Jan Richards

Let's Make Your Business Work Better

Categories

Vision and strategy

How to create an “edge of cliff” scenario analysis to prevent big problems from occurring

by Leave a Comment

“I’m afraid of what I don’t know,” the CEO of the rapidly growing company said to me as I advised him one day.

“And I’m afraid of what I can’t see.”

He feared dire circumstances could occur and wipe out his thriving company.

This CEO was worried enough that he longed for a good early warning system he could use…if there were a way to create one.

I created an early warning system for him, one we ended up calling the “edge of cliff analysis” because it addressed his key fears for his company…and a few others he had not thought about.

It was a tool he and the company reached for, and used, for years afterwards.

To create the “edge of cliff analysis,” and to make sure it worked well for them, I worked with a wide range of people at the company to understand serious and unexpressed fears they had for their company.

It was like uncovering and understanding a high-risk puzzle, and then providing an action-oriented dashboard to guide them.

It helped them prioritize improvements that would reduce the most likely risks to the company, while providing them significant measures, and the ability to use them well, in order to help them know if problems were starting to emerge.

And then we made sure the decision-making and prioritization framework is one that people inside the company could and would use. (And they continued to reach for and use it, I heard through the grapevine, for years afterwards).

Do you, too, long for a sense of command in otherwise challenging and unpredictable circumstances?

Do you ever wish for an early warning system such as this CEO did?

If so, here are the basic steps we used to create this rapidly growing company’s early warning system:

– Start with your fears

We called this the “edge of cliff” analysis, and started with the CEO’s greatest fears.

He had lived with heavy but ambiguous worry for some time.

He hadn’t yet articulated his fears clearly, and this step alone, of articulating his worries, helped turn them into something actionable, and something positive.

– Turn them into scenarios

We considered his worst-case scenarios and the probable consequences of each for his clients and company.

We also considered best-case scenarios (they are so much more fun to think about…and we needed those, too, for a bit of relief in this work).

And then we considered what would happen if the best scenarios turned out, in real life, to be even better than we dreamt. We also considered situations where something far, far worse than the worst that he feared happened.

This stretched our sense of what the early warning system needed to accommodate, and to flag for preventative, or adaptive action.

–  Make your early warning system goal clear

Identify what you want your early warning system to do for you.

Next, consider who will use the information, and what they will hopefully do with it.

Check in with the future users of the information to see what they need in order to make the information easy for them to use to identify and take the right actions.

– Gather external information

In this client project, I had to find a proxy for customer satisfaction and frustrations, in lieu of talking directly to their customers.

I looked to see what promises the company made, or implied, to their customers through their marketing and advertising materials.

This told me what processes inside the company had to work flawlessly, under all different circumstances, no matter what was happening outside the company.

– Synthesize

Working with the leadership team, I verified and clarified which processes had to be top-notch in order for them to continue to thrive.

We mapped this to the most likely scenarios they might face, and identified which processes put them at highest risk, if they were not strengthened and improved.

– Organize and communicate

We organized and simplified the work, making it easy to understand and use.

We had no interest in creating a system that just looked good on paper. We wanted one that would be successful in real life and real business.

Next, we trained people, helping them see what valuable part they played in making the early warning system work successfully, and do what it was intended to do to keep the company safe and thriving.

The early warning system turned out to be a combination of crystal ball, fire drill, and strategic change management system all rolled into one.

If you’d like more information about how to do a scenario analysis, or how to do an “edge of cliff” analysis for your business, let me know.

 

Here’s another post you may be interested in:

You place your bets when you set strategy

How to lead successfully through uncertainty

by Leave a Comment

“I think we’re lost. Yeah, we’re lost. I KNOW we’re lost!”

Does that sound like the worried buzz at the company where you once worked – or the one where you work now?

Did the path forward once seem SO clear, so destined to be successful during the cool logic of business or project planning?

And now, does that plan seem to be pure fiction, or a dream, perhaps?

These “we’re lost” quotes were not from an employee sometime, somewhere.

These were the fears of our then-12-year-old son, Matt, as his 20-year-old sister, Anne, tried to lead us back to our hotel in Paris when we were trying to find our way to home base on the last night of a family trip there.

Anne was our leader in this case because she was, effectively, the only French-speaking member of the family.

She’d been nervous about taking on the communications and navigation leadership role at the beginning of the French portion of this family trip. She grew into the role beautifully, though.

Her skills were really being tested this final evening. And she did get us safely back to the hotel, despite the doubts of some of her followers.

What worked in this situation can help you, too, to succeed when you must adapt best-made plans quickly in order to lead successfully through uncertainty.

Try these approaches to help you be successful:

Make yourself easy to follow

Be clear about your vision, plan and directions. Use simple language and descriptions that everyone can understand. Speak in specific, concrete terms. Help your team understand what’s different in this situation from the original plan.

Be clear about your assumptions

We all know stories about teams that made incorrect assumptions in planning and then never adjusted them, despite the facts. In many of these cases great difficulties, even tragedies, occurred which might have been prevented. Be attentive to whether your assumptions are solid…or need to be revised…as you play your plan. Use good data. Know what it’s telling you. Adjust both your plan and actions if facts make it clear you must.

Trust your instincts, but check the facts

One of the primary strengths of the way Anne led us back to the hotel that evening was that she started with a vision of success that held up in spite of the nervousness around her. She also paid close attention to her intuition, combined with the facts and feedback she could gather from the team (her family, in this case) and the environment. Finally, she held it all together with a healthy spirit of adventure that made the team successful, and the experience memorable, in a positive way.

Show confidence, courage

This is often a major key to tipping the balance of a team’s focus from fear and anticipation of failure – particularly when plans must change rapidly – to confidence and conviction. Armed with a vision, a revised or flexible plan, and guided by facts gathered along the way, you and your team can move with assurance in whatever circumstances you find.

Make simple agreements – and keep them

Agree with your team on the milestones at which you’ll check your progress, and the data or metrics you’ll use to evaluate whether you’re on- or off-course. Then keep those agreements. You’ll build a strong experience of being a team – and improve your outcome – as you face uncertainty together.

Keep communication flowing

Success requires strength, confidence and everyone’s willingness to stay fully involved. Keep lines of communication open, free-flowing. As a team leader, be clear about how you’ll make decisions. Ask for information or feedback you need. Listen fully. Acknowledge, sort, synthesize and incorporate essential information you receive (if you don’t, people may stop bringing it to you). Keep communication moving. It can be the difference between success and failure.

Follow through

This one can’t be said enough. Confidence grows when teams see a growing trail of small victories, one success leading to another. Follow up. Follow through. Complete each task and keep moving.

Encourage others

If you’re discouraged in the unexpected situation in which you find yourself, others on your team are probably even more so. They’re watching you very, very closely, and your mood shows more than you know. As the leader, it’s your job to get the group successfully and safely to their destination, despite the circumstances you find yourselves in. Your job will be easier if you help to lighten the team’s load, even by letting them know that you see how much they’re carrying. Show appreciation for their efforts and their flexibility.

When you’re right, no gloating, no showboating

Finally, congratulate and thank each member of the team, whatever role they played in the team’s success. Remember – you got to your final destination together, not alone.

You place your bets when you set strategy

by Leave a Comment

Strategy. Strategic.

Do those words make you feel excited, eager, energized? Or does your heart start racing a bit in fear, at the mere mention of strategy, and the responsibility it brings?

Leaders’ reactions to strategic opportunities run the full gamut from fear and apprehension to eagerness to take on the challenge.

Some people like the excitement of sizing up the future and placing their bets on a particular course of action and events which strategy setting really represents.

For others, the word “strategy” and “strategic” make them break into a fearful sweat. For this group, the risks of getting it wrong seem far higher than the thrill of getting it right.

Strong strategic skills – strategic thinking, strategy setting, and strategic management – are among the top characteristics of great leaders.

The essence of strategic ability is that, of the many paths of action open to an organization, great leaders can see, and then take – or make – the strategic course most likely to lead to success.

They can find their way through uncertainty to high customer satisfaction, product, service and process excellence, and maximum profitability.

When you set strategy, you’re placing your bets – and committing your resources – to what you believe will happen in the future, and what your best response is likely to be to the anticipated future.

What’s really involved in being a great strategist?

You must be able to envision playing the game out completely, rather than to just hope things will work out, magically and effortlessly.

You must have alternative paths figured out in case the paths you envision are wrong, or eliminated for some reason.

You must have or be able to get the resources you need to turn the strategy into effective action.

You must have good information, and know how to use it for effective decision-making, having considered those decisions from many different points of view

You must have the confidence to choose the best course, and stay that course or adapt, as you see what’s happening, as conditions continue to change.

You must keep your eyes on the ultimate prize, the vision of success, given the circumstances at any point, and what may still lie ahead.

Taking the risk, and placing your bet on how you think the uncertain future will play out is not an easy task.

Strategic skills are essential as a leader, however. As with other leadership skills, you can build and refine strategic skills, too, through learning, focus and practice.

Visioning: How to create a powerful team vision

by Leave a Comment

Discover, express and focus on a future for your team that’s clear, positive, compelling. To do that, capture your team’s vision.

Visionary leadership is one of the top characteristics of great leaders.

A vision that works for you is one that’s honest, customer-focused, and inspires and empowers your group. It enables them to take action cohesively and creatively to make the vision come true, no matter what obstacles they find ahead.

A vision this powerful will be one that appeals to your team’s emotions, as well as their intellect.

When you think about creating the vision together, think of it as a way to “pre-experience” success, in detail. The final product of your visioning work is, in a way, a snapshot and preview of the future you are creating.

Here are ways you can capture or create your team’s powerful, positive action-inciting and guiding vision:

1. Create the time and space for it.

Your team needs time to relax and let their ideas flow. That requires time and space away from the pressures of the regular workday. Schedule the time in advance with your team.

Create an environment for the visioning work that’s free of interruptions and enables the team to think expansively, clearly, honestly, creatively.

Engage a good facilitator, if the support of someone experienced in managing group processes would help. The facilitator can also help you create the final vision product you’ll post.

If you’re working on your own, make sure you have the space to stretch out. That includes plenty of wall-space to post butcher paper or easels and flip charts on which the team can record their ideas.

2. Envision a compelling future.

Start by setting a target date by which you hope your vision will have become real. Perhaps that’s 5, 10 or more years away. Whatever it is, make it a specific date.

Next, imagine what you will have achieved, as a team, by this time. Imagine it in detail, as if you were living in, and enjoying the benefits of that future situation. “Be there now.”

Imagine what your customers, collaborators, and competitors are saying at this future time about your results and how you created them:

– When you imagine seeing and hearing their reactions to your results and the way you got there, what do you like?

– What do you want to change about what you imagine they are saying about you, your work, and how you achieved it?

Now, as you imagine being in this future, imagine how you feel about what you have achieved by this time:

– What do you like best?

– What do you want to add or change about the results you imagine, and how you created them?

3. Capture and sort the group’s input to create the shared vision.

Capture the group’s work on your vision in writing or graphics. That way they can see and share the experience of having their ideas emerge, and their shared vision coalesce, and ultimately be expressed in a compelling way.

There will be a lot of information you’re producing, and processing as you create the vision. Capture it as you work in some way that’s easy for you to stay true to the ideas being expressed, and yet find it easy to work with. You can use mindmaps, clustering techniques, or structured brainstorming exercises.

You can also create a graphic template ahead of time, using a visual metaphor to catch and organize the team’s ideas. For example, some teams use a visual metaphor of taking a journey together, mountain climbing, surfing, or building a city. There are also many others you can use for a graphic template, depending on what metaphors resonate best with your team.

A variety of useful tools are available in good facilitation books and resources. In addition, an effective facilitator will have her, or his, own visioning process and tools to suggest to you.

If you’d like my help with this, of course, let me know.

4. Refine and post the vision. Then follow up.

Take the visioning work you’ve done, and distill it, as a group.

Produce a simple final vision statement or a graphic of it.

Post the vision in a prominent place where your team works, or will somehow see it regularly. That may be a physical space, or if you have a virtual or dispersed team, post it on an online space you share.

You can also create an individual version of the shared vision that employees post at their desks, or on their computers. Some teams use these like worksheets so team members can keep their eye on the “big picture,” and capture their own notes, as the year unfolds.

Ultimately, your vision will turn out to be more powerful for your team than you – or they – might guess (Visions are always powerful, whether they’re positive or negative).

When you’re vision-led, you’ll find it easier to stay on track, and find your way back if you’re pulled off course for some reason.

 

Visioning: See and create the future together

by Leave a Comment

Visionary leadership is one of the top characteristics of great leaders.

Leaders who have this ability can see a better future for their teams and organizations. They’re very successful at engaging others in the process of creating that future together.

A shared, positive vision is far more powerful than many people would guess. In the absence of such a vision, individual members of a team – any team – are pulled toward their own visions of the future. Often these visions are poorly aligned. At worst, they directly conflict.

For example, some people are driven by great fear of the things they’re trying to avoid. They’re filled to the brim by graphic visions of the very things they dread. They may not realize how powerful these visions are, perhaps even leading them closer to the very things they wish to avoid. They need a compelling, positive vision to replace their fear.

Others, in their fervent desire to try to manage change, are motivated by visions of protecting the status quo, no matter what it costs. These visions can be helpful in the short-term, but in the long-term, they’re likely to freeze people, and organizations, in place – if that is even possible – as customers and competitors continue to move far ahead.

What happens if people in your company, or on your team, are drawn to, and working to implement, visions that conflict?

The result will be wasted effort, time, money and opportunities, as well as extreme distraction, and, in all likelihood, great conflict. 

It will be anything but a focus on customers, and the productive, shared effort that ensures that customers’ needs are well-met. Ultimately, of course, dissatisfied customers take their business to competitors, or decide to quit buying products and services like yours altogether.

Great leaders can gather and direct the full range of their team’s resources – time, talent, attention, energy, and budget – to create a strong and positive future for their companies, customers and team.