Iceberg of Ignorance

 

Jeroen KraaijenbrinkJeroen Kraaijenbrink • 2nd • 2ndStrategy and Leadership Consultant | Global Top 20 LinkedIn Creator | No-Nonsense Collaborator, Educator, Mentor and Author | Enabling Leaders to Improve Through Strategic Insight and Guided Execution |Strategy and Leadership Consultant | Global Top 20 LinkedIn Creator | No-Nonsense Collaborator, Educator, Mentor and Author | Enabling Leaders to Improve Through Strategic Insight and Guided Execution |12h •   12h •

The “Iceberg of Ignorance” says that executives only know 4% of what is going on in their organizations. This has critical implications for how strategy should be developed.

Coined in 1989 by Sidney Yoshida, the Iceberg of Ignorance has become a popular metaphor to illustrate how little top executives usually know about what is really going on in their organizations.

Allegedly, executives know only 4%, while managers know 9%, team leaders 74% and staff 100% of the problems in an organization.

The exact percentages don’t really matter. Furthermore, I don’t think that Yoshida meant to say that staff knows much more about a company than executives, even collectively.

Because, of course, executives and managers also know a great deal about their organization (at least in most cases). And staff doesn’t know about a lot of things that executives and managers do know about.

So, the real point is not that staff knows everything and that executives know nothing. Or that a fully bottom-up or democratic approach to business is the solution.

No, the real implication is the realization that EVERYONE in an organization knows something important and that we need all that knowledge on board if we want to make the right, important decisions. Along that line, I think the percentages in reality are cumulative, so that executives + managers + team leaders + staff TOGETHER know 100%.

The area where this is most relevant is strategy. Strategy is complex and difficult by definition because it concerns an organization’s future and covers everything going on within and around that organization.

Exactly because of that, the Iceberg of Ignorance is so important to be aware of. Because, executives don’t know enough to make strategy on their own. They only know the tip of the iceberg. They need their managers, team leaders and staff because each of them knows something else important as well.

This means strategy development needs to be participative and inclusive, giving everyone a place in the process and tapping the collective wisdom of the entire organization.

Is this already how strategy development takes place in your organization?

=====

If you are interested in helping organizations through a participative approach to strategy and implementation, the Certified Strategy & Implementation Consultant (CSIC) program may be something for you. Registration for our second cohort opens soon. See Strategy.Inc for more information.

hashtag#changemanagement
hashtag#leadershipmatters
hashtag#strategyconsulting

Dilemma of Company's Culture

 

Monte PedersenMonte Pedersen • 2nd • 2ndLeadership Through the Lens of ExecutionLeadership Through the Lens of Execution16h •   16h •

CULTURE is always at or near the top of the list of organizational items to improve or fix. Connecting a company's culture to its strategy is one of the most difficult challenges a leader will ever face.

Here's why:
Beyond being time-consuming and requiring large amounts of energy and effort aimed at transformational change, many leaders and their teams aren't up to the challenge.

They don't go into the initiative prepared to do what needs to be done and once they meet some resistance, their commitment wanes. They find it easier to maintain the status quo than do what it takes to transform their organization completely.

This ultimately becomes the perpetual back-and-forth battle between short and long-term thinking. Let's face it: there's great comfort and security in focusing on the near term.

Boardview, an Amsterdam-based marketing/technology firm that researches strategy and execution, has done some interesting studies that reinforce the difficulty involved with tying culture to strategy.

Here are some of their findings:

* 80% of a workforce’s primary motivators, necessary for putting extra energy into change (or other efforts), are never tapped into by leadership,

* Fewer than 33% of senior executives direct reports clearly understand the connection between company priorities and their strategy,

* 60% of leaders think less than 20% of the workforce has a basic understanding of company strategy and can explain it

* 37% of leaders say gaining support across their entire organization is the toughest strategy implementation challenge they face.

With gaps the size that these statistics point out, it's not hard to understand why strategy is rarely tied back to culture.

If your plan is to change or re-engineer your organization's culture, here's the starting blueprint.

Great culture is an execution accelerator. When you can establish your culture and align your people with what you are attempting to accomplish operationally, the chances of transforming your organization increase as well.

Your people must always know what is expected of them and how they contribute to strategic success. Their work and level of productivity are outcomes of how you lead them. At a basic level, they want three things:

1) To belong, be seen, and heard,
2) To know that what they do matters, and
3) That what they do can and will be measured.

If you want to tie your culture back to your strategy. Stop thinking about how the company results affect you, and start thinking about how your team members impact the results.

Therein lies the answer to why fixing culture is always at or near the top of the list.

LEADERS set the tone for company culture.

hashtag#ceos hashtag#leadership hashtag#culture hashtag#execution

Join the fastest 23 seconds of wisdom on the World Wide Web by subscribing to my newsletter at https://lnkd.in/gKaqqhPC