Why the Key Process Flow Map is Critical to your Strategic Execution

One of the tools I have used with my clients for the last few years is the Key Process Flow Map (from “The 3HAG Way”). It is quite a simple tool but most people don’t realise how powerful it is. It is fundamental to achieving what you want from your business. To many people it looks like a trivial process flow map and, in its simplest form that is exactly what it is. But it can very easily very much more: it can be the map of your business, of the problems in your business and, very importantly, how money gets into your company bank account.

The full version of this article lives on LinkedIn and you can access it here.

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Posted by : ged | On Tuesday, 25 August 2020 | Modified On Tuesday, 25 August 2020

How to Identify your Differentiators

Competitive Strategy is all about being different, and being different requires you to deliberately choose a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value to your core customers.

In a previous article (How to find your whitespace) I showed you how to identify a gap in your market that none of your competitors were serving adequately, a gap that you believed you could fill better than anyone else. The trick now is to find a way of meeting the needs of this gap in the market and then strengthening your ability to serve this gap. This will require you to identify specific activities that support or strengthen each other and that over time will allow you to dominate that gap. This gap becomes your niche that others will find increasingly hard to compete in, which will further strengthen your position in this niche.

The  full version of this article lives on LinkedIn and you can access it here.

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Posted by : ged | On Monday, 20 July 2020 | Modified On Tuesday, 25 August 2020

Now What? - How to execute strategically forward out of the COVID-19 Crisis

Now what? Our worlds have been turned upside down by the events of the last 3 months. Some have thrived, many have struggled, often down to luck or market position. Many are now turning their attention to what comes next because one thing is for sure, doing what we were doing this time last year is probably not going to get us to where we want to be.

The full version of this article lives on LinkedIn, you can access it here.

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Posted by : ged | On Thursday, 14 May 2020 | Modified On Tuesday, 25 August 2020

How to find your "Whitespace"

When I work on Strategy with my clients I ask the question: "Are you competing to be the best?". The answer is nearly always "Yes, of course, why would we be in business if we didn't want to be the best?" or something similar. My answer to them is if you try to be the best at everything you become the best at nothing, you are invariably better off being UNIQUE!

The full version of this article lives on LinkedIn and you can access it here.

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Posted by : ged | On Thursday, 16 April 2020 | Modified On Tuesday, 25 August 2020

First BHAG™ then 3HAG

More Goals? Yes, more Goals!

If you thought that this article title sounded like a chapter title from one of Jim Collins' books then you would be right, that was very much my intent.

Jim Collins revolutionised how we think about business and introduced the concept of the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (a BHAG™) in his 1994 book "Built to Last". Jim described a BHAG™as "a clear and compelling goal that serves as a unifying focal point of effort - often creating immense team spirit". A company's BHAG™ should be inspiring, long term, almost unachievable and yet inspire the team to greatness.

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Posted by : ged | On Sunday, 12 January 2020 | Modified On Sunday, 12 January 2020

The Rockefeller Habits Checklist

Over the previous few months, I have written detailed articles on each of the 10 Rockefeller Habilts Checklist sections. This article is an index to these posts.

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Posted by : ged | On Sunday, 10 March 2019 | Modified On Sunday, 12 January 2020

Break Through the Business “Valleys of Death”

Scaling a business is hard, really hard! Sometimes, the “do nothing” option can be really attractive. Sailing a boat in a harbour is easier than taking it out to sea and that is a great metaphor for scaling a business. When you do set out to sea, you often find that things seem to conspire against you. In business every new employee you hire is hard to hire, every new client you win seems to be a struggle, every new product you develop and launch takes much longer than planned. You are working harder than before but your profit has gone down just as you thought things would be getting easier. Sometimes it just seems easier to retreat back to where you were before you started scaling.

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Posted by : ged | On Saturday, 05 January 2019 | Modified On Sunday, 12 January 2020

The Rockefeller Habits Rock by Rock - The company’s plans and performance are visible to everyone.

This is the last article in a series on the Rockefeller Habits. This final habit (#10) is probably the easiest Rockefeller Habit to implement (in my opinion) but is one many businesses, for some reason, really struggle to implement. I am not sure why this is but I think that many CEOs and leadership teams really struggle with revealing all to their teams. Maybe they think they can't handle it or (worse) think they don't need to know.

This habit is all about transparency and visibility of values, purpose and priorities and clear measurement and display of progress against these priorities. The habit reads:

The Company's plans and performance are visible to everyone.

• A “situation room” is established for weekly meetings (physical or virtual).
• Core Values, Purpose and Priorities are posted throughout the company.
• Scoreboards are up everywhere displaying current progress on KPIs and Critical Numbers.
• There is a system in place for tracking and managing the cascading Priorities and KPIs.

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Posted by : ged | On Sunday, 14 October 2018 | Modified On Wednesday, 28 November 2018

The Rockefeller Habits Rock by Rock - Have you and your employees had a good day or week?

In this penultimate article in this series explaining the Rockefeller Habits and this habit talks to personal priorities and personal accountability for these priorities. If you are familiar with the Scaling Up One Page Strategic Plan then this habit links directly to column 7 in the plan.

Having clear priorities for the business for each quarter is critical but not enough; these priorities need to be broken down and cascaded down appropriately through the leadership team priorities, down through management and to all levels in the organisation. So this habit is all about everyone in the business being able to say if that have had a good day or week - quantitively. So everyone in the business needs to know what their priorities are, how they are measured and how they are tracking to those measurements which gives them clear line of sight from what they need to do straight to the company's purpose and BHAG (via the 3HAG of course). The 9th Habit reads:

All employees can answer quantitively whether they had a good day or week(column 7 of the One-Page Strategic Plan.

• 1 or 2 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are reported on weekly for each role/person.
• Each employee has 1 Critical Number that aligns with the company's Critical Number for the quarter (clear line of sight).
• Each Individual/team has 3-5 Quarterly Priorities/Rocks that align with those of the company.
• All Executives and middle managers have a coach (or peer coach) holding them accountable to behaviour changes.

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Posted by : ged | On Sunday, 30 September 2018 | Modified On Wednesday, 28 November 2018

The Rockefeller Habits Rock by Rock - Employee and Customer Feedback

In this next article on the Rockefeller habits, we are going to look at Rockefeller Habits number 5 and number 6 which relate to employee and customer feedback respectively. I'm covering both of these habits within the same article because both talk to the critical nature of collecting feedback from all with a vested interest in the business, both customers and employees. Rockefeller Habit Number 5 reads:

Ongoing employee import is collected to identify obstacles and opportunities.

And its subpoints are:

• All executives (and middle managers) have a Start/Stop/Keep conversation with at least one employee weekly.
• the Insights from employee conversations are shared at the weekly executive team meeting.
• Employee input about obstacles and opportunities is being collected weekly.
• A mid-management team is accountable for the process of closing the loop and on all obstacles and opportunities.

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Posted by : ged | On Sunday, 16 September 2018 | Modified On Wednesday, 28 November 2018

The Rockefeller Habits Rock by Rock - Communication Rhythms

Rockefeller Habit Number 3 is all about communication rhythms and how information flows through the business. It is about making sure that each employee has an opportunity to synchronise and collaborate with their teams on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis. It reads:

”Communication Rhythm is established and information moves through the organisation accurately and quickly.

• All employees are in a daily huddle that lasts less than 15 minutes.
• All teams have a weekly meeting.
• The executive and middle managers meet for a day of learning, resolving big issues and DNA transfer each month.
• Quarterly and annually, the executive and middle managers meet offsite to work on the 4 Decisions.”

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Posted by : ged | On Sunday, 02 September 2018 | Modified On Wednesday, 28 November 2018

The Rockefeller Habits Rock by Rock - The Number 1 Priority

We have covered off the two habits relating to People and the two habits relating to more strategic concerns so now we will move our focus onto the Execution focused habits. We'll start with the second of the 10 habits which is all about your number 1 priority.

Whilst you need to be crystal clear on your long term direction and destination, it is just as important to know what your focus is for the next 90 days. Every quarter, you need to be very clear on what is the most important thing to achieve over the quarter even if you have identified more than one priority for the quarter.

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Posted by : ged | On Tuesday, 28 August 2018 | Modified On Monday, 03 September 2018

The Rockefeller Habits Rock by Rock - BHAG Core Customer and Brand Promises

In the last article we looked at Core Values and Purpose and whilst these are critical and provide the reason for being and the guide rails for the business these need to be alive within the organisation. All your employees need to know what these are as well as where you are going, who your ideal customer is and what you promise to deliver to them. Rockefeller Habit number 8 talks to the BHAG, the Core Customer and the organisations Brand Promise asks the following question of these key components:

”Employees can articulate the following key components of the company’s strategy accurately

• Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) - Progress is tracked and visible
• Core Customer(s) - in 25 words or less
• 3 Brand Promises - and the corresponding Brand Promise KPIs reported on weekly
• Elevator Pitch - a compelling response to the question ‘What does your company do?’”

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Posted by : ged | On Tuesday, 21 August 2018 | Modified On Monday, 03 September 2018

The Rock Habits Rock by Rock - Core Values and Purpose

In the last two articles we looked at the two habits focused on the People dimension of Scaling Up (Team health and alignment, Accountabilities) and in this article we look at the first of the two habits that are more focused towards the strategic dimension, Core Values and Purpose.

This habit takes us to the core of the reason for being of the business and asks whether..

"Core Values and Purpose are 'alive' in the organisation"

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Posted by : ged | On Wednesday, 08 August 2018 | Modified On Monday, 03 September 2018

Rock Habits - Functional and Process Accountability

In the second in this series of short articles, I am jumping to Rockefeller Habit Number 4 which is all about Functional and Process Accountability. Whilst the previous article on leadership team health and alignment focused on making sure we have the right people on board, Rock Habit Number 4 focuses on ensuring these right people are doing the right things right by creating clear functional and process accountabilities.

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Posted by : ged | On Wednesday, 01 August 2018 | Modified On Monday, 03 September 2018

Rock Habits - Team Health and Alignment

One of the tools I normally introduce with my clients at the 6 - 9 month stage in our engagements is the Rockefeller Habits Checklist(TM). Over the next few weeks, I'll go into each of the ten habits revealing their intent along with outlining some pointers on how to best embbed them within your business.

As Verne observed successful businesses, he noticed that the ones that were achieving phenominal growth practiced many of the habits followed by John D Rockefeller the founder of standard oil.

Over time, he codified these into a simple checklist which we call the Rockefeller Habit's Checklist(TM) or more simply, the Rock Habits or Execution checklist.

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Posted by : ged | On Thursday, 26 July 2018 | Modified On Thursday, 30 August 2018

Meeting Rhythms- Running your "Scaling Up" meetings a practical guide

Most businesses suck at execution, that is the truth. So if I can help just a few businesses improve how they execute their strategy, I would feel good about that. In fact, I have spent the evenings over the last few weeks since I got back from our Scaling Up conference in New Orleans writing a short book about how to improve your execution with meeting rhythms. Is is a short read, so if you want to learn how to improve your execution abilities, head over here.

Download your copy here.

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Posted by : ged | On Friday, 22 June 2018 | Modified On Wednesday, 29 August 2018

What Is Scaling Up?

Scaling Up" is a business growth system developed by the team at Gazelles International, a business coaching organisation based originally in the United States but now operating globally. It was developed by Verne Harnish (known as the "Growth Guy" and Founder of the Entrepreneurs Organisation) from his work as an entrepreneur and refined the key leanings and tools that he published in his seminal 2002 Book "Mastering the Rockefeller Habits". Verne and the team at Gazelles refined the model over the years and in 2014 the book "Scaling Up" was released. Subtitled "How a Few Companies Make it...and Why the Rest Don't", it was effectively Version 2.0 of "Mastering the Rockefeller Habits" and forms the basis for the work Gazelles International Coaches undertake with their clients across the globe.

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Posted by : ged | On Tuesday, 13 March 2018 | Modified On Wednesday, 29 August 2018

What Are Your Core Capabilities

What are the inherent strengths of your business? What are the things you do best, ideally, better than any of your competitors? These things are your Core Capabilities.

So what are Capabilities? Put simply, they are the things your business can do. Core Capabilities therefore, are the things you do that are essential to your strategy, your differentiators, the things that make you different from everyone else, especially your competitors.

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Posted by : ged | On Tuesday, 27 February 2018 | Modified On Wednesday, 29 August 2018

Functional Accountability

Being clear on the leadership teams individual functional accountabilities is one of the key challenges in achieving a functional leadership team. This video, one of a series of videos on the Scaling Up tools, shows you how to use the Functional Accountability Chart to ensure there is agreement and alignment on functional accountabilities between each member of the leadership team.

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Posted by : ged | On Monday, 15 January 2018 | Modified On Wednesday, 29 August 2018

The anatomy of the One Page Strategic Plan - Part 2, Execution

Thomas Edison once said “A strategy without a plan is a hallucination” reinforcing that even the best strategies are worthless without a plan to execute them.

This is the second of a series of two blog posts that focuses on the Anatomy of the One Page Strategic Plan. The first post breaks down the Core Ideologies and Strategy components of the OPSP. This second post explains the second part of the One Page Strategic Plan (OPSP) focuses on how we execute the longer term strategies we define in the Strategy section, the first three columns of the OPSP.

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Posted by : ged | On Monday, 04 September 2017 | Modified On Wednesday, 29 August 2018

The anatomy of the One Page Strategic Plan - Part 1, Strategy

Someone once said “A strategy without a plan is a hallucination”, someone else said “A vision is a dream with a plan” and Sun Tsu said “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”. So, it is clear that both strategy and execution are equally as important. Some organisations are good at strategy but poor on execution and some go the other way. To successfully scale your business we all need to be good at both, but that is not enough…

This is the first of a series of two blog posts that focuses on the Anatomy of the One Page Strategic Plan. This first post breaks down the Core Ideologies and Strategy components of the OPSP. The second post in the series will then move to how we capture the execution aspects of our strategy.

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Posted by : ged | On Monday, 12 June 2017 | Modified On Wednesday, 03 January 2018

Running Quarterly Meetings

Our quarterly meetings signal the start and the end of each 13 week race and they provide leadership teams with the opportunity to review how the last quarter went, review strategic issues and set the quarterly priorities for the next quarter. My clients normally dedicate either a 1/2 day or a full day depending on their size and how established they are on their Scaling Up journey. 

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Posted by : ged | On Monday, 15 May 2017 | Modified On Wednesday, 12 July 2017

The Weekly Meeting

Meeting Rhythms help to get the organisation flywheel turning, once that momentum has started building up, it helps drive flawless execution by keeping the focus on the priorities and ensuring issues get assessed and resolved. Whereas the daily meeting is about synchronisation, the weekly meeting is a short 1 - 2 hour meeting that focuses the team on the key priority(ies) and allows the team to collaborate on one or two main topics that need to be addressed.

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Posted by : ged | On Monday, 20 March 2017 | Modified On Wednesday, 29 August 2018

Running Monthly Meetings

Monthly meetings are part of the daily, weekly, monthly quarterly and annual meeting rhythm cycle that is key to establishing flawless execution in the Gazelles Scaling Up process. As for all the other types of meeting, monthly meetings have a specific purpose within that rhythm.

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Posted by : ged | On Monday, 20 February 2017 | Modified On Wednesday, 12 July 2017

Meeting Rhythms

I have written before about the importance of meeting rhythms particularly the daily huddle. A properly sequenced set of meetings are crucial to getting the organisation's flywheel turning and then accelerating.

Often, when I introduce the topic of meetings and meeting rhythms to new clients, I see eyes roll upwards, I get objections like

“We don’t have time for more meetings, we have enough already”

or

"We see everyone every day anyway, why do we all need to be in the same place at the same time?”

Holding a properly sequenced set of meetings, with each meeting at different cycle time and with a different purpose, will actually save you time not cost you time. Your leadership team will have clarity on the vision and the strategy. They will know what the most important things are and what you have to do to achieve them. They will continually be learning and improving and they will know what the issues and blockers are that could derail you from achieving your goals.

So how do you achieve this?

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Posted by : ged | On Monday, 09 January 2017 | Modified On Wednesday, 12 July 2017

The Daily Huddle

"Routine Sets you Free" - This is so true. In my work with my clients, I can't emphasis enough the importance of meeting rhythms, particularly the daily meeting we call the "Huddle". Huddles are a great way of synchronising a team so that everyone knows what is going on, how your are tracking towards your key priorities and what might be stopping you from getting there (or slowing you down).

In this article, I'll give you some pointers on how to get the most out of your huddles...

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Posted by : ged | On Monday, 14 November 2016 | Modified On Wednesday, 19 April 2017

Read and Reflect One Hour a Day

Since I embarked on my journey as a business coach I have had to make some major changes to how I plan and run my days.  I have had to learn a huge amount, much of which has been outside of my normal area of comfort and expertise.  When I first set out, I realised that my work in Corporate life had conditioned me to only be able to concentrate on any one thing for a few minutes at a time.  This was, I believe, because of the constant need to multi-task and respond to interuptions.  Not at all effective but that seems to be where the pressures of corporate life take you.  I realised that it would take some time to change these habits and behavious so I let things run their course and I changed things bit by bit until I settled on an effective routine.  Here is what I now do.

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Posted by : ged | On Sunday, 05 June 2016 | Modified On Thursday, 18 August 2016

How To Use The One Page Personal Plan

Our lives run better if our personal and our professional lives are aligned. The One Page Personal Plan looks at four key decisions in our pertonal lives (Relationships, Achievements, Rituals and Wealth) that mirror the four key decisions in business (People, Strategy, Execution and Cash). Having a strong and fulfilled personal life provides a solid foundation on which to sustain your efforts and your success in business.

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Posted by : ged | On Sunday, 22 May 2016 | Modified On Monday, 02 January 2017

Crystalyzer is Open For Business

After many years building and scaling technology and consulting businesses I am very excited to launch my latest business, Crystalyzer.   Crystalyzer is an Australian, Business Strategy, Coaching and Advisory firm that equips Technology, Consulting and Professional Services firms to achieve the next step in their growth journey.  We scale and grow firms through a combination of coaching and consulting and by leveraging the IP of leading business strategy and growth firms across the globe.

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Posted by : ged | On Friday, 31 July 2015 | Modified On Thursday, 18 August 2016