What does “my ambition is to grow” mean? What capability does it drive? What action does it drive? How do we reconfigure the main design levers in changing what we do; how we engage, acquire and service the market, how we build and manage that market, and what value do we deliver to that market? How does the complex matrix of customer, channel, and offer get reconfigured? Is this new services to new customers over new channels? If it is, it probably means capability need to mature.
One way of addressing this is to drive down into the goals, make them concrete, elaborate them to where we can see the need for capability maturity.
A goal cascade is an effective approach to bringing leaders and colleagues together around a common purpose articulated through an elaborated set of business goals.
It is based on the premise that organisations attempt to change from the loosest of definitions of ambition.
- “We want to grow” can initiate a significant but unstructured portfolio of change.
- Business leaders take the opportunity to interpret it in a way that enhances their division and ambition.
- Leaders and colleagues cannot see a clear purpose and mission and cannot relate their change goals to them.
It is simple to describe, quick to deliver but complex in terms of engagement and potentially dangerous when it exposes the lack of coherence that is out of sight of the CEO.
- More than once I have heard executives ask… “why don’t the results of change seem to be what I actually imagined”.
- More than once I have heard colleagues ask “I don’t get how what I am doing contributes”.
- More than once I have heard portfolio managers observe “I do not get the direction to structure my portfolio better”.
Business design and architecture is not the only way to address these issues, but it is one of the effective ways. Café Associates can support you through this process.