Disciplined People Are Pivotal To Strategy and Result

In this discuss, on practical aspect of strategy, we  examine the possibility of translating the discussions and knowledge about strategy and strategic objective into practical actions that could drive the success of a programme, company or nation, relying on Jim Collins insightful presentation in his book, “Good to Great.” 

The findings of that research on a Fortune 500 of 1, 435 companies for decades showed how the good companies grew better to become great companies by adapting to the application of the principles that drive such transformation.

Jim Collins called the Model, “The Fly Wheel of Success,” casting it basically on Disciplined People, Disciplined Thought and Disciplined Action.

If we take a look at the role of “Disciplined People” in the VVMOSSET Model as it drives Strategy, it gives a sense of the importance of a Mission and the Sense of Mission that is created in the employees when an organisation’s value matches the employee’s and how it fuels success.

This by implication has to do with leadership and team creation, knowing that organisations are propelled by the Vision of the leader and good leadership is a manifestation of disciplined people.

The qualities of a leader of Disciplined People include among others a study in duality- modesty and willfulness, humbleness and fearlessness, unwaveringness, ferocious resolve and an almost stoic determination to do whatever needs to be done to get great results as well as being fantastically driven and infected with an incurable need to produce results.

A Leader’s Team Building focus should be “First Who, and Then What,” meaning that the first step at creating success is to first build a strong team and empower the team to build the strategy.  That obviously runs against most traditions which favour that strategy is first formulated and then a team is built to drive it.

But it’s most interesting that great leaders would turn the strategy formulation and resourcing around from the tradition of first formulating a strategy for the company and then getting people committed and aligned behind the new direction.

To the contrary, the attitude of a leader’s team building focus is to first get the right people in the bus, the wrong people off it and then figure out where to drive it.  Good leaders in essence understand three simple truths.  That, first, if you begin with “who,” rather than “what,” you can more easily adapt to a changing world,  second, if you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away. The right people don’t need to be tightly managed or fired up; they will be self-motivated by the inner drive to produce the best results and be part of creating something great, and thirdly, if you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter whether you discover the right direction; you still won’t have a great company. Great vision without great people is impossible.

The question about “who” comes before the question of “what” turns the “strategy first”. This concept posits that before vision, before strategy, before tactics, before organisational structure and before technology, you must answer the question, who, which means …build your ‘A’ Team.

Why is this so?

The right people will do the right things and deliver the best results they can, regardless of the incentive system. Then, who sits where on the bus is important, meaning that “putting square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes” is absolutely necessary.

And as Jim Collins emphasised to further accentuate that, “The old adage, People are your most important asset” is wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are. Whether someone is the “right person” has more to do with character traits and innate capabilities than with specific knowledge, background or skills”.

The implication of that on the recruitment of the best people is that you try to bring on the bus implies that the you approach should bethus: Practical Discipline #1:  When in doubt, don’t hire, keep looking. Practical Discipline #2: When you know you need to make a people change, Act. The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, then, you have made a hiring mistake. The best people don’t need to be managed. Practical Discipline #3: Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.

Vision and Mission are important in strategy but a Disciplined Leader, who can build the right team by answering the question, “who” before the “what” of strategy, will be well on the way “to do more with less.”

You can achieve value for money and do more with less by doing the right thing and doing things right if you focus on achieving Disciplined People, obviously the right leadership and build the right team in your organisation.