Transformation Framework Part III: Unifying Concepts

Having described the value proposition, methodology, and validity of our underlying sources it is necessary to illustrate how their main concepts link to and support each other. First, the central concepts contribute to a unified framework and the basis on which they define performance. Second, the concepts apply at a strategic (enterprise, corporation, agency), operational (organization, business unit), and tactical (individual) levels. In general, BTL and GTG correspond to performance at the strategic- or enterprise-level, while the Q12 model generally applies operational or organization-level, and StrengthsFinder to the tactical- or individual-level.

Based on these levels, each source makes a slightly different contribution to our framework for transformation in the IC. BTL describes the characteristics of a corporation that, having long performed extremely well, has also made a social contribution. GTG describes the means by which a corporation can achieve and sustain conspicuously high performance relative to an overall market, industry, and like-competitors. GO frameworks describe the behaviors and traits of managers which compel conspicuous performance from their employees and a means of placing employees such that they realize their highest possible performance.

As we unwrap each of the concepts within these sources, the reader will also sense each concept has some implication and application at every level of an organization. That is, GTG concepts could be used in a business unit vice corporation to drive meaningful change. Similarly, Q12 could be used throughout an entire corporation or agency in order to achieve widespread performance improvement. We do not ignore this fact. It is merely more straightforward to discuss the many concepts in a relatively doctrinal, sequential way.

BTL offers eight descriptors of a visionary organization: Clock Building Not Time Telling, More than Profits, Preserve the Core and Stimulate Progress, Big Hairy Audacious Goals, Cult-like Culture, Try a Lot and Keep What Works, Home Grown Management, and Good Enough Never Is.[1] These concepts are placed above the GTG framework, indicating the corporate traits typically follow, not drive transformation. The GTG framework includes seven central concepts: Level Five Leadership, First Who Then What, Confront the Brutal Facts, the Hedgehog Concept, Culture of Discipline, Technology Accelerators, and the Flywheel Concept.[2] These seven concepts fall into three general categories, Disciplined People, Disciplined Thought, and Disciplined Action.[3]

The exception is the Flywheel Concept (not depicted), which is essentially a capstone concept that characterizes the means by which an organization continuously improves its performance by consistently repeating the previous six practices.?All GTG concepts are intentionally depicted sequentially to match Collins’ design and findings.?BTL concepts are listed in the same order that Collins and Porras discuss them in their book.?Here, we can infer some relative importance, though the authors do not address the sequencing of concepts as Collins does in GTG.

Q12 supports GTG in several ways. Like GTG stresses the importance of a certain kind of leader with particular leadership traits, Q12 shows a similar ethos between the best leaders and managers. More importantly, it provides addition detail regarding the singular role of managers in driving the performance of an organization and, by aggregation, an enterprise. Third, Q12 provides an understanding of the difference between leaders and managers. Fourth, while GTG merely highlights the importance and the traits of the best leaders, Q12 describes how an enterprise can obtain such great leaders and managers. The twelve Q12 questions, driven by management behavior, indicate the progressive nature of a manager’s and employees’ effectiveness. The higher an employee scores regarding these questions (e.g. responds “strongly agree”) the higher their performance. Similarly, the more a manager can create an environment and relationship in which employees can answer superlatively to these questions, the higher the organizations performance will be. By inference we understand the different profiles apparent in the best leaders and managers and it allows us to infer a number of considerations selecting managers and employees.

What is equally instructive is that the Q12 questions are prioritized based on the relative degree to which each explains the variation in employee performance. In statistical terms the foundational questions explain the largest amount of variation in employee performance. That is, the foundational questions are more important for performance, and employee satisfaction as well, than are later questions. To that end, Gallup colloquialises the twelve questions into four groups. Base Camp pertains to the fulfillment of basic needs, figuratively answering the question ‘What do I get?’ Camp Two pertains to individual performance, figuratively answering the question ‘What do I give?’ Camp Three figuratively answers the question ‘Do I belong here?’ Camp Four pertains to maximization and growth, figuratively answering the question ‘How can we all grow?’ [4]

There is one main linkage between Q12 and StrengthsFinder. StrengthsFinder provides still greater insight and detail regarding hiring, placement, progression, and promotion of managers and employees. StrengthsFinder is a survey that determines an individuals strongest talents and provides a syntax and language for describing corresponding strengths Thirty four strengths provide the basis for placing an employee according to their naturally recurring and most productive talents. These talents fall into three general categories: Striving, Thinking, and Relating.[5] Striving talents describe a person’s orientation for performance.[6] ?That is it explains their underlying motivationin accomplishing a task or goal. Thinking describes the manner in which a person typically orients to a situation or problem.[7] Relating explains how they orient towards other people.[8]

Finally, the GO research underpinning Q12 and StrengthsFinder also illustrates statistical linkage between highly engaged employees, managers, and long-term organizational and enterprise performance. While our description, argument linkages, and framework is reasonable, we have the extra assurance that Gallup’s statistical research showed the same linkage. More specifically, each successive link between strengths (key to individual performance) and stock increase (quantifiable enterprise performance outcome) are depicted in the figure below. Gallup calls this value chain The Gallup Path.

One other matter is important to review before discussing this framework’s concepts in more detail. This thesis does not argue the a public institution should become like a publicly traded major corporation. Organizations of that kind do not measure themselves by profit nor should they. They do not measure ourselves based on an ability to maximize shareholder wealth or will they ever. However, if they are to provide a meaningful service to foreign policy decision-makers and, by proxy, the American public, they ought, indeed, measure ourselves with increasing vigor and precision.

To that end, corporate revenue and profitability merely represent a common, continuous, and publicly disclosed measurement baseline by which we, and the authors of our underlying sources, can judge which factors truly compel higher performance at the enterprise-, organization-, and individual-level. It is not that we will measure ourselves the same as a corporation. Rather, it is because a corporation is so easily measured that quantifiably and statistically proven concepts become obvious. We do not want to become a corporation per se, they merely help us be certain about what it is we do and do not know about transformation. Here, Colin Powell’s advice to intelligence analysts is apparent: “Tell me what you know; tell me what you don’t know; tell me what you think; and never mistake the difference.”

It is, first and foremost, performance that is our goal followed by greatness and a significant social contribution. We do not assume blind approximation of the corporate space necessarily improves performance. Quite frankly, most commercial organizations are not particularly great. Similarly, all government organizations are not necessarily less disciplined and less well-performing simply for being a government organization. Nor should we rely on the assumption that what we do is only held to a ‘good enough for government work’ standard. If that were the case, let alone the pervasive ethos, the military services might be seeking high potential leaders from the commercial space not visa versa.?

Finally, though also not discussed in this thesis, it is a mistake to assume these concepts have not already been used to achieve higher performance in the academic, social, and government space. In fact, Collins offers several such examples in a more recent monograph Good to Great in the Social Sector. Sources with rigorous quantitative methodologies make our framework more credible and, to the extent a reader finds it necessary, easier to critique as well. That being said, we contend this framework is the best possible means of transformation for the IC. However, should other research find factors that better or more fully explain a dramatic improvement in performance, this framework too, in part of whole, would no longer hold or should be modified accordingly.

[1] Last, iii.

[2] Great, 12.

[3] Great, 12.

[4] First, 265.

[5] Strengths, 85.

[6] Strengths, 85.

[7] Strengths, 85.

[8] Strengths, 85.