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X-Gap: Using Strategic Planning to Close the Project Execution "Gap"

James D. Murphy — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:29:00 GMT

Teams and organizations are constantly plagued by project execution errors and failures. These failures create an execution gap -- a gap between what an individual and/or team plans to do and what they actually do instead. Just as retention rapidly degrades after learning, so does project execution after strategic planning. So what can be done?

In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist, famously demonstrated a theory concluding that people start forgetting what they learn as soon as they learn it. In his "forgetting curve" study, he demonstrated that humans forget half of what they learn within an hour of learning it, and by the following day, they have forgotten a full two-thirds of the new information. Since Ebbinghaus' study, psychologists have discovered that there are many ways to improve retention and memory; however, if memory is so fragile, what is its impact on project execution and strategic planning - getting the things done that you and your team should do?

Strategic Planning: The Execution Gap Meeting

Strategic planning is a form of team learning. When approached collaboratively, planning is a knowledge-creating and problem-solving process. And strategic planning can create much detail that is difficult to manage, and therefore, execute. Great project execution requires 100% retention in the team learning process. Without such a perfect level of retention, project execution will falter; however, just as there are techniques to improve individual retention after learning, there are techniques to improve the team's project execution after strategic planning. One of these techniques is the Execution Gap Meeting, or X-Gap.

In principle, the X-Gap is simple. Get the team together at regular intervals during the project execution phase, address the progress of each individual task that must be performed, and take action before progress falls behind. In "Teambuilding: Proven Strategies For Improving Team Performance," recognized as the authoritative work on the fundamentals of team building, the authors note the importance of regular interventions within teams to prevent regression like that of the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. Furthermore, they note that regression is more effectively halted when regular interventions are held to focus on tasks as a team rather than on a one-on-one, supervisor-to-subordinate basis. It sounds like a simple strategic planning technique; however, in practice, holding an effective X-Gap requires discipline.

One of the greatest challenges to leading an X-Gap is controlling the discussion and keeping it on task. Fundamentally, the X-Gap is a transparent strategic planning method of applying peer pressure to enhance project execution performance. So, participants have a tendency to provide excuses and open up lengthy discussions to distract the group from individual accountability. X-Gap leaders must fight this tendency.

Leading an effective X-Gap requires a commitment to four basic principles - focus, resolution, action and frequency.

Principle Number One: Focus

First, X-Gap meetings should be short and focused only on the tasks required. This strategic planning technique is not an opportunity for open discussion, complex problem solving or the exchange of general information. It has only one item on the agenda - the review of all due and open tasks within the plan. In an X-Gap, the leader convenes the meeting on time and proceeds task-by-task through the project by asking each task owner to report their progress. Responses should be succinct. Completed tasks and tasks in-progress but not yet due are simply either "completed," "on track," or "green." Tasks that are in progress but have some uncertainty about the capacity to complete them as planned are "yellow." Finally, tasks that are past due or have encountered some critical obstacle that must be addressed are "critical" or "red." The latter two classifications are the target of the X-Gap strategic planning meeting. The X-Gap leader's purpose is to identify and isolate those "yellow" and "red" category tasks for further review.

Principle Number Two: Resolution

The second basic principle of the X-Gap is to take action to resolve uncertainty, ambiguity and any other obstacles. Once project execution gaps are exposed, the leader should make decisions and possibly reallocate resources in order to close those gaps. Some explanation and discussion is usually necessary. Therefore, X-Gap leaders must remain on their guard against unproductive, rambling discussions. Those responsible for the task targeted for discussion should succinctly explain the issue to the team and state what they believe they need in order to accomplish the task - to close the gap. This need is usually stated as a request for resources or a decision from the leader.

At this point, teams will tend to want to have an open discussion about the matter; however, the X-Gap leader must contain this strategic planning discussion to only a few minutes. If the team is allowed to take too much time, then there will be less time to address other "red" and "yellow" tasks. As a rule of thumb, any task that requires more than two minutes to explain and discuss should be deferred to a separate discussion that takes place after the X-Gap meeting. Leaders must keep the X-Gap meeting focused and moving along smoothly so that all the relevant tasks within the plan are addressed.

Principle Number Three: Action

X-Gap meetings should identify specific actions that must take place during the project execution phase, unless all tasks are completed or on task as planned. Leaders should take care to either clearly indicate the actions that must take place as a result of the task review process, or indicate how and when decisions or other resolutions will take place and who is responsible for them. They must determine whether or not additional resources are required, who will acquire them and by when. And if further deliberation is required to achieve a decision, leaders must decide when this will take place and which team members will be a part of the discussion. Successful strategic planning in X-Gap meetings should never conclude without clarity about the next steps to take.

Principle Number Four: Frequency

Finally, X-Gap meetings should be a recurring strategic planning event that aligns with the team or organization's overall project execution rhythm. If the team holds an X-Gap every Monday morning at 10 a.m., for example, the team will be better able to anticipate, participate more fully, and prepare more thoroughly.

Preparation is the key to a successful X-Gap meeting and strategic planning session. Team members report to the X-Gap at their pre-designated time and place with the statuses of their assigned tasks in the plan. This means being prepared to respond to its overall status, as well as providing both a succinct description of a status that is "yellow" or "red." Participants should be prepared to answer the question: "What do you believe is required to move forward?" Of course, there are often certain dependencies outside an individual team member's control that may be the underlying cause. Hence, the purpose of the X-Gap is to expose these project execution issues and address them appropriately as a team. Good preparation also means that individuals can stand in for others unable to attend the X-Gap, providing a status of their tasks and discussing what is needed to move forward.

An X-Gap strategic planning meeting must be led. As a teacher leads a classroom and utilizes techniques to help students improve retention, a leader should utilize techniques like the X-Gap to improve project execution.

James D. Murphy,

Founder and CEO of Afterburner, Inc.,

Collaborative Leadership: A Process for Success in a Turbulent World

James D. Murphy — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 16:45:00 GMT

Do you know how to provide collaborative leadership in a disciplined fashion? And how does one define disciplined collaboration? The current business and leadership literature touts the importance of collaborating in our turbulent world. Large and small businesses and teams struggle to wrap their heads around just what collaboration is. Many see collaboration or collaborative leadership as a challenge that can be met through technology, whether it is through social media or virtual conferencing, while others recognize the benefits of restructuring an office space so that it appears more open. However, technology and physical space are only superficial means to address the challenge of disciplined collaboration. Collaboration - and successful collaborative leadership - does not derive from "where" or through "which" media people interact. Instead, it is about "how" people interact. And that "how" must be disciplined.

Disciplined Collaboration

Disciplined collaboration holds a central place in Jim Collins' latest work, "Great by Choice." "Great by Choice" is the result of a grand research project that seeks to discover how some companies have continued to thrive in spite of uncertainty, chaos, and luck - good or bad. It's a centrally-important issue in our turbulent world, where change is so rapid and unpredictable. Collaborative leadership has been cited as a vital skill that teams and companies must use in order to constantly create, innovate and adapt to change. Innovation is often seen as the fruit of collaboration; however, this is a dangerously limited perspective. Collaboration is much more valuable than a means to achieve innovation. Disciplined collaboration is an invaluable process that teams can utilize to successfully innovate, solve problems, make decisions, plan and execute.

Above all, disciplined collaboration is a creative planning and decision-making process. In "Great by Choice," Collins defines discipline as "consistency of action." For teams and companies, Collins' definition implies that collaboration and collaborative leadership processes be consistent. "The great task, rarely achieved," Collins writes, "is to blend creative intensity with relentless discipline so as to amplify the creativity rather than destroy it." He goes on to point out that "the signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change; the signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency." That inconsistency begins in the planning and decision-making process. And in a world of complex challenges that are best met by teams rather than individuals, that consistency requires a disciplined collaboration process.

Dynamism and Iteration

A disciplined collaborative planning process requires certain elements. Altogether, there are many elements in a planning process; however, some of the elements most successfully impact an effective collaborative leadership process -- these are the elements that allow the process to be dynamic, iterative, participatory and cognitively diverse.

"Dynamic" refers to the adaptability of the planning processes product -- the plan. Change happens; therefore, you shouldn't collaborate on a plan only to find that the plan needs to change without a clear process of making those adaptations.

The process for disciplined collaboration and collaborative leadership should also be iterative. Iteration is similar to dynamism, but is not the same. Iteration is the plan improvement process within the overall planning process, while dynamism refers to the adaptation of the plan after it is executed. Iteration occurs during planning, while dynamic adaptation occurs during the execution of the plan. Teams that collaborate during planning, and those who utilize collaborative leadership, will iterate the plan before its execution, enabling those individuals to more effectively execute and adapt those plans.

Nominal Group Aggregation

Of course, disciplined collaboration requires participation by more than one individual - this is what makes collaborative leadership so challenging. How do a group of individuals come together to produce a plan or make a decision? Fundamentally, it requires a collaborative leadership process for generating ideas at the individual or very small group level (2-5 persons), and then combining and vetting these ideas at a larger group level (5-15 people). This process is called nominal group aggregation.

Nominal group aggregation is a delicate process because everyone has their own ideas - some better than others. In collaborative groups, some individuals voice their ideas forcefully, while others hold back on valuable insight, fearing they won't be heard or appreciated. However, successful collaborative leadership techniques can overcome such obstacles, and these techniques must be part of a disciplined collaborative process. Disciplined collaboration is not about achieving consensus; instead, it is about producing the best plan to achieve the objective. Consensus can lead in any direction, while disciplined collaboration yields a plan that leads in the right direction.

Cognitive Diversity and Simplicity

Finding the correct direction to proceed requires another element of the collaborative planning process: cognitive diversity. Collaborative leadership will not be successful if you are collaborating with a team of individuals that think alike, have similar backgrounds and experience, occupy the same hierarchical positions, and so forth. Creativity and innovation require divergent thinking and dialogue. Therefore, disciplined collaboration must adhere to a process that harnesses cognitive diversity. Utilize your collaborative leadership skills to incorporate a balanced mixture of experience, knowledge and positions for the collaborative process. Consider that two heads are actually not more valuable than one if both heads think alike and see the world in the same way. For example, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail - so make sure that you have a complete toolbox when planning collaboratively.

There is one additional important element. The process must be simple. To collaborate effectively and efficiently, people need a simple process. If a team has to spend time organizing and training about how they are going to collaborate and then struggle to become proficient at that process, then efficiency and effectiveness suffer. Collaborative leadership entails using a process that is simple to learn and apply, consistently applying that process throughout the organization. Disciplined collaboration will become a widely-practiced behavior; and that behavior will ultimately become a healthy collaborative culture.

Achieve Collaboration through Discipline

Disciplined collaboration yields more than a plan or decision; it engages the team to execute successfully. Disciplined collaboration is the first step in achieving success as a team. Humans like to be autonomous, to have the freedom to solve problems and perform tasks on their own and in their own way. However, our complex, turbulent world requires collaboration in order to create, innovate and succeed. Humans also need to be connected to each other, to be a valuable part of a larger whole. Disciplined collaboration is the key to satisfying these often conflicting needs in modern organizations. On one hand, collaborative leadership provides each individual with the opportunity to contribute their own insights and then, once a final plan is created, to go forth and execute in their own semi-autonomous way. On the other hand, what each individual executes becomes a well-coordinated part of the overall objective. However, to fulfill these basic human needs, the team must always achieve collaboration through a disciplined process.

James D. Murphy,
Founder and CEO of Afterburner, Inc.

Simplicity and Elegance: Expressing Your Core Competencies

James D. Murphy — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:48:00 GMT

Do you know what your business's core competencies are? Is there just one or are there many organizational attributes? If you answered that there are many, how would you describe them succinctly? Core competencies are one or a combination of a few unique or rare abilities; however, a description of core competencies is not simply a laundry list of various organizational attributes. It seems like a simple task, but naming your core competencies can be very difficult. This is because we, as business leaders or managers, get caught up in the tactical day-to-day tasks that we accomplish and we often mistake those tasks as our core competencies.

Years ago, when I walked to the flight line to take my first solo flight in an F-15 fighter, I was struck by an all-encompassing passion that has driven me and everyone on my team to achieve success. That passion was to define and teach the basic principles that helped me, a farm-boy from Kentucky, become one of a very few elite U.S. Air Force fighter pilots. Every individual on my team shares that passion, whether they are a fighter pilot, a U.S. Navy SEAL, a U.S. Army Ranger, Delta Force, or Special Forces operator, or one of many other classes of elite military professionals. We've built a great company. But we've done that with a clear understanding of our core competencies and organizational attributes that have guided us for years.

Defining Your Core Competencies: Examining Your Complex Organizational Attributes

Often, your true core competencies are elusive and hard to pin down, which makes defining your core competencies difficult, even when examining your organizational attributes. However, it is my belief that an expression of your true core competencies can be articulated both simply and elegantly.

Expressing core competencies is about getting to the root cause of why you do what you do and what makes you successful. A core competency is not a mission or vision statement; nor is it a statement of competitive advantage. It is not a statement of the level of quality of the products you manufacture or of the services you provide. A core competency is something more fundamental. It is both a root cause of success and an expression of the organization's unique character or reason for being. A simple and elegantly expressed core competency is a summary of what is most likely a set of complex organizational attributes.

Proof of the complexity of a core competency can be found in the way scholars in the field of business management and leadership have defined the term. In their 1990 Harvard Business Review article entitled "The Core Competence of the Corporation," C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel assert that an organization's core competencies can be attributed to success in a wide variety of markets, increase the perceived value to the customer, and prevent imitation by competitors. The authors conclude that these benefits are due to a "complex harmonization" of organizational attributes, creating core competencies.

How Passion Contributes to Core Competencies

Jim Collins famously characterized core competencies as "hedgehog" traits in his book "Good to Great." Instead of describing core competencies in terms of benefits, Collins describes them in terms of three dimensions - what you can be best in the world at; what drives your economic engine; and what you are deeply passionate about. Although each is important, it is often the last "dimension" that is left out of an organization's description of its organizational attributes. What you are passionate about is a core competency -- it's the fire in your belly that drives you to do every day what must be done. Without that passion, descriptions of core competencies are simply statements of what you do well, and do not include what you love. Describing the passion that drives your organization is essential to cutting through the complexity and getting to the simple and elegant truth of the organization's identity.

The science of physics provides an excellent example of simplicity and elegance. Physicists are often driven to refine their theories until they achieve an "elegant" formula. Physics is an elegant science because it seeks to find the fundamental laws of the universe. For this reason, physicists call these laws "elegant" because they are, in essence, both simple and effective.

For example, consider the famous formula E=mc². This formula simply states that energy is equal to mass times the square of the speed of light. This simple formulation was one of the most significant scientific discoveries of the past century - and it is expressed in just five symbols. Pick up any high school physics textbook and you'll find a host of simple equations that explain almost any phenomenon we encounter in the course of our everyday lives. That simple but powerful formulation is what physicists mean by "elegant."

It is essential to include the passion - your organization's "reason for being" - found within your organizational attributes, in a statement or written formulation of your organization's core competencies. Passion is a core competency that is often overlooked. Like other core competencies, passion cannot be duplicated easily. It is important, then, to expand the scope of the core competency to become more than just a statement of fundamental skill. Capture the passion and include the guiding principles - what the organization believes. Altogether, core competencies, core beliefs and the passion to do what it is that you do, come together to create the simplicity and elegance of what I call the "organizational imperative."

Organizational Imperative

Many companies do a good job of capturing the essence of their organizational imperatives by developing eloquent and inspirational mission, vision and goals statements. However, this is an awkward approach, as it usually fails the test for simplicity and elegance, and it may lack a true statement of organizational imperatives altogether.

If you correctly define your core competencies, you will realize that everything your organization accomplishes, along with its organizational attributes, should flow from and connect directly to that description. Furthermore, that definition should become a screen for every decision, however large or small, throughout the entire organization.

My company's organizational imperative is simple and elegant. It is as follows:

"To relentlessly seek to accelerate individual, team, and organizational performance through the inspiration and experience of elite military professionals. Our guiding principles are: (1) seek integrated solutions with transformative power that are simple and achieve results; (2) represent our brand - Flawless Execution; and (3) do right, speak the truth, and demonstrate excellence."

In just 50 words, we have described our passion, our core competencies, our organizational attributes and our beliefs.

Like an elegant formula in physics, a complete and concise organizational imperative describes your organization's behavior. It is the standard to which all actions are executed and decisions are measured and made.

About the Author

James D. Murphy

Founder and CEO of Afterburner, Inc.

Organizational Gravity: Three Steps to Foster Continuous Improvement, Defy Obsolescence and Take Flight

James D. Murphy — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:10:00 GMT

Gravity can be a wonderful thing. It is an irresistible force that keeps us grounded on this big, beautiful, floating blue marble. It is even applicable to organizations in the form of organizational gravity. For example, I worked with an organization that coined a catch phrase for a challenge beyond its scope of control, deeming the situation a "gravity issue." They explained that "the situation is out of our control, much like gravity - you can't do anything about it."

Sadly, this mentality represents the culture in many organizations. Whether it's the culture, the hierarchy, the bureaucracy or the processes, organizational gravity seems to grow ever stronger as an organization matures. Sure, organizational gravity keeps the organization grounded and focused. It may also contribute to a passion for continuous improvement at a very tactical, discreet level. But, it also narrows that focus at the expense of innovation and adaptability, two of the most critical abilities of successful organizations. So how do we defy organizational gravity?

Continuous Improvement Planning

Every company or organization begins as a plan. Never forget that! Continuous improvement planning is the key to defying organizational gravity. It's easy to think of everything we do in our working lives as "processes." For instance, your organization probably has a hiring process. However, this is the wrong way to look at it. Instead of viewing it as a hiring process, think of it as a hiring "framework." Of course you plan for each and every position that you must fill, as every new hire has different strengths and weaknesses. However, many organizations still call this a "process," which evokes the image of a manufacturing line.

What about a new project? Any continuous improvement planning in that? Sure there is. Large scale projects are unique, even if there are a number of processes involved, because in a sense, these projects have never been performed before. If you are an entrepreneur pursuing a new business idea, you begin with a plan. That plan may be a formal business plan or it may just be an idea sketched out on the back of an envelope. Ultimately, with success, those plans transform into processes, the sustaining framework of the business -- and that is where organizational gravity begins to tighten its grip. As our ideas coalesce into plans and the plans further coalesce into concrete processes, organizational gravity strengthens and holds the organization together.

It is this necessary and proper transformation from plan to process that, for good and ill, perpetuates the relentless assault of organizational gravity. As a positive force, we might call it focus. However, the cons of organizational gravity include stagnation and paralyzing bureaucracy. How do we balance the need to "break the surly bonds of earth" to adapt and innovate in a constantly changing environment with the grounded focus of organizational gravity?

Three Tasks to Defy Organizational Gravity

Freeing ourselves from the constraints of organizational gravity while anchoring ourselves safely in the terra firma of our proven processes takes a constant commitment to accomplish three tasks: Always state a clear objective, always align every objective to your purpose, and always plan over the process.

Have a Clear Objective

The objective is everything! I often observe individuals and teams charging forward to execute a task or project without a clear objective in mind. They get caught up in doing without thinking, and if you stop these individuals to ask what the main objective is, they would have a very difficult time articulating what it is they are attempting to achieve. However, if you ask them to think clearly about their objective, they often realize that their approach is flawed or even wrong.

Always have a defined objective for even the most routine tasks. This will help you think freshly in terms of the continuous improvement process. Consider how you will achieve the objective and question whether a given process or approach is really sufficient, effective, or relevant.

The Big Picture Objective: Differentiate the "Why" from "What"

Align to the big picture objective -- the big picture objective refers to your purpose, mission, strategy and long-range goals. Simon Sinek, author of "Start with Why," makes this compelling point: Aligning to the big picture purpose, or as Sinek puts it, the "why you do it," is what separates Apple from companies that make computers. Making something or providing a service is just the "what," and the "what" may change as the environment or market changes. However, the "why" never changes. The "why" helps us look beyond our terrestrial existence and the organizational gravity, helping you to re-align to the fundamental reasons why we and our organizations get up every morning. When you constantly remind yourself of the "why" and align your actions to the big picture, you simultaneously free yourself from constraints of process-thinking while grounding yourself in the fundamentals of the organization.

Plan Over the Process

Third, always plan over the process. The Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy's world famous flight demonstration squadron, fly the same show on every performance, but the location changes. Do you think that the Blue Angels fly a process? No, they fly a continuous improvement plan that they adapt to every different location, situation and changing weather condition. Unless you are manufacturing the same widget day in and day out, you need to plan over the process. And I guarantee that you won't manufacture that widget the same way for too many years. Change always happens -- like organizational gravity, it's relentless.

One can plan over the process by taking the standard process, clarifying the present objective, aligning that objective to the big picture objectives and fundamental "why" of the organization, and then asking a few questions. First, ask what stands in your way - what threatens the successful accomplishment of your objective? Second, ask what resources are needed to accomplish this objective. Existing processes fool us into making assumptions about threats and resources - that they remain the same day-in and day-out. Never assume that a process may be followed blindly without considering what may have changed in the current context. Instead, plan over the process - never assume a process is sufficient in every given scenario. Always perform fresh continuous improvement planning by considering new threats and resources and then develop a new course of action appropriate to the present context.

Balancing the benefits and limiting tendencies of organizational gravity comes down to maintaining a clarity of purpose, approaching every task, every project, and every day as an opportunity to conduct continuous improvement planning.

James D. Murphy
Founder and CEO of Afterburner, Inc.

Executive Coaching and Debriefing for Corporate Leadership Development Programs

James D. Murphy — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:53:00 GMT

In today's management environment, new forms of and tools for corporate leadership development programs have emerged. One of the most popular development tools is executive coaching. The number of executive coaches has more than doubled in the past decade and corporate leadership development programs are utilizing their services more frequently. However, the fundamentals of executive coaching have actually been around for many years in the form of debriefing.

In the U.S. Air Force, debriefing after every flight was an essential process in my training and development as an F-15 fighter pilot. My instructor pilot debriefed with me after every training flight. Later, when I became an instructor pilot and squadron training officer, I did the same with my young pilots. After leaving the Air Force, I used the basic tenets of the debriefing process I had learned, adapted the process to a sales force I led in a civilian company, and further refined that process over the next 16 years.

I was recently reminded just how broadly applicable the debriefing framework is as an executive coaching tool when a professor approached me at the end of a lecture to a healthcare team, thanking me for explaining the process of debriefing to the team. She told me, "You've given me the means to have a difficult conversation with a student, allowing her see what, in herself, needs to change in order for her to be successful."

Corporate leadership development programs require both executive coaching and debriefing practices, processes that utilize complex discussions and deep analyses that resist oversimplification. Executive coaches help their clients to see themselves more accurately, allowing clients to establish actionable objectives for personal change. Likewise, debriefing helps individuals and teams more accurately analyze the work that they have done in order to make efforts to improve upon their past initiatives. While executive coaching focuses upon the individual, proper debriefing is effective in both individual and team development. The principles are the same, but for the debriefing process, the approach is more direct, objective, and simple.

Differences Between Executive Coaching and Debriefing Practices

Although corporate leadership development programs draw from both executive coaching and debriefing practices, there is a significant difference between the two processes: First, executive coaching practices struggle to get to the actionable objectives for change. This is where the highly subjective talent and skill of the coach comes in to play. Second, coaching is less process-driven than proper debriefing. Successful executive coaching is dependent upon the individual style and skill of the coach and the character traits of their client. Successful debriefing, however, is driven by a repeatable, structured process.

Let us examine some of the elements of a good debriefing process and compare them to an executive coaching practice. The first of those elements is what we call "tone." In the debriefing practice, setting the right tone is critical. The right tone is nameless and rankless, which gives everyone an equal footing. Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, has labeled such a tone "psychologically safe." In executive coaching, a coach will take care to establish a trusting and psychologically safe tone much like a professional therapist or physician would for a patient. This tone is essential in order to achieve the honesty and truthfulness necessary to identify objectives for change. In debriefing, the proper tone is critical to uncovering mistakes and isolating successes.

Corporate leadership development programs also require the correct tone. With the right tone, debriefing and executive coaching practices can enable teams and individuals to find the truth. In the executive coaching practice, obtaining the truth of how others see or perceive the client can be a tough process, which is typical of the analysis of any complex issue. This is the same in the debriefing practice. Whether we're debriefing a team or an individual's performance, we have to be prepared to dig deep into the root causes of both successes and errors. In order to do this, we only use the debriefing practice for clear and measurable objectives. One cannot debrief in any truly successful and meaningful way without specific and quantifiable objectives.

Utilizing Clear and Measurable Objectives

In our corporate leadership development programs, we emphasize the importance of stating clear objectives in both executive coaching and debriefing practices. Clear objectives allow the debriefing process to take two procedural steps in order to discover the root causes. First, we take a look at how well we executed toward our stated objectives - did we do what we said we were going to do? Did we execute this process in the way that we said we were going to do it? Take a look at each of the tasks we had to perform in order to meet our objective(s). Was each of these steps effective? From this inquisitive process, we are able to create a short list of successes and errors that form the basis of our next step: analyzing the execution.

We analyze the execution by taking each of our results – the successes and errors – and subject each to a series of "why's" until we get to the root cause. We continually ask "why" until we get to the fundamental root cause: Why did that happen? What really failed? Did we just get lucky? We can't fix something, replicate a success, identify a near miss, or address a personal shortcoming until we know exactly what needs to change and why.

The Importance of Actionable Feedback

As soon as we know what that root cause is, we can get to the real point of debriefing and executive coaching - taking corrective action. We need actionable feedback in order to improve ourselves. Corporate leadership development programs help to continuously improve teams and organizations by requiring actionable feedback. Research demonstrates that feedback that is not actionable can actually result in negative behaviors. The product of debriefing and executive coaching must focus upon what can be done to address the root causes. Without a specific course of action, reflective activities will be a waste of time at best, and can potentially trigger negative behaviors at worst.

An effective debriefing process develops an actionable lesson learned that addresses each of the identified results - each success or error. A lesson learned is a set of steps intended to resolve the error or replicate the success of each of the root causes. It is an objective and clear set of instructions or actions necessary to improve personal, team and organizational performance in the future. Furthermore, in the context of team debriefing, it assigns a single accountable individual to take that set of actions or to properly store the learning for future use.

Such are the basic processes, utilized by corporate leadership development programs, for both debriefing and executive coaching. However, there is one final secret to successfully using these practices. In our corporate leadership development programs, we recommend performing these processes frequently and in small, achievable portions. Successful executive coaches help clients to tackle personal goals a little at a time, meeting with individuals to assess incremental progress relatively frequently, typically every two weeks. The debriefing frequency should also follow this timeline. If debriefing occurs less frequently than once per month, the individual or the team is likely to "choke on the elephant." It is hard to change, especially when you are attempting a great amount of change in a short period of time. Aim to change slowly, a little at a time. This is the same philosophy behind successful change methodologies.

Conclusion

There is a deep, meaningful correlation between the debriefing and executive coaching processes. James Hunt and Joseph Weintraub, Babson College of Management professors, argue that facilitated learning, such as executive coaching, is leveraged to extraordinary results through forms including the U.S. Army's After Action Review (AAR) and the U.S. Air Force's debriefing process. Both executive coaching and debriefing are forms of facilitated learning, and both are utilized in successful corporate leadership development programs. However, in executive coaching, a third party facilitates the learning for one member of an organization. But the debriefing process allows the team to facilitate learning for individual team members and the organization as a whole.

James D. Murphy,
Founder and CEO of Afterburner, Inc.

The Red Team: A Simple But Effective Method to Improve Mission Planning

James D. Murphy — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:59:00 GMT

The May 1, 2011 mission to find Osama Bin Laden has become one of the most celebrated military mission planning successes in recent memory due to the utilization of a little-known and seldom-used practice called the Red Team.

The mission was a daring raid executed by the courageous members of the U.S. Navy SEAL DEVGRU, also known as SEAL Team Six, especially when considering the potentially disastrous political and diplomatic consequences that would have occurred had the mission failed. In spite of the dangers, the odds, and the loss of one of the two Blackhawk helicopters that delivered the SEALs to the target, the mission to get Bin Laden was an extraordinary mission planning success that continues to inspire awe. The Bin Laden mission was executed by some of the finest warriors that history has ever known. However, aside from skill in the profession of arms, it was the overall tactical planning process that went into the mission that provides an important lesson for planners in all fields - in military, business, or in everyday life.

The Overconfidence Bias

We fall in love with the plans we make. Mission planning is much like giving birth to a child. When the plan is complete, whether developed by an individual or a collaborative team, the planners can step back and congratulate themselves on the genius of the plan that they have created -- such overconfidence is one of many cognitive biases we humans fall prey to.

This is why the practice of utilizing a Red Team is necessary. A Red Team is a simple means to overcome the overconfidence bias and the theory of "groupthink," the need for groups to seek conformity and unanimity in planning and decision making. The mission planning effort that went into the Bin Laden mission was the detailed product of many different planners, but that alone was not enough to ensure success. The tactical planning process had to be subjected to a Red Team.

The Role of the Red Team

For the Bin Laden mission, military planners invited an outside group of experts who were previously unaware of the plan and had not taken part in the mission planning process to comprise what we call a Red Team. A Red Team examines a plan and offers frank criticism of the plan without bias. The Red Team's purpose is to expose flaws or weaknesses in the tactical planning process - to test the plan with dispassionate reason and respectfully offer detailed criticism. However, the planners must accept the criticism humbly, without commenting or defending the plan. It is vital that the planners involved are able to accept and incorporate this criticism, or the practice of utilizing a Red Team will be rendered moot.

Historical Examples of Mission Planning Using Red Teams

The Red Team is not a new concept. In 1962, faced with the threat of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, President John F. Kennedy utilized a form of the Red Team to great success. He had suffered a terrible and embarrassing debacle in the botched Bay of Pigs Invasion and Kennedy was not going to allow such an error in mission planning to happen again. He began by dividing his Executive Committee in half and tasked each of the two groups to argue for one of two primary options to deal with the threat. One group argued for a naval blockade and the other for an air strike. Kennedy then had the groups switch positions and critique the other group's proposal. The last step in Kennedy's tactical planning process was to ask his brother, Robert Kennedy, and one of his close counsels, Ted Sorenson, to act as a Red Team on each group's proposal. The result was one of the most masterfully played moves during the Cold War - a naval blockade that forced Soviet withdrawal of nuclear missiles from Cuba.

The Red Team has been utilized with great success in the U.S. military. During the Gulf War mission planning effort, planners employed this practice, asking Red Team members to defeat a proposed plan. Planners then took the weaknesses exposed by the Red Team and improved the tactical planning process, making plans tighter and nearly foolproof. The result was a successful war fought on foreign soil to expel invaders in just five weeks - a mission accomplished with minimal loss of life and destruction of property. Like the Bin Laden mission, the Gulf War met with success through the use of a tactical planning process that included Red Teams.

Eliminate the Fear of Personal Attacks When Using a Red Team

One might think that it takes courage to employ a Red Team. It is hard to expose your "baby" to such criticism, as we naturally view critiques as a personal attack. However, when performed correctly, a Red Team need not invoke fear of personal attack. The secret to successfully incorporating this practice into the mission planning process is to diffuse resistance to personal criticism before the Red Team critique takes place. Individuals must incorporate the idea that "it is not 'me' that is being assaulted by critics, it is 'us.'"

To further ameliorate the sense of offense and fear that the Red Team may create, this part of the tactical planning process should take a simple, disciplined and respectful structure. Invite the Red Team to sit down while someone from the mission planning team briefs the plan to the room. After the plan has been detailed, the Red Team should then have an opportunity to ask clarifying questions. After all questions have been asked, the Red Team should offer criticisms of the mission planning process in a round-robin fashion until all concerns have been voiced.

Offering and accepting criticism is much easier when it is communicated correctly. All members of the Red Team should begin their critical remarks with a statement such as, "Have you considered..." Furthermore, all responses to Red Team criticisms should be grateful, beginning with statements such as, "Thank you for your input." There should not be discussion or defense. The mission planning team will have a natural tendency to want to argue with the Red Team about their tactical planning process and will have to avoid the urge to defend the plan and learn to respond with gratitude.

Because the Red Team has no prior knowledge of the tactical planning process and also lacks knowledge of the considerations that were part of the mission planning effort, beginning each comment and criticism with the aforementioned "Have you considered..." statement is vital. This relieves the mission planning team of the need to respond and also relieves the Red Team from concern that a comment or criticism will not be valid. After pointing out the flaws and weaknesses in the tactical planning process, the Red Team should depart and the mission planning team should begin incorporating the newfound criticism to better the plan as a whole.

The Red Team utilized during the Bin Laden mission provided invaluable input as a critical component of the mission planning process. This practice can improve any plan, in any context and in any company. The best part is that utilizing the practice does not take much time, as a Red Team requires a minimum of only three or four members to discuss the tactical planning process. The meeting is also short, at approximately 30 - 60 minutes - and the results can make a world of difference.

James D. Murphy,
Founder and CEO of Afterburner, Inc.

Thirteen Elements of Effective Planning

James D. Murphy — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 19:18:00 GMT

All plans are not good plans. In fact, even good plans can fail. We cannot predict the future – we can only imagine it imperfectly. In our companies and organizations, effective planning is a social activity. Deciding on a strategic planning process as a group, rather than as an individual, adds even greater complexity to an already complex task. Collaborative and effective planning techniques, then, require 13 essential elements.

1. Effective and Strategic Planning Process

First, effective planning requires a process, and that strategic planning process should include the remaining 12 elements of good planning. In collaborative team planning, that process must be structured and disciplined in order to be efficient and thorough. Without a process, your planning techniques will be awkward, inefficient and often insufficient.

2. Effective Planning Techniques: An Envisioned Future / Objective

When we envision the future, we must describe it clearly and provide specific measurements in order to judge our success. To this end, the objective of our effective planning techniques is the goal we envision attaining in the future. Objectives must be clear to all involved. They must also have a scope that is commensurate with the span of control of those involved with the effective planning process. An objective that is not achievable by those tasked with developing a plan is, obviously, doomed to failure. Objectives must also be measurable. Without measurements of success, there is no means of establishing whether or not the objective was achieved, and your strategic planning process will be flawed.

3. Dynamic, Adaptable Planning

In terms of effective planning, "dynamic" means that plans are adaptable, in two ways. First, the act of effective planning considers the current and predicted environment and adapts the plan accordingly. Second, in the strategic planning process, plans must be devised in such a way so that they are not overly detailed. Effective planning ensures that your plans can adapt to changes that occur while the plan is being executed.

4. Iterative Improvements

Effective planning at your organization will also be iterative. By "iterative," we mean that a plan will improve continuously from one iteration, or version, to another before it is executed in the strategic planning process. The iterative nature of planning supports its adaptive or dynamic nature. Iteration can be sped up by an effective planning technique known as "Red Teaming." In Red Teaming, a group of individuals outside the planning effort are invited to criticize the plan or expose its weaknesses, acting as a form of rapid iteration and improvement.

5. Effective Planning Requires that You Learn from Experience

A complex and rapidly changing environment demands the ability to rapidly learn from the changes in that environment. Even the most well-educated and trained organization will soon become obsolescent as changes in the environment eventually overwhelm it. Good organizational planning requires sophisticated and effective planning techniques that the organization learns continually, through interaction with its environment and the execution of its plans.

6. Means to Achieve / Course of Action

The central element of all effective planning techniques is the Course of Action (COA). These are the actual tasks that must be completed, whether in parallel, in series, or a combination of both, to achieve the goal. For the most part, in a strategic planning process, the Course of Action, for simple plans, is intuitive or even obvious. However, for most organizations, plans may require great detail. Therefore, an effective planning process must be flexible enough to handle both simple and detailed plans. Effective planning processes should have the ability to repeat the planning process at successively lower levels in the organization, while supporting the objectives of the overall plan.

7. Decentralized Effective Planning

Another effective planning technique is the decentralization of plans, closely related to the flexible and successively repeatable nature of the Course of Action. Effective planning teams should not plan beyond their scope or expertise. In other words, the executive team of a large corporation should not develop the details of a strategic planning process to replace a main server in their IT infrastructure. Such a task is both out of their scope and, most likely, their expertise.

8. Individual Accountability

The scope and detail of effective planning is concluded when each task within a Course of Action is assigned to a single individual, not a team, to complete. Without individual accountability to each task and each plan, there is a significant risk of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and ultimately, failure.

9. Effective Planning Techniques Support Initiative and Good Judgment

General George S. Patton said that plans "[...] should be made by those who are going to execute them." Decentralization and accountability go far in supporting the success of effective planning techniques. However, when a strategic planning process is developed by the team responsible for accomplishing the plan's objective, the overall quality and likelihood of creating a successful plan improves exponentially.

10. Consider Resources

Effective planning means not committing to or wasting resources unnecessarily. In a strategic planning process, planners must determine the appropriate targets or objectives and focus resources upon those objectives. Because resources are often limited, prioritizing and planning successive phases of implementation may be necessary.

11. Assess Risk: Leadership Responsibility

Resources are considered carefully at every level of effective planning. Furthermore, the assessment of objectives, threats and resources are critical steps in every strategic planning process that, when taken together, form the basic risk assessment for any plan. Without the necessary resources to either avoid or mitigate the threats to accomplishing an objective, the risks in undertaking that plan should be given due consideration by the leadership within the organization. Because risk is often necessary, the final decision to execute the plan is left to its leaders, not the planning team.

12. Participatory and Cognitively Diverse

Isolating effective planning in a single individual or a group of individuals without the benefit of field experience and a diversity of knowledge, skills, and abilities is a recipe for failure. The world we live in is increasingly complex. Problem-solving in our complex world requires teams of cognitively diverse individuals contributing their unique knowledge to form a combination of effective planning techniques. If effective planning is conducted by a single individual or by groups of people with similar knowledge, skills and abilities, the qualities necessary to solve complex problems and to create an innovative strategic planning process will be absent.

13. The Most Effective Plans are Simple

The more complex a plan, the more likely it will fail. As Statistical Process Control and Six Sigma methodologies instruct, the greater the number of steps in a process, the greater the potential for a defect. That is why it is critical that the effective planning process remains simple. Simplicity is not just about minimizing the number of tasks, it's about making sure that each task is clearly defined through answering some simple questions: "who will do what and when."

There is a paradox at work in effective planning. It is simply this: that our human tendency is to implement plans rigidly while the purpose of a plan, in light of the complexity and constant change in the world, is to define objectives and establish a point of departure to react to change. The paradox of the strategic planning process is that effective planning does not involve merely creating a list of sequenced tasks, but establishing a constantly evolving problem-solving process that adapts and thrives in the environment.

James D. Murphy,

Founder and CEO of Afterburner, Inc.

Effects-Based Thinking Part III

James D. Murphy — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:15:00 GMT

In Part I of this series, I introduced the concept that, from the perspective of complexity, everything exists within a system. In Part II, I outlined a three-tiered framework of effects-based thinking (EBT) and planning that is critical to understanding how change propagates throughout these complex systems - the organizations, markets and communities in which we all live and work. In this final installment, I will explore how effects are planned and initiated within complex systems and how cognitive, adaptive leadership propels those effects.

Effects-based thinking transmits through systems in three orders - kinetic, second and third order effects. Kinetic effects describe the objectives of short-range operational plans - the plans and projects we carry out on a daily basis in our work. These objectives must be clear, measurable, and achievable and must support the organization's overall objectives. Although a plan or project may take some time to complete, its effects should be immediately observable and measurable. That's the kinetic effect of effects-based thinking - a small but significant step toward a larger goal (i.e. second and third order effects).

But, the kinetic effects we seek to create must have another quality. That quality is what we call "line-of-sight alignment" or "adaptive leadership." Adaptive leadership is a clear understanding of the actions that need to be taken now to affect change over the long term and achieve the effects desired at the third order of effects-based thinking. It's simply understanding how what you do today most likely affects the future. It's a clear line of connection between kinetic, second and third order effects - or daily operations, strategy and organizational mission and vision. Examples of adaptive leadership are thinking about the fact that the customer service I provide today affects the store's bottom line at the end of the month and supports the long term success of the business and considering that the investment I make in the new leadership development program today will stem the outflow of experience from the retiring Baby Boomer generation over the next few years, and will build a firm foundation for long-term growth and success. With effects-based thinking, we are well-equipped to make the daily, weekly and monthly actions necessary to get these results. Adaptive leadership also helps develop a more keen perception of the system as a whole.

iPods, Assassination, and EBT

The intended impact of adaptive leadership and multiple planned kinetic effects ultimately generates second order effects within the larger organizational units. It is even possible that a single, timely, kinetic effect can directly cause third order effects. But for that to occur, the larger system would have to be in a critical and highly sensitive state. Complexity scientists refer to such a state as self-organized criticality. Consider the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914 and the introduction of the Apple iPod in 2001 as examples of effects-based thinking and complexity. An anarchist assassinated Archduke Ferdinand in August of 1914 which precipitated the First World War - true in a way, but that's a misunderstanding of the complex system that existed in Europe nearly a hundred years ago. A complex array of treaties and political relationships existed in a critical state. War was virtually inevitable - it only needed a small push. Another good example of complex relationships and adaptive leadership that helps us understand effects-based thinking is the consideration of the music industry. The music industry existed in a similar critical state in 2000 with technology and downloadable music threatening intellectual property rights and profits of major entertainment corporations. Into that system stepped Apple, who launched one of the most successful products in history. The iPod's success was due in part to the criticality of the system and Apple's adaptive leadership and decision to seize the opportunity inherent in that instability. For businesses, sensing such critical states is the essence of recognizing opportunity - an opportunity that is clearer to those possessing effects-based thinking and adaptive leadership.

All activity in a social organization takes place through individual actions or it is carried out by processes designed and implemented through individual actions. People originate action and therefore create effects. Take a moment and think about what it means. A corporation is a legal entity much like a person. However, regardless of the legal status of a corporation, it does not think and act as an individual - a corporation does not have the anima for effects-based thinking or the capability for developing an adaptive leadership strategy. It takes no action except through the actions of individuals. That individual may be the owner, the CEO, or the chairman of the board, but nothing actually occurs, there are no impacts or kinetic effects except through the actions of individuals. A company does not purchase raw materials. A purchasing agent purchases those raw materials either through their own decision-making process or via an inter-organizational process. A company does not merge with another except through the legal transaction committed by an officer so empowered to execute that transaction. The individual person and his / her capacity for effects-based thinking, adaptive leadership, and physical action is where the rubber meets the road in social systems.

For example, if the vision or goal of a retail chain is to capture the largest segment of its market, then it is not the regional manager that sells the product. It's not the district manager that builds a new store. It's not the store general manager that stocks the shelves. It's the sales rep that sells the camera to the customer. It's the contractor that pours the concrete. It's the store associate that stocks the green beans. The third order effects desired by the organization upon the larger market system must be translated in a cascading fashion from the very top of the organization to simple actionable tasks at the individual level. It does this through clear, adaptive leadership in the context of effects-based thinking.

Summary

We utilize the word "thinking" in effects-based thinking for one very important reason. Although the concept finds its roots in military operations, and is known as 'effects-based operations' in military circles, the application is much more broad, and perhaps more important in non-military settings. We call it 'effects-based thinking' because of the absolute necessity for human thought processes and adaptive leadership to cut through the muddy waters of complexity. Effects-based thinking, at every level in an organization from the CEO to the 'Strategic Corporal' must ultimately rely on well-informed judgment to guide right action. Technology can only provide more information. It cannot provide meaning and it can't decide anything.

Humans are made to think and decide - to choose. But, how we do that, well or poorly, is dependent on many factors. Those factors vary from one individual case to another. And, when combined in group planning, those individual factors multiply and create greater challenges to orchestrating planning and decision making as a group - and are further magnified when we must coordinate such planning and decision making at the organizational level. How do we comprehend all the complexity around us and within our organization in order to plan for and foster adaptive leadership? How do we coordinate all that activity? How do we know our plans are effective? How do we manage all this in an ever-changing environment? Effects-based thinking and adaptive leadership give us the first cognitive tool to deal with these daunting challenges.

James D. Murphy,
Founder and CEO of Afterburner, Inc.

Effects-Based Thinking: Part II

James D. Murphy — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:36:00 GMT

In 'Effects-Based Thinking - Part I', the definition of effects-based thinking, or EBT, was established as an approach to strategic planning which contributes to long-lasting organizational impacts. Expanding on this concept, let's look at what the differences between strategic planning with EBT and simply tracking progress with metrics are.

Many organizations utilize scoreboards or dashboards to track progress toward goals. Such methods have values that can be measured in a continuous manner to track performance. But such tools are just that - measures of performance toward discreet objectives, but not necessarily a component of effects-based thinking. These objectives do not always have a clear connection to the organization's overarching goals or vision that one gets with EBT. For example, making a certain amount of revenue or delivering a particular earnings per share by the end of the year are great measurements. How are we going to know whether the actions we are taking today and tomorrow are having the right effects upon those measurements? How can we utilize effects-based thinking to know that we aren't just getting lucky? Furthermore, how do we even know that those measurements are the right measurements? And how do we know that the sum of the individual actions taken to affect these measurements, which often form the basis of incentive systems, are not interfering with each other or ultimately damaging the organization? This is where effects-based thinking or EBT comes into play.

Every organization is a complex system that is typically composed of smaller complex systems that are interdependent. Interdependencies between complex systems are unpredictable and can create unintended effects or consequences. So, the lesson to learn is that scoreboards and dashboards alone are not necessarily good indicators of progress toward achieving organizational goals.

So, how do we manage organizations in uncertainty? We do it by first developing an understanding of effects-based thinking (EBT) throughout an organization. Do the people at the lowest levels of the organization have an understanding of the organization's overarching goals in order to make the right decisions? Do they have the freedom to exercise judgment? Do they have access to the information they need to make those judgments? What about the middle managers - do they have the necessary understanding of goals and freedom of action to use effects-based thinking in the organization's best interest? Furthermore, whether they make the right or the wrong decision, are they learning from it and transferring that learning horizontally and vertically throughout your organization with EBT? Lastly, are the organization's senior leaders learning from what the junior leaders are learning in order to adjust the organization's course and strategic direction? To do all these things and remain agile in order to adapt to the precarious changes in complex environments requires effects-based thinking.

Everything exists within a system and every component of the system has the ability to affect everything else, as these components are interdependent. Central to EBT is this notion that effects transmit through systems in three orders: kinetic, second order, and third order.

Impacts and Kinetic Effects in EBT

Think about actions in EBT as "impacts." Impacts are the actions taken or an event that has occurred that causes the rippling effects that cascade throughout the larger system. These impacts are "kinetic" effects. Kinetic effects in effects-based thinking are measureable and immediate. Typically, then, kinetic effects are localized. The effect remains within or close to the originating system or transmits merely to the neighboring systems. Kinetic effects have a tendency to be a small step toward some larger objective.

Second Order Effects in EBT

Second order effects connect the very actionable, controllable, and immediately measurable kinetic effects to the long-term organizational goals that affect the much larger market or global system. Within effects-based thinking, second order effects are those that have a significant impact on the primary systems that comprise the overall system. That is, they correspond to an organization's individual strategic objectives. Because second order effects have a much longer range than kinetic effects in EBT, they typically only manifest themselves over a period of months or even years, and present a challenge to measurement.

At the level of second order effects, complexity sets in and it isn't always clear what might be affecting the success or failure of strategic objectives. Measurements may or may not be relevant to those objectives so paramount in effects-based thinking. So, the effects that we want at the second order of EBT must first be described as desired effects in a simple, clear manner before we attach measurements to them. We must also always hold the desired effect as primary over the measurements and continually ask ourselves whether the measurements are indeed a reflection of progress toward the desired effect. If we can't make that connection, then what is the compelling reason to keep doing what we are doing? Are our actions in effects-based thinking achieving our desired effect?

So, EBT's second order effects are the culmination of a few or many kinetic effects. They most likely align with an organization's strategic goals. Therefore, scoreboards and dashboards of a few carefully selected metrics can be excellent tools for assessing success. But there is another, higher order of effects that can't be ignored - third order effects.

Third Order Effects in EBT

In EBT, third order effects describe an organization's future picture. A future picture is similar to the popular notion of a company's vision. But specific to effects-based thinking, a future picture is a high-resolution description of some future state of the organization. It is the set of long-range goals that the strategy seeks to attain. When we speak of 'ripple effects' we are often thinking in terms of third order effects. The set of effects, expected and unexpected, that ultimately arise as a function of activity over a long period of time - on the order of several years - is the domain of third order effects. The future picture is the set of effects we want to bring into existence with EBT. Other third order effects, whether created by entities outside the organization or by the unforeseeable consequences of actions taken within the organization, are what we must guard against.

These three levels of effects in effects-based thinking - kinetic, second order, and third order - provide a structure for thinking in terms of planning, executing, and assessing an organization's activity within complex environments. Effects-based thinking helps guide organizations through such complexity and adapt to its constant changes and challenges with greater caution. But, perhaps even more importantly, EBT provides everyone in that organization with a simple structure to guide and align their actions towards long-range success.

When we bear in mind our ultimate goals when planning and executing toward immediate or short-range results, we utilize effects-based thinking to align our actions more effectively toward those ultimate goals. With EBT, we're also able to better construct, align, and adapt our measurements to ensure we aren't measuring the wrong things or, worse, driving the wrong behaviors.

James D. Murphy
CEO of Afterburner, Inc.

Strategic Planning and Effects-Based Thinking: Part 1

James D. Murphy — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 20:17:00 GMT

As the name implies, effects-based thinking (EBT) is an approach to strategic planning and decision making where the effects of specific actions are assessed, not in a narrowly defined and time-limited way, but through a perspective that is sensitive to broad-ranging and lasting impacts. Effects-based thinking is the opposite of short-sightedness or myopia.

Sadly, we have the ability to think about effects, yet we often don't. In our fast-paced personal and work lives we tend to think more about today's issues rather than tomorrow's. Strategic planning objectives get pushed back further and further to accommodate those immediate concerns. Modern organizations tend to exacerbate our naturally myopic tendencies by planning in small executive teams and passing down narrowly defined objectives and goals with little connectedness to overall goals. Ironically, narrow strategic planning sparks our natural capacity for effects-based thinking. In the wake of some failed corporate plan, the water cooler conversations buzz with effects-based criticisms like, "Didn't they realize that was going to happen?" or "I saw that coming a mile away."

To some extent we are all effects-based thinkers. If you ever said to yourself, "I'm not going to stay up to watch the rest of this game because I won't get enough sleep and I have a busy day tomorrow." Or, if you decided to enroll in graduate school to get an MBA so that you would have better career options, then you are certainly thinking about effects. In this sense, effects-based thinking is a fundamental human trait in our strategic planning processes. We envision some future or some goal, or we analyze some set of choices or actions and we think forward through a chain of cause and effect to make decisions. Thinking about effects is part of our nature as humans.

However, few individuals or organizations utilize effects-based thinking systemically. Such an organized, process-oriented approach is what we mean by effects-based thinking. We partially define effects-based thinking as strategic planning and decision-making directed to shape an organization's picture of the future. This is only a partial definition because we must additionally consider what we know about complex systems - that they are inherently unpredictable and subject to rapid, even destructive change. Furthermore, actions can produce unpredictable effects and unintended consequences within complex systems - even with a comprehensive strategic planning initiative. In complexity, the cause and effect sequence will always have some degree of ambiguity. Unfortunately, we're stuck with the fact that no person or group of people has completely reliable predictive abilities about complex systems. We also know that within complex systems, root causes of effects can be obscure. So, even with the benefit of hindsight, we may not know precisely what forces are at work to yield any given effect. Therefore, we must be ever vigilant about what is happening around us. We must also continually assess cause and effect in our internal and external systems. Effects-based thinking is about more than just strategic planning by mentally projecting through a series of causes and effects. It is also about assessing the effectiveness and accuracy of our predictive planning. To truly think in an effects-based way requires us to think cyclically rather than linearly.

To be more accurate, effects-based thinking can be defined as a continuum of strategic planning and assessing the effectiveness of actions directed to shape an organization's overall goals and objectives. In other words it's "how do we get what we want and how do we know we're making the right choices to get it". And that seems pretty simple and straightforward if it were not for this pesky problem within most organizations known as "execution".

Organizations create plans that span the course of years. They call these plans "strategies." But leaders in organizations struggle to coordinate or orchestrate the execution of these strategies and utilize effects-based thinking. One of the many reasons for this is that the strategic planning is often not well connected to the operational plans, or what military planners call "tactical plans." The strategic plan often spans a period of years while the tactical plans may only span a period of days, weeks or a month. There is a missing strategic planning tier needed to bridge that gap - one that spans the multiple-month to multiple-year gap. Without effects-based thinking, the plans we carry out on a daily basis are hard to connect to the overall strategy that spans a year or more. In that case then, how do you measure your progress in support of the strategy? And, even more importantly in this rapidly changing complex world, how do we know our strategy is still a viable one? Complex phenomena obscure our ability to determine whether our chosen course is correct. So, what do we do? Do we just keep plugging along for months or even years until it becomes painfully obvious that our strategy is ineffective or needs adjustment, and then employ effects-based thinking?

In 2010, IBM produced a report about strategic planning called Capitalizing on Complexity. This report clearly outlined the challenges of operating in a highly complex world, what it called a "global system of systems." In its conclusions, it made several recommendations, all of which agree with the fundamental assumptions inherent in Flawless Execution. But one in particular speaks directly to effects-based thinking. The report instructs the reader to: "Course correct as needed. Align a few clear metrics with objectives to identify success patterns, then regularly track results as part of a continual feedback loop. Modify actions based on what is learned (1)."

Effects-based thinking is about realizing that the strategic planning-executing continuum must be continuously revised to keep pace with change. It can only do this by continually assessing the effects of actions taken and the uncontrollable changes taking place in the market or external environment.

To understand how to implement effects-based thinking into our planning requires a deeper understanding of effects and how they propagate throughout complex systems. We also need processes to help us think more clearly in terms of effects. To that end, a subsequent series of articles will explore effects-based thinking and how it impacts strategic planning. Through that series we will explore a three-tiered model of effects-based thinking. We will also explore line-of-sight alignment, a concept that connects everyone in the organization to their immediate objectives and the long-range organizational strategic goals - all through a dedication to effects-based thinking.

Works Cited

1. Capitalizing on Complexity. IBM Corporation 2010. Pg 59.

James D. Murphy
Founder and CEO of Afterburner, Inc.

Complexity: The Execution Challenge You Don't See

James D. Murphy — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:00:00 GMT

When you think of the word 'complex', do you ever think about what it has to do with project execution? Ask a management consulting firm to define 'complex' and you'll get a response like "well, it's a concept that can affect your life, your family, your team and your organization." That's because consultants understand that complexity lies in every aspect of strategic planning, whether at home or in the workplace, and that complexity is a concept that needs to be clearly understood in order to anticipate and overcome execution challenges.

The Oxford English Dictionary has three separate entries for the word 'complex'. But in general use it is defined as: intricate, not easily analyzed or disentangled. We live in a highly complex world and while we have a general understanding of the complexity with which we approach execution challenges, for the most part, our human brains are not wired to comprehend the intricate concepts needed for strategic planning. But with outside management consulting, companies often see that it is easier to understand the complex architecture of cause and effect.

Simplicity vs. Complexity

From our day-to-day perspective, simple and complicated things are things we create or conceive. A knife is simple. A bicycle is relatively simple. We can look at all its parts and see how it operates. You might need to understand some basic physics to understand how a bicycle's gear shift works, but that is a relatively simple concept for humans to grasp. But when it comes to comprehending the inner workings of strategic planning and its role in execution, these become complexities that are difficult to grasp - a fact that management consulting firms are well aware of.

We know that manufacturing processes are complicated, and even bureaucratic processes are complicated. And just consider how complicated legal processes are. But we also know that none of these simple or complicated things creates anything greater than itself. The whole of an outcome realized through strategic planning is only equal to the sum of its parts. Without a rider, the bicycle is just an organized set of parts. Without litigation and judgment, legal execution and the enactment of laws are nothing more than ink on a page. Management consulting firms understand that human systems create something greater than their individual components. Consider the global economy - it appears to be just billions of individual people toiling away in some haphazard manner. But that global economy, as wildly unpredictable as it may be, is a complex system, reliant upon consistent execution achieved by strategic planning through a number of human variables.

When we were taught history in school, most of us probably saw human history as a sequence of causes and effects. But the world is not like a line of dominoes in which one topples to cause another to topple, then another and then another - instead, the real world is non-linear. By that we mean that the chain of cause and effect feeds back upon itself to perpetuate more change. When educating clients about complexity, management consulting firms understand that foreseeing the ultimate execution of such non-linear cause and effect interactions within strategic planning is either impossible or simply exceeds our human capacity to comprehend. Every cause is the sum of countless effects and every effect is the sum of countless causes. Cause and effect become indistinguishable from one another. We must relinquish our linear view of the world and embrace its complex wholeness. We must view the world as a complex interdependent system.

If it weren't for complexity, all our challenges and strategic planning problems could be reduced to manageable and highly predictable processes that we could shape to achieve the execution we desire. But complexity is an integral aspect of life itself - a concept that management consulting firms impart to help corporate clients understand how to approach complexity in the workplace.

Complexity Directly Affects Business Leaders

IBM conducted a survey of over 1,500 global CEOs and other leaders and in 2010, and produced a report entitled Capitalizing on Complexity in which the first of its four primary findings identified the following: "Today's complexity is only expected to rise, and more than half of CEOs doubt their ability to manage it (1)." Leaders often identify complexity as such an issue in execution, but businesses can leverage a management consulting firm to manage the intricacies of strategic planning to embrace and manage complexity.

Peter Senge, in his groundbreaking management book The Fifth Discipline, challenges us to see the world as a whole, to see the "subtle interconnectedness that gives living systems their unique character (2)." He challenges us to see our world, and our business execution, as part of systems and as systems themselves. The interplay of cause and effect in strategic planning is dizzying and in our limited comprehension, appears chaotic and has far-ranging consequences. Managing complexity, though difficult, is not impossible (at least in the short term) and management consulting firms teach clients how to prepare for unpredictable environments. At best, we can only anticipate change, plan for it, and respond wisely when it surprises us.

The Rate of Change is Increasing

If the science of complexity teaches us one thing, it is that our human world will always remain unpredictable. As the level of complexity continues to increase, the rate of change increases - making managing strategic planning to achieve execution more difficult. It is this speed of change that both confounds and excites organizations all over the world, and prompts companies to seek management consulting to build a forward-looking strategy. It confounds because only highly energetic and creative organizations can keep up with the pace of change. It is exhausting and worrisome. But constant and rapid change also means that there are more and more opportunities available to those ready to seize them and take action.

And yet, it's astounding how people tend to think that management consulting concepts and strategic planning are linear processes. The array of business publications available on bookshelves today demonstrates this thirst for linear execution and computable certainty. It's as if the majority of people believe that there is some mystical set of rules that, if we knew them, would guarantee success. But, there can be no single process or set of rules that can guarantee anything in complex systems. However, management consulting firms can equip companies with a set of process tools and principles that enable successful adaptation within unpredictable complex systems.

Management consulting companies teach simple holistic process to help us harness strategic planning in order to achieve execution within these modern, rapidly changing, globally-connected systems. One of the most important things to realize is that we and the organizations we form are constantly interacting with other complex systems. Complex systems are ubiquitous. And as far as decision-making and problem-solving is concerned, this simple fact tends to cause some very serious planning problems.

Conclusion

Surviving and thriving in a world increasingly dominated by the capricious effects of interacting complex systems requires rapid adaptability - a concept that management consulting firms have embraced, and teach to companies to help them achieve execution through strategic planning. We are all perpetually engaged in a fight with disruptive, unpredictable change. The organization that can most rapidly anticipate, process, and adapt to that change wins the battle of maneuvers. Call it what you will - maneuverability, adaptability, or agility - winning requires a fundamental understanding of the effects of interactions within and between complex systems in our companies and organizations to achieve success.

Works Cited

1. Capitalizing on Complexity. IBM Corporation 2010. Pg 8.

2. Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. 2006 pg. 69.

About the Author

As the founder and CEO of Afterburner, Inc., James D. Murphy has a unique, powerful mix of leadership skills in both the military and business worlds. After graduating from the University of Kentucky, Murphy joined the U.S. Air Force where he learned to fly the F-15, logging over 1,200 hours as an instructor pilot in the F-15 and accumulating over 3,200 hours of flight time in other high-performance jet aircraft. He has also flown missions to Central America, Asia, Central Europe and the Middle East. As Afterburner's leadership keynote speaker, Murphy has helped top business leaders transform strategy into action by showing that the concepts of the Flawless Execution(SM) model could be applied to business process improvement and engaging the proven model - "Plan. Brief. Execute. Debrief." Murphy has been regularly featured in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Newsweek, and has appeared on CNN, Fox News, and Bloomberg News to name a few. For more information on Afterburner, Inc., please visit www.afterburner.com.