Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Jack Wolfe, MOR Associates Senior Consultant and Executive Coach. Jack may be reached at [email protected].
Why are we here?
I think we are placed here to advance our society and civilization by producing meaningful results that cause our world, sometimes hugely, sometimes in the smallest of ways, to grow, develop, and improve. To many of us, certainly to me, that means creating strategically impactful results that are highly supportive of the mission and values of our purpose-driven organizations. We also do this via the development of our families and our communities, critical to our civilization, but that’s for another day.
As background, let’s consider the three most common strategic objectives of any academic organization:
- Provide useful learning
- Advance knowledge via research
- Support the communities of which you are part (world, nation, state, locality).
Results
To deliver the desired results, two items are critical:
- Fully understanding the broader strategic plans of both your organization and the specific entity of which you are a part.
- Fully understanding the financial opportunities and limitations of your organization. Your organization’s financial success (or lack thereof) often dictates your available resources.
There are seldom enough resources to do all that a given organization may wish, or even need, to do. Our resource limits are twofold:
- To what degree do your organization’s revenues exceed its costs? Profit is NOT a dirty word, but the foundation of resources to do the most important tasks for long-term effectiveness and sustainability. Your strategic capacities, the opportunities and limitations, are dictated by the financial status of your organization.
- To what degree does your part of the organization work in a strategic area? Are you integral to learning or research? Often, those with the most critical strategic services get the most (and best) resources. And sometimes, the best salesperson or the best-connected leader gets the most (and best) resources.
Strategically Impactful Results
Given our limited resources, it is paramount to maximize them. Resources are most often delivered via a budget. Budget has both strategic and operational components. Our job is to maximize the effectiveness of those resources. Just how do we do that?
First, minimize the resources required for operations and maximize those available for strategic activities. As an old manufacturing guy, I can truly say that the vast majority of day-to-day operational functions can be improved significantly, and in my experience, 10%-25% improvements are common. The easiest improvements come from examining processes and saying NO to the unnecessary steps, those that do not add to performance, quality, or speed. This can be a very big step forward in creating more strategic resources.
Second, an effective strategy requires choices, the most impactful strategic activities. Examine your organization’s and your team’s strategic plans – what are they trying to achieve? How can your tasks BEST support the overall strategic direction? Don’t develop these choices alone. Your team, your boss, and some of your colleagues can all contribute valuable insights. To the degree this is a collective effort, it’s likely to be valid and highly motivating to its creators. You are likely to have created a committed team. Creating a shared vision (future state) of the results to be accomplished is, to me, the biggest ingredient in delivering high strategic impact.
Third, have a clear and strong plan, developed with your team, for executing your strategic initiatives. Clear objectives, clear responsibilities, and clear contingency planning yield results. Again, those who are part of developing a plan are usually those who will work hardest to achieve it! A good plan, executed by a capable team, and adjusted as circumstances change (and they do!) is the final piece in delivering strategically impactful results!
MOR Results
We are here to deliver strategically impactful results supporting the mission and values of our purpose-driven organizations.
Budgets are seldom adequate to do all that’s needed in an organization – thus, one needs to maximize resources, and choose one’s strategic priorities carefully. Minimize the operational costs via creating efficiencies and maximize the strategic investments. How do results get produced? Strategically, of course! Focus on the most pressing strategic needs and provide the highest impact results. This set of choices, developed with your team and others, is the essence of creating a “vision” for strategic thinking and action.
With all this planning, you’ll have the desired outcome at the finish: Results, Strategically Impactful Results, and MOR Results!
Which is most difficult for you in creating strategically impactful results?
Last week we asked which of Lee Corso’s lessons resonated most with you:
- 42% said respect and care for others
- 18% said be true to who you are
- 16% said be clear on what success looks like
- 15% said have some fun along the way
- 9% said recognize the power of a practice
Of last week’s lessons from Lee’s 38 years with ESPN’s College Game Day, the one that resonated the most with us was respect and care for others. What a great role model in leading from where he was, choosing to be there for others, respecting all, listening first, and being deeply loyal supportive.