Francis Wade | Luck or buck-up? Corporate results in a disruptive age

Assume you are the CEO of a local company, on the verge of asking the C-suite to commit to an exciting grand aspiration. But deep down, you are afraid they’ll ask you for next steps, which you don’t have. Is there a simple formula to follow?

On some level, you can see how a transformative goal could change the trajectory of your company and its stakeholders for years to come.

However, you also know the harsh truth; big dreams often die quiet deaths.

Without a clear process to turn ambition into structured action, it’s easy to lose your way. Furthermore, in the absence of a strong start, even the best ideas struggle to survive.

Here’s a modern set of conditions you must satisfy, followed by a summary formula for you to follow.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that you are more than a one-person outfit. With tens or hundreds of staff to lead, here are standards your aspiration should meet.

• It should not be achievable by luck. Instead, your active intervention is needed to chart a new course.

• It requires involvement by staff and board. Their hearts and minds are engaged to craft, then implement the project.

• The final results must be measurable, given a timeline and specific quanta.

Consider Japan’s accomplishment of a major health benchmark, for instance.

At a mere 4.3 per cent, the country’s obesity rate is far below that of the United States (38.2 per cent) and Jamaica (24.7 per cent). Consequently, its citizens experience exceptional longevity, lower rates of diet-related diseases, reduced healthcare costs, and higher workforce productivity.

Is this all a matter of luck? Or genetics? Or culture?

Their history shows that in 1964, Japan’s Ministry of Education began providing partial salary support for school dietitians. By 2009, some 2,600 nutrition teachers had been licensed with both teaching and nutrition qualifications.

The Shokuiku Basic Act of 2005 formally established food and nutrition education (shokuiku) as a national policy, integrating nutritionists into schools as key educators.

Unfortunately, there are some who believe that such outcomes are a simple matter of putting the right minister in place. Or their preferred political party. Or securing the perfect grant funding to do an academic study.

Such thinking is sadly mistaken. But imagine if there were an ideal formula to follow. Here is what it could look line in eight steps:

1) Aspire to great things. Be specific and measurable about a multi-faceted vision … without knowing every single step ahead of time.

2) Engage others. In the new disruptive age we’re in, this can’t be a personal pursuit. Your board, C-Suite and staff must be engaged from start to finish.

3) Go long. You might not like extended timelines because they extend beyond your tenure. Get over yourself. Why? There’s no avoiding them if you want to commit to credible, big outcomes.

4) Become detailed. Announcing big goals and leaving the details of the strategy to others is passé. You must be involved in stepwise planning. Use tools like backcasting to cast credible plans that connect the future with today.

5) Foster difficult conversations. To make trade-offs, confront and choose between priorities. Like all successful films, leave great stuff on the floor of the cutting room. It’s the price of excellence you must pay.

6) Launch projects. Convert the strategy into initiatives. Then, use a project management office staffed with internal bulldogs to hold teams to account.

7) Inspire stakeholders. If your visionary destination doesn’t create excitement, revisit. For example, it could be too financial. Or too conservative. Or too vague to pierce distractions like TikTok.

8) Put yourself in harm’s way. If the plan fails to make you lose some sleep due to the risk involved, you aren’t reaching far enough. You might be stuck thinking in a manager’s present-forward mindset.

As Machiavelli said, there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

C-suiters have followed the above eight-step formula to outcomes which transformed their companies, their industries, and even their countries.

They did not rely on buck-up, luck, or wishful thinking. They weren’t vague. Instead, they embraced the hard, disciplined, and often lonely work of leadership in a new, disruptive age.

Their reward? Not just fleeting success, but legacies which endured long after their names were forgotten. The key is intentional, persistent effort which follows certain principles.

Francis Wade is a management consultant and author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity. To search past columns on productivity, strategy and business processes, or give feedback, email: columns@fwconsulting.com