Heart of Management

Author: Heart of Management

  • Measuring and measurements

    Ever wondered why some businesses thrive on strategy while but stumble on execution? Let’s dive into the art of measuring what truly counts. 🎯
    Last time we navigated the budget maze, and it’s understandable that it is linked to measuring success. Post-budget, it’s crucial to deploy different measurements to track progress, ensuring every number not only counts but aligns with both your short-term budget and long-term vision.

    Imagine fueling your strategy with measurements that resonate across all organizational silos, syncing short-term actions with the overarching goals. 🔄 We believe in a world where every number tells a story, where the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and Getting Things Done (GTD) aren’t just tools but the very lifelines that ensure our strategies breathe and thrive.
    Often it happens those measurements within different teams’ clash? Sales vs. Marketing, Operations vs. Development – sound familiar? We advocate for a synchronized approach, reducing conflicts and enhancing alignment. It’s about harmonizing the numbers, ensuring everyone’s efforts contribute to organizational success.
    💡 While individuals might be rewarded based on specific metrics, the guiding star should always be the collective goal of the organization, marrying personal achievements with our broader mission.

    Let’s not just aim for the stars. Let’s navigate by them, aligning our teams and achieving the extraordinary. Because when we measure what matters, we’re not just running a business; we’re on a mission to redefine success.
    Do you believe in the power of aligned measurements? How do you ensure your metrics narrate the right story? Share your insights, and let’s catalyze a movement towards meaningful metrics.

  • Budgeting Unveiled: The Ultimate Guide to Turning Numbers into Your company’s superpower

    In the last posts we dealt with the higher levels of aims and inspirations of a firm, in the next ones we are going to talk about the different processes that can those higher goals.

    Transform Your Annual Budget from a Chore to Your Competitive Edge

    Budgeting. It often conjures images of spreadsheets, forecasts, and endless numbers. But what if we told you that creating an annual budget for your business could be the most thrilling adventure you embark on this year?

    Here’s why:

    • The Secret Weapon: Imagine your budget not just as a financial forecast, but as a compass steering your business through the oceans of growth and innovation. It’s your hidden strategic ally, guiding every decision towards success.
    • The Great Debate Resolved: Ever wonder whether top-down or bottom-up budgeting wins? The answer is neither. The real champion is a Hybrid Model that combines the visionary aims of your C-suite with the ground-level insights of your teams. It’s like having a GPS that’s been fed data from both the satellite and the terrain.

    Real-World Magic Happens Here: Picture a local cafe that revolutionized its budgeting approach. By adopting a hybrid model, they not only balanced their books but also funded a sustainable sourcing initiative that skyrocketed their popularity. A tangible tale of strategic budgeting turning into a community triumph.

    Make It Practical: Start small. Pick one department or project. Apply the hybrid approach—align it with your big picture and ground-level realities. Watch as this mini experiment fosters a culture of collaboration and strategic thinking.

    The Visual Guide: Alongside this narrative, imagine an infographic summarizing these key points with clear, actionable steps. A visual that’s not just informative but shareable, making complex concepts accessible at a glance.

    Your Action Plan:

    1. Reflect: How does your current budgeting process align with your strategic vision?
    2. Experiment: Implement the hybrid model in a small scale within your organization.
    3. Share: Tell us about your experience. Did the hybrid model bring new insights? Engage with this post and let’s start a dialogue.

    The Ultimate Goal: Your annual budget is more than numbers on a page; it’s the blueprint of your company’s future success. By reimagining budgeting as a strategic tool, we can transform it into an engine for innovation, efficiency, and growth.

    Why This Matters Now: In a world where business dynamics shift rapidly, having a budget that’s both visionary and grounded can make all the difference. It’s time to elevate your budgeting from a financial necessity to a strategic cornerstone.

    Let’s Connect: If you’re ready to redefine budgeting and turn it into your business’s superpower, let’s start the conversation.

  • Strategic Versus Tactical: Understanding the Differences (part 2)


    This continues the post from last week

    ‏3. Relationship Between Strategic and Tactical:

    ‏ Interdependence: Strategic and tactical decisions are interdependent and influence each other. Effective tactical execution is essential for realizing strategic goals, while strategic clarity provides direction for tactical decision-making.

    ‏ Alignment: Both levels of decision-making must be aligned with the organization’s mission, vision, and values. A disconnect between strategic intent and tactical implementation can lead to inefficiencies and missed opportunities.

    ‏ Feedback Loop: The feedback loop between strategic and tactical levels allows for continuous improvement. Tactical outcomes inform strategic adjustments, while strategic insights guide refinements in tactical approaches.

    ‏4. Real-Life Examples:

    ‏ Strategic Example: Consider a multinational corporation aiming to expand its market presence in emerging economies. The strategic decision might involve entering new markets, diversifying product lines, and investing in R&D to cater to local preferences. This strategic direction sets the stage for tactical initiatives such as market research, distribution channel development, and localized marketing campaigns.

    ‏ Tactical Example: Within the same corporation, a tactical decision could involve streamlining supply chain processes to reduce manufacturing costs and improve product availability. This operational efficiency initiative supports the broader strategic goal of market expansion by enhancing competitiveness and profitability in target regions.

    ‏Conclusion:
    ‏In essence, the distinction between strategic and tactical lies in their scope, timeframe, and level of detail. While strategic decisions shape the overarching direction of an organization, tactical decisions drive day-to-day operations and implementation. Understanding the relationship between these two levels of decision-making is crucial for effective planning, execution, and ultimately, achieving organizational success.

  • Strategic Versus Tactical: Understanding the Differences(part 1)

    The previous post was about “Vision, purpose, mission and values”, those are the high-level aspirations of the organization. The next level is strategy and then tactics.

    ‏In the realm of planning and decision-making, the concepts of “strategic” and “tactical” are frequently used but often misunderstood. While both terms are essential for achieving organizational goals, they serve distinct purposes and require different approaches. Let’s delve into the nuances of strategic versus tactical, exploring their definitions, associated processes, relationship, and real-life examples.

    1.Definitions:

    Strategic:
    Strategic decisions are high-level, long-term choices that set the direction and overarching objectives of an organization. These decisions involve allocating resources, identifying competitive advantages, and positioning the organization within its environment.

    Tactical:
    Tactical decisions, on the other hand, are short-term actions or plans designed to implement the broader strategic goals. They focus on specific tasks, operations, or initiatives aimed at achieving immediate objectives.

    2. Associated Processes

    ‏ Strategic Processes: strategic planning typically involves extensive research, analysis, and forecasting. It encompasses activities such as environmental scanning, SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), goal setting, and resource allocation. Strategic decisions often require input from top-level executives and consideration of long-term implications.

    Tactical Processes: tactical planning is more operational and involves detailed execution plans to accomplish strategic objectives. This includes activities like project management, budgeting, task delegation, and performance monitoring. Tactical decisions are made by mid-level and frontline managers who focus on implementing strategies efficiently and adapting to immediate challenges.

    We will continue with this post next week.

  • Vision, purpose, mission and values

    Rarely, unless you are an owner or a top team member you can set the vision, purpose, mission and values of a firm, but still, we think that it’s worth knowing the distinctions.

    Every organization needs a clear compass to navigate towards a brighter future. Defining the vision, purpose, mission and values provides this crucial direction.

    The vision sets sights on the “promised land” that leaders hope to reach. It captivates what the future will look like if the organization realizes its fullest potential. Walt Disney once said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” This visionary spirit drove him to turn swampland into the magical kingdom of Disney World.

    Purpose guides organizations on why the journey is worthwhile. Purpose rallies people for a common cause beyond profits, keeping them committed through ups and downs.

    Patagonia’s purpose is “We’re in business to save our home planet.” This drives their efforts to make sustainable outdoor gear and environmental activism.

    If vision scopes the destination and purpose explains why go there, mission maps the route. Mission describes what the organization offers the world, clarifying daily operations. For example, American Express’s mission is to “provide innovative payment, travel and expense management solutions for individuals and businesses of all sizes.” This focuses product offerings and customer service.

    Finally, values serve as cultural cornerstones. They mold decisions at every level, anchoring the organization’s integrity. Southwest Airlines built a fun-loving, people-centric culture with values like: “Work hard, play hard”, “Choose your attitude” and “No surprises”. Employees reportedly enjoy the workforce so much that one-third met their spouse on the job!
    Getting these elements right provides a compass towards aspiration, a North Star of purpose, a map for mission and cultural cornerstones. Savvy leaders revisit these to guide evolving organizations. Vision, purpose, mission and values supply clarity for future growth when shaped collectively.


    To make it short and easy to remember:

    Vision: to provide a sense of DIRECTION.

    Purpose: WHY is it worthwhile.

    Mission: HOW we achieve the direction.

    Values: HOW we behave (code of conduct).

  • Giving feedback- part 2

    Preparing the feedback (continued from last week)

    Next, start to phrase the subject of the feedback, the thing you are not satisfied with, the thing that bothers you and you want to change. The subject should be very specific, well defined and down to the point. It should describe the behaviors or opinions you wish the other party to change or improve. Write down and explain how it makes you feel, think and act towards the other person and the way it will affect you if it changes.

    Setting up the feedback meeting

    Speak directly with the other person and tell them that you would like to set up a feedback meeting. It is important that the other person understands that this is a feedback session – you wouldn’t want them to be surprised during the feedback session. Don’t get into details. If the other person insists say that you are not ready yet to discuss and prefer to wait for the meeting. Schedule the meeting in a quiet, private area where both of you can talk face to face without distraction.

    The feedback session
    Thank the other person for coming to the meeting and then explain that you’ve prepared for the meeting. Start with going through the positive feedback, at the end of each point, ask the other person if they understand and agree to it. Listen carefully and write down the important parts of what they said. After this is finished, start with the negative part of the feedback session. After going through the explanation and the examples stop and ask the other person if they understood and what do they think and feel towards what you just said. Listen carefully and ask questions. A very important question is how you (the one giving the feedback) can help the other person fill in the gap described in the feedback. In this part of the discussion, you are as responsible as the other side for finding a solution and closing the gap. It is of utmost importance that you conduct yourself with responsibility and open mindedness without accusing the other person. You should try to reach an understanding about actions you should both take in order to close the gap introduced in your feedback.
    Summarize the discussion and agree to meet again for a follow up, after a timeframe you both agree upon.
    Thank the other person again for coming to the meeting.

    Post feedback session
    Send the other person the summary of the things you agreed upon. Track your and their behaviors according to what you agreed. In due time, schedule the follow up session. During the follow up session, discuss what happened since your last meeting. Try to find out if any actions and decisions should be revised and decide whether you should meet again.

    One thing we keep reminding ourselves is that the process of giving feedback to someone is a gift, it gives the other party an opportunity to learn something about themselves, something that they are usually not aware of. Done properly it will increase the level of confidence between us and the other person.

  • Giving feedback- Part 1

    This post was a very long one, so we decided to divide it into two parts. The second part will be posted next week.

    One of the most useful and important tools managers can have is the ability to give and receive feedback effectively. We also referred to this post in previous posts because it involves the collision of two important values: being honest and politeness or caring.
    After gaining some practice in the process it can become a habit which we will be able to utilize effectively on many different occasions with many different people. For us, the time spent on giving or getting feedback was always most effective and significant in changing the way both us and the other people involved acted in the future.

    So, what is the most effective way to do it? How is it done?
    Well, I’m sure there are many ways to do it, here’s what works for us:
    Whenever it is to your colleagues, your employees or your boss, the ability to give effective feedback may sometimes make the difference between success and failure.

    Giving feedback requires you to first understand what message you want to convey to the other party. What do you want the outcome of the process to be?
    Like almost anything in life, you should start by asking yourself, what would the end result be like?
    Unlike many other issues in life, giving feedback at the wrong timing, without proper preparation and to someone who is not ready or cannot contain the feedback might bring the opposite results. We like to compare the process of giving feedback to playing with fire, done properly it can be beautiful and exciting, one wrong move and you may burn yourself.
    We should bear in mind that giving feedback is a very sensitive process that should be handled carefully.

    The preparation phase:
    There are many reasons to give other people feedback. Doing it for the first time with someone may be very different from the next sessions in the future. We truly believe that the most important part of the process is the preparation phase. This is also the phase where we invest most of our time in the process.
    Start thinking about some good, positive things you think or feel about the person getting the feedback from you, and write them down. Those can be things you share in common, personal traits you admire in them or things you trust them to do. Write down how those things make you feel towards the other person, what it makes you think about them, how it makes you act in a different way. Try to think about examples in the past, write those down as well. Starting with this positive feedback will build the other person’s confidence and will make it much easier for them to listen to the negative feedback.

    Next week we will continue and finish the post.

  • Responsibility is greater than authority

    One of the common things that managers find difficult is situations where their responsibility does not correspond directly with their authority.

    In the past, managers were accountable for things that were directly in their line of authority. It was accepted that you can hold a person accountable for something, only if he has authority over it. This was tolerable in the highly hierarchical organizations of the past where changes both in the organization and the environment were minor, although occasionally you would encounter failures in situations where the responsibility for something was not well defined and things were falling “between the lines”.

    The situation today is blurry. The business environment changes rapidly, this causes several things, among them:
    1. Organizations become more and more complex.
    2. It is almost impossible to define clear and rigid borders between different roles / positions.

    To cope with the rate of change a manager needs to be responsible and cope with many issues which couldn’t be defined in advance.
    It is obvious that even in the past the definition of responsibility for a certain position should have been broader than the authority, nowadays it is mandatory!
    So, how do you convey this
    “inconvenient truth” to a manager?
    Usually the conversation goes like this: Senior manager “Do you remember that situation? We think you should have done that…” Junior manager “How could I have done it? I am not responsible for that budget, I don’t have the resources required to take action.”
    Having been through many of such conversations, this is what we usually do in such situations:
    We start with ourself, trying to understand if we’re behaving as a good role models. How do we act in similar situations? It is not possible to convey such a message if you are not up to it yourself!
    One other benefit we gain from this self examination is gathering examples of right and wrong from our experience.
    Usually we explain rationally why it is mandatory that responsibility exceeds authority.
    We discuss the situation at hand and give examples of how we would have dealt with the situation given the lack of authority. We think that it is very useful to share situations from one’s own experience – explain how we did act, what was good and what was wrong in the actions we have taken or avoided taking.
    The problem is universal, the larger the manager you become, the larger the gap between your authority and responsibility. Making this distinction (that responsibility > authority) clear is not an easy task. As we develop and grow as managers we are able to contain and stretch the gap between authority and responsibility. Or maybe it is the other way around – the more we are able to stretch the gap between responsibility and authority, the bigger the situations we can handle and the larger the managers we become.

  • Values and Integrity (renewed)

    Hi there, today’s post might seem theoretical or philosophical but it is very important and has a practical end, so please bear with us.
    One definition of values is the belief of a person or a social group in which they have an emotional investment. This definition of values doesn’t include any reference to whether the values are “good” or “bad” (of course the perception if something is good or bad is subjective). Even a criminal has values (although they might be very different from the values an ordinary man withholds). When we talk about “values”, our definition is a little more specific. For us values indeed involve a deep emotional investment, but they also include an association with a code of conduct. Our values dictate the way we believe we should behave in many situations. For instance, if one of our values is honesty, it immediately dictates that we’ll do whatever we can in order to tell the truth.
    Our definition for integrity is how much one is committed to his own values. Again a little different from the dictionary where integrity stands for “moral soundness”. According to our definition if someone’s set of values include the value of honesty and he lies occasionally, it means that his integrity is questionable.
    Having a high level of integrity is critical when leading people for these reasons:
    1. If you and the people you lead share the same values, then following you when you stand up for those values is much easier for your followers.
    2. Even if you don’t share exactly the same values, following your values consistently will make your behaviors more understandable and predictable, thus increasing both self confidence and trust of the people you lead.
    Things become more complex when there is a conflict between different values you hold. For instance, if you hold the value of being polite and the value of honesty, a conflict between those two might arise (as often happens in many cultures). Such a dilemma can be solved if you are able to understand the importance of each value, which value is more important to you, which one is higher in the values hierarchy. A conflict we encountered a few times in the past was the dilemma between being honest (i.e. telling the truth) and causing harm to someone not only by confronting him with some inconvenient criticism but also damaging his self confidence and self esteem when he really needed those. Such conflicts between different values are common in daily life as well as in many managerial situations. It is really important to be able to identify those conflicts and to consciously determine which action should be taken according to the situation and which value prevails in that situation. Being able to do so will keep your high level of integrity and will enable you to explain your decisions and actions even in the more complex situations you encounter. One of our next posts is going to around the subject of giving feedback were such conflict is inherent in the process.

  • Positive Attitude (renewed)

    A positive attitude seems trivial. What could be more basic than that?

    Well, as trivial as it is, having the habit of maintaining a positive attitude, even in the most demanding situations, is not that simple. We think that in order to do so, one has to clearly understand why it is so important.

    Your attitude is one of the first things people will notice about you. We guess that most people won’t start to rationally analyze your attitude, but most of them will surely remain with some sort of first emotional impression about it.

    Even more important than this is the fact that usually other people’s reactions toward you will, to some extent, reflect your attitude back to you. As simple as that, if you smile at somebody, they’ll usually smile back. If you whine to someone, they’ll usually immediately start to tell you about their troubles.

    The effect of having the right or wrong attitude is even stronger in modern-day organizations with complex, multi-dimensional matrix organizational structures. Unlike past, simple hierarchical organizations where people had the chance to know each other on a more intimate level and get past first impressions, in contemporary organizations, you might interact with people for a very brief moment, and the first impression you make, the one that is largely affected by your attitude, might just be your last one.

    Once we understand how crucial it is to maintain a positive attitude, the question that remains is how to do it?

    Maybe the first thing to do is understand your current attitude. This can be done by asking people you know about it. You can ask people you trust and think would be honest with you. It is important to also ask people with whom you might have some difficulties (we intend to write a post about feedback in the near future and we’re going to elaborate on this subject more).

    Once you understand your current attitude, you’ll probably know which parts are your strengths and which are your shortcomings. We’ve found out that the increased awareness about those behaviors immediately makes us increase the good, positive ones and decrease the bad, negative ones.

    Other things that work for us are:

    – Smiling a lot without giving up being honest
    – Being optimistic by seeing the positive side of everything. When we think about this, almost nothing is totally bad or good, you can choose which side you want to emphasize!
    – Being empathetic to others by really listening and understanding their point of view

    Good luck! Please let us know what you think and what works for you.