Hey, happy Monday,
It’s good to find yourself in the newsletter you’ve been waiting for, thanks for being here.
I have taken a nice break since the last email you received. A necessary break to enjoy like everyone else some well-deserved rest, and essential to create the space to work on the strategy of STRTGY and develop the new projects you will see in the coming months.
Activities have been resuming for a few weeks now but only now do I find time to sit down at my desk at home to write these words to you. Follow me on LinkedIn to catch up on news you may have missed.
On this note, I want to tell you about the moment I look forward to every quarter with eager anticipation–the moment when both my team and the community members who work with STRTGY enter execution mode.
Here’s how to do it too.
The 6 modes of operation of each business
I have identified 6 modes of operation. Two of these are detrimental to the quality of work, detrimental to corporate culture and to the results themselves.
The healthiest teams are able to move with discipline from one mode to another, forming the Progress Loop: a virtuous circle in which it is possible to take control over results. Others remain stuck in their dysfunction.
Progress Loop
- Mode of learning
- Generative mode
- Planning mode
- Method of execution
Dysfunction
- Reactive mode
- Survival mode
The Progress Loop explained simple
Mode of learning
It is the mode in which knowledge is formed through the collection of information from inside and outside the company. One interrogates data, the market, analyzes the results of experiments and, most important of all, measures progress in strategy execution.
You can be in learning mode even if you started yesterday, yet many companies have never structured themselves for this.
Warning. It is easy to confuse this mode with the classic moments of financial and fiscal analysis in which, by law, all numbers must be filed in the books. If you struggle to extract numbers from business systems and, by the time you read them, it is too late to take action, read on…
Teams using the Make Progress growth system with OKRs enter learning mode each week with a structured series of meetings, specific agendas and a precise way of sharing learning also reduce the number of spontaneous and unnecessary meetings.
- Weekly Check-in → measure progress on goals and key metrics
- Monthly Check-in → they take action on obstacles and distribute resources.
Generative mode
It is the mode in which knowledge is materialized into tangible assets. Solutions, experiments, projects, innovations are generated.
True, we all have ideas at any time of the day, and it is not possible to behave like robots who either execute or imagine. The problem is that these ideas struggle to emerge, especially when they come from the most operational levels, and for that, probably more interesting. It is a matter of seniority, role, education and corporate culture.
It is also true, however, that all leaders complain about the proactivity of their employees and would prefer to lead the famous “self-managed teams” that is, teams capable of self-managing themselves and bringing results and innovations into the real world with complete autonomy. So why is the generative component relegated to apex roles such as administrator, leaders and generally to the labels Director, Creative, Strategy… ?
If we leave aside programmed entertainment such as corporate workshops and internal hackathons that have largely proven to be ineffective, what is the process by which good ideas rise to the surface in the form of experiments and numbers?
With Make Progress, teams regularly enter generative mode by promoting autonomy, self-alignment and cooperation. Here are three key moments:
- Bottom Up phase → teams propose and negotiate their OKRs
- Roadblock Log (daily) → teams log obstacles in a shared space, but can do so as long as they propose a solution that is systematically considered, by design, by the owners of impacted OKRs.
- Strategy Refresh (every end of cycle) → strategy is updated based on previous results
Planning mode
This is the mode in which decisions are made about how to use the most precious resource of all: time. Decisions made in the previous modes here are transformed into activities and find sequences and deadlines.
Planning is linked in a double knot with the concept of productivity. You can be very busy but not productive if you invest your time in the wrong activities.
Most scheduling routines are done by following a rule that is as simple as it is misleading: sort tasks according to the earliest deadline. This rarely works. Moreover, in this context all agile practices have little meaning.
In Make Progress with OKRs, teams soon become confident with a powerful new concept: the liquid backlog. Activities are no longer prioritized by deadline (where not strictly necessary, as in administrative or SLA-bound teams) but by impact.
Teams look at the OKRs like sailors look at the stars and update-independently-the course.
Method of execution
Imagine that you are clear about why, what, and when to work on the activities that await you in the backlog.
Uninterrupted.
Carefully and intentionally.
With order and a sense of progress.
This is the moment I await with eager anticipation every quarter. The moment when the new cycle of OKR goes from OPEN to IN PROGRESS. It is a small but significant ceremony that marks theentry into execution mode.
From this moment on, each team is focused on executing what they helped create.
This is the focus that the OKRs promise.
Disciplined switching from one mode to another reduces switching costs, the hidden costs of moving schizophrenically from one operating mode to another.
The Make Progress implementation program with OKRs is built to extend and accelerate the execution mode while optimizing other modes of work through a system of simple tools, routines and habits.
What happens when Progress is lacking?
Reactive mode
Teams enter reactive mode when they lack the ability to adequately enter learning and planning mode.
Leaders are hyper-generative and teams chase the priorities they feel are important. Hierarchy trumps strategy.
It is easy to add new projects to the list but there are no metrics to evaluate them, so no one takes responsibility for redistributing time and resources and divesting what is not working.
A vicious cycle is triggered in which teams are systematically delayed, and without the formalization of knowledge into shared processes and playbooks, time is spent putting out fires instead of preventing them.
Survival mode
Teams enter survival mode when the entire organization is engaged in executive activities without mechanisms for learning, delegation and planning.
One does not know what works and what does not. Everything seems important. There are no priorities because there is no strategy. Numbers are used as a tool for personal control. Bureaucracy replaces procedures. New customer acquisition depends for the most part on the personal network of a few executives.
There is no time to innovate. There is no time to grow.
Stress, endless days, burnout.
Enter the Progress Loop
The most important quarter of the year is about to begin, and if you have recognized yourself in either of these dysfunctional modes, know that I have prepared something that might interest you.
I would like to give you the tools to avoid by all means finding yourself working in reactive mode or – even worse – in survival mode.
I have prepared a live meeting: on Thursday, September 21 from 12 noon.
If you are the administrator, an executive or manager, of a company between 5 and 50 employees and you think it’s time to change your mode of operation, consider yourself officially invited to learn more LIVE about the contents of this newsletter. Or pass this invitation on to those who should participate.
I will show how to use Make Progress tools with OKRs to enter the Progress Loop and leave room for an in-depth question and answer session.
I look forward to you continuing this important conversation,
ALWAYS MAKE PROGRESS ⤴
