Is it Better to Work on Strengths or Weaknesses?

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It takes far less energy to move from first-rate performance to excellence than it does to move from incompetence to mediocrity. – Peter Drucker

Throughout my career, I’ve put a lot of effort into overcoming my weaknesses.  As a result of coaching and reading numerous books and articles on self-development, I have always viewed my weaknesses as barriers to success and something that I needed to work hard to overcome.  I’ve recently begun to wonder, though, whether focusing too heavily on my weaknesses took time that could have been better spent developing my strengths.

In The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker wrote that, by focusing on our weaknesses, the best we can achieve is mediocrity.  On the other hand, working to further developing our strengths can result in greatness.

Most people excel in the areas that motivate them.  Alternatively, weaknesses tend to come from the things in which people are not really interested.  Focusing attention on developing the things people either can’t improve or aren’t interested in improving can lead to frustration, stress, and an overall lack of motivation.

People are motivated when they are able to do meaningful work, learn and develop, and have fun.  And continually developing in an area of strength and utilizing the strength to contribute to an organization’s success help make this happen.

Addressing the Organization’s Weaknesses

It is obviously important to understand and continually close the critical skill gaps that exist within an organization.  Doing this effectively requires hiring the “right” people and continually making them “more right.”  One of the critical objectives of hiring is to put together a team where individual strengths complement one another and people are able to effectively cover each other’s weaknesses, but focusing the hiring process on minimizing the organization’s weaknesses, however, will never lead to greatness.

The performance review process in most organizations targets an individual’s weaknesses.  Although strengths are usually identified – although more in terms of results than the fundamental strength that led to the result – the individual is often expected to work on the weaknesses before the next review.  There is rarely conversation about how the person can further develop strengths during the coming year.

Knowing Your Strengths

Developing your strengths assumes that you know your strengths.  For most of my career, I have approached people and asked for feedback and coaching about my work, interactions with others, and overall performance.  Whenever I have these conversations, however, I try to get the other person to talk about the areas in which I need to improve – in other words, my weaknesses.  Lately however, I’ve tried to turn the discussion around and have asked for feedback on my strengths.  What I’ve found is that it puts the other person much more at ease and comfortable giving me the feedback I need to improve.

Although this has helped improve the conversation, I have found that it is important for the other person to know that I’m not looking for compliments.  I am looking for feedback on my areas of strength where, if I got even stronger, could greatly help the organization and my own career.

Like anything, this type of conversation takes practice to provide real value, so it is important to stick with it and be consistent about holding the meetings.

PDSA to Understand & Develop Strengths

To better understand strengths and weaknesses, Peter Drucker suggested writing down goals related to a specific objective or project.  After six months or so, he recommended returning to the list and reflecting on which goals were achieved and which were not.  After doing this over a period of time, a picture will start to emerge that identifies strengths and weaknesses.  In addition to showing strengths and weaknesses in execution, it will show how strong the person is in planning and selecting the right things on which to work.

This is closely aligned with W. Edwards Deming’s Theory of Knowledge and the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Cycle.  Within a PDSA mindset, learning only takes place when the hypothesis is clear, which means that the person or team clearly and consciously understands the expected results from a given action or plan.  I believe Drucker’s advice deals with applying PDSA on a personal level to drive learning.

For this approach to be successful, I believe that the list must be remain personal.  As soon as something like this becomes public or part of a person’s performance review, there will be a tendency to skew results and show more success than really occurred and, as a result, interfere with reflection and learning.  Most organizations are not mature enough in their thinking for people to be truly open about their performance and, in particular, their weaknesses. 

It’s Not All or Nothing

Focusing on your strengths does not mean completely ignoring your weaknesses.  This is not about developing knowledge or a particular skill.  It is about using knowledge and skills to be successful.  If you have a weakness that is interfering with success, the more you know about it and address it, the more successfully you will be.  The key, though, is to avoid spending significant time overcoming a weakness.  Once it is addressed to the point where it no longer interferes with using your strengths to be successful, stop worrying about it and refocus on your strengths.

Is Management a Liberal Art?

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"[Management is] an integrating discipline of human values and conduct, of social order and intellectual inquiry, [a discipline that] feeds off economics, psychology, mathematics, political theory, history, and philosophy. In short, management is a liberal art..." - Peter Drucker

It is not new or earth-shattering to say that businesses need specialists in order to be successful.  Having people with specialized knowledge in areas related to the company's products, services, processes, network infrastructure, etc. enable the ability to serve customers and meet objectives on a continuing basis.  What is not often recognized, however, is the idea that generalists – especially in leadership positions – are just as critical to the organization’s success.

What is a Generalist?

A generalist is someone who has broad knowledge and skills, and understands the organization's high level system, including the hand-offs and interactions between people and processes.  A generalist is not usually interested in working and developing his or her skills within a single area but, being more of a systems thinker, is more motivated to learn about the big picture.

An organization can have the most talented specialists in the industry but be completely ineffective if these people are not able to agree on what's important and work together to turn their combined talents into commercial success.  By understanding the system, the generalist can bring value to the organization by focusing on overall company performance rather than attempting to optimize any single function or area.  For this reason, generalists often excel in leadership positions and cross-functional roles like project management and planning.

Why Generalists Are Necessary

By clearly understanding the company's high level value stream, the generalist is able to continually align the objectives of an area to those of the organization.  Creating the line of sight from the work performed to high-level objectives is a critical, but often missing, element of leadership in many companies.

No matter how talented a company’s specialists are; without a common direction and continual effort to improve the way people interact and work together, there is no "organization" - there are only individuals working on what each feels is most important.

Peter Drucker wrote that management is a liberal art in that it requires skill from many different disciplines including psychology, sociology, history, and others.  W. Edwards Deming included psychology, learning, variation, and systems thinking as components of leadership in his System of Profound Knowledge, connecting them to successfully motivating, aligning, and developing people toward the organization’s purpose. 

Harnessing the Company's Talent

The obsession many companies have had with specialists over the years has created a shortage of generalists that is hampering growth and success.  As a result, many companies are full of great ideas, new technologies, and brilliant technical minds but aren't able to transform them into consistent commercial success.  A company may be staffed with highly skilled scientists, engineers, and chemists, but if it is not turning its knowledge into viable products or services, it is compromising its future.

Whenever hiring or promoting someone into a leadership position, a person with a varied background tends to be more effective than someone whose experience and training is completely focused on the function the person is expected to lead.  For example, a candidate for a quality management position who has experience in procurement and/or operations in addition to quality is often more effective than one who only has quality control or quality assurance experience .

It's in the Mix

Success in business requires having and leading people to consistently achieve stretch objectives that are aligned with the organization’s vision.  To do this successfully requires respecting the different talents people have and understanding how best to position and organizing everyone to serve the customer effectively.  A critical element of this involves having the right mix of generalists and specialists to assure success.

Beware the Next Management Fad

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“It does not happen all at once.  There is no instant pudding.” – W. Edwards Deming

I recently read an article in the February issue of Fortune magazine entitled, The Algorithmic CEO that starts out with, “Get ready for the most sweeping business change since the Industrial Revolution.” The article goes on to tout mathematical algorithms as the most important instrument of change in business today, and credits the success of companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple to mathematics.

I am not arguing with the importance of math to the success of business, but as I read the article, I couldn’t stop thinking “here we go again.”  Another fad representing itself as the one piece of the puzzle that will lead us to the promise land.

We are constantly looking for the quick answer to success and can’t – or don’t – want to understand that it is the result of learning, improving, and pretty much doing a lot of things well.  There is no quick answer to make it happen – it requires hard work and requires a lot of focus, humility, a method to continually improve, and a whole lot of patience.

Management Fads

The article made me remember all the management fads I’ve run into during my career, and how they did little more than distract organizations and make a lot of money for consultants and authors.  It also reminded me of the words of W. Edwards Deming and how we will jump on anything that promises a quick fix to business problems.

As I thought about the numerous management fads through the ages, a few stood out as particularly annoying.

• Six Sigma (yes, six sigma): I had to put this one first because it’s the most recent distraction from working on true improvement.  In a 2013 article in Inc. magazine, Geoffrey James wrote that six sigma results in, “a hierarchy of ‘belted’ experts who run around the company pretending that they know how to do other people's work better than the people who actually do the work. Endless meetings ensue, with little or no effect,” and I can’t agree more.  A 2007 Bloomberg article on the problems Home Depot was experiencing at the time wrote that store workers complained that the constant data measurement “sapped time given to customers.”  Those who have read my posts in the past already know my thoughts on six sigma, so I’ll stop here.
• Business Process Reengineering (BPR): BPR consists of a “blank sheet” approach to designing an organizations critical processes. At the time, it was touted as a way to achieve dramatic improvements in quality and productivity.  Besides the obvious problems of starting from scratch rather than understanding the existing process - including the current problems it’s experiencing - and changing it one element at-a-time to enable it to continue to operate and assure it’s actually improving, BPR somehow turned into a vehicle for layoffs.  I remember people telling me at the time that they were “engineered out of a job.” 
• Management by Objectives (MBO): I don’t have a problem with the philosophy of MBO as Peter Drucker created it.  Determining the organization’s high-level objectives and aligning the objectives of teams and individuals to achieve them sounds logical, and a whole lot like policy deployment.  Once the business world got ahold of it, however, it morphed into something destructive.  Objectives were often disconnected –almost random – and resulted in destroying teamwork by putting people to work on meeting personal objectives whether or not they actually helped the organization as a whole.  Drucker wrote that MBO requires a lot of effort to clarify and align objectives, but many who used it decided to shortcut the process, making it highly ineffective.
• MRP, MRP II, ERP, etc.: I remember reading a report from the 1980s by a team of American manufacturing experts who traveled to Japan to study Japanese production techniques. The report touted the work of quality circles and focus on continually improving processes throughout the plants.  One of the conclusions of the study, however, was related to that Japanese automakers would be even more successful if they replaced their kanban systems with MRP.  Companies were certified for applying MRP (offered, by the way, by a company that provided MRP consulting services), and built staffs to manage the system as inventories grew, costs rose, and on-time delivery of products fell.

I know that the author of the Fortune article is just trying to get the attention of business leaders by comparing math algorithms to the Industrial Revolution, but it’s frustrating to think we could be facing another distraction to instituting strong leadership in organizations.  To credit the success of companies like Apple and Amazon to their use of math is a stretch.  These companies have strong and focused leadership that is on providing products and services that continually make life easier for their customers and team members.  Although they use math as a tool to help the business, it is but one part of the equation that won’t work without engaged leaders who understand and improve their ability to manage the overall system.

2013 Annual Management Improvement Carnival: The Drucker Exchange

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For my second post in the 2013 Management Improvement Carnival hosted by Curious Cat Management Improvement blog, I decided to review The Drucker Exchange. The exchange is a daily blog hosted by the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. The mission of the institute is "strengthening organizations to strengthen society."

I'm a huge fan of Peter Drucker, and don't believe that many people really understand his contributions to the development of lean and continuous improvement. Many point to the negative effect Management by Objectives (MBO) had on business as an argument to dismiss Drucker's philosophy altogether.

For the record, Drucker was not happy with the way business implemented MBO. He once wrote, "Management by Objectives works if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don't." And in W. Edwards Deming's well-publicized criticism of MBO, I don't believe he was attacking the process as much as he was attacking the way people applied it.

Among many other practices, Peter Drucker was instrumental in the development of hoshin kanri. And much of what Drucker wrote about - including the importance of social responsibility and development of people - are well aligned with lean leadership values.

The Drucker Exchange

For anyone who wants to learn or stay current on the teachings of Peter Drucker, it is logical to go directly to the place he lived and worked. He spent 30 years as a professor in Claremont - at one time actually teaching Japanese art at Pomona College. The Drucker Exchange blog is maintained by the institute that he helped create.

I subscribe to the weekly digest and, although the messages tend to build up in my inbox, I do read them and access the blog on a fairly regular basis. The posts are generally short enough to read within a few minutes, although many of them require a good deal of reflection and thought to make the connections to everyday situations and facilitate learning.

I don't necessarily agree with everything that is published on the site (as shown below), but I still enjoy reading the posts. Probably because of the brevity of many of the articles, though, I find myself preparing to forward them to others only to change my mind by the time I get to the end.  I'm sure this is a personal thing - as I prefer fewer but longer posts that cover an idea in depth, than a lot of short, brief articles.

As it is with any visionary, Drucker's teachings would have continued to change over the years and, being administered by some of the people who worked with him, the blog attempts to stay current and write from the perspective of what he would be teaching today.

Examples of some of the posts on the site - and my thoughts about them - include the following

Process is a Prison: The article presents the argument that process standardization can go too far and actually interfere with success. The author discusses how a sales process can become ineffective by establishing controls that are too tight and beyond a reasonable level. Although I agree that it is possible to over-standardize a process, I found the example to be a bit of a stretch. In my experience, I find that a lack of standardization is much more of a problem than over-standardizing. The detail of a procedure or instruction should be to the extent necessary to assure effectiveness. In manufacturing, for example,where more of the environment can be controlled, standard work can be much tighter than in a sales situation. With that said, however, I believe that a sales process can also benefit from some level of standardization.  In fact, the consequences of a lack of standardization in sales can be just as destructive for the company as overstandardizing. Failing to standardize the sales process puts the focus entirely on results - ignoring the impact of process - and can result in breaking down teamwork, as well as negatively impacting customer service.

Generally, I felt that the post provides ammunition for people to shoot down the need for standardization - which I'm hoping is not the intention of the author.

It's also important to note that standardized work defines how a process should operate - not necessarily how it always operates. In this case, it helps identify circumstances where the standard breaks down - either not possible to follow or causes problems - to drive improvement activity. As with most business processes, the key to determining the need and extent of standardization - whether producing a product or selling insurance - has to begin with the customer.

Jeff Bezos, Risk-Averse Rebel: An insightful post that demonstrates a real world example of tying innovation to a culture of improvement. The post discusses how Amazon did not originally have a company-focused effort on the kindle. It was the culture of innovation that led to the product's development and success. By creating an environment that emphasizes innovative thinking, Amazon always has several new ideas working at all times and some will work out and some will not - The premise is, the higher the number of innovative ideas being worked at a company, the lower the risk associated with each one becomes. Through this type of thinking, the process of analyzing and bringing ideas to market also improves over time; something that is not likely to happen if the company focused on each new product as an isolated effort.

Although we don't necessarily see it referenced directly in articles and blog posts, Amazon has a lot of characteristics of a lean thinking organization.  Like Amazon's focus on innovation, a lean environment emphasizes PDCA thinking, which creates a workforce that is always looking for problems and thinking of ways to improve. The business result is not as important as the effort because the more people become involved in and are recognized for pursuing kaizen, the more positive business results will occur.

The Business of Building Great People: Covers the story of Barry-Wehmiller, a St. Louis-based company that focuses on developing and respecting people. In line with a lean mindset, the company demonstrates the idea that, although results are obviously important, long-term success can only be achieved by looking at the things that cause the results - continual improvement of processes and people. B-W understands this link and strongly emphasizes and actively practices the development of its people.

Why “Pay For Performance” Is a Sham: An excellent commentary on the importance of process when understanding results. The post highlights skyrocketing CEO pay and how boards are justifying it by tying salary/bonuses to results, which leads to short-term thinking and long-term damage to the organization. If process is not considered (e.g., people hiring and development, capital investments, business planning processes, management of innovation), we end up spending more time justifying compensation than making the company successful.

This is just a small sample of the type of posts that make up The Drucker Exchange. It is a great way to stay current with the type of thinking that drove the works of Peter Drucker.

More on the 2013 Management Blog Review can be found in the Curious Cat Management blog at http://curiouscat.com/management/carnival/2013.

Should We Focus on Strengths or Weaknesses?

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It takes far less energy to move from first-rate performance to excellence than it does to move from incompetence to mediocrity. – Peter Drucker

Most people would agree that developing people is an important component of building a successful company.  Although it is fairly common for organizations to have some sort of process aimed at developing people, however, very few seem to be effective at truly improving individual performance.
In many organizations, the development process consists of little more than an annual or semi-annual meeting between boss and worker where strengths are briefly mentioned and weaknesses are covered in detail.  After all, we feel good about a person’s strengths, so why should we waste time discussing them?  If we can improve or eliminate a person’s weaknesses, the individual and the organization will improve, right?

In The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker wrote that, by focusing on our weaknesses, the best we can achieve is mediocrity.  If, on the other hand, we work on further developing our strengths, we can achieve greatness.

We excel in the areas that motivate us, while our weaknesses tend to consist of the things that do not interest us or, for whatever reason, we are unable to improve.  Focusing attention on developing the things we either can’t improve or aren’t interested in improving leads to frustration, stress, and de-motivation.

Motivation results when people when we are able to create a workplace where people can have fun.  One important aspect of this is assuring that people are able to effectively utilize and develop their strengths.

Addressing the Organization’s Weaknesses

While it is important to understand the skill gaps that exist within the organization, closing them requires an effective hiring process that enables the right mix of talent and ability to operate effectively.  In other words, successful leadership requires putting together a team where individual strengths complement one another and people are able to effectively cover each other’s weaknesses.

Besides the negative effects on motivation, attempting to close gaps by forcing people to work on their weaknesses takes attention away from further developing strengths which can be much more valuable to the organization and the individual in the long run.

Blog Carnival 2012 - Peter Drucker's Management Philosophy

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One of my favorite blogs on leadership is John Hunter’s Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections.  Besides a number of informative posts on a variety of improvement-related topics, John regularly hosts a management blog carnival, where various business and leadership blogs are featured.

This year, I’m happy to participate in the carnival with information on some of the blogs I read on a regular basis.  Reviews of all of the blogs featured in this year’s carnival can be found at http://curiouscat.com/management/carnival_2012.cfm. 

My first review in this year’s carnival is Peter Drucker’s Management Philosophy by Jorrian Gelink.  I don’t know Jorrian personally, but after reading his blog, he is obviously a Drucker zealot with excellent insight into Peter Drucker’s management philosophy.

Peter Drucker’s teachings are closely aligned with a lean mindset.  I have always found the information he provided to be a great fit with W. Edwards Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge, and a necessary component of effective leadership.  Although Deming regularly attacked Management by Objectives (MBO), I believe he was more disappointed with how MBO was implemented than the method itself.  In fact, Drucker even said that MBO only works if objectives are carefully thought through, and that 90% of the time, they aren’t.

I believe much of Drucker’s teachings have been lost over the last several years, as companies look for quick and easy ways to “become lean.”  I applaud Gelink for keeping it alive and using it to teach current and future leaders that Drucker’s philosophy is as relevant today as it was when he was alive.  I enjoy reading Gelink’s posts and expect to continue to learn from the Peter Drucker’s Management Philosophy in the future.

Gelink organizes the blog into four main sections:  Executive Basics, Management Basics, People Management, and Entrepreneurship.  There is also an excellent search tool that makes it easy to find posts on a number of management topics.  A sample of Jorrian’s posts is listed below:

Fear of Conflict – Why Conflict is Necessary  An excellent summary of the benefits of healthy conflict in any organization.  The post reminds me of The Abliene Paradox by Jerry B. Harvey; a story where family members agree to drive 53 miles to Abilene for lunch, even though nobody really wants to do it.  To avoid conflict, however, they all go along, have a terrible time, and blame each other upon returning home.  Unfortunately, too many organizations suffer from the Abilene Paradox because of the absence of open, healthy conflict.

In the post, Jorrian writes, “the result of a stronger, discussed plan is increased effectiveness, and overall satisfaction of those involved because their input was considered into it.”

What is Our Mission?  The Heart of the Organization  Whether deploying lean or not, the importance of a clear and unchanging purpose is critical to success.  Without a clear mission, there is no team – there is only a group of individuals who define success on their own terms.  Any success without a consistent purpose is accidental and destined to be short-lived.

In providing direction for defining the purpose, Jorrian wrote, “the mission starts with what is on the outside of the organization; not with what is inside.  Entrepreneurs that fail are the ones that do what they want to do, instead of what their customer wants.”  Examples of mission statements from successful technology-based companies are provided within the post.

In Personal Development – Becoming Effective in Your Role, Jorrian provides the distinction between being effective and efficient, specifically that effectiveness results from doing the right things.

The post hits on one of Drucker’s most important teachings – the idea that understanding, developing, and continually using your strengths is what leads to success.  Jorrian writes that aligning individual strengths with the organization will lead to increased effectiveness and personal success.

I have so many interesting books on reading list that I will never have the time to complete.  As with Deming, I learn a great deal each time I re-read one of Drucker’s books because he had so much to teach.  Reading Peter Drucker’s Management Philosophy allows me to keep up on Drucker’s theories even when I don’t have the time to re-read his books.

More information on the 2012 Management Improvement Blog Review can be found at http://curiouscat.com/management/carnival_2012.cfm.  For specific posts from this year’s carnival, please go to http://management.curiouscatblog.net/category/carnival/.

Where are the Generalists?

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"[Management is] an integrating discipline of human values and conduct, of social order and intellectual inquiry, [a discipline that] feeds off economics, psychology, mathematics, political theory, history, and philosophy. In short, management is a liberal art..." - Peter Drucker

Businesses need specialists in order to be successful – this is nothing new or earth shattering.  Having people with specialized knowledge in areas related to the company's products, services, processes, network infrastructure, etc. enable the ability to serve customers and meet objectives on a continuing basis.  What many people do not realize, however, is that having generalists – especially in leadership positions – is just as critical to the organization’s success.

What is a Generalist?

A generalist is someone who has broad knowledge and skills, and understands the organization's high level system, including the hand-offs and interactions between people and processes.  A generalist is not usually interested in working and developing his or her skills within a single area but is more motivated to learning more about the big picture.  He or she is much more comfortable learning a little about many subjects than learning a lot about a single subject.

An organization can have the most talented specialists in the industry but be completely ineffective if these people are not able to agree on what's important and work together to turn their combined talents into commercial success.  By understanding the system, the generalist can bring value to the organization by focusing on overall company performance rather than attempting to optimize any single function or area.  For this reason, generalists often excel in leadership positions and cross-functional roles like project management and planning.

Why Generalists Are Necessary

By clearly understanding the company's high level value stream, the generalist is able to continually align the objectives in one area to those of the organization.

No matter how talented a company’s specialists are; without a common direction and continual effort to improve the way people interact and work together, there is no "organization" - there are only individuals working on what each feels is most important.

Peter Drucker wrote that management is a liberal art in that it requires skill from many different disciplines including psychology, sociology, history, and others.  W. Edwards Deming included psychology, learning, variation, and systems thinking as components of leadership in his System of Profound Knowledge.  What Deming and Drucker were referring to was that management is a role for generalists.

Harnessing the Company's Talent

The obsession many companies have had with specialists over the last several years has created a shortage of generalists that is hampering growth and success.  As a result, many companies are full of great ideas, new technologies, and brilliant technical minds but aren't able to transform them into consistent commercial successful.  A company may be staffed with highly skilled scientists, engineers, and chemists, but if it is not turning this knowledge into viable products or services, it is compromising its future.

Whenever hiring or promoting someone into a leadership position, I have found that a person with a varied background tends to be more effective than someone whose experience and training is completely focused on the function the person is expected to lead.  For example, I would tend to favor a candidate for a quality management position who has experience in procurement and/or manufacturing in addition to quality than one who only has quality control or quality assurance experience.

It's in the Mix

Success in business requires having and leading people to consistently achieve high level objectives.  To do this successfully requires respecting the different talents people have and understanding how best to position and organizing everyone to serve the customer effectively.  This means having the right mix of generalists and specialists to assure success.

Strategy Deployment: Hoshin, PDCA & Drucker

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NOTE:  This blog is moving!  Please read future posts at http://leadingtransformation.wordpress.com 

In another chapter from the book of simple concepts that are difficult to implement comes the story of strategy deployment.  Over the years, I have seen some great business plans that failed to deliver because of the inability to stay focused and drive them into the organization.

Hoshin kanri is a process focused on setting direction, developing plans, and managing implementation.  Progress on the plan is continually reviewed to understand when adjustments are needed to achieve success.

There have been many books written about Hoshin Kanri that cover the subject in great depth.  And since I could never adequately cover the topic in detail in a short blog post, I’ll try to hit on what I consider to be the high points of the process.

Hoshin & Drucker

Much of the hoshin process appears to be aligned with Peter Drucker’s method of strategy deployment.  I have always considered the strength of Drucker’s approach to lie in his technique of continually asking a few simple questions to get people focused on what’s truly important.

What are we trying to achieve?
How are we doing?
What are we doing about it?

Hoshin Kanri follows a similar approach through the application of the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle to business planning.  Deploying strategy requires an obsessive focus on the few high-level objectives that are critical to success.  Utilizing Drucker’s simple questioning technique within a PDCA framework helps maintain focus by increasing understanding of the following:

PLAN:  What are our objectives?
DO:  What are our plans to meet objectives?
CHECK:  How are we doing?  Are our results meeting objectives?
ACT:  What are we doing about it?

Another benefit of PDCA in strategy deployment is that it drives home the idea that business planning is not a once per year exercise.  It is an ongoing process that needs continual reflection and adjustment to succeed.  There is no "new" plan each year - there is only a new revision that has been adjusted to account for progress and changes in the environment.

Deploying Strategy

 The initiatives that are developed from the business plan also go through the PDCA process to assure they continue to progress.  When doing the CHECK on each of the initiatives, the team should follow the general approach listed in the exhibit.  By creating the initiatives, the team is predicting that completing them will result in meeting one or more business objectives.  Because of this, it is important to review whether the initiative is progressing as planned and, if so, whether or not it is driving the desired results.

Although the Drucker questions appear simple, the answers can get fairly complex.  The key is to provide enough time to reflect on the answers in order to keep people focused on objectives.  The effectiveness of leadership, after all, lies in the ability to simplify complexity.  Whether using Hoshin Kanri or some other method, it is critical to utilize some type of framework that enables this to occur.

Finding the Right Mix of Talent

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Success in Business Requires a Mix of Generalists AND Specialists


Most people understand that businesses need specialists in order to be successful.  Having people with specialized knowledge in areas related to the company's products, services, processes, network infrastructure, etc. enable the ability to serve customer needs on a continuing basis.  What many people don't realize, however, is that it is just as critical to success to have generalists in the organization.

What is a Generalist?

A generalist is someone who has broad knowledge and skills, and understands the organization's high level system, including the hand-offs and interactions between people and processes.  A generalist is not interested in working and developing his or her skills within a single area and is much more motivated to focus on the big picture.  He or she is much more comfortable learning a little about many subjects than learning a lot about a single subject.

An organization can have the most talented specialists in the industry but be completely ineffective if these people are not able to agree on what's important and work together to turn their combined talents into commercial success.  By understanding the system, the generalist can bring significant value to the organization by focusing on overall company performance rather than spending time attempting to optimize any single function.  For this reason, generalists often excel in leadership positions and cross-functional roles like project management and lean/six sigma facilitation.

Why Generalists Are Necessary

By understanding the company's high level value stream, the generalist is able to continually remind everyone of the importance of working in the same direction to achieve common objectives.

No matter how talented the specialists are, without a common direction and continual effort to improve the way people interact and work together, there is no "organization" - there are only individuals working on what each feels is most important.

Peter Drucker wrote that management is a liberal art in that it requires skill from many different disciplines including psychology, sociology, history, and others.  W. Edwards Deming included psychology, learning, theory of variation, and systems thinking as components of leadership in his Theory of Profound Knowledge.  Deming and Drucker were referring to the idea that management is a role for generalists.

Harnessing the Company's Talent

The obsession many companies have had with specialists over the last several years has created a shortage of generalists that is hampering growth and success.  As a result, many companies are full of great ideas and new technologies but aren't able to transform them into commercially successful products and services.  A company may be staffed with highly skilled scientists, engineers, and chemists, but if it is not turning this knowledge into viable products or services, it is wasting money (and talent) and compromising its future.

Whenever hiring or promoting someone into a leadership position, I have found that a person with a varied background tends to be more effective than someone whose experience and training is related only to the function the person is expected to lead.  For example, I would tend to favor a candidate for a quality management position who has experience in procurement and/or manufacturing in addition to quality than one who only has quality experience.

It's in the Mix

Success in business requires leading people to consistently achieve high level objectives.  To do this successfully requires respecting the different talents people have and understanding how best to position and organize everyone to serve the customer effectively.  This means having the right mix of generalists and specialists to assure success.

Company Purpose and Shareholder Value

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What is the purpose of a company?  It's one of those questions that has been debated since the beginning of the industrial revolution.  So, is it related to shareholders?  Customers?  Employees?

While presenting at a conference a few years ago, I surveyed those in attendance to discover what they felt the purpose was for the companies for which they worked.  77% of the people who responded (243 of 315) chose money as the reason their companies existed (e.g., earnings, shareholder value, etc.).

The results were not really surprising since the financial side of the business often receives the most attention by senior leaders.  Also, the actions taken in response to a decline in earnings tend to affect a greater number of employees than when the other parts of the business suffer.

Why it Matters

A company's purpose drives its business strategies, including direction, investment related to products and services, marketing, people development, and processes.  On the highest level, the purpose drives the decisions regarding whether the company will compete on the basis of innovation, low costs, or product and service features.

A clear purpose also helps to motivate people by giving meaning to the work they do and build teamwork by providing a common focus.  Without clarity, people will define the purpose in their own terms, resulting in internal battles and a breakdown in teamwork because of conflicting ideas regarding what the company is trying to achieve.

Is it Money?

Those who have read my book or other posts on this blog know that I believe a company's purpose should be focused on serving a need in society (in other words, providing something that potential customers value).  Although it is important for any company to be financially successful, this is the effect - not the cause - of serving customers well.

For example, suppose a privately-held manufacturer of relief valves defines its purpose as, to help protect homes and lives by providing high-quality and reliable temperature & pressure relief protection.  Further, suppose that the company's focus on offering highly reliable, easy-to-install valves at a reasonable price lead to dramatic success and growth.  To grow further, though, the decision is made to take the company public.

Now that it has become a publicly traded company, does it make sense for management to change its purpose from protecting homes and lives to increasing shareholder value?  In other words, should the focus now shift from customers to shareholders?  Obviously not, but this is, in effect, what many companies have done over the years.

What Others Have Said

Peter Drucker wrote that the purpose of a business is to create a customer.  In his book, The Practice of Management, Drucker wrote, "the profit motive and its offspring, maximization of profits, are just as irrelevant to the function of a business, the purpose of a business, and the job of managing.  In fact, the concept is worse than irrelevant.  It does harm.  It is the major cause for the misunderstanding of the nature of profit in our society and for the deep-seated hostility to profit which are among the most dangerous diseases of an industrial society."

Many people may be surprised to learn that, during a March 2009 interview with the Financial Times, Jack Welch [link] referred to focusing on shareholder value as a dumb idea.  Often considered as the creator of the shareholder value movement in business (a fact disputed by Welch), he added that, "shareholder value is a result, not a strategy," and that the main focus should be on employees, customers, and products.

Serve First, Collect Later

The point of all this is to emphasize the importance of developing (and sticking with) a clear purpose - and that it is not related to making money.  Focusing on financial gain leads to short-term decisions and cost cutting that, although well-intended, tend to damage the organization's future.  A focus on shareholder value may lead to satisfied stockholders (at least in the short-term), but dissatisfied customers and employees.  A focus on the customer, on the other hand, can lead to happy customers, employees, and shareholders.