Exploiting Change

Step 12 of the Business Readiness Process: Assess Performance

Last week, I discussed the importance of exercising leadership before, during, and after an event or plan. Over the years, I’ve found that the most overlooked part of leadership is that which must occur after a plan has been implemented and is sufficiently advanced that there is an opportunity for learning.

Too many leaders miss a golden opportunity to learn from the grass-roots, explain their decisions, and improve by increasing future readiness. This is when leadership is often hardest, because everyone just wants to get back to business as usual. It takes extra effort and motivation to make a difference between a small improvement and big improvement in future performance.

The key to post-action leadership is After-Action Review (AAR). Ongoing feedback and leadership during execution are needed to ensure performance meets expectations and corrections are made. But there is usually also a need to modify training, structures, procedures and systems to get better in the future.

However, these changes must be institutionalized and systematized to be considered full Lessons Learned (LL). These combined AAR-LL processes have been developed by military forces to generate continuous organizational learning and performance improvement.

This ends my series on the Business Readiness Process. Next week I’ll start writing about other aspects of readiness, strategy, and leadership to complement what I’ve covered so far.

Stay tuned!

Recap of Business Readiness Process

1. Ensure vigilance through situational awareness.
2. Do preliminary assessment of tasks and time.
3. Activate organization or team.
4. Conduct reconnaissance.
5. Do detailed situational estimate.
6. Conduct wargame and decide on optimal course(s) of action.
7. Perform risk management and contingency planning.
8. Communicate plan and issue direction.
9. Build organizational robustness.
10. Ensure operational continuity.
11. Lead and control execution.
12. Assess performance.

My name is Richard Martin and I’m an expert on applying readiness principles to position companies and leaders to grow and thrive by shaping and exploiting change and opportunity, instead of just passively succumbing to uncertainty and risk.

© 2016 Alcera Consulting Inc. This article may be used for non-commercial use with proper attribution.