Working by helicopter

Welcome to this new column focusing on some of the current management and leadership challenges facing property professionals.

The topics selected are based on recent or current client engagements and intended to provoke readers to ‘take stock’ of their approach to business management.

I can’t promise quick, simple solutions – indeed, in my experience these rarely work.

I will offer some initial thoughts, comments and questions to help progress your thinking on the topic. Our first theme is the importance of strategic horizon scanning and oversight.

Chopper squad

My first theme of the year is about the important leadership function of ‘helicoptering’.

This strange term, coined, I believe, by Shell as a critical skill for its managers, is that ability to mentally rise or hover above a situation – in more literal terms, to stand back and review the bigger picture.

This is particularly important at this time of year. How are we doing against our strategy and business plan, assuming we have one or both? Of course, having one or both is not by itself a necessary condition for success, although it can help.

In my work I see many such ‘plans’ and most, I am afraid to say, are as much use as new year resolutions.

Many are nicely produced documents, created by a very small number of individuals.

They are rarely looked at after their production and sit silently on the shared drive. Success is defined as having ‘the plan’ rather than its implementation.

So how can you refresh and energise your team to deliver your plans? How do you close the strategy-implementation gap?

I’d encourage you and your team to reflect on the following points:

Horizon scanning

Are you spending enough time thinking about how current trends in the wider business environment will impact on your business?

Direction

Do you have a clear, simple summary of where you want to go? If not, should you be spending some time clarifying what your shared sense of direction is?

Communication

Has this summary been communicated to all of your staff, clients and stakeholders in a compelling manner?

Sponsorship

Do you have people at the most senior level who are committed to implementing the agreed strategy? Or have you avoided discussing the ‘elephant’, or ‘elephants’ in the room?

Co-ordinated actions 

Have you identified clear actions and projects with regular milestones to deliver the plan? Have you co-ordinated all of your activities and projects?

Accountability

Have you made absolutely clear who is accountable for each component of the plan?

Resources

Have you redeployed adequate resources to ensure the actions can be implemented?

Skills and capacity

Do you have adequate technical, management and leadership skills and capacity, particularly ‘down the line’, to deliver the plan? If not what can you do about this?

Incentives

Do they exist? Will they create the desired behaviour you need without unintended side effects?

Measurement

Do you have the mechanisms in place to collect measurable evidence about implementation progress?

Engagement

Do you have clear processes for regularly engaging those who need to implement the plan?

Feedback

Have you got adequate mechanisms for checking you are still on track, or need to adapt your plans?

Passion and enthusiasm

Are there a sufficient number of people who are really keen and willing to work enthusiastically to achieve your plan? If not, why not?

I am sure there are other issues, but hopefully these represent a good starting point.

I’d like this to be about the issues you all face. Maybe my clients are unrepresentative, their challenges unique? So I’d welcome your thoughts on what you perceive to be the management and leadership issues of the moment.