On the Same Page

A few weeks ago, I was in Den­ver to host a group of CEOs from around the world, after which a cou­ple of col­leagues and I went for din­ner in a high­ly rec­om­mend­ed restau­rant. We had spec­tac­u­lar meal, with amaz­ing ser­vice that was so good we were already talk­ing about going back again. And then, just as we were about to leave, a not-so-fun­ny thing hap­pened. One of my col­leagues, who was from a coun­try where peo­ple don’t tip, gra­cious­ly offered to buy din­ner, and as he signed off on the bill, made a ​‘mis­take’ on the total.

The wait­er threw the tem­per tantrum of a three-year old who’d been denied his favorite toy because he didn’t think the tip was good enough. When my col­league real­ized what he had done, he offered to fix his mis­take, but the wait­er con­tin­ued with a bel­liger­ent lec­ture on tip­ping in the US — to the point where I asked him to stop and chill out, and to give us a chance to fix it. The wait­er con­tin­ued his rant — clear­ly a bet­ter actor play­ing a great wait­er than he was a great waiter!

Evi­dent­ly, he had unre­solved issues to work on. (Read more about how this can dimin­ish your abil­i­ties in Chap­ter 6 of my book, Deal with Your Emo­tion­al Junk.)

On the way out, as I let the man­ag­er know about our expe­ri­ence, the wait­er con­tin­ued to defend his posi­tion. And, although the man­ag­er agreed his staff’s behav­iour wasn’t accept­able, he did noth­ing about it.

Goes to show you that while it’s great to have align­ment in your orga­ni­za­tion about how to han­dle sit­u­a­tions, there are crit­i­cal moments that can go very wrong, destroy­ing your good inten­tions — all your sys­tems and pro­to­cols — in a mat­ter of moments. Unless you step up to make it right.

Despite the fan­tas­tic meal, because of this waiter’s tantrum and the manager’s response, we knew we wouldn’t be back, nor would we rec­om­mend the restau­rant to any­one else.

Get the Whole Com­pa­ny on the Same Page

We hear peo­ple say ​‘we need to get on the same page’ all the time. It means they need align­ment, com­mon focus and goals.

Most com­pa­nies we go into aspire to be on the same page, but they’re often not because they haven’t defined what the cul­ture looks like, so peo­ple just behave in a way they think is right. There’s no def­i­n­i­tion of right, right, wrong and expect­ed, so you can’t blame them for that.

I’ll talk about cul­tur­al align­ment in an upcom­ing blog. For now, let’s talk about get­ting every­one on the same page strategically.

Just One Page

With almost every client around the world, we use the same basic tool to first get lead­er­ship of the com­pa­ny aligned around what mat­ters most.

For that, we use the one-page strate­gic plan: a sin­gle A3 page (11 x 17) with the whole plan for the com­pa­ny from for­ev­er to 10- to 25-year goals, to 3- to 5‑year year goals, to annu­al and quar­ter­ly goals. You can learn more about this incred­i­bly straight­for­ward tool in Scal­ing Up (Rock­e­feller Habits 2.0) — on which I was a key con­trib­u­tor. It’s what peo­ple need to be clear on who the com­pa­ny is, where the com­pa­ny is head­ing and what they have to do to get there.

It sounds basic but the peo­ple in most orga­ni­za­tions don’t accom­plish as much as they’d like to — or could — because there’s not enough clarity.

In the world of pro­fes­sion­al sports, there’s a score we look at, game by game, and then the final series at the end of the ses­sion. There’s so much clar­i­ty and mea­sure­ment of what great looks like, it’s easy to know what mat­ters. But, in busi­ness, there are so many vari­ables that the clar­i­ty is lost the fur­ther down you go in the organization.

So, here’s how we do it:

• First, we start with an annu­al plan­ning ses­sion, with in-advance research to under­stand the company’s exist­ing plan, per­for­mance and the cus­tomer seg­ment where they make and lose the most money
• Sec­ond, we sur­vey or inter­view the exec­u­tive team, and some­times oth­ers fur­ther down in the com­pa­ny, to under­stand the issues and opportunities
• Third, we facil­i­tate a two- to three-day plan­ning ses­sion with the exec­u­tive team and some­times key leaders.

Our goal is to get that one page clar­i­fied: the for­ev­er, to 25 to 10 years, to 3 to 5 years and annu­al goals. It’s a lot of work to get that one page clar­i­fied, and to get peo­ple on the same page – and it gets much eas­i­er in sub­se­quent years.

Before we leave the room, we also have clear goals for the next quar­ter. Oth­er­wise, every­one ​‘crams for the exam’ and pan­ics to get their goals done, at the end of the year. But if we ​‘cram for the exam’ every quar­ter, we’re four times more like­ly to make the progress because we don’t for­get and have the account­abil­i­ty to deliver.

And then we put the mech­a­nisms in place to make sure the com­pa­ny builds a rhythm of achieve­ment. We touch base with the exec­u­tive team every quar­ter for 30 to 45 min­utes to review the goals, where we are at, and where we are stuck. Then we have a con­ver­sa­tion with the CEO to see what’s work­ing, what’s not, and how to move ahead.

At the end of the quar­ter, we reset the process and spend two days to review finan­cials, KPIs and goals. We con­tin­ue to devel­op and evolve the strate­gic plan and then reset the goals for the fol­low­ing quar­ter, dis­cussing what we’ll deliv­er in 90 days. This starts at the com­pa­ny lev­el and then we break it down to mini-goals for each executive.

The key is to get clear on the long, short, and medi­um term goals. Then we aim to stay in a con­stant rhythm to recon­nect and realign. The plan is to reset goals every 90 days, review them month­ly and weekly.

Month after month, quar­ter after quar­ter, the orga­ni­za­tion gets clear­er and achieves more than in the past. After 18 months, most of the lega­cy issues get cleared — then we can focus on sol­id growth.

At the root, it’s the dis­ci­pline of a month­ly check-in and quar­ter­ly reset of goals. Then these work toward the annu­al objec­tive, and so on towards the 25-year plan.

It’s impor­tant for the exec­u­tives and lead­ers to have the pat­tern of clar­i­fy­ing and achiev­ing their goals. Then we can start to cas­cade the goals down to the rest of the com­pa­ny in the sec­ond year.

The Chal­lenge

• Get your lead­er­ship team clear on the top three to five things to achieve this quar­ter and this year.
• Put dis­ci­plines in place to make sure you achieve what you have set out to do. These include week­ly reminders, month­ly reviews and account­abil­i­ty, and reset­ting of goals.

Do you need assis­tance with your annu­al or quar­ter­ly plan? Our inter­nal team of coach­es — and oth­ers we know, around the world – are avail­able to help, vir­tu­al­ly or in person.