What If Leaders and Employees See the Things Different

If the strategic goals are prepared and carried out afterwards by the senior management, mid-level managers and employees of the company, regardless of how the doings seem to be by them, they can never be reached.

Strategic decisions are the end of a process, consequently, the decision process should be managed very well.

Let’s take a look at how a successful process management can be done …

First, you should see into the ”existing corporate language” in the company to better understand the perception level. Besides, other factors such as behaviour, relationships, reactions, cognitive flexibility level, conflict/compromise culture, sense of belonging, production quality and creativity activities should be considered.

To give an example:

Behind the negative language such as “Things are going wrong”, The new investment will fail”, ”The targets have been counted big in order not to give a credit”, ”It cannot be done more than this”, ”Mr. Samuel always reprehend me”, ”While increasing in salary, lickspittles roam around”, ”The food is always bad and bad and bad”, ”This customer always wants more than he gives”, There may be toxic gas emissions that can spread throughout the company.

Let’s now think the exact opposite of the negative examples above…

Such as ‘’You say that we get less premium, dude, but the said one is given”, ”We should express ourselves better”, ”If we made an offer like this to yesterday’s customer, We would take on a million dollar work”, ”We should support a friend if s/he failed”, ”The customer that you jumped on today was actually right”, ”We sent on purpose the returned orders, even though we know”, ”If our company signs up for this job, we actually have a chance to sell the same product with small changes ”.

The real reasons of the above-exampled behaviour and verbal expressions should be determined. Besides, changeability in the performance level, absences, facial expressions, grumbling, jokes, and conversations in smoke breaks are also included in these.

Beside the leader at every level, that all employees can do business, solve unexpected problems, collaborate, be tolerant, be positive, be open to empathy, use emotional intelligence and cognitive flexibility help the decision-maker leader to make the right decision about reality.

For a leader, it is important how the current situation looks like by his work friends. That also is important as his perception level. For this reason, the first thing to do is learning the perception reality about the current situation of the middle and lower leadership staff in the company. Afterwards, the situation assessment is made with the senior management of the company. Consequently, the decision-making leader gains a visionary perspective thorough own insight. If a leader makes decisions with his insight, s/he begins to give simple instructions and has not chance to succeed.

And the next step is that the decision-maker leader shares his / her own opinions based on his/her observations with leaders at all levels. S/he paves the way for expressing opinions of them and listens and understands them. This could be a brainstorming session, a dinner conversation, or one-on-one conversations.

The important point here is that in the next step, people must once again express their opinions in a official meeting. Probably opinions may be different than the first steps.

At the official meeting, after opining (opinions will probably be different than the first stage), the leader should give a compromise finding speech. S/he should express his/her vision and listen to suggestions about new goals. Each suggestion is evaluated individually with the attendees of the meeting, and as a result, most of suggestions are eliminated.

And as a result, the suggestions agreed by all the participants become to be put into practice with the vision of the decision-making leader. And the decisions taken together become major operational elements of the new strategic plan.

When all these conditions are complied with, it will be easier to actualize the decisions taken. Because the critical mass contributing to the decision process (leaders at all levels from top to bottom) will spread the energy for achieving the strategic goals they have adopted throughout the company. In this way, all stakeholders will be motivated and develop a positive language towards goals, will be more disposed to overcome the difficulties. Consequently, cognitive flexibility in collaboration and business processes will increase.

In the company that sets sail for new targets such as Full Sail, sense of innovation and sense of stabilized high performance come to a head and the bright future for the company comes into sight.

However, never forget the circular effect!..

Bulent Hasanefendioglu

Head of Consultancy, TDG Global

Contact Bulent