaving, and make sure they succeed, until they become a part of the very culture of the group.


Can you think of a change process where this model is not valid?

Link Between Strategy, Culture, Change and Leadership

15 years ago I was reading books about organizational culture by Edgar H. Schein. At that time I was a studying Leadership and Management at the university and did not yet understand

The power of organizational culture.

Now I am starting to understand it. Culture is more powerful than Strategy. As Schein says in The Corporate Culture Survival Guide

The organization clings to whatever made it a success. The very culture that created the success makes it difficult for members of the organization to perceive changes in the environment that require new responses. Culture becomes a constraint on strategy.

Culture is always more powerful than Strategy. If you want to change one, you need to change both. Outlining new strategy on paper is management, but implementing it requires a lot of change leadership to influence the culture related to existing strategy. Often a new organizational structure is helpful, if not required, to implement a new strategy.

I found some related videos from Stanford site. It’s a great resource as videos are cut to 3-5 minute searchable topics, with individual descriptions.

Silicon Valley Bank CEO Ken Wilcox:
Culture Trumps Strategy
Building great corporate culture is more than just metaphors; it's what motivates a winning team.

Click twice to see on Stanford site

Debra Dunn, former vice president of strategy and corporate operations at Hewlett Packard
&
Randy Komisar, partner at venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers:
Leadership and Change Management
Both speakers believe that leadership skills and the ability to handle change comfortably are the key characteristics that have been useful in their respective careers.

Click twice to see on Stanford site

Has your organization had a new strategy or structure implemented lately?

Simultaneously?

Have these had an effect on the corporate culture?

Was this all planned by clever leaders?

How confortable you are with change?

How confortable the rest of the organization is with change?

What is your role as a leader to influence the underlying culture?

Achieving Business Excellence

John Spence, whose mission is “Making the very complex ... awesomely simple” has posted a great manifesto on ChangeThis. ChangeThis spreads important ideas and change minds by giving people access to relevant, thoughtful and constructive information through the vehicle of ”Manifestos.”
(Click the picture to go to the original 0,6 Mb pdf manifesto)

John has

Uncovered the pattern
of business excellence
in an 18 page manifesto.

He has been able to summarize many of the same issues highlighted in two good books I read last year: Winning by Jack Welch, and Good to Great by Jim Collins. I was about to summarize them anytime soon. Thanks John for making my task easier!

Here are the topics of his Manifesto:

A few key elements that form the foundation of any successful business.

1. you must produce a high-quality product or service
   All sustainable business success is built on delivering real value to the customer—period
2. you need to have a solid handle on your financials
   if you aren’t managing cash flow, you won’t be managing much for long!
3. change is inevitable
   Markets shift, consumer preferences change, new competitors appear, technology advances—and so must you

With all of these foundations, following are the six strategies on which all the great companies John studied were relentlessly focused.

1. vivid vision:
   A clear and well-thought-out vision of what you are trying to create that is exceptionally well communicated to everyone involved.
2. best people:
   Superior talents who are also masters of collaboration.
3. a performance-oriented culture:
   One that demands flawless operational execution, encourages constant improvement and innovation, and completely refuses to tolerate mediocrity or lack of accountability.
4. robust communication:
   Open, honest, frank and courageous, both internally and externally.
5. a sense of urgency:
   The strong desire to get the important things done while never wasting time on the trivial.
6. extreme customer focus:
   Owning the voice of the customer and delivering what customers consider truly valuable.

I have discussed a couple of these earlier and will definitely discuss all of them in my future posts. In the mean while, you could read the original manifesto and check what else John Spence has to say at his site.

And, as always, some questions to think about:

How many of these 3 elements of foundation + 6 elements of excellence are in place at your company?

Have you reached business excellence?

Can you see the link between these 3 + 6 elements and your company achieving or not achieving business excellence?




Oops... That was my summary of the Manifesto. But during my morning run I realized, I had not internalized it and could not remember the 3 + 6 elements.

So I created this visual presentation to better internalize and remember the Manifesto - to make it stick.

| View | Upload your own