Management Tools for 2007

For the past fourteen years, strategy consulting firm Bain & Co. has been tracking the most popular management tools worldwide, including just about everything from strategic alliances to corporate blogs, and from benchmarking to offshoring.

This year's report outlines the major trends and examines some exotic newcomers.

In terms of the management tools used, here's what the top 15 look like for 2007:

1. Strategic planning
2. Customer relationship management
3. Customer segmentation
4. Benchmarking
5. Mission and vision statements
6. Core competencies
7. Outsourcing
8. Business process reengineering
9. Scenario and contingency planning
10. Knowledge management
11. Strategic alliances
12. Balanced scorecard
13. Supply chain management
14. Growth strategy tools
15. Total quality management

New MP3 - What Are The Six Disciplines?

Listen to this MP3 as Six Disciplines founder and CEO Gary Harpst describes the idea behind Six Disciplines, and as he describes each of the Six Disciplines:

Discipline I. Decide What's Important
Discipline II. Set Goals That Lead
Discipline III. Align Systems
Discipline IV. Work The Plan
Discipline V. Innovate Purposefully
Discipline VI. Step Back

Satisfaction and Employee Engagement

What's the difference between a satisfied and an engaged employee? Only everything, argues Globoforce, a Westborough, Mass., work force solutions company in this eWeek article.

Satisfaction is a measurement of the past; engagement is more future-looking.

Research to support this claim?

• A recent study by the Corporate Leadership Council, a human resources research company, found that increased engagement could be the "tipping point" in retaining employees; in fact, increased engagement was found to lead to a 57 percent improvement in discretionary effort.
• Furthermore, increased discretionary effort improved performance by 20 percent and reduced attrition by 87 percent.
• Highly engaged organizations grew profits three times faster than their competitors.

BOTTOMLINE: "Beyond a lack of recognition, unclear demands had a significant impact on the engagement of employees. It's up to the manager to recover this discretionary work enthusiasm."

Aligning Technology To Business Strategy

Bain & Company recently released some very interesting research on IT spending.

Some highlights from Bain's research on over 450 publicly traded companies:

• 85% of respondents characterized their IT operations as ineffective
• Bain finds that nearly one-in-two IT projects are considered partial failures upon completion, having gone over budget, past deadline and/or with under-delivered features and functionality
• Bain found companies whose IT operations were ‘effective’ though not aligned with business priorities grew ~10% more than average and spent over 15% less on IT
• Companies that focused on strategic alignment at the expense of effective IT operations grew almost 10% less than average and spent over 8% more on IT

BOTTOMLINE: Bain's research shows that CIOs who focus on alignment before effectiveness spend more, and their companies grow less, than those who do not focus on alignment. The conventional wisdom about aligning IT to business doesn't mean much without operational excellence.

Jim Symcox Reviews Six Disciplines for Excellence

Jim Symcox, a business coach, posts his review of Six Disciplines for Excellence.

Jim's assessment?

About the book's influences:

"The book’s title sounds a little like Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and the author acknowledges that books help. He also acknowledges the book’s debt to others such as Michael Gerber and Peter Senge and I would say also to Edwards Deming the quality guru too. "


Jim's summary:

"Six Disciplines of Excellence is not just a book to read, place carefully in your bookshelf and forget. Gary Harpst has written it into a tool that any business can use to successfully grow bigger, more profitable and more consistent."

"Any smallish company of between one and a hundred people will definitely benefit from buying, studying and applying the Six Disciplines found in this book. Gary Harpst has taken strands of so many different methods for improving business and cooked them up to produce a recipe for building a better small business. If you’re a small company this book can get you well down the path to a better and more profitable company and improve your own personal growth."

"So go buy it from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA) or Amazon (Canada) and strike while the iron’s hot!"

We're humbled Jim - thank you!

Gary Harpst Speaks About Six Disciplines With FranchiseInterviews.com

Six Disciplines offers the first enduring business excellence program, specifically designed for small and mid-sized businesses.

Six Disciplines is delivered through a growing network of local business excellence centers located throughout the U.S. The Six Disciplines Centers are independently owned and operated franchises, offering accountability coaching on the Six Disciplines Methodology, Six Disciplines System and value-added services.

Six Disciplines Franchising Corporation offers the opportunity for qualified professionals to own a Six Disciplines Center franchise.

Click here to listen to Gary Harpst, as he speaks about the Six Disciplines Franchise Opportunity with Franchise Interviews.com.

Excellence Quotes for 9/11/07

On this, the sixth anniversary of 9/11, rather than taking a political stance, we'd prefer to take a proactive, positive stance to our world situation, and offer these quotes on excellence:

"The more we sympathize with excellence, the more we go out of self, the more we love, the broader and deeper is our personality." (Edwin Hubbell Chapin)

"What is excellent, As God lives, is permanent; Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain, Heart's love will meet thee again." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"Excellence, is never granted to man, but as the reward of labor." (Sir Joshua Reynolds)

"Those who attain any excellence commonly spend life in one common pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms." (Samuel Johnson)

"Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way." (Booker T. Washington)

"The noblest search is the search for excellence." (Lyndon Baines Johnson)

"The quest for excellence is a mark of maturity. The quest for power is childish." (Max Lucado)

"Excellence is best described as doing the right things right -- selecting the most important things to be done -- and then accomplishing them correctly, year after year." (Six Disciplines)

The Impact of Technology on Small Business Growth

Want to grow your small business? Growing your technology savvy is a good place to start, according to a survey of mid-size companies conducted by tech services firm CDW.

In fact, 48 percent of respondents to a recent survey by Baseline Magazine who described themselves as “total geeks” said their companies grew from startups to 100-employee businesses in five years or less.

BOTTOMLINE: Six Disciplines conducted similar research that supports this claim. High performing organizations give more emphasis (109 percent more!) than lower performing organizations to using technology to impact the business in strategic ways. Underlying this rating is the greater use of long-term technology plans aimed at delivering competitive advantage. Such organizations have developed a culture that figures out ways to deploy technology, not for technology's sake, but to better serve their strategy.

Succession Planning: Passing The Torch

According to this article in CareerJournal, giving up command is never easy. But it may prove especially difficult for the large number of retiring baby boomers, accustomed to working hard in a fast-paced economy.

Many aging presidents/CEOs choose to move on slowly, and want to do their part to ease the transition and shape their legacy.

Consider this:

• More than half of the 50 coaches at Marshall Goldsmith Partners LLC are seeing increased demand from senior leaders for advice on a gradual transition at small employers as well as big, according to the coaching network.

BOTTOMLINE: Succession planning, while often thought of as a CEO-only planning process, needs to be considered for every key position within your firm. Make sure succession planning becomes an integral part of your strategic annual plan.

A Reviewer Ranks Six Disciplines for Excellence In Top 5

Gary Tomlinson is president of Tomlinson & Associates, an organizational development firm in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Gary has read Six Disciplines for Excellence, and posts his review here on BusinessLeader.com.

In a separate communication, Gary indicated to us:

My favorite five books are these:

1. Good to Great by Jim Collins
2. The E-Myth Manager by Michael Gerber
3. How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life by Michael LeBoeuf
4. The People Principle by Ron Willingham
5. Six Disciplines for Excellence by Gary Harpst

I rank the “Six Disciplines for Excellence” right up there with the other four. In fact, I feel that Harpst's book is the first book I’ve read that takes the best education from the first four books and combines them into one book. As you can tell, I’m a fan of “Six Disciplines for Excellence.”

Thanks Gary!

What Makes Six Disciplines for Excellence Different?

What makes Six Disciplines for Excellence different from other business improvement books?

“Six Disciplines for Excellence is what the E-Myth Revisited wants to be when it grows up.” (David Rothacker, Rothacker Reviews)

”We interrupt our coverage of meaningless business books to review a book that made the cut: Six Disciplines for Excellence by Gary Harpst.” (Ethan Johnson, The Vision Thing)

“How does his (Harpst’s) book differ from others which also discuss business improvement? First, [unlike most other books] which focus 80% on principles and 20% on implementation, this book's content is focused 20% on principles and 80% on implementation.” (Robert Morris, Top 10 Reviewer for Amazon.com)


“Six Disciplines differs in that respect – it’s all about teaching a system of getting done the things that we all know need to be done.” (Bob Shuneman, Small Biz Matters)

“This is the type of book that each time you read it you’ll find new pearls of wisdom and – better yet – practical advice.” (Bob Schuneman, Small Biz Matters)

“What I found also fascinating is that the book was influenced by many people (the same people that I had read and liked the theories but didn't know how to act) including: Michael Porter (Competitive Strategy), Stephen Covey (7 Habits of Highly Effective People), Michael Gerber (The E Myth Revisited), Robert Kaplan and David Norton (Balanced Scorecard), Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline), and Jim Collins (Good to Great) to name a few. (Skip Angel, Random Thoughts of a CTO)


“This is a guidebook, with practical business advice, that if followed, will enhance your business and provide solutions to every day small business problems.” (Gary Whitehair, High Performance Business)


“Here’s what differentiates this book: it bridges concept and principles to execution.” (Sam Decker, Decker Marketing)


“But the book doesn't stop there! Therefore, there is also a Six Disciplines company that was established to help companies long-term get established and maintain using this methodology.” (Skip Angel, Random Thoughts of a CTO)

“In reading the book, I’m struck that the author spends time focusing on HOW to achieve maximum benefit from each of the six interdependent Disciplines, and not just providing a laundry list without explanation.” (Gary Slinger, Slinger’s Thoughts)

“Full of incredibly useful tools and charts -- all about how small businesses execute strategy.” (Anita Campbell, SMB Trend Wire)


“However, the power of this book is in how it integrates these time tested, common sense ideas into a useful whole.” (Bud Bilanich, The Common Sense Guy)

“What makes this book unique, not to mention worthwhile? The book is filled with concrete examples, processes and checklists that will help a business owner in creating a successful business.” (Trevor Hall, Servant-Leadership Blog)

“I've read and participated in many 'best practice' methodologies over the years. Unfortunately most are skewed towards theory, with minimal attention to practice and implementation. Gary Harpst is the direct opposite.” (David Daniels, Business & Technology Reinvention)

“The approach is current and I love that it ties technology and systems with strategy. Most importantly this book is about execution.” (David Daniels, Business & Technology Reinvention)

”Overall, I found this book to be well-organized, yet a slow read because my brain kept exploding with ideas while reading selected units.” (Ethan Johnson, The Vision Thing)

”And that is indeed what sets this book apart from more typical business book fare: Gone are the grandiose declarations and cheeky labels.” (Ethan Johnson, The Vision Thing)

“Instead, this is meant to read more as a how-to manual. Not so much “read”, as “used.” (Ethan Johnson, The Vision Thing)

“Harpst's book is the first book I’ve read that takes the best education from (Good To Great, E-Myth Manager, others) and combines them into one book. As you can tell, I’m a fan of “Six Disciplines for Excellence.” (Gary Tomlinson, Tomlinson & Associates)

BOTTOMLINE: Read Six Disciplines for Excellence.

Company Founders and Organizational Performance

USA Today posted an interesting article about how founder-led companies perform better than their non-founder-led counterparts, with a 15-year stock price appreciation of 970% vs. the S&P 500 average of 222%.

While most business leaders will not be surprised by this finding, it's a finding that has been of interest to the investment community.

What are the reasons?

• Company founders have a deep, emotional, passionate connection to the business, which contibutes to them becoming great leaders
• Company founders typically have deep industry knowledge
• Company founders typically have risked a considerable amount, and have a large financial stake in the success of the business
• Company founders tend to take the long-term view
• Company founders tend to learn from their mistakes and rarely make the same mistakes twice

Annual Planning To Improve Business Performance

The Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce and Six Disciplines Northwest Ohio are sponsoring an executive workshop for established businesses that are not satisfied with the status quo.

You will learn how to align your organization and your management team to develop a practical plan for improving your business, and more importantly, to execute it company-wide, every
month, quarter and year.

While many business leaders are successful at growing their businesses, they struggle to consistently deliver long-term results. This is symptomatic of a gap between a company’s annual plan and its execution.

When: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - 8:00 a.m. - Registration & Continental Breakfast
8:30 to 11:30 a.m. - Seminar

Where: The Toledo Club, 235 14th Street, Toledo, OH 43604

Presenter: Scott Gray, Partner & Certified Business Coach, Six Disciplines Northwest Ohio

Guest Speaker: Brian Roth, President & CEO, TRUFAST, LLC

Cost: $50 for Chamber Members, $65 for Non-Members

To Register: Contact Marsha Schroeder, Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce, at 419-243-8191 ext 228 or marsha.schroeder@toledochamber.com - visit http://www.toledochamber.com/

Six Disciplines Radio Interview With Eric Kurjan

Listen to this MP3 radio interview from WFIN Radio, as Eric Kurjan talks about Six Disciplines and what benefits it brings to his small and mid-sized business clients in Northwest Ohio.

Eric is the President of Six Disciplines Northwest Ohio, located in Findlay, OH.

Building An Enduring Organization

Thinking holistically about your business -- how to make all of its components, people, processes, policies, key measures, assets and strategies work together to meet the promises made to customers and other stakeholders in a repeatable and predictable fashion - is KEY to pursuing lasting business excellence.

Warning signs that prevent leaders from building an enduring organization include:

• Critical business processes are missing or poorly defined (e.g., strategy, planning, measurement, execution, learning, leadership development, recruiting, training, etc.)
• Processes aren't measured, so there's no way to evaluate the effectiveness of new ideas
• Team members don't understand the measures that are critical to company performance - or their own
• Trended data to support long-term learning are either absent or inadequate

Time Management and Execution

According to Rich Fredricksen, principal of the execution consulting firm, Paiva•Fredricksen Group:

“longer hours, constant connectivity, more meetings, multitasking, a 24/7 mentality and a global economy are making it more of a challenge for leaders to stay focused on strategy, much less execution which is the key to productivity.”

And....

A Harvard Business Review article entitled “Beware the Busy Manager,” states up to 90% of managers squander their time in all sorts of ineffective activities, while only 10% spend their time in a committed, purposeful, and reflective manner.

BOTTOMLINE: Some general guidelines for leaders looking to conquer the “busy manager” syndrome, according to Fredricksen are: “prioritize your work, simplify, work from detailed metrics, provide clarity, focus on execution, and think.”

Look for an in-depth discussion of both time management and execution in CEO's Gary Harpst's upcoming new book "Execution Revolution."

Managing Alignment as a Process

Harvard professors Robert S. Kaplan and colleague David P. Norton (the Balanced Scorecard creators) offer a key points with their essay on "Managing Alignment as a Process."

Their book, "Alignment: Using the Balanced Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies" tells how to see alignment as a management process.

The essence?

"The alignment process, much like budgeting, should be part of the annual governance cycle. Whenever plans are changed at the enterprise or business unit level, executives likely need to realign the organization with the new direction."

"Using these eight checkpoints as a point of reference, an organization can measure and manage the degree of alignment, and hence the synergy, being achieved across the enterprise. Organizations that master this process can create competitive advantages that are difficult to dislodge."

BOTTOMLINE: In Six Disciplines for Excellence, Discipline III. Align Systems is all about continual alignment. Achieving alignment is not a event. It is an on-going battle that's part of what it means to pursue enduring business excellence. If we, as business leaders don't learn how to align resources with company goals, the free market...will.

The Art of Execution

Guy Kawasaki offers one of his most famous articles in the September issue of Entrepreneur Magazine entitled "The Art of Execution."

It's interesting to me how in-synch his recommendations are, relative to the methodology outlined in Gary Harpst's top-rated organizational learning book "Six Disciplines for Excellence."

Read Kawaski's entire article here.

The Future CEO

The August 20th edition of Business Week magazine featured an excellent cover story on “The Future of Work.”

In this special double issue, they discussed how we will master technology, manage companies, and build careers in the era of the global 24-7 workforce.

This special report also discusses “The Five Faces of the 21st Century Chief.” It predicts that the “generalist” CEO will give way to the “specialist” CEO, and predicts five specialist CEO types that will be in the greatest demand:

• The BRAIN … May be algorithm geniuses, coding prodigies, or merely credentialed scientists or designers. CEOs in touch with their inner geeks will be a much sought-after breed.
• The AMBASSADOR … CEOs with explicit business experience in emerging markets of China, India, Russia, Brazil and Dubai.
• The DEALMAKER … Those able to both sell off non-core assets and go toe-to-toe with private equity players on big acquisitions will be in heavy demand.
• The CONDUCTOR … Future companies will have to form alliances with outsiders and turn to networks of innovators for new ideas. More cooperation and creativity across divisions will also be necessary. This CEO will have to orchestrate everyone to play in the same key.
• The CASTING AGENT … As Boomers retire, the talent wars will become fierce. CEOs who can retain the best people and deploy them adeptly will be hot commodities.

BOTTOMLINE: As our future workforce changes, so too will the skills required by company leadership. A systematic approach to addressing an ever-changing and increasing series of challenges is what is needed. An enduring business excellence program such as Six Disciplines could be the answer for organizations that have such intentions.

Small Business Audio Podcasts

Anita Campbell, over at Small Business Trends, has once again provided a huge service, as she posted a very comprehensive list of over 100 sites that offer small business audio podcasts.

Categories of podcasting sites include:

• Leadership and Management
• Marketing and Sales
• Operating a Small Business
• Tax and Finance
• Startups and Starting a Business
• Home Based Business
• Small Business Technology
• Business Opportunities and Franchises
• “All around” Small Business Podcasts
• Business News and The Big Picture
• Non-active Podcasts

Get your browsers and iPods ready!

Excellence Through Discipline

Kimberly Mathisen, reporter with the Chicago Star, posts her article "Excellence Through Discipline," the result of an interview she had recently with Six Disciplines CEO, Gary Harpst.

The article highlights Gary's thought leadership behind the top-rated book "Six Disciplines for Excellence."

Building Organizational Accountability

...Imagine working in an environment where all employees are fully engaged in what they do, excited about their work, accept personal responsibility for their performance and are committed to the organization.

...Envision your colleagues connected to the vision of the company, looking forward to coming to work and actually wanting to provide customers and the community with exceptional service.

Sound far-fetched?

In recent years, the Gallup Organization has stepped up its research efforts, particularly in organizational culture, management effectiveness and employee engagement.

The research has revealed three types of employees: engaged, not engaged and actively disengaged.

Their key recommendation? Companies need to build a culture based on trust, freedom, responsibility and accountability within a framework — a culture where people are willing to go the extra mile and perhaps to extreme lengths to fulfill their responsibilities.

How to build accountability into your own organization?

• Set the challenge, create and communicate a vision or goal that compels others
• Engage people in the possibilities and speak those possibilities in a clear, concise and consistent fashion.
• Create trust by leading by example, setting a positive tone by never doubting people and getting others to do versus being asked to do.
• Distribute power by sharing decision making, giving credit where credit is due and valuing innovation.
• Understand strengths and areas for development and looking for the shining eyes in the organization.
• Celebrate successes by recognizing performance and rewarding the results.

Findlay And Northwest Ohio Under Water

First, I want to thank those of you who regularly read Be Excellent, and those of you who remembered/recognized that our company Six Disciplines, LLC is located in Findlay, Ohio, USA.

Northwest Ohio, including Findlay, was recently hit by its worst flood in over 100 years, with hundreds of homes affected, and thousands displaced.

Above is a picture of downtown Findlay.

Our Corporate office is about a half mile to the east of downtown Findlay - also under water (See 2nd picture.)

Here's the story from the Toledo Blade, a newspaper covering the story.

Thank you all for your well-wishes, as we work to get Findlay cleaned up and put back together.

All the best!

Skip

Creating Your Individual Plan (IP)

The real challenge in business is not how to get people to work harder. Instead, it's figuring out how to get a larger percentage of the potential ability of each person's daily activities to be aligned with the priorities of your company.

Working smarter, not harder.

When each team member spends 1-2 hours per quarter developing their own Individual Plan (IP) that reflects how their activities aligns with company goals, the process becomes more clear.

The actual creation of quarterly IPs force team members and their team leaders to communicate with each others about their priorities. It builds and teaches accountability. (Sounds obvious - but it happens a lot less than we imagine.)

BOTTOMLINE: Developing written IPs every quarter for every team member helps people to understand how they improve company performance and improves team member satisfaction. In essence, this single step is at the core of the process for achieving enduring business excellence.

Getting Your Workforce Engaged

Management Issues has a recent post on employee engagement entitled "What to do when the thrill is gone..."

Their premise?

• Underperforming and disengaged employees impact and infect the entire organization and many of those within it in a variety of ways, all of them negative.
• When an employee performs and produces and the organization fails to do so, employees become disillusioned and tend to settle for a less-is-more mindset when it comes to work and working. Disengagement results.

So, what can managers actually do on a day-to-day basis to build a more engaged workforce?

• Show mutual respect
• Hold one another accountable
• Contribute and participate
• Recognize and reward effort
• Live the values of the organization

Read the entire article here.

How NOT To Implement Change In Your Organization

It happens a hundred times every day.

An executive or management team discovers or formulates a new initiative. They devise, and then implement the idea thinking, “wow…is this a great strategy.”

When it is finally introduced, they wonder why it is not welcomed or enthusiastically accepted.

Why? Here's a typical process that many organizations use to conceive and introduce new ideas:

1. Decide a change is needed
2. Make plans behind closed doors
3. Draw up charts
4. Call a meeting
5. Surprise! I have come up with a grand new organizational plan
6. See where each of you fit in my plan
7. Now get to work making it happen
8. Tell those who resist that they are not “team players”
9. Take all the credit for any success

BOTTOMLINE: Sadly, this is a typical process in an autocratic organization. The resulting loss of talent, resources and effectiveness are enormous. The bad news is that everyday this process is repeated over and over again and in some organizations from generation to generation. The good news is that everyday a few souls are changing their attitude and embracing a servant-leader approach.

Quotes About Strategy and Execution

"Strategy" overrated, simply "doin’ stuff" underrated. We have a ‘strategic plan,’ it’s called doing things."—Herb Kelleher (Southwest Airlines)


“Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing hows and whats, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability.” —Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan/ Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done


"The result...is an organization that has developed the most vital core competence of them all - the ability to execute its strategy." Gary Harpst, CEO and Founder, Six Disciplines Corporation

I've Been Tagged (Again)

Jim Stroup, over at Managing Leadership, has commented recently, and also let me know that I've been "tagged." (Go take a look at Jim's leadership blog.....definitely worth your time!)

For those of you not involved in the blogging community, being "tagged" involves the following:

• Post these rules before you give your facts.
• List 8 random facts about yourself.
• At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them.
• Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged.

How about I just post 5, and let it go at that?

Most of you probably realize that I work for Six Disciplines LLC as the Director of Public Relations. What most probably don't know about me is that:

1. I’m a Music Fanatic. After the Beatles debuted on Ed Sullivan, things have never been the same (except for my hairline.) Since then, I’ve seen hundreds of concerts over the years. I’ve played guitar since I was 9, and can also carry a tune. Prized possession is an Eric Clapton “Blackie” signature Strat. Prized memorabilia are an autographed copy of the Beatles “She Loves You,” an autographed stage photo of Eric Clapton, and most recently, an autographed photo from all members of Cream. Along the way, I’ve played in a few bands, and even fronted for Chubby Checker in Cleveland back in 2000. Test me on my music trivia, but be prepared to go down in flames.

2. Cooking is a Passion. Have cooked for 1 to over 100 people. I’m particularly intrigued with combinations of colors, textures and tastes. Favorites include pastas, Cajun/Creole, seafood dishes. Fresh herbs and summer vegetables are the only way to go. The results get rave reviews about 98% of the time. Of course, a good bottle of Merlot to go with whatever - goes without question.

3. Sports Nut. Playing, participating, coaching - you name it. Basketball, football, baseball – and most recently, hockey. Was the 2nd fastest sprinter in high school - still hold my high school record for pushups (127 consecutive) – and pull-ups (119 consecutive). Only TV I watch is sports (OK, maybe a few good documentaries…). I’m also nuts about sports trivia – I’m no “Schwab” – but I can hold my own.

4. Computer Geek. I truly believe that software can do almost anything. I’ve worked for a small software vendor (Solomon Software) – that became very successful over a 20 year time span, merged with our biggest competitor, and was acquired by Microsoft. I worked for Microsoft for 4 years as manager of industry analyst relations, also doing competitive intelligence and public relations work. I have been coding websites since 1994 (before most people even knew what the web was!). And, I'm connected to the Internet more hours per day than I want to admit.

5. Passionate About Seeking Deeper Meaning. Knowledge, news, music, information -- I need it 24 x 7. It’s all about deeper meaning: understanding, appreciating talent and excellence in all its forms, giving more than receiving.

There you have it. It was fun and provided a little chance to stroll down memory lane. Thanks for opportunity.

(And now....back to our regularly scheduled programming)

Top Five Trends - Leadership Insights from Top Executives

Whether you're an emerging leader, a seasoned pro or a top exec, you'll want to take note of five trends that are having - and will continue to have - a significant effect on business and leadership.

The trends are based on results from CCL's groundbreaking research on "The Changing Nature of Leadership" as well as on data collected from 247 senior executives who attended CCL's Leadership at the Peak program from July 2006 to April 2007.

1. The Rise of Complex Challenges. Most executives (91 percent) believe the challenges their organizations face are more complex than they were just five years ago. According to the executives, the top factors that contribute to the increasing complexity of business are internal changes to the organization, market dynamics, a shortage of talent and globalization. "It appears that organizations and individuals will have to keep doing more with less while responding even faster to changes in their industry and economy."
2. The Innovation Revolution. Everyone is looking for the next big thing, but how are they going about finding it? The executives report that they promote innovation in their organizations primarily through overt innovation efforts, such things as ideation processes, task forces, cross functional innovation teams, off-site innovation programs, reward/recognition programs and research/external best practices.
3. The Art of Virtual Leadership. Organizations are continually asked to bridge cross-cultural, geographical and functional boundaries. Eighty-five percent of 129 leaders surveyed believe that virtual leadership is a necessary skill for senior leaders in their organization. Further, 92 percent of 115 executives believe virtual leadership requires a different skill set from face-to-face leadership. According to the executives surveyed, communication is the central skill for effective virtual leadership.
4. Collaboration Nation. Collaboration is becoming a central part of our work as leaders. Over 97 percent of executives surveyed believe that leaders in their organization must collaborate to succeed. However, only 47 percent of 115 executives believe leaders in their organization are highly skilled in collaboration. To fill this gap between the need and the skill set, leaders and organizations need to develop the mindset, culture and competencies that support collaboration.
5. The World of Interruption. Research from Gloria Marks (reported in New York Magazine 2007, The Science of Interruption) states that the average worker is interrupted every 11 minutes on the job. Further, it takes those same workers about 25 minutes on average to return to the original task. CCL's study of senior executives shows that they are interrupted about every 30 to 40 minutes (note that the CCL data is self reported whereas Marks' is by observation). The difference in the two studies begs the question, do people even recognize interruptions or are they accustomed to it? Regardless, the pattern is clear that focused, long periods of work are rare in today's organizations.

BOTTOMLINE: Read about these top 5 -- and the other 5 trends -- that are top of mind for organizational leadership here.

Communicating During Change

Whether you’re merging two companies or just moving your office across town, change can be demanding and stressful. The best remedy is communication, applied according to these guidelines:

1. Identify the what and why of the change. Spell out the change in specific terms. How will employees’ daily routine be affected? What will they have to do differently? Explain the reasoning behind the change thoroughly. People will accept change more readily if they understand why it’s necessary—even if they don’t like it.
2. Target specific results. The change is intended to produce specific concrete results. Your communication efforts should do so as well. Do you want to retain a certain
   percentage of employees after a merger? Hold productivity at the same level after a cutback? Clear goals will make your communication strategy easier to plan.
3. Don’t dump information on people. Too much communication is rarely a bad thing, but it can be unproductive if you don’t put some thought into the quality of the information you expect people to process. Take some time to think about what you’re telling people and whether you’re doing it in the most effective way.
4. Welcome questions and feedback. Your workforce will feel more secure during the upheaval if they have lots of opportunities to ask questions and voice their opinions.
   Do your best to take their sentiments into account as you make decisions; when you can’t, explain the situation so people don’t think you’re asking for feedback only to ignore it.

BOTTOMLINE: When welcoming feedback, rely on a mixture of group presentations and one-on-one meetings. Gathering feedback one-on-one shows respect for the individual, allowing for interaction and feedback with less intimidation. Interaction moves people from compliance to enrollment, and from enrollment to commitment. (See Step II-D, Engage the Team, from Six Disciplines for Excellence.)

The Morning Meeting

Is your organization plagued by inefficient communications, finger pointing, and lack of accountability?

Get all key decision makers to the table—same time, every day.

It's a deceptively simple name for an intricately ritualized event that has delivered significant payoffs to the organizations that have put it into practice:

• Backbiting and turf protection are dramatically reduced.
• Tough problems are addressed while they are still manageable.
• Issues cannot be covered over, and people can no longer hide.
• Ownership increases.

BOTTOMLINE: The Morning Meeting (TMM) is about communication, but imbedded within it are norms and values that are critical for organizations that must deal with difficult issues and adapt nimbly to new situations: an openness to considering multiple perspectives, a willingness to share responsibility for finding creative solutions, and the discipline to move consistently from strategy to execution.

Excerpted with permission from "The Morning Meeting: Best-Practice Communication for Executive Teams," Harvard Management Communication Letter, Vol. 3, No. 2, Spring 2006

Barriers To Executing Strategy

In their "Leaders Talk About Executing Strategy" research report, the Ann Arbor-based market research firm eePulse shows the top three barriers to executing strategy include:

1. The company’s past and habits (with 35% of respondents thinking their past and habits will likely derail strategy.)
2. Financial factors, with both budget and economic climate being mentioned by 29% of the respondents.
3. Company culure and the way employees work together (two variables that are functions of the company’s habits and past.)

BOTTOM LINE: The only factor to really deter strategy is the people in the company; if they are holding on to old habits, then the organization cannot succeed.

Six Disciplines enables new habits to be learned for organizational change and strategy execution.

Execution and Common Sense II: Measure Progress Regularly

Bud Bilanich, good friend over at the Common Sense Guy, has been publishing a great series of entries on one of our favorite topics: Execution

Bud's Five Keys to Effective Execution

• Focus on what's really important.
• Develop meaningul measures.
• Create SMART goals.
• Measure progress regularly.
• Reinforce good performance. Redirect poor performance

BOTTOMLINE: Check out Bud's post, focused on number 4 "Measure progress regularly"..in which he also mentions Six Disciplines for Excellence.

Execution of Strategy

The real challenge for senior leadership teams is not picking the right strategy. In essence, they all know what they have to accomplish. Their biggest hurdle appears to be in driving effective execution of their strategy – which has a significant leadership component to it.

The execution of strategy is dependent upon team members on the front line being clear about the organization’s priorities and how they must act to achieve the stated objectives. It sounds simple but is highly complex.

In their Harvard Business Review article from last summer, Mankins & Steele reported on their research into why most organizations fail to turn “great strategy into great performance.”

The data showed that the average gap between performance and strategic plan objectives was greater than 35% among the companies that they studied.

The typical scenario was that the approved strategies were poorly communicated, which made it difficult for those at lower levels in the company to translate strategic objectives into specific actions and resource planning.

BOTTOMLINE: "Do not expect the organization to perform well if the senior team is not performing well as a unit. Time spent on building effective team process is time well spent!"

At Six Disciplines, our research found that leadership teams of top-performing organizations rated 155% higher than the lower performers. Two factors here: 1.) The ability of leadership to define a clear vision, and 2.) Appropriate involvement of leadership in leading and supporting projects that are strategic to the organization.

Top Five Business Books

Todd Sattersten, VP over at 800-CEO-READ, posts about the five business books that should be required reading for every executive, guaranteed to help you be more productive and make smarter decisions.

Todd's top five:

1. "Competitive Strategy" by Michael Porter
2. "Execution" by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck
3. "In Search of Excellence" by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman
4. "Good to Great" by Jim Collins
5. "The Effective Executive" by Peter Drucker

BOTTOMLINE: Each of these books deals with the toughest aspects of business: strategy formulation, execution and business excellence. It is no coincidence then that each of the top-rated books listed above is either referenced or quoted in Gary Harpst's top-rated book "Six Disciplines for Excellence."

How Good is Your Strategy Execution?

A recent Quest Worldwide global survey found that while 80% of executives are satisfied with their strategy, only 14% are satisfied with the execution of the strategy.

An article published by Dr. Paul Ward, Vice President and Principal Consultant at Quest Worldwide, is based on the booklet, Strategy execution: Executing your strategy and delivering results (ISBN 1899682368) is now available at CEO Refresher.

According to Ward:

• Strategy plus Execution equals Sustained Results
• Strategy = Focus + Balance + Stretch
• Execution = Alignment + Engagement + Discipline

Read the entire article here.

The Role of the CEO

Elizabeth Haas Edersheim, author of "The Definitive Drucker," posts this article about Peter Drucker's "Unfinished Chapter:" The Role of the CEO.

Elizabeth's key comments:

• Amid the turbulence of the 21st century, Drucker rightly saw CEOs as more important than ever. They had to provide leadership--strategic leadership, moral leadership, human leadership--and strike a balance.
• If I were to distill into one word Peter's thoughts on what makes a truly great CEO, I would choose courage; courage to do what is right, courage to trailblaze change, ourage to break the rules in an industry still in its infancy

Drucker defined three traits unique to a CEO:

1. A broad field of vision combined with the ability to ask and answer what needs to be done.
2. Accountability for the CEO's own imprint on the organization's character, values, and personality.
3. The influence the CEO has on people--individually and collectively.

Read the entire article here at Leader to Leader.

Why Succession Planning Matters

This BusinessWeek article tells the story of why Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone, 84, isn't the only corporate leader who's not ready to designate an heir apparent.

Redstone has already driven his son from the business, a conflict that was settled in 2007 when he paid his offspring $240 million to relinquish his claims.

With the recent news that he is reportedly asking his daughter and longtime heir apparent, Shari, to leave Viacom, it seems that even the famously shrewd Redstone has once again been outdone by the demands of succession planning.

There are good reasons why succession planning is one of the most challenging to-dos on a family business owner's checklist. To begin with, the stakes are high—so high in fact, that most family businesses fail to negotiate the transition and are sold either to pay taxes or because no one in the family is willing or able to take over.

BOTTOMLINE: "To adequately prepare for succession, you should evaluate the skills and attitudes of everyone in the organization who is a candidate for a leadership position. Everyone? Yes, because the CEO isn't the only position that requires succession planning."

Unlike Sumner Redstone, you may never preside over an $8 billion empire. But still, seek outside help. Even if you would never use an outside adviser for any other decision, consider the value that an experienced professional can bring to this important event. In case you balk at the possible expense or the distraction on top of your other duties, consider that poor succession planning is more likely to sink your company than any other risk. And just by doing it you'll place yourself in an elite group. Unlike the vast majority of those who ignore succession planning, you'll be working to reap the rewards of succession in a different and smarter way.

Six Disciplines Announces Breakthrough Business Excellence Program

Six Disciplines, LLC today unveiled the next steps in its breakthrough business excellence program, specifically designed to address the greatest business challenge – executing a company’s strategy.

Six Disciplines offers a unique program that encompasses four elements for long-term success: a business-building methodology; continuous accountability coaching; activity alignment software that inspires individual and team accountability; and the competitive advantages of a shared learning community.

The program is delivered to small and mid-sized businesses through Six Disciplines Centers, a nationwide network of accountability coaches who provide ongoing support, mentoring and training for continual improvement.

“While CEOs vary in their definitions of excellence, most agree that business excellence is a never-ending pursuit, in a world of increasing challenges,” said Gary Harpst, CEO and founder of Six Disciplines. “Therefore, a business excellence program must be able to build an organization’s capability to execute, and it must do so in an enduring way. We challenge CEOs to realize that a specific current issue is a symptom of a deeper need that all growing organizations have: the need to systematically improve their organization’s ability to manage their next challenge,” said Harpst.

Read the entire release here.

Six Disciplines™: Tools & Templates for Manufacturing Entrepreneurs

Kauffman eVenturing just published a new collection of articles entitled "Efficient Manufacturing Strategies."

In the collection, Craig Landwehr, Managing Partner of Six Disciplines North Carolina has an article about "Six Disciplines: Tools & Templates for Manufacturing Entrepreneurs."

Read the entire article here.

Six Disciplines: A New Focus on Performance

Kauffman eVenturing just published a new collection of articles entitled "Efficient Manufacturing Strategies."

In the collection, Brian D. Roth President and CEO, TruFast, LLC (a Six Disciplines client in Ohio) offers an article entitled "Six Disciplines™: A New Focus on Performance"

Read the entire article here.

Kauffman eVenturing: What Is Six Disciplines?

Kauffman eVenturing just published a new collection of articles entitled "Efficient Manufacturing Strategies."

Summary: What can growing manufacturing companies do to compete effectively in today’s global economy? One answer is to apply the quality and efficiency techniques previously associated only with large corporations. Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, and, more recently, Six Disciplines are proven ways to reduce costs, improve quality, and maintain margins. Small to medium-sized growth manufacturers are now successfully employing these processes to stay competitive. This eVenturing collection offers insight into efficient manufacturing strategies that smaller companies can use not only to produce products sold directly to consumers but also those that meet the needs of larger clients requiring use of such strategies. Stories of individual manufacturers that have implemented “Lean”—Buck Knives, for example—illustrate the challenges and rewards. Tools and templates provide a look at specifics of the process.

In the collection, Craig Landwehr, Managing Partner of Six Disciplines North Carolina describes "What is Six Disciplines?"

Read the entire article here.

Focus For Great Results

Gary Bourgeault over at Managers Realm, posted this useful entry on "Focus For Great Results."

His premise?

1. Just take some time to yourself and look at the things you're responsible for in the business.
2. From there take the 3 or 4 most important things that you can give yourself to which will produce the greatest results.
3. Once you have them in mind, then make sure you prioritize them.
4. Even within your priorities, you must have priorities.

BOTTOMLINE: "All of this sounds simple, but in studies of top executives in companies, this is one of the major things that they all have in common. They understand their priorities and religiously follow them (execute on them) in the order they occur, as they occur. Do it and you'll see great results in your business."

Remember, you need to focus on results, not activities!

Business Improvement Programs, Methods, Models and Theories

As you can see from the list here, there are literally hundreds of business improvement methods, models and theories - from some of the greatest minds in business, management and academic theory. Many of them are based on proven business best practices.

But if you ask small and mid-sized business leaders today - they'll tell you straight up:

"We don't need any more good ideas! What we need is to take one approach to improving our business - and STICK WITH IT."

BOTTOMLINE: The shortcoming with most business improvement efforts is that for one reason or another, they don’t last. They don’t stick around long enough to deal with both your current and future challenges. Our program, Six Disciplines, is different. It’s designed to be implemented, and embraced, by your organization in an enduring way.

Six Disciplines™ is the first enduring business excellence program optimized for small and mid-sized businesses. The program is based on four key elements:

• A REPEATABLE METHODOLOGY to drive organizational learning.
• ONGOING EXTERNAL COACHING to keep employees accountable and the organization focused on achieving its goals.
• A PROACTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL ALIGNMENT system to align the activities of every team member, every day.
• A SHARED LEARNING COMMUNITY of like-minded people – you, your employees, your business peers, Six Disciplines coaches – exchanging best practices to accelerate learning and continuous performance improvement.

ManagerTools Forum Posts a Review of Six Disciplines for Excellence

Manager Tools is a weekly podcast focused on helping you become a more effective manager and leader. Each week they post about new tools and easy techniques you can use to help achieve your management and career objectives.

If you’re tired of a lot of management theory and would rather learn specific actions you can take TODAY to improve your management performance, you’ll enjoy the Manager Tools podcast.

This week, one of their community members posted a short review of Six Disciplines for Excellence on their forum.

Here at Be Excellent, we're strong advocates of the short weekly 1:1 status meeting with every team member. Take a look at our post that points to ManagerTool's great "tool" for exactly that purpose!

Why Leadership Programs Fail

From Chief Learning Officer magazine comes this article on "Why Leadership Programs Fail."

According to BlessingWhite, a global consulting and training firm, several themes emerge when taking a closer look at why these sorts of programs fail.

Their findings:

"Senior executives go off-site for a team-building program with noble intentions and an ambitious agenda, but weeks afterward, they find little benefit for their time and effort,” Parker said. “Regrettably, this is not unusual for executive development retreats. What surprises us is that many organizations continue to make the same mistakes.”

(Principle: We often know what to do, the problem is, actually doing something about it!)

Some of the most common difficulties that bring down corporate leadership development programs are as follows:

• Urgency overrides preparation. In this case, the CEO’s insists that a team meet as quickly as possible, which tends to have a negative impact on effective preparations, thus having a negative impact on the corporate leadership development program.
• Trendiness triumphs over consequence. When this occurs, the program’s basis or inspiration is not actual business or strategic issues but the latest, hottest trend in business circles.
• Participants fail to engage emotionally. They might agree with what they learned in the corporate leadership development program, but if participants do not walk away with a burning desire to implement anything — or they simply do not care enough to put forth the effort to try something new — the program has not succeeded.
• The CEO cannot contain himself or herself. Although leadership off-site programs are supposed to give people an opportunity to “let their hair down,” some CEOs forget that they should not monopolize the conversation, which leads to intimidation and, accordingly, a lack of candor.
• Awkward issues are not confronted. It’s easy to point a finger at others and offer leadership development suggestions. It’s not so easy to look inward and acknowledge what you personally need to address.

BOTTOMLINE: "Even if organizations recognize these pitfalls and successfully change them, corporate leadership development programs still will not lead to positive change unless the organizational culture is receptive to them. Too often executives want leadership development to be the magic pill, except that if a company’s culture punishes risk taking — or worse, rewards the same behaviors that need changing — then training and development are beside the point."

Annual Strategic Planning - Already?

A recent Entrepreneur Magazine article entitled "Here's the Plan" raised the question:

"Is your company running smoothly? Then there's no better time to review your business plan and consider what your next move will be."

It's why - even during good times - that your strategic plan should not be collecting dust on a shelf somewhere.

"The business plan is the company's road map and strategic vision for the future. In its first iteration, it's simply a best guess, but later revisions show the business owner what's working, what isn't and why."

BOTTOMLINE: Examine your company's value drivers and how they may have changed since you started. In the Six Disciplines program, we call this Discipline IV: Step Back. It's an annual discipline of reviewing externals and internals, recapping your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and reviewing your team's performance to ensure you're organized the right way to execute your strategy.

Alignment Is A Strong Precursor to Growth

In a recent study by the Gevity Instutite found that:

Small businesses that follow a set of "workforce alignment" employee management strategies see

• 22.1% higher revenue growth
• 23.3% higher profit growth
• 66.8% less employee turnover

....than companies that do not follow the strategies.

The tactics examined included:

• Hiring employees to fit in with company culture rather than just based on a job candidate's individual skills. (Finding and Keeping The RIGHT People)
• Trusting employees to manage themselves rather than enacting strict controls. (Building Company-Wide Accountability)
• Using company socials and creating a "family-like environment" rather than trying to motivate employees solely through monetary incentives.

The study found that businesses with more than 50 employees in competitive environments and high growth rate goals received the most impact from following the strategies.

BOTTOMLINE: Workforce alignment strategies, in many forms, are what it takes to be more successful in terms of organizational growth. Six Disciplines Centers offer Business-Building Training sessions on Finding and Keeping The RIGHT People and Building Company-Wide Accountability - as examples of fostering workforce alignment using Six Disciplines.

Execution: Why Is It So Hard?

In their new book, "Get It Done! A Blueprint for Business Execution" business advisors Ralph Welborn and Vince Kasten offer some insight into the questions:

• "Why, oh, why is it so hard for companies--successful companies filled with very smart people--to align their objectives with their activities?
• "Why does "getting it done" seem so, well, impossible?"

Their research findings:

• Conflicting organizational activities, silos, redundant processes, and confusing governance policies block effective, consistent execution.
• 64% of C-level executives have said that being able to execute, to react quickly to changing business opportunities and technologies, is critical for their success.
• Yet nearly 80% of them said that it is nearly impossible to achieve.

They uncovered a wealth of reasons why so many companies have trouble getting it done. Here are ten common challenges:

1. Knowing what connects with what, when, where, how, and how much.
2. Internal struggles around new products/services development.
3. Getting T-shirts, Turtlenecks, and Suits to agree.
4. Silos: Corporate antibodies to change.
5. Integrating "existing" with "emerging" technology.
6. The "invisibles." (What you don't know will bite you.)
7. Conflicts between what's good for the company and what's good for your team.
8. The Botox Effect: managing the impossible decisions.
9. The Peter-Out Principle and the rise of horizontal loyalty.
10. Underestimating the Bull's Eye Effect.

Read the summary here.

Wasting Time At Work

Good news!

We're apparently wasting less time at work!

A mid-year 2007 Salary.com survey found about 6 in every 10 workers admit to wasting time at work with the average employee wasting 1.7 hours of a typical 8.5 hour working day.

While the amount of time wasted at work seems high, the percentages have actually improved by 19% from Salary.com’s first survey conducted back in 2005, when workers reported wasting 2.09 hours of their working day! That initial survey revealed that workers actually worked a total of three days a week, wasting the other two. Even worse, a study by Microsoft in 2005 revealed that American workers, on average, spent 45 hours a week at work, but described 16 of those hours as “unproductive.”

What are we wasting time on? Topping the list of time-wasting activities:

• Personal Internet use – 34%
• Socializing with co-workers – 20.3%
• Conducting personal business - 17%
  

The reasons why people wasted time?

• Boredom and not having enough to do was the main reason - 18%
• Having too long hours - 13.9%
• Lack of challenging work – 11.1%

BOTTOMLINE: Clearly, companies that have a challenged and engaged workforce can expect less time wasting, and more productivity in return. What organizations need is a systematic program to address activity alignment, not just to reduce wasted time, but to focus in real-time on the every-day activities that most align with company goals. That's what Six Disciplines is all about.

The 100 Daily Must-Reads for Entrepreneurs

I'm often asked for advice on what blogs to spend time with.

Here's a post on The 100 Daily Must-Reads for Entrepreneurs.

The categories of blogs covered include:

• Raising Capital
• Managing Debt and Risks
• Managing Staff
• Venture Capitalists
• Productivity
• Small Business
• General Interest
• Marketing
• Young Entrepreneurs
• Startups

(.....and humbly, Be Excellent is included on the list! Thank you!)

What Is A Business Excellence Program?

To understand what a business excellence program is, let's first look at what excellence is.

If you ask a roomful of business leaders: "What is your definition of exellence?" you'll get a wide range of responses.

Although business leaders vary in their definition of excellence, most agree that excellence is an ongoing pursuit in an ever-changing – and increasingly challenging – business environment.

Every situation is different, but typically our clients are already successful, already growing, but have difficulty meeting their next challenge. Frequent challenges mentioned by CEOs include:

• Communication - departments/employees operate in vacuum
• Accountability - things that should get done, don’t get done
• Engagement - people don’t seem to care as much or aren’t sure of their role within the company
• Alignment - people aren’t on the same page

The challenge for a business excellence program is to help leadership realize that their particular challenge at the moment is a symptom of a deeper need all growing organizations face: the need to systematically increase the capability of their organization to address future challenges.

BOTTOMLINE: Six Disciplines is a business excellence program. Years of research revealed to us that successful businesses all follow six fundamental disciplines related to strategy, planning, organization, execution, measurement and learning.

In our field research, we learned that a sustainable business excellence program must have the following four elements:

1. A Repeatable Methodology-- to drive organization learning
2. Ongoing External Coaching- to keep employees accountable and the program on track
3. Pro-active Organization Alignment--a system to align the activities of every team member, every day and
4. A Shared Learning Community— like-minded people… our clients, their employees, business peers, Six Disciplines coaches… all dedicated to accelerating learning and improving performance.

Our program uses a holistic approach to ingrain all six of these fundamental disciplines into the activities of every employee, every day. Simply put, Six Disciplines improves an organization’s ability to plan AND execute better—in a systematic, enduring way.

Business Pundit Reviews Six Disciplines for Excellence

Rob May, over at the very well-respected blog Business Pundit offers his review of Six Disciplines for Excellence.


"I'm beginning to notice a trend. Business authors are finally coming around to embrace execution. Maybe strategy books don't sell well anymore, or maybe these authors have just gotten tired of watching people plan, strategize, and then flounder when it comes to executing their plans."

"I really liked this book because it is simple and practical. It is easy to read, relevant to most companies, and thorough."

"I've become an execution convert over the last few years. I used to think ideas were special, but I've seen the same thing time and time again - lots of people have good ideas, usually they even have similar ideas, but there are very few people in this world that can consistently execute to get things done right. This book can help you become one of those rare execution oriented individuals."

"This book is about real business, how to get it done, how to consistently improve, and how to achieve excellence using that time tested method called "hard work."

BOTTOMLINE: See Rob's entire review at Business Pundit.

Ten Steps to Continuous Improvement

There are ten steps to continuous improvement:

1. Determine current performance.
2. Establish theneed to improve.
3. Obtain commitment and define the improvement objective.
4. Organize the diagnostic resources.
5. Carry out research and analysis to discover the cause of current performance.
6. Define and test solutions that will accomplish the improvement objective.
7. Produce improvement plans which specify how and by whom the changes will be implemented.
8. Identify and overcome any resistance to the change.
9. Implement the change.
10. Put in place controls to hold new levels of performance, and repeat step one.

On Mastering Habits

Scott Young has posted an in-depth introduction on mastering habits, exploring how to change, improve and modify your habits easily and effectively.

It's a 5 stage process:

1. Introduction - In this article, Scott provides an intro to mastering our habits. First we need to really recognize what a habit actually is. From there we need to develop the ability to become aware of these habits and our ability to seek improvements in them.
2. Conditioning - Conditioning a habit is the primary mechanism for installing it. In this article I’ll detail some of the methods I’ve used to condition new habits to make them an effortless part of my life.
3. Leverage - What do you do when your habit requires more willpower than you have? In these cases, understanding the power of leverage can allow you to take a small amount of willpower to push through an incredibly difficult habit.
4. Replacement - Habits can’t be removed. They must be upgraded or replaced. In this article I’ll detail how we can work on replacing habits to prevent some of the unwanted side-effects caused by massive habit changes.
5. Experimentation - Now you will know how to change your habits more effectively and easily, you can really start pushing the boundaries for what is possible. In this article I’ll give steps for what I feel is the fundamental key from taking your habits from average to excellence.

BOTTTOMLINE: "Habits can be changed and we can even reach a point where even dramatic habitual changes are fairly easy. Changing habits is a skill. Like all other skills it needs both practice and technique."

How to Read "Six Disciplines for Excellence"

All effective leaders are readers. And the only difference between who you are today and the person you will be in five years will come from the books you read and the people you associate with. When you read the book "Six Disciplines for Excellence" we recommend you review the steps outlined here -- an intelligent approach to reading and digesting a meaningful work. The steps include:

1. Selection
2. Preparation
3. Read Actively
4. Reflect for Insight
5. Systematize for Implementation

BOTTOMLINE: It is #5 that most readers neglect. Six Disciplines is the first enduring buiness excellence program, optimized for execution. The Six Disciplines Program is revealed in the top-rated business improvement book Six Disciplines for Excellence, which is available from Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, and from bookstores nationwide.

Execution and the Strategic Plan

Vistage is the world's largest CEO membership organization. Their July newsletter has a link to a detailed article entitled "Implementing the Strategic Plan."

The article includes comments from Vistage expert speakers....very much worth the time to read through!

Managing Alignment as a Process

This Harvard Business Working Knowledge article from Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton (inventors of the Balanced Scorecard) focuses on "Managing Alignment as a Process"

Their premise?

• To create synergy, we require more than a concept and a strategy. The enterprise value proposition defines the strategy for value creation through alignment, but it doesn't describe how to achieve it.

• The alignment strategy must be complemented with an alignment process.

• The alignment process, much like budgeting, should be part of the annual governance cycle.

• Whenever plans are changed at the enterprise or business unit level, executives likely need to realign the organization with the new direction.

BOTTOMLINE: Closely tied to this core thought is Discipline III. Align Systems, from Six Disciplines for Excellence.

Work The Plan Every Day

"What keeps all the self-help gurus, transformational therapists, self-improvement courses and bookstores packed with guides to personal change? People who read, listen, attend courses and undergo therapy as a substitute for action."

“Hey...I’ve read all these books, spent thousands on courses and conferences and sat at the feet of every guru I could find. It must have done me some good.”

BOTTOMLINE: "No excuses, no exceptions. Take at least one significant step each day. Your old habits are strong and you won’t overcome past conditioning by doing something new once. All you read or think is useless if you don’t turn it into consistent, daily action. All the complex advice about getting things done can be boiled down to these two points:

(Hat tip to Adrian Savage)

1. Do the next most important thing. Do it now, however small it is.
   Repeat this until you’ve reached your goal.
2. If you’re not sure what’s the next most important thing, do something anyway."

Tell Me About Six Disciplines

We get asked many times: "Tell me about Six Disciplines....."

The following is a short FAQ that provides brief answers:

Q: Who is Six Disciplines?
A: Six Disciplines is a growing national network of local business excellence centers.

Q: What is Six Disciplines?
A: Six Disciplines is a business excellence program. Although people vary in their definition of excellence, most agree that business excellence requires a never-ending pursuit in a world of increasing challenges. Therefore a business excellence program must grow an organization’s capability to execute and it must do so in an enduring way.

Q: What are your clients looking to solve?
A: Every organization’s situation is different, but challenges frequently mentioned by CEOs include:
· Accountability -- things that should get done, don’t get done
· Engagement -- people don’t seem to care as much
· Direction – focus is unclear, opportunities may be overwhelming
· Transition – a desire to “pass the torch” successfully
· Control - things “feel” out of synch
· Quality – product and service levels are diminishing
· Alignment - people aren’t on the same page
· Frustration – we should do better

We challenge company leadership to realize that their particular challenge at the moment is a symptom of a deeper need that all growing organizations have: the need to systematically improve the organization’s ability to manage their next challenge.

Q: What does Six Disciplines actually do?
A: Our program includes a holistic approach toward strategy, planning, organizing people and processes, and execution management. Simply put, Six Disciplines grows an organization’s ability to plan AND execute better.

Q: What makes the Six Disciplines program different?
A: The problem with most business improvement efforts is, for one reason or another, they don’t last. What makes Six Disciplines different is that it has been optimized to be embraced by an organization in a long-term sustainable way. We leave nothing to chance in this pursuit and believe that Six Disciplines is the first enduring business excellence program.

Q: Why are you able to do what no one else has?
A: The first reason is that we invested more than 100 man-years and $20m focused on solving this problem. The second reason is that the timing is right. Advances in separate business and technology disciplines over the past 20 years have made it possible to attack this problem in ways never-before practical.

Q: What does the Six Disciplines Program include?
A: In our field research, we learned that an enduring business excellence program must have the following four elements, (all of which are core components of the Six Disciplines Program):

1. A repeatable Methodology to drive organization learning
2. External Coaching for accountability
3. A System to align the activities of every team member, every day and
4. A Community of like-minded people to accelerate learning

Q: Who are the target customers for Six Disciplines?

A: We target private, U.S based small and mid-sized (SMB) organizations that are financially stable, have strong leadership with an open culture and have between 20 and 200 employees (knowledge workers) using computers. Ultimately, it is the CEO we’re targeting, as this is the only person who has the responsibility for the overall success of the company and can bring about the necessary commitments for change.

BOTTOMLINE: Six Disciplines is the first enduring business excellence program, optimized for execution, specifically designed for small and mid-sized businesses.

Excellence is an enduring pursuit. It requires an enduring approach. Visit us at http://www.sixdisciplines.com/.

Six Disciplines for Excellence - A Top Seller for Synergy Books

According to the July newsletter from BookPros, our book publisher in Austin, TX, Six Disciplines for Excellence is the top seller for the Synergy Books imprint.

Congratulations and thank you to all at BookPros, and to their publicity arm, Phenix Publicity.

LeadershipNow Reviews Six Disciplines for Excellence

Michael McKinney, over at Leading Blog (from Leadership Now) offers his review of Six Disciplines for Excellence.

A short excerpt:

"Now in its new and improved second edition, Six Disciplines for Excellence by Gary Harpst is still one of the best field guides to business. It lays out a practical methodology to help you stay aligned with your mission using sound foundational principles. Through a series of repeatable annual, quarterly, weekly and daily cycles, this methodology will help you to successfully guide your business and quite frankly, your personal life as well. Not surprisingly, you will find that these disciplines are applicable to your personal life, because we are all subject to some of the same pressures that are present in any other system."


Read the entire review here.

Six Disciplines Customer Video - Greater Findlay, Inc

Watch this short video as Doug Peters, CEO of GreaterFindlay,Inc. discusses how Six Disciplines is helping his organization develop and execute a strategy that fulfills their mission to make Findlay, Ohio one of the best micropolitan communities in the United States.

Six Disciplines Customer Video - Kramer Enterprises

Watch this short video and see how Six Disciplines has helped Paul Kramer, CEO and owner of Kramer Enterprises, to confidently move his apparel and promotional products business forward.

Kotter's Eight Steps to Transform Your Organization

From Kotter, the leading thought leader on change management, here are "Eight Steps to Transform Your Organization:"

1. Establish a Sense of Urgency
   - Examine market and competitive realities
   - Identify and discuss crises, potential crises, or major opportunities
2. Form a Powerful Guiding Coalition
   - Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change effort
   - Encourage the group to work as a team
3. Create a Vision
   - Create a vision to help direct the change effort
   - Develop strategies for achieving that vision
4. Communicate the Vision
   - Use every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision and strategies - Teach new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition
5. Empower Others to Act on the Vision
   - Get rid of obstacles to change
   - Change systems or structures that seriously undermine the vision
   - Encourage risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions
6. Plan for and Create Short-Term Wins
   - Plan for visible performance improvements
   - Creating those improvements
   - Recognize and reward employees involved in the improvements
7. Consolidate Improvements and Produce Still More Change
   - Use increased credibility to change systems, structures, and policies that don't fit the vision
   - Hire, promote, and develop employees who can implement the vision
   - Reinvigorate the process with new projects, themes, and change agents
8. Institutionalize New Approaches
   - Articulate the connections between the new behaviors and organizational success
   - Develop the means to ensure leadership development and succession

Engaging Your Workforce

An “engaged worker” is one who’s personally committed to the goals of the company.

Unfortunately, “90% of the time, what passes for commitment is actually.....compliance.”

However, people have tremendous reservoirs of endurance, creativity, passion, energy and enthusiasm for the things they believe in. If you can’t get the people in the organization engaged in the ongoing need to continually improve, then no improvement approach can last.

Therefore, an approach that’s going to work over the long haul must engage the individuals in the organization.

Warnings signs of people not being engaged:

• Poor understanding about how an individual’s work connects to
  the purposes of the company.
• Poor, limited communication with team members about the purpose
  of the organization, its strategies, challenges, strengths, weaknesses,
  etc.
• Expectations aren’t properly set in the minds of all staff members,
  resulting in disappointment, frustration or resentment.
• There’s an imbalanced focus on short-term achievement, instead
  of long-term thinking.
• People are hired who are not aligned with your mission and values,
  resulting in a weakening of company culture.

BOTTOMLINE: One of the top priorities of leadership is learning how to engage their team to strive for the company’s goals. Given that execution is a far greater challenge than strategy formulation, the ultimate core competency for any organization is realized when “all individuals make strategy (execution) their everyday job." To achieve this kind of engagement first requires overcoming any lack of understanding or clarity of what is expected. Research shows that “less than 5% of the typical workforce understands their organization’s strategy.”

The existence of a well-thought-out mission, strategic position, and values and goals statement provides an essential foundation for building this understanding. Because of the size of their organizations, small and mid-sized business leaders have an enormous advantage in being able to get in at the “ground level” to build the kind of understanding that really unleashes the innovative potential of their team.

The Road To Excellence - Part Four

Six Disciplines - Central Indiana (located in Indianapolis) has produced a several part video series entitled "The Road To Excellence."

In Part Four of the series, watch this short video as four CEOs explain why they decided to train their employees on the Six Disciplines business-building methodology.

BOTTOMLINE: Six Disciplines helps organizations achieve operational ease. Many organizations bounce against ceilings of complexity as a result of an unbalanced approach to business. We help organizations validate their strategy, create a balanced 12 month plan, and connect all people within the organization to that plan. We utilize a proven, systematic approach for executing successful business strategies. We coach organizations on how to deploy, communicate, and effectively execute their strategic plans.

Trust and Performance Management

Trust is an essential part in managing people and building a high-performance organization.

It's the foundation upon which all relationships are built. As in any relationship, trust is central to stable and productive workplace relations and successful team building initiatives. High trust environments correlate positively with high degree of employee involvement, performance management, commitment and organizational success.

If trust is present in the workplace, the organization gets maximum effort and commitment, and the employees receive security and know they are appreciated.

This Australian survey shows a strong correlation between trust and a positive workplace culture that emphasizes reward, supportiveness and stability. It shows that trust is strongly linked to attributes such as caring for colleagues, actively involving them in the company's vision, mentoring, role modeling and inspirational motivation. The survey also reinforces findings of similar research projects around the world: The more high tech, impersonal and sophisticated organizations become, the greater the need for leaders who can build a culture of trust in the organization.

Constant Review Creates Constant Growth

This entry from SuccessMinders, "Constant Review Creates Constant Growth," is worth a few minutes of reading!

Whatever method you use, reviewing your goals regularly is the key.

Here's the take-aways:

1. Keep your goals with you always.
2. Keep your goals present in your environment.
3. Keep your goals present where you can’t possibly miss them during the course of a day.
4. Keep reminders in interesting and unusual places to shake up your patterns.

BOTTOMLINE: Interestingly enough, the Individual Plans (IPs) as described in the book "Six Disciplines for Excellence," reinforce these principles of continual review. By using the Individual Plans in the Six Disciplines Business System, you have them with you always (even over the Internet); they're always in your environment (on your desktop); you can't miss them during the course of the day, as your daily prioritization of goals and plans depends on it, and you can always bring up your IP anytime during the day.

Executive Coaching Sees Downturn

After years of increased use, executive coaching is seeing a downtown within corporations, according to a survey from Novations Group, a global consulting and training firm based in Boston.

Potential reasons?

• This is due to senior management pressure for greater accountability and cost containment
• The downtown also might be because of the abundance of executive coaches in the field.
• Organizations are looking for more emphasis on the ROI of their coaching dollars

The ramifications?

• Less coaching could have a negative impact on organization down the road
• Most leaders do not make a successful transition into higher levels of leadership without some coaching

BOTTOMLINE: With the impending baby boomer retirements and subsequent middle- and senior-level promotions, this trend of unprepared new executives could have a negative effect on corporations and their bottom line. Executive coaching will pick up again when companies realize that their leaders are struggling. Training and development initiatives have a lot of value, but when it comes to long-term behavioral change, coaching is a more successful methodology.

Leading With Your Mission Statement

Entrepreneur Magazine's article "Lead the Way " offers some good common sense insight into the process for sharing the vision and mission with all employees:

• Your employees are the voices and drivers of your business.
• Directly or indirectly, everyone on your team sells. But what are they selling? Is it your vision and passion for your brand or mission?
• If what they're selling isn't 110 percent aligned with your commitment and vision, then they are selling your company--and customers--short
• To sell to your employees, you must share your vision and passion.
• Focus on the company mission, and tie initiatives and campaigns to it.
• The strongest advocates are those who are already sold on the brand and what it represents.

BOTTOMLINE: "As founder, you must fuel the fire of passion within every employee. It's what turns an employee into an advocate--and advocates sell without even realizing it. This must be a 24/7 priority for every entrepreneur--your business's future depends on it."