Making the Aspirational Actionable

“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”

Peter F. Drucker???

Congratulations! You’ve convinced the boss, the CEO, the banks, that your vision is credible and worthy support and resourcing. Up to this point I’ve emphasized a leader’s character and passion in the pursuit of new opportunities or in the avoidance of looming threats. However, when it comes to implementation it’s a team sport all the way.

This is where a well-designed battleplan, well-executed can make your dream, the collective dream, come true. This is also where optimization is a good thing, if you don’t allow the desire to perfect the art of sharpening pencils to become the default goal over time. You task now is to select the team, its leaders, and to review their plan of action. Once the plan is approved you need to be vigilant against strategic drift and play the role of cheerleader.

The longer plan takes to achieve the strategic aims the harder it will be to stay the course and remember the point if the original exercise. You are the one who must keep the flame burning, who are the one who must remind the team why change is vital to the survival or continued success of the organization.???

Subtle Shifts in Strategy

So far, I’ve addressed strategic adjustments in grand terms. Big sweeping changes that drive people crazy, inspire fear, and cause confusion and even retrenchment in the old ways as a defensive reaction. Your vision doesn’t have to be radical, in fact, it may be that most visionary changes require more subtle course adjustments instead of structural overhauls. There will still be anxiety and concern about the future (felt by each employee affected), but this should be nominal and easily moderated with clear communications and steady leadership.

I suggest you follow the same evaluation and analysis process described in earlier chapters to ensure subtle is all that is required. Create a solid pitch and take it as seriously as a major strategic shift. Sell the vision and outline the timeline but don’t get tricked into throwing out a half-baked plan during the initial pitch. Take this one premeditated bite at a time.

Another pitfall when it comes to subtle changes is a lack of awareness that the subtle maneuver is still a critical one. People instinctively understand a major change is dramatic, costly, disruptive, and therefore must be inherently justified. The boss, or bosses wouldn’t put us through all this unless it was important, right?

A slight tweak or shift in course may be perceived as ho hum, not deserving of high energy and attention. You must watch for this apathy closely and continuously through the project implantation process. If you are working your strategic change through subordinate leaders and managers, watch them closely too.

People are not always consistent over time and personalities can create disjointed adherence to your master plan. Let them know you are watching and request frequent feedback on progress or hiccups. Show your face to the team periodically to reinforce you are paying attention and that the plan is important.

Missteps in Military Strategy

I’ve noted before that when I entered the SEAL teams, the population was all jungle fighters. The Navy knew full well Vietnam was over and that other threats were looming around the world as the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States challenged global stability. Two strategic initiatives were implemented to deal with this atmosphere. First, SEALs were going to become qualified in sinking enemy combat ships and second, they were going to become arctic warriors.

These two strategic adds to the list of mission capabilities were strategically inspired somewhere in the Pentagon but by the time the changes trickled down to each SEAL unit the rational for change was either diluted or lost. The order to change wasn’t wrapped in strategic logic or reason, it was just an order. Trust me, this caused a lot of hate and discontent at the troop level.

Learning how to sink a ship requires learning how to dive for long periods of time under water, navigation using a simple compass and time calculations. We didn’t know where to start. Eventually we tapped into German and French special operators who were in our command on an exchange program.

These two units were adept at advanced ship attack techniques and tactics. They also had advanced SCUBA rebreathing rigs that worked. Our American version was developed in 1958 and leaked like a sieve. The great push into this new capability wasn’t going to happen until we received the resources to execute. This was the same case with Arctic warfare training.

As mentioned, we were trained to operate in the jungle. Light, lean, stealthy. Cross country Skiing with one hundred and ten pounds on our backs wasn’t ninja like at all. In this situation we turned to two British commandos, also on loan to the United States. They were Royal Marines first and had spent a lot of time on skis and in the Arctic environment during their careers.

This learning curve was more painful than learning how to attack enemy ships. There was no specialized equipment for our first foray into the Canadian wilderness and what we borrowed from the Canadiens was heavy, ill fitting, and designed for sentry duty, not long-distance skiing. We had boy scout pup tents, a few stoves, and World War Two era wooden skis. Once again, a strategic shift had not been thought out and resourced.

It took us several years to achieve the shift to these two new warfighting areas, but it could’ve been accomplished in half the time with far less pain and failure. To be fair, during this time in Navy history, there were no SEAL admirals, and no fancy SEAL staffs dedicated to thinking big thoughts. Those structures and institutions were established in later years to deal with the disconnect between the big Navy and the Pentagon

It was the casual nature of this order and the lofty expectation that the required strategic shift would simply happen, that in retrospect provides such a great lesson in visionary planning, resourcing, oversight, and follow through. Don’t underestimate the challenges and stay on top of the demands the changes have created so you can lead through the choke points and be successful, even in pursuit of subtle changes.???????????

Making Bigger Changes

When subtle adjustments won’t fill the bill, it may be time to make bigger changes, significant transitions from what, and how things are being done. From 2003 to 2014, the Global War on Terror spurred an incredible demand for private sector services and staffing power. The military draw down and base closure efforts during the 1990s, created the so called, “peace dividend.” A strategy that backfired nine months into the next decade when America was attacked by global terrorists.

The nation went to war and found they were short on almost everything required to fight one. This generated a drive to contract support services of every kind, something not seen since World War Two. In February of 2009, I joined a small training company focused on training the Navy’s security professionals. The founder had won a lucrative five-year contract and wasn’t willing to be a one hit wonder. That’s where I came into the picture.

I joined the small company and took inventory. All our revenue was derived from one service line, training. We had only one customer, the United States Navy. This was the very definition of concentration risk. When I’d managed money, we were always being reminded to beware of closing the elephant and becoming complacent as a result.

An elephant is a big client and in those days that was defined by someone with over a million dollars or greater, in assets, ready to be invested. Sitting on a great contract might lead to some defense contractors relaxing, not this founder. I worked on an analysis of the sectors within the federal market, assessed opportunities for us to grow, and developed a strategy that might allow us to survive and grow. I called this strategy “the pivot.”

We implemented the pivot strategy in early 2010. It was simple; by 2013, our revenue must come from both the Department of Defense, and from other federal agencies. A fifty – fifty division in revenue sourcing. In addition, we were required to achieve the same split in service lines. Half of our contracts by revenue from training, and half our revenue from anything but training.

We knew the larger war was going to scale down and our over reliance on the Department of Defense and specifically the Navy, made us vulnerable. When I explained the new pivot strategy to the managers and employees for the first time there was a confused silence.

The logic was simple, and the potential threat was also clear. What they couldn’t grasp instinctively was what if any impact would the new strategy have on them, professionally and of course as always, personally. Since the question wasn’t asked, I took a deep breath and began to explain the execution plan to achieve the strategic aims.??????

The company had to maintain management oversight of the existing contract work, handle compliance and human resources challenges, seek to win any recompete of existing business, and in addition, double all business development efforts focus on new customers and new service lines. After I stopped speaking, I saw the lights coming on. One by one the expressions on their faces changed, some happy, some still pensive, and only a few, worried. It was a lot to ask a small team.

We had nine employees at the time in our management team, and I was asking them to do the work of twice that number. I explained to them we couldn’t expand the team until we began to win new contracts, that was the chicken and the egg reality. To their credit all nine rogered up for the challenge and leaned forward.

To begin with we had to cross train everybody in everybody’s contract management and business development function. By the time we achieved our strategic goal, on schedule in 2013, we’d all become experts in at least four critical skillsets or knowledge categories. Including me and the founder.

It was all hands on deck, all the time. Subtle strategic change doesn’t require this amount of vigor and repurposing. It is actionable, achievable, and a constant contact sport to make large scale strategic change a success. Then there’s the vison and strategy that requires complete makeover.

Flipping it all on its Head

Financial management came into its own, at least for the masses, in the mid-1990s. Until then most major brokerage houses focused on selling products, namely stocks and bonds until the late 1960s and then mutual funds. My first branch manager was a product of the period known as the go-go sixties. A time when the economy was roaring, and the market saw a steady stream of companies bringing technology to the consumer market.

Futuristic names for companies driving the growth, were all the rage, companies like Telex, Control Data, Teledyne, and Texas Instruments. The Haloid Company had been around since 1906 but they too jumped into the name game, rebranding themselves as Xerox. I joined the industry in January 1996 and expected to be trained in how to find prospects, pitch the features and benefits on a company generated stock or bond list, and achieve financial success through volume of sales over time. I was wrong.

I entered the profession when two sea changes were about to disrupt the world of investing. The first was the decision by Merrill Lynch to model themselves after J.P. Morgan’s high net worth client model, focusing on estate planning and asset capture instead of retail sales to retail clients.

The second was the introduction of discounted market trading. When I reported for training in early 1996 the worm had turned. All the major brokerage houses were chasing Merrill Lynch’s strategy shift and beginning to flip from transactional platforms to advisory platforms. It was a bit confusing learning how to cold call prospects in the morning and being schooled on estate planned, asset management, and how to develop a brand as an advisor. The title stockbroker disappeared across the industry in 1996, replaced with Financial Advisor, or Investment Advisor.

It took the industry a few years to completely change its value delivery systems, brand image, and restructure internally by acquiring institutional asset management and analytics firms. They shifted traditional emphasis from sales techniques and sales goals to asset collection and holistic value creation for the client. They also changed the way they selected new talent.

New age advisors had to be older, wiser, interesting, and smart. They had to be strategic planners and thoughtful influencers. They had to be able to make the high net worth client comfortable with the big picture. Yes, things were certainly changing and changing fast. I wasn’t involved in any of this strategic change other than experience it and eventually see the logic of the shift.

Charles Schwab, Scott Trade, and many other discount trading companies popped up every month, fueled by the simultaneous expansion in capabilities, speed, and security of the rapidly expanding internet environment. In hindsight, failure to make the tectonic shift from transactional to advisory, in the late 1990’s might have dealt the old brokerage industry a death blow.?

Refining as you Go

Leading strategic change is like tending a garden. You start with a plan, resources, and timing. Then it’s you and the veggies against the world. Once the vision is codified, stratified, sanctified, and ready to be implemented, the world decides to participate too.

There is no such thing as a perfect plan and even if there was, there is no such thing as perfect execution. Execution is imperfect because we are imperfect, and the universe is determined to humble us, one way or another. So, how do we ensure the garden survives long enough to yield a bounty? We achieve this by tending to the garden.

Every day, every week, and continuously, until the goal is met, or the strategy is rendered moot by another unforeseen threat or opportunity significant enough to make us pause, regroup, and shift again. This allows the leader ample opportunities to spot and address, both progress and roadblocks, along the way.

In the SEAL teams we used the concept of taking baby steps in training complex and high value skills because we knew every individual represented a unique collection of challenges. It took more time and attention, focusing on individuals always does, but it was worth the effort and highly effective, in practice. I suggest you take the same approach to tending the strategy.

Approach your implementation plan from the start by breaking the timeline and major milestones into smaller and smaller mini-plans. These mini-plans are your “baby steps”. They are not only achievable in the short run, but also provide you with a way to celebrate progress.

Can you imagine waiting until you stood at the top of Mount Everest before you acknowledged success? I think not. Veteran climbers plan out their ascent, breaking it up into stages and key challenges within stages. In this way they celebrate dozens of small victories enroute to the summit.

Tweak, refine, smooth out, tidy up, whatever you do, do it consistently. Your attention will be noticed and unless you are interfering with execution, your attention will be appreciated. I’ve noticed that my physical presence can have tremendous positive or negative effect on my team.

If I stay out of the work and simply engage at a personal level, I get credit for caring and for respecting their time and professionalism. However, if I were to descend from my leadership perch and interfere, causing disruption and distraction, I would be perceived very differently. How do you tend to the project without getting in the way? It’s easy. Don’t play fixer in real time.

Observe, remember, and then take your observations and insights somewhere else to record and reflect upon. Then deliver your thoughts to the team leaders. Let them consider the point raised and either refute them with logic and examples demonstrating how you are incorrect or allow them to have the aha moment of understanding.

Let them take time to solve the issue and come back to you with how they fix the problem. Then they own the insight, the analysis, and the solution. Again, this takes more time than seeing, pointing, and telling, but you must empower the team leads to take responsibility. If you don’t, them will assume you have taken on that responsibility, absolving them of accountability.

Inspiring the External Stakeholders

I often wonder how many times Moses had to rally the Israelites during the forty-year journey to the promised land. I’m pretty sure he didn’t give them one good pitch in Egypt and then started walking, assuming his message would sustain everyone for the duration of the trip. While I’m no Moses, I do realize a team making a journey of many months, or maybe years, requires steady leadership and a sustained program of inspiration.

You should always be answering the unspoken question, “why?” Why this strategic direction? Why spend precious resources in this idea? The outside stakeholders and decision makers are also asking this question about your visionary quest. Perhaps nobody asks out loud, but if left unanswered, these questions will evolve into complaints, poor morale, and at the higher level of play, formal agenda items.

Make the rounds. If necessary, write down a “touch” schedule. List the team leaders and the team members. Then list your boss or your bosses, the senior money folks, your board, anyone who has a stake in your success and would intervene if you are failing. Create a contact plan and don’t stop communicating to all these constituents until the day the project is successfully completed.

Always adhere to the theory that good news can wait but bad news must be delivered by a responsible leader as soon as it is received. This track record calms everybody down, inhibiting flights of fantasy regarding your progress or lack thereof. Be consistent with bad news and if possible, place it in context.

If you anticipated the possibility and have contingencies established to deal with it, say so. Don’t delay the telling to gain time for emergency planning. Don’t ever let someone else deliver the bad news because you need to stall. Bite the bullet, step up and say the words. Then go solve the challenge. Keep everyone involved and just as important, keep everyone inspired!

Marty Strong is a CEO, Chief Strategy Officer, and author of two business leadership books - Be Nimble and Be Visionary. See more of his articles and Podcast interviews at https://martystrongbenimble.com/

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