I was working with a CFO who was frustrated with the performance of his  Director of Financial Planning and Analysis and asked for my help in figuring out what to do about it.  He told me that the person’s experience and qualifications were impeccable and that they had been doing a great job until recently.  He was very confused. 

I started by asking him what, if anything, had changed recently either with his role or the Director’s role.  He thought for a moment and then began to tell me about his 100 person Board of Directors (Yes, you read that right, a 100 member Board!) who were all heavily involved. So involved, in fact, that the Finance department would get 10-15 calls per day from Board members. The CFO usually handled these calls, but for the past several months he had been spending half his time away from the office renegotiating bonds.  The responsibility of navigating Board requests had fallen to this Director.   

We began to discuss the critical success requirements that someone had to have to handle this responsibility.  The CFO identified that the person must have good judgment to answer Board questions and give enough information to please Board members without giving away too much or saying the wrong thing that would either raise inappropriate expectations or create blow back.

I asked him if he believed his Director had those characteristics.  Upon reflection, he determined that the Director did not have those skills and it was unfair to put them in a role where they were playing way out of position.  There was nothing wrong with their financial planning and analysis skills, they just had too little time to focus on them! 

---

One of a senior executive’s greatest responsibilities is putting people in positions where they can be highly successful.”

---

Now what?  The CFO could take the Board responsibilities away from the Director, but he was still going to be away a lot and unable to handle the Board questions.  We took inventory of the rest of his senior team relative to those success requirements.  The Controller was our person!  They had the unique mix of skills necessary to deal with the Board in the CFO’s absences.  He talked to her about the responsibilities, made some adjustments to her other work load to give her the time necessary to manage the Board and everything fell into place.  The Board was happy again, The Director of Financial Planning and Analysis was again a success, and the Controller evolved their value to the organization by using skills they never would have otherwise been able to put into practice.     

This story points out that every organization is unique and so are the job requirements for each position. Most job descriptions end up being relatively generic and lack the very important, specific qualifications a person must have to be successful in that organization. I call these specific qualifications “unique success requirements”. Combined these make up a position’s “Unique Success Profile”.

Most executives put people in roles based on past positions with no context of what they actually did in those positions and whether those experience are relevant to the new position.  This is a recipe for dissatisfaction.  Or, worse yet, outright failure.  Instead ask yourself these questions…what is specifically required here, right now, at this stage of the organization’s development, in this role, working for you to be highly successful?  Who is the person best suited to meet those unique requirements?

The Unique Success Profile is a great process not only for hiring, but for making sure you currently have the right people in the right positions. Sometimes we become enamored with people or frustrated with them for the wrong reasons.  You don’t have to make that mistake.   

One of a senior executive’s greatest responsibilities is putting people in positions where they can be highly successful.  Take advantage of the Unique Success Profile process to significantly raise the odds in your favor.

I've witnessed many debates between executives on the relative merits of Lean, Six Sigma, PDCA and scores of other codified problem solving processes. The people are always arguing about which set of problem solving tools is the best. I think they are all missing the point.

What is the point you ask? There is a great story about a Toyota executive attending a Lean conference as a keynote speaker. After his speech he was asked that considering Toyota pioneered Lean why had Toyota executives written only a single book about LEAN and that single book was not a comprehensive “how to” but simply a philosophical commentary on the concept of Lean.

He looked a little bemused and said, “Because there is nothing to write about.” His audience asked what he meant by that. “Well, all the book would say is ask the people doing the work if they know what they are supposed to do, do they know how to do it and what stops them from doing it right every time…then ask them the same questions again and again and so forth.”

His point was that the value of any process, whether LEAN, Six Sigma, PDCA, etc. is not the tools advocated by that process. The value is in the mindset that develops in the people over time. A mindset, a culture that is always focused on how to do a better job.

If you go to Amazon.com you will find over 600 “how to” books on Lean process. Yet the founders of the concept have not written a single one of them. These experts know that the tools are easy to learn how to use. The important work is establishing the right mindset in an organization.

Many of my clients think I have a codified process with a set of tools that I always use. I really don’t. I make up new tools all of the time.  Sometimes in the middle of a problem solving session! What I have is a mindset that calls me to drive teams to see their circumstances as clearly as possible from as many different angles as possible.  I will use any means I can dream up, borrow or steal to make that happen!

That is my recommendation to you. Hold everyone on your management team accountable for continually improving the processes and results in their areas. Do not get hung up on what specific process they use to accomplish this. Let them create the way that will work best with their people. Establish the mindset for continual improvement by relentlessly following up with them to track their progress.

This three-pronged approach of requiring managers to continually work to improve, allowing them the flexibility to do it their own way, and regularly following up to make sure what they are doing is working will establish a mindset for improvement that will be far more valuable than any tool kit you can buy.

Playing to win as opposed to playing not to lose. You have heard that phrase before. In fact, you have probably heard it enough to consider it a cliché. But in your business environment it is not a cliché. The organizations that survive for years to come will make this their guiding strategic principle.

The objective is to continuously look for ways to create competitive advantage. For many organizations this requires that they start thinking differently than they ever have before.

For example, I was leading a series of strategic planning sessions with a large company. At a break in one of the sessions the CEO took me aside to express his frustration about the way his team was thinking. He said, “We have to find a way to get us to think like entrepreneurs. Sure, we are talking about important things like cost control, product effectiveness and customer satisfaction. But, we are being way too inwardly focused. We have to broaden our thinking. Nobody is thinking about how to grow. We are not thinking about how to take market share from our closest competitors. And we are certainly not thinking abut how we can move into new geographic or service line markets. If we stay on this track we will get steamrolled by our competitors.”

“The objective is to continuously look for ways to create competitive advantage. For many organizations this requires that they start thinking differently than they ever have before.”

To think the way this CEO wanted his team to think requires that you recognize that you are in a battle and then take the fight right to your opponent. A great example of this is a hospital whose CEO once described the organization as “a plane flying into the ground.” He recognized that his organization was under attack on three fronts.

Front #1 was an array of money losing ventures. Each of these ventures was started with the best of intentions. However, there was no discipline to the decision-making. If it seemed like an idea that no one could prove was a bad one it was launched. The CEO and his team analyzed each of these ventures. If they determined that it could not be turned around within a few months they shut it down.

He then implemented a disciplined and structured decision-making process to assure that his organization would never again threaten itself with poorly analyzed decisions.

Front #2 was the threat of a very deep-pocketed competitor buying market share all around them. This CEO recognized that while this competitor had lots of money their leadership team was disorganized and very inwardly focused. He saw a window of opportunity to significantly enlarge his market position. He capitalized on the opportunity by quickly acquiring two hospitals and two medical groups before his wealthier competitor got its act together.

He and his team then did the best job I have ever seen integrating these acquisitions into a new and more complex enterprise. But, I'll save that story for a future post!

That brings me to front #3. The largest health plan in the newly enlarged organization’s market was being very open about its intentions to significantly reduce contract rates. If this happened the organization would once again be “a plane flying into the ground.”

Many in the organization were resigned to this fate. They felt that the health plan was too big to fight and without that contract they would not have enough business to survive. But the CEO and some of his top executives saw things differently. They chose to go on the offensive.

They launched a multi-faceted effort that included:

• Direct negotiations with the health plan demanding increases that would boost net revenue by 10% or they would not contract with that health plan

• Enlisting political support within the government

• Direct meetings with business leaders to educate them on the importance of the contract increase.

• A media campaign to educate the public on the importance of the contract increase.

The CEO and his organization won. They got the full contract increase they were seeking securing their financial success for years to come.

There are two important things to take away from this story. One is to believe you can win. Do not resign yourself to slowly being squeezed out of business. You deserve better than that and so does your community.

Second is to act quickly once you see your opportunities. Fortune favors the bold!