by Peter A. Arthur-Smith

“It’s foolish to only focus on today’s business; you have to keep focusing on tomorrow’s as well.”

Harry, the company’s Co- Visionist, and Christine, its outside advisor, were adamant about one thing: “We have to keep SuperGuard’s future in mind as well.” They knew that the moment they take their eye off that ball its longer term health could be in jeopardy. Consequently, despite all their near term flourishing successes, they realized the importance of pulling their Strategist team together to focus on this issue at their next six-weekly Periscope Time session. It was all about balancing Strategic and Operational Streaming.

Thinking about the future is akin to thinking about a fast flowing river – or stream – on a journey to somewhere. That river or stream flows along its most natural course and markets can be navigated in the same way, since they’re constantly flowing somewhere…unless, of course, they dry up! In terms of where your venture is heading, you have to think ahead as to where you intend for it to go.

Will it drop over a precipice like Niagara Falls? Will it flow right or left because of a more natural course? Will it slow down owing to a flat plain ahead? Will it be subsumed by merging with a larger river? Markets have similar behaviors. So regularly “thinking about” and “positioning/preparing for” what’s next is crucial.

Regularized Periscope Time enables Strategic Streaming, thereby it can “think about” the natural next phase of “positioning/preparing” for whatever course you decide to take. Of course, these activities do not take place in a vacuum. Your Strategist team needs to regularly review industry market surveys, attend local-regional-national industry forums, be up-to-date on local-regional-national current affairs, and monitor trends regarding your firm’s progress. From these activities, a well-informed Strategist team can then make reasonable assumptions about what direction their market river or stream is likely to flow.

While Harry and Melissa, as Co-Visionists of a somewhat sizeable, growing venture, needed to envisage up to three years ahead; they should also challenge their Strategist Team to be “thinking about” 6-12 months ahead. By spotting likely opportunities, they can then “position/prepare” for those opportunities 3-6 months in advance. Such activities should occur in parallel with current “implementation/execution” actions. However, they are each done discretely within their own time space; like using Periscope Time, where you take a short time-out to focus on the future, while still orchestrating the present. This is an important future-thinking discipline particularly practiced by successful ventures and leaders, albeit intuitively at times.

With this concept in mind, the firm’s Strategist team initially “thought about” additional client possibilities for SuperGuard Traditional by drawing upon Dan’s Visionary leader input. Through discussion his colleagues endorsed or modified the potential client expansion possibilities he envisaged; be that for new or adjacent regional domains, and/or for Traditional’s existing business footprint. He would do this with an eye on operating where SuperGuard’s “red ocean” markets were not too bloodied with competitors. To facilitate this, Melissa’s Promotionist team needed to increase its sales activities during their firm’s “positioning/ preparing” phase…or even before that.

She now agreed to seek volunteers among her most successful sales team members to take on this additional responsibility, until it was opportune to hire additional salespeople within such geographic areas. Her volunteers would be recognized accordingly through potential team leader promotions, extra vacation time, greater shares of team bonuses, and/or leading In-Team discovery sessions. (NOTE: Any of these possibilities were awarded once their successes became apparent and not held out as carrots beforehand. With trusting relationships, this is a much more durable way of rewarding people for their endeavors – see Dan Pink’s book “Drive.” Then they focus on effectively – the right innovative solution – taking care of the task at hand rather than primarily speculating about immediate payback.)

Similarly with Roger’s SuperGuard Vanguard teams: He/They would aim to have an agreed number of new sites functioning within the company’s existing footprint within 6-12 months…”thinking about” this now! Again, this would mean co-opting Melissa’s team to help them identify and then pursue potential Vanguard clients that could come aboard 3-6 months from now. Also, during the subsequent “position/ prepare” window, Dan and Roger could negotiate numbers of experienced security guards needed from Dan’s domain pool, as well as commence additional education for them. As this occurred, Rachel and her Humanist team would need to swing into action to help backfill sales and operational spots that become  vacant – in conjunction with Dan and Roger’s forecasts.

Maureen, SuperGuard’s Provisionist, would need to “think about” and “position/prepare for” funding and then give them the green-light for both people-hires and acquiring the required equipment.  Mark, Super-Guard’s Innovationist, would do his part to research, test and find even more cost-effective security equipment and methods. This would require spending time with Roger’s existing teams to discover probable enhance-ments required.

And so with their latest Monday morning of Periscope Time, it became clear that, “thinking about” and “positioning/ preparing” for where their market river was going, enabled them to unify over the way forward. Harry and Christine had chipped in with their thoughts wherever appropriate. With this fresh vision, they knew they would have to revisit it every three months rolling forward to speed-up or slow-down their ongoing momentum. Rather than seat-of-the-pants expansion, Strategic Streaming allowed SuperGuard to be some-what ahead on its future, as well as to continue “executing/implementing” today’s services with existing customers. They can now flow with SuperGuard’s river/stream rather than watch it rush by them from their markets’ “banks.”

Flushed with another successful Periscope Time session, they couldn’t wait for their light lunch to discuss their latest experience and discuss where further collaboration was vital to help orchestrate and build momentum. Christine and Harry were impressed with their progress and challenged them to start thinking about their next enlightened leadership cycle – CYCLE 3 – of envision, position, engage, collaborate and orchestrate; to build upon new-found momentum and flow with their chosen market river.

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Key Story Pointers:

» This story takes you through two enlightened leadership cycles of an established but stalled firm, called SuperGuard, and how it stimulated significant, renewed growth once more.

» With Christine’s facilitator assist, it pursued a Blue Ocean option to allow for growth in a virtually non-competitive marketplace and thereby enhance its business growth and margins – it’s an alternative to the expense of acquiring new assets or ventures or struggling in competitive-bloodied Red Ocean.

» Through a Strategist brainstorming session (Periscope Time), it established SuperGuard Traditional and Vanguard; where the latter became its Blue Ocean option.

» This required development of associated people-competences (knowhow) and innate capabilities (talents), as well as identify Vanguard pros and cons to be leveraged or addressed. This brought its people aboard rather than alienating them as often happens with typical venture changes.

» Once ready to move forward, they assembled as many company staff as possible to bring them aboard, too, and prepare for Green-Light Day; the day they would launch Vanguard. It’s the alternative to keeping their people in the dark, otherwise known as “mushroom management.”

» They could now follow SuperGuard’s natural Strategic Growth Helix, whereby it would go through cycles of opportune reinvention and strategic growth. Reinvention relies upon staff education rather than traditional restructuring or downsizing, consequently stimulates renewed commitment and far greater contributions. (NOTE: Intrinsic factors stimulate natural growth, while extrinsic forces drive enforced growth: the latter can be like building on quick-sands.)

» SuperGuard’s strategist team established two business “pods”; Pod A for Traditional customers and markets and Pod B for Vanguard services and customers. It then educated and readied its entire staff to respond and implement the requisite strategies.

» Superguard’s Strategist team also became dedicated to Strategic Streaming, which challenged them to devote sufficient time to “thinking about” and “positioning/preparing” for tomorrow, as well as “executing/ implementing” today’s  activities and successes. Strategic Streaming is like a constantly flowing river or stream with all their inherent attributes – natural momentum, finding the path of least resistance, taking possibilities in their stride, and so on.

» Ultimately this story is dedicated to EL and its five phases, and beyond, that allowed Harry and Melissa, Co-Visionists,  to fully collaborate with Superguard’s Strategist team to find the optimum and most motivating path forward. Along the way, they kept their teams involved and in the picture, so they were ready to commit to and execute what was the most appropriate course of action. Intrinsic motivation is considerably more powerful and performance enhancing that our conventional management (CM) command-and-control modes. Enlightened leadership (EL) wins hands down every time.