The Facilitator’s Toolbox: An Effective Approach for Solving Problems in Groups

This is a quick and efficient tecnique I use to help groups work through problems. I must have learned it somewhere, but I don’t know where. I call it the accordion technique because it starts “closed,” opens up fully and then comes to a complete close.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to how to do it.

First, clearly define the problem. Be clear about what you are trying to solve. Make sure that everyone agrees and understands what the issue is.

Second, identify the conditions that would not make it a problem. Yes, it’s counter-intuitive, but identify what it is you want as an outcome. Use the desired outcomes to identify criteria for a satisfactory outcome.

Third, consider multiple options. Not just one, at least three: do nothing (that’s always an option), resolution (mediation) and total solution (cure). This is the fully open accordion.

Fourth, compare the options with the criteria, determine the option that best fits. At this stage it is often wise to modify options to fit criteria or to prioritize or add weights to criteria.

Fifth, close the accordion, select the desired modified option, identify strategies for implementation.

The key to making this technique work is in the beginning, making sure there is a clear understanding of what needs to be solved and in the middle, when an array of options needs to be considered. Watch out, groups lose energy the minute any option is identified. Don’t let them stop there; consider multiple options for the best decisions.

Getting More out of Strategic Planning Part 4 (Final Installment)

Along with the unexpected consequences of improved leadership and management, simply doing strategic planning tends to boost employee commitment (and in associations, member involvement). This beneficial outcome occurs because of two things: the manner in which employees and members are engaged in the planning process and from the focus the plan brings to everyday operations.

A correctly facilitated strategic planning process should use a team that engages the whole of an organization, not just executive and board leadership. Not only is the perspective from on the ground needed, involving the folks who will do much of the plan’s implementation assures it actually gets done and with buy-in. As referenced in my last post, it’s easier to get buy-in before the fact than to sell an idea after the fact. I’ve seen disasters averted and shortcuts discovered because an employee or member well down in the hierarchy, by part of the planning team, could see what was going to happen.

Planning provides a focus that make most people’s work easier… often linking apparently disparate acts into a whole unified by the organization’s mission. People want to feel part of something and the clear mission and compelling vision spelled out in the strategic plan creates the foundation for a community.

To see the Powerpoint presentation I used at NAR follow this link: http://pnwconsult.com/NAR DC 2009 VO.pptx or http://pnwconsult.com/NAR Midyear 2009.ppt

Duke’s Rule #13: It’s Easier to Get Buy-In Before than to Sell it Afterwards.

This is one of the most commonly violated management rules in the book. In the isolation of their office, managers dream up all sorts of ideas which get shared in a memo found in everyone’s mail slot the next morning. Grumbling follows, mistakes get made in implementation and after considerable misgivings, discomfort and passive aggressive comments the manager starts the process of getting influential employees to support the new idea.

All this could be avoided by following the codicil of this rule: if you are going to ask people to do something, find out beforehand what they think of the idea. Many times you’ll learn of an obstacle that needs to be addressed. Even if you encounter resistance you’ll be a step ahead in trying to dissolve it. And by sharing your ideas with others beforehand you’ll get their enthusiastic support later on.

Getting the Most out of Strategic Planning, Part 3

Along with the benefits of better leadership strategic planning’s need for a clear mission and performance measures has a direct, positive, impact on the management of organizations. The focus provided by a strategic plan comes from the clarity found in the organization’s mission… not some flowery, Dilbertesque string of platitudes and bureaujargon, but a simple declarative sentence of what the organization must do and must get for those efforts. It’s no accident that most strategic planning facilitators begin by writing a mission statement, because everything in an organization begins and ends there.

Having worked through dozens of such statements, and sharing the frustration that participants do at the constant word-smithing and hair-splitting consistent with the exercise, I discovered folks were making it too hard. And in the process robbing their organizations of the focus a good mission should provide. I spent some time analyzing mission statements and came to the conclusion that the best ones were nothing more than do-get declarations. I have often cited, although I’ve never found it written anywhere, a mission attributed to Alfred P. Sloan when he became President of General Motors in 1923. Supposedly surveying the diversified GM empire he said, “We bend metal for profit.”

Pretty straightforward stuff: noun, verb, object. The beauty of such clear thinking is that it leads to clear action so that anyone at GM, CEO to the person sweeping out the factory after the shift, gets it: his or her job is to make that mission happen. It worked so well GM was, until recently, the model of the superiorly managed corporation. I know your’re curious. GM’s contemporary mission statement:

G.M. is a multinational corporation engaged in socially responsible operations, worldwide. It is dedicated to provide products and services of such quality that our customers will receive superior value while our employees and business partners will share in our success and our stock-holders will receive a sustained superior return on their investment."

The current mission seems accurate and detailed next to Sloan's, but it lacks a more important property: clarity. Sloan's is a rallying point, what I like to call the "north star" of the organization, a point of reference that instantaneously tells everyone who you are and what you are about. This allows, as Tom Peters once put it, for folks to "stick to the knitting."

A well done mission statement doesn’t have to be as linear as Sloan’s I like the one I did for General Parts, Inc. a few years ago: we distribute and sell auto parts for the benefit of the customer, our employees and our shareholders. Same idea.

Conceived of in this manner, the mission statement lays the foundation for the powerful management device of performance measurement. As a simple proclamation of what an organizations does and what is expected from those efforts the mission provides what, using the technical language of performance measurement, is needed to determine whether efforts produce results, definitions of both outputs and outcomes.

For many organizations this is a huge step forward and a signal effort towards holding an organization accountable… not for just what it does, but for what it achieves. Such thinking leads quickly to the idea of an organizational report card or, as Kaplan and Norton put it, a balanced scorecard. To their thinking any organization really has four bottom lines to attend to: financial outcomes, customer satisfaction, organizational capacity (internal business practices) and the adequacy of its knowledge base (this latter equating with organizational intelligence).

An organization that can measure, monitor and manage itself with these four general performance standards in mind is going to be strong… rooted in its commitment to meet customer needs, cognizant of financial imperatives for sustainability and profit, aware of a need to grow, improve and to learn.

The unfortunate thing is the development of performance measures is often skipped in the strategic planning process. Identifying them is difficult and, for the uninitiated, time-consuming especially when there are a lot of other things to do. Over-looking this step, however, compromises the plan and assures confusion as to where an organization is going and whether it ever gets there. The sad truth is that most CEOs have cars in the corporate parking lot with more instruments on the dashboard than they have performance measures in the board room.

Once measures are identified it is possible to track organizational performance over time. The first year of measurement establishes a baseline against which every succeeding year can be compared. Similarly, performance can be benchmarked against other organizations. These are effective ways of determining whether goals are being achieved as well as allowing for analyses of “gaps” to set future performance goals.

The fundamental impact of the introduction of performance measurement as a management tool is to shift the organization’s analysis and thinking from opinion and myth to data and fact. While care needs to be taken to assure the validity of these measurements and their application, their use to inform management decisions can be transformative.

To see the Powerpoint presentation I used at NAR follow these links: http://pnwconsult.com/NAR DC 2009 VO.pptx or http://pnwconsult.com/NAR Midyear 2009.ppt

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Taking Strategic Planning to the Next Level, Part 2

In my comments to the folks attending the National Association of REALTORS(r) Midyear Conference last Friday, I tried to elevate thinking about strategic planning. I wanted to get beyond the usual recitations of the cookbook techniques (or to my credit, I think) a pitch for my services. My aim was to shed light on some of the more nuanced benefits that come from planning.

The first “unexpected outcome” I talked about was the impact the planning process has on the continuity and consistency of leadership. This issue is of particularly relevance to associations, most of which have a unique governance structure not found in business or government. The leadership of associations is generally based on a partnership between an elected President who, as a member, volunteers to serve and a professional association executive who is hired to manage.

It is most common for the elected leadership to change annually, although most REALTOR® associations ask a three year commitment as the elected leader “works through the chairs", first vice president, president-elect to president. Associations execs (AEs or EOs) continue in their roles as long as the association board allows.

There is a kind of majesty and lunacy to this model. Elected leadership changes frequently, guaranteeing fresh ideas and a sense of urgency to the roles… strong associations are good examples of representative democracy. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the constant turn-over in leadership can results in a series of disconnected and unrelated presidential initiatives… at worst, flights of ego-driven fancy reminiscent of Roman emperors.

In most cases what presidents want to achieve in their year of leadership is consistent with what the association is trying to accomplish in the long run. But more often than I would like, well-intentioned presidential goals distract from the strategic plan or, occasionally, actually subvert the association’s long term goals.

AEs walk a narrow tightrope trying to strike just the right balance between honoring this year’s presidential passion with the on-going strategic initiatives. A well done strategic planning process can do much to generate consistency and continuity in the tumultuous world of association governance.

The idea is pretty simple: use the plan to channel presidential interest. If the plan focuses on a sustained effort to involve new members, wed the incoming President’s interest in education to an objective to start a new or revised member orientation program. Plan focuses on cutting costs? Tap the new President’s passion for the affiliate members to look at ways to develop strategic financial alliances. If the plan focuses on improving the profession’s public image, use the President’s interest in getting a foundation started is a perfect way to link those two ideas.

Done correctly, annual Presidential initiatives flow into and reinforce the association’s three year plan. Even better, leadership teams have an ability to support and advance each others annual agenda long after a President is out of office.

If the association is organized along a set of progressive chairs – usually First VP, President-Elect, President and Past President – it is possible to create a span of seven years. It works like this: assume the current President started as First VP in 2006. In the system I describe in 2006 she would have been introduced to the initiative promoted by the Past President three years earlier in 2003. By the time she becomes Past President in 2010, she’ll get to know the 2010 First VP who will pursue his Presidential agenda in 2012. Sorry for the numbing numbers, but add it up… there is a direct link between 2003 and 2102.

The key here is to honor both the passion of the association President with the focus of the association plan. It can be done with results that reinforce and supplement the strategic plan.

To see the Powerpoint presentation I used at NAR follow this link: http://pnwconsult.com/NAR DC 2009 VO.pptx or http://pnwconsult.com/NAR Midyear 2009.ppt

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