I find it interesting, and a little amusing, to ask employees why they come to work. I usually hear of a paycheck or the threat of getting fired, so I rephrase my question to ask what they do to further the company’s mission and goals. Mostly, I get blank stares. However, when I repeat this exercise with organizational leaders, and get the same sort of response, it quickly loses its humor.
I am amazed and appalled at how many leaders do not understand the importance of a good plan, and how essential it is to make sure their subordinates know the plan and understand their part in it. When I took leadership of an inventory management function that served an aviation operation, I received answers to my questions that emphasized the requirement to keep the warehouse stocked and make sure data processing was accurate and timely. These were internal concerns that while important, had little to do with the actual mission and helped to explain why the leaders in the aviation operation expressed concern to me that my section was not very friendly to their needs. I sat down with my subordinate leaders to develop a strategic plan. We carefully reviewed our mission — without the aviation operation we supported we’d have no mission — developed a mission statement, and set goals that focused us on supporting that mission. The change was dramatic. Relations with our primary customer improved as our new focus helped them better meet their mission.
So, what’s a good plan? There are numerous examples of strategic plans available but there are a few things that must be included in a successful plan.
1. Vision and mission. The senior leader is responsible to ensure everyone knows his or her vision and the organization’s mission. Be brutally honest. If your mission is to make money producing widgets, say so. Companies that have tried to emphasize their community involvement or environmental concerns have found that, while important, these things are not what pay the bills.
2. Make sure everyone knows the company’s values. This is vital. Most people have similar values but it’s important to ensure everyone in the company knows what leadership expects. In 1982, corporate values allowed Johnson & Johnson to react quickly to the fatal poisoning of Tylenol consumers. Though it was determined the tainted Tylenol was a criminal action by someone unrelated to the company, Johnson & Johnson recalled the product and introduced new packaging to prevent recurrence. That response cost millions, and may have saved the company.
3. Take a serious look at the things that are in your way. Put them in three categories. First, things you control. Fix those things! Fast! Second are issues that are causing problems but you may only partially control. Do everything you can to fix these issues, then move them to the third category; things you can’t control. You can’t fix these things so make sure your leadership team is aware of them and do your best to shield your workers. Don’t forget them though. In time, you may be able to move some of them to the first category and fix them.
4. Create goals and objectives that are realistic. Goals are distinct actions that focus your leadership team on improving your business. Fight the temptation to define goals that merely address what’s already being done. Look into the future. What do you need to do to position your business for future success? Each goal should have two or three objectives. These are the actual steps that will ensure the goal is accomplished. Goals and objectives must be realistic, reasonable, and measurable. That doesn’t mean you have to create a bunch of graphs and charts. Sometimes that’s necessary, but not always. Yes or no is a measurement, and maybe all that’s required. Make a specific person accountable for each goal and objective with a specific deadline or there will never be completion.
The next step is where leadership and planning come together. Leaders must communicate the plan to the rest of the organization. Each individual must have at least a rudimentary understanding of the plan and, most importantly, know how they support the plan’s mission and goals. I’ve seen organizations with detailed strategic plans that are not communicated well. The plans might as well not exist as the leaders have failed in their responsibility to make sure their subordinates know why they are important to the overall mission. Often they don’t even know the mission. How do leaders expect their subordinates to implement a plan they aren’t familiar with? How will leaders excel if they don’t completely understand the plan?
Leadership can happen with or without a plan, but great leadership requires a plan.
Ineffective managers contribute to the decline of productivity in the workplace worldwide. Their contributions include the dreaded 80-hour work week, discouragement of initiative and creative thinking, opposition to risk-taking, massive turnover, and the ultimate failure of many organizations.
This scenario is repeated, often in scandalously public ways, year after year. One astonishing collapse of a poorly run company earlier this decade included a customer service vice-president who did not exist, even though his name appeared at the bottom of the company’s form letters. The business received so many complaints from customers that it made up the name so that no one had to deal one-on-one with dissatisfied customers.
According to a recent study by Happy Worker, “Thirty percent of workers who plan to leave their current jobs would change their mind if they were able to work under a different boss or management team.” Despite this startling statistic, organization with poor management can survive for years or even decades. How is this possible?
First, many poorly managed organizations provide important goods and services, something that a majority of the population needs or wants. Significant details, such as proper managerial attributes, can often be overlooked when the organization’s product is in high demand.
Second, if an important deadline is drawing near, underdeveloped managers are well versed in reactionary management. They throw more people and hours at a problem, forcing others to bear the burden, rather than managing proactively.
Third, companies reward poor managers for finishing the project on deadline. This positive reinforcement for a negative procedure ensures that nothing changes. Lack of change also sends a discouraging message to employees. Managers who only have the deadline in mind overlook the necessity of planning, creative thinking, and the value of various input from employees. Groupthink is when a group of individuals act as one, rather than sharing multiple ideas and opinions. Anti-groupthink is what makes companies innovative and profitable. These commonly overlooked details are the foundation for a healthy and productive work environment.
Unfortunately, employees who might offer innovative solutions to a troubled business will either fall in lockstep with poor management, or will be lost to competing companies who appreciate their ideas. Poor operation causes high turnover. In most areas of commerce, there is too much competition for poorly managed organizations to survive.
Their failure might occur in stages, so that it is not all that evident. Without effective management failure is inevitable.
Leaders of organizations, who are paying attention to detail, should act quickly if they detect any symptoms of incompetence. Incompetent managers:
- Discourage decision-making by failing to make decisions themselves, or refusing to own up to a decision if it might result in criticism
- Prevent the completion of tasks because they are unable to delegate for fear of being out-performed
- React to problems instead of having an organized plan
- Disengage employees and eventually cause disjointedness within the team
- Communicate ineffectively
- Hinder development within themselves and their employees, which inevitably stunts the overall productivity of the company
Leading managers is not always easy, but it is always essential. Finding managerial solutions requires that business leaders identify the big picture and are meticulous with details. A solid management foundation will ensure that an organization will continue to maximize productivity.
African American women have overcome unprecedented adversity historically and have now arisen to a place of marvelous success and notoriety. Two of my personal favorites among African American women are Rosa Parks and Oprah Winfrey.
Rosa Parks was an African American seamstress and civil rights activist whom the U.S. Congress dubbed the “Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement”. Parks is famous for her refusal on December 1, 1955 to obey bus driver James Blake’s demand that she relinquish her seat to a white passenger. Her subsequent arrest and trial for this act of civil disobedience triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the largest and most successful mass movements against racial segregation in history, and launched Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the organizers of the boycott, to the forefront of the civil rights movement. Her role in American history earned her an iconic status in American culture, and her actions have left an enduring legacy for civil rights movements around the world.
Oprah Winfrey after her birth spent her first six years living in rural poverty with her Grandma Hattie Mae. Winfrey’s grandmother taught her to read before the age of three and took her to the local church, where she was nicknamed “The Preacher” for her ability to recite Bible verses. At age six Oprah moved to an inner city ghetto in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her mother.
Winfrey was molested by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend. This traumatic experience deeply effected Oprah, but at the same time amazingly enabled her to feel for women, who would later become her major audience across the world. Turning her personal mess into a message, Oprah has mightily arisen as a global voice for women, an advocate for their rights, and a motherly figurehead who daily nurtures women throughout the world through her TV broadcast.
Despite her dysfunctional home life, Winfrey skipped two of her earliest grades, became the teacher’s pet, and by the time she was 13 received a scholarship to attend High School in the suburbs. Like many teenagers at the end of the 1960s, Winfrey rebelled, ran away from home and ran the streets. When she was 14, her frustrated mother sent her to live with her father in Nashville, Tennessee. Vernon was strict, but encouraging and made her education a priority. Winfrey became an honors student and was voted “Most Popular Girl.”
Other aspects of Oprah’s journey to success include her joining her high school speech team, and placing second in the nation in dramatic interpretation. She won an oratory contest, which secured her a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, where she studied communications. At age 18, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant.
Oprah’s true media career began at age 17, when Winfrey worked at a local radio station while attending TSU. Working in local media, she was both the youngest news anchor and the first black female news anchor at Nashville’s WLAC-TV. She moved to Baltimore’s WJZ-TV in 1976 to co-anchor the six o’clock news. She was then recruited as co-host of WJZ’s local talk show People Are Talking, which premiered on August 14, 1978.
In 1983, Winfrey relocated to Chicago to host WLS-TV’s low-rated half-hour morning talk-show, AM Chicago. The first episode aired on January 2, 1984. Within months after Winfrey took over, the show went from last place in the ratings to overtaking Donahue as the highest rated talk show in Chicago. It was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show, expanded to a full hour, and broadcast nationally beginning September 8, 1986.
Time magazine wrote, “Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey’s swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk.”
Oprah quickly silenced her critics by taking her show to the top. Her simple curiosity, delightful humor, and endearing empathy attracts viewers of all walks of life. Making people feel safe in her presence, affirming their personhood, and encouraging their potential Oprah’s show provides viewers throughout the world a group therapy and personal empowerment session.
What leadership lessons can we learn from Rosa Parks and Oprah Winfrey:
1. Stand up for yourself. Don’t be afraid defy the status quo and say no!
2. Disobedience in the eyes of men is sometimes obedience in the eyes of God.
3. Be bold as a lion and rule the jungle.
4. Liberation for you means liberation for others.
5. Turn your mess into a message.
6. Your pain is the power of your purpose.
7. Your adversity is your testimony.
8. Pursue education and demonstration of your personhood.
9. Maximize the media to expand the message.
10. Enlarge your heart and enlarge your world.
11. Empathize with others providing a sympathetic ear.
12. Love unconditionally and live wholeheartedly.
There is nothing new under the sun. Apply these ladies leadership secrets to your own life and live your dreams.