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Volume 3.3 Table Of Contents
- Tap into the power of your “hidden organization”
- Trend Watch: David vs. Goliath: Consultants innovate to compete in global economy
- Digging Deeper: Are you fostering innovation throughout your organization?
- Ask the Business Performance Expert:
- Speaking of Success:
Tap into the power of your “hidden organization”
“How many people are in your organization?” When I ask that question of business leaders, many of them respond with the number of employees on payroll (internal stakeholders). However, that’s only part of the answer. In fact, in today’s technologically connected world, even the smallest businesses are innovating by relying upon a variety of relationships with external stakeholders: service providers, customers, alliance partners, subcontractors and others to design, sell and deliver services and products. (see“Trend Watch” below). This means that your success hinges just as much upon effectively leading and managing your “hidden organization” as it does upon effectively leading and managing employees.. The question then, is who are the external stakeholders that make up your “hidden organization", and how do you leverage the power of these relationships?”
The first step is to uncover assumptions about your external stakeholders. I define “external stakeholders” as any individual, group, or organization that has a stake in your business. While some of these relationships are obvious, too often we overlook or underestimate other relationships that can have just as profound an impact on the results of strategies and initiatives. For example, when I presented this concept to business leaders at a conference, one person realized that his family was a key external stakeholder that he had previous overlooked but profoundly influenced his decisions. Other attendees realized that they had underestimated the impact of government agencies on their business growth strategies. For a checklist of internal and external stakeholders click here.
Once you’ve discovered your hidden organization, the next step is to lead and manage it in a way that creates mutually beneficial outcomes. It’s vital to keep in mind that when aligning independent entities, the best results come from tapping into the uniqueness of each relationship. (see “Digging Deeper” below).
Bottom line: Just as your business is part of your customers’ external organization, it also has external stakeholders of its own that make up your hidden organization. The better you become at recognizing and leveraging the power of these many relationships, the more likely it is that you’ll survive unexpected twists and turns in the economy, minimize problems, and take your company to the next level of growth
Trend Watch: David vs. Goliath: Consultants innovate to compete in global economy
In a new study, 222 members of the Independent Computer Consultants Association indicated that they are relying upon a wide variety of external stakeholders to increase the range and sophistication of their services. This represents over a 25% response rate and is considered statistically significant.
The study, conducted by strategic research firm Exponential Edge in collaboration with my firm, Business Advancement Inc., and the Independent Computer Consultants Association identified 25 different categories of external stakeholders that are vital to operating their businesses as well as designing, marketing and delivering services and products. It establishes that even “gangs of one” are increasingly leading and managing complex organizations. For the complete story, including slides of survey results, click here.
Digging Deeper: Prevent gridlock when leading and managing external stakeholders
Here are five questions to ask
yourself on a regular basis to begin to uncover
assumptions, avoid gridlock, and
get more of the results you want:
- What is my objective?
- Who are the key internal and external stakeholders that are critical to accomplishing this objective? Who else might have a stake in the outcome?
- For each stakeholder that you’ve identified above: Is this stakeholder capable of doing what I want? Note: This includes having the skills, abilities, knowledge, time, and resources. What evidence do I have?
- For each stakeholder that you’ve identified above: Is this stakeholder willing to do what I want? Note: This includes individual attitudes as well as cultural norms. What evidence do I have?
- Based upon the answers above, what can I do differently to achieve my objective?
To fully meet business challenges and lead your organization to high performance results, it’s essential to know not only who your stakeholders are, but also what issues they face and the impact those issues may have on you. When you seek out the perceptions of your stakeholders on a regular basis, you’ll be able to address any potential challenges from a position of organizational reality, not individual assumption.
Ask the Business Performance Expert:
Q: How can
we tell if internal and external stakeholders
truly buy into a plan?
A: I go back to the old saying
“actions speak louder than words.”
Are individuals and groups merely going through
the motions, or are they putting great energy
into what they agreed to make happen? If someone
truly buys into a plan, he or she will go to great
lengths to make it happen. This includes working
to overcome difficulties by generating suggestions
and finding new approaches to solving problems.
When you can see tangible behaviors and evidence
indicating that a person or group is truly committed
to achieving an objective, it’s much more
likely that the plan will become a reality.
Quote: "Nothing Changed. Except my attitude. So everything changed."
--Unknown Poet
Submitted by Robin Clark, Editor, The Wise Marketer
(www.thewisemarketer.com)