Leadership: Building Constituencies

Comment: This is the fourth post of the Leadership Process series. I began this series because I saw a lack of rigor and discipline to leadership. The purpose of these posts is to look at a process model used by leaders. 

Building Constituencies

A constituency is a collective name for stakeholders, principles, champions, and other contributors to the vision. The topic, building constituencies, perhaps makes the leader more of a politician than any other character type. The political style depends on the ground conditions.  Nonetheless, the process is relatively stable.  Often the constituency needs to be convinced or persuaded of the vision both in the beginning and as the leader builds a broader base of support. Thus, constituency building began before arriving at the point of growing a broader base. Let's back track a little first.

In the Beginning...

Putting together a constituency at the outset can be difficult task since the benefits are often obscure and long term. The nature of a vision is complex and can be incoherent during the early development. Thus, the need for leadership. The vision cannot be managed nor implemented by a single entity either. Hence, the need for a constituency. Any vision creates winners and losers. The constituencies are the winners in the vision but not to the full exclusion of the losers. They play a resistance role. The vision needs to be legitimized by key decision makers and vision champions who assert the vision is vital and necessary. In the end, the vision is presented as valid and desirable by the early constituency which are also known as principle stakeholders. 

Building a Broader Base

Broad support for a vision and/or change is frequently absent. The vision must be marketed and promoted in order to persuade the broader base who will benefit from the vision and/or change in some manner. The 'who' participates question focuses on various stakeholders who have the power to help or obstruct the policy. The 'what' question addresses the kind of participation being undertaken. The 'how' clarifies the qualitative aspect of participation. These stakeholders can be internal or external to the organization and can be of various roles to include:

• Information Sharers:  These stakeholders legitimize a vision by brokering information and facilitating communications. They utilize many channels and media. 
• Consultants: These stakeholders exchange views and gain feedback.  They typically will hold all hands meetings, round tables, and other forums for the critiquing of views. 
• Collaborators:  These stakeholders retain decision-making abilities while bringing in external actors to problem solve, design and evaluate, monitor, etc...
• Joint Decision-makers:  These stakeholders are collaborators who share decision-making authority. 
• Power Brokers:  These stakeholders transfer control over decisions, resources, and activities to other stakeholders and entities. The purpose of this is empowerment such that actors can act in their own interest and deliver higher quality deliverables. 

Think of the stakeholder roles as interconnected and building on each other, sharing information, promoting two way communication, and blending views, interest, and collaboration in order to advance the vision meaningfully. A single stakeholder may play several roles or at least change roles as the project progresses.

Participation: Costs and Benefits

Constituency building, by definition, is bringing in stakeholders in order to participate in vision legitimization. Participation options are expansive and based on the objectives established. The leader must manage the participation in order to avoid confusion and a cacophony of activity. There are limits and trade offs to participation. Some checklist questions on participation levels follow:

1. Will the benefits of participation outweight the costs?
2. Will the participation strengthen technical content, legitimacy, or ownership of the vision? 
3. Will including more participants contribute or dilute the vision's objectives and effects?
4. Is increasing participants necessary to adequately design or implement the objectives and goals?
5. Are there conflicts or potentials for conflict between the participants and expectations?
6. How much time will be required to incorporate participants and does that conflict with the schedules?

Increasing or decreasing participation creates a variety of issues. The key element of deciding if participation is necessary or not is the benefits over the cost.

Who should Participate?

Who should participate in the first place is a big question that requires careful consideration. A major concern is that a participant does not take over the vision with self-interest. Thus, the focus is limiting participation from this perspective. In a democratized culture, control over participation is slim as everyone should exercise a say. In this case, there will be competitive efforts and conflict. Leaders will need to manage the conflict. The greater effort is opening up the vision beyond the inner circle rather than limiting participation. Leaders will want to focus on participants who have the greatest stake in the vision.

A stakeholder register and analysis will aide in identifying the key actors.  Basic questions need to answered in selecting the key actors.

1. Who are the vision's winners and losers?
2. What does each actor offer for its interest?
3. Will the participant improve quality of vision formulation and performance?
4. Will the participant homogenize the group?
5. Will excluding or minimizing a participant create vision hardship?
6. Will the participant cost more than it contributes? 

Once again the key question is regarding cost and benefits, question 6.

Mechanisms

This brings us back to the stakeholder types mentioned earlier. Increasing participation reduces unilateral and autonomous decision authority but higher participation is not inherently better. Nonetheless, the mechanisms of participation reflect the stakeholder types.

• Information Sharing: This is foundational to participation.  Controlling information remains with the leaders or visionaries. The notion is that participation in the vision is transparent, responsive, and accountable.
• Consultative: Participants are invited to share views in specific venues. This must be a transparent and sincere attempt to listen to views or it will backfire.
• Collaboration: This is a effort of cooperation across organizational and external boundaries. Successful consultative efforts migrate into collaborative efforts as part of relationship building. 
• Joint Decision-making:  Collaboration dove tails often into joint decision making efforts. 
• Empowerment:  Leaders empower actors or stakeholders to pursue self-determined objectives and goals. This may include capability and capacity building in support of the vision and its objectives. 

In Conclusion

More participation means increasing democratization. Most large organizations are matrices of various sorts. Matrix orgaizations operate well under democracy and leaders are more akin to a politician. However, if the leadership remains hierarchial and in full control then participation is nullified. Leadership must assess and determine the degree to which control is relinquished and the participants are empowered. The process begins by sharing information, consulting with the participants, permitting collaboration to occur, the allowing the participants control over certain decisions which ultimately empowers the participants who then effect the the vision for the leader.

Comment: The workplace is always a learning crucible. Matrix organizations increased in occurence over the last 15 years in large numbers disrupting hierarchial regimes. Many professionals have been struggling in these new environments to find ways to manage and to lead. I have been highlighting  methods, tactics, techniques, and practices often used by democratic governments to advance policy reforms then applied them to the workplace. Employing these concepts could help gain improved results. Please stay tuned as the posts will continue to detail the leadership process model.

Leadership: Change Management

Comment: This is the third post of the Leadership Process series. I began this series because I saw a lack of rigor and discipline to leadership. The purpose of these posts is to look at a process model used by leaders. 

Change Management

After the vision and goals are set, the leader is now focused on putting the vision to task. There are two aspects of putting the vision to task; the introduction of the change caused by the vision and changes to the vision's goals as an ongoing process of incremental gains. The two aspects are considerably different.

Introduction of Change

Introducing change is a challenge and involves the art of persuasion. Often change at face value is rejected. Leaders must put together some sort of strategy to introduce change and the vision. This most often means that people must gain incremental buy off on the goals first before introducing the greater vision. This is the Secret of Socrates.

The process begins by assessing the environment. A leader will consider the level of tension or apprehension between the present and future states. The buyoff process involves knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation. Knowledge is cognitive and reasoned. Whereas, persuasion is affective or sentient, feeling. The objective is to use just the right amount of knowledge in order to persuade people.

Knowledge communicates complex information relationships that may reveal an epiphany or revelation. The leader may use elevator speech, myth busting, wake-up calls, and repeating visible messages in order to grab the attention of the audience. However, the facts are held to just enough. Next the leader will attempt to persuade by transforming the knowledge into actionable causes through emotional connections, personal touch, analoguous stories, a shoulder to cry on, addressing fears, building identity, shocking realizations, and expressing sincere thanks. Successful persuasion removes tension between present and future states as well as engenders a belief in the need and ability to change.

In practice, there are several steps and they can be thought of as building the foundations for a constituency. Leaders will:

1. Test the waters. Leaders will dabble goals, strategy, and visions being formulated in small trusted circles by throwing ideas on the table and observing reactions to them. Leaders may test the waters more formally by porting a proof of concept.
2. Plan strategy for change.
3. Build awareness of need for change, spark interest, knowledge and persuasion.
4. Gain feedback and listen
5. Take time to reflect and empathize; I feel your pain.
6. Identify principle actors:
• Innovators
• Early adopters
• Early Majority
• Local sponsors
• Guru review
• Corporate angel
7. Respect resistance

Introducing a vision is change and change must be persuaded more than educated. The strongest approach to change is to have the core group, a constituency, recognize the need and to take ownership of the vision.

Ongoing Change Management

At this point the vision has been adopted. Pursuit of the goals has been ongoing and the need to make course corrections or add in a major change is necessary. This aspect of managing change is more formal and rigorous. There are numerous methods for change management. We will skim the surface in this post and return this topic in the post 'Planning for Updates'. Nonetheless, change management is rooted in documentation, baselines, deliberate planning, risk assessments, and communication.

A good change management program involves an understanding of roles, responsibilities, and adherence to project evaluation success criteria. Change management is a management program that requires a formalized change management method with the leader involved. A three phased method applies well to this type of change management:

1. Preparing for change; this is be discussed in a later post, 'Planning for Updates'
2. Managing change; this is the change management program in which changes are vetted.
3. Reinforcing change; this is a leadership duty involving core principles such as commitment, motivation, consequences, etc... This is be discussed in a later post on 'Core Principles'.

Typically, managing changes are documented and reviewed by a convening body of some sort. The base constituency, usually stakeholders, is usually involved in the decision to accept a change as well. Affects or impacts on cost, scope, quality, and schedules are assessed. If the change is adopted then it is integrated into the schedule and work packages are assigned.

Overall, ongoing change management is an integrated process beyond simply approving changes.

Leadership: Goal Setting

Comment: This is the third post of the Leadership Process series. I began this series because I saw a lack of rigor and discipline to leadership. The purpose of these posts is to look at a process model used by leaders. 

Goal Setting

Perhaps one of the most often overlooked efforts in leadership is goal setting. Some people confuse goal setting with vision and objectives. Goals are benchmarks or significant achievements along the way used to assess progress towards the end state or objectives. Goals are usually the outcome or conclusion of a major effort or phase. Hence, the vision becomes a project and broken into major smaller but significant projects or phases, each a goal toward the overarching vision.

Leader should think of goal setting as performance management and having the characteristics of motivation, encouragement, rewards, and consequences. When applied correctly goal setting spurs people on to great accomplishments in projects.

Goals should be organized logically and prioritized. Leaders must consider the amount of effort and resources necessary to achieve the goals. Sometimes goals are unattainable for a variety of reasons. For example, the Navy had a vision for a vertical takeoff and landing stealth bomber, A12 Avenger. They set the goals and began development of the airframe. However, a critical goal relied on the technological achievement of certain material kinds and a projection was made that the technology would emerge. As time passed the material technology never emerged, the weight of the airframe increased significantly as a result, and the cost to drive the projected technology was unreasonable or unknown. Therefore, the vision was abandoned. 

There are types of goals; immediate, short term, and long term. Immediate goals look into the future for a very small period such as 1 to 4 weeks. Short term goals look into the future for a period extending from 2 months upto about a year out. Long term goals can be from 1 to 10 years into the future. However,  the temporal term can be replaced with milestones. This typically occurs when time is not a factor but performance is an essential factor. Thus, at the expense of time high quality, exact precision, or very accurate milestones are achieved.

F.R.A.M.E. 

Knowing what a goal is and how to discern the goal's term is important. Just as important is how to set the goal. The acronym F.R.A.M.E. can aid is understanding this process.

Find: Search your vision for logical break points or major achievements necessary for the vision to become a reality or put into effect. Identify possible strategies to reach each goal. Select the best ones.

Realistic: Goals must be realistic and achievable. Aim high but achievable.

Aim: Get focused. Outline specific plans to accomplish the strategies. Publish direction to follow and achieve the goals. An unwritten want is a wish, a dream to never happen. The day you put the plan in writing is the day it becomes a commitment.

Method:  Find methods or means of achieving results that fit the strategy.  Don’t be afraid to ask for help.  Work hard to realize the goals.

Evaluate: Results should be measurable and discernable.

S.M.A.R.T.

Another acronym, S.M.A.R.T.,  with a slightly different focus can also aid in goal setting practice.

Specific:  Goals should be specific enough that we know exactly for what we are striving towards.

Measurable: Goals are measurable. There should be an answer as to when the goal is attained.

Actionable: Goals must have activities that produce results.

Reviewed: Goals must be scrutinized and monitored with regular progress checks. Have an interested but disassociated party monitor and hold you to the goals.

Tangible: Goal results must be tangible, observable, or otherwise empirical.  Vague or ethereal results will be difficult to demonstrate successful achievement.

Performance Management

Performance management in foundational to leadership. Motivation and commitment drive towards achievement. Motivation is a nurturing activity of leaders that is coupled with rewards. Rewards are recieved for "doing something right" and should not be thought of in a negative manner of 'just rewards'. Rewards are recieved in a timely manner. Commitment creates accountability and is what sets the path to reach the goals. Inspiration plays a major role in spurring people to maximum performance. People need to feel like they are a part of something bigger than themself. Encouragement is the fuel that keeps the potential moving forward. Consequences are the result of positive or negative performance.   These qualities push to complete all of the steps in the Goal process.  Leaders must be flexible as small victories lead to hugh successes. Why goals fail:

1. The goal was not written down.
2. Rewards for achieving the goals were not thought through or considered.
3. The goal was unrealistic or not specific enough.
4. The goal is not really believable or little commitment exists.
5. Lack of stability as goals keep changing or switching goals with the weather. 
6. The person who set the goal has not told anyone else for added accountability, help and support.
7. The goal was not incorporated into a realistic plan that includes measurements, timelines and resources. 

However, the benefits of proper goal setting are immense:

1. Suffer less from stress and anxiety
2. Stronger focus and unity of effort.
3. Shows greater confidence.
4. Improves performance.
5. Followers are more content. 

Goal setting is a critical element of the leadership process following vision identification and precedes change management. Setting proper goals sets the stage for greater achievements and progress towards the vision. Leaders set sage goals.

Comment: During this post, we hit upon many things. Of these things were character qualities such as rewards, motivation, committment, etc... After I complete the process post I will begin looking at these qualities to some degree. At any rate, this completes the section on Goal Setting. The next topic is Change Management from a leadership perspective.

References:

Woolfe, L. (2002). Leadership secrets from the bible. MJF Books, New York.

Leadership: Problem Identification

Comment: This is the second post of the Leadership Process series. I began this series because I saw a lack of rigor and discipline to leadership. The deliverable is a vision statement. 

Leadership: Problem Identification

Discussion: Identification of a problem is not as easy as it sounds. Often the issues out in front or on the surface are only symptomatic of a deeper root cause. Moreover, the problems leaders address are different than problems the everyday person deals with. Leadership seeks to improve things by getting at root causes and adjust culture, direction, and other broad sweeping concerns. The problem identified is foundational to the vision formulated. Hence, the deliverable of problem identification is a vision that improves or corrects a problem condition.

There are methods and techniques for getting at the real problem in order to formulate the right vision. Please note the use of ‘real’ and ‘right’ terms. For leaders, a virtuous and realistic focus is an essential method and part of character that infuses into the vision in order to be appreciated by all. Returning to the methods and techniques for getting at the real problem there are several approaches to root cause analysis (RCA).

One must understand the difference between problems and symptoms. Problems originate out of underlying structural relationships among a system’s components. A system can be human, physical, or organizational from which the problems and symptoms emerge. A symptom is the outcome or effect of the problem and can be mistaken for the problem itself. One technique is the ‘Little Boy’ method who asked, ‘but why?’ to every answer. The ‘multiple why’ process can be used to unpeel the onion until the root cause is exposed. This approach is simple and effective for linear relationships that lead to a root cause.

Another RCA approach is to ask the 5W’s; What, Why, When, Where, and Who. This approach unpeels the onion in a different manner by looking for patterns in the causes; human, physical, or organizational. Often multiple interrelated causes are revealed. The recursive nature of these two approaches can be taken to the origin of the universe at the extreme. The leader must ask the ‘so what’ question and stop at a useful or purposeful point using good judgment and a little common sense.

Five Step Root Cause Analysis

The first two approaches were more or less shooting from the hip methods. A more formal approach is Five Step RCA. This approach considers the Customer or end user, Actors, Transformation processes, Worldviews, Owners or stakeholders, and Environmental constraints (CATWOE). More in depth questions are asked at each stage.

The root-cause identification process:

1. Define the surface issue or problem, the starting point. 
2. Collect Data 
3. Identify Possible Causal Factors. Some of the tooling to get at the causal factors includes:
   • Appreciation: Ask the ‘so what’
   • The Why’s: Ask why until you are at the root cause
   • Drill down: Breaking the big picture into manageable components.
   • Cause and effect diagramming: The classic TQM fishbone method.
4. Identify the Root Cause(s) 
5. Recommend and Implement Solutions. The solution is the vision the leader desires to pursue to resolve the identified root cause problem.

Problem identification hands off to vision formulation. A vision is the deliverable of the effort.

Vision Formulation is to Begin with the End in Mind

Vision is to be strategic and focuses diverse constituencies on a big picture. Vision is most often a departure from the status quo and may not even be readily apparent to most people until a leader reveals the vision. Ideally, that is a Ah Ha moment. In formulating vision one cannot easily take the current and extrapolate to the future. The future must be mapped back to the present in order to develop the roadmap forward. As Stephen Covey states this, "Begin with the end in mind."  

Beginning with the end in mind means that once the problem is defined one can generally make a judgment on what the situation should be. Hence, the differenital is the problem. The basic components of vision are:

• Intent: This is a sweeping statement of purpose that usually states the problem that will require some sort of action. For example, to restore market to normalcy.
• Objective: This is the goal or criteria of success usually stated in terms of actionable intent. For example, to achieve market normalcy ensuring diversified control of supply points.
• End State: This is the outcome of the objective and intent. For example, a market operating under fair and competitive market conditions.

A future model is the vision. Future modeling is siginificantly different in that it cannot be achieved most of the time by the natural course of action or current path. Future models require leadership to make the necessary adjustments in order to arrive at the future model. The idea is that leadership not only formulates the vision but also lays out the roadmap to achieve the vision. Often this is called Performance Management.  Moveover, leadership can be positive or it can be not so good in the visions sought. Leadership begins with problem identification then formulates a vision of how the conditions should be.

Comment: This concludes the problem identification post.  The next post will discuss goal setting or developing the roadmap.