A proven, exciting Retirement planning process for individuals and couples, The Best-Half is a combination of workshops, coaching and personal reflection. It was developed by experienced coaches and educators. For organizations, The Best-Half is a process to be used in succession management especially for transitions and to establish common goals and objectives in the senior phases of a career.

Monday, November 07, 2011

Are you “shovel ready”?




Sure to be one of those phrases that wins some kind of award for “used the most this year”, shovel ready is an apt prescription for successful organizations or wanna-be successful businesses in 2009.  

Many organizations are rapidly redefining their short, medium and long term goals into short, shorter and shortest goals and reducing the strategic horizon to a 90 day focus with a one year horizon. Does this signify the end of strategy and the rise of operations?
The February issue of Harvard Business Review has a good article on Leadership, (Stop Overdoing Your Strengths) that discusses the duality of opposing leadership virtues. Strategic Leadership involves planning ahead, pursuing growth and promoting innovation. Operational Leadership focuses on managing the day to day results, maximizing efficiency by conserving costs and reducing expenses and maintaining order through the discipline of using processes and procedures effectively.  We see operational and strategic leadership as not exclusive rather as specific to the context of each situation. Being a conscious leader means agility with the current environment and agility for the future.

The new paradigm for strategic leadership compresses time and creates a sense of urgency in being able to seek strategic opportunities that require a rapid decision making process followed by a speedy deployment of resources. The one thing we are hearing is that there are tremendous opportunities today because of the shifting priorities and realities of business. If your strategic thinkers are exhibiting that ”deer in the headlights” look, they are likely reacting to the uncertainty and increased risk of decision making. They are used to relying on their Fact Finding and Follow Thru strengths while preventing chaos. An influx of Quickstart instinct on to the team might be just the prescription you require. From an Eneagram personality type perspective when you are under stress or so focused on your strengths (i.e. work faster, more attention to detail etc.) your personality can get distorted and this prevents you from being an integrated leader.

While it may appear that the roles of strategy and operations are moving closer to a convergence perhaps what is really happening is that strategy has become a much more opportunity focused pursuit, while operations becomes more about organizational readiness.

The danger in seeing opportunity is seeing it when it’s too late.

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