We are undertaking a similar exercise as yourselves over the
course of two meetings with senior and some middle managers.
We began with a visioning session (not absolutely necessary
depending on the state of your strategy) followed by some
very powerful activities, as follows:
- managers were asked to define in operational terms each
aspect of the vision; for example, one element was
'satisfied customers', and the managers had to define what
'customer' and 'satisfied' meant in day to day operational
terms (this uncovered a number of discrepancies and long
held assumptions, the trick is to insist on full definition
in their terminology)
- managers were also asked as a part of their preparation
for the meeting to list all of the projects they and their
people were involved in - these could be internal (achieve
ISO 9000 certification) or external (implement an EDI system
for Motorola). These projects were then collated and
compared against the elements of the defined vision to
determine how they fit and support our direction (a number
of projects were duplicated effort and could be
consolidated, some needed to be killed off - another
assumption raiser)
- the third step of the exercise asked managers to identify
the barriers which could intervene to prevent the final list
from being implemented, asking the following questions:
'What is it about our management style as a company that
would hinder our achievement (of the projects)',
'What do these hindrances say about our values and beliefs',
and
'What needs to change (about our culture and style or way of
doing things) so that we don't repeat the cycles of the
past'.
A further meeting will place these projects in optimal order
along a five-year timeline.
I should mention that this group of 40 managers have rarely
done this sort of work before, have regarded similar
attempts in the past with disdain (and the poor quality of
the output reflects this) and want to be left alone to get
on with the 'real work'. However, the above produced some
surprising results although it's not rocket science.
Perhaps it was time?