Move - Azzarello Patty

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easy to get an organization focused on a sprint. But in a transformation, you need to keep a whole organization moving in an often unnatural direction for a long period of time. And since human nature is not really built to naturally keep people engaged and focused over a long period of time, to succeed you need to really focus on this ambiguous expanse in the Middle and do many things on purpose to keep people in the game.

      Later, in Part 4 (E = Everyone), I'll talk about how I convinced a whole organization of the need for change, and in Part 2 (O = Organization), how I restructured the team; but it's important to note that both of those things, while critical, are still only beginning things. Even though creating the right organization and engaging employees required work that is far from obvious and trivial, doing them well still left a long journey through the Middle that no one would be able to see, feel, or measure unless we clearly charted the points along the way to remove the ambiguity.

      A Good Strategy Describes What You Will Do During the Middle

      A big reason for the stalls that too often occur in the Middle is that many organizations mistake listing end goals as a strategy: Our strategy is to double our revenue in these two key market segments. Our strategy is to provide innovative products that create a new market. Our strategy is to develop the strongest indirect channel.

      You become excited about the wonderful achievement at the end, but there is nothing in the definition of that end goal that tells you specifically what to do, which way to go about it, what problems you need to solve, or what you need to fix, change, stop, or invent to get there – these are all things that need to happen in the Middle. These are all things that describe what you will do. I'll talk about how to accomplish this in the next chapter: Concrete Outcomes.

      Leaders: Execution Is Not Beneath You

      But first, here is an important point about leading execution. I see so many executives who keep their role in strategy at the big, exciting goal level. Many leaders resist getting involved with execution. It's as though they believe that once they communicate the strategy, people throughout the organization will suddenly understand what new work they have to do; resources will be automatically reassigned without any pain; and individuals will understand how to prioritize new tasks over current work, so it will just get done. It won't.

      Just because you said what the strategy is, it doesn't mean people will do the right things to implement it.

      Your job at making the strategy come true does not stop after you announce it. One of the hardest things to do is to get an organization to stop doing what it is currently doing and start doing the different thing that it needs to be doing. You can't just expect your team to find its way through the Middle. Without your involvement, your organization will go back to doing what it is already doing.

      As a leader you need to get involved enough in defining outcomes and measures and holding people accountable to specific things, to make sure that the strategy is taking hold and is moving forward through the Middle. Managing execution is not micromanaging, and it is not beneath you.

      You need to take personal responsibility for what happens in the Middle, because what happens in the Middle is the part where stuff actually gets done!

      I see leaders struggle with two things when it comes to managing execution:

      1. They feel like it's low-level work. They act as though it's not worth their brilliant strategic time to focus on what people are actually doing. They view execution as a low-level job for other, less important, less strategic people to deal with.

      2. It's hard and boring. Measuring, tracking, and communicating something that has already been defined is not nearly as exciting as pursuing a big, strategic deal or creating something new.

      This “above it all” approach is dangerous. Execution does not happen without leadership involvement. Period.

      Team: Don't Wait – Start Helping

      You can choose to wait, or you can choose to proactively help. You can choose to stay in the shadows and be invisible; you can choose to resist or undermine; or you can choose to step forward and help, and to be a bright spot moving the transformation forward.

      What strong personal leadership looks like at the beginning of the Middle is keeping yourself educated on the business drivers that are causing the need for this change in the first place. This knowledge will give you the insight and power to lead your own piece of this transformation, and to never be caught off guard by changes you didn't anticipate.

      Remember, executive management can lead transformation, but they can't do transformation without you. You have a real opportunity to stand out by helping define what is required in your part of the organization through the long Middle. You can stand out by helping your peers get on board as well. The success of the business depends on getting you and enough of your peers and teams to take personal ownership to define and do new things.

      Don't wait to be asked and certainly don't wait to be pushed. Personal leadership in transformation is important at every level.

      It's not only the job of executive management to think strategically and creatively about implementing strategy. We all must. The following chapters in Part 1 (M = The Middle) will give you the tools to contribute, at a more strategic level, to getting your own team ready to lead your part of the transformation to move the business forward. And by contributing to the forward progress of the business at a more strategic level, you'll add real value and develop your career in the process.

Next

      Now that you have started to consider what needs to happen in the Middle, define it in terms of concrete outcomes that will make specific actions obvious.

      Read on…

      CHAPTER 2

      CONCRETE OUTCOMES

      STOP ADMIRING THE PROBLEM AND DEFINE SOME SPECIFIC ACTIONS

      You know what you want, and you want your team to do it. You have made the goals clear, and now you are expecting your team to work it out and get it done.

      But now somehow there seems to be a stall before you even get started.

      You are getting frustrated because your organization does not seem to be moving forward in the new direction even though they all agreed how important it is, and were brought in and even excited about it.

      You are beginning to feel that your team is not strategic enough or not taking enough accountability. They are not leading. They are not taking action. They are waiting for more specific operational direction from you, yet you are expecting them to provide that operational direction.

      What Everyone Is Thinking

      This strategy sounds great, but I haven't heard what the new initiatives or priorities are yet. I'm not sure how we are going to achieve this strategy. I haven't been given any different performance objectives. And I haven't been given more resources. It seems that there are a bunch of decisions that executive management still needs to make. And I am fully booked already with current stuff. I'm happy to support the strategy. I'll support it when I know what I'm supposed to do.

      Simply telling people what is important will not cause the organization to start doing what is important.

      What Happens in the Middle, Exactly?

      This is one of the most interesting things that I find in my work with companies on executing their strategies. The problem is not just a communication gap between the executives and the team....It's that no one anywhere in the organization has articulated what the team needs to do to implement the new strategy.

      Once you launch your new strategy, when everyone wakes up the next morning, what is different – specifically?

      A company can be really clear about what it wants to accomplish, yet struggle to articulate the specific tasks that will make those goals come true.

      For example, if your goal is to improve

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