Coaching for Execution

By: Sundar Parthasarthy

Smart CEOs understand the interdependence of strategy and execution and do not get carried away by the so-called glamour of strategy alone. For them the execution of strategy needs as much of their attention and involvement, as does the formulation of strategy. They know that the journey from strategy to desired-results can happen only when the organisation imbibes a culture of disciplined execution and building and sustaining of such a culture is one of the most important jobs of the CEO. They place as much emphasis on their own development, as on the building of the skills and competencies across the organisation.

Execution – A View from the Top

About 800 CEOs across 40 countries, participated in a 2007 survey by ‘The Conference Board’. The survey identified 121 different challenges. Excellence of execution was chosen as their top challenge and consistent execution of strategy by top management was chosen as their third greatest concern. Sustained and steady top-line growth was second, profit growth was fourth, and finding qualified managerial talent fifth. It appears that these top-5 concerns tell a simple but powerful story – i.e., execution of plans through people is vital to drive revenue and bottom-line growth.

As an Executive Coach now and as someone who has led businesses, I have had the opportunity to look at the subject of execution from the outside and inside, with much fascination. It is this perspective that I bring to the article.

Execution as a culture and a discipline

While much emphasis is placed on formulation of strategy and plans – both in B-school curriculum as well as within work places, prudent senior executives and CEOs understand the interdependence of strategy and execution. For them execution is an all-pervading discipline and a significant part of a company’s culture.

Companies aspire to achieve aggressive goals and the congruence of achieved-results with aspirations is an outcome of relentless focus on execution, right from the CEO, all the way down. The best laid plans can be challenged and a CEO with a bias towards execution constantly strives to narrow the gap between aspiration and results – thereby earning the trust and respect of the board and the shareholders as well as that of the employees.

For a company to make the journey of strategy-to-desired results, it must build the skills and competences required across the levels in the company. A CEO who values the discipline of execution knows that an execution culture is built painstakingly over time and losing it is easy. No wonder the CEOs picked “keeping consistent execution” as one of the priorities in the 2007 survey.

Where the rubber hits the road

Companies that build and sustain an execution culture know that strategy and execution come alive in the fringes and so the execution ability of front-line employees – at the shop-floor, at various customer touch-points etc. is vital.

In such companies, the front-line employees use company operating systems and problem solving approaches like Six-Sigma, supported by the management’s strong bias (from the CEO, all the way down) for self-managed teams to enhance their execution abilities. A workplace where front-line is steeped in an execution culture is characterised by a good understanding of the big picture and how the unit / cell / team level goals and action plans are linked to the big picture, standard-work / procedure, data-gathering to understand variance and causes and taking remedial actions, seeking customer (internal/external) feedback, visual score-boards, team-meetings, and established escalation processes.

Interestingly, I have noticed that execution oriented cultures tend to demonstrate strong social competencies like confidence, intentionality, relatedness, capacity to communicate and cooperativeness given the emphasis on self-managed teams and teamwork in general.

Competencies that characterise Execution

In a company that executes at the middle- and upper-management levels, it is all about providing strong sponsorship to the front-line and setting them up for success. The efficacy of this sponsorship depends on the competence of the managers.

The vital few are:

1. Professional Competence: Contemporary, deep domain-expertise; Core-skills of execution: Planning skills – covering goals, timelines, resources allocation and metrics, risk analysis and mitigation.
2. Managerial Competence: Goal-setting; Delegating with accountability; Managing for performance – setting up and working the reporting and review systems, managing review meetings.
3. Leadership Competence: Clarifying the big-picture and linking it to initiatives; Leveraging interdependence; Leveraging Diversity; Surfacing issues, stepping up to conflict and conflict resolution; Overcoming fears and limiting beliefs – such as fear of failure.
4. Coaching Competence: Feedback and counselling for performance improvement; Motivating individuals and teams; Understanding teams and team – dynamics; Bias for learning.

Companies that push hard for an execution culture Coach their managers to develop the above skills to make them successful at execution. I have always realised that improving leadership and Coaching competencies calls for stepping up psychological literacy with a very strong emphasis on continuous self-awareness. An early exposure to and awareness of the Rogerian concept of fully-functioning person and the use of self-awareness interventions can help the individual take actions for self-improvement.

Managers focused on execution show significantly higher levels of understanding and use of Emotional Intelligence. They deploy the psychological competences of a Coach having an inquiry-based approach that balances the managerial, directive-based approach and take a lesson-learning view on failures. Social competencies of managers who are good at execution include skills like being able to step up to conflict by seeing constructive opportunity in conflict, keeping stakeholders included and managing relationships with objectivity while recognising the emotions involved. So contrary to popular belief. “Managers who thrive in execution cultures on a sustained basis are psychologically literate and emotionally intelligent, far from the alpha male that they are made out to be”

CEO leads by Example

The gap between aspirations and achieved results is all about execution and it all starts with the CEO who is:

• Passionate about his / her vision and goals.
• Focused on building a top-team where commitment to vision and values are fundamental for membership while professional competence, accountability for results, espousing constructive-conflict and building trust are vital for staying on as a member.
• Driven by the belief that execution is fundamental to strategy and it has to shape it. Therefore he / she shows equal emphasis and ease in crafting strategy as well as the review of action plans, down to the “last-mile” initiatives.
• Actively engaged in communicating across the various levels of the organisation and uses the opportunities to share vision and talks of actions and results.
• Using every opportunity to have conversations that help uncover realities that could impact the journey to results. Using the knowledge of business to constantly probe and question to bring weaknesses to light and rally the people to correct them with the aid of operating systems and excellence framework that are established in the company.
• Concerned about alignment and fairness of rewards system with goals-set.
• Championing the vision and goals with all the board and other external stakeholders and enlisting their support to help the organisation succeed.
• Constantly working on his / her self-awareness and demonstrates at all times the fearlessness in putting results before personal status, holding people accountable and shunning personal popularity, valuing reasonable clarity over picture-perfect precision, seeing opportunity in conflict rather than settling for the comfort of harmony and showing his / her vulnerabilities to earn trust.

Coaching the CEO

Finally, given the paradoxical situation of having to commit to “employee engagement” with a “lonely at the top” feeling, one may be right to conclude that perhaps at the CEO’s job, the psychological competencies assume a much heightened importance. By visibly seeking out Coaching opportunities for themselves proactively, the CEO can reinforce the fundamental belief that continuous learning for improvement is at the core of the organisation’s execution culture.

The ability to set a purposeful vision, build and nurture a top-team, articulate strategy and following through by keeping employees engaged in actions with an accountability for results, are all exciting but daunting challenges for the CEO. This is where CEO Coaching for execution can make a huge difference.

The CEO Coach who is qualified (as a Coach) and experienced (having been a CEO) comes with a strong blend of expertise and experience to hold conversations with the CEO and help the CEO look at his own style and its effectiveness for execution.

These Coaching conversations can also respectfully and meaningfully challenge the CEO’s beliefs and behaviours, in the interest of improving the execution within the organisation. The Coaching intervention then moves to the next phase where the Coach helps the CEO craft sustainable strategies to achieve the outcome and then undertake an objective assessment of progress made by the CEO. In fact, the whole Coaching experience in itself can be a ‘proving ground’ for the CEO’s beliefs about execution.

Derailers that jeopardise execution

Just as I have noticed several common threads among CEOs who are excellent at execution, I have also seen the existence of the “usual suspects” list of causes that derail execution because of the CEO style.

When the CEO does not spend enough time on execution; does not hold people accountable; does not move fast to replace / change players on his team; does not shed bias towards pet theories his own and others; does not engage in conversations that surface realities; does not deal with turf-wars; does not commit to resources even after a strong case; does not show genuine interest in Coaching his team; does not show tolerance to and take a lessons-learnt view of failures; does not pay attention to rewards and recognition, I have seen execution fail.

Managers in an organisation tend to model their behaviour around what the CEO expects (or tolerates) and consequently, much of the “execution-derailers” that show up at the highest levels in the company, manifest all the way down to the front -line.

Execution What separates the best from the rest

A CEO’s success depends on deliverables as seen / felt by the customers, the board, the employees, the suppliers and other stakeholders. The consistency and the trend of results over a period of time, despite the vicissitudes of economic and market cycles are vital. Such balanced and consistent performance calls for a CEO who espouses execution and works relentlessly on keeping alive the organisation’s execution-culture. Most importantly execution depends as much on emotional intelligence as it does on strategic insights – a relationship seldom understood.

References:

1. Daniel Goleman (1995), Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books, NY, USA.
2. Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan (2005), Execution – The Discipline Of Getting Things Done, Crown Business, NY, USA.
3. Patrick Lencioni (2002), The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Jossey Bass, USA
4.  Patrick Lencioni (1998), The Five Temptations of a CEO, Jossey Bass, USA
5. Sharon Daniels(2010) , For a Better Career Outlook, Look Inward, 
6. http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/09/for_a_better_career_outlook_lo.html

Sundar Parthasarathy is a CEO Coach who consults in strategy and business excellence. He was the President & Managing Director – Otis India

Business Coaching in an M&A context

By: N.Raghunandan

“Mergers & Acquisitions are a business reality among mid-size corporations. In such contexts, entrepreneurs constantly seek Coaches to resolve some of the professional dilemmas arising out of these crucial decisions. In the case I am about to narrate, the entrepreneur was confronted with an acquisition question – “to sell or not to sell” a company that he assiduously built. As a Coach who worked with the entrepreneur, I present the case in the form of a fable to illustrate how a “well structured, non-prescriptive Coaching process” helps the Coachee come out with a framework that he used as a permanent acid test to resolve this acquisition issue.

The framework evolution happens through a three stage process with ample emphasis given to the emotional aspects:

1. Data collection and analysis
2. Reconciling the data and the Business Context through unveiling the real story.
3. Moving the Coachee from Reconciliation to Action. The Coach also used certain alternate interventions in line with the subject matter expertise that was required to ensure that the Coachee was able to reconcile his personal aspirations and had realistic expectations from the market place.”

The Coachee’s dilemma

I was immersed in a breath taking view of the vast Bay of Bengal from the top floor of my Coachee’s office, when my Coachee began talking about a business dilemma he had to overcome. To sell his company or not to sell his Company – that was his question. He was telling me that a large multinational had offered him 6 million USD and this would mean enough money for him to retire in peace. Knowing that he owned a large majority of the company, his friends at the Club kept pushing him with some “good” advice like, “What are you waiting for man – Collect the cash and go to the Caribbean”. It was then that the Coach in me awoke to the scene and I decided not to give him free advice like his friends but to skilfully unveil the story behind the question. If deciding to cash out was so simple for him, I realised I would not be sitting in front of him.

It was my job as a Coach, trained in Skilled Helping to adhere to the strict belief that the answers to the Coachee’s questions lay deep inside his intellect and that it was my duty to shine the torch and get him to own the question and the answer. Now came the challenge of adapting a structured Coaching model to this M&A situation. I proceeded to acquire as much relevant data as possible through dialogue and assessment tools.

Stage 1

The data acquisition and analysis stage

My first attempt was to understand my Coachee’s personality type and to establish the relevance of this acquisition dilemma to his current business context. I also embarked on a series of empathic dialogues, which included the history of his business, his own personal aspirations and his professional outlook for the future. It was necessary to unveil his current state of mind in the context of the M&A. This, I surmised could also be a clear pointer as to why he was finding it tough to take a call and why he needed my “Skilled Help.”

The data that was available at the end of this stage was the following

1. Personality Type

My Coachee turned out to be a Highly expressed extraverted personality with a large leaning to be a paternalistically driven and gut feel (intuition) based self made individual. MBTI – type ENFJ.

2. Business History

He came from a lower middle class family with no other earning member. Against all odds he started the Company during the early 1990s.

•  Grew from a small 12 man team doing mass mailing for a leading bank.
• Slowly diversified into becoming their customer service department for letters.
• Grew to handle more than 10000 letters a month.
• By 2003, more units of various multinational banks became his clients.
• Today, his company provides a wide range of banking support services including both back end and front end support for divisions such as credit cards processing, retaining credit card customers, loans processing, customer service, outbound telemarketing for loans etc.

With a team strength of around 1250 they are a reputed provider of backend services to large banks and are housed in a large 50000 sq feet space which they own.

3. Personal aspirations

• To create enough wealth in the next 6 to 7 years, in order to be able to satisfy and fulfill the professional and financial aspirations of his loyal core team members, who have been instrumental in his success and growth.
• To leave behind a good professionally managed and financially successful conglomerate of companies, for his sons to take over and run independently from the year 2016 onwards (he planned to retire from a full time CEO position).
• To go more “Rural” and attempt to do more and more services with the help of rural youth, thereby achieving “Cost Effectiveness” on one hand and “Satisfaction of contributing towards Society” on the other. He already was employing 100 people in a rural setting and was proud about how he felt life in the villages around his rural venture had changed for the better.

Armed with this data, it seemed quite infeasible that he would ever sell his company and retire. But obviously he was seeing some merits in a financial exit. May be this was what needed to be probed during the next few Coaching sessions.

Stage 2

Reconciling the data, the Business Context and the acquisition question through unveiling the real story

During the Coaching sessions, I needed to establish the real issue that was keeping him from selling the Company and then help him evolve a way forward to resolving the same. Some key probes had to be administered and these had to connect the current acquisition question to his context and his aspirations. It needed two Coaching sessions to establish a large enough empathy and to challenge the Coachee into getting him to opine on the issues presented below. The probes were however framed differently and were based on conflicts/feelings that he had raised all through this stage.

The Key Dilemma was then narrowed down to:

a. was the current offer good enough in his mind in terms of accelerating the wealth that he aspired to create over the next 6 to 7 years? How much money did he want in the bank at the end of his tenure and was the current offer in line?

b. what legitimate apprehensions were preventing him from saying an outright “yes” to being acquired?

c. was he feeling that, by selling out he would have too much time on his hands and nothing useful to do, given his high energy levels? Basically did he feel it was too early to retire? This fear was natural given his personality type. This was his real dilemma.

d. was it a serious issue that by selling out, he would be perceived as ditching his loyal employees without giving them a fair share of the pie? Was he concerned that his sons may fritter away his wealth because they had gotten it too early? His strong paternalistic trait had to be reconciled.

e. more importantly“what were key parameters when he would consider saying a YES! to cash out and when would he say NO! ”

Stage 3

Moving from Reconciliation to Action.

Point above was the final trigger that moved the Coachee into action. He started thinking aloud that unless he came out with a clear set of parameters on “why and when” he would say Yes to acquisition, he would continue on an endless mental debate and feel very stressful.

What ensued from these was an unfolding of a wonderful four point framework that the Coachee articulated. The highlights are as follows:

a. The acquirer had to be a large multinational with an ability to offer substantial growth to the current senior and middle management team. The Company would not be sold to another family business or an unknown brand just because the acquisition price was good.

b. The acquirer had to be culturally conscious of the loyalty and hard work that the team had put in and should not plan to indiscriminately cut costs and bring down headcount for at least 3 years.

c. The valuation must be in the region of USD 10 million or higher.

d. The acquisition should not prevent the Owner (Coachee) from pursuing business outside of the current customers and should in no way be a bottleneck to the globalisation and rural service aspirations.

The Coachee re-iterated firmly that this 4 point framework would be his acid test framework for any potential acquisition in the future.

Alternate Interventions

For the Coachee to arrive at this framework, the following alternate interventions were deployed through 3 sessions of Stage 3.

a. The Coachee had to read selected Chapters of the Harvard Business Essentials of Strategic Alliances. This was to help the Coachee understand the motivations of an acquirer and their expectations.

b. A series of conference calls with Investment banking experts. This was to give the Coachee a sense of what kinds of valuations to expect from an acquirer. It also gave him a perspective on whether he could cash out at a later date, should circumstances change.

c. A series of meetings with Corporate lawyers on how M&A agreements are structured. This was to give the Coachee a clear idea of certain negotiable and non-negotiable expectations which acquirers set as conditions for the owners pre and post the acquisition.

And Finally

It was more than 5 months, when the Coachee suddenly called me. He told me “Hey Coach! I rejected 2 acquisition proposals based on the 4 point framework, but here I have one that fulfils the top 3 criteria well. However, they are willing to pay me more money if I compromise on the 4th criterion for the next 3 years. I have decided to go with the deal. I asked him if he was happy, satisfied and had no conflicts. He said “Yes” and I replied “Congratulations!!” .“Silently, I thanked my Coaching guide for constantly re-affirming to me that what really works is a structured non-prescriptive Coaching process.”

N.Raghunandan is CEO of Disha Strategic Foundation, Chennai and a CEO Coach