Keep the Company Vision Strong

The Ken Blanchard Company newsletter, Ignite!, for November 2007 has a great article “Keeping a Vision Strong through All Levels of Your Organization” which discusses why vision tends to dilute as you move down the organizational structure.

“In most organizations, when executives create a vision for the entire company, they believe it provides clarity, focus and direction. And it is true that it does, at least for those at the top of the organization. Unfortunately, it gradually loses strength as it works its way to the front lines. In fact, research by The Gallup Organization indicates that senior executives are more than twice as likely to feel that an organization’s mission and purpose inspire them to higher levels of performance as frontline workers… Why the disconnect? Why might senior leaders resonate with an organizational vision while the rest of the company does not relate to it? There are many possible answers, but according to Dr. Jesse Stoner and Dr. Drea Zigarmi, a good place to start is by looking at one or more of the following factors: how the vision is created, how it is communicated, and how it is lived or modeled in the organization.”

The three factors mentioned are critical in getting an organisation’s vision to stick:

• How the vision is created: No matter how you try to get around the issue, the fact is that people only support what they help create. A vision created by top management, will be supported primarily by top management. Unless people feel they have an influence over the creation of the organization’s vision, commitment to the vision will be difficult to achieve. One way to involve people, as mentioned in the article, is for leaders to engage employees in discussing the vision “senior leaders encourage dialogs about the vision by asking people these questions: ‘Would you like to work for an organization that has this vision? Can you see where you fit in the vision? Does it help you set priorities? Does it provide guidelines for making decisions? Is it exciting and motivating? Have we left anything out? Should we delete anything?’”

• How it is communicated: The communication of vision is critical. Two common mistakes I see in the communication of vision is, firstly, vision is not communicated frequently enough, and secondly, the vision is not weaved into all the organizations communication initiatives. Leaders are the custodians of an organization’s vision, they are responsible to ensure that the vision is talked about and kept alive. You can never over-communicate your vision.

• How it is lived or modeled in the organization: This is an important finding, vision is a process and not an event. The author of the article makes the following point… “Creating a vision—for your organization or department, for your work, and for your life—is a journey, not a one-time activity…. ‘It is important that all leaders in the company hold themselves and each other accountable for behaving consistently with the stated vision and values. As others see leadership living the vision, they will trust that leaders are serious and will be motivated to join.’” Leaders watched closely by others, their language and behavior is closely scrutinized by their teams and employees. Unless a leaders actions, align with what they say, people will question the importance of the vision.

If you review your actions and how you have spent your time over the past month how closely aligned are your actions and the way you spend your time with your vision? How often do you talk about your vision?

Seven Steps of Effective Workforce Planning

• Define the organization's Strategic Direction
• Scan the Internal and External environments
• Model the current Workforce
• Assess future Workforce Needs and Project Future Workforce Supply
• Identify Gap and Develop Gap - Closing Strategies
• Implement the Gap - Closing Strategies
• Evaluate the Effectiveness of Gap - Closing Strategies and Revise Strategies as Needed

Tips and Tweaks for System Maintenance

Nowadays, a computer system participate most of the people’s life in and around the world. In a simple reason, it is minimizing the end-user’s work load and risk level. Hereby, I have mentioned the list of software and utilities to help you in every aspect.

Tips and Tweaks for System Maintenance

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Three Tips for Working Smarter

Stever Robbins in the article “Productivity Means Working Smarter, Not Longer” provides some helpful tips on working smarter, not harder.

“Working smart means getting the same results in less time. To do that, you must change how you work. You’ll get the most by changing your speed, increasing focus, and organizing to do things in parallel.”

1. Increase focus: “….Another way to work smarter is by distinguishing busy from productive. Oh, we’re busy, and we feel productive, but we’re only productive if we’re producing the results that are most important to moving the company forward. … E-mail is a great way to waste time feeling productive. And we get so much of it, so surely those two hours a day reading and replying is time well spent. But if you spend two hours of an eight-hour workday on e-mail, that’s 25 percent of your time. Unless that 25 percent of your time is producing at least 25 percent of your total income, it’s a low-value-added activity, no matter how many one-shot, ad hoc contracts you get that way…. The same applies to any activity. The 80/20 rule says that 80 percent of your results come from just 20 percent of your efforts…. you’ll find most of your output comes from a few of your tasks. So what? Well, look at the math. If you double the time you spend on real-output-producing activities and stop doing the others, you’ll double your output and spend 60 percent less time!”
   
2. Say no: ” …Most of us take on more than we can handle. …. Once you’re concentrating on your high-output work, you can get another boost by streamlining…. If someone proposes a project that will fall in 80 percent-work-for-20 percent-results category, just say ‘no.’ Face facts, my friend: There’s a limit to how much you can do. You can manage that limit and do things well, or you can ignore the limit and do a lousy job on everything. The choice is yours.”
   
3. Work in parallel, but don’t multitask: “When you multitask, you do many things at once. Bad idea. But you can find ways to arrange work so many things are happening at once. Good idea. If you are collaborating on a report and writing a marketing plan, you could write the plan and then work on the report. But look closely! Your colleague must review the report. So first draft your report and send it to your colleague. While she’s reviewing, you get to work on the marketing plan. Work moves forward on both at the same time.”
   

How productively are you using your time? Are you focused enough? Are you saying no? Are you doing work in parallel?

Peter Drucker On Leadership

There is a great article “Peter Drucker On Leadership” discussing the leadership principles of Peter Drucker, some of his ideas from the article that stood out to me are as follows:

• What Needs to Be Done: “Successful leaders don’t start out asking, ‘What do I want to do?’ They ask, ‘What needs to be done?’ Then they ask, ‘Of those things that would make a difference, which are right for me?’ They don’t tackle things they aren’t good at…..”

• Check Your Performance: “Effective leaders check their performance. They write down, ‘What do I hope to achieve if I take on this assignment?’ They put away their goals for six months and then come back and check their performance against goals. This way, they find out what they do well and what they do poorly. They also find out whether they picked the truly important things to do. I’ve seen a great many people who are exceedingly good at execution, but exceedingly poor at picking the important things….”

• Mission Driven: “Leaders communicate in the sense that people around them know what they are trying to do. They are purpose driven–yes, mission driven. They know how to establish a mission. And another thing, they know how to say no. The pressure on leaders to do 984 different things is unbearable, so the effective ones learn how to say no and stick with it…”

• Creative Abandonment: “A critical question for leaders is, ‘When do you stop pouring resources into things that have achieved their purpose?’ The most dangerous traps for a leader are those near-successes where everybody says that if you just give it another big push it will go over the top. One tries it once. One tries it twice. One tries it a third time. But, by then it should be obvious this will be very hard to do. So, I always advise my friend Rick Warren, ‘Don’t tell me what you’re doing, Rick. Tell me what you stopped doing.’”

• How Organizations Fall Down: “Make sure the people with whom you work understand your priorities. Where organizations fall down is when they have to guess at what the boss is working at, and they invariably guess wrong. So the CEO needs to say, ‘This is what I am focusing on.’ Then the CEO needs to ask of his associates, ‘What are you focusing on?’ Ask your associates, ‘You put this on top of your priority list–why?’ The reason may be the right one, but it may also be that this associate of yours is a salesman who persuades you that his priorities are correct when they are not. So, make sure that you understand your associates’ priorities and make sure that after you have that conversation, you sit down and drop them a two-page note–’This is what I think we discussed. This is what I think we decided. This is what I think you committed yourself to within what time frame.’Finally, ask them, ‘What do you expect from me as you seek to achieve your goals?’”

As always Peter Drucker provides some great insights into leadership effectiveness.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Quote of the Day

“Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration—of oneself and of others. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine.”

-- Lance Secretan