Spring has sprung and it’s time to do a clean sweep. Don’t misinterpret the intent here: Upon first reading, the practical wisdom in the posters is nice. It’s soft, fuzzy and maybe even inspirational, but at the end of the day inspiration does not belong on a wall collecting dust.

For example, there must be hundreds of sayings about the importance of communication skills in business. Many leaders already know how to communicate, but the failure is when communication is not prioritized as an internal management function.

So here’s the fast-forward into application: Do yourself a favor right now and map out your communication in a methodical, purposeful manner. Here are your questions to ask yourself before you expect your strategy to get any traction:

1. Make it consistent: How and how often do you connect with the key groups in your organization? Identify every stakeholder segment: Directors, Managers, Team Leaders, Staff, Customers and place your outreach approach and timing on a map.
2. Make the connection clear: Does your mission drive your messaging and adhere to values that keep your customer experience a central focus? Does your messaging focus on learning and lessons that get you closer to your broader objectives?
3. Make it count: Repeat what needs to be reinforced, but make sure the message evolves to remain relevant. Evaluate where you are in your action paths and make progress a transparent thing. When progress isn’t occurring, this is your chance to get back into your plan, evaluate the obstacles and breath new life into stagnant areas.
4. Listen to what’s heard: How much of what is being communicated is acted upon? Get a handle on what matters most to each stakeholder group and tailor your message about strategy accordingly. One size does not fit all.

Just because people listen when you talk doesn’t mean your point is getting across in any meaningful way for advancing your strategy; just as motivational posters don’t inspire us to jump over boulders or skydive. Analyze how information is effective for driving action in your organization, ideally before you try to execute the next version of your strategic plan.

- Cammy Elquist LoRé writes the newsletter and is a functional leader of Customer Loyalty Engagement programs for M3 Planning. She can be reached at @cammyelquist on Twitter or cammy@m3planning.com.

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Typically, organizations will look internally to develop their SWOT. The executives will be interviewed, the employees will be surveyed and sometimes the customers will be included in the process. The reality is that organizations depend on several other stakeholder groups to be successful. This can include suppliers, business partners, investors, and trade associations to only name a few.

A full-blown SWOT seeks the insight of all key stakeholders into the relationships and processes that are working and what can be improved upon. When you consider the amount of effort that it can take to rectify stakeholder relations in the normal course of business, it makes good sense to understand how they fit into your strategic world first. Here are three clues to identify who outside your company’s organizational chart needs to be included in your SWOT:

1. Who in your environment has direct impact on your ability to produce or serve your customers?
2. Do you have an endorsing or regulatory relationship that must be maintained in order to go to market?
3. Who in your environment has the ability to impact management policies or processes?

Assess the stakeholder impact of the groups you identify and include them in your SWOT research. Identify the budget for your approach and fine tune if needed. Finally, get this research scheduled for this summer if you do your strategic reviews in the fall. Don’t let the time squeeze of last minute execution on your SWOT weaken its role in this year’s strategy sessions.

By developing your objectives and goals around optimizing stakeholder relationships you’ll be making the most of your existing network and will save your SWOT from being a myopic internal exercise.

StrategyCheck

Does your SWOT exist in a vacuum?

A Refreshing Solution to Community Need

Water for Life drills wells delivering fresh, clean water to poor communities that otherwise rely on water sources containing water-borne diseases. The diseases found in unclean, contaminated water kill 1.8 million children every year. A new well offers relief in so many ways: it stops disease, promotes healthy bodies, and provides the means for families to become self-sufficient by growing their own gardens and caring for their animals. Water for Life’s 2012 goal is to drill 350 new wells in 400 rural villages in 20 nations around the world. Each well provides water for 1,000 people or more. For these reasons, M3 Planning chose Water for Life as our charity of the month.

*M3 Planning donates 10% of our net profit to non-profit causes.

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So what is pulling our attention left, right, up, down, and every which way? Beyond typical personal distractions, there are legitimate reasons as well. Shorter product cycles drive more frequent competitor offerings. Being reactionary begins to seem normal with the increased speed of doing business.

For companies that maintain their market advantages longer, however, the ability to clearly communicate the key objectives of a long-term strategy is an ongoing necessity.

We’ve beat this drum before, but today we’d like to offer some creative approaches that go well beyond pie chart or process flow diagrams to support organization-wide awareness about your strategy.

1. Use engaging Infographics. Employ imagery that brings personality to your brand and meaning to your strategic vision. For one of our clients, Video Game Technologies, we optimized the fun of their product as it is experienced by the end user to communicate their values and key objectives (view the graphic to the right). Post the infographic where people meet or take breaks to keep your strategy front and center.
2. Interview your customers and share their perspective. This is an extremely effective way to motivate the front line and tie real-world scenarios to the objectives of the customer-focused components of your strategy. People empathize with the experiences of others. Most of us want to be a part of the solution when we see something done wrong. Correspondingly, most of us want to perform on par with the things that are being done right. So take the good with the bad and share the experiences with everyone.
3. Celebrate, capture & promote. Small wins are the way big, complex objectives gain steam. Identifying milestones along any strategic journey gives people a sense of momentum, which is critically important for those Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (BHAGs). Rally the troops, eat your cake (or pizza), take some pictures of the festivities and share them with a flyer posted next to your infographic to commemorate the event. Super easy to do, and it acts as a visual reminder that executing strategy is not as difficult as it sounds.

In all, make sure you see your principles represented in what is being disseminated, but resist the urge to overly control the message. This is the difference between what goes viral on the internet and what gets logged as another tidbit of blatant internal branding. There’s something refreshing about seeing organic emotions and experiences intersect with organizational strategy. It’s about telling a compelling story that makes you want to see a happy ending.

- Cammy Elquist LoRé writes the newsletter and is a functional leader of Customer Loyalty Engagement programs for M3 Planning. She can be reached at @cammyelquist on Twitter or cammy@m3planning.com.

StrategyCheck

Are you doing all you can to communicate your strategy?

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1. GET IT SCHEDULED. It is a fact that strategic planning needs regular review sessions to stay on track and be relevant. Annual retreats just don’t cut it. So the most important thing all strategic plan managers should be doing right now is getting a management review scheduled.

2. GET TO THE ISSUE. Segment the time during your review so that you are not simply reporting on completed tasks for 90 minutes. Schedule 5-10 minutes to report this detail at most. You’ve got thinkers in the room, so use their time well. What are the issues you must resolve to enhance performance toward your company’s goals? Use this time to focus on one or two critical goals, come to consensus on the best way to move them forward and agree on the critical milestones to get there. Document those as goals in your plan and be SMART about them.

3. STAY COMPETITIVE. Beyond the quarterly strategy review being an important time to check in on the most important plan issues, it is about how strategy addresses threats and opportunities. Since the plan was drafted, what has changed in your environment? One of the major complaints about strategic plans is that they become cumbersome; use your quarterly review to keep your plan in shape.

So while we might be able to ignore the prevalence of tournament brackets hanging on the walls of our offices, its time to check-in and focus on your quarterly strategic review. Advertising for employment openings on NCAA’s website might have its benefits as well.

STRATEGY CHECK:
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When does push back to your strategy move from being proper diligence into obstructive resistance? Let’s use a common framework for your observations based on well-known stages of grief:

Stage 1: Denial. When preparing for or executing your strategy, do you hear dismissive tones in how people reference the plan? Consider the source disposition: Are they influential brokers in an existing process? Have they been entrenched in the organization for a long period of time? Customary practices are hard habits to break, and some people who have put years and years into how things are may have a natural tendency to get defensive at first.

Stage 2: Anger. When it becomes apparent that the strategy you are applying is not a fly-by-night executive initiative, some can get more confrontational in the way they push back. Under this stage, the plan is under the most vehement outward attack, where the plan’s process and applicability get bombarded. Good plans will be able to address issues without alienating those in this stage, as great strategy can pass the test of those who are being diligent in their questioning.

Stage 3: Rationalization. Welcome to the phase of obstructive resistance. This is where people play along with the strategy, putting forth the minimal effort to see tasks and goals through to the intended larger objective. The importance of SMART goals come into play at this point: Meaningful measurements and accountability are incredibly important to moving the plan along towards recognizable success and those ever important wins to celebrate.

Stage 4: Despair. Despair is like looking into an abyss or up a cliff, depending on your perspective. Both seem arduous, monumental and perhaps even impossible. This darkest hour of this “strategy-is-a-real-thing” grief is important to coach someone through. A good plan has an outcome that is worth the effort, this is where reconnection to your core values, vision and purpose should be an inspiration. Many discount the importance of identifying these elements, but when push comes to shove they are over-comers of inertia that should have the power to ignite productivity and an ambition to succeed.

Stage 5: Acceptance. At this stage, peace is made with the plan. Processes are revisited, improvements are sought, and people are ready to turn over those mossy, slippery stones that were formerly left undisturbed. For implementing and executing against ambitious strategic plans, getting here is not pain-free, but it can happen with strong leadership and determination that your vision is worth attaining.

Understanding when resistance is caught in an emotionally based cycle is important to identifying how to get your strategy in motion. Emotions drive reaction much quicker than rational thought. By identifying the difference you’ll have a better chance to bring your team, department or organization to move with a common cadence.

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Almost 20 years ago I read an article as a college student that I’ve recalled in my thoughts numerous times since then. It was called “Finding the Soul of the City,”* and it talked about the history, geography, architecture of urban areas in a way that honored their place in the psyche of its community members. Seeing several urban renewal efforts since then in various cities, the most successful seem to tap into this core of spirit better than those that simply offer economic incentives to develop blighted areas.

Fast forward to 2012. While we have municipalities as clients, the importance of this connectivity transfers. In our engagements, it’s the companies that want to include employees into the strategy building process that get a guiding plan that resonates with energy and optimism. For those that don’t want to take the time or effort to integrate employees into strategy development, we tend to see a lack of connection, a lack of ownership, and at worst a meaningless strategy that never sees the light of execution.

This is critical as employees collectively define the “culture” that impacts the human efficiencies of your processes and directly impacts the customer experience. Culture, as one of M3 Planning’s five keys to implementation of a successful strategy, provides a window into the soul of your organization. Before you consider qualifying this as a never-ending black hole of effort yielding marginal worth, consider entertaining the following as adapted from VanderSchaaf’s article:

Reflect into the past: What kind of legacy has employees of the past left in your organization? Do they inspire accomplishments that can transfer into ambitious new objectives for the organization today? If so, tap into this.

Acknowledge what flourishes: For neighborhoods it might be trees, flowers, weeds or nothing. For organizations, how do people engage with each other? Do you see “thank you” in emails or just two-three liners with no addressee, no salutation or no signature? Does discontent guide conversations and impact decision-making or does it optimize and provide ambition?

Identify the meaningful rituals: How do you see successes celebrated? Do you gather or have events that encourage positive social interaction? How do you connect with the people who make up your organization?

These are just a few avenues to start categorically thinking about the soul and culture of your organization. While actions are inspired by words, words are inspired by thoughts. Get to what drives the thinking in your organization and you’ll better understand the actions of people within it. It matters. If you can tap into this, you are connected to a vital resource that can be renewed and sustained if respectfully treated.

- Cammy Elquist LoRé writes the newsletter and is a functional leader of Customer Loyalty Engagement programs for M3 Planning. She can be reached at @cammyelquist on Twitter.

StrategyCheck

Do you know how to describe the culture of your organization?

*”Finding the Soul of the City” by Elizabeth VanderSchaaf first appeared in the Utne Reader, September/October 1994.

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Sometimes we read books, articles or opinions that give us insight into the things we are doing right, the things we could be doing better and the ways we can expand our knowledge to be better organizational strategists.

This summer, Richard Rumelt authored a book called “Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters.” As you might expect the title alone caught our attention! Rumelt hit the mark on a couple common misconceptions of strategy, and we’d like to elaborate on those points with M3 Planning’s COO Erica Olsen’s perspective.

#1: There’s a growing tendency to equate fluff, buzzwords and financial goals as sufficient for “strategy” that needs to be debunked to really understand the power of a good strategy.

Olsen: There’s nothing fluffy about a good plan—a solid plan requires a good, hard look at your company, the way you do things and how successful you are at delivering to your customer/client/membership base. Only then can you get a clear, data-based understanding of your current strategic position. This can be effectively addressed by conducting a rigorous SWOT exercise, as this will help you diagnose your company just like a doctor might a patient. This is where the fluff will get flattened, and you can move forward to create a diagnosis that does more than explain the situation, but also defines the domain of action.

#2: Good strategies work by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect for facing big challenges. Most people think they might have a good strategy, but end up pursuing a “dog’s dinner” of conflicting policies and actions.

Olsen: People do amazing things with common tools. It’s about knowing how to use what you have. Good leaders can take a strong, compelling vision and use it to engage people by creating a shared understanding of what is possible. Good strategy isn’t a magical stunt. It’s more about the 1-2-3s of connecting the dots in a 3-D landscape. The process is a multi-level thought exercise, yet Rumelt does not spend a lot of time on execution, which is where we have seen many strategies become stagnant. A good strategy that cannot be executed (i.e. not realistic, no accountability, not cascaded or aligned) is as bad as magical thinking.

Overall, this book is a good library addition for our fellow practitioners of strategy. It offers a picture of what good strategy looks like. In summary, remember no strategy is complete without the execution of coherent, coordinated actions to address your organization’s situation or challenges. Like guardrails on a highway, your plan offers a guiding approach. Happy strategizing on your organization’s journey!

- Cammy Elquist LoRé writes the newsletter and is a functional leader of Customer Loyalty Engagement programs for M3 Planning. She can be reached at @cammyelquist on Twitter.

StrategyCheck

Does your strategy look like a dream sequence or a dot-to-dot?

Give the Gift of Goats

In 2010 the RUN Ministries’ Nepali Rescue Project rescued more than 20,000 girls from human trafficking. They also provided counseling, job skills training and practical tools to start micro-businesses to at-risk girls and those coerced into human trafficking. One of those practical tools includes giving goats to rehabilitated girls so they can return to their village with a livelihood to begin a new life with hope and dignity. M3 Planning was pleased to donate 12 goats as part of our on-going commitment to support one charity a month with 10% of our net income. See the other charities we’ve supported by clicking here.

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We approach this measurement with the Net Promoter Score (NPS) methodology. Whether you’re familiar with it or not, we guarantee you know of the companies that use it: Apple, Siemens, Phillips, Chick-Fil-A, USAA, Enterprise, Costco and this cross-industry list goes on and on. In Fred Reichheld’s most recent book “The Ultimate Question 2.0” he cites research that shows companies that use and guide decisions by using NPS information tend to grow at least twice the rate of their competitors.

The research presented in this book does a good job backing up many big claims: that customers that score companies high on the NPS 10-point scale will spend more, complain less and essentially will become a very effective and profitable “word-of-mouth” marketing force.

The crux of the NPS approach is that it measures the likelihood of customers to put their reputation on the line and recommend your organization to others. (Take our NPS survey about the newsletter.) Results are arranged into categories that make it easy to act upon the data. It’s intuitive enough for front line staff to understand, and insightful enough for executives to use for decision-making. Using NPS shouldn’t be mistaken for a walk down easy street though, or Wall Street for that matter.

Why? In putting your Net Promoter information to use, your quest for profits will also benefit the customers. This gets marginalized (ahem, AOL) or even ignored (hello the Enrons and Lehmans of the world) too often. We aren’t jumping on any Vulture Capitalists wagon here. We are just getting back to the Golden Rule. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Make a positive impact on those who chose to do business with you. And when your company’s outlets or employees get called on the carpet for not following this universal adage, get ready to battle defensiveness, because it’ll come. But fight the good fight, and you just might find your company and maybe even the environment beyond it a more fulfilling place to inhabit.

By earning the trust and respect of customers, companies move from being a flash in the pan to becoming valued members of their communities. Now that’s a balance that matters and one that we wholeheartedly believe will help keep your footing in turbulent times.

- Cammy Elquist LoRé writes the newsletter and is a functional leader of Customer Loyalty Engagement programs for M3 Planning. She can be reached at @cammyelquist on Twitter.

Feeding America Through a Food Bank Near You

We at M3 Planning believe that healthy organizations attract and retain engaged staff that create vibrant communities, which leads to a successful nation and world. We add to that cycle by supporting one charity a month with 10% of our net income. Because our customers are part of that contribution, we donated to local food banks nationwide in the name of our customers. Feeding America, a nation-wide network of food banks, provides food for America’s hungry and engages the communities in t he fight to end hunger. Thank you for your support!

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Like in life, business momentum means increasing the things that move you forward and decreasing those that hold you back. Momentum, by its nature, requires a lot of upfront push to get the ball rolling. Here are four suggestions to jump start the momentum in your 2012 strategic planning efforts, which we think are pretty handy for applying to our own individual lives as well.

1. Eliminate Your Energy Drains and Recharge Yourself
   Energy drains are those things that drag you down. It’s this kind of friction that can rob you of making progress where it matters. Find the time to do the things that give you energy. Then stick a post-it note next to each drain you identify with an idea for getting rid of it. Then direct this newly unleashed energy to overcome inertia and get your strategic objectives on track.




2. Conquer Your Fears—Concentrate and Be Brave
   The greatest source of procrastination is often a deep-seeded fear—fear of success, change, failure, ridicule, or even just the unknown. Take a daily step to remove your fears by asking yourself every day, “What would I do today if I was really brave?” Mark Twain once said that if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long. So go ahead– be brave, eat that frog and get on with your charge!




3. Let Things Evolve
   When the flywheel of momentum starts to turn, pay attention to clues, connections and opportunities that are presented. Be aware of environmental shifts and market changes that may strengthen the guiding role a strategic plan plays during these times. Don’t plan yourself into a corner that won’t be relevant next year. Have a goal in mind, but be flexible on the process of getting there. It will make the path one that makes sense to travel.





4. Be Committed
   No matter what your organizational goals are, or how difficult they’ll be to achieve, maintaining momentum requires commitment. Be committed to the strategic management process, as it takes new habits to reference and incorporate long-term considerations into day-to-day actions. Be diligent and have patience, because like anything of importance, strategic achievements require a proper cycle for fulfillment.

- Copy adapted from Strategic Planning for Dummies, which was written by M3 Planning’s COO Erica Olsen.

STRATEGY CHECK
What obstacle do you need to brave to make progress?

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Managing by financial numbers alone is a reactionary approach to driving your business forward. So, as you move into 2012, consider establishing new benchmarks in the following areas… and get proactive in driving your organization toward long-term viability.

1. Financial perspective: How do we look to investors?

   Measurements usually include cash flow, sales growth, market share and return on expenditures.

2. Customer perspective: How do customers see us?

   Measurements may include time required to meet customer’s needs, quality-defect levels, performance/experience value and differentiation.

3. Internal Processes perspective: What must be perfected?

   Focus on those business processes that have the greatest impact on customer satisfaction. Know what competencies are needed to best ensure operational excellence.

4. People & Learning perspective: How do we improve and create value?

   This driver focuses on creating value by developing an environment that fosters learning, innovation and prioritizing on its “human assets.” Take stock of your organization’s ability to innovate, improve and learn as it ties directly to company’s value.

Beyond its ability to provide insight into the strength of an organization tomorrow, the Balanced Scorecard resonates with us because it fundamentally honors the role of people in organizations. The premise here is that people, as the foundation of the Balanced Scorecard, drive the other three elements to achieve organizational goals.

For all of us at M3 Planning, we know that this is what really matters in any organization. At the end of any day, it’s about people taking care of people’s needs. All too frequently, it is easy to get disconnected from that fundamental fact. You can help share this “balanced” perspective, by downloading our white-paper here.

So as we begin 2012, may you find ways to spread good will to all in honor of the people around you…and remember your organization’s environment provides another channel to do the same.

- Cammy Elquist LoRe’ works on our consulting side at M3 Planning and can be found on Twitter @cammyelquist.

Does your organization look into the past or assess the present in determining its health?

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