Strategic Skill Builder Blog

A cornerstone to implementing a performance-based culture lies with creating an environment of personal responsibility and holding people accountable for their performance. Measurement systems must provide clear, universal metrics that are aligned to the company’s objectives, tied to profitability, and are flexible and easy to use.

If there is no accountability there will be no change and performance will be sub-optimal. Without measured accountability systems in place, expectations will go unrealized.

People in your organization will respond and comply with what they are held accountable to, not with what has been told – a culture of accountability and a performance-based culture are co-dependent.

Traditional metrics such as sales performance, turnover rate, market share, and the like should always be guideposts for success. However, metrics that capture elements of culture change center on accountability and performance and can be more difficult to define and capture.

If the organization has already made the decision to push forward with culture change, that means the current state is unacceptable. Focus on the future state. The difference between the two states is the tension that should drive leadership toward change. Therefore, metrics that ensure repetitive clarity on the future state and performance against that future state will drive leadership behavior to make the vision of the future a reality.

Although critical, understanding the future vs. current state is insufficient as a stand-alone when seeking change and the desired performance-based culture.

Later, we’ll discuss what Cogency Group sees as the organizational capabilities that must be bridged with the cultural building blocks required to arrive at the desired state.

The path toward change is not a lineal journey. Success requires long-term commitment while focusing on numerous change drivers simultaneously and harmoniously.

A story told frequently by Tom Peters underscores a common lack of patience toward changing an organization’s culture. Following a presentation he had given on organizational culture, a highly energized CEO came up to him and said: “Thank you for your talk! I now see the value of a strong culture.” Then turning to his COO he barked, “I want a culture by Monday!”

This story, while humorous, highlights a misconception of the nature of culture change and how it arises over time through norms, stories, and changes in behavior. Changing culture is possible but it occurs slowly – not through proclamation.

Underlying requirements for a deliberate culture change include:

• Making the decision to change culture
• Patience toward the effort and time required to effect cultural change
• Perseverance and sustained focus once changes in behavior begin to occur
• Developing metrics for cultural change and reviewing those metrics constantly
• Recognizing the need for tolerance as the organization implements this transition
• Encouraging leadership at all organizational tiers
• Using employee passion for success as leverage to drive the new sales culture
• Creating and sustaining a sense of urgency and avoiding gradual backsliding
• Recognizing and rewarding indicators of the new culture

In the next blog post, we’ll discuss the first of six critical change drivers, Accountability and Metrics.

All too often, corporate change initiatives fall short of expectations or fail outright.

• Everyone is convinced of a bright future-state with an upcoming sales force transition. Rep selection and on-boarding have ensured the organization top talent. But as time marches on, results prove to be sub-optimal and tension has emerged among regional manager ranks.

• The chief executive and his staff carefully develop a new vision and ideals for the company with the goal of increasing market share. This vision is communicated to all employees at every level. New corporate slogans are advertised to existing clients and to the general public. A kick-off celebration officially sees these new ideals implemented at the beginning of the fiscal year. Six months later the CEO learns that not only is market share slipping but there is no turnaround in sight.

What is it that causes a seemingly well-planned project to break down?

The two scenarios described above are all too common at organizations that assume new technology, new people, or new ideas are equivalent to new culture. One of the primary reasons change initiatives fail is because the organization doesn’t properly recognize them as such. People persist in conforming to old norms – the old culture. 

Culture is embodied by the invisible guideposts that tell people how to behave. It expresses the shared set of values, norms, and perspectives that draw members of the organization together into a tight-knit, smoothly operating team dedicated to common purposes. Culture pre-disposes the behavior of an organization’s employees. 

Stay tuned for upcoming blog articles where we’ll discuss the change drivers necessary to lay the foundation to create changes in behavior within sales organizations and organizations like your own.

Getting everyone involved in strategic thinking is like taking a dose of truth serum. This is where you will discover if the business as a whole truly is able to recognize the forest through the trees or if everybody is preoccupied with putting out fires within his or her own departmental universe. If it is the latter instead of the former, ask yourself if the economic downturn only made the company’s inevitable dire straights more apparent.

Reflection and introspection on the company’s goals serves to build self-confidence as teams are reminded of how they overcame obstacles in the past. The sense of ownership that comes with placing a personal stake in the organization’s success will equal or surpass the insight they will provide. 

How are you mitigating the recession’s impact on your business? Drumming up new clients and tapping new sources of revenue from existing customers, especially in this environment, require adherence to a disciplined strategy. Are your priorities in-line with the times? Would you recognize an opportunity nestled within this economic calamity? How well are you able to ride the waves of change? Is your workforce asking these questions amongst themselves?  

Ask yourself whether all individuals in your organization think strategically. What about functional units? The answer sounds better if it is yes but perhaps there is not a terrible sense of urgency if the answer is no.

Specifically, is everyone in your organization aligned with the overall corporate goals and the company’s purpose? Does everyone plan and act with this clear-cut focus in mind? Asking the question this way makes clear the unacceptability of a no answer when charting a course through an unstable business environment caused by this economic melee. If you would like to venture a little deeper into the rabbit hole, ask yourself if the business environment is ever truly stable.

Strategic thinking must cut across all levels of the organization in order for it to be effective. All in all, strategic thinking and leadership development that occurs through employee engagement go hand in hand. One can’t happen without the other. The need for Strategic Leadership is not mutually exclusive in this respect.

In the midst of unfavorable circumstances, chances to move an organization towards its goals often go unnoticed. Don’t allow adversity to overwhelm you. Instead of becoming engulfed by postwar devastation in Japan, publishing editor Ogawa Kikamatsu used the situation to water the seeds of his own innovation and creativity.

His inspiration came shortly after his country’s surrender. Picking up on the need for his countrymen to manage through the ensuing occupation, he published a Japanese-English conversation manual, even though he had no real proficiency in English. Placing trust in his intuition, he sold 3.5 million copies by the end of 1945.(1)

The lesson here is to analyze your surroundings and develop your contingencies without losing sight of your original goals. It’s all about repositioning your strategy to avoid being blindsided in the future.

Although the need for strategic thinking during challenging economic times is paramount, the task of pondering the  economy’s impact on your organization’s strategic outlook should not simply be up to management and those identified as leaders on the org chart. This is unfortunately the case in many organizations where the mere term strategic is exclusively reserved for the upper echelons of management. This is a mindset that could prove to be fatal.

Strategic thinking is vitally important, especially during tough times likes these. Feelings of grief and consternation are likely to infect any organization during an economic downturn, especially if it is suffering financially as a result.

At Cogency Group, we understand that tough times present a great opportunity to realign strategic plans with realities facing the organization. It is not only a great opportunity, it is likely a necessity.

What was the organization’s strategic outlook before it was walloped by an economy teetering on depression? How does it look now? For all intents and purposes, the company’s strategic vision shouldn’t be drastically different. The quandary that crops up in times like these is the impulse to make reactionary decisions – decisions based on fear.

Instead of fear-based decision making, keep your company’s vision in focus. Of course, don’t confuse this with ignoring the uncertainties down the road. Pay attention to the rear view mirror in order to consider times past when business was slow. What was the economic outlook then? What was the solution? Contrast it with today. Do you expect things to get better or will the trend lines keep going down and by how much in either direction?