Lean Thinking

 

Want to Get Better at Strategic Execution? Simplify…

By Pascal Dennis, author of Getting the Right Things Done

Whether you are protecting your core business or igniting new Growth, Strategy execution entails making hundreds of decisions in a given year.
How do we make better decisions? Start by simplifying the chess board. Eliminate trivial, marginal, unnecessary and wasteful activities and factors. In Strategy papers, dashboards and problem-solving docs, eliminate the blah-blah-blah. Our mantra must be: ‘Target, Actual, and Please Explain.’  If we cannot explain our current condition in such clear, binary terms, we probably do not understand what’s going on.
In Chess, if you’re up a pawn on a full chessboard, a sure path to victory is to gradually simplify.
Eventually, your pawn and King face the opponent’s King, and victory is close.
Simplification in business serves the same purpose – the essentials stand out in sharp relief. We can begin to focus.
In our Digital world, simplification is counter intuitive. If we remove stuff from our chessboard, if we clean up our various ‘screens’, we feel we’re missing something.  Being very busy is seen to be a badge of honor, but is it really? Our motto seems to be “A finger in every pie!”. But that leaves us with sticky fingers and a ruined pies! And sadly, it leaves some of us hollowed out & burned out.  

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If you accept my premise, the next question is: “How do we simplify?”
An excellent start is to reflect and confirm our Aspiration and Winning Logic.  Great leaders can summarize these in a short, succinct ‘elevator’ pitch.  In fact, these comprise the left side of our Control Tower (aka Obeya).
What are we trying to achieve? What’s our Shining City on the Hill?  And how are we going to get there? Can we make a ‘movie’ illustrating the key steps?
Define your Purpose & Winning Logic with drawings, dashboards, words and music if need be. Now remove the extraneous.
In Chess, purpose is clear – checkmate the opponent’s King!  Our Aspiration needs to be as clear. Our Winning Logic depends on the situation on the board, and the context & psychology of the encounter. We need to be able to boil all this down to a winning logic simple enough for a child to understand.  Beware the fugazzi!
A great chess player, general or football coach can articulate Aspiration & Winning Logic in a clear, simple and compelling way. And in the age of AI, charisma and leadership are going to be a killer app.

Best wishes, Pascal

E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

PS To learn more about my Strategy Execution program, Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World, feel free to drop me a line.