Read a chapter from the PIVOT DISRUPT TRANSFORM book by Marcia Daszko
/Chapter from PIVOT DISRUPT TRANSFORM book by Marcia Daszko
WHERE DO WE BEGIN TO TRANSFORM?
NEW STRATEGIC THINKING
Leaders believe there must be a better and bolder way. They are tired and frustrated of the status quo—the same old “ght for a larger piece of the competitive pie”—and they want to seize new opportunities and create a different future. They begin by dis- carding the archaic strategic planning process that they have en- dured throughout their career, and they start adopting a strategic thinking process that will challenge and accelerate their learning and working together.
Which one of these describes what happens in your organization:
Leaders don’t plan together; they’re too busy running their business.
Leaders go through a monotonous, well-intentioned process; there are few changes.
Leaders eagerly engage in a robust, intense, provocative process to think, plan, and innovate.
General Eisenhower once said, while preparing for battle, that “plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Planning is essential and reects the strategic thinking it takes to create a plan that will be continually adaptable. If the plan is to be robust and responsive, that plan needs to be able to adapt to the chal- lenges, opportunities, markets, and customer needs that arise. Robust planning provides the future direction for the organiza- tion.
The purpose of this section is to help leaders differentiate be- tween creating a plan that goes stale—or one that creates im- provements, innovation, a competitive edge, growth, collaboration, and success.
Traditional planning often engages people in limited discus- sions and few challenging questions. There are lots of pats on the back by well-meaning people as they meander down a path they’ve already been on year after year. They create “group think” (all heads nodding yes and no one asking tough questions) be- cause no one is thinking differently. If the thinking is not differ- ent, you can’t expect different outcomes from previous years.
Better, bold, new, and different results require new thinking and action:
Leadership does not delegate this role. An engaged leader is intimately involved in the strategic thinking and planning process (if not, how will they lead a new system?) This process is an essential part of their role.
Innovation in Leadership Knowledge. The facilitator has systems and statistical knowledge and facilitates the new learning and thinking necessary. The team learns a new way to innovate and transform their organization.
Openness to new learning TOGETHER. Together the team learns: how to question and challenge the status quo, how to reject the natural “we can’t” excuses that stand in the way of innovation and transformation, and how to think with new knowledge and work TOGETHER through a bold, robust process of questioning what and why they aspire to a radical new level of success.
This focus is relevant for leadership teams in business, corpo- rations, education, healthcare, nonprots, and government/military.
WHERE DO WE BEGIN TO TRANSFORM?
TRADITIONAL VS. INNOVATIVE STRATEGIC THINKING AND PLANNING
Traditional planning is the linear thinking and language that fos- ters the creation of internal competition, fear, silos, and a toxic work environment full of blame, judgments, and criticism.
An alternative process is innovative strategic thinking and planning. This process is based on a theoretical foundation that includes systems thinking, understanding variation, developing knowledge, understanding the psychology of people, and the ef- fective diffusion of communication.
TRADITIONAL PLANNING
Vision
Mission
Objectives
Goals
Targets
Tactics
Numerical goals/specications/ metrics
Budget by departments
Alignment
Quotas/incentives
Compliance/regulations
Deliverables
Uses organizational chart, a hierarchical tool that does not include the customer
Uses Six Sigma tools, a target driven tool that focuses on arbitrary numerical goals rather than understand what the system capability is.
INNOVATIVE STRATEGIC THINKING AND PLANNING
Aim/Compelling Purpose
Strategies based on a systems perspective
Create quality, improvement and innovation as business strategies
Values and behaviors develop the interdependent culture
Customer needs dened and supported by data in context
Experiential feedback
Quality dened by the customer (markets)
Measures of progress and success (looking at data over time)
Uses Strategic Compass Uses System Diagram
Uses Run/control/deployment ow charts
Plan Do Study Act model of continual improvement
