What is your strategic secret?

Michael Porter famously said the “essence of strategy is choosing what not to do,” However far too many plans and strategies appear to glory in being long on both analysis and actions.

The question is not how much do you need to do to achieve the goals you are seeking, but how little you have to do.

How do you go about selecting the few actions that will make the most amount of difference?

What is your secret?

Bean sprouts and complexity

Some recent news stories (ranging from Haringey to Germany to Bristol..) and couple of tweets have got me thinking about accountability and responsibility: as in what do we really mean when we say a person should be 'held accountable' or that someone 'was responsible'...? The media like to talk about who was to blame and the courts seek to apportion responsibility. Compensation is demanded, heads must roll and politicians will be held to account.

It all seems very puzzling to me. Avoiding the debates around Sharon Shoesmith and Winterbourne View, I will stick with talking about E.Coli in Germany instead as it is a subject I know very little about and it is a somewhat less heated subject here in the UK (whilst not overlooking the fact that several people have died). It is useful to explore, a little, I think.

Firstly, when I began writing this article, the German authorities still did not know the source of the outbreak. I say 'still' because there is a bit of me that thinks they should have discovered some days ago. I mean, how hard can it be? Well evidently, very hard (I did say I do not know much about this subject). But this does not stop people (especially some journalists and politicians) from expressing the view that 'something must be done', and the guilty party should be held to account. But who is the 'guilty' party here? Not the Spanish cucumber farmers it would seem. It now (10/6/11) does seem to have been the North German bean sprout cultivator (alfalfa or moong bean - I need to know?) Or maybe not: the evidence so far is not completely cut and dried.

Maybe this just happened.

Whilst it will probably be definitively discovered eventually where this killer bug came from, my guessing is that it will be found to have been a complex interplay of a number of coincidental occurrences that combined to make it happen. No single person will be 'responsible'. But will this prevent the hunt for someone to be held to account and hung out to dry. Sadly, probably not. Whilst the German Government looks set to compensate the Spanish Farmers, they will in turn probably look for someone else to blame - to shift that lump of responsibility onwards (and, in all likelihood, downwards).

But isn't accountability and responsibility a bit like a handful of alafalfa sprouts: a convoluted mesh of interwoven strands. If you pull it apart to discover how it holds together, the strands will break and the pattern that you seek will disappear. Isn't accountability a bit like that - not clean, clinical and linear but irregular, fuzzy and connected in complex ways? 

• As a manager, how do you 'performance manage' people when the reasons for their successes or failures are difficult to discern? 
• As a citizen, how do you hold politicians to account for their decisions? 
• As a politician, how do you distinguish between what you will claim success for and what you will say was nothing to do with you? 
• In sum, how does complexity impact on your leadership?

Free tickets: employee engagement event

David Zinger who runs a very successful ning on employee engagement (http://employeeengagement.ning.com/) is over in the UK offering a free half day workshop:

http://employeeengagementworkshop.eventbrite.com/
ENGAGE -Think Different Inside Our Hives: How to Achieve Exceptional Employee Engagement (5 July 2011)

There are only 25 tickets left... Hope to see you there!

Players not pawns in the commissioning process

These are some thoughts about the application of whole system approaches to commissioning within the public services. My aim in writing this is to persuade you that such methods would be hugely beneficial to all the stakeholders involved. Moreover, it is my view that without such methods, the ambitions for commissioning within the public services will never be fully achieved.

I start with a commonly accepted definition: Commissioning is the process of specifying, securing and monitoring services to meet people’s needs at a strategic level. This applies to all services, whether they are provided by the local authority, NHS, other public agencies, or by the private and voluntary sectors. (Making Ends Meet, Social Services Inspectorate / Audit Commission 2003)

Within such an approach is an inherent complexity arising from not only the subtlety of the needs mentioned but also from the interaction of those needs which will often pull in opposing directions: what a particular user needs will not be same as nor necessarily compatible with the needs of the wider community (for example). A robust and effective approach to commissioning therefore needs to have the capability to ‘hold’ this complexity and work within it to make effective decisions about provision, procurement, and performance management etc. (There is much additional complexity in the provision of effective and efficient services as well, of course.)

Meeting all these needs and generating sustainable social outcomes requires ‘ownership’ from many key stakeholders, not least the supplier agencies. They will need to invest large amounts of their time in designing and maintaining structures, systems and practices to meet these needs within a very tight resource base. While the system will just about work if these actors feel ‘done to’, it will not work very effectively or efficiently as more resource will have to be invested by the commissioning bodies in monitoring compliance and performance. Likewise without the communities and politicians authorising the direction of travel, there is the risk that precious resources will need to be spent on ‘selling’ the plans made. With all these points in mind, I argue that stakeholder commitment is a vital ingredient in assembling and running effective and efficient commissioning processes.

Einstein once defined insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the result to be different. On this basis, there has been quite a lot of insanity in the UK public services in the past. Commissioning offers a good deal of hope for reforming how public services delivered so that new (and better) ways are found to deliver these services that will lead to better outcomes for all concerned. The regimens that commissioning requires of both suppliers and commissioners should help to yield innovation in how citizens are served, and thence helped to live more fulfilling lives. It should, but will it? Does it? There is an inherent risk in commissioning that unless the right conditions are built in, the key actors involved may well end up ‘playing safe’. The latter day version of ‘nobody got sacked for buying an IBM’ comes into operation, as it were. If the processes for implementing commissioning fail to foster creativity and innovation, a significant opportunity will have been lost.

In summary, my position is that for commissioning to work smoothly, we need decision making methodologies that can hold complexity, develop commitment and foster creativity. Of course most approaches to public service commissioning (as seen in the NHS and local government) aim to have these three ingredients in place. However, I would contend that the approaches used to install these three ingredients often fall short of the full potential.

For example the approach to complexity is often interpreted and conducted as detailed needs analyses where seemingly endless iterations of surveys, focus groups, research and expert input are channelled into large and turgid reports written by small project teams. Complexity is synthesised into a single executive summary where the rich diversity of perspectives is more or less left to one side. Attempts are made to manufacture commitment through road shows and glossy vision statements. While the need for creativity is proclaimed, the whole process is so ‘left brained’ & paper based that very little creativity sees the light of day.

This is where whole system approaches come in as they are designed to create the optimal conditions for handling complexity, developing commitment and fostering creativity. The essence of all WS approaches is that all they focus on enabling authentic conversations that lead to collaboration not fragmentation. They use methods that tap into people’s imagination and analytical functions so that both right and left brains are engaged. These approaches spend most time looking forward to the future so that heads lift up and energy is found to develop new solutions rather than pick apart what has not worked well in the past. And, critically, they aim to get the ‘whole system in the room’ so that everyone has he opportunity to meet the other players in the system and appreciate their perspectives. Such approaches would nurture the sense that commissioning is there to be harnessed actively by all involved to shape better futures, rather than succumb to them. 

There are several ‘versions’ of such approaches (which have also been called ‘large group interventions’) and which have been used extensively in the NHS commissioning for example. These versions include:

• Open Negotiation (where the key issues to be resolved are identified before a whole system event and then a process is created that enables these issues to be addressed in open forum between the key players)
• World Café (where an ambient atmosphere assists people in focussing on a series of predetermined and emergent questions to identify a particular way forward for the matter in question)
• Open Space (where key players are brought together by an overarching theme and discussions are organised from the floor up around what needs to get discussed and sorted)
• Future Search (where stakeholders spend time identifying key learning from the past, clarifying the current pressures and shaping a new future for the system they represent)
• Open Simulation (where a new way of working is tested in a model situation by the people who will have to make it work in reality so that glitches and advantages can be identified before the ‘go live’ date)

Each of these approaches involves preparation where four key ‘P’s are investigated and balanced:

• What is the main purpose?
• What therefore should be the process?
• Which people need to be there?
• What arrangements need to be made regarding the place?

Each event (or summit) is designed bespoke to the key question that needs to be answered at key stages of the commissioning process. The event(s) may well focus upon:

• What needs and demands need to be built into our commissioning cycle?
• As commissioners, what services do we need to source?
• As providers, what services do we need to offer?
• How should we monitor and manage the performance within this system?

And so forth... Naturally, events could be geographically based (eg the NW region), provision based (eg high security prisons only) or user based (eg women aged 18 to 25).

In addition to boosting creativity, commitment and the capacity to hold complexity, using these approaches would bring a range of significant benefits that are particularly needed at this time in the development of commissioning in the current climate:

• These approaches will assist in building trust both between the agencies involved and in the commissioning approach itself.
• By engaging a diverse mix of stakeholders in these approaches this will reduce the need to spend resources on educating about and ‘selling’ commissioning to people who need to be up-skilled or persuaded of the approach
• These approaches will help make a break with the past and introduce some fresh flare into the delivery of public services where needed
• Unlike more traditional ‘left brain only’ approaches, these WS methods will help to increase the sense amongst the stakeholders in the mixed economy of the ‘Big Society’ that they are players not pawns in shaping the future of the services involved.

In summary, I contend that whole system approaches have much to offer commissioning. These approaches will ensure the overall process delivers more effective, more efficient, more robust and more flexible services that will lead to dramatically improved outcomes for all concerned.

See related links:

• http://jonharveyassociates.blogspot.com/2009/11/making-whole-systems-work.html
• http://jonharveyassociates.blogspot.com/2010/03/getting-whole-system-in-room-future.html
• http://jonharveyassociates.blogspot.com/2010/03/whole-systems-no-time.html
• http://jonharveyassociates.blogspot.com/2009/05/improving-whole-systems-with-creativity.html

UPDATE:
Just spotted this story in the Guardian about commissioning children's services - makes for interesting reading: http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/2011/may/31/childrens-services-survey?&

The government procurement conundrum: a possible solution

Governments are duty bound to spend their taxpayers' money wisely. This means that procurement processes must be sufficiently fair, open, clever and conducted with due probity to ensure that only most competitive and competent suppliers win tenders. This is right and entirely understandable.

However, this appears to have led to an exponential growth in the procedures used to achieve these goals. Pre qualification questionnaires, framework contracts and tenders themselves are becoming so extensive that only large organisations (with the capacity to employ specialist bid staff) or small / medium sized organisations (which hire in specialist bid writers or who can 'spare the time' to fill in the huge forms) are bidding.

This is skewing the market and is, I would argue, putting in place inflationary pressures. The result is often, despite the best & most worthy intentions of government procurement staff, the purchasers are often either paying over the odds or contracting with sub optimal providers, or both. (There is also a growing body of evidence that the thresholds and requirements being placed upon bidders, such as having disproportionate levels of indemnity insurance, is compounding matters, and skewing the market even further.)

I have blogged about this in several places before such as here and here. And now it seems we have a government that has woken up to this conundrum and wants to do something about it. (See report of a meeting with the PM and Francis Maude here). Hurrah!

But... what is to be done?

There is much talk of doing away with PQQs and Frameworks - and opening all tenders to all bidders. Aside from the likelihood that this will take some time to achieve (and can the economy wait while this happens?) - is this goal even possible?

The danger is that government bodies seeking to procure a new service will put out an open tender and then be inundated with bids. This will slow decision making down and stretch procurement resources to breaking point. Also the providers will spend possibly even more time writing these bids.

A possible solution:

When the government body has clarified its requirement in terms of what service or change it is seeking assistance with achieving, it should publish four documents:

1. A clear statement of the requirement (with some information about the context)
2. An outline budget for how much they wish to spend (this would seriously help bidders do quick calcs and work out if this job is for them or not)
3. A statement of what the successful bidder will be expected to have or be (eg 'sufficient' indemnity insurance rather than specifying a particular level, 'good health and safety practice', rather than requesting an 'off the shelf' H&S policy etc) 
4. An invitation to bidders to submit no more than two sides of A4 as to why they should be invited to submit a fuller bid

This will keep the process of assessing bidders down to a minimum for the government agency. It will make it very clear to all the potential bidders whether they should or should not bid. Whilst it will be tricky to boil their outline bid down to two pages, the best providers will be able to do this, I would contend.

What do you think - would this work? Would such an approach match the needs of all those involved and create a more level playing field where the real winner will be the taxpayer?

Would anyone like to test this method through some sort of controlled trial? (Ben Goldacre has written an excellent piece about the critical importance of such trials in today's Guardian: click here.) As I have said before - the whole field of procurement seems distinguished by its lack of any evidence based practice. (But in the spirit of the scientific method, I would be more than happy to have my theory disproved...)

And if you do use this method already (or something very similar) - I would love to hear the details about well it works. Please share.

And... if this is a new method, and it works well, please just remember you read about it first here... Thanks.

Creative justice?

Just came across this story:

"A US man who helped persuade an English man and a Canadian woman to commit suicide after finding them online has been given a jail term in Minnesota..." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13289119

So what is interesting about this...?

The detail that caught my eye was the later point:

"The judge ordered him to spend an initial 320 days in prison and then for the next 10 years return to jail on the anniversaries of his victims' deaths." [my highlight]

For a whole heap of reasons, I think there is something poignantly just about this part of the sentence: that for two days each year, the offender will have the 'inconvenience' of being made to go to gaol and think about the crime he has committed.

This got me thinking about what other crimes this might suit - dangerous driving comes to mind - certainly where someone was injured or even killed. What do you think?

But then I got to thinking about creativity in not just the criminal justice system but in the broader public services: what conditions need to be in place that would allow for such creativity and innovation?

So - what conditions do you think need to be either boosted or established - so that we can continue to have such creative thinking (and more) in the delivery of public services - including community justice?

If PQQs were the answer, what was the question?

Recently, I was invited to a meeting at the Treasury as a follow up to the earlier larger meeting hosted by the PM and Francis Maude (see my report of this meeting below at this link). This was a small meeting designed to assist the team who are tackling the whole issue of how to go about making Government procurement more SME friendly (as I describe it). Despite the people present being from quite a wide range of industries, I was struck by the similarity of our experiences of procurement.

In a nutshell, it would appear, that more and more SME people (me included) are simply giving up the will to live (almost!) when confronted by the increasingly convoluted Pre Qualification Questionnaire processes that are being used to sift, select and short list suppliers for the next phase of procurement processes. 

It is not my job to record the outputs and proceedings of the meeting - but I did want to share the questions that I took along with me to the meeting to record some of my thinking on this subject: 

• What evidence is there that PQQs really work? 
• What do PQQs set out to achieve - and what do they actually achieve? 
• How do PQQs skew the market place - and do they skew in the direction of better value for the taxpayer or not? 
• Who are the best a) Government and b) Private sector procurers? 
• What can we learn from these organisations (assuming we know how to identify 'best')? 
• What does good procurement look like? (I had my stab at this before - see here) 
• As a method of managing the scale of the task (of identifying the few key suppliers who can do an effective and economic job) - what options apart from PQQs are available? 
• If PQQs and Framework contracts are going out of fashion - what are the best tools to replace them with? 
• Do PQQs result in the best suppliers being selected to do a job, or do PQQs tend to select those who are just very good at... writing PQQs? 

And finally if PQQs were the answer - what was the question?

I would be genuinely interested in what other suppliers think but especially what do clients and procurers think about my questions? Do you have any answers? 

Please post below. Thanks

Questioning Engagement

Here is a link to the latest e-book from David Zinger's ning - a set of brilliant questions for leaders to ask their staff, colleagues and bosses - in order to create more engagement.

http://www.davidzinger.com/wp-content/uploads/Primers-for-Engaging-Confersations.pdf

There is nothing as powerful as a good question, in my view!

The 12 kinds of books on leadership

Often when I visit bookshops and browse the shelves for new publications (and there always many) on management & leadership, I am usually disappointed. The books seem to fall into a dozen broad categories (and I already have several in each):

1. How to turn your life / new job / business around in 30 days
2. Learn how to ride a bike / lead by reading a book about it
3. The 5, 13.5 or 88 secrets of success to being a better leader
4. The manual of how to lead in 297 easy written procedures with full index
5. Leadership lessons of bloody ancient leaders or blooming marvellous present ones
6. The myway by Vranson / Cricher / Jacoka / Saint / insert new name here
7. How to whack the tribe and lose the cheese: creative recipes for success
8. HBBRNOW 79! Top hits from hip business school academics
9. Dig deep, really deep inside to find your inner dude / shaman / dervish
10. 21 crazy games to get people talking with each other, sometime
11. It worked in my business: it can work in yours too!
12. New insight (again)! From the Blankcard, Hotter & Bovey book factory

Or have I missed a category?

Turning on a sixpence

Austere:IT’

Government, Local Authority & Third Sector 
IT Provision in Times of Austerity
Friday 10th June, Westminster Studios, Central London

The need has never been greater for public and third sector services to make the most of their existing IT infrastructures and systems, and harness the free and low cost options provided by the web. Options to procure new systems or expensive upgrades are now very much more limited due to fiscal pressures.

This 'open space' conference will offer you a unique and intensely interactive opportunityto investigate, develop and enhance your existing IT systems, and explore how web tools (such as dropbox, yammer and many other social media applications) can help you to achieve more with less.

The workshops will provide you with many opportunities to share, collaborate and devise shrewd strategies and deft innovations designed to make the most from the IT within your organisation and how you can harvest all that the net provides – often for free.

What is Open Space?

How many times have you been to an event and come away with two thoughts: the ‘break times were the most valuable’ and ‘how I wish we had talked about X subject’? How many events have you attended and discovered later that a colleague or contact was present but you never had the chance to sit and talk with them? How often have you wished to leave an elective workshop after the first few minutes and visit another, but felt compelled to stay?

Austere: IT’ has been designed with these experiences in mind: not only will you be able to create the agenda precisely around the issues that matter to you but also you will get to know all about what other discussions are going on as well. You will have the scope and flexibility to craft the day to exactly what you want it to be.

Or as Ken Eastwood of NOMADS (http://publicsectornomads.com/) has said “Having a conversational event around these issues will be most fascinating and helpful”

This event will identify critical ways in which existing central government, local government and third sector IT systems can be innovated to provide enhanced value for money with no or very minimal extra investment. As a consequence, the possible topics include:

• Developing new ways in how to use low cost off the shelf packages, or free to use services on the web to deliver services to the public (such as http://www.dropbox.com/, http://www.doodle.com/ and http://www.caffein.tv/) 
• Using social media to ‘oil’ communication around public & third sector organisations (here is one example: http://danslee.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/case-study-how-yammer-can-help-local-government-innovate/) 
• Redesigning the human processes to make more use of the IT systems 
• Using unconferences, govcamps and other interactive means (face to face and web based) to create new applications with partners and users 
• Making more flexible use of existing contracts with external suppliers to provide more for less 
• Harnessing the insights, ideas and power of customers, users and other stakeholders 
• Collaborating with neighbouring agencies and authorities 
• Extending functionality to new areas and services 
• Developing and adopting greater commercial leadership & ‘nous’ in negotiating with external providers

This is not just about making do, or even mending what we have (though those can help) – it is critically about harnessing all the resources at our disposal – which includes many low cost or free services already available

Register today and save £200 (All delegates registering by Friday 6th June will be entitled to a £200 discount. To register please follow this link.) If you have any questions regarding the event please email Katie Gilroy. (Account Manager- Local Government, Neil Stewart Associates. Direct Line: 020 7960 6852)

More information here

BREAKING NEWS:

Brendan Harris - Interim Director of Knowledge and Innovation
Services Directorate Support Team Manager
Local Government Improvement and Development

will be giving an opening presentation

13 Questions: when is a consultation a consultation?

I have just had an article published in the Guardian today: prompted by the NHS listening exercise initiated by the Government, the article reflects on what it takes for a consultation to be genuine. There are 13 yes/no questions to test (or design) a consultation process.

You can read the article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/blog/2011/apr/07/nhs-listening-consultation-reform

Prose & passion: Inspiring and sustaining leadership

There are many, many books on leadership: a search on Amazon just yielded a list of 165,621 for example. Nonetheless, I am editing a new one and I am looking for your help. This will be a different kind of leadership book as it will be almost entirely written by everyday people practising everyday leadership. My aim is to have a wide diversity of contributors from large and small organisations, public, commercial & voluntary, and from all levels with a wide variety of backgrounds and professions. It will be an anthology of articles by leaders for leaders.

Quite simply I am looking for what inspires and sustains people in their leadership? What book, or poem, or story, or quote, or film, or person or even passing remark has helped you become the leader that you are? And from this article, what strength of insight, what ethical tiller or what beacon idea sustains you when your leadership is tested?

For example a client who has become an old friend once told me that in his first job (in a medium sized engineering company) he observed that the managing director always came in the back door and walked through the workshops to his office at the front. He once got the chance to ask him why and the MD explained that this was his way of staying in touch with what was going on. This principle of ‘staying in touch’ stuck with my friend and he always made a point of either literally or metaphorically coming in the back door as he rose to become (and then retired from) being chief executive of a large organisation.

My intention is to collect and edit these contributions into a book that will inspire people. My aim is that it will be a book that people will treasure or want to give as a gift to friends, relatives and colleagues. All contributions will be duly acknowledged (unless you really want to remain anonymous) and I will obtain the necessary permissions to publish the passages and poems etc. that you cite. I will also be writing an introductory text, cataloguing the contributions, arranging for publication and commissioning images to go in the book.

To be considered for inclusion in the book, please email me with the answers to two questions:

1) What book, poem, film, speech, painting, quote, story, or person (or whatever) continues to inspire your leadership? (please note that I will need a copy of the text or image you are referring to, together with a reference from where it came)

2) What is it about this piece that inspires you and helps sustain you as a leader? In other words, tell me the story behind your selection. (I am looking for something around 300 to 500 words. And based on some of the contributions I have received so far, here is some further clarification. I am seeking personal statements about just how the piece from Q1 connects with your leadership. In other words, I am not looking for third party descriptions of someone else’s leadership – but a heartfelt declaration of yours. I am also not looking for pieces that read a little like adverts for your organisation or consulting practice! I am looking for, as I said to one person who got in touch: how the piece connects with your life/leadership... I want – and I believe the readers of the book will want – to hear why this article in particular and how the essence of it sits inside you every day...)

The deadline I am working to (now) is the end of January 2012.

My email address is jon@jonharveyassociates.co.uk. I will reply to all emails sent to me and keep you in touch with what is happening next.

Finally, thank you for your interest and commitment to creating a book that will inspire & support leaders around the world

Jon

Leading as listening - what is your image?

The UK Coalition Government is beginning a two month ‘listening exercise’ about their proposed changes to how the National Health Service is managed (see http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/MediaCentre/DH_125865 for details). There is much that is being written about the politics of this decision (see here for a ‘Mills & Boon’ description: http://www.pauldcorrigan.com/Blog/culture-of-the-nhs/the-nhs-and-the-tory-party-is-it-really-true-love/ for example) – but I would like to focus on what we mean by... listening... and leadership.

Most of us know what good listening involves. When I pose the question to groups “how do we know when someone is really listening to us?” they have no trouble filling a flip chart or two with the most detailed descriptions of behaviour, body language, phrases used and so forth. But when I ask the question around how well their leaders listen to them, the response is very mixed. Many people report leaders who may say they listen but give little evidence of having done so. Some leaders just don’t listen very well, others do it well at the time but do not follow it up with any action. This all leaves me wondering why is it that most leaders usually know how to listen but often appear to fall short of doing it effectively?

Perhaps many leaders think that it is the job of their followers to listen to them, not the other way around. The images that many people have of leaders are either

• someone ‘leading from the front’, with their ears turned away from their followers, or of 
• someone at the front of a room presenting to people or of 
• a general in a tent somewhere well behind the lines directing the troops like a chess game, or a 
• a thought leader, researching and ruminating in dark laptop light filled room. 

None of these images conjure up an image of listening leader.

• What picture pops into your mind when you think of a leader? 
• Does this image conform to what kind of leader you are... or want to be? 
• If you think deliberately of a listening leader, what image now comes to mind? 

But of course, leadership may only be about 10% listening... what do you think? Perhaps the Government is seeing their listening exercise is being much more about telling, selling & explaining than about genuinely taking on board the concerns of NHS staff and patients – time will tell.

• How much of your leadership is about listening...? 
• How much of your leadership would you like to be about listening? 
• Does your image of leadership match this?

Navigating the 3 C's: how do you score?

Here is a short questionnaire to test how successful your business will be over the next 18 months. It is based on the premise that the most successful businesses are ones that balance

• Creativity,
• Commitment and
• Complexity

Every business needs innovation to delight their customers, stay ahead of their competitors and to keep driving down costs. Creativity is the fuel for innovation and many businesses are brilliant at not recognising when it is needed, or worse, crushing it out of people.

With the commitment (or engagement, as it is often called) of everyone involved in a business, everything becomes that much more possible. People work smarter and more steadily: not just harder and harder (and harder).

In our frenetic world where new technologies and ideas approach us from all angles, and customers want that something different and bespoke: managing complexity is critical. If a business cannot handle the complex demands it faces, it will quickly fade away.

Are you and the other key leaders of your business balancing these three C’s well enough? Try this questionnaire and see how you score

Statement	How much do you agree with the statement? (Where 1 is ‘not at all’ and 7 is ‘totally’)
1.        I can easily remember the last time one of my team had a brilliantly creative idea that added to our overall performance.	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2.       In fact I can remember quite a few times before then too when people around the business have come up with new and fresh ideas.	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3.       In my (part of the) business, we do things very differently now to three years ago – new pressures mean we have had to change	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4.       I usually come away from a meeting with colleagues or business contacts with at least one new idea.	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5.        When my team and I sit down together, I just expect there to be creativity and there usually is.	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6.       Often at work, I am delightfully surprised by the ingenuity of the people I work with	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
7.        In my business, there is no effort needed to sell the new strategies, people know what they need to do already – and are doing it	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8.       People all face the same direction in my business, not in some regimented way, but with a clear focus on the future	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
9.       I enjoy coming to work and so do all my colleagues: we work hard, but we also have fun	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
10.     Staff appraisals are not the turgid box ticking exercises I see in other businesses, in ours we have lively conversations about the past and future	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
11.      The plans in our business don’t just gather dust in filing cabinets, we use them to handle the pressures we face	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
12.     In fact we don’t really have large planning documents, instead we have a community of people who all understand what we need to do	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
13.     Just like a good military general, I don’t spend all my time in the valleys, I am often up on the hills looking further & beyond the current challenges	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
14.     I read newspapers, magazines & journals to spot the trends that are coming our way – there are patterns in most things	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
15.     My team and I are able to work the detail as well as we work the big picture – we can link it all together	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
16.     I use every chance I get to talk with suppliers and customers about what changes they are seeing, or would like to see	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
17.     Things are much more complex than they used to be, but I think we have managed to have big enough conversations to handle these changes	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
18.     Sometimes I get scared when I think about everything the business needs to achieve but I know I can rely on everyone to bring their piece of puzzle	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
19.     Come the end of the week, I am able to relax and know we are surfing the waves of change rather than being drowned by them	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
20.    I spend a good chunk of my time managing the future and not just to reacting to the present day challenges	1 2 3 4 5 6 7

If you scored 140, you need to bottle what you company is doing and sell it! Certainly if your score was somewhere above 110, your company is probably far more creative, engaged and strategic than most. You will enjoy coming to work. Between 60 and 109 is probably around average – but is average enough? How might you up your score? And if your score was below 60, there is probably room for some change – you, your business or both.

This, of course, is not a scientific survey but merely one to prompt reflection. The ideas underpinning it though are – the best companies are the ones where creativity, commitment and complexity are blended well together.