Let’s face it. Often organizational managers are chosen
because they are visionary people with good ideas. However, these ideas only work if the
managers can overcome the obstacles in getting their ideas put into place.
What are some typical
obstacles? Well, let’s start with the
idea being the manager’s idea, as in
the manager’s idea and no one else’s.
That would mean that the manager is going to sit everyone down and say, “Hey,
I have this great idea and you’re going to do it.” BUZZ—wrong.
Then, there is the
manager who is going to incorporate everyone’s ideas. The manager holds a meeting with the entire
staff and says, “Okay, give me your ideas.”
Can you hear the
crickets?
Looking to the experts
at Harvard Business School Publishing, we did start in the right place—with management! In the article “How to Have an Honest
Conversation About Your Business Strategy” (Beer & Eisenstat, 2004),
fifteen years of practice in developing a “strategic fitness process” teaches
that it begins with senior management and a willingness to seek out the
obstacles to implementation.
The senior management
drafts a statement that creates their new strategic direction and then selects
a task force of their most effective managers (so that the initiative will be
taken seriously) to take on the task of finding out what people in the organization
truly see as the obstacles (Beer & Einstat, 2004).
As Beer & Eisenstat (2004)
found with the 150 companies with whom they have coached, the task force itself
may find obstacles to finding out the obstacles!
1)
The task force wants to be sure that
senior management isn’t going to shoot the messenger
2)
The task force needs to know that this
is going to cause real change so they can commit to getting the task done
inside of their already busy schedules (as effective managers tend to be the
busiest managers as well)
3)
The
task force is concerned about their reputations as they go out as advocates of
senior management.
The senior management
must respond to this with their commitment to find out the unadulterated truth
and reassure these managers that they chose them because of the faith they have
in them. They should also be clear with
the task force that they may still encounter cynicism, especially in larger
organizations.
When the task force
goes out to have these conversations, they must reassure the interviewed employees
that their feedback will remain anonymous and that their employment is
protected. It is the responsibility of
the task force members to keep the interviews to the issues at hand,
specifically regarding the obstacles of implementation.
Once the task force has
completed this portion of its duties, they will discern which issues need to be
brought to senior management. Bringing
it back to conversation, the task force has a round table discussion amongst
its members with senior management in the room taking notes.
Out of this
conversation the senior management creates its strategy, knowing that the
feedback it received will be taken into consideration and impact the
effectiveness of its new strategy. With
the task force’s final approval and enrollment into this strategy, its
implementation may not be perfect, but that would be all the more reason for senior
management to keep listening (Beer & Eisenstat, 2004).
Obstacles are simply
that—obstacles, and they are something that can be overcome! Once they are uncovered
by a willingness to listen and hear the truth, by having employees feel
comfortable and secure in letting their upper management know what they think,
and once these expressions can be used to fuel senior management’s great ideas,
then it is time for all involved to reap the benefits of successful
implementation. However, we should never forget those two marvelous little tools on the sides of our heads that brought us that success in the first place.
