Throw away your strategic plans.

We are in the middle of our strategy planning process, an exercise that involves at least a hundred, if not more, managers across the company. For any organization, this process is a huge investment: thousands of man-hours, travel, external advisers, etc. The goal, of course, is to create the document that will guide the company's future, *the strategic plan*.

Too much emphasis, unfortunately, is placed on writing a document. Corporate planning departments work with the top management to show off their excel and powerpoint skills Many companies outsource the work to consultants so that the best, most comprehensive plan can be written. In most cases, nobody looks at the document after it is "approved" and bound.

For me, the value of the strategy planning process is not in its outcome but in the process itself. Getting managers across departments and levels to participate in asking the right questions and debating possible answers is invaluable. As we concluded a recent strategy workshop, the overwhelming feedback was, "wish we spent more time discussing these issues in such cross-functional groups". 

Given how the world is changing around us, a "plan" is outdated the day it is finalised. What won't be outdated is the thought-process that went into it. Having your mangers share a common understanding of the market, your choices and actions is a powerful advantage because they are now equipped to make changes as the underlying assumptions change. A plan written by the corporate planning team or consultants does not lend itself to dynamic modification.

Make the strategic planning process a key element of your leadership / mangement practice. In fact, consider making it an ongoing activity, part of your monthly conversations. Democratise your strategic plan.

(Later: The top 3 strategy questions every manager should think about daily.)

The Leadership Dilemma

Continuing from my previous post about Prof. Ram Charan's seminar on Putting People Before Numbers, I wanted to share and discuss a hypothesis that most organizations fail to distinguish between Managers and Leaders.

Prof. Ram Charan had shared a concept of segmenting managers into categories like P&L Managers, Functional Managers, Experts, etc. That is a wonderful way of thinking about people, capabilities and careers. I had also shared about the popular perception that the P&L Manager role is the one that everyone aspires to (or is expected to aspire to). What this has led to is the confusion between a Manager's job and that of a Leader. It is popularly understood that a leader, whether that of a Business Unit or an Organization, is the ultimate P&L Manager. Therefore, by default, the best P&L Manager is expected to become the CEO or the best Function Manager is asked to lead a function or a division. 

This is the biggest mistake that many organizations make.

A leader need not be the best manager that an organization has. Leadership has been defined by many gurus, so I will only provide three things that I believe characterize leaders:

1. Vision: A leader has a clear picture of the future, aspirational state of the organization, and the confidence that we will get there.

2. Inspiring: Either through crystal-clear communication or pure induction, the leader inspires her team to believe in the vision and strategy.

3. Collaborating: The leader attracts the best people into his team and enables superior performance, jointly and individually, towards the shared vision.

The third quality includes, by extension, the ability to spot talented people and future leaders.

How often have we not seen that the crack sales person, crafty financial expert or creative marketing lead  possesses none of these qualities. However, the accepted career progression for a wonderful manager is to become a "leader". It is likely that a good leader was a good manager, but it is not at all necessary that every successful manager would be an effective leader. But who can argue against established career paths? Both are hurt in this process: many a great manager starts underperforming when thrust with a leadership role; many potential leaders languish in roles where their capabilities are under-utllized.

Most leaders know about the importance of talent management, yet they fail to do much about it. A reason I mentioned in the earlier post was that talent management has been mystified. Perhaps there is another reason. Maybe many of those who are in leadership roles are not leaders themselves and therefore, do not possess that innate quality of identifying and nurturing talent. Have we become victim to traditional norms of career progressions and promotions?

This is a controversial topic, and as I mentioned in the seminar, usually a "career limiting" one for those who raise it. All I have for my hypothesis is anecdotal evidence. This requires more research and discussion. I welcome your thoughts and feedback.   

Putting People Before Numbers: Prof Ram Charan

This week, I attended a seminar by Prof. Ram Charan (management guru, advisor and author of several best-selling management books) for senior leaders. The program was provocatively (I thought) titled, Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers.

Later, I realised that this was also the sub-title of Ram Charan's new book, Talent Masters (co-authored with Bill Conaty, former Sr. VP at General Electric). The central premise of the book (and consequently, of the program) is that "word-class companies achieve their stellar performance... by finding and nurturing leadership talent." With increasing globalisation and competition and reducing opportunities to create product differentiation, the bet is that companies that can attract and develop talent better than others would create sustainable competitive advantage.

Most leaders and senior managers know it; yet they fail to do much about it because talent management has been (in the words of a participant) "mystified into a dark-art" with lots of jargon and mumbo-jumbo thrown at it. What is needed is to demystify it: recognise that a systematic approach can be put in place to manage talent and that with practice, leaders can get better at it.

One interesting idea (amongst many) that I picked up was that of segmenting managers. Prof. Ram Charan suggested that managers (or roles) should be categorised into different segments, e.g. P&L managers, Functional managers, Experts, Innovation managers, Country managers, etc. The methodology of segmentation ought to be customised to the context, however, such segments (not too few, not too many) should be identified. Every manager cannot perform each of these roles; each also requires different development and reward mechanisms. Future people requirements of a business would vary by segment, and therefore planning the pipeline of talent has to be done at a segment level. For instance, if your future strategy is driven by expansion into new markets, you may need a pipeline of country managers whereas a product innovation driven strategy would require availability of appropriate experts and subsequently, P&L managers.

This sounds intuitively correct to me and I do believe that each manager can perform one or two types of roles without a major overhaul of skills (usually difficult at middle to senior levels). However, business culture has glorified the role of the P&L manager, thus everyone aspires to become one. In fact, if somebody does not aspire to be CEO (or Business Head) in future, he/she is perceived to be not good enough, even for the current job. Therefore, a person who may be a great functional manager or an expert is almost forced into the path of a P&L manager, irrespective of the fit. Not only do we need to plan careers for each segment of people differently, we also need to change popular perceptions about what a successful career (path) is.

I have written in the past that the enterprise of the future is going be unlike what we know from past experiences. Leaders that can make the shift now have the opportunity to create (or remain as) world-class companies. Or be left behind.