The anticipation came because raises and bonuses were doled out in January and February. The dread was that I had to meet with my manager or supervisor to get my annual performance review. (It was never clear if these meetings were more painful to them or to me.)

Having been on both sides of the review, I know that many of the meetings were neither helpful nor satisfying.

Why? There is the usual fallacy that feedback given once a year (versus frequently) is effective. (Have you ever noticed that the once-a-year variety is often focused on what happened in the last month?) Another common failing occurs when the review meeting is a one-way communication. That is, the manager “announces” to a passive employee the corporate numerical judgment of the employee’s performance. What about those numbers? You know, the manager gives you a score in each performance area. They tell you that your organization skills are a four. Meanwhile, your innovation rating is 3.75. What do you do with such scores? We could go on and on about the weaknesses of these systems. My blood pressure is being to rise just recalling those days. Repeat, must be calm …

Still, the ideas behind the annual feedback cycle are laudable.

One principle is that the employee deserves honest feedback about their performance. It is even better to have an ongoing feedback dialog throughout the year. Secondly, it is equally important that the organization declare what is important. Many times, the definition of performance categories and scales for the performance signal what is important. Ideally, the categories are highly tailored to specific jobs. That way, the feedback is far more targeted and (potentially) useful. When done well, the review transmits useful information in both directions.

What would a good review for a competitive intelligence person look like?

This is the review that I would give if I was the strategy manager (customer of competitive intelligence) and the one I would like to get if I was the competitive intelligence manager. It contains a difficult set of questions. They are difficult because they are intended to focus on value and impact versus activities and tools. There are 10 fundamental performance areas abd 50 questions to discuss.

Do you have other ways to evaluate competitive intelligence? What categories or questions would you change?

Download a PDF version of this post here.

From “Everything You Know is Wrong” by The Firesign Theatre (1974) – Comedy Group

Twenty five years ago I worked on a top secret military project for my company. It had been going on for some time when I started and, as far as I know, it is still going on. It was a fascinating application of technology that I would have loved to talk about with my family and friends. I was proud of what we were trying to do, my small role in the project and, of course, the ultimate application. Unsurprisingly, I am bound by employment agreement and federal law to not discuss what I did or the product that we were building.

Competitive intelligence is similarly difficult to talk about.

Just imagine that you have completed a CI project for your company or for a client. Because of your superior methods, uncommon insight and excellent timing, you uncover something that results in a significant competitive advantage for the company. Who are you going to tell? What are you allowed to say? And, what is the impact on your future work of these answers?

Therein lies the problem. It is hard to talk about CI successes.

Yes, you can discuss the success with your management sponsor. Maybe you can share your successes with colleagues at the same company. Perhaps you can abstract some lessons for more general audiences. Nevertheless, a detailed discussion of what you did is commonly antithetical to your role.

That is, a company or client is unlikely to want others to know explicitly how or when they gained a competitive advantage.

Why? Because the competitors may adjust their own strategies in response, the duration of the advantage may be lessened, the original analysis techniques may be copied or the exposure will give competitors insight into the company’s own strategic thought processes. Even when these reasons are not articulated, they are powerfully felt disincentives to talking in detail about competitive intelligence successes.

While being quiet makes sense for a company, it impedes the development of CI professionals.

Just think about the example of a great artist. Suppose that their paintings are magnificent expressing emotion and imagination that is compelling and distinctive. The artist’s technique is a textbook example of all that is good in painting. The national museum has an exhibition ongoing for the artist. However, because of competition with other museums that are trying to draw the same crowds, the national museum allows no pictures of the paintings, no discussion of the artist’s techniques and no advertising about the exhibit. If the artist is solely dependent on the good graces of the national museum, then their public career may well be stunted. At the end of the day, would that really benefit the national museum?

Competitive intelligence professionals need exposure to prosper and develop.

Here are five things that are needed to advance the general art of competitive intelligence.

1. We need our myths. These are the established (usually older) stories that tell dramatic success stories. In military intelligence, there are many such stories from major conflicts. From WWII, there were the code breakers in England, the capture of the Ultra device in Poland from the Germans and the ambush of Yamamoto in the south Pacific.
2. We need professional associations. There, likeminded people can gather to exchange encouragement, advice and credentials. Obviously the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) exists for this purpose. This is not enough. We need to be linked to professional associations frequented by our customers (i.e., American Management Association, Association for Strategic Planning). We shouldn’t miss that our generic (not just our captive management) customers can help us understand the critical competitive issues of our industry and appreciate the skills needed to decipher this picture.
3. We need a marketing campaign. CI people are often analytic, introspective people as well they need to be. Faced by a mountain of facts and a hazy view of the future, those personality traits equip CI professionals to make sense of it all for others. The only problem is that CI people seem to like to talk to other CI people the most. But the success of Competitive Intelligence is dependent on customer understanding. We need to know what our customers value and expect. Then, from this knowledge, we need to think like marketers rather than analysts. Marketing people are adept at telling stories that hook their audiences because the stories make emotional, value oriented connections.
4. We need iconic figures. Lee Iacocca became the symbol for a resurgent Chrysler in the 1980’s (where are you now, Lee?). Michael Jordan was the featured representative of excellence for basketball in the 1990’s. There are many such people that come to embody an industry or a profession. Though others don’t reach the level of these icons, the very fact that they exist is a shorthand definition of success and a voice to speak about the profession to others.
5. We need to relax. Part of the problem is the ferocious clamoring for attention that permeates everyone’s personal and business lives. Sell, sell, sell is the common advice for individuals and companies. If you are creating a new market segment or brand, this makes especially good sense. The fact is that (lowercase) competitive intelligence is not new and it is not going away as long as there is competition. People seem to have an innate comparison facility that is honed to observe others. It is this impulse that competitive intelligence take to a more methodical and actionable level for companies. Simply, competitive intelligence will always be relevant and the adaptable professional will succeed whatever their title.

The summary is that (lowercase) competitive intelligence will always be important. It will be done better when (uppercase) Competitive Intelligence is developed and promoted the right ways.

Do you agree with these thoughts? What else needs to happen?

One day she assigned us homework on the wrong night! No one said anything to her at the time. Who would have dared? Later that day when we were with our favorite teacher during sixth period, everyone began complaining about the English homework that we had been given. “It’s not right!” we declared together like a choir that was trained to sing in harmony.

Then, much to our surprise and consternation, our favorite teacher said, “I’m just going to get Ms. English and bring her right over.” The class became silent as we waited. A proverbial pin might have dropped and we would have all heard it at that moment.

When Ms. English came in, she glared at us all with her hands on her hips and asked “who said that I assigned homework on the wrong night?”

Not a word was spoken. I vividly remember the intensity of the moment since I had been singing in the choir of complainers. Yet, despite the fearful presence of Ms. English, something clicked for me and I knew that it was right to respond to her question. So, with no little concern for what might happen, I alone raised my hand.

Both teachers immediately told me to come outside the class into the hallway. It was pretty clear that life as I knew it was likely to be over soon. I assumed that something bad would happen to me and that it would probably hurt a lot.

When I was outside, the worst outcome that I feared did not happen. My favorite teacher pointed at me and said to Ms. English “that boy stands tall.” Trembling I stood there when Ms. English simply agreed. After that incident, Ms. English never treated me the same again. I always felt a real sense of respect from her. And to think that all it took was some courage to tell the truth.

Competitive intelligence roles will require courage from you for five simple reasons.

1. You will possess insights that will challenge the positions of important people in your company.
2. Your recommendations and observations will suggest or imply the need for changes in the current strategies.
3. Your interpretations will inspire intense debates from strong willed people.
4. Sometimes you will be wrong and others may use the memory of your mistakes against you.
5. You will see some things sooner and clearer than those that have responsibility for the associated strategy.

Now, what is important is not the threats or fears but rather how you respond. There will be sore temptations to not tell the truth or to tell only part of the truth. There is no doubt that sometimes discretion is indeed called for in particular settings. Nevertheless, there will also be times when the decision will be squarely in front of you to declare under some pressure what your believe to be truth.

You may fear the consequences of telling the truth but also understand that leaders are desperately searching for those people that can move despite fear. This is called courage and it is an attribute that most people respect and value highly.

The leadership lesson from my sixth grade experience was the importance of courage and truth. And daring in those two areas would be a recurring challenge throughout my life. I can’t say that I have passed the test every time. But I can say that one time I did. Knowing that I did once means that I can do it again.

And so can you …

There are three lessons that are significant.

1. It is possible to anticipate the need for certain tools. When that is the case, it is best to get them as soon as possible. For example, every homeowner (or mechanic) needs a hammer. Everyone needs an assortment of screwdrivers. Everyone needs a saw of some sort. A person should master these common tools because they are useful in solving many problems.

In competitive intelligence, it is also true that there are common tools that should be identified and acquired early. Although you don’t have to have all of these tools on day one, it is useful to know that you will need them. Here is a partial list by category of some tools that you will likely need.

• Presentation Preparation (e.g., PowerPoint, Impress)
• Basic Analytics (e.g., Excel, Bissantz SparkLines,
• Financials Comparisons (e.g. Yahoo Finance)
• Earnings Calls Summaries (e.g. Thompson, SeekingAlpha )
• Basic Meeting/Facilitation (e.g., whiteboards, poster charts, easels, markers, laser pointer)
• Collaboration (e.g. website, SharePoint, Groove)
• Database (e.g., Access, MySQL)
• News Collection (e.g. RSS clients – Snarfer)
• Organization Charting (e.g., OrgChart Plus)
• Newsletter Creation (e.g., Microsoft Word, Publisher)
• Website Creation/Editing (e.g., Dreamweaver, Microsoft Expression)

Notice that I did not include a complete all-in-one tools suite from a competitive intelligence software vendor. There may come a day when you need exactly that type of product but it is not this day when you are just assembling your competitive intelligence effort. In my opinion, you are far better served starting (mostly) with tools that you already have and trying to accomplish the tasks manually. This way you learn firsthand about what is important to you and your customers before attempting to justify, acquire and deploy a major system.

2. Think of key people as “tools.” They are tools in the sense that they help you accomplish your competitive intelligence tasks. Indeed, The Human Side of Competitive Intelligence series is all about how people affect and enable competitive intelligence. Sometimes they will help you with the specific problem. Other times they will provide supplemental information. Perhaps they will direct you to others when they cannot help you directly. Finally, it is a simple truth that often they will have specific expertise or organizational credibility that you lack. Thus, it is a great advantage to identify these key people (at least by function) quickly so that you can begin establishing quid pro quo relationships. After all, they will want something from you (and, when you do CI well, you will have something of great value for them) too. Here are the functional categories where you need to know someone.

• Legal (to provide review and guidance on sensitive issues)
• Ethics (sometimes provided by Legal people, to provide and explain standards for conduct)
• Financial (to perform detailed analyses and interpretations, also to make comparisons with internal financial results)
• Marketing Communication (to observe and track competitor’s external communication and messaging)
• Senior Management Mentor (to give you perspective on how senior management thinks and what they value)
• Internal Analysts (to answer questions and provide interpretations of information)
• External Analysts (to exchange understandings and studies for the industry and specific competitors)
• IT Support (to assist in implementing systems that can be widely used in the organization)
• External Process Networks (to help understand new methods and tools for competitive intelligence)

3. You won’t always have what you need. Don’t panic because someone probably has the tool (or knows the person) that you need. The most useful attitude that I have found is to assume that the solution can be found and then to orient my search accordingly. That is, I expect to find just the right tool for my problem. When I do, I promptly add it to my tool bag for future use. Even better, the confidence that I gain by finding and then mastering the use of a new tool to solve a difficult problem makes my value greater as a competitive intelligence professional. Remember when we introduced the brand for this new CI function? Part of the personal branding is that you become known as a proficient problem solver.

My friend completed repairing his riding lawnmower for 20% of the cost that he would have paid to someone else to do the work. He acquired and used a new tool. He added to his tool box for future projects. His confidence about solving mechanical problems has grown. Altogether, this was a successful project for him.

In a similar manner, it is time for you to begin the same process as you begin executing competitive intelligence functions regularly. Accumulating the tools, mastering their use and solving problems will become your mantra. Good luck!

Next topic is “Back to the Vision”.

Here are the 15 steps that we are walking through. Which ones do you think are especially important?

The Human Side of Competitive Intelligence

1. Find The Pain
2. Get The Job
3. Tease The Vision
4. Frame The Foundation
5. Setting Some Standards
6. Introduce The Brand
7. Accumulate The Tools
8. Back To The Vision
9. Secure The Budget
10. Build The Presence
11. Expand the Brand
12. Go For the Value
13. Recruit A Staff
14. Go On The Offense
15. Evangelize The Mission

Slab foundations are solid blocks of poured concrete on top of which the structure is erected. There are several important characteristics that a slab foundation must have in order to support the house that is being built.

• It must be shaped correctly for the house. It is costly and difficult to alter the basic shape after it hardens.

• Although it looks like a solid mass of concrete, it actually conceals a great deal of infrastructure including electrical conduits, plumbing and cables (which provide strength).

• Everything attached to or embedded in the foundation must be in the right place (again, it is hard to change things fixed in concrete). For example, the plumbing for sewage should emerge where the bathrooms are planned to be.
• Finally, after doing all of the necessary things, it is important to preserve your flexibility for all of the remaining elements of the home. For instance, the placement of the second story wall for the guest bedroom is not to be tied to something in the design of the foundation.

The foundation serves its purpose even though it is not a visible feature of the home. The structure above obscures what is beneath it and many people give little thought to what they don’t see. However, you absolutely must pay attention to your CI foundation. And the quiet time after your first management presentation is a good time to establish what will support all that you do later.

Skip the foundational work, however, and the compliments will quickly be replaced with sympathies for the expensive rework that will be required. After the sympathy, you will start to hear the whispered questions about how could someone forget the foundation?! This can cause damage to your prestige and credibility. It’s embarrassing, expensive and (this is the good news) avoidable.

So where are we in our journey to create a competitive intelligence function?

You have taken the initiative to build a competitive intelligence function. Spotting a “pain” (step 1) you approached a senior manager to offer your services (step 2). They are interested! Show me something they say and off you went to respond. Since you are just starting, you know that you cannot provide the ultimate benefit immediately. Making virtue out of necessity, you figure out how to provide some value and, more importantly, you whet the appetite of your senior leader by giving them a tease (step 3) of what could be done. The meeting is a success and you are pretty sure that you will be doing more CI work for the senior leader. You have some time to reflect about what to do next

The next step is to frame the foundation for all that is to come. There are three things to do to make sure that your foundation is what is needed for long term success.

1. Create the Blueprint

This is where you begin to imagine what the full vision for the CI function will be. One thing for sure is that it will be customized to your environment. That is, it will be constructed to meet the needs of the people of the organization. Like an architect does before designing a home, you will begin asking people about what their hopes are for competitive intelligence. How do they like to get information? What are the critical times for receiving intelligence? What do they already have or know? When and why have they been disappointed in the past? All of the answers help you to identify how to construct the program. They will suggest the mechanisms for delivering information, the schedules that make the most sense, the sensitivities to avoid and the dreams that the leaders have for their success.

Don’t make this too hard. Simply talk to people and record their responses. List the concrete responses to what they have told you. In most organizations, common culture and experiences will help you because the responses will cluster so that you can focus on a smaller number of items. Note that you are not implementing all of this now. You are simply making plans so that what you do in the near term will not preclude something important that comes later.

2. Establish Your Principles

Make sure that you know what is important. These are your principles that are relevant throughout the lifetime of a CI function. Among the many reasons that principles are important is the simple fact of pressure. As you become known for your CI contributions, you will begin to feel great pressure. The pressure to produce valuable interpretations will exist, of course. You will also be confronted by other pressures such as ethical issues (“can we use this information that I got from a former employee?”), shortcuts (“we don’t have time to double check our sources”) and misuse (“it just needs to look pretty, I don’t care what it says”). Here are some principles to consider.

• I will always focus on value to senior leaders and the business strategies. This doesn’t mean that others won’t benefit but it does establish priorities.
• I will conduct myself according to a code of ethics (see the SCIP code of ethics). Now is a good time to identify who can give you legal support as issues arise.
• I will properly and consistently characterize (e.g., assumptions, facts, speculation, recommendations) the content that I provide. This establishes and maintains your credibility.
• I will orient all I do toward helping effect positive change. A CI function implicitly challenges what is happening inside your company as you analyze the competitive environment.
• I will always remember that people (i.e., leaders, colleagues, others) matter most. People are the source of the best information, they are required to support and accept competitive intelligence and all change comes through the efforts of people.

3. Make Broad, Fruitful Relationships Possible

This may seem redundant. And, it is.

Your success or failure will be based on your personal relationships. This may seem counterintuitive in the age of complex information systems, databases, web searches, analytical tools and academic research. All of these things have a place but in absence of a robust foundation of relationships, your failure is more likely than not. Here is a partial list of relationships that will be critical. You need to begin now thinking about how to nurture each set of people.

• Sponsoring management/leaders – do you understand their needs?
• Other managers – who owns what strategies and might be overly sensitive to what you are doing?
• Peers – how can you provide value to them so that they willingly contribute information and reflection?
• Sources – how can trust and reciprocal value be established?
• Support – how can you get their help to build the information infrastructure and provide other (e.g., legal) services

Three steps for framing a solid foundation – blueprint, principles and relationships.

Next topic is “Establish Some Standards” because just doing the work is not enough.

Here are the 15 steps that we are walking through. Does it seem like a lot to do?

The Human Side of Competitive Intelligence

1. Find The Pain
2. Get The Job
3. Tease The Vision
4. Frame The Foundation
5. Setting Some Standards
6. Introduce The Brand
7. Accumulate The Tools
8. Back To The Vision
9. Secure The Budget
10. Build The Presence
11. Expand the Brand
12. Go For the Value
13. Recruit A Staff
14. Go On The Offense
15. Evangelize The Mission

To overcome the side effects, substitutes were created.

The substitutes (e.g., stevia, saccharin, aspartame, sucralose, neotame, and acesulfame potassium) are meant to look like sugar, taste like sugar and behave like sugar in recipes. Their virtue is that they overcome the issues of real sugar (not rotting your teeth or adding weight). But, here’s the problem. While the various substitutes solve some problems quite well, they can introduce new problems that are more severe than what they have solved. For instance, studies are ongoing about the cancer causing impact of the artificial sweeteners.

Substitutes have their own problems that may be worse than the original substance.

Business leaders have reactions to strategy that are a bit like the reactions to natural sugar. Many leaders in business would claim to have a strategy, that their strategy was good and that it was effective. There have product strategies, technology strategies, organization strategies, people strategies and more in their company. In fact, if a little strategy is good, a lot of strategy must be better. However, the kickback from the proliferation of strategies is the side effects. After all, the organization and its customers can only absorb so much strategy. It gets confusing to understand, difficult to place in context and hard to track. So, guess what?

Leaders develop substitutes for effective strategy.

Here are 5 “strategy substitutes” that are common in organizations. Each has its own unintended side effects.

“Accumulation of Tactics”

The virtue of tactics is that almost everyone is already involved and busy with their tactical responsibilities. The success or failure of tactics is usually known quickly. Leaders can simply convey to the organization that the sum of the to-do lists equals the direction of the company. This overcomes the real difficulty of properly using strategy to implement and measure an effective long term course. The negative side effect is that it is easy to waste a great deal of organization energy on what is unimportant or contradictory to the real future goals.

“Stone Tablets”

Of course, strategy is sometimes given a lofty position in a company. The strategic statements of management are venerated (as management intends them to be) as profound summaries of the future. The “stone tablets” contains these statements and like the original ones from Mt. Sinai, they are not meant to change. It is easy to accept such statements if divinity is actually involved. But there are no such figures in business. Simple statements, communicated once and slavishly adhered to overcome the difficultly of maintaining an adaptive strategy at the expense of ignore obvious changes in the environment. The negative side effect is that all strategy statements lose their relevance and credibility quickly.

“Magic Slogan”

It’s amusing (and a little sad) to observe large companies over time. Many of them (especially those selling to consumers) develop ad campaigns to capture the public’s attention. A common way to do so is to develop and repeat a simple slogan (think Ford, “Quality is Job 1“). Slogans may prove useful in advertising but when they come to represent the bulk of the business strategy, something is missing. Managers misappropriate what has been developed for the mass market for reuse within the company. The magic slogan becomes the strategy. The negative side effect is that the strategy is seen to have no depth and internal customers (e.g., employees) rightly understand that little effort was expended to craft something to guide their work.

“Divorced From Reality”

Sometimes strategists are given free rein to develop all of the strategy that they want to develop. And, like good employees, they set off to create beautiful depictions which show how the company will trample the competition and return incredible value to stockholders. The only problem (as if this was a small problem) is that the organization is intentionally insulating the strategy from reality checks. It is an academic exercise that avoids comparisons to competitors, assessments about implementation effectiveness and measurements of success. The negative side effect is that strategy is viewed as a checklist item and an unimportant one at that.

“Fire Drill”

The usually correct response to a fire in a building is to get out as fast as possible. Some businesses see fires all around them. Their strategy is to get away from those “fires” as soon as possible. Every activity is oriented around survival and the management is reliably fast to react to dangers. Strategy that is always shaped by “fires” means that the organization rarely moves effectively in normal times. A common management trick in dysfunctional organizations is to introduce fire drills to direct the organization. Aside from the artificial manipulation involved, the negative side effect is that the strategy has no reflective character.

When a business is using the “real” thing, look for a strategy that has the following characteristics.

• It is distinguished from the tactics by having an overarching, longer term focus.
• It is adaptable (not fixed in stone) as the environment changes.
• It has significant meaning at many levels inside and outside the organization.
• It is regularly discussed, measured and evaluated (leading to the adaptation).
• It represents the studied reflection over time of the organization.

Substitutes have their appeal. They also carry with them significant side effects. Using the real thing does cost time and money but the benefits are well worth the effort.

Even if you are not a chef by training, you know some things about cooking.

• First, you probably know that a lot of people cook but not many are masters. For instance, I count as cooking almost any time that I intentionally apply heat to raw food. There is not much nuance or sophistication to my definition (and you would rightly deduce that I am not a master chef). You probably wouldn’t want to eat many of the things that I have prepared but I can do some basic things well. Meanwhile, a master chef brings training, creativity and versatility to the kitchen.

• Second, cooking usually involves multiple ingredients. A proficient cook understand the purpose of each ingredient, when to add them and how much to add. Maybe they have a recipe to start with but they trust their judgment as the dish is being prepared. A little more salt, a little less butter they might decide along the way. A novice either ignores the recipe (and creates disasters) or slavishly adheres to a set of directions with no understanding of when or how to creatively deviate from the prescription.

• Third, and this is getting much more involved, a master cook understands that a meal is far more than the mixture of ingredients according to some recipe. Indeed, a meal includes the presentation of the food, the drink to accompany the meal, an artful display on the table and maybe some music for enjoyment. The “full meal” to the master is an encompassing sensory experience that is meant to satisfy those that partake. (A novice wonders why paper plates aren’t good enough for most meals.)

Strategy is similar to cooking.

• Almost anyone can claim to be a strategist for basic topics but not many are masters.

• Master strategists understand fundamentals and tools but know when to apply their intuition and experience to improve on both.

• An accomplished strategist provides a complete strategy which provides value at many levels to the organization.

Separate the “microwave strategists” from the master practitioners.

If you are in management, a primary task that you have is to distinguish between titles and capabilities. The title of “strategist” means little when you need to know if they can handle difficult assignments. Of course a microwave strategist (think of someone that handles simple assignments quickly) might be quite helpful for certain business topics (there are many “popcorn” topics in everyday business). However, they are not nearly as suitable for complex business strategy, competitive intelligence or early warning systems that make a difference to the company. In these cases, you have to look for the right kind of thinking (e.g. clear, integrative), specialized training and creativity in someone that has a strategic mindset. Everyone can be a type of strategist but only a few are suited for the complicated subjects of business.

Fundamentals first and then the important deviations.

The famous football coach of the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi, said that football was “nothing more than blocking and tackling.” His point was that the fundamentals, consistently and effectively applied made the most difference in the outcome of a game. It’s worthwhile pointing out that his teams would have failed miserably if he really stopped with the fundamentals. They needed to have offensive and defensive plays that gave his team advantages. A strategist, like Coach Lombardi or any master chef, must know what is basic to the craft. However, the breakthrough value often comes from the intuitive leaps that signal a departure from the norm. In strategy work, this places a premium on the strategist’s ability to gather clues from the environment (much like a chef tastes the food as it is being prepared) to determine how to make adjustments to the basic tools. How do others understand the tools? How should an approach be customized for the various strategy audiences? When is it time to introduce or adapt a competitive model? These process deviations (or customizations) make the difference between simply completing a task and making an impactful change to the business.

The total strategy experience matters.

A confession is in order at this point. Many times in my career it seemed like the end point of a strategy effort was a gorgeous PowerPoint presentation impressively delivered to management. That’s it, I’m done I regularly exclaimed after some high level presentation. I was wrong.

When done effectively, strategy work engages the organization on many levels. First, it helps define a direction. Second, it signals how others will be involved in that direction. Third, it suggests steps along the way to the destination. Fourth, it may well include the external impacts on partners, suppliers and customers. Fifth, it equips the organization with the proper tools to implement and measure the strategy. Sixth, it includes new or refined definitions that become part of the lexicon. (See my blog entry “Grading Your Business Strategist” for more information.)

I can become a better cook (my family hopes this happens sooner rather than later). Maybe I can even earn the title of “chef” if I dedicate myself to learning and applying the craft. Until then, the kind of meals that I can reliably prepare will be the basic ones.

Your strategists may be of the microwave variety. They can handle what is simple and quick. Where they need help is in the “full meal” experience. See my complete set of articles at http://tomhawes.wordpress.com for many ideas about how to move them forward in their competencies.

Bon Appétit

Business strategists and competitive intelligence professionals deal in ideas. At first it may seem that having a good idea is the biggest challenge. Later we come to know that affecting people successfully with those ideas is a much greater challenge. It’s wonderful when we work with people that accept our ideas readily.

Sometimes though, we run up against people that resist our ideas.

You know the type. Despite our honorable intentions, elegant solution and impressive presentation, they remain unmoved. More than that, they sometimes can get quite hostile. They seem to resist the very possibility that we have a great solution. Maybe their hostility or resistance is passive. It can take us a while to even figure out those people.

After battling the passive folks it is almost a relief to confront someone that openly and vociferously opposes us. Ah, let the battle begin, we think. My ideas versus your ideas and may the best ones (mine, of course) win! There is a big problem with this scenario. (Well, maybe there is more than one.)

It is extremely difficult to overcome someone’s resistance when we think of it as “resistance.”

People are masters are detecting our strategies and adjusting their “wall” to deflect unwelcome ideas.  You try to argue with them. They might argue back, withdraw from the discussion or retreat to fight you another day. Many people will seem to agree with you and only later will you learn that their agreement was not sincere. The one certainty is that they remain unconverted to your idea. You will not be allowed to win because it means that they will have to lose.

Try transforming your image of resistance into one of “safety.”

Jerry Weinberg of Weinberg & Weinberg gave me this lesson a few years ago. At the time my head was bruised from all of the times that I beat it against a wall. The wall, of course, was all those idea resisters. How dare they withstand me, I thought! My ideas were good ones. They only wanted to see me fail which turned my bewilderment into anger and resentment. Then Jerry gave me transforming idea that the issue was their “safety.” What I was advocating affected their safety because it threatened them with change. The change that I wanted to occur was not something that they had asked for or welcomed. Coming to grips with how to effect change is the acid test for “idea” professionals.

Helping others work through their safety issues can actually improve your idea.

So I began to rethink how I approached others. I realized that my best ideas would languish without the agreement of at least some of the people that felt unsafe. I began to ask them about the possible impacts of my ideas. Did they have any thoughts about mitigating the side effects of my proposed idea? Were there things that could be modified in my original idea that would better consider the culture of the organization? In their opinion, what was the right pace of change? Were there ways to test my idea in some incremental fashion? Amazingly, by asking these questions, my idea and its implementation always got better. Adversaries became allies and co-owners. They began to trust me more and to help rather than fight me. My blood pressure went down and my forehead healed.

It’s good to have ideas. It’s good to make beautiful presentations. It’s good to find solutions.

It’s better to work through change with people together.

The days of command and control organizations (at least in high technology) are long passed. We have a few examples where knowledge workers can do powerful things when they are operating with confidence rather than fear. Your job and mine is to make sure that while we love our ideas, we also make sure that we are helping people feel as safe as possible with what we proposed. Yes, there will be discomfort with change. But harnessing the creative, contributory energy of others is the measure of a successful idea person.

Do you agree?

There is the “boss” role. They get to make large decisions about how to be organized, where to spend money and who to reward. There is the “marketing” role that gets to tell all types of stories to make us look good to customers. If we are making products, there are “developers” to turn requirements into a product that can be sold. And so on …

One role that is especially important is that of the “strategist.” Sometimes this is a distinct role occupied by one person or a strategy group. In other cases, it could be the boss or a marketing person that has this functional assignment. No matter what the embodiment, it is critical that the strategist execute well for the organization to prosper.

So how can you tell how your strategist is doing?

There are some 5 simple criteria that will answer that question. Grade your strategist in each category and you will be able to assess their performance. And remember that their performance may well impact you no matter what your role.

The vision is about a specific, explicit destination.

An organization wants to know where it is going and the strategist has a large part of the responsibility to explain that destination. It might be expressed in market terms (e.g., we want to be number 1 or 2 in every segment that we are in) or in impact (e.g., we want to make the world’s information available to everyone) or something else. Whatever it is, an effective strategist has to have a destination description. And the description has to be useful as a guide for those that must be supportive of the strategy. If you feel like the organization is wandering about, perhaps this description is missing (you don’t want to be an Alice).

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to
Alice: I don’t much care where.
The Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.
Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.
The Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.

Lewis Carroll Quotes: Alice in Wonderland

A learning disposition solidifies the strategy foundation.

A strategist is unlikely to already know everything necessary to formulate the strategy so they must master the identification, integration and interpretation of important information. Often this involves working with and through many specialties in and out of the organization. There may be product information, demographic trends, technology developments, competitor positions and many more things to consider when formulating a strategy. Successful strategists are especially curious and versatile. Conversely, low marks are deserved when a strategist demonstrates limited ability in incorporating information and is averse to learning. It is a combination of high intelligence and humility that empowers a strategist. Look to see how your strategist regularly tests the foundation of the strategy with what they learn.

A clear roadmap communicates the way.

There are good reasons to have a map. If it is doing its job, it pinpoints where you are and helps you understand the way to your destination. Without the map that you can examine and follow, the most attractive destinations remain pipe dreams. You can tell if a strategist is doing a good job if there is a map for the organization to follow. Check to see that there are appropriate versions for different audiences that explain what each needs to know. Also check to see if there are checkpoints along the way where the strategist realigns the organization by reminding them about the reasons for the strategy journey. Finally, test your strategist by asking to see the written version of the strategy. All too often when there are only verbal versions of the strategy your strategist’s thoughts are unclear or quickly shifting.

Persuasion puts the organization in motion.

Every organization has some inertia. This can be a good thing until it is important to move in another direction. And a strategist often needs to move the organization in a different direction. The ability to convince people within the company culture is essential. Good strategists as constantly determining how change happens and how to influence that change to support the strategy. They become change artists that look for supporting energy to help move the organization. Ineffective strategists fall back on lazy assertions that the elegant solution, beautifully expressed is enough to effect change. Look for the strategist’s approach to change, how they engage with the culture and how they recruit allies to help with change. These things will give a good indication if their persuasive skills will be enough to get the organization moving along the roadmap toward the vision.

Credibility is based on overcoming problems.

Every significant journey is likely to have challenges. Sometimes these challenges come from naysayers within the company. Maybe external conditions will alter important underlying assumptions. The execution of the strategy may become a problem if new processes or technologies must be mastered. And there are a thousand other possible problems. Here is the key for a successful strategist. They will assume that there will be problems. Their credibility will not rest on perfect strategy rather it will be founded on the proof that problems can be overcome in pursuit of the vision. Inexperienced or poor strategists will lose their nerve or abandon the vision prematurely. When they do this, the strategy will fail and their personal credibility will suffer.

So there it is. Assess your strategist and you will get a useful indication of where your company is headed. If they deserve good grades then you can deduce that their strategy might be sound. On the other hand, if their work merits low grades over a sustained period, then run for the hills.

If you are the strategist, think about how you might improve in each area. That is a topic for another day.

At work, the closest thing to a report card for an employee is the usually the annual review. If you live in a corporate environment, you know the drill. You show up for the meeting, the manager tells you the bottom (financial) line and then proceeds to list what you have done well or poorly.

This process may or may not be an effective one. The review checklist is often the standard one created by the HR department. Sometimes managers complete the review simply to check it off the list of their duties. At other times, an employee may invest very little into the process and miss the chance to get meaningful feedback. The whole process can be perceived as an optional, perfunctory exercise with little benefit.

There are times when a report card (and all that it implies) is not optional.

A competitive intelligence (CI) report card is such a case. It is an indication of impending failure if a competitive intelligence professional does not get a report regularly on his or her performance. Why? Because a CI function depends on the relationships with and value to senior management. When either the relationship or recognized value is waning, then corrective action must be taken. (Or, you need to look for a new job.)

So how do you get a report card from senior management?

It is probably too much to expect most senior managers to spend time creating a formal report card for you. If you are regularly communicating with them, you will get many signals that express their satisfaction (or lack thereof) with what you doing. A report card is simply one way to stimulate this conversation. And it’s up to you (not them) to get this process started.

You have to create a report card for them to use.

This works well because senior managers are used to evaluating people and their performance according to set guidelines. Since there probably isn’t a competitive intelligence specific set of guidelines you will have to create a template to use.

Keep it simple and focus on value.

The template should be one page or less. It should cover multiple categories. It should be understandable but not too restrictive. Finally, it should be used to highlight exceptional (good and bad) so that meaningful conversations can then happen about those areas. Here is an example. Note that the box to the left of each bullet is the place for a “grade” given by the senior manager.

Use the report card for long term planning and education.

A virtue of a getting a mark is that you can measure your progress over time. I have used “low” marks to help me define my plans for the future. For instance, I initiated regular CI reviews when I received feedback that the organizational communication about CI topics was too infrequent.

Another less obvious use of the report card is that it gives you a vehicle to expand a manager’s perception of CI. Perhaps they never considered that tradeshow intelligence was important. When they see it on your report card they might question what you mean and how it might help them. This is a great time to talk about how CI can be more valuable to them.

The grades that you receive don’t matter.

Well, actually they do. You won’t long survive if you consistently receive poor grades or if you receive good grades only for the less important (as defined by senior management) categories.

However, if the discussion about grades is regular, if your relationship with senior management is deepened and if “low” marks are used for improvement, you will win in the end. Report cards will become your friend and senior management will thank you.

And, by the way, that annual review cycle will also likely be a rewarding time for you as well.