Strategy Management for Project Managers (Part 1) Transcript

Segment 1: Who Are We and Why Are We Doing This?

Idris Manley:

Welcome to Future of Work 2.0. I'm your co-host Idris Manley.

Ross Martin:

And I'm Ross Martin. Thank you and welcome to our inaugural show. We really appreciate your being here. The way that this show will work is in each of the episodes, we will go into a number of topics that are relevant to project managers, such as the future of project management, the intersection of AI and other innovations in project management, and that sort of thing. For this show, the first topic we'd like to talk about that makes sense, I think, is who are we and why are we doing this? So Idris, would you like to start?

Idris Manley:

Sure, sure. So again, I'm Idris Manley. I am a longtime project management professional. I have over 25 years of experience, both as an individual contributor and as a leader of project management teams in Silicon Valley and tech companies. And so I bring a tremendous amount of experience working for a variety of tech companies, both large and small and in the middle, to bear in terms of experiences within project management. And so I'm looking forward to being able to share the wealth of knowledge and experience that I have really delivering on very strategic critical projects and dealing with the different challenges and management and otherwise and being able to successfully deliver to business outcomes.

Ross Martin:

And like Idris, my name is Ross Martin and I have over 30 years experience in project management at big consulting and Silicon Valley tech firms and media firms. I started out as an individual contributor as well, even actually a software engineer at one point, and moved up through the ranks, led PMOs and created and led enterprise PMOs, and also got involved in strategic M&A and other sorts of project management around the strategy function at companies. And I'm also looking forward to sharing my experience and understanding of what it's like to be in this profession and really thinking through with you guys what's about to happen and what's changing, which actually leads to the why are we doing this? So what do you think? I mean, anyone can talk about project management anytime you want. So what's happening now that makes this worth doing?

Idris Manley:

Well, I think there's a couple of things. One, if you look at the amount of information and knowledge that is shared in project management relative to other functions like marketing or product management, there really is a dearth of information outside of just tactical productivity, how to improve productivity or or how to get certified, how to get certified, or, you know, under better understanding of particular methodology. So they're very sort of tactical, sort of advice and content that is out there. And I think it's important, or we felt that it was important to really begin to expand the universe of, of information and insight and guidance is being shared, and particularly of the strategic variety. And I, you know, I believe that based on our leadership experience, and we both have you know, been the heads of PMO and VPs of PMO for companies, we really have a unique insight in both the sort of the tactical, how you get things done, but even the strategic considerations, you know, how do you, you know, elevate your career? How do you, you know, how do you sort of break that glass ceiling that happens, you know, usually at like that senior project program manager level, how do you actually become a director? How do you become a VP? I think that we have a lot of insight that we can share for a lot of project managers. But in addition to that, as you alluded to AI, and really I think AI is going to really shake up what happens in our industry. And I think it's important for project managers to really prepare and to understand how it will impact their roles, how they can prepare for that impact and how they can really use that, use AI as an opportunity to really move their careers forward.

Ross Martin:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a lot of fear out there, right? It's like, you could say, is AI going to make the entire profession of being a project manager go away? And what about me? And what about my job? It's not unfounded, but we believe that it really is going to present an opportunity for you to drive your career forward, become more strategic, and really sort of change the way project management is viewed in companies to where it's valued more than it is today. Because as you become more strategic and as you think about delivering value instead of milestones and tasks and deliverables, Uh, you know, the senior leaders at your company will start to see you and project management in general and a new light. Yeah.

Idris Manley:

And, and I would expect the compensation and all of the other benefits and rewards that comes with, uh, being, being, um, acknowledged that way, you know, to come to fruition.

Ross Martin:

Yeah. So we're really looking forward to sharing with you thoughts around all of this, the changes that are happening in our profession, ways to move your career forward, what it's like to be in the project management. Maybe you're considering whether you want to do it and you're not sure and it's something you've been interested in. So we like to really touch on all of those things over the next month, as long as long as you'll have us.

Idris Manley:

And we'll even, yeah, we'll certainly keep our thumbs and fingers on the pulse of trends that are out there to make sure that We keep you up to speed as to technologies that you should be considering. We will experiment and demonstrate different products and really try and be your eyes and ears for the technology that's out there and things that you should be considering.

Ross Martin:

The other thing we're interested in is your thoughts, right? So Future of Work 2.0 isn't just us speaking to you. We'd like to converse with you and have you converse with each other and create a community of project management professionals who are interested in innovations in the future, but also interested in project management and not just sort of the basic uh, parts of project management, but what it's like to be in this profession. Absolutely.

Idris Manley:

I mean, so to that end, if you have ideas and thoughts, I didn't think topics that you would like to hear and understand, you know, feel free to leave, uh, some comments, um, down below and we'll be happy. We'll read all of the comments and happy to, uh, try and integrate that into our, our topic list in the future.

Segment 2: Can the Title or Function of the Person as the Owner of Strategy Management Affect the Outcome?

Ross Martin:

Absolutely. So thanks a lot. Uh, welcome to, uh, future of work 2.0. For our next topic, the question is, can the title or function of the person as the owner of the strategy management function affect the outcome? Idris, would you like to take first swing at that one?

Idris Manley:

Sure. Sure. No, absolutely. You know, I think it definitely can make a difference. You know, over the course of my career, I've seen oftentimes COOs take the mantle of leading strategy management, strategy planning sort of sessions. I've seen presidents and CEOs as well take that responsibility. I've also seen it being co-managed with, you know, PMO leaders helping support or some third party helping to support perhaps a facilitation while the other executive was responsible more for the actual sort of discussions and objectives that they were trying to accomplish. And so I've seen it done in various ways, but I think what works best is tends to be someone who has oversight and responsibility for not just the planning, but the execution itself as well. And I think where it fails is when that person that's involved in the planning doesn't have oversight or some level of responsibility for execution, then it's just a handoff.

Ross Martin:

Well, and that's actually what I've experienced is it is a handoff. So in a global media company that I worked at, we had a strategy, you know, senior SVP, EVP, actually. And so this whole function was responsible for figuring out the strategy. And they drove the strategy planning function where we would get together for a three year refresh of our strategy led by a VP within the strategy management function. And that person would make sure that everyone followed the right template and were presented with market data and other things to help them along the way and manage the process. But it was around strategy planning. Once the strategy was delivered, the next step was to take the first year of that strategy and create the next year's annual budget. And then all the different groups executed upon it.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. You know, I think also, you know, it's really important to understand those roles to really begin to surface what are the strengths of the leader that's responsible for that. You know, some leaders may be really good visionaries or strategists, but they're not really good at facilitation, you know, or perhaps they don't have the capacity while they're great strategists. And so I think it's really important to understand what are those sort of critical characteristics that you need in the person that is going to take overall responsibility for your strategic management activities and to make sure that if that person does not have all of those sort of skill sets, that at least you find a team of people that can work together and collaborate to be able to bring all of that to the table.

Ross Martin:

And I found that the key quality that was looked for in people in the strategy management function a lot of times were that they had a lot of experience with strategy. Which makes sense, but whether you got somebody who knew how to facilitate and work across groups and help the process along and all that kind of stuff was just really more of a side bonus if that person had it. What I never saw was the execution leadership, which in many cases might have been like an enterprise PMO or something like that, really brought in early on into the planning process, or even managing the planning process, so that once the planning was done, there was a really smooth handoff to not just the business leaders to manage their own execution, but to also the execution arm of the company.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, no, I've seen similar. Certainly one of the biggest challenges is when an executive team believes that certain functions or certain leadership groups aren't necessarily required as part of that initial planning. And so then, you know, they plan and then they hand off the sort of the annual plan. sort of objectives and commitments that have been made on their behalf and they're being asked to fulfill it, particularly like around sales and marketing and some other departments. And that's created a lot of conflict, a lot of challenges. And so I think it is important that the leader that's responsible understands the importance of bringing in the right people that can buy in and contribute to those plans so that at the time of handoff, there's already alignment, there's already agreement, and it'll help the execution become much more effective.

Ross Martin:

At my most recent company, we had a situation where there was a lot of time spent thinking about the strategy and changing the strategy for, you know, and then rolling it out and letting everyone know the strategy at a high level, which is great. But early on, even after the rollout, there was a thought of, Hmm, we're going to need some people to help drive this and actually make the strategy happen. And not just leave it to each individual VP of different parts of the business to do their part without any coordination. But it was still a bit of an afterthought.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. I think that historically, for example, PMO leaders have have are oftentimes not invited to the party. Right. Yeah. Oftentimes we're not necessarily asked to contribute with other C-level executives when it comes to strategic planning. I think that's that's create a whole host of problems and challenges, you know, because then that individual one, that individual is not sort of contributing to the discussion around are, you know, the capacity or the feasibility of being able to deliver on some of the execution based on their experience, but also that individuals then being asked to support and drive execution and not necessarily having full context. And so I think it's really important to understand, you know, and it's kind of gets into the sort of value delivery leader role as well, but to really understand how PMO and how execution functions should really contribute to the planning stage.

Ross Martin:

Well, and that's your point about value delivery leader instead of just a project management leader, right, is I think I see it a bit of a chicken and egg situation, which is PMO leaders traditionally have not been invited into the C-suite to help with strategic planning and then carry it on through execution. Partly because they weren't operating at that strategic level. But they weren't operating at that strategic level because they were never invited into the room where the strategy was being planned.

Idris Manley:

So it's a bit of both. Yes and no. I mean, there are certainly individuals that weren't invited, but they had the capacity and the capability. But there are many PMO leaders that really they're strong at execution, but not necessarily contributing to some of the strategic sort of thinking as well.

Ross Martin:

Fair enough, but what, how did you learn strategy? Like one of the ways I learned strategy was getting involved with the strategy team and, and, and seeing how it works.

Idris Manley:

Getting involved and certainly being curious. Yes. But yeah, you know, everyone isn't going to be curious, but certainly, uh, if you have a desire and interest to really understand the why behind, uh, the decisions that are being made and just naturally continuing to ask why it will lead you to, you know, the C-suite and to those meetings and those conversations. But again, I don't expect every PMO leader to have that understanding or even that interest. And so you really do have to identify the skill sets and the strengths of your PMO leader to determine if they are the right fit for contributing to those kinds of conversations.

Ross Martin:

Good point. Good point. And the fact is, is that we actually believe that that leaders of value delivery, who are at this point are probably PMO leaders, do need to be able to do that. But it is your job to figure out whether you have the right person in that role.

Idris Manley:

You know, Ross, I just realized we didn't explain value delivery. Oh, very good point. Perhaps it might be.

Ross Martin:

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, a traditional project management is telling the you know, the leaders and the various practitioners of project management have focused for decades now, actually, on on deliverables, delivering, you know, the output making sure the tasks are done, things like status reports, making sure that the plan as presented to them is executed as well as possible. But the value delivery is more about how do we make sure that the business outcomes that the entire project or initiative was started for in the first place are achieved and all throughout the project, We are constantly going back to those touch points to make sure that the value of what we're doing is being realized or will be realized. We don't take for granted that just delivering the project will do it anymore. And that's what value delivery is about.

Idris Manley:

In addition to that, it's also really being able to establish KPIs and metrics on how you're executing. So just executing and delivering value, which is critical, is important, but it's also understanding the how. Are we delivering on these capabilities faster than our competitors? How do we measure that? How do we know if we're moving at a velocity that's faster than the market? And so it's really sort of taking that meta layer, taking that step back as well and understanding how do you measure success when it comes to delivering value outside of just the value itself and making sure that there are people accountable for tracking, holding people accountable, and stretching the organization or the cross teams that are responsible for delivering to continue to deliver faster and more efficiently.

Ross Martin:

Yeah, that's a great point. And if you think back to a while ago, a lot of times I remember the focus was, okay, we've finished delivering the project and during the closing time, we're trying to look and see, did we achieve what we were trying to do? But it was only at the end. Right. And so I think what we're advocating for and what you're seeing as modern project delivery out there is you don't wait to the end. You measure and check constantly. Are we on track for the delivery of the value to the business? Not just that we're going to hit our milestones and deliver our delivery.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, no inspect and adapt, right? Because I mean, that's, that's, that's the foundation of agile. So being able to really get into the habit. And it's not just for software delivery, by the way, this is just for all businesses, just at all levels, being able to get into the behavior of inspecting and adapting, monitoring, analyzing what can improve and making the pivots where necessary, um, and being lightweight.

Segment 3: Does Strategic Scenario Planning Still Make Sense in the Face of Black Swan Events?

Ross Martin:

Agreed. So our next topic is, does strategic scenario planning still make sense in the face of black swan events? We were reading an article in the HBR around when scenario planning fails. And this was a situation where they described a number of companies in the Nordic countries who were dealing with the pandemic, like we all did, And at the same time, the Russian invasion of Ukraine created yet another Black Swan event, and they were having to deal with two at the same time, and how they dealt with it, and the different reactions of the different types of companies. just to make sure everyone understands the definition of a black swan event is based on the history. There was a saying that this thing is as likely as seeing a black swan because in Europe they had never, they didn't exist. And they assumed they didn't exist. But the fact is they did exist down in Australia. So now what it really means is it was a completely unforeseen event that you can't plan for. But then in hindsight, It could have been foreseen, but was not. So that's the idea around here, is how do these different companies dealt with being hit twice by things that they could not have planned for. Right, right.

Idris Manley:

So it's interesting. So the last company I worked at, I was a VP of PMO. They are actually a leader in AI risk management. So I had a lot of experience and familiarity with risk management. Particularly like real-time analysis of risk management, etc. But to the question, I think it's yes and no. Certainly, there are risks that, in terms of probability, are more likely to occur. And I think it's important for companies to have playbooks. for those risks that they can anticipate and expect, um, within a reasonable probability. But as you said, there are risks that you cannot anticipate and expect. And in those instances, it's important to at least have a playbook for how you will, you know, sort of a meta playbook, uh, you know, playbook for how you will establish a playbook, uh, to, to, uh, you know, to address risks that were unforeseen and that you weren't prepared for.

Ross Martin:

Yeah, and what's interesting is that one of the companies that actually did very well in in Scandinavia with all of this, like all the rest, they didn't foresee these things happening. But what they did is they had a group within their company who dealt with unforeseen events and who was like a tiger team that could drop in and help solve complicated problems. And the reason they had that in their company wasn't because they anticipated these things happening, but because of the nature of that particular industry and their business, they needed to They kept getting surprised by things. So they created a group to handle surprises. When these surprises happened, that group took these on as well. And then they jumped at it. So again, you can't plan for exactly what it is, but you can plan to, you can be better at adapting to the unplanned.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think this is such an important conversation because I think, you know, prior to the Internet, you know, when you thought about risk, a lot of risk was physical risk, right? It was security, physical security. People would be able to get into different, different physical areas and, you know, for nefarious reasons. But now digital risk seems to really, well, it's where most of the risk lies, or at least where the attention and the budgets are going to try and combat and address internet related sort of network risk. And so in that instance, you really don't know where it's coming from, when it's gonna happen, how it's gonna happen, you just know that there's a lot of risk out there and it's really important for companies to be able to think through this from a scenario planning perspective and to make sure that they're budgeting sufficiently and they're staffed and resourced sufficiently to be able to deal with these potential risks that may occur.

Ross Martin:

One of the things that happened during the pandemic that we all remember were the supply chain disruptions were pretty severe. And that impacted a lot of companies as well. And one of the companies in this study actually had all of its key suppliers were in Russia. So when the Ukraine invasion happened, that caused some serious problems. The reality is, no, you can't foresee that, but they could have foreseen that they were hyper-focused on getting, they didn't have a diverse set of suppliers across different geographies and then across different types of countries, and that was a risk. So you can really start to look more carefully at, you know, where you are vulnerable and create some strategies and change things to be less vulnerable, even if you don't know specifically what might come.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, yeah, no, no, agreed. I think I think another interesting question is, how do you incorporate risk planning into your strategic planning, sort of annual strategic planning exercises as well? Because I think oftentimes for companies, you know, that's handled by the CISO, you know, and they're sort of operating and managing sort of those planning efforts sort of independent of the annual planning exercises, but I think it's important for all of the key executives to have a view and an understanding of where the risks exist and to make sure that your leader in risk and risks is also at that table and can provide context around some of the business goals that are being planned for the year, being able to sort of understand them within the context of potential risks and being able to contribute to the conversation that way.

Ross Martin:

I find it interesting, though, Idris, one of the things you were mentioning when you were talking about risk management leadership was the CISO, right? The Chief Information Security Officer. And yet, in a way, that's just one part, right? That's the risk to the organization through, you know, through hacks and breaches and that sort of thing. It's your digital risk controls and management. I think it would be interesting to consider whether risk management in general needs to have a broader view around all possible risks. And maybe at some point, there will be such a thing as a chief risk officer at, you know, key enterprises.

Idris Manley:

Well, I think that's actually happening. I think you're right now you're seeing in the in the risk space, there's a consolidation between the individual is responsible for physical security risk. The individual is responsible for information, sort of security risk. And you're seeing these roles being consolidated, merged, and you're finding that one leader has oversight and visibility and responsibility for all risks, whether they are physical or digital. And there's also sort of hybrid. There's also digital risks that can have impacts on physical assets. Right. You just mentioned like the oil or the pipelines where, you know, you enter into a computer system and then it affects your nuclear, you know, your nuclear systems or your pipelines. And so there's a lot of crossover now as well because there's so much integration between digital and physical. And so it's it's certainly critical that that there's one person that can oversee all of that.

Segment 4: When is the Right Time to Re-evaluate Your Strategy Planning Process?

Ross Martin:

Yep. And as you said, it's now become necessary to include those roles, those leadership roles around both digital and physical risk management in all of your strategic planning and execution going forward. They can't just be somebody that you talk to after you've figured out what your strategy is. Our next topic is, when is the right time to reevaluate your strategy planning process within, say, your fiscal year? Idris, would you like to take a first swing? Sure, sure.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, I know. You know, as a PMO leader, I certainly would advise companies to begin as soon as possible. But that's probably not realistic, right? As soon as possible would be as soon as you completed your planning cycle to then review improvements you can make. But the reality is, I think, you know, after people have spent, you know, the time that they have on planning, they probably want to take a break. And usually then it's the holidays and, you know, near the end of the year, etc. But I do think it's important to think about or start having those conversations at the beginning of the year. That gives you, you know, if you're on an annual or calendar cycle, then more than likely by June, you're kicking off. officially, uh, your planning cycle. Uh, and so having that first six months from, from January through June to really begin thinking about what went well and what you can do to improve, I think it's critical. But the reality is that most, many companies don't even think about how to improve. They just continue to plan and execute in the way that they had the previous year without little to no change. And, uh, and that can certainly influence or impact their results.

Ross Martin:

At my media company, we finished our annual planning process in, say, September, October timeframe, rolled into the annual budget process, and then kicked off the next calendar year. We had a number of things we wanted to do differently for the following year's strategy process, which was to kick off around June, like you said. And one of them was that we really wanted to adopt a new tool to do it. It was still pretty much Excel and PowerPoint the previous year. And so there was a desire to really up-level that sort of thing. But as you well know, as a PMO leader, it takes a while to implement tools. And we began the selection around January, February time of the tool. We started trying to implement it around like April, March, April. Basically, the net on that is we couldn't get it done in time because we had to get going on the strategy process in June. And we weren't ready with the tool because we didn't start early enough. And we ended up using Excel and PowerPoint again and again.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, yeah. No, I think that it's really important to understand if you can get ahead of that, right? If you can start to think about that as soon as you finish up or wrap up the previous cycle, then that helps you certainly get ahead of that. But back to the original question, I think it's really important for someone to be designated as a person that can objectively evaluate based on the results of the previous cycle, are there improvements or changes that can be made to how we are strategizing, how we are planning, whether it's accounting for certain roles that maybe weren't contributing to the previous discussion or functions, whether it is being able to, maybe it's time to get a facilitator. You know, the conversation that we had previously, we just weren't able to iterate and get to the real value of what we needed to be able to come to reach the right conclusions or right understandings and maybe having a third party or an objective person that can help facilitate and help everyone really contribute in a way that the company can really benefit from the collaboration.

Ross Martin:

One of the things that impacted us in at least two companies I've been at is turnover. So the reality is, is that the person who drove the strategy planning process had some good ideas of what they wanted to do differently the next year, but it wasn't them. And so the new person comes in and they change all sorts of things around. In one case, the entire sort of structure of how we gathered our strategic objectives and then broke those down into different types of initiatives and then worked to figure out what were going to be the projections around the kind of cost and revenue to be associated with some of those things. was totally different than the year before. And many of the business leaders were flummoxed, to use a good word, about that because they were confused, even though in a lot of ways, it's all there's many different frameworks, but in a lot of ways, they're all the same. Yeah. And and yet it would have been better, I think, in that case to just stick with last year's wording just to keep people from getting confused.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, that makes sense. I think another interesting change that we'll be seeing or continue to see in strategic planning and when it's performed is really around AI. And I suspect that a lot of companies, as part of their strategic planning, they're starting to discuss what their objectives are for the year. And I think it's going to look a little different than some of the other initiatives and projects because there's so many things that are unknown. There's so much information. So really even being able to decide what is an ideal or an optimal goal to set for the year is probably going to be a lot of different opinions and concerns around that. So it'll be interesting to see how that

Ross Martin:

It will be interesting. I also see it as like, you know, some people within the company are going to be understanding and on top of what's going on with AI in their area and others won't. And I wonder, you know, I sort of expect that CTOs and CIOs are going to be expected by their company to sort of tell everybody about how AI should work in their different areas. But the reality is, is, is the, you know, the CMO and the chief product officer and all of them should be thinking about it for their area, but then working closely with the CTO and CIO and the CISOs to, to really be thoughtful and careful about what, what even is allowed at this point because of, you know, the security issues.

Idris Manley:

And to be realistic, I mean, the realities I was reading somewhere that said that more than 70% of AI projects fail. The number may even be even higher. And so when you look at sort of that failure rate, it's really important to define those projects in an effective way where you're being realistic. realistic about your data that you have available, the quality of that data, realistic on what you can achieve based on that, realistic about your culture. There may be people that are fearful of AI and maybe aren't really motivated or excited to be able to support and ensure that initiative is successful. So I think there's a lot of variables that should be taken into account other than just the executive saying that this is what we want to accomplish if they want to ensure success.

Ross Martin:

Well, and we were just talking earlier today about how AI initiatives inside companies are not going to be exactly like your product and feature set type initiatives. They're going to need to be run slightly differently and much more data driven, still agile, but different. Yeah, absolutely.

Idris Manley:

I know. I mean, With traditional project delivery, it's usually around delivering features and functions and capabilities, as you mentioned. But when you realize that AI is really anchored in data, and your outcomes of your AI projects are only as good as the data that you have, then you have to really reorientate yourself and your thinking and your mindset around what's important. And the reality is that when you're talking about data, you're, again, you're not talking about features, but really how do you iterate through that data to give you the insights that you need to be able to allow you to take the actions that you would like. And that normally will be an iterative process where you will have to continue to scrub and cleanse and maybe integrate new data sets and continue to iterate through that process to be able to get to a point where that data is actually what you need it to be in order to empower your AI initiatives.

Segment 5: 95% of Employees Don’t Understand How Their Day to Day Job Relates to the Company’s Strategy

Ross Martin:

Yeah, so bring it back to the topic again. The reality is, as you said at the very beginning, the time to start thinking about when to re-evaluate your strategy management process is today. As soon as possible. Exactly. There's a lot to think about and you really shouldn't take, maybe you can take a week or two off for the holidays and pick it up right in the new year. So our last topic is from another Harvard Business Review article that we were reading that says that 95% of a company's employees don't understand how their day-to-day job is related to the company's strategy.

Idris Manley:

Like, what? It's unbelievable.

Ross Martin:

I'm not surprised, but that's... How often do you come across statistics that are that high anyway? 95% of anything, right? It's always lower than that. Yeah, it's pretty unanimous. Yeah, but that's crazy because, but the executives have, they go through change, or communications at least, about the strategy. So why the hell would that be the case?

Idris Manley:

Yeah, I think one of the big issues is executives tend to plan Well, they tend to communicate their plans in their own language, right? And so there's this notion of being able to localize or to attempt to localize your annual plans and strategies for all of the different departments and organizations that are impacted by them or need to engage in them. And oftentimes I think they miss that step. Like, how do I translate that annual revenue target or translate that that efficiency goal into a way that is applicable to each team member, each team, each department, each organization? And I think oftentimes they just assume or expect the teams to do that, to make that translation, as opposed to helping provide a framework to facilitate or to help review and help analyze and make sure that they are translating in a way that maintains alignment with the original purpose.

Ross Martin:

Yeah, I think, you know, employees, you know, I think in general, employees are smart people, right? So I think when the strategy is unveiled and presented and in all hands, it's not that they don't understand what's being said to them. But unless the strategy, I think, is something that affects them greatly, like if they're in the Asia-Pac region and there's going to be a big push to expand Asia-Pac sales and they're a salesperson, well, they're going to know about that. And that's going to impact their lives. And they'll be part of all that and everything. But the people over in the US are going to say, oh, OK. And so quickly forget it and not necessarily think about how what they do tomorrow affects the strategy, I think. So I agree with you. I think it's apparent on senior management and then middle management and all the way down to translate it into what it means for individual teams and individuals.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, yeah. And that's where MBOs and OKRs come in, right? Mentors are providing a framework for being able to actually have those conversations and to perform that work. And when done right, they can be very powerful assets to ensuring cross-group alignment and visibility and accountability towards the metrics and key results that are critical, and then to essentially roll up back to the overall objectives that have been defined. But without that, it can be very difficult to expect teams to really understand. And I've seen in countless companies that I have supported, where when it's not done properly, there's a lot of prioritization conflicts, you have different departments that are working on different things and different priorities, and it's just people are not, we're sort of rowing in the same way at the same time, and it can create a significant impact on outcomes, unfortunately.

Ross Martin:

Well, and also when I've seen it not done correctly, I'm thinking of a company I was at where the goals that everyone needed to fill out into the HRIS system were seen because of that as something that HR was making them do. Yeah. And you wrote your goals using the smart process so that they were measurable and specific and all those sorts of things, presenting that, presented them to your boss. The boss said, okay, and then you pasted them into the tool and then you were done. And at the end- You didn't see them again until a year later. Exactly. At the end of the cycle, you go back, you look at it with your boss, and then you explain why three quarters of them didn't really apply anymore. Because everything changed along the way and you forgot to update them. Sure. So I think I think If you're going to do this, then what you do need is something like OKRs or MBOs, but like you said, really actually brought into the organization as an entire process and function of how we keep track of how we're doing against the business objectives all along the way. It's part of the living and breathing fabric of how your organization operates.

Idris Manley:

And I think, just to add, I think a lot of companies, they tend to ask or expect, you know, human resources or people ops to be responsible for oversight into those individual and department sort of objectives. And I think it's important that it's a shared responsibility. I think whether it's the COO or PMO, I think you need to be able to partner with HR. So it's not looked at as just a way of evaluating individuals in terms of their success, but it's really used as a tool to encourage conversations, to provide transparency in ways of inspecting and adapting, and not just as a way of holding people accountable. And so if it's all sort of managed through people operations or HR, it tends to be managed in a way that it's just you know, a quarterly or annual review to see how people performed and to inform their, their compensation, et cetera, as opposed to really encouraging, inspiring people to look at it as a means of continuing to really add value and improve what they're, how they're contributing to help the company achieve. Right.

Ross Martin:

It becomes about the people, like you, you as an individual, how you're performing. as opposed to delivering the business outcomes, right? The funny thing also about this sort of thing is when you go about it that way, and especially if it comes through the people function, then ironically, the thing that maybe the senior executives were hoping would help drive the strategy down through the organization so people understood how to contribute to the strategy, instead becomes that the definition of success for implementing all that becomes that you completed your goal input into the tool and that you have a checkbox that you did it. And the original business purpose that was envisioned for doing it in the first place is lost along the way.

Idris Manley:

Absolutely. You can certainly get lost in the bureaucracy of it. And so it's really important to look at it as an operational function, right? Where it's not something that you just start with and end the year with, but it's something that you're continuing to review. You have governance and communications that keeps it sort of visible. And you have practices where people are working together to review and determine how they're performing and if they need to adapt. you know, strategy does change, you know, mid-year at times. And so being able to recognize when changes, external or internal, which have affected strategy and it's time for different groups to adjust and recalibrate. And so having, again, having those structures in place so that that can happen and so that people can continue to stay as adaptive as the external market forces may require the company to.

Ross Martin:

One of the things I've seen that's actually been pretty successful in implementing, in this case, OKRs at a company, is they actually pulled a senior executive out of his day job to lead this. And that person reported to the CEO. So it wasn't an HR function or some other, it wasn't seen as part of that. It was an independent person with a small team of people, of coaches and things, who also were pulled, a number of A players pulled from different parts of the organization. And their job was to not only teach everybody how to do this, but to evangelize it and help and coach Everyone along the way because you can have some early adopters. You're gonna have some laggards and and so the idea is where it has failed in the past is when you ask HR or some other function to just kind of do it and And in this case, you dedicate the resources necessary. And in this case, also tool that they used that really made it so that it took. And of course, the senior executives showing everyone else doing it themselves and and constantly, you know, reinforcing that.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, and you can tell I think quite quickly if it quote-unquote took Yeah by if it's you know is the are the OKRs or the MVOs are they being performed in a push or a pull sort of environment like are people Performing the OKRs because they're being told they're being given deadlines and so they're being sort of forced, you know with the stick to actually get engaged with that process? Or are they excited and motivated and inspired to update and to collaborate and to work with other people in order to make sure that the right information is being tracked and they're working with the right people to support it. And it makes all the difference in the world if people are being inspired and motivated. to be able to contribute or if they're being forced and required to. And I think being able to sort of supplement HR's sort of role in that process with other individuals that are being mindful of these benefits and the value, I think will go a long way with helping people really start to become more motivated to support the process.

Ross Martin:

Exactly. And back to a comment that you made earlier about data, measuring this right along the way. I think at the beginning, of course, it's all push or, you know, it's all pull. You're trying to force people to do something that they're not sure they want to do. And you only have a few early adopters and who are excited about this, or maybe people that did it at another company. over time, you want to try and track and see how it's taking. And also that the way people speak in meetings and the way people speak in decisioning and strategy sessions and stuff, if they start to use the language, if it becomes clear that as something shifts, that people go in and edit and change their objectives to right then and there, instead of waiting to be told by some function like HR, it's time to do your quarterly update, that sort of thing. So yeah, it's a, it's a, it, that should really, I think, help a lot with, uh, with the 95%, uh, issue around people don't know what the heck's going on and why they're doing it.

Idris Manley:

Yeah. It should make a bit of an impact. I would think.

Ross Martin:

Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, thank you very much for joining us today. Uh, with our, again, our inaugural episode of future of work 2.0. Uh, we really appreciate your joining us.

Idris Manley:

Yep. We look forward to you joining us on future episodes.

Ross Martin:

Take care.