Improving Performance, Building Capabilities — One Stair-Step at a Time

Two traps await business organizations seeking to jump-start strategic change. One is the “initiatives trap”– multiple efforts, with special teams and/or consultants, working with poor coordination toward overlapping goals, without focusing accountability through the line organization. The closely related trap is “initiative overload” — too many (or too large) efforts that overwhelm management and alienate employees who are weary of change and skeptical of the latest corporate initiatives.

TruePoint helps leaders develop and execute against an integrated multi-year, multi-level change roadmap that improves focus and reduces overload. This roadmap for change addresses the immediate need — managing the current business and delivering short-term performance — while progressing with the broader strategic agenda. We build this roadmap in three steps:

1. Set Direction. The starting point is to understand the lay of the land by exploring three simple but tough questions that must be answered to create a credible “change story”:

Why change? Most leaders can articulate the case for change, but often it is neither consistently owned by the top team at an emotional level nor compelling to the broader organization. We work with the top team to achieve both.

What and who must change? Depending on their viewpoint, many focus primarily on performance needs (what) or people needs (who). We believe strongly that maximum leverage occurs by creating the simple integrated story that tightly links both.

How capable are we of pulling this off? At one level this is about learning from past initiatives. At another it is about having the honest conversations to surface the barriers that threaten progress. (See also The Six Silent Killers and Strategic Fitness Process.)

2. Architect Change. If the step above is about deep and honest evaluation, this step is about pragmatism. There is typically a lot to be done and a finite capacity for change. Simply mapping a long list of actions to each issue leads to overload and lack of integration. We work in a different way, first with a small design team and then the top team. TruePoint helps our clients:

Plan in episodes. Like the writer of a TV show, sketch the series out in full and theme all the episodes but then only write the first couple in detail. We will learn much from the experience as the first episode plays out (3-6 months) and can then populate others.

Make initiatives do double work. For example, rather than having a performance initiative here and a training initiative there, combine them to get better results and better learning.

Draw from a wide range of methodologies. Sometimes change planning feels like a hammer looking for a nail and up overly relies upon one discipline — such as re-engineering or quality teams. Instead we use experience to draw in multiple disciplines and even develop new approaches when needed.

3. Act. We have strong views on the fallacy of programmatic change. Therefore, our approach is line-led (vs. staff- or consultant-led) and builds in learning (vs. creating a “steamroller”). We quickly address performance improvement to create confidence and momentum while at the same time building new skills and behaviors. We help create the governance and project management needed to support meaningful action.

TruePoint’s approach reflects our strong belief that, to be thorough and sustainable, large-scale change needs to be owned and managed by the organization’s leaders and their people. TruePoint’s role is advisory. We offer leaders an experienced perspective to sift through the initial clutter and confusion while avoiding predictable missteps. And our ongoing thought partnership facilitates the journey to high performance and commitment.

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