The S.M.A.R.T. Framework
Marc Gilenson
Speaker, Consultant, Coach - Focus on harnessing the power of change and innovation to help implement a Mutual Benefit culture in business.
There are lots of references to Smart, this framework will help with more than you can imagine
THE CHALLENGE
The real challenge today is to change our way of thinking…not just our goals, processes, systems, policies, and view of the end-state. We need the imagination to grasp the immense promise and challenge of the inter-connected organizations we have created. The future lies with more cooperation, more interaction between people, AI, departments, company, customer, vendor and company mission, and even greater sharing of responsibilities and interests. It is unity in diverse personal and business needs that we evolve our culture.
We need a new approach that is based on collaboration and mutual benefit, where we are all guarantors of each other’s well-being. The successful business of the future will have everyone, from the CEO to the part-time clerk resolve problems through deliberation, consideration, and mutual guarantee. When most of the people within the organization stop pointing fingers at who is at fault and embrace our interconnectedness, we will do better. We need to create wakefulness in our organizations, and find ways to look at ourselves to see how we can be better as well.
THE S.M.A.R.T. FRAMEWORK
The S.M.A.R.T. Framework was developed to help companies become better, help their leaders become better, run better projects, create better processes, and help every employee become better. The S.M.A.R.T. Framework includes the three idea components wisdom, understanding and knowledge, and the five implementation components… Systemic, Measurable, Alignable, Relatable, Tailorable. The five implementation components are known as the “five learnable components of Corporate Entrepreneurial Leadership,” for it’s through these five components that you will bring amazing success to your leadership, project management, change management, technology roll-outs and more.
Three Idea Attributes
Wisdom - is what a person or team has developed over time and through experience. It has eluded corporations for decades as they have tried to harness it and make the person or team a utility instead of an invaluable asset. It is the seminal and inner spark of an idea that comes from this innate wisdom of individual and collective consciousness. This spark already includes within it, all the details and ramifications of the idea, but it is concentrated and obscured. This is analogous to a dot, in which the dimensions of length and breadth are not evident… all that is seen is the dot, although for the dot to exist, it must certainly contain length and breadth… or in business, the intuitive flash of illumination which is the beginning of an idea, or process improvement. For instance, an employee or team may be striving to solve a problem then suddenly realizes in a flash of intuition that the problem can be solved along a particular line of reasoning. In this moment, they are not exactly sure how the problem will be solved, they only know that they have found a solution to the problem. At this stage, the solution in question is not yet clear or comprehensible logically or politically, since its details are still in potentia, emerging only at a later stage.
Understanding – This is where, the attribute of understanding comes into play. Through contemplation, brainstorming, mind-mapping they crystallize and clarify the details of the solution which was obscured in Wisdom. Until the whole construct of the idea, in all its length and breadth, becomes manifest, the function of understanding is to understand or deduce one matter out of another, (i.e., that which was previously concentrated in the obscure intuitive flash of wisdom in one person or team, is now revealed and understood by management). When an individual or team taps into their corporate wisdom, they are able to take this concentrated idea from the potential to reality. That is, when we begin to understand the solution in more definable terms, and it evolves into a fully understandable concept. This is the point where the solution goes from a high-level discussion to a readily understood concept that can now be taken to all levels of the organization. The multitude of details which make up the solution, along with all its ramifications are explored, from internal politics to financial impact and beyond.
Knowledge - After the solution is fully understood with all its details and ramifications, the team or leader must then immerse themselves in it, binding and unifying with it to the extent that they not only understand it, but are also willing to take responsibility and be accountable for it’s development and implementation. Only in this way, can others be positively motivated by the solution.
If the team or leaders understanding points to the mutual benefit for other departments or the company as a whole, it will create a positive momentum for the solution. If the team or leaders understanding creates instead the silo benefit for a specific team or leader, then others will react with negatively and flee from it.
While the 3 idea components may take awhile to get used to or internalize, the 5 implementation components of the framework can be applied with little to no training.
Five Implementation Attributes
Systemic– The purpose of this attribute is to identify how the solution and all the change associated with it will be viewed and understood by more than the leader or project participants. It means understanding how all the other departments, customers, vendors, etc. will be affected by the solution. Through putting attention to this attribute, a leader will ability to:
Measurable – Studies have shown that companies which provide the necessary information to address an issue, were found to have significantly higher than the norm productivity and employee satisfaction.
Effectiveness is attained when an objective is achieved without wasting resources of the department or the other departments it interacts with.
Measurement is based on quantitative metrics as with any leadership style or project assessment. The difference is that we also incorporate the qualitative measurement of the other components of the S.M.A.R.T. Framework. One of the most important measurements of any leader or project is how far down the organization chart the message is being heard, internalized, and put into action.
Alignable – Collaboration and interconnectedness are critical components of successful leadership. It is important to understand how your projects, requests, and measurements of success fit into your individual department, or project. As difficult as this is, it is nothing compared to trying to understand how projects, requests and measurements work with other departments as well as your: corporate mission statement, production goals, revenue requirements, profit objectives, etc. The reason it is more difficult, is that now you must understand and care how other departments operate.
We all have enough trouble understanding our environment, why do we need to understand how what we do affects others in the organization. Many ask themselves, as long as I understand the other departments requirements for me, why do I need to understand the value to the other department? This step is where we learn to really look at the big picture and begin to understand how we fit into the big picture.
Relatable – the S.M.A.R.T. Framework is designed to look at how individuals and departments interact within the bigger picture, and to create solutions and process improvements that are self-regulating and self-correcting. It is important to understand that whatever your view is, it contains your per-conceived ideas of how others should do their job. Making sure your message or project is relatable to the others affected by your actions will involve compromise, working together, sharing best practices, understanding what makes each employee satisfied and a team player. In other words, how you can be efficient, and mutually benefit every component of your company.
Tailorable - Transformational leaders use power in a way that makes followers less dependent on the leader. Employees at every level of the organization must embrace the fluidity, energy, motion, constancy, and ubiquitousness of changes in the organization. Some tailoring will be “moderately dynamic," in which modification occurs frequently but along roughly predictable paths, and others will be "high velocity," where tailoring becomes non-linear and less predictable. In the latter, department boundaries are blurred, “true empowerment” is at all levels, and the players are ambiguous. The common feature in both scenarios is continuous improvement, i.e., in technologies, markets, financial systems, demographic patterns, customer groupings, alliances, networks, complementary products/services, and the global environment. This type of tailoring initiates "waves of creative destruction," and establishes internalization of the corporate mission, and a mutual benefit philosophy throughout the organization.
When the S.M.A.R.T. Framework is the foundation rather than a rare occurrence, corporate entrepreneurial leaders can gain strategic advantage by developing strategies and bringing ideas to reality that proactively manage change and exploit opportunity. In complex and volatile environments, the escalating ineffectiveness of more traditional approaches to strategy, calls for a corporate entrepreneurial approach to enhance the company’s performance, its capacity for adaptation, and its chances of long-term survival. A new type of leadership Framework is needed which can operate in a highly unpredictable world where competition is fast moving.
The Return On Investment
It has always been a challenge to measure the ROI of a leadership methodology. We need the ability to the see the big picture, and we need visibility into the entire organization to understand the benefits of the inter-connected organization. The future of companies is not tied to quantitative metrics that are isolated from the overall success of the organization.
The future of business demands us to rethink how we measure ROI. We need a new approach that is based on collaboration and mutual benefit, where all traditional ROI metrics take into consideration each other’s well-being. The successful business of the future will have everyone, from the CEO to the part-time clerk, look at how they can contribute to the success and health of the whole company.
When a company decides to implement the S.M.A.R.T. Framework based on a culture of mutual benefit, and move from a “me” focus to a “we” focus, it will achieve the following:
Some closing thoughts
This is a framework, not a detailed roadmap. It is called a framework because just like the frame of building, it is the strength and design of what the finished product will look like.
Take your time, keep on reading through it and you will find that it's meaning changes as you evolve your team, department and corporate culture.
It is important to remember that the framework has to sit on a solid foundation, that foundation is a Mutual Benefit Culture. There are many podcasts on this on The Corporate Entrepreneur (listen on the platform you use).
If you have questions about your specific situation, you can e-mail me at [email protected] or message me on LinkedIn.