Strategic Discipline Blog

My experience in business coaching for the last 18 years teaches me the fundamental need for your business to balance objectivity and subjectivity.  In Gazelles Scaling Up we call this the balance between Productivity/Process and Relationships/People.

You need to have measurements for both of these Drivers in your business.  People/Relationships drive your business as much as Productivity/Process.

In Patrick Lencioni’s book Organizational Health he shares the necessity to balance these two drivers. In What’s a Counterbalance – Why Quarter and Annual Plans Need One we share the delicate balance between Productivity/Process with Relationships/People. Within this paradox, the need to measure results remains. Pearson’s Law brings out the best in you, your organization and your people.  Just remember to balance your One Thing focus.

I’m on vacation.  This is a previous blog updated to remind you of this challenging requirement to measure and balance what you focus on.

We discussed the importance of your business culture In Creating the Discipline of the Advantage or what Patrick Lencioni describes as Organizational Health:

Discipline 1: Build a Cohesive Leadership Team

Discipline 2: Create Clarity

Discipline 3: Over-Communicate Clarity

Discipline 4: Reinforce Clarity

Lencioni feels that the classic areas of business—finance, marketing, strategy, are incremental and fleeting. Due to advancing technology it’s harder than ever been to maintain a competitive advantage based on intelligence or knowledge. Information just changes hands too rapidly today.  The single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health.

It’s what Urban Meyer shared in his book, Above the Line, about his 2014 Ohio State NCAA Bowl Championship quest, captured in Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch – Above the Line.

How does Pearson’s Law helps you achieve Discipline’s 2-4?  Pearson’s Law is, “When Performance is measured, performance improves.  When Performance is measured and reported back, Performance improves exponentially.”

To achieve Organizational Health in Disciplines 2- 4 let’s examine what Lencioni recommends:

Discipline 2: Create Clarity:  Healthy organizations minimize the potential for confusion by clarifying…

• Why do we exist?
• How do we behave?
• What do we do?
• How will we succeed?
• What is most important, right now?
• Who must do what?

Discipline 3: Over-Communicate Clarity:   Healthy organizations align their employees around organizational clarity by communicating key messages through…

• Repetition: Don’t be afraid to repeat the same message, again and again
• Simplicity: The more complicated the message, the more potential for confusion and inconsistency
• Multiple mediums: People react to information in many ways; use a variety of mediums
• Cascading messages: Leaders communicate key messages to direct reports; the cycle repeats itself until the message is heard by all

Discipline 4: Reinforce Clarity:  Organizations sustain their health by ensuring consistency in…

• Hiring
• Managing performance
• Rewards and recognition
• Employee dismissal

The colored bullets above specifically apply to following Pearson’s Law.  Choosing a simple success criteria that Positioning Systems and Gazelle’s coaches recommend for red, yellow, green to indicate success or failure (meeting or falling short of your priorities and objectives), you establish, over communicate, and reinforce clarity. 

Arguably, all of these measures Lencioni defines, your company can measure.  From having a Core Purpose (Why do we exist?), Core Values (How do we behave?) to Hiring and Employee dismissal. 

You do measure your hiring success and have exit interviews when people leave don’t you?  You are measuring all of these, aren’t you?

Establishing Strategic Discipline in your business, the rituals of setting priorities, determining metrics, and then meeting rhythms to establish a cadence of accountability, builds organizational health.   

Want to create clarity in your business, improve your teams ability to measure to achieve exponential growth? Contact dwick@positioningsystems.com.  Or take our Four Decisions Needs Assessment and we’ll contact you. 

Create Something Out of Nothing – Next Blog

I’m back from vacation Monday.  You probably are familiar with the AFLAC duck.  As famous as he is, AFLAC’s, a family owned insurance company from Alabama,  greatest strategy move was to create something out of nothing. I’ll share how AFLAC “Create Something Out of Nothing” from Outthink the Competition next blog .