How Leaders can Regain Control of Portfolios, Programs and Projects by using a Unified Vision FrameworkBy Andrew Kallman, MBA, PMP®, CSM and Ted Kallman, CLU, ChFC, RIA “Why do we need another external model?” “We’re already world-class.” These are the kinds of statements that we often hear from leaders and other executives who are having challenges managing their project portfolios. However, in the book, Good to Great, by Jim Collins, only 11 companies out of 1,435 Fortune 500 companies made the cut and were classified as “great.” That means that there is room for new ideas and ways of working in all of the remaining firms. Frankly, if the Good to Great companies do not continue to follow the baseline principles that made them great they will not sustain as a great company in the future. Now that many companies have discovered the book “Good to Great,” they too want to implement the agile and lean concepts that are contained in that book. But something usually happens along the way that stops good people from achieving great results – it’s called culture. Culture that has run amok routinely eats projects, programs, processes, portfolios and leaders for lunch. And, there are three fundamental leadership transgressions that cause executives to lose control of culture. The first transgression is simply not understanding true vision. The second is mistaking power for authority. The third, and most deadly sin, is assuming agreement. Any one (or combination) of these 3 transgressions could cause a leader to diminish results, lose value or even worse to fail. There are four types of vision that exist in any organization. And they all need to be understood and dealt with properly to arrive at true vision. The four types are: 1. True vision 2. Stated vision 3. Implied vision 4. Actual vision First, we need to understand true vision. The true vision is the sweet spot inside the organization on which the executive should actually be focusing. The sweet spot has many names: “competitive advantage,” “hedgehog,” “purple cow,” “unique selling proposition,” and so on. Distilling the definition of a true vision can only happen over time and emerges from the pressure cooker of disagreement, where all opposing views have been evaluated and the combination of the best parts of each idea creates the true vision. The true vision statement, once it has been distilled, should then be crafted into a short phrase that is easy to remember and even easier to communicate. Every company goes through the process of creating the stated vision that they share with the world, the “official vision” of the organization. However, if you were to take any top executive team, put them in a room, and ask each one write the vision statement from memory on a piece of paper and then compare the results, you would probably find as we have that there would be twelve different versions of the stated vision, even if only ten people were in the room. Why is that? Because almost without exception the stated vision is too long, generic and doesn’t reflect the true vision. The stated vision may be printed on slick glossy paper, but that doesn’t make it true. That’s because there is another dynamic at work and it’s called implied vision. This is where the walk and the talk often diverge from what’s printed in the marketing brochures and reality. The implied vision is the reflection of each leader’s walk. An example would be if we state “quality is job 1” and yet our product never has the best quality record, and the people in the organization never see any leadership support for increased quality, then the stated vision is not reality. Everybody sees the disconnect and the result is that if you have good people, they will try to figure out, as best they can, what the true vision is and align themselves with that vision. So, if the stated vision and the implied vision do not line up what do you have? The actual vision. Allowing implied vision(s) to go unchecked produces an actual vision that is fractured. The actual vision is created by organizational dissonance and it is where every person does what is right in his or her own eyes. You have as many visions as you have people. And this may or may not line up with what is best for the organization. People end up having to resort to personal heroics to save the day. Others resort to defensive (“CYA”) task management in order to mitigate the effect that the actual vision has on them. An example of this is when you have put your and your team’s full effort to comply with and deliver according to the stated vision, but then you end up being punished by the organization for doing what you thought was the right thing. But it did not line up with someone else’s actual vision that may be “what’s the bottom line.” Whatever a team has determined the organizations true vision to be is what they will use as their actual vision. It is the consequence of their best guess of what the true vision should be. This results in cultural chaos. Then, just to keep things interesting, every six to twelve months companies roll out new strategic initiatives. And, sometimes, even a new vision statement. Over time the strategies migrate into something that has little, or nothing, to do with the original stated vision of the company. This creates organizational fatigue and the leaders just can’t seem to understand why people deliberately choose to ignore their directives. Sometimes companies will even bring in a new leader from outside the organization in order to try to shake things up and break the resistance to the behavioral changes that are needed to renew the culture. According to the research conducted in “Good to Great,” bringing in an “outside change agent was negatively correlated with a sustained transformation from good to great.”1 ([1] Page 31, “Good to Great,” Jim Collins, © 2001 The Random House Group Limited) This could be due to the first line of management that report directly to the new leader end up circling the wagons and present a united front that neutralizes the leader’s ability to create the positive change desired. These company antibodies are the dark side of a unified vision. When this happens, a leader may be tempted to make the mistake of invoking the power of their position rather than using personal authority to lead. For example, a leader can use the power of the position and demand a 20% across-the-board cut in all projects without realizing that some of the most critical projects (to the survival of the organization) could end up being killed because they weren’t linked to the true vision. If you don’t know what the true vision is, then projects that are linked to the true vision can be cut for personal or political reasons. We call this the “unencumbered by knowledge, we acted…” phenomena. The use of power to motivate tends to slide down the slippery slope toward the Theory X style management that uses fear and intimidation as a motivator. And while it may never be actually stated by the people being led, the more that power is used to demand change, the more fear rises as the true motivator. Studies have shown that fear as a motivational tool is only useful in short time frames and crises situations. Long-term use of fear as a motivator destroys innovation and effectiveness. It also bogs down the speed at which the organization can react and adapt to changing market conditions. Dwight Eisenhower once said, “It is always easier to pull a string than to push it.” This is what we mean by leading from personal authority. Whether it’s by serving, which is the definition of a Level 5 leader in “Good to Great,”2 (2 Ibid) or by demonstrating with words and actions your alignment with the true vision, leadership from authority always achieves the best results. Authority energizes the intangible assets inherent inside every organization. These exist in the white space of the organizational chart. When a leader pulls the intangibles together by means of a cohesive, true vision that is lived by the entire team, then exponential results are the natural outcome. Still, a charismatic leader can have a clear understanding of the company’s true vision, lead from authority and fail to achieve the desired results. How can that happen? By assuming agreement. It is essential for each and every person to buy-in to his or her part of the true vision. Leaders understand that the first step to gaining agreement with any team is to have clear definitions upon which everyone agrees. When the definitions are in continual flux, it becomes difficult for team members to focus. When the definitions are clear-cut and agreement has been reached, then distilling the tasks into a cohesive result becomes almost effortless. If power is used to force agreement, then the person performing the tasks has no option other than to complete the task as defined by the boss. Creativity is killed. Team members no longer come up with creative solutions to execute the tasks quicker, with less effort and with greater impact. Conversely, if personal authority is used to gain agreement and thus inspire the completion of the tasks, then people begin to recognize that the leader is there to support them in achieving success for the entire team. Options are examined and inspired solutions are revealed. So far we’ve identified three mortal leadership sins that can derail even the most adept and agile of leaders. Understanding these root causes is a great place to start, and frankly they have to be addressed and dealt with in order to obtain and maintain organization strength and excellence. In the process of addressing these core organizational challenges a leader can regain control of the project portfolio. If you have a model or framework that is short, memorable, and remarkable and that is linked to the true vision, then it can become an effective tool for prioritizing projects as well as managing them and the enterprise. The reason a simple model or framework is most effective is because of the natural dynamic of change. It doesn’t matter what your project structure is today, you can be certain that tomorrow the market’s going to change, the customer is going to change, resources are going to change, financial components are going to change and leadership is going to change. If you have a clear, true vision, any changes that occur at the project level can then be aligned back to the true vision. Conversely, if your vision is ill defined, not memorable and unwieldy, then the projects in your portfolio will certainly change, most likely in a negative way, as people try to guess how the change fits the vision. But, alignment becomes unlikely. So, what are we saying? Take the time to identify what the true vision is. Spend more effort with definitions and agreement that link to the true vision. Use the true vision as a tool to manage and lead all project efforts and the creativity needed within the project teams will rise and amazing results will occur. Using the Unified Vision Framework, or any other vision clarifying model, and applying it correctly will create a truly vision focused culture where good people are free to create outstanding value. For more information about the co-authors or about how to implement the Unified Vision Framework, feel free to contact: Andrew Ted Copyright 1972 – 2008, the Unified Vision Group, all rights reserved.
|