Having spent the first half of my career in strategy consulting, I recently returned after taking a thirteen-year “detour” in corporate roles focused largely on business growth and transformation. I spent most of this time playing a hands-on role in mobilizing change to reshape traditional business models and, along the way, had the opportunity to work with or observe a variety of consultants from the client side.
I took some time to reflect on lessons learned – usually the hard way – and how I might use these experiences to provide more practical advice and valuable support to our clients at SATOV.
Mind the metrics that matter
Our clients value the comprehensive, rigorous analysis we deliver that tends to go beyond what they typically see when it comes to quantifying opportunities for growth or performance improvement. That said, I have seen consultants earn a bad rap at times for using generalized, top-down assumptions or analytical black boxes that make it hard to discern whether long-term performance goals are being achieved once they have left the building.
Top-down math is a reasonable starting point. Yet, we must distill the underlying business drivers and translate them into clear, measurable and meaningful guideposts for day-to-day focus. Otherwise, it can quickly become challenging to explain to a Board of Directors why the business isn’t on track to gain ten points of market share, or which levers are most important to reduce unit costs by thirty percent, for instance.
Naturally, this discipline isn’t just useful for consultants. Management teams will benefit from similar rigor when building their own business cases so that they can manage day-to-day activities and link interim operational milestones to bigger-picture outcomes.
Spend more time doing than deciding
Organizations often spend way too much time getting to decisions that should not require multiple layers of analysis, discussion and approval, or spend too little time on important decisions that would benefit from more rigor. In the first instance, delayed decisions squeeze the teams that need to execute with unreasonable timeframes or expectations. Conversely, making hasty decisions can lead to wasted time and effort, or big messes that take longer to clean up than create.
The value that consultants bring often lies in helping leaders accelerate the time to make key decisions and producing high-quality insights to enable better choices. Of course, leaders can’t always rely on consultants and need to put in place measures to become more efficient, decision-driven organizations.
In the spirit of “what gets measured gets managed”, I would encourage executive teams to evaluate more regularly the speed and quality of decision-making for their most impactful choices. As consultants, we can also push ourselves to leave client teams in a better spot by providing them with new tools or frameworks that clarify decision roles or support effective and efficient decision-making.
Make the annual planning process work for you versus against you
If you have lived in a corporate environment, you might appreciate how monolithic and painful the annual planning process can be. Teams are often asked to amass piles of information for dozens (or hundreds) of initiatives in countless templates to support decision-making, only to feel like funding calls are made in the absence of clear facts, logic or analysis. It’s typical to move on and infrequently revisit choices, even as more and better information is available – at least until mid Q4 when Project A is 15% overbudget so Project B, C and D need to cut costs.
Consultants need to be attuned to the constraints our client executives typically face. For instance, it can require a tremendous amount of influencing to build support for a new initiative when all the seats on the funding bus have been taken. It may be most prudent to work harder on identifying steps that will unlock value through a series of incremental investments or self-funding quick wins.
For their part, management teams need to determine how to become more agile around capital resource allocation. Getting to a more dynamic approach and rolling forecast for the project portfolio can be the ultimate goal. In the absence of a planning overhaul, tactics to improve flexibility can be useful. This might mean providing greater discretion to individual business areas over their spend on small but impactful initiatives.
Planning leads can also drastically reduce the amount of information gathered during early planning stages and invest more time, analysis and discussion on funding priorities through monthly and quarterly reviews. This is all easier said than done but increasingly critical for businesses seeking to create financial management processes that enable vs. impair more agile ways of working.
Approach organizational focus as a “contact sport”
Focusing on the few things that matter most is a consistent challenge for every management team. Advancing critical initiatives at pace is tougher than it should be. There are myriad speed bumps, stop lights, traffic cops and detours en route, not to mention too many vehicles all trying to get from point A to point B at the same time.
For consultants, it can be equally important to align leadership teams on what they will NOT do, and codify why, when and how they made those decisions. We also have a unique opportunity to engage team members on the ground and amplify their voices when it comes to identifying the diversions, obstacles, missing ingredients or mixed messages that hold them back.
Leaders need to not only put in place practical disciplines that reinforce accountability for the things that matter most but also regularly engage and empower teams on the ground to run a few red lights, find new routes and cut the occasional corner. I can’t recall a time when it was sufficient to outline three or four top annual priorities, share them via PowerPoint during employee townhalls or department meetings, and expect that things will fall into place. Put more simply, the most effective leadership teams I have worked on approach “Focus” less as a shift in mindset and more as a contact sport.
Create the conditions for success through change readiness
It’s easy to fall into a check-the-box process in the transition from strategy to execution. We map out initiatives on a Gantt chart, assign various owners, fill in templates with milestones and metrics, then set up check points and move on. Consultants who earn their keep will guide management teams to bridge the distance between having a plan and executing a plan.
Leaders often miss the opportunity to take stock of their organization’s readiness for change, or the major impacts for internal and external stakeholders. It’s important for leaders and consultants who support them to spend more time clarifying things like: who is on the bus, could they explain where we are going, do we have the right people and skills to make this all happen, and where are we most likely to get stuck?
One of the biggest challenges is working “on” and “in” the business at the same time. A common pitfall I have seen amounts to asking the same, small handful of people to advance key strategic priorities without putting aside their current responsibilities. It is easy to underestimate the demands we place on this group.
I have found it particularly useful to spend time holed up with people who really know the business and what it takes to get things done in the organization before tackling something big (hint: their titles don’t usually start with “C” or end in “VP”). There is no shortage of change readiness and change impact frameworks out there – pick one or two and dig in. Will you anticipate every need and every obstacle? Of course not, but every ounce of foresight you unearth will be worth its weight in gold.
Putting it all together
Stepping back, these reflections collectively reinforced for me why shaping strategy remains a crucial but insufficient stage in the journey to achieving long-lasting results. If you are contemplating big, important and impactful changes in your strategic direction, I would encourage you to ask the following types of questions as you pivot towards execution:
- Are we clear on tangible weekly, monthly and quarterly objectives that will move the needle on long-term goals?
- How might we spend more time doing than deciding?
- How can we approach resource allocation in a way that accelerates vs. impedes progress?
- What will it take to counter the forces that pull against organizational focus?
- Have we created the conditions for success to enable meaningful and lasting change?
Arguably, as management consultants, our role is more about defining vs. executing strategy, but we are limiting our impact if that’s the only space we play in. I joined SATOV in large part because the team is not only relentless when it comes to delivering objective analysis and compelling insights but equally relentless when it comes to enabling client organizations to deliver. I am optimistic that many bumps, bruises and valuable lessons from the past decade or so will help me stack the deck in our clients’ favour when it is time to shift from thinking to doing.