{"id":2668,"date":"2013-09-13T15:20:26","date_gmt":"2013-09-13T14:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.icebreakerexecutive.com\/?p=2668"},"modified":"2013-09-13T15:20:26","modified_gmt":"2013-09-13T14:20:26","slug":"2013-strategy-deployment-survey-at-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/winningthinking.co.uk\/?p=2668","title":{"rendered":"2013 Strategy Deployment Survey &#8211; at last!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>\u00a0Thank you for your contribution to, and\/or interest in this survey. It has turned out to be <strong>more insightful than expected,<\/strong> with some of the brightest and most successful people I know having contributed.<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Tom Pickering\" src=\"https:\/\/origin.ih.constantcontact.com\/fs124\/1113584547552\/img\/8.jpg\" width=\"155\" height=\"233\" name=\"ACCOUNT.IMAGE.8\" align=\"right\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"5\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Background: what was it all about?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>People are a remarkable and unique business asset.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of the strategic intent of a business, if people are correctly engaged during the journey, they are able to <strong>transform<\/strong> that business&#8217;s capability.<\/p>\n<p>People, who are working in the <strong>right culture<\/strong>, with the right resources, targets, and support often over deliver and even define what&#8217;s next,.<\/p>\n<p>So it is not just about simply reaching the goal, capability building is <strong>determined by how you get there<\/strong> or the nature of the journey.<\/p>\n<p>I wanted to test our findings with a wider audience \/ specifically:<\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong>Is excellent strategy deployment in itself an effective means to transform business capability?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Common views:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Success is determined by <strong>line management capability<\/strong>, and far less dependent upon central project management.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Emotional intelligence<\/strong>, the right people, organisation and structure are <strong>the main enablers<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The right management skills to execute strategy are recognised, (but the links to the <strong>enabling attributes<\/strong> are not).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Maintaining margin<\/strong>, revenue and customer service are burning issues (all related and motivation-driven).<\/li>\n<li>Organisations have the right people in place (but only half of employees put their business&#8217;s interests first), or do they?<\/li>\n<li>A <strong>thinking workforce<\/strong> is a highly desired outcome.<\/li>\n<li>The ability to <strong>improve business as usual alongside strategy deployment is critical.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><strong>But the data also indicates:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A significant proportion doesn&#8217;t see the importance of an executive&#8217;s key role as a <strong>behavioural role model. <\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The <strong>lack of awareness<\/strong> of the enabling attributes and inaction &#8211; suggest there are blind spots.<\/li>\n<li>In some, the <strong>blind spots<\/strong> are almost total; or the enabling attributes have never been considered<\/li>\n<li>The results only make sense when considered at an individual level. If this was machine capability data, one would conclude the <strong>process is out of control!<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>There is not a significant pattern between responses to highlight &#8220;an <strong>emerging best practice<\/strong>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Strategy deployment seems to be <strong>underestimated in its complexity<\/strong>; (lack of self awareness and knowledge seem to be mitigated by tenacity and generalisations!).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>I think the <strong>inconsistency in awareness<\/strong> makes it difficult for organisations to humbly identify and act on the gaps to transform business capability. \u00a0 In fairness a lot of the underlying <strong>enabling capabilities<\/strong> are <strong>counterintuitive<\/strong> and not evident during the normal course of business.<\/p>\n<p>This leaves <strong>blind spots<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>So some organisations are <strong>unlikely to break this cycle<\/strong> and develop in these areas.\u00a0\u00a0 More broadly, there seems to be less value in long term strategy and <strong>more value in agility<\/strong>; the Chinese plan for the &#8220;fog of the future&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Icebreaker case studies show that change opportunities, managed correctly, do provide significant <strong>learning opportunities<\/strong> which if handled correctly transform business capability, create a <strong>thinking workforce<\/strong> and enduring legacy.\u00a0\u00a0 My proudest case study has now been usurped &#8211; my daughter, who has just been appointed head girl at her school.<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"null\" src=\"https:\/\/origin.ih.constantcontact.com\/fs124\/1113584547552\/img\/12.png\" width=\"146\" height=\"152\" name=\"ACCOUNT.IMAGE.12\" align=\"right\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"5\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Can people<\/strong> develop their emotional intelligence to transform a business?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yes<\/strong>, I have <strong> lots of case studies<\/strong> written by executives and owners that also show the <strong>significant financial return<\/strong> achieved when you get close to getting this right.<\/p>\n<p>If you would like to discuss this applied research, feel free to get in contact with me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Thank you for your contribution to, and\/or interest in this  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/winningthinking.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/winningthinking.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/winningthinking.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winningthinking.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winningthinking.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/winningthinking.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/winningthinking.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winningthinking.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winningthinking.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}