Recently I have come across a few firms that were busily creating their shiny new 5 Year Strategic Plan. Having done strategic plan consulting in the 90′s, I am familiar with the theory behind this and some of the processes used. So, one of the first things I want to clean the slate on in the new year is the whole concept of the 5 Year Strategic Plan.
Let us lay it to rest.
The purpose of the 5 Year Strategic Plan is to see and plan for the future.
That’s all well and good.
However, who can accurately predict where their company will be in 5 years in the face of the exponential growth patterns of change and complexity we now face?
There are futurists out there making a good living doing all kinds of scenario planning based on multiple possible futures. If we are really serious about thriving in change, it’s time to re-direct our energy to strategies based on real time adaptive capabilities. The nub of the problem with the 5 Year Strategic Plan is that we cannot possibly see and plan that far out in one comprehensive plan.
So, if you are thinking of hiring a good consultant to help you with your 5 Year Strategic Plan, save your money.
Invest instead in equipping your leaders to be able to run their organization like riding a bike.
Put the 5 Year Plan to rest and ride your bike instead
In order to ride a bike you do the following:
1. You pack what you think (best guess) you will need for your bike ride.
2. You know your destination – or at least what you want to see when you get there.
3. You start pedaling in that direction.
4. Most important…You have a short window of time to make a decision on how to successfully navigate what comes in front of you. Especially the surprises. And surprises are one thing we can count on in ever increasing number. Whether it is a child running in front of your bike, or a turn in the road that you didn’t expect, or an oncoming biker. Only at the time when you see the actual change can you make the best decision as to how to navigate your bike.
Let us learn what we can about the future (and pack our bags well). And, if your rider – manager or executive, has the awareness and skills necessary to be able to make those quick navigation decisions with agility and flexibility, your company will wind up at its destination… no matter what changes and surprises happen along the way. To do this, managers and execs need to hone their visionary and leadership skills.
We at the Coaching Center of Vermont wish you a very Happy New Year.
We’re celebrating moving to our new offices at Post Office Square in Essex Junction Vermont.
What are you celebrating?
Posted on December 30th, 2011 by leab
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If you’re a fan of Fast Company, Innovation, and Change – you might want to check out this website: Co.Exist
The website’s mission statement is: Co.Exist is a website for people who are not only hungry for solutions, but foolish enough to implement them.
Intriguing premise.
Or, if you’d rather get your daily hit via video, check out TED in 3 Minutes.
For those times you don’t even have the requisite 20 minutes to watch a regular TED video.
Whatever way you get your information/inspiration boost, it’s your pathway to keep up with the future – which of course is happening now.
This video is a tool we’ve been using lately with some of our customers who want help in developing their ‘slow hunch’ into their next step…
Sometimes a random act of kindness sneaks up and taps you on the shoulder when you least expect one!
Here’s the story:
I attended a certification training for program leaders on Coaching for Great Work – Toronto, October of 2010. I got a lot out of attending the training and it was fantastic to meet some new folks from across the globe with whom to share the journey of mastering the materials, marketing and delivering the workshop. I was impressed with the generosity of Michael Bungay-Stanier, the developer of the program, who sent us home with not only the training materials we needed for delivery of the program but also lots of extras in the form of books supporting the underpinnings of the program. In time, I finally got around to reading most of them, including Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication and Winning Body Language by Mark Bowden. Gems really. But it wasn’t until a month ago that I dug down to the bottom of the resource bag and pulled out a little book called All My Friends Are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman.
“What’s this?” I wondered. I picked up the little book…and literally didn’t put it down until I finished it!
OK, I admit it’s a short book.
But, maybe you’ve had that experience? You suddenly get so wrapped up in a good book it takes over your whole sense of time and what’s possible?
And, OK, I admit I was a writing and literature major in college, so I’m a sucker for great writing.
And…the most fantastic thing about the whole experience was that it was so unexpected.
It was the last thing I would have thought to have found in a pile of resources for a training program.
(I’ve written before about the power of the unexpected so I won’t go into it again here.)
Maybe it was there because Michael now lives in Toronto, where Andrew Kaufman hails from? Or maybe it’s just one of Michael’s favorites? And maybe it even has something to do with Great Work, although I haven’t sorted that out yet.
Most important, I saw it as a random act of kindness. Just a gift. Sharing something great with others.
So now I’m sharing this gift with you! If you like it, pass it on.
None of the contributors or the publishing house are taking any money from sales, and Amazon makes no profit.
The book has 62 thought leaders writing around the topic of Great Work – how to do more of the stuff that matters and less of all the other stuff that fills up your day
Includes such luminaries as Tom Peters, Gary Vaynerchuk, Sir Ken Robinson, Brene Brown, David Allen, Sally Hogshead and Mitch Joel
Divided into eight key areas of insight, including: Create Freedom, Disrupt Normal and Take Small Steps
End Malaria is edited by Michael Bungay Stanierand published by The Domino Project. It has an introduction from Scott Case, Vice Chair of Malaria No More.
$20 sends a mosquito net to a family in need and supports life-saving work in the fight against malaria.
Malaria No More’s mission is to end malaria in Africa by 2015.
Whether you call it Minimalism or Emergent Design or Negative Space or ?….the idea is that in our complex world the best structure is the one that provides for the most space. Space as in room to move, room to innovate, room to harness our innate individual and collective intelligence. That’s because things change and no matter how good we are at predicting and preparing for the change there is always the unknown – what we didn’t or couldn’t predict or prepare for.
Susan Szpakowski talks about it in terms of the architecture of Emergent Design in her excellent article Making Sense of Strategy in an Uncertain World. In the article she mentions Christopher Alexander (I’ve been a big fan of Christopher Alexander for years now) for his strategy of “pattern language” which is another way of defining the space so that it continues to make sense within change. One of my favorite ideas from his book A Timeless Way of Building is that of constructing a building one room at a time…that way the structure of the building emerges from its actual use.
In his provocative and entertaining TED video Grant Blakeman shows us his visual representation of our typical day and makes the case for space as an essential element of thriving in increased change and complexity.
At Vital Business, we use our proprietary A to B model, developed by Liz Dallas, where uncertainty actually holds a place in the design that takes you from where you are now to where you want to be. We not only use the “?” – we help our clients to love the “?”.
It’s the mantra I’ve been using with my corporate coaching clients for some time now – “Welcome to the end of Normal”. That mantra kicks off an excellent research paper on wisdom, chaos theory and organizational change – which I just read, courtesy of my membership in the Chaordic Solutions LinkedIn Group: Inspirational Chaos: Executive Coaching and Tolerance of Complexity
My one-on-one coaching clients as well as the companies we work with as part of their organizational change initiatives have been reeling in the face of the increasing speed of change and the exponential growth of complexity. Instead of complaining, scrambling, burning out, or simply winging it, those of us in the throes of that change will benefit from being the early adopters of a new strategic vision that will equip us to innovate and thrive in change – what this research paper terms as the new definition and application of Wisdom.
It’s a great explanation of what Vital Business stands for in approaching change beyond the behavioral framework of the past by adopting a wisdom framework and a leadership coaching strategy.
Recently, at a Vermont Family Business Initiative Forum, I had the pleasure of hearing Jack Mitchell, CEO of Mitchells Family of Stores, speak about his experience in business and how to be wildly successful in a very fun way. The topic was “Hug Your Customers” and Jack gave everyone a big hug by gifting all of us with a free, signed copy of his book.
Jack’s talk was more than entertaining, it was positively inspirational – mostly due to the many stories Jack told of his experience over the years of hugging his customers. In his talk he referenced Seth Godin’s work on how to stand out as a remarkable business; I’ve been a big fan of Seth’s, including his book Purple Cow, for many years. I’ve done seminars on customer service over the years, even one on How to be Remarkable, and…Hug Your Customers has taken me to a whole new level of excitement on the topic. So much so that we’ll be instituting a Hug Your Customers campaign at the Coaching Center of Vermont.
One of my favorite stories from Jack’s book (and I marked up the book with ‘great story’ notations so I could refer back to get re-inspired) is the one about how Jack found out from a customer, during a transaction at his store, that an innovative idea by the local Department of Motor Vehicles was being held up by lack of parking space for mobile offices. His company volunteered to have a mobile office set up right in their company parking lot, twice a month. Now that’s the kind of hugging we do a lot of in Vermont, community minded hugs. But here’s my favorite part of the story: they gave out free cups of coffee to the people in line and $10 off certificates. Now how would you like to have that experience at the DMV office? As a coach, I often work with my clients on leveraging everything they do and this is a story about super leveraging that I will share from now on. Read the rest of this entry »
There’s debate about what the next generation after Millennials (people born after 2000) will be called, what they will value and how they will act. After watching this intriguing TED video on trends, the Mesh – by Lisa Gansky, I’m personally trending toward the Mesh Generation. The Mesh is all about a fundamental shift with our relationship with stuff, or as Lisa calls it, “the pursuit of better things easily shared”. She builds her case on the progression of trends – from Recession, to Climate Change, to Distrust of Big Brands, to a kind of Super Connectivity we’ve developed through our infrastructure and our technology. As Lisa puts it, Social + Mobile + Physical = Access to goods and services becomes more important than ownership.
How is the Mesh trend going to affect you and your business, you and your life? Well it already has. Take Netflix, or car sharing – or bike sharing (if you were at the Vermont Biz and Industry Expo you saw the bike sharing booth). If the true new definition of value is lack of waste how can we create what’s next in our businesses by making that sharing irresistible, recurrent, scalable and profitable?
Here’s an idea for those of you who can’t afford coaching on your own. Want to try a Mesh experiment? Get one or two friends together and share a coach (that’s me) for six months. Here’s my proposition: Three coaching sessions a month shared by all. You decide how to share your coach, sharing the monthly cost among yourselves. Let’s see how the mesh will work!
After attending the Women Business Owners Network Spring Conference (WBON) on Tuesday, I came away asking myself: How can we support and inspire strong women business leaders to be more visible and increase their impact in the State of Vermont? In addition to networking with over 100 women business owners at the conference, I had the opportunity to hear Mary Powell, CEO of Green Mountain Power (second largest utility in the state), speak about her personal journey to leadership and ‘keeping it real’. The Coaching Center of Vermont has been working with Green Mountain Power since October to help them create a leadership coaching culture. I was particularly interested in hearing Mary speak since I’ve seen the uber positive impact her inspirational leadership has had on GMP.
A key point I’ve already passed along to a coaching client from Mary’s talk: Getting over needing to have people like you. Since it’s a cultural norm for women to be pleasers, heeding this message unleashes high potential women to follow their North Star/vision & passion. And since leadership is, to a great extent, an energy game – it’s a solid way to plug in to what energizes any leader, and a strategy to turn away from the static and distraction of both the external and internal negative chatter that plagues women in particular.
I’m plugging in to the energy too! I’ve already noticed that I’ve been able to move a few of my most important initiatives forward from the inside out.
Posted on January 2nd, 2012 by leab
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