Peter Drucker famously noted that “culture eats strategy for breakfast” and often referred to the importance of purpose, values and what is the right thing to do. Jim Collins found that great organisations were not distinguished primarily by strategy but rather by leaders with unusual character. Patrick Lencioni’s work on leadership teams argues that the effectiveness of meetings, planning and execution depends on qualities that relate to the relationship you have with your team; trust, healthy conflict, commitment and accountability.
The importance of who you are as a leader and how your values show up in your company is something that is widely accepted as being more important than the processes and activities you implement. This speaks to how you do something, the heart posture behind why you are doing it and the intentional values that guide the doing.
Yet, this seems to be something that organisations struggle with when it comes to practical execution and ensuring consistency regarding this execution.
Best Practice vs Transformational Practice
Would it be possible for you to develop a coaching programme for our clients that helps them build great sales organisations? I still remember Graham Mitchell from Grow asking me this question some 4 years ago now. If I hadn’t built a mentorship programme for photographers previously, I doubt I would have signed up for the challenge.
When designing the programme, I realised I had been exposed to a lot of “best practice” when it came to running effective sales organisations. Best practice is often defined as something along the lines of “the best known method/process/solution/mechanics for achieving a specific outcome, given the current evidence and the context in which it is applied”. The focus is a lot around what is visible i.e. the process or steps that need to be taken.
For example, take the strategic planning part of building a great sales organisation. Best practice at a high level could define this as having the following mechanics: annual offsite planning session with the team, strategic pre-work questions, SWOT analysis, strategic objectives, KPIs, an integrated budget and weekly, monthly and quarterly measurement and accountability rhythms. An organisation that does the above looks like it is implementing “best practice”.
This definition of “best practice” was readily available online and in many books and courses. Yet in all this so called “best practice” there seemed to be something missing. When it came to successful sales organisations that I had seen or had the privilege of leading, it wasn’t the activities or processes that really differentiated them , rather it was the more difficult to measure, seemingly “invisible qualities” that made the biggest difference. I realised that I had been fortunate to see how “best practice” had been implemented both locally and internationally and that the magic was not in the mechanics and processes but rather in the in the “how” they were implemented.
Best practice often only speaks to “what do we need to do” i.e. the activities or process we should follow to be best. These “invisible qualities”, however, speak to the question “who are we being when we implement best practice”. They stem from beliefs that determine the organisational values and speak to the heart posture behind and the “how” we go about our execution.
They are in my opinion what moves best practice from something that can feel very Machiavellian and transactional to something that can be deeply impactful and transformational.
An illustrative example – how different values can change the outcome
For example, you can have two organisations who embark on “best practice” for implementing strategic planning. They both implement the exact same activities to achieve “best practice” as outlined above. The one organisation’s process (organisation “a”) is driven by ego, wanting to look good, fear of failure, protecting self, politics and avoiding difficult conversations. The other (organisation “b”) is driven by humility, care, curiosity, stewardship, respect and a genuine desire to serve customers and employees.
The activities are the same but the quality of conversations and indeed outcomes will be completely different. This seems obvious and logical. Of course! Yet, how much time, effort and thought do we spend ensuring that our values, which should be more important that the mechanics, are integrated into the “best practice” we implement?
Indeed, the values are not a “soft” addition, they are a vital and key ingredient to sustainable success. They build what no process can provide; buy in, unity, commitment, psychological safety, an environment for growth, trust and the list goes on.
What I have observed in business and now almost 4 years of coaching leaders is that we often implement “best practice” without focusing or being very intentional on the how we ensure our values are entrenched in the implementation and how the process aligns to our overall identity and purpose.
Consequently, many organisations measure the success of strategic planning by asking very transactional questions. Do we have a detailed plan, do we have smart KPIs and do we have mechanisms and meeting rhythms to hold each team to account? I know many organisations who can say yes to all these questions but are not seeing the success they desire or reaching what they can see is their full potential.
What if we adopted organisation b’s values and looked at success according to a different set of questions and desired outcomes;
- Did my team feel psychologically safe to disagree in the process?
- Did we role model humility throughout the process?
- Did we care for each team member before, during and after the process?
- Is the team more united after the process?
- Is the team clear about what they need to do and have they been set up for success?
- Are the right team members involved in areas where their strengths will shine and add value?
These questions focus on what leadership “b” says it actually values; values that build trust and create places where people can thrive. It sees the process as an opportunity to build and develop its people. It sees people as its most valuable asset. Many organisations say this on paper, but this takes what is said in ink and translates it into behaviours that show everyone that this is what it means and values in reality.
By purely implementing “best practice” and not intentionally integrating core values (consciously or accidently), you are showing people what you really value. You value the plans, KPIs, the measurements that show if people have succeeded or failed and the revenue success you hope this brings. You value the outcomes. Unfortunately this also shows people (consciously or subconsciously) that they are less important. Their buy in, their psychological safety, the values of the organisation come second to these transactional requirements. And that is ok, if your values support this.
Sadly, if your values are humility, care, respect, serving customers and employees etc, then your “best practice” lacks true integrity.
The opposite is true when organisations move from “best practice” to what we call “transformational practice”. In this context, the organisation’s beliefs, values, behaviours i.e. the how and why they do things and the heart posture behind what they do, is more important than the outcome. The organisation believes that if they keep to who they are and why they exist and implement best practice, the outcomes will follow. They believe that these things produce great teams and organisations that will make the most of the opportunities and threats the business faces. These organisations move from transactional leadership to transformational leadership. Each team member feels and acknowledges the integrity and authenticity in the process.
When strategic planning takes place, people feel heard and seen. Afterwards there are clear KPIs, timelines, accountability rhythms etc, but leadership cares more about whether each team member feels more united, feels heard and seen, feels convicted about the next steps. The focus is about building great people and teams. It is transformational at its core.
Indeed, we are not machines. The thinking that if we build the right systems, people will produce the right results may work for machines. But as people we interpret, we fear, we hope and we experience love. These human realities sit underneath every process and system. And we are designed to feel if something is real and authentic or artificial and fake.
Then why is it so hard for us to focus more on ensuring we integrate our values into a process than on the process itself?
Possibly because values require intentionality and effort when stress and pressure just wants results. Possibly because values expose us. When we say we want to prioritise values over process, we are opening ourselves up to continuous growth and improvement. We are making self-awareness and vulnerability the accepted norm and status quo.
These things require time, they can delay best practice and they can be ignored and the facade of best practice still remains. Yet they are what differentiates great organisations, great teams, great sales organisations from others.
Is it not time to define best practice more clearly and replace it with “transformational practice”? Where “best practice” is guided by values that are deeply integrated into the implementation. Where business outcomes are still important but cultivating better human beings who can produce even better business outcomes even more so.
