At a recent meeting I asked, “What is your leadership succession plan?” After a blank stare from several business owners I heard:
“We don’t have one. What is it, exactly?”
“You’re looking at it. I’m all we’ve got.”
Family-owned business leaders are not alone. Business owners are not alone. As most FFI members know, family business leaders represent about 70% of the U.S. economy, and about 70% of new job creation. My experience is that 100% of family business leaders worry about succession planning. What about your clients?
This short article explains what succession planning is, and how OKR leadership can help your clients be more proactive than reactive. You have probably read that only 1/3 of family businesses survive from the first generation to the second. But the reason for that low success rate is because they are not well advised by FFI members. You, and your clients, can practice succession planning using OKR leadership. Think of this article as one more tool in your toolbox.
Definitions
Succession Planning is defined as a process for identifying and developing your next generation of key leaders. The goal of succession planning in family-owned businesses is to perpetuate your legacy and assets over generations.
Succession planning requires OKR Leadership. Let me explain. Objectives describe what to do (e.g., transition ownership and management to the next generation). Key Results (KRs)describe how you measure that objective (e.g., assess the strengths and weaknesses of each family member and director within the next 30 days).
OKR leadership is the process for managers and leaders to practice what matters. For example, if your business needs to develop a succession plan, then you may need to increase accountability and transparency using OKRs. At many of my client companies, OKRs are written by each director and each family leader. Those OKRs are reviewed monthly at family business meetings. You may know that OKRs have driven the largest migration of financial assets and technological innovation ever recorded in human history to Silicon Valley, California since the 1970s. OKR leadership is a radical process for top-down hierarchical organizations to implement, but it is attractive to many family-owned business leaders because it works.
Case study
Rick is an example…
Read the full article above for the case study.
For discussion about your family business or succession planning, please contact Doug Gray here.
Millennials think they are unique. Just ask one. However, throughout history there have always been population surges after wars, diseases and migrations. So, what makes the current population of millennials, born in the U.S. between 1981-1996, truly unique? They represent over 75 million people, 25% of the U.S. population, a larger population surge than the post-war Baby Boom, 30% of the voting age, more diversity than any previous generation, and about 50% of today’s workforce (see Brookings.edu). These millennials are uniquely qualified to use new tools such as digital technology to communicate, social media platforms to influence consumers and public opinions, graphic images and visual memes, ethnic and racial diversity to describe more inclusive perspectives. The result is massive impact from countless millennials in every workplace and business sector. Examples include social protests, outrage, political discord, lawsuits, reputational attacks. Millennials are agile learners who demand to speak and be heard. That fact requires that learning managers and leaders respond differently than ever.
I enjoyed writing that article. Let’s continue the conversation. Here are 6 great resources for you, your team, and your organization.
Free copy of the first chapter of my new book, Objectives + Key Results (OKR) Leadership; How to apply Silicon Valley’s secret sauce to your career, team or organization (2019).
Invitation to join the 2020 OKR Leadership Project. I am collecting examples at Invitation to join the OKR Leadership Project. Think of this project as the 2020 version of “Chicken Soup for Practicing OKR Leadership.”
Then write a review in your favorite social media platform. Mention my title: Objectives + Key Results (OKR) Leadership; How to apply Silicon Valley’s secret sauce to your career, team or organization.
Please share these testimonials with your team or organization:
“Doug Gray makes the complex understandable. More important, he makes it doable.”
Craig E. Aronoff, Ph.D., author, Chairman and co-founder, The Family Business Consulting Group, Inc.
“Doug builds on the OKR approach with practical and valuable guidance for individuals, teams and organizations. If you plan on implementing OKRs for your organization, you need this book.”
John Mattox, PhD, author, Head of Talent Research, Metrics that Matter, Explorance
“Introducing the OKR framework has not only allowed us to align our company goals throughout the organization, but it has also provided an easy mechanism to give visibility into how we drive operational accountability.”
Justin Jude, Acting President, LKQ Corp, North America
“Finally, a much needed leadership focus on the importance of clear objectives and specific, measurable results. This book will be useful not just for the present but throughout a practitioner’s career.“
Dave Vance, PhD, author, Executive Director, Center for Talent Reporting
This week, U.S. attorney General William Barr released a 400-page redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election to Congress and the public. Consider how that data speaks to you. A client suggested that most people “see-speak-hear” that data as if we were monkeys… filled with bias.
Consider how these 3 data points speak to you…
Twitter removed 70 million fraudulent accounts in only two months in 2018 (source: Inc, May 2019)
Facebook removed 583 million fake accounts in the first three months of 2019 (source: Inc, May 2019)
In my world of leadership consulting, “a lengthy global effort to create standards for reporting human capital metrics is expected to be announced this week. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will issue its guidelines for 23 human capital reporting measures, including a Leadership Trust Index (LTI) that may inform institutional investors, private investors and global business leaders” (Steve Maxwell presenting at the Center for Talent Reporting Annual Conference, February 21, 2019).
FACT: All leaders and managers struggle to collect and analyze data.
You probably know that ISO standards have defined quality improvement and safety investments in countless organizations since they were first introduced in 1947. These worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial standards have been adopted in 164 countries.
What if your organization collected and distributed data on the following 23 human capital measures into these 9 categories?
Ethics (number and type of employee grievances filed; number and type of concluded disciplinary actions; percentage of employees who have completed training on compliance and ethics)
Costs (total workforce costs)
Workforce diversity (with respect to age, gender, disability, and “other indicators of diversity”; and diversity of leadership team)
Leadership (“leadership trust,” to be determined by employee surveys)
Organizational safety, health, and well-being (lost time for injury; number of occupational accidents; number of people killed during work)
Productivity (EBIT/revenue/turnover/profit per employee; human capital ROI, or the ratio of income or revenue to human capital)
Recruitment, mobility, and turnover (average time to fill vacant positions; average time to fill critical business positions; percentage of positions filled internally; percentage of critical business positions filled internally; turnover rate)
Skills and capabilities (total development and training costs)
Workforce availability (number of employees; full-time equivalents)
How would that data speak in your world?
Privately held companies may use these human capital data for directional initiatives such as replacing managers with high turnover ratios identified as “toxic managers” or investing in high growth departments that require training in OKR leadership skills. For details contact us.
Publicly held companies may use these human capital data for multi-directional initiatives designed to retain more diverse employees, eliminating bias in hiring, or retaining desired employees with external coaching and consulting. For details see www.hcmi.co.
Consider one final example. Imagine a 17-year district sales manager who had regularly been promoted within her company as recognition for her history of ratings that “exceed expectations.” Then she was asked to relocate into a new geography and had 4 different managers within 5 years. The goal incentives were increased 300%. She had to hire 3 new direct reports within 8 weeks. Then her new manager stated that she “should not speak to anyone in the corporate office, even when he did not repeatedly provide required information for business decisions.” How does that data speak?
FACT: All leaders and managers struggle to collect and analyze data.
OPINION: I predict massive changes ahead in public accountability and transparency and data-driven decision making.
If you need expertise in collecting and analyzing data for your organization, then you should contact us today.
FACT: The market demands that you will increase the probability of competitive success if you can make more informed decisions before others.
In response to a client’s request, I created a free digital course called “OKR Leadership Skills” that you can take here. The Objectives and Key Results (OKR) management process has enabled countless F100 and small business leaders to increase accountability and transparency. OKR leadership has been described as the “secret sauce” that explains the largest migration of financial assets in human history to Silicon Valley in the last 30 years. OKR leadership is another example of How Data Speaks.
Here is one final example. Here is a 3-minute excerpt of a keynote presentation on OKR leadership that I provided in March, 2019 to over 700 business leaders in Denver, CO. You may need a similar data story in your organization.
Here’s to you, at your best,
Doug Gray, PhD, PCC, CEO of Action Learning Associates, LLC
You have probably had the experience of teaching someone how to drive a car. If not, imagine the scene.
Your objective is to teach enough basic skills so that your loved one can drive away. You start by teaching safety protocols like “wear your seat belt” and “always keep two hands on the steering wheel at “9 and 3.” Then you explain the functions of the gas pedal, brake pedal, gears and all those shiny buttons on the dashboard. Then you offer encouragement as your loved one shifts into gear and drives from 0 to 30 mph within a minute. Your Key Results (KRs) often follow that formula “from x to y by date.”
Objectives are defined as “what you do.” They are qualitative and each person in the organization can write their own.
Key Results are defined as “how you measure that objective.” They are quantitative and answer the formula “as measured by.”
OKRs are defined as “a management methodology that helps people focus efforts on the same important issues throughout the organization.”
For a 3-minute excerpt of a keynote presentation on OKR Leadership that I provided in December, 2019 to over 700m business leaders in Denver, CO, click here.
The “Father of OKRs” title is attributed to Andy Grove, the founder and CEO of Intel. You may know that Andy literally wrote the textbook on semiconductors in 1967, well before Silicon Valley attracted the largest migration of assets in human history. You may also know that Andy wrote “Only the Paranoid Survive” in 1996, as a reminder of market volatility and the need to measure the details. His father was killed at Auschwitz, and he fled Nazism with his mother at age 20.
John Doerr worked for Andy. John learned how to implement OKRs. Then, in 1997, John made an $11.8M investment in 12% of Google when working as a venture capitalist at Kleiner-Perkins. The co-founders of Google wanted to organize data globally. When John introduced OKRs to Google, Larry Page said, “Well, we need to adopt some management approach.” The rest is history. I recommend John Doerr’s book, Measure What Matters, (2018) for examples ranging from the Gates Foundation to Bono.
Here are my examples of teaching OKRs to leaders in a small business and a large business.
I was consulting the CEO and owner of a $40M retail business that required succession planning to transition the next generation of leaders. At a management meeting I observed that the managers did not describe their business using any metrics. I asked the owner, “Where are the metrics that these managers are using to drive their business?” He sighed with fatigue, like so many small business owners. I provided OKR definitions and templates and a free course on OKR leadership skills that you can access here. Then I worked with several key managers. One manager’s objective was to increase profit margins by 6% Y/Y. KR1 was to identify current measures for sales, expenses, overhead, profit within 30 days. KR2 was to distribute a one-page business summary to all other managers within 40 days. KR3 was to track and reward increased profit margins within 60 days. The result of his OKR leadership was that he modeled accountability, transparency and business results for the other managers within 60 days.
I was consulting the president of a Fortune 500 business with $5B in annual revenue and over 10,000 full time employees in North America. Their 20-year-old company grew quickly as a result of acquisitions. The result was that silos of trust and information sharing were preventing consistent accounting practices. I asked, “How are you measuring your desired results?” He stuttered and said, “Not well. We increased revenue and retained a lot of good people but sometimes I wonder if we’re measuring what we need to be measuring.” I provided some OKR definitions and templates and vendor resources. Then he defined his OKRs and shared them with his top 60 leaders in a training that I delivered. Then I provided team coaching for those top 60 leaders so that they could cascade OKRs throughout their organization for three months. The results were uneven, as we expected. People were experimenting with the OKR language as if they were new vocabulary words. Three months of uneven applications passed. The OKR process gained momentum in the annual meeting when the president spoke to 650 of their top leaders. He declared, “As long as I’m in this role we are going to implement OKRs and increase our profit margins.” He shared his business OKRs. Minutes later, I followed him onto the main stage to introduce OKRs to those 650 leaders. I led demonstrations with 6 of his top leaders. Then I lead workshops to practice implementing OKRs within their organization. His KRs included training, technology, and rewards tied to increased profit margins. We are still assessing the impact of that OKR process.
The challenge of OKRs is not in introducing them as an initiative. Anyone can introduce an evidence-based initiative.
The challenge in the OKR process is adopting an ongoing cadence of accountability and rewards. Learning requires feedback. Managers, by definition, need to maximize the productivity of others. The core skill of managers is coaching. We trademarked the AD-FITTM coaching process to teach managers the required steps to provide feedback to others. Our experience is that those managers who adopt the AD-FITTM process accelerate the performance and behavior outcomes of others. For a free course on how to apply the AD-FITTM process for Managers click here.
Smart managers and leaders typically understand OKRs pretty quickly. The challenge is “in the details” as Andy Grove reminded us. Over 30% of the companies on today’s NYSE and F500 did not exist 20 years ago. There is no reason to assume that your organization should exist 20 years from now.
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