The first Obama-McCain debate hit on one of my favorite topics - the difference between tactics and strategies. Between the two candidates, they managed to say the words “strategy” and “tactic” about 35 times - all in reference to the Iraq troop surge. We even got the perennial zinger, “I’m afraid Senator X doesn’t understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy.” (I’m intentionally avoiding a conversation over who might have been right or wrong. If you want to form your own opinions, a transcript is available at this link. This is post about two words - not two candidates.)

A little Googling shows disagreement over the word “strategy” is not new to our presidential debates. George Bush and John Kerry were debating virtually the same topic in 2004.

BUSH: I listen to our generals. That’s what a president does. A president sets the strategy and relies upon good military people to execute that strategy.

GIBSON: Senator?

KERRY: You rely on good military people to execute the military component of the strategy, but winning the peace is larger than just the military component. 

A little more Googling yields some text (claimed by quite a few different authors) on the differences between military strategy and tactics:

Broadly stated, strategy is the planning, coordination, and general direction of military operations to meet overall political and military objectives. Tactics implement strategy by short-term decisions on the movement of troops and employment of weapons on the field of battle. The great military theorist Carl von Clausewitz put it another way: “Tactics is the art of using troops in battle; strategy is the art of using battles to win the war.”

Strategy and tactics, however, have been viewed differently in almost every era of history. The change in the meaning of these terms over time has been basically one of scope as the nature of war and society has changed and as technology has changed. Strategy, for example, literally means “the art of the general” (from the Greek strategos) and originally signified the purely military planning of a campaign. In the 19th and 20th centuries, however, with the rise of mass ideologies, vast conscript armies, global alliances, and rapid technological change, military strategy became difficult to distinguish from national policy or “grand strategy,” that is, the proper planning and utilization of the entire resources of a society–military, technological, economic, and political. Tactics have always been difficult–and have become increasingly difficult–to distinguish in reality from strategy because the two are so interdependent. (Indeed, in the 20th century, tactics have been termed operational strategy.)

Now that nearly everybody has weighed in, let me: One person’s strategy is another person’s tactics. It all depends on the relative position of the people involved and how the objective is being defined.  Let me give a personal example.

I have an objective to retire at a reasonable age. To meet my objective, I have a strategy to limit expenses and maximize savings. Within this strategy, I have a tactic, called: “turn off the light when you leave a room.” This tactic is emphasized to my children on a regular basis.

If, however, you ask my children, they will tell you that turning off the lights is clearly a strategy. To them, turning off the lights results in a marked decline in dad’s crankiness. It is a major maneuver - a surge, if you will - in the balance of power and peace within the house. Their objective is different than mine. In short, strategies exist to meet an objective and tactics fit within a strategy.

Bush and Kerry were talking about different things: winning a battle and winning a peace. McCain and Obama were also talking about different things: McCain was answering a question about “the lessons learned in Iraq” and Obama was talking about broader issues.

It will never happen, but I wish I would hear more people say, “You mention ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics.’ Could you define what you mean by those words so we all have the same understanding?” Now that would be unbelievable change!

I’ve put up the posters, posted the articles, blasted out the emails, stuffed the envelopes and hosted the lunches, but some messages don’t seem to reach the right people. I’m not the only one who is having the difficulty.

As you are no doubt aware, analog TV is being unplugged nationwide in February 2009. You’ve probably seen the public service announcements. What you might not know is that Wilmington, NC has been a test market for the cutover to digital. The city television stations unplugged their analog signals earlier this month. The result? Even with saturated media, some people will miss the message.

On the first day of cutover, almost 800 people called the government helpline. Over 400 called on the second day. (An FCC document on the subject is available here.) Granted, this call rate represents less than one-half of 1%, but with over 100 million households in the country, the FCC needs to be able to answer about 500,000 calls on cutover day in February 2009.

So what is the takeaway? If you can carpet bomb an audience and still miss 1% (adding the two days together) and you are impacting their television, imagine the effort required to convince 100% of your employees to participate in yet another major change initiative. 

Communication will only get you part of the way there. It raises awareness - but participation will only come when the leaders in the business actively engage their teams in the process.

John Kotter, one of America’s most influential business gurus, has hit the presses recently with a piece on urgency. I always find Kotter’s material a very clear reminder of the basics that make change successful.

In this Change Manifesto, he speaks about:

• The environment we find ourselves in today is changing faster than ever. Although this is not a new observation, it can’t be emphasized enough.
• Change is no longer episodic, it is continuous. As a result, the ability to manage change well - and quickly - is now a fundamental requirement.
• Managing change well is all about creating and managing the right kinds of urgency: focused urgency and not wasteful cycles of activity.

His piece is worth reading.

On November 12, I will be speaking at the IT and Business Alignment Forum at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas. The Forum is actually three conferences in one: Enterprise Architecture, Business Process Management & Enterprise Web, and Portals & Collaborative Technologies. In short, these conferences are designed for the people who design and implement processes and technologies to improve the way people work. Our focus is on the people side of implementation.

In similar previous conferences there has been a lot of conversation along the lines of: “We have designed something great, but nobody wants it.” As it turns out, people are usually resisting the changes - not the new technology. In short, if people are not aware of change well in advance, understand the rationale for the change, and participate in creating the change - the risk of resistance will remain high. The much easier path is to actively lead the change process and help impacted people accept change along the way.

I’ll be posting my materials from the conference in mid-November. If by chance you are interested in attending and would like discounted admission, feel free to use discount code SPKRITBIZSR.

Transformational change results in lower productivity. People are worrying about jobs, who is getting which job, how they will work in the new job, and a gazillion other things. Every level in the organization is wondering, “What’s in it for me?”  The wondering and worrying translates into lost productivity - and large opportunity costs. What value would employees create if they weren’t worrying about the big change?

It would probably take a doctoral study to analyze the numbers comprehensively, but some directional assumptions point toward a scary story. The spreadsheet below takes some average numbers for revenue and costs per employee, and estimates the value created by each employee.

The logic continues that if the average employee’s productivity falls 10% during the change, the company has foregone $2,070 in value. Because the employee contributed 10% less, less value was created. People aren’t creating new products, selling to new customers, analyzing trends for opportunities, negotiating better prices, etc… They are too busy wondering and worrying.

Carrying the logic all the way out, if the change program lasts 12 months and the company has 1,000 employees, the company has an opportunity cost of nearly $25M. 

$25M is a big number, and one would naturally ask, what can be done to reduce it?

The two options are “faster” and “better.” Faster says: get the 12 month project done in 11 months. Better says: get the project done in a manner whereby productivity is preserved. (This productivity preservation requires change management approaches.) Based on the assumptions I used, “better” is clearly - well… better.

A couple comments in closing:

• To repeat - these numbers aren’t an analysis. These numbers are directional estimate based on some reasonable assumptions. Using the mildest of assumptions, however, shows that productivity losses extrapolate into some large foregone value.
• If you would like to try your own numbers, you may download an Excel version of the Change Initiative Cost Estimation Worksheet.
• The figures regarding revenue and costs per employee in the spreadsheet come from PriceWaterhouseCoopers - Saratoga’s 2007 / 2008 US Human Capital Effectiveness Report.

I was recently asked by a Human Resources professional how he could help their company become better at managing change.

I felt a little bit like the doctor answering the question, “I have a bad headache, what’s wrong with me?”

Without a lot more information, the answer will be simple, “Take two aspirin, and call me in the morning.”

Resisting the urge to encourage him to call my office, I gave my diagnosis-free prescription: “Improve senior management leadership capabilities.”

Without a doubt, the approach will help. As detailed in a prior post, CEOs believe senior manager skills and experience stand in the way of implementing change. Not only are senior manager skills an opportunity, but improving their capabilities will give you leverage in future initiatives.

The better diagnosis would come after some frank conversations in the C-Suite. Six topics should be covered:

1. Please tell me about the largest change initiatives you have gone through in the last five to seven years.

2. What went well with those initiatives, and what did not go as well?

3. How likely are we to go through large-scale change in the next three years?

4. How likely are we to repeat the positives and negatives of your previous experiences?

5. How well prepared are our senior and middle managers to lead future changes?

6. What should we do now to best prepare for the future?

After having this conversation with each member of the C-Suite, I would identify the common themes and report back to them as a group. The report would have three elements:

• What did they say?
• How does their collective view compare to best practices and experiences in other organizations?
• My recommendations to address the opportunities.

Those recommendations could cover a wide range of options, but people-related opportunities are likely to dominate. The best part of approach is that the go-forward plan will be largely of their creation. They will give you a charter to prepare for change and become your guiding coalition in that journey.

Perhaps I should give my acquaintance a call and give him some new advice. He needs to go have a frank conversation with the C-Suite.

Monday’s post was about the types of change occurring in large companies. Today’s is about what stands in the way of organizations implementing large-scale change.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ 11^th Annual CEO Survey asked: “Which of the following people challenges were critical barriers for your organization in terms of achieving the desired benefits?” Frankly, the answers are fairly depressing.

The depressing part is that all five of these barriers are within the CEO’s control. The CEOs are talking about their own people.

Some observations:

• As Bill Gates said, “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” He was likely not referring to the pace of change within a company, but the quote is still appropriate. The C-Suite is typically looking for transformational change to occur much more quickly than it actually takes. What might be seen as a two-year project is usually a three-year project. Sometimes the factors above play a role, but sometimes it is just plain old, overly optimistic, bad estimating.
• The Human Resources function has a responsibility to address. If speed, flexibility and agility equal competitive advantage, and senior management skill sets are a significant barrier, HR should be forcing change management skill development.
• The CEOs never mention that they themselves may be part of the issue. They aren’t saying, “Failure to hire appropriately skilled senior managers,” or, “Inadequate time spent on leading change initiative.” The cure for some of these issues could very well be the personal demonstration of change management skills.

Today has been a rather exciting day for orgreadiness.com. We have been added to alltop.com’s HR section as a “top site.”

Alltop.com is a website aggregator that acts a “digital magazine rack” of the internet. They strive to provide “aggregation without aggravation.” Even without their inclusion of orgreadiness, I’ve got to say, I like their site. It is definitely worth a look.

Based on casual conversations with just about anybody in the business world today, large-scale change is commonplace. The Society for Human Resources (SHRM) published the Change Management Survey in 2007 and quantified those types of change. Over the two years leading up to the survey, companies with more than 500 employees had the following types of change: 

The key takeaway: change is occurring for any and all reasons. In the words of Benjamin Disraeli, “Change is inevitable. Change is constant.”

This post is not intended to be an analytical review of demographic differences. The sample size is essentially one, my daughter - and a few of her friends. Today’s high school seniors are different than those in the past, and their behavior will seem mighty strange when they hit the business world in five years.

E-mail is so yesterday - The only reason to look at an e-mail account is to communicate with somebody older than 35. There are no e-mails to peers.

The cellphone is primarily for texting - If I text her, I get an immediate response. My calls go unanswered however. It isn’t just my calls, she isn’t attuned to the sound of her own ringer.

Facebook changes the rules - She has “friends” she doesn’t and won’t talk to. Let me explain: A neighbor’s 18 year-old daughter was led away in handcuffs. The handcuffed girl attends a different school than my daughter and they are far from friendly. Here are the surprises…

• They were Facebook friends. Not only were these two “friends,” but I found my daughter had many other “friends” she never spoke to. The biggest shock was she was “friends” with the captain of the archrival school’s basketball team. They elbow each other all night, never speak, and “friend” each other.
• The girl shared things on Facebook my generation would have definitely kept quiet. Our scandals were definitely hushed up.

At a minimum, businesses will need to change how to communicate with employees. Definitions of acceptable behavior will be challenged as well.

By the way, she already knows demographics are on her side. She knows baby boomers are retiring and will be looking for as many young workers as they can get. She has also been studying Chinese for the last four years. Assuming past performance is an indicator of future success, she will be highly marketable. She thinks my generation will change - not hers.

Young and cocky is not a new combination. Fundamentally changing the “what” and “how” of communication is.