Looking for results, what’s your game plan?

The report lying on the table told a damning story, by all the metrics that our company used to measure performance we were bottom of the heap… …again. The results just didn’t seem to reflect the huge effort that we had put in over the past months. Neil, the state manager, and I felt pretty demoralised, even more so by the message from head office that had accompanied the results.

Unbeknown to both of us at the time, this was to become a great lesson in what it takes to succeed. It was in fact the last time that we were bottom of the heap and in the next seven years we went on to set numerous business performance records.

We learnt a lot from this experience about what works, what doesn’t and what are energy wasting distractions both in terms of safety and broader business performance. I have gone on to apply the lessons that I learnt from this experience on a number of very successful subsequent projects.

  If there is an art in any of this it is being able to distil what really matters and what is just noise and a distraction from producing the desired results.

Because Neil and I were in such a mess we had to go back to first principles. This turned out to be very fortunate and one of the important lessons, often we lose the connection between initiatives, systems, processes and the desired end result.

There was and is no magic formula to turning performance around, it requires a high quality plan that those involved can understand and that they can commit to. If there is an art in any of this it is being able to distil what really matters and what is just noise and a distraction from producing the desired results.

With any plan or action you need to be able to answer a simple question; ‘How will this action help to achieve the desired end result?’, if you can’t answer that question then you are probably wasting precious energy and time on something that won’t deliver value or worse that will take you off course.

The biggest mistake that Neil and I could have made was to become obsessed by the business performance reports and the numbers in those reports. They are measures of business performance; however they are not particularly helpful in crafting a successful game plan.

A simple analogy is that in most sports we aim to achieve some sort of score. How useful would it be if the coach or manager said to his players ‘You need to score more points/goals/etc. than the other team”. Fairly useless and pointless, instead the best coaches and managers develop a game plan with clearly defined actions that will deliver those results and then make sure that the players understand their role in delivering that game plan.

  A game plan that is focused on the right inputs equips you to respond to changing circumstances quickly and efficiently.

The same approach applies in business; take the time to craft a game plan that focuses on the inputs that will deliver the results that you are looking for. One size does not fit all, to be effective the approach that you take must be sensitive to the culture and environment that you are working in.

Make sure that those involved understand their role and have some measure of how well they are performing against the game plan. It is essential that people and teams have a meaningful measure of their contribution to the game plan, which if successful will ultimately produce the desired results.

This last part is critical; I remember hearing a senior manager complain that the workforce did not know the current performance on corporate safety measures (TRIFR and LTIFR rates), these are important high level business measures that sit alongside financial measures such as EBIT or ROC, but they are pretty meaningless in helping a person or team on the frontline to know how well they are sticking to the plan. The manager would have been better off asking how these team members measure their contribution to the corporate goals and do they know how they are performing against those measures?

It is essential that people and teams have a meaningful measure of their contribution to the game plan.

 It is important to get alignment and commitment to one plan, to get results everyone needs to be singing from the same song sheet. In business as in sport confusion never ends well, a favourite saying of mine is; “if you want to have a stuff up have no plan, but if you want to properly screw things up have two plans.”

There can be a strong temptation in this Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world to resort to increasing complexity to manage all the possible contingencies. We can’t make the world simpler but we can strive to find simple solutions to complex problems. This is hard work and so the easy or perhaps lazy solution is often just to create increasing layers of complexity.

Humans have limitations in dealing with complexity so the key is to create simple and clear plans that focus on the right inputs. Agile and lean approaches are far more likely to cope successfully with the many challenges that the VUCA world can throw at us. (For more on VUCA have a look at the work by Patrick Hollingsworth).

In a rapidly changing world creating a successful game plan  requires both skill and courage.

Constantly changing the game plan is perhaps the most harmful and confusing thing that you can do. It sends a message that leaders are unsure and undermines confidence, which is critical to success. You may need to tweak the game plan at times to changing circumstances, but it needs to be consistent, clear and simple.

In a rapidly changing world creating a successful game plan requires both skill and courage. The skill is in creating a plan that focuses on the few key aspects that will deliver the right results. The courage involves sticking to the key elements of your plan even when the results don’t come straight away or through the occasional hiccup. This is not to say that you should be oblivious to changing circumstance, however a game plan that is focused on the right inputs equips you to respond to changing circumstances quickly and efficiently.

To develop a successful game plan;

1. Take the time to clarify the results that you are seeking and work back from there,
2. Keep the plan simple, find the few things that will have the most impact,
3. The plan must be tailored to both the risk context and culture where it is being applied,
4. Use the right performance measures for each level of the organisation,
5. Focus on leading indicators, make sure that you measure the actions that will produce the results,
6. Avoid continual changes, have the courage to stick to the game plan.

Dedicated to the memory of Neil Ribbans a dear friend and colleague who truly cared about felt leadership.