Most people find it is hard to connect all nine dots in the figure at left with four straight lines, without retracing any lines, and without lifting their writing implement.
The reason it is hard to do is because in order to solve the puzzle a person has to think and operate in ways that are different than normal; or outside the box, as they say.
Core Leaders who all describe the problem their organization solves for whom in the same way are apt to provide more consistent guidance and direction and so increase the odds of better performance across the board.
To get clear or to test for clarity, invite each Core Leader to:
Collect and consolidate input from each leader. Note points of alignment and departure.
Convene a Core Leadership Group session to share and discuss collected input. Encourage leaders to iterate to a consolidated articulation; possibly over several sessions.
Share consolidated articulation with Management Team.
Edit to reflect refinements based on input from managers.
Review with All Hands in written and stand-up presentations to inform, guide; solicit reaction and collect suggestions for improvement.
Revise as appropriate after review with Core Leaders and Management Team.
Finalize and publish for use in internal and external communications as a constant reminder, and to re-enforce clarity about, what the organization does for whom and why as well as to be clear about what the organization does not do.
Review and revise annually to reflect updated and expanded thinking in the face of experience
The application of behavioral psychology to organizations over the past 60 years or so has given rise to Organization Development tools, methods, and principles. University programs and training labs have taught thousands of professionals in the rapidly evolving discipline. Many of those trained wonder where they fit in the organizations that employ them.
Many organizations embrace the need for their leaders to convene offsite, for a day or two, in order to advance their ability to achieve a desired future state and to improve group performance by crystallizing and preparing to launch one or more Strategic Initiative. The best organizations know that to achieve optimum results such a session is best hosted by a trained outside facilitator and that pre-meeting data collection and preparation are key to success.
An organization that does not know how it will meet the demands of its current customers, or
An organization that has no idea where its next customer will come from, or
An organization that does not know how it will acquire resources needed to meet a surge in demand.
Such organizations exist and they are stuck. That is, their ability to perform and grow is severely constrained.
Organizations that experience sustained growth and high performance execute, create demand, and develop capacity in orderly, or systematic, ways. A system is a collection of resources working together to accomplish a common goal. The resources of an organization aggregate into three essential systems:
The Execution System, or what the organization does to Do what it does.
The Demand Creation System, or what the organization does to Sell what it does, including marketing, lead generation, sales, sales engineering, proposal writing, and sales support.
The Capacity Development System, or what the organization does to Grow, including training, recruiting, fund raising, performance assessment, goal setting, systems development, and process engineering.
Anything an organization does other than Do, Sell, or Grow, and that makes sense to continue doing, should be to facilitate, improve, or otherwise efficiently support its ability to Do, Sell, and Grow.
An organization that has execution problems essentially has no other problems because there is no point to growing or to landing new customers if the organization cannot even Do what it does to reliably deliver to customers it already has. Without a way to capture, organize, and distribute its collective knowledge from serving customers, an organization may have just a collection of unconnected experiences such that every new customer may be a “whole new adventure”. An organization that does not know for certain how it will meet delivery obligations runs serious risks and will find it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain control over the quality of its products and services.
Once there is a reliable way to execute, there is confidence to generate demand. However, without a way to generate demand that is predictable, repeatable, replicable, documented, maintained, taught, and ever-evolving, the organization’s ability to Do and Grow is likely to be constrained by its ability to Sell.
When new sales cause demand to exceed delivery capacity, it must Grow capacity to deliver. When capacity to deliver exceeds demand, it must Grow sales capacity. A growing organization needs to be clear about how it will add capacity to Doand how it will add capacity to Sell. For many organizations, this means identifying and cultivating sources of people, recruiting, and professional development.
At any time an organization’s ability to perform and grow tends to be constrained by one of the three core systems. Leadership’s job is to decide which system needs to evolve next and how.
For example, if a product provider generates more demand than can be handled by existing operations, then more production capacity is required. Once production capacity is in place, sales capacity may need to expand in order to put the increased production capacity to work. However, the amount of sales capacity should likely need to increase at a much slower rate than the rate of delivery capacity because a little more selling capacity should drive the need for a lot more delivery capacity.
In this sense, then, the evolution of Do, Sell, and Grow systems is iterative and staggered with execution capacity out in front of demand creation which is out in front of capacity to grow.
Most people find it is hard to connect all nine dots in the figure at left with four straight lines, without retracing any lines, and without lifting their writing implement.
