Part 4 - Achieving Organizational Aims

Leaders across organizations and sectors face all kinds of challenges and pressures, in their efforts to serve their purpose and meet objectives. Some do rather well, and some frankly struggle.  If you're a leader, then you know what I'm talking about and can speak to your particular challenges.

What if you, as the CEO, had better means of hitting tough targets, overcoming business challenges, or resolving entrenched problems?

The Core Algorithm can be applied with these crucial, sometimes daunting organizational aims.

The Core Algorithm

Where do we begin? By now you know, we begin at the end.

Step 1 - Begin with the end in mind

What specifically are the key things you need to achieve? Which one do you most require feedback, assistance, and insight on?

Let’s say that during the recession the last four years, you’ve managed modest revenue growth (i.e., single digits). It’s taken a lot of deft management on your part and a lot of hard work on the part of your staff.  Looking at the rest of 2013, however, you see tough but notable prospects for breaking well into the double digits, say, 15% growth.

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Like many, you may have a tendency to begin with strategies and tactics, or with tools and systems, and consequently lose sight of what you need to achieve and how to achieve it.  So it's vital to really clarify what these ‘ends’ are, for yourself and your organization. Step 1 may mean reshaping your aims, or even dismissing one and formulating another.

Step 2 - Walk backwards to map pathways

The Immediate Impact Factor

What is the most immediate or direct thing you have to do to realize your aim?

We seem to engage in a lot of effort that doesn't always serve our purpose well. In the Middle East, for example, a lot of organizations engage training for their leaders and staff. That's a good thing. But sometimes they see it as the solution for staff issues, performance problems, and low motivation. If the staff issue is not about building knowledge and developing skills, then training is not going to help.

Examining the issue more closely, and clarifying your aim vis-à-vis this issue, will guide you on what you need to do.  Moreover, The Core Algorithm helps to ensure that what you do actually works for you and your organization.

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Back to our example.

Go through 2013, and visualize your organization hitting 15% revenue growth by year end.  What is the most direct thing that has to happen?  Your customers have to buy more of your products and services throughout the year, and your salespeople have the most direct play in this.

Some organizations may implement costly systems to improve customer service and manage customer relationships. Alternatively, they may jump into competency-development programs or use so-called proven sales methods.

These may or may not help you hit your growth target.  But you won’t know, until you determine exactly what would prompt your customers to buy more and of course your salespeople to sell more.  This buying-and-selling is the crux of the matter - that is, Immediate Impact Factor - for hitting your target.

Your salespeople are literally the means by which your organization bridges itself onto the customers or the market at large. Of course staff from other functions may have customer-facing responsibilities as well, such as marketing, contracting, and support.  But in important respects, they all have a sales role in serving your customers.

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The Intermediate Impact Factor

You see, The Core Algorithm zeroes-in on salespeople, if it’s a revenue target you aim to hit.  So, next, walking backwards from the Immediate Impact Factor, what do they need to have and what do they need to do to sell more?

This refers to the Intermediate Impact, and below are some ideas^:

^First, they themselves must give you feedback on this.

You, other executives, partners, and suppliers may have fine insights on what salespeople need, but there’s a saying in the US:  Let’s hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.  It means that in order to find out what others are thinking, experiencing, or needing, you have to ask them directly.

Steve Jobs apparently eschewed market research or focus groups, and he was phenomenally successful in his seemingly don’t-ask approach. Here’s the reality, ladies and gentlemen:  We can learn from Steve Jobs, be inspired by him, and tap our intuition accordingly, but none of us will ever be him.

You have to ask your salespeople, and find out directly. Because of the relationships they’ve built with your key customers, they are best positioned, in turn, to ask them key questions:  for example, what would strengthen the relationship further, what their untapped needs may be, and what can raise their confidence in your products or services.

Depending on their feedback and insights:

^You as the CEO may need to take a more active role in mentoring them, challenging them, or rewarding them.

^You may have to mobilize resources or modify their environment, so they're in the best possible position to sell more, for example, by shoring up necessary tools, support and training.

On the one hand, they may be highly capable, motivated, and performing salespeople already, and they'll rise up to the challenge.  On the other hand, they may feel stretched and stressed already, and will curse you for raising their targets.

^Regardless, you have work with them (or through their managers) to reconcile their displeasure and leverage their enthusiasm.

These things that have to happen before the actual selling effort comprise the Intermediate Impact Factors.

The Catalyst Impact Factor

Continue to walk backwards, from where you want to be, until you get to where we are now.  Before you undertake particular intermediate actions, there has to be a Catalyst Impact to prepare, guide and inspire them.

Among a number of efforts, you must communicate with them, get their buy-in, and take concerted, collaborative actions with them.

To summarize, Step 2 is a ‘complete sweep’ of all factors necessary to hit that tough target of 15% growth:

1. from Immediate Impact Factors,
2. to Intermediate Impact Factors, 
3. and finally to Catalyst Impact Factors.

We work together to identify them in a time-sequenced way, beginning first with what you're trying to accomplish (future) and mapping pathways backward to where you are standing (present).

Step 3 - Walk these pathways

Step 2 is about creating the road map. Step 3 is systematic action-planning and committed action-taking, based on the outcomes from Step 2 and based on the target from Step 1.

We work together on:

• Creating and delivering on the action plan
• Undertaking a proper communications strategy
• Monitoring, evaluating, and adjusting efforts accordingly vis-à-vis the target 

The Organizational Algorithms

The algorithm I just walked you through, above, is what I call targeT² - a unique, proprietary and comprehensive meta-methodology for hitting tough targets or dealing with business challenges.  There is a lot more to this algorithm than I can cover in an article, so please contact me if you’d like to learn more. It’s leading-edge innovation, and it would be exciting and meaningful to utilize it for your organization!

fL²yer is an algorithm for identifying, developing and preparing high-potential leaders.  These are people in your organization, who may or may not be in leadership positions currently, but who have major capacity to develop greater knowledge and skills and assume complex responsibilities in the future.

Some organizations refer to this capacity as ‘headroom,’ that is, for getting higher (i.e., 'taller') in the organization.

We begin with organizational purpose. One major client I worked with realized that in 5 – 15 years’ time, hordes of key leaders across the enterprise would be retiring. Many executives, managers, and supervisors were about the same age, and the prospects of them leaving en masse must have made the CEO shudder.  So his priority was to ensure capable replacements for these retirees and ensure the successful continuity of the business for the long-term.

They engaged the consulting firm I worked for previously to identify high-potential talent, prepare them for higher level responsibilities, and altogether create proper bench strength of talented leaders for the near-term and for the distant future.

fL²yer draws on rigorous but economical methods for assessing potential, such as psychometric tests, structured interviews, and management feedback.

As its name indicate, R²oi helps to ensure an ROI on your organizational initiatives.  We begin with the end in mind, that is, an issue to resolve, a priority to fulfill, or an improvement to make.

There are hosts of enduring management programs, models, and methodology, from Six Sigma to Balance Scorecard. No matter how successful these have been in other organizations, you need to let your issue, priority, or improvement guide you on what project to engage in and what benefits-against-costs (i.e., ROI) you can expect.

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I hear people ask ‘What is the ROI?’ ‘How do we measure ROI?’ I argue that the presence of these questions suggests that the end in mind wasn’t clarified well and that the project wasn’t identified or laid-out properly.

The expectations around the ROI must be established and clarified at the outset:  for example, an uptick in sales revenue, exceeding costs of improving your product delivery. In this light, it isn’t really difficult to measure ROI, is it? At any point in the project implementation, you can track revenues-against-costs.

R²oi - the algorithm - optimizes your end-to-end process for selected projects, in light of your target ROI.

Above is a graphic on what R²oi optimizes and balances:  

• minimize ‘negative peak’
• maximize ‘positive peak’ 
• while optimizing project impact and hitting ROI target.

targeT², fL²yer and R²oi are the initial set of algorithms I’ve innovated for top leaders and their organizations. In the future, I will develop more for their purpose, for example, realizing their vision and innovating with purpose.

So stay tuned, and stay in contact!

Walking backward, to go forward better

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The work of top leaders is never ideal or perfect. So it’s important to remain vigilant about your efforts, evaluate them vis-à-vis your aims or expectations, and adjust your efforts accordingly. Also, anticipate possible obstacles or problems, and perhaps have a contingency plan to handle these.

Apply The Core Algorithm by making sure you are clear first on what you’d like to accomplish. There are solutions, processes and methods for virtually anything you want to accomplish, but unless any of these actually serve your purpose, they’re not useful.

A lot of what leaders have to do are complex things. I invite you to contact me, if you’d like to address more of your specific challenges or if you have particular questions about what we covered here. So please don’t hesitate to message me!

In summary, The Core Algorithm helps organizational leaders clarify their aims, ensure that what they do actually works, and optimize practical efforts to achieve these aims.

© 2013 by Ron Villejo, PhD