Dr. Earl R. Smith II
Managing Partner, The Federal Circle
DrSmith@Dr-Smith.com
Dr-Smith.com
An old friend used to say, “you never know how you look until you get your picture took”. Taking the time to get an outside assessment can often save a company from charging down paths that lead either nowhere or to the edge of a cliff. The cost of not knowing can be higher than you ever imagined.
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Strategic planning is very hard work … which is why only companies that commit to a rigorous program benefit from it. A well organized planning process begins with a focused assessment. Done correctly, this process can identify high impact areas where a company is delivering low performance. If not identified and corrected, low performance can quickly bleed away a company’s future.
Self-assessment is a particularly difficult process. An individual may go years without recognizing those parts of their leadership style that are limiting their effectiveness and potential. CEOs and other rising stars can quickly turn into shooting stars without systematic help. Many companies are using modern leadership assessment tools to help their best hopes for the future identify and overcome limitations in their leadership style.
In both of these areas, effective web-enabled assessment tools are available for, and are being used worldwide by, companies that need a fast, reliable process to identify critical issues, re-align priorities and resourcing, and devise and implement effective strategic plans. Variations of these tools are also being used to assess corporate boards.
Today these tools take advantage of technology and extensive business research to provide management the reliable information needed to effectively focus on high-value activities. Many of these tools are web-enabled, minimally intrusive and based on solid research which relates results to best practices. They not only provide accurate diagnostics but help senior management to develop effective strategic plans for dealing with their organization’s shortcomings.
Most of these tools identify high impact areas where a company is delivering low performance. They also can highlight areas of low impact where a company is spending excessively. Most start with the assumption that, beyond a certain stage in growth, a company’s organization and operations are much more complicated than a human mind can think about intuitively. From my own experience I can tell you that many strategies have come out of these assessments which were both counter intuitive and highly effective.
These high impact tools, and their effective use, represent one of the most cost effective expenditures that a senior management team can make. Very few programs can give you the bang for the buck that you get from a well focused assessment. And very few can go nearly as far in opening up the potential of your company, its leaders and its management team.
MAPs, LAPs, BAPs and GAPs: I have taken to referring to the assessment tools which I use as Web-Enabled Assessment Programs or WEAPs. I like that acronym because it reminds me of the cold water, wake-up call, slap in the face that a well focused assessment can often produce. This is often followed by the inevitable question … “How could I have gotten it that wrong?” Then enters the weeping. Assessment programs are not for sissies … but the truth will set you free!
Assessment programs come in four flavors: Management Assessment (MAP), Leadership Assessment (LAP), Board Assessment (BAP) and Global Assessment (GAP).
A MAP will allow you to quickly pin point your company’s weaknesses and best opportunities for strategic improvement. It provides a solidly-based, fast track ability to identify, and agree on, those areas that are critical to your company’s success … where your current performance compromises your company’s ability to achieve that success.
With a LAP you can identify the attributes that will help you become a more effective leader. This kind of assessment is particularly useful to CEOs as it covers both leadership competence and character and draws data from several levels of the organization. It can help you reach an understanding of how your leadership style can be improved … how you can become more effective in your role.
A BAP focuses on a company’s boards and areas such as strategic business development, succession planning, governance, oversight and compliance. It is a ‘best practices’ assessment that is completed by board members and senior management. Whether it is Sarbanes-Oxley, or other board related imperatives, this assessment supports the needs of organizations that are committed to board effectiveness.
A GAP will give you a holistic picture of your company, its leadership and board effectiveness. It produces a 360 by 360 assessment which can serve as the basis of a strategic plan or tactical review. It is by far the most powerful of the four as a GAP collects the same date as the other three combined but allows an integrated analysis and broader based understanding of the situation and possibilities.
Low Costs – High Impact: One thing that I learned early on was how cost effective an assessment process was. For a very modest investment you can get an organizational assessment done that will give you a solid idea where your company is falling short and how to correct it. Leadership style assessment and board assessment are the same. Incredibly inexpensive compared with the value received.
Cinderella is a fairy tale and business should not be seen as rolling the dice hoping that the glass slippers will turn up and fit. Business is a matter of tilting the table in your favor with superior preparation and stronger implementation.
A company can invest these very modest amounts and get results that will set it above its competition … or forgo those investments and lose out to a company that has made them. As elsewhere, here it is better to know than not know. As they say in the Marines, assumption is the mother of all foul-ups … or something like that.
A truth or two about knowing and not knowing: The costs of under-performance and misalignment are just as real as any overhead costs that a company has to cover on its way to profitability. Failing to identify and effectively address these shortcomings is like training for a race in the dark or solely in your mind. When nine out of ten companies don’t make the journey from zero to twenty million in run rate, anyway that you can improve the odds of your company being the one out of ten has got to be taken seriously.
If you at all buy into the proposition that ‘knowledge is power’, it seems to me that you are forced to look at the question of ‘what do I know and how am I sure that I actually know it’. (If you don’t think that you are, then a career in the ministry might be more appropriate … where the proposition that ‘believing is power’ dominates). In business, knowledge always trumps belief.
When you use these assessment tools, unwarranted presumption gets caught in the headlights. You need to be ready to have your mistakes highlighted and your invincibility brought into open question. But you also have to be ready to find the ‘golden ways’ forward for your company … ways that you might never have thought of unassisted. The future of your company and its people has to trump all of those personal risks and more.
© Dr. Earl R. Smith II
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Related Articles:
- Crossing the Boundary – Surviving the Experience
- Charting the Course – Crossing the Boundary
- Entrepreneurial Planning and Goal Setting
- The Importance of Structure in Organizational Change
- Assessment Programs – High-Value Investments
- Management Incentivization the Right Way
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