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Whether they know it or not, they are all stakeholders in your activities. What you need is a plan that will allow you to take direct action, at the same time as you design strategies to identify and include your stakeholders, curving around and bringing them with you to a successful outcome for everyone. One of the purposes of an organisation is to attract and keep stakeholders – all types.
Remember, stakeholders are the ones holding the stake while you drive it into the ground – the ones who will know it if your direct-action hammer hits them instead of the stake!
There are also non-stakeholder reasons to consider the D plan. Things about the organisation can interfere with success:
- Could be your structure - the organisation may make goal alignment and achievement difficult because of layers.
- Could be your organisational practices - perhaps you don't have priorities set formally. Rampant multi-tasking plays havoc as other goals seem more urgent, simply because they are more recent. There is a tendency for strategic attention to wander, unless there is some other process keeping tabs on such things.
- Could be organisational climate - the things that determine "what it's like to work here"
- Could be that you just don't know what the ideal environment should be.
The D plan is not a radically new philosophy, but it now has a name, and because it has form, it can be applied to all strategic goals. For example, the question "Who leads the (direct-path) team?" is a common enough question. But now you can ask "Who leads the curve-path team?". This is much better than the focused 'action team' of heroes and the amorphous and unglamorous 'support group'. A support group, under that name, never really knows how to show initiative or how to be most effective. It can be efficient – but what about effective? The support group never feels responsible for specific projects. There's no glory in being in 'support'.
By contrast, the curve-path team, is an action team in its own right. This is the team that truly determines success or failure of the project. Without the flankers, the column will fail. Indeed, either team is unlikely to succeed alone. Both teams are at the coalface, and interdependent – they need each other and must understand the other’s roles and capabilities.
A simple example of the D plan will illustrate it at work.
When enlisting a dozen friends to help pave my previous and large back yard (about 20 years ago), only one of those present had any idea of how to lay pavers. We began at 9am and even with everybody doing their best, less than 5% of the yard was covered within the first two hours. It looked like becoming a weeklong job instead of a day, and tempers were fraying.
The D plan was introduced. Three people became the direct-path team – responsible for the laying of the pavers. All the others formed the curved-path team and looked at what was necessary for the direct team to be able to do the job - just lay pavers – nothing else. The direct team figured out how they could be most effective - working in a V (vee) across the yard. The curve-path team assessed the obstacles and barriers, and worked out how to keep the direct tem busy. The people in the direct team had their job made very simple for them. The ground was leveled and compressed just before the pavers were due to be placed. Pavers were delivered in small heaps exactly where the layers were currently laying - within easy reach. Pick up a paver – put it in place – pick the next – put it in place – etc. Once placed by the layers, another member of the curve-path team knocked the pavers into alignment, and another member levelled the surface with the compactor.
The remaining 95% of the yard was completed within three hours. That represents almost a 13-fold performance improvement. It wasn't just team work - it was two interdependent action teams.
- Perhaps it sounds like scientific management, except that they did it themselves, and the curve-path team felt empowered to refine their processes along the way - always to simplify the task for the direct-path team, and frequently to simplify their own tasks. They engaged in their own team-level business process reengineering, and continuously refined it on the run. There were no debates - just tests of a new idea.
- Importantly, they had fun, amazed at how rapidly and neatly the basket-weave pattern moved across the ground. Perhaps even more importantly (for me), the end job was admirable. And both teams felt important by jobs end. 'They' had done it – and admired it as we barbequed.
- The ‘paving party’ is still remembered fondly.
- As already mentioned, this is not new material. People have been doing things like this for centuries. But:
- looking at the responsibilities of a project as being those of two teams is new. Sharing the glory is new.
- Elevating the background of 'support' up to the front-line is new.
- The opportunities for involvement and commitment are more plentiful.
A currently relevant example of the D-Plan for an organisation, is the need to get organisational climate right so as to reach ambitious organisational performance goals. This means knowing what sort of climate will be needed for the strategic plan to enjoy full participation by the relevant stakeholders - usually the employees. It also means being able to create that climate and fine-tune it along the way. Strategic Climate Planning and Management follows the curve-path process needed for the direct-path team to be fully effective. Only those living and working in the climate know what is required – and that doesn’t mean management.
We often hear that an organisation may do better if it 'gets out of its own way'. The D plan is a tool to help do just that. It’s more than a philosophy - it’s an approach.
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