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The following video builds on my recent videos ”The #1 Reason Growth Stalls”, "What’s the role of an effective CEO?", and “A Great Book On Your True CEO Role”
I'll discuss what the best selling business book Scaling Up says about these practices in the next 5 Minute Growth Tip.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here
A third problem is a lack of a framework and consistent language and definitions. When one person uses the term targets and another person talks about goals, are they talking about the same thing? This often leads to confusion and vagueness, resulting in misalignment.
A solution to these three problems is a One Page Strategic Plan (OPSP). Verne Harnish, speaker, trainer and CEO of Scaling Up, formally Gazelles, which I was trained by, first introduced the One Page Strategic Plan format in his popular book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. The One Page Strategic Plan is just that, one page. It includes brief statements capturing the company’s philosophy (eg. values, purpose, vision), strategy, 3 year plan, as well as 1 year and quarterly plans, including specific numerical targets and priorities for change and improvement. Each component of the OPSP has consistent language and clear definitions. It’s reviewed and updated at least quarterly to make adjustments and add the next quarter’s 90-day plan. Having the plan all on one page means it’s quick and easy to review, reference and update. Its brevity forces executive teams to get really clear and aligned about each of their decisions. While the full one page strategic plan is used for the company plan, which the CEO should ultimately own, certain parts of the one page strategic plan can be used by each leader to create a plan for their own area that supports the company plan. For example, what targets is Marketing shooting for next year, and what improvements will they make, to support the company’s goal of increasing revenue by 20%? 2. Annual and Quarterly Planning So how can an executive team work together to come up with a one page plan that they are all aligned on? A disciplined rhythm of executive team annual and quarterly planning has become the standard for the best small to mid-size companies. This rhythm ensures that an executive team adjusts its competitive strategy annually and agrees on its goals and top priorities for the coming year, while also breaking down the execution of the annual plan into more specific and manageable quarterly plans. The quarterly planning approach also gives the team the flexibility to adjust their plans as they learn through action what works and what doesn’t. It also allows them to adjust course as the market and organization evolves. An annual and quarterly planning rhythm is made a lot easier to organize and run when you have a seasoned executive team coach. 3. Individual Roles and Expectations It’s one thing to come up with a plan that the executive team is all aligned on. It’s another to be aligned on how they are going to make that plan happen. Who will do what depends on what each leader’s role is. All too often role disconnects or confusion create misalignment around who should tackle what part of the company plan. The greater misalignment comes in how each leader runs their own area. When leaders on an executive team aren’t all on the same page about their respective roles and accountabilities, there can be duplication of effort, mixed-messages to the organization, leaders being stretched thin, and/or critical work not getting done. As well, if leaders aren’t clear on what’s expected of them and their peers, standards and targets may not be met by certain areas, which can then affect other areas’ ability to deliver. Furthermore, when expectations about leadership and management practices aren’t clear and aligned across the executive team, it creates misalignment across the organization as a whole. Their team members will have widely varying experiences as employees. The level of understanding of goals and priorities for the company and different areas will result in teams working at cross-purposes with each other, if not out-right competing. The solution has three parts: clarifying roles, results and expectations. a) Clarify what executive team level functions are needed in the company and which executive team leader will be accountable for each. We use what’s called a Functional Accountability Chart exercise - or FACe - to clear this up. b) Define visually what each function is accountable to produce and what other function or functions they produce it for. This creates what we call a Key Function Flow Map (KFFM), which shows how business comes into the company and flows from one function to the next until money shows up in the bank account. This gets the executive team aligned around how they need to work with each other to achieve results for the company overall. c) Each leader on the executive team creates their own job scorecard, based on the function(s) they are accountable for and the results they produce in the flow of work (KFFM). It includes the purpose of their function, the results, metrics and targets they are to achieve, their responsibilities and authority, and the competencies they need to be successful. We covered the job scorecard in a previous article. Once complete, it’s important that the executive team review their Functional Accountability Chart and Key Function Flow Map at least once a year, if not more often, to identify any shifts in roles that are needed as the company evolves and grows. As well, any material changes to any job scorecards should be shared with the whole team for awareness. More significant changes may warrant discussing them as a team before finalizing them. 4. Efficient Executive Team Buy-in Rather than a CEO coming up with the plan and each leader’s role(s), and simply delegating activities to team members, they need to shift to making decisions for the company in collaboration with the members of their executive team. This will enable them and their team members to make decisions they’re all committed to. This doesn’t mean the CEO doesn’t get the final say. It’s how they get to a final decision that needs to be adjusted. Patrick Lencioni, in his best-selling book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, called this approach “disagree and commit”.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here
The real work is in the Leading Results. We identified crucial predictive indicators like customer loyalty, employee engagement, and the percentage of A-player talent on your team. Giles backs this up, listing key results of great leadership as a higher density of top performers, better retention rates, and consistent growth.
The big takeaway here is clarity: If you’re not actively tracking and improving talent quality and engagement, your growth will be unpredictable. The Six Areas of CEO Activity The most powerful part of Giles's work is how his Five Key Roles—the blueprint for CEO effectiveness—align with the CEO’s Six Areas of Accountability we suggest to clients. 1. Strategy and Planning Giles calls this the Strategy role, and it’s about more than just having a plan. It means you own the long-term vision and differentiation. Giles’s work reinforces that you must work with your executive team to translate this vision into quarterly and annual execution plans. 2. Team Development Giles calls this the Accountability role. Accountability means more than just metrics; it’s about setting clear expectations, ensuring effective onboarding, and ultimately building a high-performing executive team. This is how you ensure the quality of the talent engine that drives your business. That said, our recommendation is to also focus on developing those leaders and building a unified team. 3. Organizational Communication While Giles covers this broadly under Accountability and Culture, our focus here is on the rhythm of execution. Your commitment to leading daily huddles, weekly meetings, middle-management meetings and company-wide town halls is crucial for keeping everyone aligned on the plan and progress. 4. Manage the Culture Giles confirms this as a distinct role: Culture. You are the chief champion of purpose and core values. Giles emphasizes that culture is the magnet for great people. Your job is to bring that purpose and those values alive by welcoming new hires, celebrating successes, and immediately addressing any breaches. 5. Strategic Relationships Giles calls you the Ambassador. This means managing the external ecosystem. You must cultivate your public profile, maintain key advisor connections, and, importantly, terminate underperforming partnerships to clear the path for growth. Giles’ work informed our decision to add some key activities to this area.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here
The following video builds on a recent video about the role of an effective CEO.
In our previous video, we discussed How to Create a CEO job scorecard,
To get our complimentary job scorecard template and draft CEO job scorecard to help get you started, contact me here.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here.
Benefits for the CEO: Clear Expectations: A clear CEO job scorecard defines what success looks like, providing objective benchmarks for performance. Strategic Focus: It helps you align your efforts with the highest value activities needed to lead your team and company to achieve your desired results. Ultimately, it helps you stay out of the weeds. CEO Development: It provides a clear basis for assessing what parts of a CEO job you’re doing well and what parts can be improved to become more effective. Values Reinforcement: It helps you focus on your company‘s core values and specific behaviours in order to set an example for the organization. Succession Planning: It helps define the ideal profile for a future CEO successor, so you can proactively develop internal candidates, or if needed, find and select an ideal external candidate. Key Components of A Job Scorecard: Following is an overview of all the essential elements of a clear job scorecard. Also feel free to contact me [link to contact me form page] to access, at no charge, the job scorecard template I use with clients, or use the form in this article. Purpose of the Job: This is a concise, one-line statement that captures the primary outcome or key result your role is intended to produce. It should clearly articulate the fundamental reason the job exists and its most significant contribution to the company. Feel free to contact me [link to contact me form page] to access our draft CEO job scorecard that includes the purpose of the CEO job that we recommend to clients, or use the form in this article. Company Core Values and Behaviors: This section outlines the core values of your company and the specific behaviors that exemplify them. List each core value and the observable behaviors associated with each. This serves as a personal guide and sets a powerful example for the entire organization, demonstrating the importance of living these values from the top down. Identifying your company’s core values and behaviours is best done with your executive team, to ensure full buy-in. However, make sure you believe in them too, because you’ll need to promote and enforce them on an ongoing basis. Results, Metrics and Standard Targets: This section focuses on the "whats" of the job – the measurable outcomes that demonstrate your success. As discussed in a previous article on the role of an effective CEO [link to article], this should include both lagging company results, like key financial numbers, as well as leading company results related to the market, customers and employees. Our draft CEO job scorecard also gives you a running start at these metrics. Then identify the standard mid-level, top-end and bottom-end targets for each metric. Areas of Accountability and Responsibilities: Responsibilities are the job-specific duties and activities expected in your role, grouped into "areas of accountability" that represent common outcomes. Think of these as the "must-hows" – the non-negotiable ways of operating that are specific to your role and the company. This section should not list every single task but rather the critical activities that ensure you achieve your desired results and targets. As we covered in a previous article on the role of an effective CEO [link to article], the responsibilities of a CEO fall under the areas of: Strategy and Planning, Team Development, Organizational Communication, Managing the Culture, Strategic Partnerships, and Continuity Planning. The responsibilities we recommend are included in our draft CEO job scorecard. Authority: If you’re a hired CEO, this section clearly defines the decisions you, as CEO, have the authority to make, as well as any limitations on that authority. This type of clarity can make it easier for you to negotiate more authority than you may currently have, because the other areas of the job scorecard will provide assurance that you have things well under control. It can also help you ensure your owner or owners retain authority for the types of decisions you need them to make so that you have their full support. Some common types of authority we recommend are also included in our draft CEO job scorecard. Key Competencies: Competencies describe the essential skills and abilities required to perform your responsibilities and achieve your desired results. Select the behavioral competencies that are absolutely critical for anyone to be successful in the CEO role. This ensures the scorecard focuses on what is truly essential for your role. For a CEO, this can be a long list, including high level leadership competencies as well as more basic pre-requisite competencies also needed to be successful. We recommend a method to select these competencies and make them more manageable. A full list of potential competencies is included in our job scorecard template, and the essential ones we recommend for CEOs are included in our draft CEO job scorecard.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here
The following video builds on a previous video about how to become an effective CEO [link to previous vlog].
Want to listen to the tip? Use the play button below. Contact me to get our complimentary job scorecard template and draft CEO job scorecard to help get you started, or use the form in this vlog. If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here
Disciplined planning and execution was more challenging for him because of his creative, entrepreneurial mind. But he appreciated the importance of it due to his desire for thinking things through and creating stability and predictability for his team.
As well, I was, as usual, facilitating each of his leadership team’s annual and quarterly planning and monthly check-in meetings, so he didn’t have to worry about running the process, just participating and being the leader. With some guidance on organizational communication and managing the culture, he took these on and improved, despite these not being his strong-suits. Team development was his biggest challenge, despite being totally bought into the importance of employee engagement and creating a strong culture. When we started, he and his leadership team preferred the approach of hiring people with little experience for low rates and having them learn by doing the job. But he was regularly disappointed by their mistakes and performance, and the resulting disappointed customers. And he would get frustrated that they didn't seem to care about the customer or good customer service. Early on, I introduced him and his leadership team to the notion of A-players - employees who perform very well in their roles and who also fit the culture. I also introduced the processes to confidently find and select A-players, pay them more, but need fewer of them.
His operations leader made several attempts to hire A-player technicians. But they often turned out not to be.
It became apparent that his operations leader also struggled with effective training, coaching and holding people accountable. The CEO had been very laissez faire and too trusting with this B player leader. But he would also jump into problem solving when there were issues with front line staff. I challenged him to coach this leader up or out. This meant the CEO providing guidance and coaching to the operations leader to better coach their people to improve their performance. The CEO found this difficult because he didn't feel he was a good coach. So how could he coach his leader to coach better? But I provided some guidance to him and his leadership team on coaching, and to the CEO one on one.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here.
The following video builds on my previous video about the role of an effective CEO.
We’ll discuss how to create a clear job scorecard in our next 5 Minute Growth Video.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here
1. Strategy and Planning
An effective CEO is accountable for the company’s long-term business strategy, establishing key organizational metrics and overseeing strategic development for business success. This includes understanding the market, customers, and determining the company’s differentiation. The CEO works with their executive team to develop annual and quarterly plans to execute on that strategic direction. 2. Team Development A CEO is also responsible for ensuring clear expectations for their executive team members, hiring and retaining top talent, and ensuring new team members are sufficiently onboarded. They conduct regular feedback and development discussions, empowering their direct reports and establishing clear accountability. Ultimately they build a unified, high-performing executive team. 3. Organizational Communication An effective CEO leads organizational communication by conducting monthly and weekly meetings, and daily huddles, with their executive team to coordinate the efficient execution of their plans. They work with their executive team to keep the middle managers and whole organization up to date on plans and progress through regular middle management meetings, company-wide town-halls and CEO updates.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here.
The following video builds on my previous video about how to become an effective CEO.
.We’ll share the CEO effectiveness journey of one of our clients in our next 5 Minute Growth Video.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here
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