Alan Mulally has had a very successful career at Ford and Boeing. Over his 45 years as a leader, he developed an approach called “Working Together: Principles, Practices and Management System”. His number one principles is “People first….Love them up”. This type of declaration is simple to make, but not that easy to live when you are facing quarterly reporting of results and the full glare of the stock market. We see so many cases of CEOs firing people, the stock price getting a big boost and that axing of the people turning into many millions of dollars for the CEO personally, as part of their stock-based remuneration package.

Mulally believes that “working together” must be based on a supportive culture propping up the headline. Culture alone won’t do it, though. His system has a governance aspect directing how the leadership team should work together and which maps out how to create value. His review process is central to translating aspirations into realities. The basis of all of this is the philosophy of building a “people first” culture, which is driven by the company structure and the management processes adopted. He insisted that as part of that “people first” idea that “everyone is included”.

He arrived at a formula in three parts, which all operate in lockstep and which generates profitable and or successful growth for all. To get to that end game, Part One is “everybody knows the plan”. When you read this idea, like me, you might be thinking “so what?. Of course, everyone knows the plan because I have told them already – end of conversation”.

When we dig a bit deeper in our thinking, though, we recall that just because we have told people the plan doesn’t mean they accept it, agree with it, or want to execute on it. At the top levels of the company, we come up with the purpose and strategy and then we expect everyone else to deliver what we have envisaged. A Town Hall presentation and a broadcast email may have detailed the plan and we think everyone knows what to do.

Where we fall down is in the follow-up to make sure the message actually got through. We are all business minimalists, shaving time off activities wherever we can, because we are super busy, all the time. We need to double check that what we think people know is fully understood and they are beavering away on it as we expect.

Part Two requires that everyone knows the status of the plan. Often, though, access to sensitive information in companies can be restricted. Not everyone may see the real numbers and the full picture. My predecessor never showed the Profit and Loss numbers to the team. When I took over, I decided to make the financial situation totally transparent. The only protected numbers are salary and commission information relating to individuals. If they wish to share that information amongst themselves, then that is their choice.

Part Three is everyone knows the areas that require special attention. Business is lumpy. Some parts of the business are flying and other parts are limping along. Again, sharing such sensitive information may be restricted. We need to keep referring back to what we stated was the purpose and strategy for the enterprise and keep measuring how well we are delivering against what we have set out for ourselves.

If things are going well, we feel motivated to do more. If things are not going well, we are motivated to try harder to turn things around. When things are not going well, this situation begs the question about how much open knowledge of the pain should be shared. There is the fear for the leader that if the full extent of the problem is made known, the more capable people, who always have options, will exercise them and leave. This is a tricky balance, and there are no clear parameters for leaders to follow. I would suggest that the leader share enough to galvanise the team to action without scaring the daylights out of everyone and people start abandoning ship.

Mulally’s viewpoint is based on many years of hard-won experience. It is straightforward in its formulation. The daily execution against the plan, though, is another question. This is the role of the leader, to take ideas and turn them into living breathing systems which can maximise the potential of the people in the firm.

Ideas are free and sometimes frivolous. We can brainstorm anything we like and we will come up with a bunch of ideas. Often that is where things grind to a shuddering halt. I have been in those rooms, where we covered all the walls with ideas great and mighty. What happened thereafter? Nothing.

In Australia, in the 1990s, the government tightened up their regulations on company expenditures and particularly looked more carefully at “off-site” session expenditures. In many cases, these were boozy get away weekends for the Directors and they could put the tab on the government’s bill by claiming it as a tax expense. One year, the Directors decided to have an actual offsite with intention.

They gathered a group of people christened “game changers” and called in a consulting company to run the weekend. It was a phenomenal experience. We came back from that off-site ready to conquer the world. Some seriously good and extremely practical ideas emerged. They were all duly put into a canvas bag by the Directors and taken down to the river, and with rocks attached, plunged into the dark depths, never to be seen again.

I still don’t know why they never used our ideas, but the feeling of deflation and subsequent decline in motivation on the part of we supposed “game changers” was pronounced.

Here is what should have happened with our genius ideas.

1. The outcomes should have been more clearly defined and tied into the strategic plan for the company.

2. The current situation analysis needed more effort to better highlight the gap between where we were and where we wanted to be.

3. Concrete goals needed to be set based on the ideas generated.

4. Next steps needed to be carefully articulated. These must be defined in clear terms and should have been very specific.

5. Time frames must be attached to the goals, because goals without a time limit are just a dream. There will be various goals and these will include both short-term and long-term outcomes. There needs to be a roadmap created in order to realise them.

6. Ideas always attract money. Maybe this is why our ideas got killed off. The Directors all shared in the proceeds of the business, so perhaps they preferred to allocate the dough amongst themselves, rather than invest it in our thoughts and suggestions.

Money isn’t the only resource required. There is time and staffing required to back up the application of the ideas and if they are in short supply, nothing goes forward.

7. Obstacle anticipation often gets neglected in idea generation, because we are at the front end. When we get to the execution stage, though, this is when the problems emerge. Rather than just dealing with these as they arise, it is good practice to try to scope them out at the start. There will always be some means for overcoming problems. We can find ways to compensate for time, money and staff issues if they are insufficient to sustain the task execution.

8. Measuring results is boring. It is much more fun to brainstorm and then rush around like bees in a bottle executing. Was it all worth it? The only way to know that is to have milestones and measurables against which we can track the amount of progress we have made or not made.

Getting the ideas into reality is never easy, because so many actors have to get involved and it requires substantial cross-platform cooperation. The NIHS or “Not Invented Here Syndrome” is a pain. Our colleagues, who were not selected to be “game changers” or to get involved in the execution piece, are uninterested observers. They have to work on our idea, but they resist being dragged into the work and are happier to lambast what is going on from the cheap seats.

Idea generation and idea application must come as a set. It is better not to start at all, if the ideas cannot be applied. From my experience, I know how devastating it is to waste your valuable time and effort to see your hard earned ideas squandered and slaughtered.

Ideas are free and sometimes frivolous. We can brainstorm anything we like and we will come up with a bunch of ideas. Often that is where things grind to a shuddering halt. I have been in those rooms, where we covered all the walls with ideas great and mighty. What happened thereafter? Nothing.

In Australia, in the 1990s, the government tightened up their regulations on company expenditures and particularly looked more carefully at “off-site” session expenditures. In many cases, these were boozy get away weekends for the Directors and they could put the tab on the government’s bill by claiming it as a tax expense. One year, the Directors decided to have an actual offsite with intention.

They gathered a group of people christened “game changers” and called in a consulting company to run the weekend. It was a phenomenal experience. We came back from that off-site ready to conquer the world. Some seriously good and extremely practical ideas emerged. They were all duly put into a canvas bag by the Directors and taken down to the river, and with rocks attached, plunged into the dark depths, never to be seen again.

I still don’t know why they never used our ideas, but the feeling of deflation and subsequent decline in motivation on the part of we supposed “game changers” was pronounced.

Here is what should have happened with our genius ideas.

1. The outcomes should have been more clearly defined and tied into the strategic plan for the company.

2. The current situation analysis needed more effort to better highlight the gap between where we were and where we wanted to be.

3. Concrete goals needed to be set based on the ideas generated.

4. Next steps needed to be carefully articulated. These must be defined in clear terms and should have been very specific.

5. Time frames must be attached to the goals, because goals without a time limit are just a dream. There will be various goals and these will include both short-term and long-term outcomes. There needs to be a roadmap created in order to realise them.

6. Ideas always attract money. Maybe this is why our ideas got killed off. The Directors all shared in the proceeds of the business, so perhaps they preferred to allocate the dough amongst themselves, rather than invest it in our thoughts and suggestions.

Money isn’t the only resource required. There is time and staffing required to back up the application of the ideas and if they are in short supply, nothing goes forward.

7. Obstacle anticipation often gets neglected in idea generation, because we are at the front end. When we get to the execution stage, though, this is when the problems emerge. Rather than just dealing with these as they arise, it is good practice to try to scope them out at the start. There will always be some means for overcoming problems. We can find ways to compensate for time, money and staff issues if they are insufficient to sustain the task execution.

8. Measuring results is boring. It is much more fun to brainstorm and then rush around like bees in a bottle executing. Was it all worth it? The only way to know that is to have milestones and measurables against which we can track the amount of progress we have made or not made.

Getting the ideas into reality is never easy, because so many actors have to get involved and it requires substantial cross-platform cooperation. The NIHS or “Not Invented Here Syndrome” is a pain. Our colleagues, who were not selected to be “game changers” or to get involved in the execution piece, are uninterested observers. They have to work on our idea, but they resist being dragged into the work and are happier to lambast what is going on from the cheap seats.

Idea generation and idea application must come as a set. It is better not to start at all, if the ideas cannot be applied. From my experience, I know how devastating it is to waste your valuable time and effort to see your hard earned ideas squandered and slaughtered.

Japan has a lot of wisdom to share and one of my favourites is to not start with the solution to a problem. In Japan, the idea is to start with making sure you have the right problem to solve. This is not easy, because often we are super busy and moving at warp speed all the time, so just jumping in to fix a problem sounds like the best approach. There is a follow-on metaphor of the scaling of the wall. We work hard and progress rung by rung up the ladder, getting us to the top - the solution – only to find our ladder is up against the wrong wall. We don’t want that, do we?

Problem definition is sometimes obscured by having a number of factors to confront and not enough insight into which are the priority items. This might be for a lack of a data or from conflicting opinions. The issue remains a large one, though, which we must deal with at the very start of the process.

Here are some steps to consider in problem definition.

Step One: Silence Is Our Super Power

Once we get into an open discussion about identifying the problem, we can find we waste a lot of time and basically get no progress. We argue the toss on what to solve and can get stuck. Instead, have around six people in a team and have them all sit in silence and think. Now thinking is seriously hard work. It is particularly difficult for us today, because we are being corralled by algorithms spewing out one minute videos, fostering shorter and shorter concentration spans.

Ask the team to sit there for fifteen minutes in Round One and do nothing but think and write their issues on Post-It notes. This will be torture for some and very challenging for most. Nevertheless, as the organiser, we have to have guts to ignore the fervent and persistent impatient glancing at watches, head shaking, eyes rolling, yawning, etc., that will go on, as the team is possessed by a wave of boredom.

Step Two: Prioritise Issues

After the first fifteen minutes, everyone stays in silence and now we spend 3 minutes to arrange what we have come up with into a broad priority listing of where to start.

Step Three: Share Together - Round One

Now we start putting our ideas up on a chart or a wall. We attach the Post Its in priority order to the wall and explain our thinking to our colleagues. There is no judgement allowed at this point, because we are still on the journey and we don’t need any decision being taken yet.

Step Four: Whole Team Sharing

Once we get our teams idea’s out, we share it with the other teams and they do the same for us. We try to cross pollinate the thinking going on. There is no evaluation of what has been produced at this point.

Step Five: Think and Prioritise

After that stimulation, again, in silence, we keep thinking for another ten minutes. This is very hard because all the easy ideas have been tapped. Now we have to really dig to find the gold. We will adjust our previous priorities based on our new ideas.

Step Six: Share Together - Round Two

We bring our Post-It notes and add to what we came up with in the first thinking bracket. Again, we share the content with our teammates.

Step Seven: Whole Team Sharing Round Two

Again, each team presents what they have come up with, so that all the teams can share in the ideas.

Step Eight: Each Team Makes Selections

By this stage, we will have had a lot of information shared and we will have a pretty good idea of where everyone has placed their priorities. Now we have to make some decisions about which will be the issues which we will take forward to solve. Each team will coalesce the possibilities into a short list.

Step Nine: Whole Team Makes The Final Selections

Each team presents their selections and then decisions are taken on which issues are going to be picked up to work on.

There is usually a strong raft of similar issues which will have been highlighted. These commonalities make it easy to drive decisions about the final problems to work on. Remember, we are not after perfection here, so if we get good selections, then we are on the right track. We have created a hierarchy of issues to work with and we can get to them all over time. We start with what we consider the most burning issues.

The next stage is to use creative thinking to work on how to solve the issues once clarified and we covered that in a recent episode already.