Speed: The New Management Discipline
By: Robert H. Miles, Ph.D.
A recent article in the Theory & Practice section of The Wall Street Journal raised the issue of the importance of Speed in management. Titled “Speed is Key Question as New CEOs Remake Team,” the piece reported that while management churn can be a problem, many CEOs wish they had moved faster in removing dysfunctional or non-supportive executives from their team.
This finding squares with my experience over many years from my corporate transformation practice, but it the tip of the iceberg, Speed a much bigger, more pervasive challenge to that the singular aspect highlighted in the article. It is multidimensional in its impact on the ultimate success or failure of corporate transformation attempts.
So multidimensional is the speed factor in execution that I call it the “New Management Discipline,” a theme that comes through strongly in my new book with Mike Kanazawa, BIG Ideas to BIG Results: Remake and Recharge Your Company, Fast.
Why is it that so many executive leaders fail to achieve breakthrough performance before the rug is pulled out from beneath them?
For one, they make things too complex by trying to chase too many ideas. Many times executives don’t have the courage to focus everyone on a few important things; instead they end up grid locking their organization with too many initiatives and programs de jur.
These underachieving executives also dither at the starting gate. Every time I debrief executive leaders who have tried but failed to transform some aspect of a company, they always say the same things. They wish they had moved faster. When they hesitated at launch while waiting for the perfect solution, they lost the race before they even got started.
These underachievers also wish they had dealt more swiftly with non-aligned members of their management team. They wish they had gotten more quickly into action so they could begin to test and refine their new business model. And more than anything, they wish they had generated some visible early returns that would have reinforced what they were trying to do.
Executives who fail to achieve breakthrough performance also tend to discount how much and how rapidly you can learn from simply getting on with things. They are inclined to underestimate how capable their managers and employees can be in leading a great leap forward if they are properly enabled. Instead, they rely on hordes of consultants — rather than on themselves and their team to chart the new course and navigate the transformation journey. By default, they turn over the leadership of their transformation to outsiders, who take all the new knowledge with them when they leave. If leaders are going to master the new disciplines of speed there are a half-dozen built-in speed governors they need to remove from their own approach in order to rise to the challenge of achieving rapid breakthrough performance.
1. Have the courage to focus their organization on a very few important things. Keep it simple. Don’t gridlock the organization with activity overload.
2. Muster the energy to get the train moving right away. Don’t wait for the perfect new model or universal consensus. Go for an initial 75% solution and then learn and refine as you go.
3. Develop a process architecture that is specifically geared for speed and high engagement. One that lets everyone know when they will become involved and how they will play their role.
4. Deal swiftly with non-aligned executives. Be especially tough on those who drive for performance in a manner that has not been sanctioned by your team.
5. Target some quick starts right up front to give you some early wins to reinforce what you are trying to do.
6. Enable your leaders “at all levels” to lead. Don’t hand over your transformation to a horde of consultants. If you do, they will be the ones to master your new business model and they will walk off with all those new insights when their project is over.
It’s really not that hard to quickly achieve breakthrough performance. If you have the courage to follow these tips and tom pause briefly up front to put in place a transformation process architecture that is specifically geared for speed and engagement, you’ll master the new management discipline of speed.
Picture source: www.jaunted.com
