Harvard Business Publishing

Yes, we should have the meeting, but as part of this meeting how about considering what we should be doing differently within the current overall management system? Our current business governance system is broken and can encourage very destructive behaviors!! This annual meeting would be a great time to address these issues.

For a company to be competitive in the long term, especially within today's environment, the organization needs to have a business system that leads to the 3 Rs of business; i.e., everyone doing the Right things, and doing them Right, at the Right time. A no-nonsense business governance system is needed that integrates healthy policy creation and deployment with a no nonsense blending of scorecards, strategic planning, business improvement, and control. This substantive business system needs to be able to address the complexities of today’s business environment, which executive orchestrate.

An American Management Association (AMA) MWorld Winter 2008-09 article (see article link below) describes a 9-step, 21st century business management governance system that addresses these needs and how a company benefited from its deployment. A company can have a much more productive executive retreat if they followed this 9-step system in their meeting.

Article link: http://www.smartersolutions.com/pdfs/online_database/P_111_AMAMWorld.pdf

@Forrest: Aren't those nine steps a rehash of Six Sigma's DMAIC? (which is based on Deming's TQM)
What's everybody's take on people or companies that rename and re-package methodologies, adding in my opinion more noise than value?

Sergio: You correctly see that the management system implemented by Oracle Packaging as described in the AMA article exercises classic DMAIC steps - what's innovative is the application of DMAIC methodology at the enterprise level - in addition to the project level - and the resulting alignment of goals and measurements at both levels and across the entire enterprise. See the video at http://tinyurl.com/4d4ao2 for more insight.

Confidence of a leader's followers is a fragile thing. For a business we would define "followers" to include not only employees but also dealers/distributors and key suppliers. The best commanders in the Army will tell you that, when times are difficult in a combat area and the infantry companies are at risk, the best commanders do not retreat to the HQ bunkers. They catch helicopters and go see the troops. All the arguments made in John Baldoni's item are absolutely valid. When there are layoffs, reductions in key purchases from vendors, delays in projects etc., we must not focus our concern solely on the so-called "victims," for a wise colleague of ours reminded us recently, "The 'survivors' also suffer and it's the survivors who now especially need the care of the senior leaders. Only a few days ago I shared a nostalgic recollection with a now-retired CEO who remembered a time twenty years ago when an effort to sell one of the company's divisions fell through and the CEO was terribly worried about having to navigate a "wounded ship" thereafter. He said he thought one of the best times in his career was righting that ship and restoring it to its before-the-attempted-sale effectiveness. We fear that leaders who now avoid meetings are merely seeking the bunker and doing so at their company's peril.

Right before reading this blog I had just left a senior staff meeting. In the meeting the executive director spoke to the managers about scaling back in their departments. I agree that in hard economical times like this it would only be sensible to cut back. What did concern me is was that I don't think the managers fully comprehended what the exc. director was saying. I say this because this was the second meeting that cut backs were mentioned and there were no responses.

What I do applaud is that money is not wasted to conduct these senior staff meetings. The meetings are held in the conference room on premises and everyone brings their own lunch. The meetings are real informal and entertaining. Like today for instance they barely discussed business. They spoke about movies, current events, and politics. Some people may see it as a waste of time but some people actually enjoy the meetings. Like Baldoni said, “People need to hear each other out." they may have not talked business but they are connecting on other levels.

Staff meetings are essential to have; especially in time like this. Coming together gives that reinforcement that we are in this together and we will get through it together! Thanks Baldoni, I enjoyed the reading today!

Sergio,

I understand how the above described 9-step system may initially sound like a re-packaging of Total Quality Management (TQM), Lean Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints (TOC), Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle, the balanced scorecard, and/or other methodologies. However, it is not. These listed methodologies are not a business system; the 9-step Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) is.

The IEE system uses and integrates the strengths of traditional methodologies to create a long-lasting business governance system that helps organizations move toward achievement of the 3 Rs of business; i.e., everyone doing the Right things, and doing them Right, at the Right time!

If our current business management and improvement systems are so great, why do we have the problems that we are currently experiencing? What is needed is a reinvention of our business management system, which includes how policies are created and risks assessed. Emerging leaders need to take up the banner for addressing these issues; however, what should they suggest? IEE is a system that addresses these needs.

The following link provides much more detailed description of this overall system:
http://www.smartersolutions.com/blog/forrestbreyfogle/?p=650#more-650

Again, the 9-step IEE system is not just fluff or a repacking of previous systems. I truly believe in my heart that we need to make major changes to our business management system or we will not in the future have the life style that we have grown accustomed to. IEE is a system to address those needs.

I encourage anyone to contact me directly who would like to discuss further.

Forrest Breyfogle
Forrest@SmarterSolutions.com
512-918-0280

I agree - companies should not cut off their nose despite their face. Just cutting for the sake of cutting is run from fear and trying to manage anxiety - not from leadership. Quite frankly the thoughts here need to be implemented consistently good times or not!

Another thing that should not be cut for the sake of cutting is Leadership Development! Again, this is not about providing learning opportunities to help your executives "grow" - it is about helping them strengthen their contribution, ability to generate value and recognize the value of this very article!

David Utts

Kudos to John Baldoni for a well-articulated piece stressing the importance of continuing to hold meetings, even when times are tough. As a veteran in the meetings industry, I’d like to add a few additional thoughts about why off-site meetings are a critical component to the future success of your business.

1. Align, align, align: Meetings with your sales and management teams are critical to ensure everyone is bought in and focused on the goal. More now than ever, confidence from your team will come in their belief that you're taking them down the right road. Misalignment is sure to create fear and most certainly failure if it's not corrected quickly. Meetings put you eyeball-to-eyeball with those responsible for the execution. That level of accountability can't be had over a conference call.

2. Traveling to a conference? If you're a vendor/exhibitor, check the attendee roster before making any decisions on whether to attend or not. You may find less competition for customers as other vendors cancel. Conference attendee? Expect that your sessions will have fewer people and therefore, you'll have more 1on1 attention with the speakers and experts. Also, those vendors are looking to make a deal. Don't pass them up!

3. Face time: Morale is what it’s all about. Getting leadership's face in front of everyone reminds the team that "we're all in it together".

The scenery change that occurs when you meet off-site can also benefit your team's creativity. Let’s face it, even on its best day, the boardroom can be a little stuffy.

I've been active in the meetings profession for nearly a quarter-century, and I've found it very interesting (and tremendously encouraging) to see a rapid shift in response to a tanking economy: More and more meeting planners are dropping the frills, focusing on the essentials, and doing their best to map their events back to organizational objectives.

This is no more and no less than we should have been doing all along, as a profession and as an industry, and many meeting planners (including many of our favourite clients) are already there. Now, we're hoping to see the sharper focus take some of the directions John suggested in his post -- get the real story, and create both the optic and, more important, the reality of senior management hearing voices from the field.

But there's at least one piece missing in this post: the need to document onsite discussions, create a reference source for participants, and report out to all the stakeholders (other employees, C-levels, customers, regulators, and on) who weren't onsite. As a rule, the meetings industry does a great job of preparing the knowledge participants bring into the room, in the form of PowerPoints (endless PowerPoints), abstracts, scientific papers. But we are generally far less adept at capturing, distributing, and repurposing the knowledge people generated while they were onsite, even though that second category of knowledge is supposed to be the reason for investing in the meeting.

There are shining examples of meetings that have been very deliberate about making good use of their content and conclusions after the fact. And the interactive Web holds out the potential to extend the life of a conference for weeks or months after participants go home, while multiplying the audience to include people who never attended. But we won't get there if we assume that verbatim webcasts are the state of the art...which, unfortunately, is still what happens too much of the time.

Out of all of the posts above, Jim Pirner's quote "The best commanders in the Army will tell you that, when times are difficult in a combat area and the infantry companies are at risk, the best commanders do not retreat to the HQ bunkers. They catch helicopters and go see the troops" really hit me. It is true. I believe this is equal to the time you had a really bad day and thought you would never be "ok". But, then you wake up in the morning and feel like a million bucks! Yes, personally I am concerned for my friends and industry colleagues especially in the meetings industry. However, the positives for me personally have made me rethink my daily business and tasks. I have hunkered down, pushed anything not to do with business development for my core business to the side and only concentrate on what's good for retention of current clients. I am providing personal service even more than I already have been doing. I am working hand in hand with my clients to increase their business. I believe these times call for "partnership", constant communication, and trust. "Together", we will get through it all. We will weather the storm. We all know it will end.

Seeing and hearing leadership at tentative or anxious times is critical. Two things I think that have been said in many ways and in varying degrees here is that the followership relies upon the leadership for an appropriate sense of mood and appropriate story for the future. If the leadership is not seen then default moods (panic, uncertainty, resignation) are taken up and everyone makes up their own story about the future (difficulty, failure).

Thanks for the food for thought!

Miche Suboski - www.yourbusinessadvisor.net

I agree that leadership needs to remain visible and meetings are a great place to share the information that they do have, good or bad, with their staff and their stakeholders. I think that the work culture has diluted the power of meetings within an organization in a number of ways; by arranging them without clear agendas and buy-in from those attending, by holding them even when there are no new development, by not acknowledging the input of the people called to the meetings and then simply, by calling them too frequently. Many times it is hard to find time to produce work because staff are in a seemingly endless round of meetings that often repeat themselves from week to week. This dilution of the power of gathering experts and professionals in a room is probably responsible for the cancellation of many of the larger meetings. These meetings which as written would actually provide perspective and information if organized in a way that demands that result. I believe that coming together to share and to learn can be a great thing as long as all are included and truth is the order of the day.