I developed a methodology based on my international multi location corporate experience in creating amazing outcomes as well as my consultancoaching experience in transforming companies to a sustainable growth mode, in all the cases from extremely critical baselines. The common factor in all these success stories, regular structured reviews/timeouts, is mandatory for effectively achieving amazing outcomes.
I come across many companies where any kind of a structured review/timeout is extremely rare and whenever happens, is like a volcanic eruption, generally triggered by a customer concern. Otherwise everyone, with a strong extrinsic belief that any review is waste of time and even stronger intrinsic aversion to accountability, is very busy doing their jobs with some synchronization with those they are in good talking terms with. I believe that the companies operating in this mode really don’t have any challenging targets at all. I thought of a couple of analogies to parallel this fact.
While driving generally when we are in a cruising mode on a motorway, the effort to continuously steer and maneuver is far lesser than while navigating city traffic. More the hurdles to reach a goal needs more steering and maneuvering – as is the case with reviews/timeouts in companies.
Be it football, basketball, cricket or any other team game, the objective of the opposing team being also the same, continuous monitoring of the progress and changes in strategies are necessary. Stronger the adversary, more intense are the discussions with the entire team during the timeouts –as is the case with reviews/timeouts in companies.
The date/time of a marriage or the launch of a satellite for example is set and the countdown starts with the project team continuously and systematically touching base on the progress and modifying the strategies as needed to meet the deadline – as is the case with reviews/timeouts in companies.
In all these cases the outcomes were inevitable, clear and ambitious as well as had resource constraints – time, personnel (and competence) and, of course, finance. Don’t you think that these conditions can be paralleled in companies? Now imagine what would happen if due to the obvious resource constraints and lack of competence to navigate tough waters the outcome expectations became mediocre!
Could this be the condition with so many companies and even many individuals who are not used to regular structured reviews/timeouts just because they either have succumbed to mediocre expectations or aren’t sure the root routines for achieving a transformation! Maybe just going through a regular structured review/timeout with an expert could ignite the spark and to start realising those challenging amazing outcomes.
Happy reading!