Richard Lannon

Every year I look forward to publishing this article. It is a reminder to me that we all need to limit or manage the noise that is around us.

As I chat with business leaders and people in general a common theme has been feelings of being intensely busy and, not surprisingly, people are feeling fatigued and a bit out of balance. This is normal when working in business environments that are serving client needs, leading change and making improvements to help grow our economy.

As we transition into the new year, now is the perfect time to reflect on what business leaders and professionals need create a sustainable future; it’s time to talk about work life balance, again.

There are common reasons we feel out-of-balance including lack of short and long term planning, the inability to say no, trying to please everyone, a lack of respect and understanding of what is important, poor organizational skills and a lack of personal mission or sense of purpose. That’s a lot to consider… and it can be exhausting. The reality is balance or work-life balance means something different to each person. It’s an independent thing.

In western society, our outlook on work-life balance is a bit ironic. Most of the programs that we talk about are focused on making plans to create work-life balance. Here lies the irony: striving for balance interferes with being balanced. That’s why it is important to examine what balance means to you. Striving can affect balance because balance is more internal whereas striving is external and based on achieving. To strive is to be in some way dissatisfied. Are you striving for balance?

Once you understand the concept of work-life balance and what is important to you, it is easier to consider what you can do to put your life in balance. Sometimes creating work-life balance can be easy with just a few minor adjustments and, other times, it can be difficult and requires help from others. If you are overwhelmed, do not be afraid to seek assistance. Many organizations offer employee assistance programs and there are many community organizations out there to help. Just ask.

To get you started, here are twelve tips to help you create work-life balance in your busy and active life and maybe help make our lives even better:

• Take a break from it all and think about what is important to you – ‘tis the season after all!
• Find your healthy pace and make it clear to others – this creates accountability.
• Build fun into all that you do in your life.
• Resolve conflicts as they will eat away at you until resolved.
• Take care of yourself, not just others – find the self space.
• Choose your friends wisely as they can make or break you.
• Keep your goals but drop the plans.
• Learn to better manage your time through time boxing and set boundaries.
• Delegate and share your load – we are not super-powered but we are all heroes.
• Deal with unfairness and resist peer pressure.
• Appreciate beauty (in a good way) and simplify your life
• Treat yourself – do not obsess and let things go.

As you start a new season and think about your commitments to your organization, team, relationships and yourself, consider your work-life balance and what it means to you and those around you. Maybe create an anti-plan with no focus on goals and objectives but rather a better life. This thought is coming from a planner and implementer.

The basic message is that it is important that we find that place where we effectively stay balanced in our noise-filled world. What ever that means for you?

Have a great 2015!

This Weeks Red Question: What one life change can you make this year that will make a difference in your life and the life of those around you?

There is a lot going on in your organization, all sorts of things that you need to wrap your head around. The challenge is that you first need to truly understand the issues and determine how to address them.
This is where Issue-Based or Goal-Based strategic planning is used.

Issue-Based planning is probably the most common planning process for tactical managers to use. It starts with a review of the organization’s mission, vision, values and guiding principles; this ensures that management is practicing aligned thinking and has the right mindset to dig deeper and solve business problems.

Issue-Based Planning can be divided into ten key steps:

Have the team perform a SWOT Analysis for the business area they are focused on. A SWOT is a strategic tool that can be used at an organization, department, team or individual level to understand external and internal factors that impact the business. It requires candid assessments of your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Often teams fail at this as they lack objectivity when looking at their own organization. Consider independent help from an expert.

Strategic analysis to identify and prioritize major issues and goals. This includes grouping the issues and setting key goals around them. At this point you need to avoid the knee jerk reaction of trying to hide, defend or solve the problems. It’s all about getting organized.

Design major strategies or programs to address issues and goals. This is where you can start to work towards more detailed approaches to solve the key challenges that you are facing.

Design and update vision, mission and values (if needed). Often this is something that you may not need to do. It just depends on the extremes of the situation. If the mission and vision are out of line with the issues or goals then there is some redefining to consider. The better thing to do is get the tactical management team to align with the mission and vision of the organization.

Establish action plans, objectives, resource needs, roles and responsibilities for implementation of the plan. Do not miss this opportunity. A number of organizations miss this opportunity because they do not have an individual or team that they can assign responsibility and accountability to in order to ensure things get done.

Record issues / goals and update any strategy materials including your visual action plans from your higher-level planning sessions.
Consider developing a yearly Operating Plan document from year one to a multi-year plan that can be reviewed at an annual senior planning session. Issues must be addressed in this session to see how things have progressed.
Have your teams develop budget for capital, project and operational expenses related to the business solutions to solve the business issues.

Build in key performance indicators and an accountability model that the management team accepts and will work towards.

Conduct the organization’s year-one strategic, tactical and operation review to determine your success at dealing with the issues that were defined.

Monitor, review, evaluate and update any strategic and tactical planning documents including strategic road maps and visual planning aids. Do not allow your plans to sit on a shelf. Make them active documents that must be brought to all high-level meetings.

Issue-Based Planning is all about driving out the issues of the organization. It is important that the team can think in terms of real issues and have a level of confidence that their voice will be heard. This is where training in issue-based planning is important for the management team as they will be required to dig deeper into the issues and develop comprehensive solutions to business problems.

It is a challenge to look at business issues, but with a little focus and a well-developed approach management can create their own success.

This Weeks Red Question: In today’s economy what issues are you facing?

Here’s how to identify them and what to do about them

Recently I presented a breakout session on Group Dyamanics and the Characters in the Room to about 100 participants. The audience was a combination of business leaders and professionals all striving to improve their abilities to effectively work with groups. An interesting dialogue happened so I thought I would share.

As a business leader your business acumen is important to develop. One of the skills you need is the ability to facilitate to solve business problems. Sometimes the group dynamics create challenges that need to be overcome.

In working with groups, there are a number of dynamics at play. It is helpful if you consider the different group characters and how to deal with them. Here are nine for you to think about.

The Isolater: This is that one person who remains outside the group or is thinking about previous topics. Consider spending time helping people get acquainted or have discussions using pairing and triads. Provide opportunities for debriefing or summarizing what was discussed. Get the participants involved.

The Monopolizer: We all know this person. They monopolize the time and focus of the group. Be clear on your expectations, use your body language to hurry the speaker, or when they take a breath say “thank you” and ask for other comments. You can also use a parking lot to write their points down. It is best NOT TO INTERRUPT, however, it is OK to watch for the talkers to draw a breath and leap into the instant of silence this creates to try to regain control. Move fast, but speak softly and gently.

The Facilitator as Expert: Your best “Rule of Thumb”. . . do not go there. The facilitator should never set themselves up as the expert. You are there to understand the requirements and help establish direction. Consider avoiding answering every question yourself by letting group members respond to each other. Do not feel obliged to comment on everything that everyone says. Reduce your own authority by sitting down with the group.

Group Sharply Divided: This is where the groups are together physically but not together in interests or point of view. Mix the group up and get people to move around the room. Put them in new requirement work teams and assign the groups a specific relevant task to complete. Have team members present and then debrief. If a solution cannot be reached, get agreement to park it! Make sure you ask the group if they feel comfortable moving on even though the issue dividing them is not settled. Be prepared with several group exercises, tools and techniques. Most important, keep cool, detached, and unhurried. Use a light touch.

Antagonistic Duo: These are the two people exchanging negative vibes and everyone is uncomfortable. Confirm that conflict is positive and ask them to continue their disagreement. Set the stage by moving them closer together, arrange other group members as observers, and establish a scribe. Most importantly make explicit ground rules for conflict. Ask group members for feedback. Get everyone involved by taking the issue away from the duo by saying, “You have highlighted an important issue for us. Here is an exercise for the entire group to participate in that continues exploring these issues but in a different way.

The Cozy Duo: Here two friends are choosing to give each other comfort. They are making side conversations. This is not alright. Best solution is change up the teams and rearrange the seating locations at a break to split the cozy duo up. Position the change as an opportunity to get a different perspective.

Unresolved Members: People are not engaged. It happens. Sometimes people do not understand why they are participating, they never wanted to participate, they just do not care or maybe they are bored. Break time! Check the thermostat and drop the heat in the room. Maybe change things up. Consider a group exercise, a short controversial video on the topic, have the group brainstorm on a new agenda and create consensus. Be brave and leave the room while they do it. The break may help you to refocus and help them to become more active.

Highly Defensive Group: In this case the group members have erected barriers to protect their personal or professional images. This is about self-preservation. You need to get people talking and sharing in a low threat way. Move slowly with no pressure. Focus on facts and intellectual work for a time, gradually introducing small amounts of selective attitude. Avoid role-playing. Be open to revealing more about yourself. Sometimes this sets the stage for other people to reveal information.

The Big Group: If the group has many members and no sense of inter-relatedness be prepared to use pairs, triads and work groups. Rearrange the group into round tables so they can see one-another. Get people discussing specific related topic. Make sure you walk around the room making contact with people. Establish “associate facilitators” to manage the different groups. The larger the group the more ground rules, definition of roles and leadership required. Avoid feeling and attitude work with large groups. Keep people on track.

The most important thing as a senior professional, business analyst, manager or leader in developing your facilitation skills is to have fun and enjoy the process. Find ways to enhance being a facilitator and applying requirements elicitation best practices. Develop your group dynamic skills along with the tools and techniques of requirements elicitation. Remember leverage the group unique character and get the members engaged.

The Red Question: In what way can you use the group character identification to help you facilitate your business planning meetings?