“It wasn’t the strategy that failed…its execution was flawed”

The role of “fair process” in product and service launches


All management is a process of continuing negotiation, leadership and channelling disagreement. I’ve long had difficulties with the idea of consensus management, since in my experience, managers who claim to operate with consensus are frequently bullying tyrants with whom everyone agrees – that’s consensus. Of course, there are benevolent tyrants as well as malevolent ones, but the tyrannical approach, whatever it is, tends to blame and scapegoat others since it’s unable to accommodate human difference.

What took me here this morning was thinking about strategy and that well-worn dictum, “It wasn’t the strategy that failed. Its execution was flawed”. And that’s usually about your people and how they’re managed.

If people don’t understand change then they may fear or resist it, no matter how sound your strategy is. It’s an issue for us since frequently we’re involved in strategic change but not the day-to-day management of its implementation. Major product and service launches need everyone’s buy-in.

An idea we like that comes from an old favourite of ours, Blue Ocean Strategy, is that of "fair process". Fair process is based on the idea that people care as much about the process through which an outcome is achieved as they do about the outcome itself. It also recognises, unlike some consensus ideas, that difference is healthy and that difference can build improvement.

In the Blue Ocean world, it’s called the three E Principles of Fair Process where the Es stand for Engagement, Explanation and clarity of Expectations.

Disagreement is very healthy. “Engagement means involving everyone in the strategic decisions that affect them by asking them for their ideas and allowing them to refute the merits of one another’s ideas and assumptions. Engagement communicates management’s respect for individuals and their ideas…(it) sharpens everyone’s thinking and builds better collective wisdom. Engagement results in better strategic decisions by management and greater commitment from all involved to execute those decisions”.¹

It’s a funny thing about these blog posts but sometimes I question why I write about the subjects I do. Then like a self-fulfilling prophecy I walk straight into a client situation where the issues apply. It’s as if I see them coming. We rarely get introduced to situations that are green fields, usually there’s some underlying difficulty and recently I encountered a communications issue around a new service launch. Everyone was thinking and acting in different directions. Everyone was also very committed to the company’s success but day to day pressures meant they were all acting according to their own perceptions of operational priorities in their own business areas (aka “silos”). Suffice to say they were not making progress towards their new goals fast. They’d planned to hold a strategy development workshop but the strategy looked clear to us even if it still needed work on the detail. We changed that workshop to “vision-sharing” that hopefully will unite the team around the vision rather than encourage individual interpretations and actions based on what they perceive the strategy might mean for them.

…which leads us on to Explanations. I know it’s obvious but too often the obvious is the thing most frequently taken for granted and therefore overlooked. Explanations are about developing a common understanding as to why decisions are made the way they are. It also provides important feedback that enhances learning and development. For the manager, the key factor is making the explanation with their ears wide open! Taking the time to explain the rationale is both involving for the employee and demonstrates that the decisions have been taken impartially in the best interests of the company.

Finally, in a point that’s closely linked to the situation we found ourselves in recently, there’s Expectation clarity. To achieve fair process, it matters less about what the goals, targets and responsibilities are and more that they are clearly understood by people in terms of what the development means for them. When people clearly understand what is expected of them, far less time is spent in political jockeying, clearing the way to make rapid progress with the new launch project.

This process is fundamental to change. It’s also a cornerstone of managing product and service launches. The three E Principles must be applied together. It’s no good encouraging engagement in the belief that explanation and clarifying expectations will follow naturally. They won’t. Fair process is important in shaping people’s attitudes and behaviour. It provides people with the intellectual and emotional value that sustains them. It recognises that people deserve to be treated with respect and dignity wherever they work in the organisation, and it builds trust. I’d rate that a whole lot healthier than achieving blind “consensus”, wouldn’t you?

¹ Blue Ocean Strategy by W Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Harvard Business Press 2005, pages 175-176