Can the Gaps in the Employer - Employee Perception be closed?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?     Part 13

I am re-posting this as a way of re-setting the stage for the rest of "Strategy Doesn't Matter?". The next installment, "Train, but Train What", will follow next week.

A previously quoted Forbes talent retention article, by Mike Myatt, echoed a great number of past surveys and studies:

“When examining the talent at any organization look at the culture, not the rhetoric – look at the results, not the commentary about potential despite some of the delusional perspective in the corner office, when we interview their employees, here’s what they tell us:

·      More than 30% believe they’ll be working someplace else inside of 12 months. 

·      More than 40% don’t respect the person they report to.

·      More than 50% say they have different values than their employer.

·      More than 60% don’t feel their career goals are aligned with the plans their employers have for them.

·      More than 70% don’t feel appreciated or valued by their employer.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2012/12/13/10-reasons-your-top-talent-will-leave-you/

Mike Myatt also said,
“How can we resolve these gaps in perception?

·      Thorough communication and manager training!

·        Even the best intended HR programs (and strategy) fall flat without proper communication.

·        Often times our employees aren’t fully aware of all the organization is doing for them or how much the organization is spending on programs.

·         Moreover, all the communication in the world won’t offset a [poor and/or] poorly informed manager.

·         Managers need to be trained not only on understanding and evangelizing (advertising) the company message, but also on bringing concerns back to HR so employee issues can be addressed.”

The first step in forming a successful strategy is knowing, not assuming.  Investigate and gather the

facts. A strategy vision without implementation knowledge and communication is doomed. A

strategy anchored in knowledge, faithfully executed and communicated will become the new cultural

norm. 

What is your current norm?

Next:  Train, but train what?

Can the Employee – Employer Disconnect be Solved?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?       Part 12

It is all about being disconnected from what you and your organization think, believe or want to believe and what actually exists within your company or organization.  A June 2012 white paper on a Kenexa survey (an IBM RPO Company), produced these results: 

Engaged
69 percent of employers believe employees are engaged, while only 34 percent of employees claim to be. Engagement means different things to different people. For employers, engagement can be represented by employee productivity, attendance and development. For employees, engagement may be more about feelings than actions.

Recommend Us!
81 percent of HR professionals think employees would recommend the organization to a friend. Only 38 percent actually would. If your employees aren’t fully engaged, they might consider leaving the organization. Bringing a friend into an organization that you aren’t fully engaged with might affect a personal relationship—a risk many aren’t willing to take.

Fair Benefits
71 percent of HR professionals think the organization has fair benefits while only 48 percent of employees agree with this statement. Communication is key for employees to understand their benefits package and how much the organization spends on their benefits, particularly when it comes to health care. Employees might only notice when they pay more out of pocket for benefits, when in reality both employees and employers are sharing a growing cost.

Compensation
53 percent of HR professionals think they provide fair compensation compared to only 30 percent of employees. After a few years of tight budgets, organizations are starting to give reasonable increases, but not yet at pre-recession levels. Focus on key employees to ensure top talent is compensated fairly. 

Retention
83 percent of HR professionals think their employees plan to stay for the next year.  [Only] 41 percent of employees agree with this statement. With engagement low and belief that compensation and benefits aren’t fair, it should come as no surprise that employees aren’t committed to their organization. Moreover, through the recession, many employees stayed with their organization out of a need for security. Now that organizations are hiring again, loyalty starts to waver.

http://www.kenexa.com/Portals/0/Downloads/Employee%20Attitudes%20and%20Engagement.pdf

Note:  Making certain you are paying competitive wages means 50% of the companies are paying more and you’ll only be average.  As Chuck Csizmar covers in Compensation Café, “Competitive Pay Is Not Enough”.

Next: Can the gaps in the employer – employee perception be closed?

Can we change how Human Resources is perceived?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?      Part 11

As part of a culture change a first step in re-connecting the workforce/employees with the employer is personalizing their value and worth as individually and collectively unique as possible.  Anyone and everyone is a human… a homo sapien.   To emphasize the personal, Human Resource/Human Capital functions must become People and Talent functions.  Many comment a name change doesn’t change the function….but the HR function needs to become more pro-people in order to make the most of our Talent assets by making the workforce a positive pro-company/organization force.  To think HR business as usual is OK is like the ostrich who thinks they can’t be seen by sticking their head in the sand.

In fact, by using People and/or Talent Resources or People or Talent Capital, we would better describe our people as the assets they really are and we purport them to be, rather than “humans”.  We are way past due for a culture change within HR!  This applies equally to SHRM and many other current professional HR organizations.  We are all PEOPLE, individual persons, and People are our Talent!

More modern People and Talent organizations use these more descriptive, friendlier and people oriented terms versus human(s).  Most larger and progressive organizations tend to use Talent when talking about recruiting as Talent Acquisition or separate the two into management and leadership acquisition and (people) recruitment when it is applied to more repetitive hiring.  Under Talent Management is Talent Acquisition, coupled to Training and Development within Centers of Excellence or a company University, and some sort of Succession Planning and Management and/or Leadership Development.  However, many if not most progressive companies still use “Human Resources” as a description of location processing paperwork, hires, new hire orientations, discipline, performance, firing, etc. 

In general Human Resources functions within these types of larger organizations do the valuable and required nuts and bolts work we depend on in our day to day employee business dealings.  Why not name them for what they do - People Services Department? This also means instead of a Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) we will have a Chief People Officer (CPO), Chief Talent Officer (CTO) or Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), a combined title.  This should extend throughout the department:  VP of People or Talent, Director of People or Talent, People Manager, etc

According to Joyce L. Gioia’s, “What Will Human Resources Look Like in the ….Future?” , HR will be responsible for the candidate and employee experience.

http://www.workforce.com/article/20130403/DEAR_WORKFORCE/130409988/what-will-human-resources-look-like-in-the-near-future

Many companies have already arrived and currently accomplish this task.  Engaging and training people for the employee experience has become or will our most critical duty.   I believe re-naming and re-titling the functions to accurately describe what we do and who we personally support and value, individually and collectively, is an essential first step!

Next:  Can the employee - employer disconnect be solved?

Why Do Stuck Wages Affect Business Growth?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?      Part 9

I believe there is a direct correlation between the prior list of 9 reliable major reports/statistics and employee dissatisfaction, disengagement and anger with employers.  I also believe there is a direct correlation between the lack of private sector growth, profits and, consequently, job growth.  I believe we will find the same 70-90% of employers who are in violation of DOL and employment laws are the very same employers whose employees are unengaged, dissatisfied and angry.  At 70 - 90% non-compliance how could they not be?

If even 70% of employers are in violation of employment laws (let alone 90%), how could one possibly assume their company wasn’t one of them?  Surprisingly, almost all ignorantly do!!  Remember, ignorance is never a legitimate legal defense, and bad policies resulting in violation of employment laws are never legally defensible. –John Hagen   The ongoing and accumulating pro-employee Federal and civil rulings, fines, judgments and awards is fast becoming the employer’s worst nightmare!

As I quoted Mike Myatt previously, “So, for all those employers who [think they] have everything under control, you better start re-evaluating.”

This lack of company growth and profits, coupled with a company’s anti-employee, internally disconnected, counter-productive work environments (and probably illegal practices), directly contributes to the majority of unengaged, dissatisfied and angry employees.  Business is experiencing lackluster growth due to the inability of the unemployed to find a decent job and the currently employed to see real wage growth and/or get ahead.  Instead people are falling further behind because of inflation, lack of real wage growth and the ability to get ahead while companies and shareholders push for greater productivity, greater profits and higher executive pay and bonuses.  All this while costs and prices continue rising, real wage growth is non-existent and positive employee relations, perks, benefits and reasons for staying have evaporated.

Of course this premise assumes the company’s products or services depend on sales to working people for its revenue stream.  Most of us know this to be true.  Even companies depending on business to business (B2B) sales are most likely affected by the same lack of consumer spending from their customers. 

Our workers are our and your customers, not some nameless shadowy group.  They do the work in our companies which in turn allows them to buy our products and services.  Employment downsizing, streamlining and multi-functioning that cripples maximum effectiveness, lack of coherent hiring practices and poisonous management as a primary cost control point for increasing profit and/or shareholder return results in a reduction in  your buying (customer) base.  This becomes a negative sum game where there is only one winner - the survivor!!!  This is a business model failure!!!  

Once again, in these times of slow recovery, how can any business , or our country afford…. $2 Trillion in employment churn and training……when the waste, wasted effort and negative impact to the bottom line can be changed?

Next:  Are HUMAN RESOURCE(S) and HUMAN CAPITAL - demeaning terms?

Are “Human Resource(s)” and “Human Capital” demeaning terms?

Strategy Doesn’t Matter?   Part 10

These terms replaced “Personnel” and stuck.  We describe great people, a great person, a great group of people, a people person, a talented person, a talented group or talented group of people. We don’t say they are a great human (human being sometimes), great humans, great group of humans, a human person, a talented human, talented humans or a talented group of humans. 

There are over 6 Billion humans on this planet.   To endow our people and teams with the collective “human” title, while technically accurate, is definitely not individualized, unique or warm.  To me it describes a sheep view of people and those charged with their activity.  This perception is also how many view the HR function, including many in top leadership positions.  As Steve Jobs is quoted, “I’ve never met one of you who didn’t suck. I’ve never known an HR person who had anything but a mediocre mentality.”

Ouch!! However, Jobs was never one to sugar coat his thoughts.  Whatever genius you ascribe to Steve Jobs, the Apple brand changed the personal communications world.  His vision, focus, timing and user friendly products put Apple at the top of the heap.  He drove Apple to become what it is today.  Vision, artistry, focus, forced labor and relentless competitiveness and determination were the hallmarks of the Apple innovation. 

Not many people’s vision has had such a profound impact on life in such a short period of time.  It is no wonder his view of HR was so degrading.  That was his personality.  Since HR/People and Talent operations must deal with the ever growing maze of regulatory requirements and organizational issue, most daily routine functions must have paled in comparison to the Steve Job’s Apple product's vision. 

However, Jobs found a Chief Talent Officer he approved of and hired….Daniel Walker, now CTO at JC Penney under CEO, Ron Johnson, although not for much longer I presume.   He must have found someone who was the opposite of his stated HR views.  Although Apple was/is at the leading edge of change (the fringe and not mainstream) in how Human Resources fundamentally works, how it is organized and how it impacts an organization…and profits, they are not alone, just not main stream. 

Is being a part of main stream HR part of the problem?

Next:  Can we change the perceived Human Resource Focus?
 

Why the Churn and Waste?

Strategy Doesn’t Matter?  Part 8

Most job satisfaction surveys have resulted in the same results for more than a decade. They point to the same managerial perception problems versus what employees really value!  Here is a long list of other reports and statistics suggesting and supporting an actual factual basis for these endless negative employee employment comments and actions.  I believe these reliable, studies and statistics bring great credibility and weight to why current strategies fail and current employees are so dissatisfied: 

1.  Real wages over the last 30 - 40 years have declined because of inflation, meaning employees fall  behind every year, while profits soared.  Lack of available credit is but one result.

2.  In April of 2012 Department of Labor (DOL) stated 70+% of employers violate labor law standards and wage and hour laws, while private Labor Law Firms estimated 90+% of employers are in violation! This means almost every company!

3.  Real employee health care coverage has declined, if it exists at all, while employee out of pocket expenses, insurance premiums and insurance company’s profits have skyrocketed.

4.  Employee retirement security has all but disappeared as employers contribute less and less, if at all, to retirement.  Once a reward for service and an incentive to stay, it is now an employee Do-It-Yourself savings retirement, while our federal government is trying new limitations on Social Security and Medicare.

5.  State’s Right-to-work laws have freed employers to fire people with implied, but not legal, impunity.    

6.  Private sector union membership has declined from 38% to 6+%, the lowest level since 1950.

7.  Federal Agencies charged with enforcing employment laws, until recently have been un-mandated, understaffed and underfunded…..meaning minimal enforcement considering the scope of problems.

8.  Retaliation toward employees complaining, enlightening and whistle blowing is a quickly growing legal complaint.  Employers consistently show they are clueless, don’t care and won’t change.

9.  Generations of workers have experienced, first hand, how their parents or grandparents loyalty to “the company” has been rewarded by having been sent packing after a lifetime of work.

I will stop here….there are many more.  In summation, employees are stuck, have fewer protections, little representation and fewer opportunities.   The employee’s presence with you, the employer, is one of the few leverages and control they have left.  Today’s newest employees work to live their lives, while the boomers lived to work. Younger workers will and do leave in an attempt to find a work life balance, security and an employer they can support and who supports them.
 
Additionally, we constantly hear there are not enough qualified people for the millions of available jobs.  This may be true in some cases, however, enough hiring isn’t happening because there simply are not enough jobs compared to the number of unemployed (currently 40Million according to DOL). Some are not hiring due to lack of economic confidence, some only  want to hire the employed, some only want to hire the perfect employee, but most have either forgotten how to hire or never knew how to hire in the first place.

The above items should become the basic list to investigate and address as a beginning to changing your company culture and employee relations challenges.

Next: Why do stuck wages affect business growth?
 

$2Trillion Wasted Through Not Knowing ... or Not Caring?

Strategy Doesn’t Matter?  part 7

The stories regarding employee - management relations concerns are consistent.  Regardless of what leadership might think its company culture represents, most employees within those companies would define today’s work environment, in general, as disingenuous, disengaged and uncaring in the minimum and methodically anti-employee, abusive, internally disconnected, counter-productive and possibly illegal in the extreme.  All one has to do is ask and/or read their comments and posts.

Further proof is a recent CareerBuilder survey of more than 2,480 managers and 3,910 workers shows that people in supervisory roles often doubt their (own) capabilities…..Many workers say their bosses are ineffective and that they play favorites and fail to communicate well. ……. the vast majority of managers never receive formal guidance on effective team leadership. “Good management skills can positively impact productivity, performance and overall employee morale,” said Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources  at CareerBuilder. Another key focus of the survey [was] the shortcomings of the very top leaders of today.
http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?sd=3%2F28%2F2011&id=pr626&ed=12%2F31%2F2011

Recently in Forbes, Renee Sylvestre-Williams said, “Managers who don’t create the right opportunities for their employees, don’t communicate with them, and don’t appreciate them often find themselves dealing with a high turnover rate. Good managers are people you keep in touch with even after you leave a position. Bad managers are people you keep track of so you can avoid them in future.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/reneesylvestrewilliams/2012/01/30/why-your-employees-are-leaving/

Finally, let’s not forget top leaders like JC Penney’s Ron Johnson, who alienated JCP’s customer base and laid off almost 25,000 people in a predicted ruining of the company, wrapped in a multi-year rebranding effort.  This top leader of the company never moved to headquarters, but irregularly commuted to Texas from California and didn’t even know the upper level company management.  JCP now faces a totally devastated and demoralized workforce, totally untrusting of company leadership!  Which is it…not knowing…or not caring?  Does it matter?

Whether or not you believe employees feel as previously described, why are these employee opinions and concerns so universal?  Why are they not believed?  However, more large surveys are unnecessary.

Next:  Why the churn and waste?

Employee Churn Cost Business $2Trillion?

Strategy Doesn’t Matter?   part 6

In a recent Workforce Management report, Gary Krantz quotes Jason Corsello, Cornerstone's vice president of corporate strategy and marketing:

…19 million Americans plan to change jobs this year, or 13 percent of the total U.S. workforce, according to the survey. The churn will cost U.S. businesses an estimated $2 trillion to recruit and train new workers. [!!!]  Fourteen percent of survey respondents said they plan to leave their current job within six months to a year. About 25 percent are eyeing a move sometime in the next three years. Just 46 percent of those surveyed acknowledge having a long-range career with their current employer.

This is a really unsettling if not shocking report.  To those of us aware of the costs, it is surprising only in the total dollar estimate.  It serves to illustrate simply controlling employment costs is not the best way to save money when you don't know or don’t care what questions to ask  regarding the effects of your employment culture.

This company disconnect, the lack of managerial, customer and employee value and feedback, is not only a fundamental strategy flaw, it is the primary contributor to why employees have become so disengaged. Their opinions are neither sought nor are they valued and given weight even when learned.  At the core it has become the quest for profits price paid for the long term wellness and survival of the company.  In addition to the above, it is also VERY costly in ways most organizations don’t recognize, track or monitor.  If becoming an ”employer of choice” isn’t a motivator, try to determine what current shoddy recruiting, hiring, engaging, developing and retaining practices cost you every year.

Another recent Forbes talent retention article, by Mike Myatt, echoed past decades and vast numbers of past survey and study findings going back decades:

So, for all those employers who have everything under control, you better start re-evaluating. There is an old saying that goes; “Employees don’t quit working for companies, they quit working for their bosses.” Regardless of tenure, position, title, etc., employees who voluntarily leave, generally do so out of some type of perceived disconnect with leadership.”  

Thank you, Mike.  I would add most managers quit for the same reason.

In these uncertain times of slow recovery how can business afford…. how can our country afford…. $2 Trillion in employment churn and training……when the waste and wasted effort can be changed?

Next: $2Trillion wasted through not knowing, or not caring?

My Way Management Culture Fails. Why?

Strategy Doesn’t Matter?     Part 5

“My way” (or the highway) management uses intimidation, internal spying, micromanagement, inconsistency, fear, yelling, poor performance appraisals and threats of discipline or termination.  It is characterized by worker distrust, micro-management (too much communication) or lack of communication (secrecy), production inconsistency and constantly higher never-attainable metrics, high turnover, poor health, absenteeism, lack of engagement, fear and/or total confusion about what’s going on and why.  It may work in the short term but poisons engagement and crushes retention and long term stability.  Today, sadly, this is what most employees see every hour of every day in their working life. 

“…. an obnoxious boss can make life miserable for his or her direct reports, but new research covered at length in HBR this month, shows that tormented victims are actually more likely to engage in office nastiness themselves, thereby spreading the unpleasantness in a widening circle around an organization. …… we can add one more item to the list of the highly contagious: being a jerk.”

A recent Florida State University study revealed these results about supervisor treatment of employees:

39%: Their supervisor failed to keep promises
37%: Their supervisor failed to give credit when due
31%: Their supervisor gave them the “silent treatment” in the past year.
27%: Their supervisor made negative comments about them to other employees or managers.
24%: Their supervisor invaded their privacy.
23%: Their supervisor blames others to cover up mistakes or minimize embarrassment

Strategy failures look similar whether $Billion over-arching brand/sales strategies like Talbots or JC Penney or internal company/organization culture change. They fail to make the necessary and required changes and improvement and fail the ROI test.   Changes to Employee/Employment Culture are no different, but must represent more than change issues, which is not a strategy. 

New strategies are generally doomed because there is a lack of understanding on how to successfully implement the strategy, the management who will implement it and the reaction of those people most impacted by the strategy change, the People.  The employees know how disconnected and fragmented the companies are, and to most it’s laughable.  It’s only the leadership that doesn’t know.  So…the employees simply bide their working time until something perceived as better comes along….or as Don Weis commented on the LinkedIn's Chief Operating Officer Network Group, “Having buy in from the workforce ….. raises the odds of a great strategy, that will be enthusiastically implemented vs. "just another dumb initiative being thrown out there by corporate" .

Next:  Employee churn costs business $2Trillion?

Why Do Strategies Fail?

Strategy Doesn’t’ Matter?   Part 4

With the pace of change in today’s business and technology, it would be nearly impossible for top Leadership to be too strategic, unless it isolates leadership from what the organization actually does.   Leadership must know where they are, their base line, why and where they are going and its effects.  Providing it’s a good strategy, the execution plan must determine if it can be successfully implemented and how.  This is what top leadership is hired and paid to do! There is no more crucial function than change strategy and it becomes more critical the larger and more diverse the company grows.

Implementation is the hands on work, oversight and due diligence.  However, undertaking a strategy change must represent more than an idea or feeling.  It needs to be backed up with data and facts.  Many strategy makers are also assigned a role in developing the execution plan for implementation.  The larger the company the more difficult implementation becomes and the greater the need for the right strategy coupled with a successful execution plan. 

The biggest roadblocks to successfully implementing any plan are the leaders in charge of and the management implementing it.  Not knowing or understanding your own organizational capabilities, limitations and/or motivations is foolish.  Unfortunately, most companies have let managers manage their areas devoid of real and consistent cultural leadership and oversight.  Management culture defines the what, how and why management exists in the first place…. the basic building blocks and backbone of the company’s cultural essence or identity, the organization’s DNA. 

Without a leader, or group of cultural leaders, who value(s) certain actions and beliefs, who do certain things in a certain way and behave in ways that help the group succeed, the culture of the company becomes whatever each department manager thinks and manages it to be.  This is the “My way (or the highway)” culture, full of favoritism, secrecy, intrigue, anger, infighting and poisonous as well as (usually) illegal people policies and practices.  This type of management culture will doom even a good strategy. 

Next: My way (or the highway) management culture fails.  Why?

Talbots and JC Penney - Two Failed $BBillion Strategies ?

Strategy Doesn’t’ Matter?   Part 3

The first is the recently ended Talbot’s saga under the leadership of Trudy Sullivan.  In 5 years this CEO oversaw a race to the bottom of a highly regarded mature/professional women’s apparel retailer.  Stock plummeted from $22 to $1.50/share, while she received bonuses every year.  In mid-2012, Talbot’s was purchased by a private venture equity firm, Sycamore Partners, for $2.75/share, or somewhere within the range of $197- $369Million on sales of $1.4Billion!  This represents the lowest price to sales ratio ever paid for a retail company…. in history!  

Apparently unable to exist without the kind of leadership that got them there, after resigning as CEO in December of 2011, the same Trudy Sullivan remained as one of the board’s negotiators.  The result:  Shareholders received $2.75/share - 10% less than the $3.05 offered in early 2012 or $2.95/share originally offered in 2011.  As Motley Fool said, “That's right, in true George Costanza fashion, they held out for less money!”

Speaking of less money, the other story opens with Yahoo Finance reporting JC Penneys made it to the top of the most hated companies in the U.S.  This is the JC Penney saga under ex-Apple president, Ron Johnson.   2012 annual sales have fallen by 24.8% to $12.98 billion and the stock has plummeted from near 62% to around $15/share.  JCP is now valued at $3.3 billion, down from almost $8 billion last year.

When hired Johnson reportedly bought $50,000,000 in shares at just under $30/share.  Although this was both pro-Johnson faith and a pro-Johnson/JCP 6 year equity gesture, why would any individual want to lose $25,000,000+, even on paper?  For that matter, how many could?  We will have to wait and see if his strategy works.  So far it doesn’t appear to have been well designed, unless the plan was to lose $Billions!

An accompaniment to the (so far) failing retail strategy was the expected ousting of Michael Theilmann, the former Exec. VP and Chief HR and Administrative Officer.   As a follower of JCP, one of the bright spots within JCP’s recession performance – where most retailers performed poorly - was the noticeable upgrade in positive, helpful and smiling floor and management people.    

Where these apparently successful People policies will go under Dan Walker, new CTO and former Apple CTO with Steve Jobs and Ron Johnson, is only one of the sagas to be played out.  As of this post, JCP will have shed 25,000 people since Ron Johnson took over.  Apple products are the most highly esteemed and sought after tech products in the world.  New products and upgrades create a stampede of interest.  This is not the retail apparel and department store world.  Only time will tell if the Johnson and/or Walker strategies will be successful.

Next: Why do Strategies Fail?

A New Strategy or a Good Strategy?

Strategy Doesn’t Matter?    Part 2

We’ve all heard the endless stories:  business leaders lament the lack of profit, slow growth, slow economy, European troubles, need to streamline, become more efficient ….  Human Resources lament the lack of influence, no seat at the table, restricted budgets, being relegated to processes, report generation, lack of top leadership’s support to change things…. Business and HR both talk of the lack of qualified people, rate of turnover, bad hires, lack of engagement, lack of interest, poor work attitudes, efficiency or job performance, distracted workers and terrible work habits ….Unless you like these results and you and your company are willing to endure, a good new culture strategy is needed.

Good strategy formation requires you look at your organization from its managerial, employee and/or customer point of view!   Truly successful customer driven organizations have always had the customer/consumer, and their employee’s interaction with those customers, as the top influencers of organizational plans.  Compare this to - or versus – the lip service most companies give to customer service by viewing customers and employees as top down organizations do.  Only those truly comprehending the keys to successful strategy implementation have bothered to get to know their organizational capabilities, limitations, motivations, the feelings of its own people and their consumer/customer base as a basis for forming that successful strategy.

Most companies fail to investigate, study, collect data and assign a proper value to customer’s or consumer’s views, as well as their employee’s direct interaction with those customers.  Without this essential priority in formulating a great strategy, tremendous waste occurs, as described by John Stumpf.  This same waste is mentioned by Brenton Van Breda, in his, “STRATEGIC PLANNING:  A practical approach to developing strategic plans and achieving objectives” https://www.box.com/shared/git0raxd2h.  For those unfamiliar with, looking for a simple outline for, or a compressed version of, a strategy formulation process, I think you will find it very interesting.  For more detailed strategy formulation processes (104 pages) try these slideshare presentations from drawpack.com:

http://www.slideshare.net/anicalena/strategic-management-business-presentation-slides

Thanks John and Brenton

To those of us in retail following what bad strategy, plans and outcomes look like, two recent highly visible overarching strategy change examples have played out or are being played out for all to see:

Next: Two Failed $Billion+ Strategies - Talbots and JC Penney

Strategy Doesn’t Matter?

In December of 2012 John Kotter wrote in Forbes, “Your Corporate Strategy: It Just Doesn't Matter”

According to John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo, a successful strategy is all about execution. “It’s how you hire, how you inspire, your culture, how you reward, how you celebrate victories, how you deal with disappointments. This is easy to talk about, but it is all in the execution.” Otherwise, “it just doesn’t matter.”
"What does NOT work in changing a culture?”  Stumpf goes on.  “Some group decides what the new culture should be. It turns a list of values over to the communications or HR departments with the order that they tell people what the new culture is. They cascade the message down the hierarchy, and little to nothing changes.”  Thank you, John and John

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2012/12/17/your-corporate-strategy-it-just-doesnt-matter/

Wait!!!  Strategy doesn’t matter!?!?!?  No…. how the strategy is executed is what matters (assuming it’s a good strategy).   Companies waste a tremendous amount of time, effort, money and resources in strategic definition and plans without, or a failure to have, a comprehensive tactical implementation plan.  Strategy alone will remain encapsulated, isolated and fail to change the organization. 

Most companies forget to define THE critical step in the strategy implementation….the execution plan.   This is not the implementation itself, but how to implement the strategy.  Some will say it is part of strategy development or implementation, and it might be depending on the leadership, but it is a unique process.  It requires defining an implementation strategy.

The larger and/or more locations involved the more complex implementation becomes.  Instead of being able to “just do it”, various rollout stages and evaluations must take place so problems are minimized, reception is gauged and success of the roll-out is optimized.  Large global and/or geographically dispersed companies require multiple layers of data and need to address language and cultural barriers, geographical/cultural norms and agendas, management training, grading, refining, re-training and goal orientation/attainment for success.

In its simplest format the execution strategy determines “If it can, how it can, through whom and by what means the strategy can be implemented?”

·    How and in what format is the strategy to be consistently implemented? 

·    Who will be in charge/responsible? 

·    Who will implement it and the time frame or calendar for implementation?  

·    What are the criteria, waypoints or benchmarks to track its implementation?

·    Is the implementation being positively or negatively received?

·    Do changes need to be made to succeed (grading and improvement)?  

·    How will we know if it is successful (the proof or data feedback)?
 

This is the first of almost 30 cumulative posts dealing with strategy, HR/Talent/People, what’s happened, recognizing where you are, change, growth and developing simple solutions to start moving you/your company forward.   Please join me as we walk the HR and Employment Culture Jungle.

Next: Decisions - a new strategy or a good strategy?