Execute Decisions

To lead is to choose – to make decisions. Better decisions make for better results. As a manager, making effective decisions is a core measure of competency and the key to both personal and organizational success

 

A Time for Choosing

We are said to be in in the “information age”, a time in which the fulcrum for value-added actions has shifted from the top levels of a traditional organizational hierarchies to the distributed “information workers” who comprise the bulk of the modern work force.  The standard work material of these “information workers” is “soft” in nature (project plans, design documents, software code, etc) vs “hard” (widgets, commodities, lumber, etc).  The concept is that this economy-wide shift has forever shifted the locus of organizational decision making.   Well, yes and no.

Yes, exponentially more members of the organization can now be more empowered to make more decisions with more impact.  This realization is rich in incredible potential for both massive value creation and value destruction.   Indeed, if we assume teams of high-caliber personnel,  proper decision making power can release pent up genius -which is certainly an exciting proposition for revolutionary change, to say the least.  At the same time, releasing pent up potential is pretty much the definition of a nuclear blast -not exactly a comforting analogy for changes wrought upon your products, projects and client interactions.  The correct training and managerial controls can help harness this exponential distribution into a positive revolutionary force for organizational change, productivity and quality.   But steering this decision democratization toward value creation requires a new breed of leaders with an improved decision discipline at the helm.

Increasing the decision-making power and impact throughout the organization actually places GREATER importance upon the types, quality and speed of decisions made by organizational leadership.  In a sense, decision opportunities flow past leaders everyday like the myriad water droplets in a moving river.  Trying to execute disciplined decision processes for each is a counter productive exercise resulting in damming up the flow of information, drying up and frustrating the potential genius of the organization’s “information workers”.    But,are there clearly discernable points of decision discipline which allow leaders to route the hectic streams of business such that the downstream decisions of operational teams are better hedged for success?

 

Successant’s Principles

Without quality, quick and value-added decision making, organizations can run at high productivity and still miss the performance goals critical to success.  Successant’s principle-based model, the “Managerial Performance Pyramid” provides a robust and easily applicable framework for understanding the decision points most key to organizational performance and the tools to improve decision disciplines around these points.

Managerial Performance Pyramid

The “Managerial Performance Pyramid” is a proven model of organizational performance that clearly highlights the points of managerial decision-making which offer the optimal leverage to pivot an organization’s productivity.  Improving decision discipline at these points can yield dramatic gains in the performance of every downstream activity by improving the clarity of direction, the speed of determinations,  the distribution of resources, the provision of guiding principles and the feedback mechanisms for continuous improvement.

Successant can customize the “Managerial Performance Pyramid” model for any organization.   These principles will equip any team of leaders with a shared understanding of the unique importance of quality and timely decision making to both managerial and organizational performance and the knowledge to immediately implement practical solutions to improve decision disciplines for positive performance improvements.

 

Effective Executive Oversight

Organizations consist of diverse departments with myriad people, each with unique personality and skills – all of whom must often work in coordination to accomplish something meaningful. This amalgam doesn’t organize into a symphony by mere dictate. It requires a practiced team of leaders who share the pursuit of a common outcome and the constraints of a common business culture. Successant helps organizations build the awareness, processes and culture necessary to maintain a healthy, productive and profitable system of managerial oversight or governance.

Successant’s service for “Effective Executive Oversight”, part of Successant’s “Managerial Performance Pyramid” facilitates your team in designing a governance program perfectly tailored to the unique goals, mission and challenges of your organization. Once designed, Successant will assist your team in implementing the program, including coaching the team through the first several cycles.

 

Metrics in Full

To borrow a phrase: Lies, damn lies and metrics! This pretty much sums up how most managers feel about business metrics. The apparent wisdom of soberly managing based upon “objective” data seems unassailable. Yet most business metrics models live an anemic life in the feeble attempt of sacrificing managerial experience and intuition before the hollow altar of “objectivity”. Successant’s “Metrics in Full”, part of Successant’s “Managerial Performance Pyramid”, offers a much more practical approach to the topic and empowers managers with the tools required to integrate business metrics into a practical approach that enhances the earned skills of management rather than constraining them.

Successant will walk your team through an energetic and interactive hands-on workshop on business metrics and decision processes. The value will be immediately evident as participants emerge with defined decision points ripe for informed determination and a complete framework of meaningful business metrics to support the decision process. Successant can then partner with your team to help drive further decision support until the principles and processes are well honed and self-supporting within your team.

 

Working with you to determine the “Personalized Pricing” mix, Successant can deliver 3 phases of service:

Define: Through an Assessment, Successant can determine the health of your organization’s current operational performance and the managerial capacity to ratchet up greater gains and develop a prescriptive roadmap for improvement.  Successant’s interactive workshops equip participants to answer the questions listed above for themselves and ensures that each one departs the workshop with a game plan for action.

Execute: Successant will also work with your team to plan, communicate and successfully execute the change process.

Deliver: Change only takes root as a new, ongoing reality through time, practice, monitoring and active sponsorship.  Successant can team with your organization in a “retainer services” model as an extension of your team, offering advice, guidance, correction and assistance during the longer process of driving the change.

 Let’s discuss how we can craft the perfect solution for you at a budget that makes your ROI inarguable. Contact Me