When Things Get Tough, Discard the Shovel

When leaders face tough situations, they often decide to dig in and shelter.  The recession and most recently sequestration have caused more than a few leaders to take out their shovels, dig a bunker, and hunker down.  They cut budgets, pull back from investments, and focus on protecting their existing business.  But is this a strategy for long-term success? 

When you take your team underground, they may at first be relieved to be out of danger.  However, over time, relief turns to frustration, boredom and atrophy. Companies that have dug in, cut costs, and sought protection lose.  Morale suffers and competitive muscles get weak.  When you finally pull your team out from the hole, the landscape is completely different and you have a team ill-prepared to journey on.

Let me paint this picture...

There’s an ominous storm approaching.  It has the potential to wreak devastating harm on you and your team.  The path of the storm is uncertain.  The threat could move away, be less damaging, or could be disastrous.  There’s simply no way of knowing.  The storm stands between you and your destination.  Instead of taking on the approaching menace, you dig a hole for protection.  Safely in your bunker, you realize you can’t see as far – you have no way of knowing what is going on outside.  Because you’ve expended tremendous energy digging, you no longer have the strength to repel the potential onslaught if it arrives.  Instead, you rely entirely on the shelter you’ve constructed and hope it doesn’t fail.  Finally, you’re in a hole.  When you decide to leave, you have to crawl up and out.  When you get your head above ground, you may no longer recognize your surroundings.  Depending on the length of time you spent underground and the effects of the storm, you may no longer recognize the way ahead.  In fact, you may wonder if your original objective still exists.

Trench warfare was the strategy during World War I. Sheltered inside ditches, underground bunkers, and tunnels, soldiers spent days, weeks, and months without ever getting a glimpse above ground.  When they did, what they often found before them was a wasteland.  The protection afforded by their fortifications saved lives, but at a horrible cost.  Those effects included trench foot, disease, atrophy, and limited escape from gas attacks.  During World War II, the German Army simply maneuvered around the bunkers constructed by the French.  While holed up safely underground, the Germans conquered.  In both wars, many having been stuck underground for so long, lost their mind. 

What do bunkers and trench warfare have to do with your company’s strategy?  Consider the following phrases and ask yourself if you’ve heard or spoken any lately.

• We need to protect the core.
• We will reinforce the franchise.
• We’re pulling back to carefully allocate resources.
• We simply need to weather the storm.
• We have to conserve our strength to live and fight another day.
• Everyone else is digging in too.

Some use the approach of withdrawing behind seemingly impregnable walls to wait out the assault.  In ancient times, a siege rarely worked well for those barricaded inside.  A determined adversary could surround the fortress and starve those inside of supplies and reinforcements or simply go around leaving them isolated.  Companies can become insular with this strategy.  They starve themselves of great talent (the company is not presently hiring) and cut themselves off from strategic opportunities.  Venturing from the secure gates of their existing strategy is deemed too risky.  And when the siege is finally over, their competitors have moved on and secured new markets.  Why would you choose to barricade yourself when opportunity and growth lie beyond the company’s walls?

We all possess a tendency to protect ourselves when danger emerges.  It’s wired into our brains as part of our ‘fight or flight’ defense mechanism.  So it’s natural to seek shelter in a storm.  Leaders however know that digging in has its limitations.  When you take your team underground, you have foreclosed options in lieu of perceived protection.  While remaining on your path has perils, staying put is more treacherous.  There are times when seeking temporary shelter is prudent, but too often, people are lulled into a false sense of security and stay too long. 

"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

During tough times, there are always companies that emerge stronger and better.  They prevail in spite of the storm because they deliberately choose not to dig in.  Instead, while everyone else is hunkered down, they seize the initiative to capitalize on open territory left unprotected while competitors are holed up.  They face into the storm and press forward.  They are able to maintain a view of the obstacles ahead and maneuver around them.  And in the end, they are the ones who are able to execute their strategy, seize their objective, and win.  Standing on the high ground, they look around and find their competitors nowhere in sight – they are still waiting for the storm to pass.

I’ve worked with numerous clients facing significant challenges.  Some are already stuck in bunkers or behind walls while others have chosen to brave the elements and press on.  Looking at declining quarterly numbers, slipping opportunities, and shrinking market can create concern or even panic.  It can be confusing and fearful.  But digging the hole deeper or adding another layer of rock to the wall won’t change the course.  If you aren’t moving forward, you’re losing ground.  These times call leaders to courage and creativity.  Finding a way may require letting go of the perceived safety and taking on some risk.  You may have to abandon what has proven to be successful in exchange for something different and potentially better.  These are hard decisions to make.

When facing tough times, companies that will prevail are the ones who choose to press on.  They use creativity and ingenuity to find a better way.  They invest wisely, deploy their resources to meet the challenge, and maneuver their way through the minefields.  Adjusting their strategy to meet the approaching storm, they chart a new path.  Companies that choose to shovel themselves into a shelter may be able to weather the storm, but they emerge weaker.  Having kept their teams underground they suffer from maladies of discontent, discouragement, and atrophy.  Their competitive muscles are weakened by months of living in the dark. 

If your company has decided to “protect” itself and its business, can you be sure it will truly survive to fight another day?  Why not reexamine your strategy and decide to take your team forward?  With discipline and innovation, you can craft an approach that keeps you moving and allows you to capitalize on the timidity of your competitors.  Darwin had it right – in business as in nature, it’s survival of the fittest.  You can’t stay fit sitting in a bunker.  Embrace the challenge!

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action and connect with him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+.  Learn more by visiting www.connect2action.com.

Measuring Strategy – Where Less is More

You get what you measure – this axiom drives most businesses.  But, when it comes to strategy, too many organizations mismanage this rule.  Over the years, I’ve been involved with companies that take strategic measurement to a point of absurdity.  Measurement becomes a religion, which leads to the establishment of a small army of people to enforce compliance.  The greater the number of objectives, the more policing is required.  It becomes a perpetual motion machine.

Does the following process look familiar?  

•        Corporate sets overall objectives.
•        Business units absorb these objectives to ensure nothing from corporate is left off and adds objectives from their own strategy.
•        Lines of business then append their requirements to the list to ensure their “unique” needs are included.
•         Project and team leads amplify the growing list to address their specific areas.
•         Finally, employees are presented with a master list containing dozens of “strategic” objectives. 

The process is designed to pay homage to the layer above.  Rather than translate and localize relevant objectives (and discard irrelevant ones), new objectives are appended to the growing list. This “me too” approach blocks employees from a clean line of sight to the corporate strategy.  Is it any wonder that employees have difficulty making strategic decisions in their work?

This cascade of objectives is laziness.  If your organization tolerates this approach, then you are choking the life out of your strategy.  Objectives should be progressively simpler and increasingly focused as you descend into the organization.  How can a project lead, software engineer, or customer service representative execute strategic intent, when the list of objectives they are accountable for is lengthy and complex?  Worse, many of these objectives are irrelevant to their jobs, outside of their control, and in some cases, contradictory. 

When it comes to strategic objectives, the rule is ‘less is more’.  Correctly setting objectives allows employees to have a clear line of sight between the work they do and your company’s strategic intent.  It starts with clarity of purpose.  Your employees should be able to identify the most impactful actions that will drive your company success.  For example, at the top, many of the strategic measurements are financial.  How every employee impacts financial performance will differ based on their role.  Increasing revenue may mean that a sales representative focuses on up-selling or account expansion.  An improvement in margins might focus an engineer on operational efficiency to reduce overhead costs.  Simple objectives will have an impact as they multiply across numerous employees.

There are interesting parallels to the medical profession.  Each situation should be treated as being unique.  The tests and measures used to diagnose health must be appropriately matched to the symptoms and desired outcome.  While techniques and tools may offer relief or even a cure, you can’t assume that is true.  You’re less likely to successfully assess the situation if you measure or test something not relevant.  For companies, each strategic diagnosis should be undertaken with the same care and attention you expect when seeking help from a doctor.  If the diagnosis isn’t curable with the tools you have at your disposal, be honest enough to change course or recommend a specialist.  Don’t insist on a particular approach if it isn’t applicable.  ‘Do no harm’ is the mantra.  Insisting on a prescription or treatment may make the situation worse if you’re measuring the wrong thing.  Apply Occam’s razor in your strategy and work toward simplicity.  Here, sophistication is the enemy of progress.

Measuring strategic execution in your company is not an exact science.  Each case will be unique and every situation should be examined and explored with that recognition.  Whether you’re an executive, a corporate strategy lead, or a consultant, the ultimate objective is strategic alignment and positive execution.  Choose measurements that are relevant and applicable.  Less is more.  When you take the time to focus on what matters most to your company, you’ll find you can identify the metrics that matter.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action and connect with him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+.  Learn more by visiting www.connect2action.com.