Hey happy Monday!
How did Q2 begin?
I hope with the right strategy!
Q2 is like coming out of a very tiring tunnel in which everyone has been busy bringing in the results that were, however, generated in the previous quarter, the “let’s talk about it in the new year” quarter to be clear.
Now what? It’s like starting over. Now that the first projects are finished, energy can be freed up to think about the second part of the year.
This is how you build that nauseating roller coaster of results that everyone knows. Of course, in the long run the up and down is not sustainable, for anyone.
The first step in getting off the merry-go-round is to have a strategy that allows you to reduce work reactivity, stay focused on priorities, and have clear numerical goals.
This strategy must be described, distributed and understood, only then will each person on your team know how to contribute otherwise they will continue to demand-rightly-clear direction.
Now might be a good time to seriously consider accessing this approximately 60-minute training on how to fill out the Strategy Focus Onepager (SFO).
I’m going to show you the canvas already filled in so that you can make it extremely concrete on how to fill in each of the 18 blocks it consists of. You will be able to download the PDF template now or duplicate Miro’s board so you can start working on it right away.
Here’s what he thinks who has already participated:
All of this, combined with what I am about to tell you in this note, seems to touch some raw nerves.
I had evidence of this at the Strategies for Agencies “Processes” Masterclass in Bologna where, thanks to Stefano Ferranti, I met some very smart entrepreneurs engaged with their own communication, IT and service agencies. However, I can assure you that these concepts apply to any type of organization and today it is adopted by companies from 2 to 11,000 employees in different sectors.
Ready for a great Q2?
Let’s get into the swing of things!
⤴⤴⤴
Why everyone needs their OS
An operating system is a set of rules and processes that evolve to enable the entire organization not only to improve its performance but even to repair itself.
It runs in the background to ensure that the various components can exchange information and work synchronized to accomplish valuable tasks. Of value to whom? For the end customer and for the organization itself.
When this does not happen in the company, great chaos is generated. Things maybe working because, good or bad, they get done anyway, but all at the expense of quality, competitiveness, sustainability and marginality.
What is Progress OS
Corporate culture is closely related to one’s way of working and influences one’s behavior and results.
Many organizations equip themselves with bureaucracies to codify every aspect of the executive model. This seemingly restores a great sense of order and stability that justifies budgets and compensation only to find that they have turned the company into a money printing machine in which no one wants to work.
While writing my book, I searched far and wide for what moved performance more than anything else, discovering a surprising truth: it is not the permission to pass on green that reduces traffic, but the confidence to enter a traffic circle that makes it smoother and safer.
What do I mean by this? That many companies build a way of working made up of traffic lights to block people from making decisions with the intent of building a chain of control and trying to reduce contingencies.
Other organizations, on the other hand, decide to have rules that leverage trust rather than fear of making mistakes. Their way of working is more akin to having traffic circles, where anyone can enter while respecting the direction of rotation and how to signal their exit.
In a culture with traffic lights everyone is tempted to beat the system by passing on yellow because it is the only way to progress at the expense of safety, personal and group.
In the other way, on the other hand, people are not incentivized to compromise mutual respect for rules, rather they are motivated to keep the flow of ideas and results as smooth as possible.
And if we really want to maintain the traffic comparison, traffic circles are incredibly cheaper to build than an intricate network of traffic lights and control systems.
Three principles for building your own Progress OS
I wondered if it was possible to build an operating system that would allow, by-design, to sustain that energizing feeling of progress by generating motivation, confidence and clarity about goals.
In this video I have distilled three principles that will help you build your Progress OS, to work by goals and unlock the potential of asynchronous work.
- Rhythm
- Rules (shared and automatic)
- Numbers as feedback
Disclaimer: I am a big fan of Notion. Although in the video I will show you screenshots of the current implementation in STRTGY know that you can adapt these principles to any type of business and any software, from Google Drive to Jira.
If any sparks arise and you decide to implement some of these principles in your work let me know. I am always happy when I can learn from those who use them allowing me to improve the tools for all members of the community.
ALWAYS MAKE PROGRESS ⤴
-Antonio
