Symptoms

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, chances are good your company is facing a deeper conflict.  It’s in your best interest to identify the deeper root causes before investing in a solution.  Maximizing your Return on Investment in a solution and achieving sustained organizational health & improved financial performance should be your goal in dealing with deep seated performance problems, just as it is when making an investment in equipment, facilities, etc.  I would be pleased to help you understand the root causes to your performance challenges and to assess your solution and investment options.

Your Vision:  Where are you Going?  And Why?

• We are a bit uncertain, and confused about next steps to rebuild and grow our business.
• We tend to rely on the things that have worked in the past.
• We have many different opinions but don’t have a shared view on ‘Where do we go now?’ & little debate about the question.
• We don’t talk (or talk effectively) about the key issues or questions.
• We don’t all believe in or are committed to where we are going.
• Our people are waiting for direction.
• We are not sure if we should acquire Company X. Will it get us to where we want to go?  Are we aware of all the risks?

Your Strategy:  How do you plan on getting there?

• We have many strong opinions what the strategy should be and plan to achieve our goals but we don’t have a shared view.
• We don’t have a shared understanding of the market or our business.
• We are all not completely committed.
• The quality of our thinking and discussion about critical issues is low.
• When the stakes are high, we don’t have real conversations. We tend to dance around the issues and each other.
• Our confidence about moving forward is less than 75%.
• There is little debate or few interesting alternatives that are offered.
• We really aren’t sure what the ‘new market’ means to us.
• We don’t talk enough about The Customer or consider their views.
• We’re not focused enough on revenue generation. Cost cutting is still prevalent.  And we are very cautious about new investments.
• ‘Meet the new strategy, same as the old one.’ We’re going back to the past.
• Our strategy is disconnected from our operational processes.
• We need to innovate better.

Implementation:  How are you progressing on the path to get there?

• We miss targets.
• We don’t hold each other accountable.
• We aren’t fast enough or effective in working across teams or functions. (poor quality, delays, low customer satisfaction.)
• Silos: Teams, functions do their own thing; there’s little synergy or alignment.
• We often go back to the ‘old way.’
• We sometimes blame each other.
• We can’t seem to sustain our gains
• When we don’t hit goals, we adjust them.
• We are slow in implementing new initiatives, and can’t seem to sustain them.
• We must find more revenue generation opportunities; revenue growth is stagnant.
• We aren’t fast or good at innovation.
• We can’t sustain energy for new changes.
• Our people are sometimes confused or resistance to new initiatives or changes.
• We fight amongst ourselves. There’s tension between teams or business units.
• We don’t feel connected with each other.
• People don’t seem to know how to contribute to close our performance gaps.
• In past acquisitions, we often miss synergy targets, or take too long and suffer to much to hit them.

The Performance of your teams:  How well are you working together?

• We miss our targets.  We seem satisfied with underperformance.
• There is a wide variation of performance across our company.
• Our customers are complaining. We need more focus on customers
• Our leaders and managers have good intentions; but they aren’t able to manage the complexity, uncertainty, and change in our business environment.  They are overwhelmed and stressed.
• Our people have low energy and low engagement to the company.
• We don’t trust each other enough.
• There seems to be little accountability.
• We don’t have open conversations; we can’t give feedback very well.
• We don’t learn from our past performance (good or bad) very well.
• People and groups are resistant to change.
• Why can’t they just ‘Get It?’
• We have turf wars and infighting. Teams / units blame the other.
• Teams and business units seem focused only on their own results.
• Our people aren’t proactive; they wait for leaders to solve problems
• ‘1 Step Forward, 2 Steps Back’.

Assessing Performance & Solving Problems:  Do you know what’s holding you back?  How do you learn?

• We are frustrated and tend to blame each other about nagging, recurring problems; and we are confused about how to solve them.
• We don’t know what’s keeping us from being more successful.
• ‘Fixed’ problems come back; and at times, worse than before.