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It’s an organizational vibrancy trap

The waiting.

The doing nothing.

It’s an organizational vibrancy trap.

We’re caught in this profound, literally hopeless dilemma.

So we entertain, distract, and medicate ourselves to make it through another day.

Wait.

Step back from your daily routine and elevate yourself high enough to look down and see the whole show – to see what you never see.

You’re too close to see it.

But if you were an experienced business advisor and executive coach, you’d see it easily and clearly.

Here’s the good news, the fear you feel from a brutally honest assessment is the catalyst you need – a glorious gift – to rethink your situation.

It’s important to level set the premise here: You have to find your own motivation to invest the time and effort to .think differently and begin to .do .differently

Otherwise, the next sentence will go in one ear and out the other.

From deep and personal rethinking, you will evaluate your priorities. Odds are good you have the right priorities, however, odds are high your priorities need some reshuffling. This reprioritization is the key to unlocking an intentional future.

Try that on for size: Intentional future.

Imagine how easy it is to recommit to your future with the recalibrated set of business excellence priorities.

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Confused by abundance and easy access?

We can access all the business excellence information in the world.

At anytime, from anywhere.

The cost?

Free.

So why are we stuck?

Why are we still battling the whack-a-mole reality?

Sound familiar: Your day is filled with one pressing operational issue after another. Most of it is stuff that wasn’t on your calendar.

Here’s why.

We are desperately in over our heads and unwilling to publicly admit our lives (professionally and personally) are taking a toll on our business excellence effectiveness (and, by the way, on our health).

The antidote?

A better set of business excellence blueprints to build a better, healthier corporate culture.

Your next step is to identify several world-class organizational culture architects and hire the best fit.

Wait, i get it, you’re in charge and you don’t need to do anything you don’t want to, especially when the price is high.

Waiting and doing nothing are the twin siblings of organizational (and personal) decline.

Let that sink in.

Okay, the ball is in your court.

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Radically ask for better business excellence blueprints

What you know about business excellence comes from what you’ve done, read, experienced, taught, written, thought, and dreamt about.

Even with all that going for you, odds are high you’re still yearning for better, simpler, more profound and actionable information.

Have you considered asking for more, and for better?

Have you considered being radical in your asking?

Some say, “Ask and you shall receive.”

i say .think .differently about organizational vibrancy.

Keep your questions ridiculously simple and be radical in asking for better blueprints.

No one builds a cathedral without blueprints.

Why would your organizational vibrancy legacy be any different?

Why would your company’s business excellence culture be any different?

Why?

How’s that for a radically simple question?

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Looking Back, Now Will Have Been A Bargain

The cost for adding business excellence enhancements always seems expensive at the time.

The price you pay for all those years living without the enhancements is literally impossible to recoup.

This so-called price you pay takes the form of lost growth and revenue, unrealized organizational vibrancy, turnover costs, unintentional transfer of intellectual property to your competitors, and the slow and steady erosion of an already unstable foundation.

What would it take for you to see – and act on this reality – that it’s such a bargain to begin transforming now.

Now.

As in there’s no time to wait.

One small step forward.

Right now.

Awareness is the first step to recovery.

Simply admit, right now and unequivocally, your business excellence culture is unhealthy and needs a doctor.

The cost for an architect to draw a new set of blueprints is exponentially less costly now than what it will cost you in the future.

You cannot build from a plan you can’t see on paper.

Why would you settle when it’s not necessary?

The only limitations you have are those you impose upon yourself.

Struggling to achieve, sustain, and enhance a vibrant business excellence culture?

Challenged to create a vibrant business excellence culture where at least 80% of your leaders are rated by employees as very good or excellent at balancing the business chain of excellence?

Challenged to create a vibrant business excellence culture where at least 51% of your leaders are rated by employees as excellent at connecting all the dots – leaders-employees-customers-brand-innovation?

Do you have a personal conviction that good and very good aren’t good enough?

Do you understand the dramatic difference between an excellent business chain ripple effect and its ability to get excellent results, compared to a very good ripple effect getting very good results and a good ripple effect getting good results?

Can you articulate the difference between a good chain and an excellent chain; and the difference between a very good chain and an excellent chain?

If you can, and i’m assuming you can, why would you settle?

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Busy Doing Nothing

Being good at doing things well is often seen as success.

Really?

Think about it.

Yes, we are good at things.

But are we good at the right things?

Who’s coaching us about business excellence priorities?

Who’s holding us accountable?

And what if our boss is the same boat as us?

What if our boss has business excellence priorities that we are good at delivering on, but what if all of us are focused on lower level priorities?

What if we are the boss? What if we’re passing this on down to our direct reports?

The business excellence mission critical stuff, often the soft stuff, is left alone because it’s too hard to see and measure improvement.

It’s analogous to trying to lose weight instead of trying to lower our resting heart rate, our cholesterol, BMI, and triglycerides.

There are a lot of fake business excellence problems in our world. Fake problems are issues we spend time managing that have disproportionate value to more important priorities.

Fake problems are convenient for medicating our lack of a clear, concise, and compelling vision.

Organizational health (and personal health) is priority one.

Never get bored with the basics.

Spend time doing nothing.

Quiet time, void of distractions, void of deadlines, meetings, initiatives.

Spend time there and you’ll be astonished, if you really open your heart, at what you can accomplish when you’re busy doing nothing.

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Business Excellence time out, Disney-Style

Five world-class business excellence basics i learned from 30 years at Disney.

Do the basics brilliantly.

Never get bored with the basics.

Leaders, employees, customers, reputation, improve.

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Business Excellence

Let’s review the suggested cultural blueprints implementation plan.

The Building owner is the CEO.

Deliverables from Leaders Champions are full set of blueprints.

Leaders: Vision (Yours, tiers up to company vision statement), Involvement (Training versus Development), Accountability (two 3-legged stools), Commitment (Internal Values).

Employees: History (Founder’s Story, milestones), Customs (Behaviors, traditions), Icons (Language, Symbols), Values (Internal).

Customers: The Bullseye (Wow), 360 Analysis (Needs, Wants, Stereotypes, Emotions), Unifying Goal (Common Purpose), Decision Tree (Non-Negotiable, Famous For, Business Need).

Reputation: Your Promise (Unifying Goal), Delivering Your Promise (Process Mapping), Emotional Connection (Behavioral Guidelines).

Improvement: Generate Ideas (Build your box), Select Ideas (Continuous Improvement Process), Implement Ideas (CIP), Leader’s Role (Environmentalist).

All collaborative efforts by executive leaders and the cross-functional teams should revolve around simple, focused, energetic, creative, visionary, and scalable outcomes – blueprints for an organizationally vibrant culture.

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How to execute next steps to convert theory into reality

Big picture involvement:

Five foundational ownership tracts; 19 total blueprints.

One owner of everything, the CEO.

Up to ten Champions selected from CEO Cabinet; two Champions for each of the five ownership tracts (Leaders, Employees, Customers, Reputation, Improve). Some Cabinet members may be responsible for two ownership tracts.

Ten assistant champions selected from your best, most passionate leaders in Human Resources, Labor Relations, Employee Relations, Compliance, Employment, Marketing, Public Relations, Communications. Assistant Champions should only focus on one ownership tract.

From 15-30 advocate teams selected from every employee, at every level, in every department. This is three to five team advocates per ownership tract.

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Owner

• CEO

Champions

• C-Level Executive (always have two, to solve for unexpected absences)
• Provides vision, inspiration, commitment

Assistant Champions

• Cross-functional pair from Human Resources, Labor Relations, Employee Relations, Compliance, Employment, Marketing, Public Relations, Communications.
• Always have two, to solve for unexpected absences
• Provides involvement, accountability, commitment
• For unexpected absences, always be grooming the replacement from the Advocate Team.

Advocate Teams

• Created from any employee, at any level, in every department
• 3-6 total per team recommended
• Cross-functional
• Provides energy, enthusiasm, effort, commitment

Final blueprint

• Create action steps
• Review, organize notes
• Create plan
• Discuss
• Summarize
• Create final blueprint
• Present to CEO and Cabinet

Develop and deliver campaign

• Goals/deliverables
• Assign roles
• Timeline
• Accountability

Misc

• Manage project scope creep
• Prepare contingency plans for project disruptions
• Always be grooming replacement/succession

Continuous Improvement

• Manage health of all teams
• Grow team bench
• Measure
• Celebrate
• Share
• Historian documents growth, change, transformation

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Cultural Transformation Next Steps after Executive engagement (2-days with 19 cultural blueprints)

Traditional blueprint assignments:

Leaders: CEO, Human Resources, Labor Relations, Employee Relations; one of these four owns total responsibility.

Employees: HR & Marketing (Employment, Training & Development, Communications, Recognition)

Customers: CCO (Chief Customer Officer), HR (Orientation, OJT, Ongoing Training)

Reputation: HR (Training) Marketing & PR (Communications)

Improve: CEO, HR, Marketing

Notes:
We started with senior leadership because you are the most connected and experienced with the organization’s strategy. You know things no other levels know.

Recommend creating a corporate Historian (including video/photo library) to work with and assist all other areas to make key links and connections to the founder’s story, heritage & traditions, traits and behaviors, language and symbols, and shared values.

The most natural things to feel about uncharted territory: doubt, fear, anxiety, confusion, excitement, joy, relief, hope, motivation.