The Compelling Journey™ A PlayBook™ for Sustainable Performance Growth-Part VI

• Having outlined the Call to Action, tests are needed to ensure a proper trajectory
• Knowing who the allies are to help along way
• Examining potential enemies provides for risk mitigation

Your friends will believe in your potential, your enemies will make you live up to it.

                                                                     – Tim Fargo

Staying on Track – Tests, Allies, Enemies

Tests

Everyone marvels at the incredible accuracy of space flight.  The precision needed to get these missions off the ground is the stuff of legend.  A little-known fact about the original trip to the moon was that, for all the talk of accuracy, that particular trip was off course almost 80% of the time!  Nevertheless, the mission was completed, and the astronauts were on target when they got home. 

Was it a wild ride?  Did they careen off course and achieve a heart-thumping return to their original flight path?  Nothing of the sort.  Just hundreds and hundreds of small, mid-course corrections kept them on their intended path.  To make those minute course corrections meant that flight planners needed to have excellent diagnostics to help them judge if the capsule was on the proper trajectory.  As a team undergoes its Compelling Journey™, it behooves them to think through what tests the organization will need to ensure that they remain on track to fulfilling their Call to Action.

These tests can take many forms. Financial metrics are certainly easy to measure.  They can also be cultural milestones or perhaps hiring and retention or succession based.  Possibly, teams can keep an eye on how and when leaders overcome their personal barriers to responding.  Each organization will need to craft their own based on the primary focus of the Call.

Allies – The Support Network

As mentioned in the past, well over two-thirds of all change efforts fail to achieve their intended goal or fail altogether.  For any change effort to succeed, the leaders need to create momentum to respond to the Call to Action.  That means ensuring that they remove all roadblocks that can impede developing the energy to reach their objectives.  This requires help from all available sources. In other words, the Call to Action needs allies.

The definition of an ally, according to Merriam-Webster is: “one that is associated with another as a helper: a person or group that provides assistance and support in an ongoing effort, activity, or struggle.”  Business transformation can be difficult and likely face change resistance.  Having declared the Call to Action, leaders need to define who, or what, will provide that assistance and support.  Allies can be found within and outside the organization and can include major stakeholders, vendors, governmental entities, educational institutions, professional societies, and employees.

Enemies

Whenever change comes around, there are those who are not willing to adopt the new approach.  They may have any number of reasons why; nevertheless, there will be those who oppose the Call to Action.  It is imperative for leaders to determine who these might be and, where possible, determine their motivation in anticipation.  Sometimes the group selected may appear on both lists.

Having Tests, understanding who Allies are and who could be Enemies create clarity for the team undergoing the Compelling Journey™.    With these areas defined and described, it is time to understand the organization’s emerging leaders on whom the senior leaders can not only rely  but provide challenging assignments in pursuit of the Call to Action.