Tag Archives: StrategyMapping

Developing Leaders or a Leadership System?

21 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by in Leadership Systems, Praxis Solutions

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leadership-systemThere is no end to bestselling books, videos, seminars, and educational opportunities on leadership. A search on Amazon for books on leadership yields 204,187 results. The same search for “leadership systems” yields only 94 results. Clearly, little is being written on understanding leadership from a systems perspective.

The Baldrige Quality Criteria might be the singular voice for understanding leadership from the perspective of a system rather than a collective group of individuals competing for power. A focus on developing individual leadership skills apart from a clear understanding of a leadership system, usually results in chaos, personal silos, and contention rather than collaboration. Public education might be a valid case on point.

In a recent project with a regional hospital we have the privilege of facilitating the design of a formal leadership system. The results are rather stunning. In our first facilitated focus group the question to their executive leadership was put this way: What is the singular result you looking for from the leadership system? As the facilitation team, we were expecting something like “exceptional patient health”, “patient satisfaction”, strategic execution, etc. However, the COO swung the team to a different way of thinking. “Empowered People” was the singular result of a leadership system. This was followed up by three types of people that needed empowerment – patients, staff, and community. The logic was impeccable. Empowered people is the road to executing mission and vision.
Subsequent facilitated workshops identified critical leadership behaviors that would result in “empowered people”. This was then followed up with specific leadership activities to support leadership behaviors and eventually mission execution. During a final debrief, one of the senior leadership in the group stated: “I have always been promoted because I was a good nurse. But as a leader, I was never sure what I was supposed to do. Now I do? Clearly identifying the requirements, behaviors and activities of a leadership system implications.
Like any system, the first mandate is to identify the requirements of the system. When these requirements are clearly understood, the leadership behaviors, activities, and performance metrics all fall into place. Leaders know exactly what is expected and how they will be measured. Individual leadership styles become subordinate to the leadership system.

Social Service Nonprofits

23 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by in Praxis Solutions

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Developing a strategy is a critical and fairly normal part of operating a successful nonprofit. Communicating that strategy to staff, donors, and leadership is something entirely different. Strategic plans tend to be formal documents that all too often end up gathering dust on near the reception desk and then somewhere in the vaults of important documents. However, there is one simple tool that will make a strategic plan a vital document that will clearly communicate the future – A Strategy Map.

A strategy map is a one page graphical image of strategy. In graphical image it will tell the story of the organization, what it needs to be successful, what they must do to be successful, and who are they going to do it for.

Government

23 Friday Oct 2015

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We hear all the time, “government should operate more like a business”. After consulting with government agencies now for nearly 20 years we are convinced of one thing – those who say this, are the first to back away from it when the opportunity to function like a business arises.

But there is one area where government can function like a business and when it does magic happens. This is in the area of measuring and scorecarding. We just completed a project for a large county in central Oregon. Good people running the County. Strong and improving economy. The project focused on the revenues into the Community Development Department, developing a 5 year financial plan, and creating a Balanced Scorecard to help them manage the department by fact and result.

The results are early but the opportunities are clear: managers are using data to manage people, quality, and workloads. The Commissioners, upon seeing the scorecard and early results “excited”.

This is an exciting area for Praxis Solutions and one where are experience in scorecarding, performance management, and lean can have a real impact

Mapping Your Strategy

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

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The Hidden Power of Mapping Strategy

The research is compelling. Most exercises in strategic planning fail to achieve even minimal gains. School districts, nonprofits, social service agencies, State agencies, and colleges all go though a round of strategy development every 5-10 years. But what happens to the documents, the actual plan? Most of them end up as decoration on at the reception desk. Ask anyone working in an organization of any size what is the mission, what is the strategy, what is the vision and most of the time you will get a blank stair. It is all too common, but also a tragedy. We give the most vital part of our daily lives to missions and visions we know little about.

A strategy map solves this tragedy.

A strategy map solves this tragedy because it summarizes what are often 25-50 page documents into a one page visual summary of the cause and effect relationships that must be in place for a strategy to work.  We once reviewed a strategic plan for a large urban school district. Forty five pages of beautiful and elegant “we will” statements. However, in all of that prose, there was exactly one sentence on how they were going to achieve their lofty aims – improve reading.

A strategy map adds value to the strategic planning process in five ways:

  1. It identifies the dependencies if the ultimate objective(s) will be met.
  2. It identifies any missing elements. When a strategic objective has no link to core business processes, technology, or funding the probability of failure is high.
  3. It communicates. A one page visual illustration can be used for wall mounted displays, produced as banners and posters for staff, and given to donors so they know the full economic requirements to providing quality training that will produce employment for students.
  4. It identifies project initiatives. These initiatives are often the links to the successful execution of strategy.
  5. It sets the budget requirements. From the elements in the strategy map a budget can be calculated that identifies each component of cost so that the organization can make an effective go-no-go decision.