STRETCHED

Practical tips on how to benefit from being 'Stretched' without being distressed

Those readers who have been following this series will recall that the underpinning ‘Star Model’ is as follows (for those interested in research into the Star Model please go to www.tms.co.nz/research).

Star Performing Team Model

Broadly speaking the top half of the model maps the ‘hard’ or ‘performance’ factors necessary in teams whereas the bottom half of the model is more concerned with the ‘people’ factors.

This is the second article in a three part series on ‘Stretched’.

• The first article - Stretched: The team is high output, high quality focused (Issue #13) - discussed the theory and research that underpins the 'Stretched' concept;
• This article (Issue #14) is concerned with 'Practical tips for teams and individuals on how to benefit from being 'Stretched' without being distressed';
• The final article on this Star Point will examine the use of the Star Performing Team Profile as a tool to 'Stretch' a team's performance: Case Study in the Pharmaceutical Industry.
  

We now understand from the previous article (Issue #13, Stretched: The team is high output, high quality focused) that Stretch is about Goal Setting, Expectations and Feedback Loop or Review.

I have often reflected upon the discipline of athletes before an event. Patiently they stretch their muscles in preparation for the challenge ahead. Never having competed in any athletics events myself, I have often admired this ability to bring calm and composure at a time where if it were me I would want to just get into action and run!!

Warming-up (Goal Setting) before playing sport prepares the mind, heart, muscles and joints for the upcoming event (Expectancy). Planning in business as well as in sport improves performance, helps individuals get mentally prepared and is a great step towards injury (crisis) prevention.

Cooling down (Reviewing or Feedback Loop) is equally important. It helps the body to recover, take stock. This is also a good time to work on flexibility (agility).

This article will seek to share with you some practical tools that have assisted TMS and their clients to set, review and achieve their stretch goals, often exceeding expectations. This review of tools will be done at an organisational, team and individual level.

Measurement

It is important to note that the benefits derived from Stretch cannot effectively be achieved unless measures exist to tell us 'where we are' and 'where we would like to be'.

To continue the athletics analogy, those of you who run or jog will be familiar with the need to stretch before and after exercise. In respect of measures then how do we know if we are improving or maintaining our fitness?

You may have a pedometer strapped to you during the run in order to measure the amount of steps that you take. You may time yourself. You may monitor your heart rate. There is often more than one measure that can be utilized to assist in identifying 'where we are' and 'where we would like to be'. We should seek to find the one or more measures that most inform us.

If, for example, I am running to loose weight then none of the above measures really informs me, weight loss therefore may be the measure. Additional measures can then to be used as a means of obtaining a more complete overview of progress.

In business terms, sales as a measure alone would not have meaning without cost to market. Revenue would be meaningless without knowing profit. Careful identification of measures assists and drives Stretch.

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Organisational Stretch

You may have read in the previous article (#13) that 'Stretch flows out of alignment and is fueled by it'. Strategic planning, therefore, is an effective tool for managing Stretch.

Organisations should agree a clear direction for the next three to five years. That future direction then needs to be scoped out in greater detail involving as many staff in the process as is possible.

High level measures need to be set and quarterly reviews of progress should occur.

One tool used frequently to assist organizations to track strategic progress is the Balanced Score Card.

Kaplan and Norton describe the concept of the balanced scorecard as follows:

"The balanced scorecard retains traditional financial measures. But financial measures tell the story of past events, an adequate story for industrial age companies for which investments in long-term capabilities and customer relationships were not critical for success. These financial measures are inadequate, however, for guiding and evaluating the journey that information age companies must make to create future value through investment in customers, suppliers, employees, processes, technology, and innovation."

The balanced score card is a structured methodology used to link continually an organisation's Vision and Goals with a set of quantifiable measurements. This then allows overall strategic performance to be measured. These areas are critical:

Business Performance

• Return-on-investment/economic value-added
• Profitability
• Revenue growth/mix
• Cost reduction productivity

Internal Efficiency and Effectiveness

• Suppliers
• Market impact
• Brand significance
• Innovation
• New product or process development
• After sale service
• Operations (time, quality, cost)

Customer and Partner Performance

• Market share
• New customer acquisition
• Existing customer retention
• Customer profitability
• Customer satisfaction

Organizational Vigor and Innovation

• Employee satisfaction
• Employee retention
• Employee productivity
• Employee competency
  

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The actual scorecard developed should try to identify specific measures which are 'cause and effect drivers' of the most important outcomes. If you look at the graphic below the danger here is to focus mainly on the top element (Business Performance) paying less attention to the remaining three factors. The graphic below suggests the opposite is the ideal starting point at Organisational Vigor and working up focusing on all four as a sequence of cause and effect.

To put the above graphic in simple terms; invest in your people and your internal systems will improve as a result of the drive by quality staff, better systems will ensure happier customers, happier customers ensures business performance and financial success.

What advantage will an organisation have that utilises a tool such as the Balanced Score Card? The following:

A performance measurement system allows an organisation to align strategic activities to the strategic plan. It permits real deployment and implementation of the strategy on a continuous basis. With it, an organisation can get feedback needed to guide the planning efforts. Without it, an organization cannot see where it is going.

• The visibility provided by a measurement system supports better and faster budget decisions and control of processes in the organisation, thereby reducing risk.
• Visibility of the numbers provides accountability and incentives based on real information, rather than subjective judgements and anecdotes.
• Measurement of process efficiency provides a rational basis for selecting what business process improvements to make first.
• Managers can identify best practices in an organisation and expand their usage elsewhere.
• Performance measurement allows for benchmarking of process performance against outside organisations.
  

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Team Stretch

Measures that are monitored and reviewed are equally important at a team level. A tool that assists teams in this area is the 'Action Matrix' which is simply a matrix of actions with time frames and responsibility attached.

The 'Action Matrix' is more frequently reviewed than the organizational measures; teams may refer to the action matrix during monthly meetings. Naturally these more tactical actions should have cascaded down in some way from the strategic organizational actions.

If in fact any of these tactical goals are not in someway leading the organization towards its strategic goals, then their existence needs to be questioned.

The above point leads us to one of the most obvious but least realized benefit of stretch; if we have clearly identified what needs to be done we can stop spending/wasting any time and effort on those things that are not connected with those goals. Stretch goals allow for effective prioritization of tasks and therefore effective time management.

Poor role clarity in organizations further hinders performance. Stretch allows for clarity on not only what has to be done but on who is doing it. This leads me onto the final area for stretch goals and that is Individual goals.

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Individual Stretch is driven from the organization and team stretch. To continue the theme of practical tools that assist effective utilization of the Stretch concept I would draw your attention again to the 'Right Hand' mechanism.

The 'Right Hand' (see below example) is a great receptacle for individual goals. The visual nature of the hand ensures itself as an 'aide memoir' and allows for discussion and debate with colleagues about who is working on what. The process of sharing 'Right Hands' with their team ensures there is no unnecessary overlap or gaps. Performance is increased from knowledge and understanding of each other's priorities.

Setting the content of the right hand is the 'warming up' process. Reviewing historically how we have done against previously set expectations (last years 'Right Hand') is cooling down after the work has been done.

I often find that workshop participants when the word 'Stretch' is used will say, 'Your dar'n right I'm stretched!' They talk about the fact that work and targets are being elongated, expanded, inflated, spread, strained, swelled, tightened and widened.

Practical tips for organizations, teams and individuals on how to benefit from being 'Stretched' without being distressed was intended to demonstrate that stretch is our friend. The practical tools I have indicated allow for effective identification of targets, enable measurement of expectation and motivate individuals to a point usually beyond what even they sometimes think they can achieve.

Just as the warming up before a race is a discipline so are the use of the above tools. Get into the habit, 'feel the b u r n!'.

By Peter Robinson, TMS Ltd

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Peter Robinson
Chief Executive Officer
Team Management Services Ltd.

P.O. Box 21-194, Henderson, Waitakere 0650, New Zealand
Tel: 64-9-836-5317 Fax 64-9-836-5318
email: peter@tms.co.nz
Website: www.tms.co.nz

© 2006 Team Management Service