Author: Richard Lannon

Seven Candid Strategic Questions that Every Business Leader Should Ask

Written by Richard Lannon on June 2, 2014. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Seven Candid Strategic Questions that Every Business Leader Should Ask

Good questions are the key to successful planning and decision making. Throughout the business planning process we must consider strategic questions to help us understand the current situation, focus areas and our vision for the future. Strategic planning is an intensive process and should be a team effort – it should not be done in isolation.

A good place to start in the planning process is to focus on ‘what’ questions. What questions are extremely powerful tools for thinking about your business / personal strategy, goals and objectives. The key is to know which questions to ask and to be willing to take a candid look at your business.

Here are seven candid “what” questions that every business leader should ask:

What are the overall strengths and weaknesses of your business?

Strengths and weaknesses exist in all organizations and should include considerations for people, resources, culture, work processes, tools, supply chain, financial situation, etc. The list goes on and on. The important thing here is to start the process by first looking at your organization and its resources.

What are the overall opportunities and threats to your business?

Focus here on your external world, the things you cannot control but must be aware of. Some items could include a market shift, retirement and succession, competitive movement and changes, the global business climate (local, national or international), obstacles or climate and weather effects. We often miss the opportunity to do environmental scanning. Look outside your office to truly understand the opportunities and threats to your organization.

What political, economic, social and technological conditions impact your business?

What’s happening in your local business scene (economics)? Is there a product or service that people want or need to buy? Is technology impacting your team and their need for training? What important social change will impact the business?

Are you developing leaders for tomorrow? Every answer should lead to another question. Dig deep, exhaust yourself and find people to help you through the process.

What do you want to achieve, protect, avoid and eliminate?

This question contains all the elements of risk planning. There are always things we want to achieve, protect, avoid and eliminate on a personal, team or organizational basis. What are they? Identify as many as possible and make a list.

Examples vary but could include increased sales, keeping an established portfolio, avoiding trouble or accidents, establishing an employee health program or helping people drop a few pounds. The point here is that whatever is identified must be relevant to your business and its challenges.

What are the key challenges you face today, tomorrow and in the distant future?

We’re in an era where we must be predictive and adaptive business leaders and professionals. Strategic planning is about time frames with past, present and future considerations. Establish what your work world should look like with time frames. Planning used to focus on 3 to 5 year cycles. That has changed. Now we must keep our eye on short-term road trips with long term implications.

Where are we and how did we get here?

This question is a pure honesty question. It is used to establish your present situation and to help you accept complete responsibility and accountability for it. No blame-storming allowed. Outside forces might have contributed, but at some point decisions were made to set your direction. As a business leader, you were either active or reactive and there were consequences. Capture it, leverage it and be prepared to let it go.

What key initiatives are going to be placed on the strategic agenda of your business? Why?

At some point you need to focus and make key decisions that will make a difference in your business. Building your strategic agenda is a different type of challenge and may require another approach. This may take ‘why’ questions, questions that focus on benefits and value. Before adding anything to your strategic agenda you must first clearly establish the benefits and values of those items.

Being honest about your business, the organization and its people is a challenge. When strategic planning it’s important to remove yourself from the natural tendency of coming up with solutions. Establishing solutions is the action part of planning. Consider engaging an expert strategic facilitator to help. Remember that you don’t plan to fail, you fail to plan and planning requires asking the right questions.

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The Road to Being a Business Champion is to Train Like an Olympian

Written by Richard Lannon on May 4, 2014. Posted in Articles.

Have you ever admired the strength, flexibility and endurance of an Olympic Athlete? It takes a lot of dedication to become a successful athlete. Olympians are at the apex of perfection. The fact that they get to go to the games is amazing, but to win makes them champions. There are secrets in training and preparations that Olympic Athletes have that increase their potential for success. As business leaders we can learn a lot from Olympic Athletes to help us become business champions.

Here are a few tips from the best of the best:

Have a Plan: It is amazing how many business leaders do not have a plan–they just wing it. The reality of being a top athlete is that you must have a plan. From diet, to workouts, to rest, there is a plan of focused intent. Know what it is you want to accomplish and why it is so important. Have a strategic road map for your business success.

Create a Routine: A routine is everything. It is part of your plan. Routines require an emphasis on high value activities. Focus on those things that will make a difference to you and your business. Schedule them in and make sure you do them.

Take Care of Yourself: Top performers usually have off-the-chart energy. How do they manage this? They take care of themselves through a healthy dose of proper eating and rest. Even the greatest boxer who ever lived, Mohammed Ali, ate well and rested. He took one day off a week to relax and ease his body and mind.

Proper warm-up and recovery: If you are going to work hard then you need to ensure you have proper warm up and recovery. This includes creating a natural rhythm to your business, as well as building in agility and flexibility. This is something that should be part of any good business practice. You and your people need to ensure they take the time needed to remain limber and prepared.

It’s all in the Head: Mental preparation is all about psychologically preparing for the big events. It is easy to get psyched out and think you or your people are not good enough. You need to tell yourself and your team they are the best at what they do. Create mindful rehearsals, read inspirational books, or count your blessings daily. Whatever it takes to build the mindset of a champion.

Consider a Trainer and Coach: Great athletes have coaches–we all know this. Business leaders who want to mix it up know they need help. From motivation to accountability, a coach can make a difference.
Be dynamic on your business: You can’t just focus on one thing in your business. You need to consider all the moving parts and train yourself in those parts. Olympic Athletes switch things up using fixed to variable equipment; they run, jump, throw, row, and do a lot more. The key, they mix things up.

Engage your People: Olympians have a team of engaged people who are rooting for them. It includes many key stakeholders including family and friends, sponsors and vendors, managers, coaches, trainers and peers. Engaging your team is important for your business as well. It is important you find a way to connect your people to what it is you want to accomplish. Engage the people that are in your corner.

Prepare for Heavy Lifting: All champions need to build their strength and endurance. Find ways to build your ability to deal with the events that are the heavy lifting of your business success. Build core competencies in yourself and those around you. Part of an Olympic Athlete’s heavy lifting ability is having a strong, engaged core. The same is true in business: businesses without a strong core tend to have more challenges. . Make sure you have engaged your core.

Train Early in the Day: Common wisdom says to train early in the day. Most Olympic Athletes do. Create an early ritual of getting focused, reviewing your strategic plan and the work plans that you have laid out. Focus on building up skills that will take you to where you need to go.

Build your Training Team: A dedicated team is everything for a Champion. You must have a team that will not only work with you, but also train with you. Olympic athletes are known to train together for years before they turn to competing against each other. Therefore, a training team can include your peers, your team and your competitors. Olympians train with their competition so they get better.

In business we ultimately want to be the best at what we do—we want to become champions. One of the best places to look for inspiration is at our Olympic Champions and the hard work and dedication they put into being the best at what they do. Like them, the first step to becoming the best is to think and act like a champion.

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The Changing Tides of Time – Canada’s Talent Management Dilemma

Written by Richard Lannon on April 8, 2014. Posted in Articles.

Over the next 10 years, 200,000 small business owners in Canada alone will turn 65 and want to retire. This number does not include their employees, mid to large businesses, corporations and public organizations. When you add all of those together this clearly becomes a critical issue with major impacts and ramifications.

As our workforce changes and becomes more diverse, the general thinking on talent and people resources is changing as well. While senior employees and managers are still essential to organizational success, there is now wide-spread recognition that improved performance depends on the acquisition, development, engagement and deployment of new talent.

For organizations to adapt to the changing tides of time, they must embrace talent management as a key business focus. Talent management helps identify the key strategies needed to address the aging workforce, retirement needs, changes in competitiveness and workforce diversity. In savvy organizations, talent management has become essential for survival.

The question you should now ask yourself is this: what is your organization doing about the changing tides of time? Here are three talent management steps to help:

1. Preparation is the Key to Success

This starts with knowing your facts. Firstly, ensure sure you have the right resources, materials, context and tools to properly assess your situation. The first stages of planning and preparation involve identifying priorities, establishing direction and reviewing resources, communications and engagement. Outlining your organization’s current position and future goals in relation to people resources will help you develop a talent management plan that is linked to the business strategy, job needs and the future.

You will also want to determine your readiness through benchmarking, assessments, future thinking and establishing focus/implementation approaches. You need to align with your business plan, assign the right people to work on the issues, review your processes and tools, engage in project planning and ensure administrative competencies are in place.

2. Identify the Essentials and Communicate Future Plans

The key here is to use your research to make informed decisions regarding succession at all levels. Start by identifying key positions that will need to be filled in the coming years and existing talent that may be able to move into these roles.

Conduct additional people assessments to determine potential staffing issues and create training plans to fill skill gaps. Remember, while you are doing this for your organization, your savvy competitors are doing the same thing.

Throughout this process, communicate your plans and encourage your team to develop their professional skills. Hold talent impact sessions with staff, management and leaders so they know how they impact the organization. Develop your resource coaching abilities, hold talent review meetings, and ensure that you have engaged your employees in the process. Make sure your gaps are identified and revisit your plans, key action points and results on an ongoing basis.

3. Drive Change and Continuously Review

If you are responsible and accountable for talent management planning, make sure you are making decisions and leading the charge. You will need to identify any gaps and problems as they arise, get solutions in place and make sure they are implemented immediately. This is critical.

Ensure that present management have the skills to help assess what is needed. Break down us versus them thinking by creating a common language for your people. Solicit feedback from those impacted the most to review the process and ensure that morale remains intact. Employ continuous improvement thinking and remain flexible to ensure that talent management is an ongoing process.

The business world is a changing. That is nothing new. There is an age wave that is rushing through Canada and it’s creating a falling tide that will impact your business and create ripples throughout the community. It is best to prepare now for the changing tides of time and ensure that talent management forms a key part of your business strategy.

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Utilize Issue-Based Planning to Dig Deeper and Solve Business Problems

Written by Richard Lannon on March 11, 2014. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Utilize Issue-Based Planning to Dig Deeper and Solve Business Problems

There is a lot going on in your organization, all sorts of things that you need to wrap your head around. The challenge is that you first need to truly understand the issues and determine how to address them.
This is where Issue-Based or Goal-Based strategic planning is used.

Issue-Based planning is probably the most common planning process for tactical managers to use. It starts with a review of the organization’s mission, vision, values and guiding principles; this ensures that management is practicing aligned thinking and has the right mindset to dig deeper and solve business problems.

Issue-Based Planning can be divided into ten key steps:

Have the team perform a SWOT Analysis for the business area they are focused on. A SWOT is a strategic tool that can be used at an organization, department, team or individual level to understand external and internal factors that impact the business. It requires candid assessments of your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Often teams fail at this as they lack objectivity when looking at their own organization. Consider independent help from an expert.
Strategic analysis to identify and prioritize major issues and goals. This includes grouping the issues and setting key goals around them. At this point you need to avoid the knee jerk reaction of trying to hide, defend or solve the problems. It’s all about getting organized.
Design major strategies or programs to address issues and goals. This is where you can start to work towards more detailed approaches to solve the key challenges that you are facing.
Design and update vision, mission and values (if needed). Often this is something that you may not need to do. It just depends on the extremes of the situation. If the mission and vision are out of line with the issues or goals then there is some redefining to consider. The better thing to do is get the tactical management team to align with the mission and vision of the organization.
Establish action plans, objectives, resource needs, roles and responsibilities for implementation of the plan. Do not miss this opportunity. A number of organizations miss this opportunity because they do not have an individual or team that they can assign responsibility and accountability to in order to ensure things get done.
Record issues / goals and update any strategy materials including your visual action plans from your higher-level planning sessions.
Consider developing a yearly Operating Plan document from year one to a multi-year plan that can be reviewed at an annual senior planning session. Issues must be addressed in this session to see how things have progressed.
Have your teams develop budget for capital, project and operational expenses related to the business solutions to solve the business issues. Build in key performance indictors and an accountability model that the management team accepts and will work towards.
Conduct the organization’s year-one strategic, tactical and operation review to determine your success at dealing with the issues that were defined.
Monitor, review, evaluate and update any strategic and tactical planning documents including strategic road maps and visual planning aids. Do not allow your plans to sit on a shelf. Make them active documents that must be brought to all high-level meetings.

Issue-Based Planning is all about driving out the issues of the organization. It is important that the team can think in terms of real issues and have a level of confidence that their voice will be heard. This is where training in issue-based planning is important for the management team as they will be required to dig deeper into the issues and develop comprehensive solutions to business problems. It is a challenge to look at business issues, but with a little focus and a well-developed approach management can create their own success.

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It all Happens from the Get Go – 7 Planning Steps to Achieve Measurable Results

Written by Richard Lannon on February 18, 2014. Posted in Articles.

Business leaders need to ensure that planning and implementation is focused. A well thought-out planning and implementation approach considers linking strategy, tactics and operational needs. It includes considerations for key business impact zones (productivity, tools, people and culture) and the outcomes required for solutions to business problems.

Consider the business objectives, the process and the work approach that must be used to successfully achieve results in an organization. Results should be resource-driven beginning with shared thinking and consideration of the challenges that need to be addressed. Call them points of pain. All businesses have them and every business leader knows it.

A checklist would be handy at this point. Consider common business challenges such as issues with focus and direction, trust, communications and collaboration, productivity, effectiveness and efficiency, process and work procedures, outdated equipment and tools, people experience, skills, beliefs, values or even blame-storming. No matter the issue, they all add up to one thing – a negative impact, something a business leader seeks to avoid.

Here are 7 steps to consider when planning for measurable results:

Step 1. Understand your business priorities

What five things are on the strategic agenda of the organization? Why are they so important to the business? In what way can your team make those items happen? If you can answer these questions you are on the path to good business leadership thinking.

Step 2. Identify the challenges

What are the points of pain? What are the key challenges? How are these challenges impacting the business? Can we qualify and quantify the problem? Have we considered the impact to productivity, our tools, people and culture? What are the overall impacts and ripple effects to the organization? Write a clear and concise business problem statement that everyone understands. Share that statement and engage in shared thinking and creative solutions with your people.

Step 3. Determine key solutions

Throughout the process, encourage teams to assist you in solving the business problems. Be careful here, as coming up with ideas on how to solve business problems does not mean implementing solutions. Provide support and insight to people whose natural approach is to roll up their sleeves and jump right in. At this point, as a business leader, you should be seeking thinking and solutions. Only after the ideas have been put forth do you seek to prove their viability.

Step 4. Choose a solution that makes sense

This is where viability comes in. It really comes down to what, why, who, how, when, where, how much and what’s in it for the organization, the benefit, risk and return factor; all the things we learned in grade school and on the playground only with more risk. The best thing is to review situations and possible impacts. Pick three solutions: the do nothing solution, the do something solution or the do something else solution. Think through the issues and make a decision.

Step 5. Implement the solution

It’s not always easy, but it must be done. As the business leader, make sure you have your team together. Establish your approach to deal with people and team dynamics across the organization. Change means push back so be prepared. Be honest about your resource abilities. Invest in their success through investing in your own development. Use a good business coach to avoid future issues. Make it part of the process so your people will embrace it. This is a preemptive approach for solution implementation. Remember, as the leader you do not need to be the sage on stage but be the guide on the side.

Step 6. Measure the results

Ensure that you have put the right items in place to measure the results. This could be at many levels. Answer the simple question: does it work? The answer needs to be a yes or no, not maybe or sort of, eh! Did you get what you expected? How long did it take? Is it over or under budget? Will you see the expected return on investment? If so, over how many years?

Do we have the right people? Have you considered the impact zones and the impact? Does the solution (process, tools, people, etc) align with what is important to the business? The list of questions here is long and depends on what was set as the measurement needs earlier in the planning process.

Step 7. Capture lessons learned

This is an area that business leaders rarely engage in. Yet, it is extremely valuable at all levels in the business. A feedback loop should always exist and the business leader should explore what was learned internally and externally. This is your intellectual property that can be used for future planning and continuous improvement.

In the end, it comes down to following a planning and implementation approach that ties strategy and tactical solutions together. As the business leader your success depends on following a proven approach, engaging your people in the process and building key business skills. Planning for measurable results happens from the ‘get go’.

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