LoBue: Enterprise Evolution: Competetive Fitness Program

THE COMPETITIVE FITNESS PROGRAM™

"Enterprise leaders don't sleep nights like they used to. They can't. The world has become too unpredictable. The traditional organization - extremely successful in the past - now looks terribly rigid, unresponsive and brittle. Trying to preserve the benefits of size and scope while at the same time instilling the "soul" and agility of a start- up is the problem that keeps savvy leaders awake. The Competitive Fitness Program™ is designed to help enterprise leaders meet that challenge." -- Stephanie Austin, President, Allison-LoBue, LLC

The Competitive Fitness Program™ will help your business achieve a level of performance not attainable with the traditional "command and control" organization model. Management systems based on the time-tested methods developed by pioneers of business development such as Alfred Sloan of General Motors-successful for over half a century-are increasingly stressed and ineffective in this new world. Global corporations with years of success at their backs-companies like IBM-have stumbled and nearly crashed after being blindsided by change. In hindsight it's easy to find fault with management. It's a lot harder to prevent it from happening to your company in the future.

The Allison-LoBue Competitive Fitness Program™ - based on our extensive business experience and original research in organizational effectiveness - can help you maximize your human capital to achieve peak performance in an increasingly competitive and rapidly changing economic landscape. We work with clients to improve competitive fitness in three fundamental ways:

Implementing a culture which can quickly respond to rapid market changes and deliver to clients ahead of the competition
Increasing flexibility and adaptability by sensing or anticipating market changes and making better decisions faster in response so that you can lead-or pre-empt-the market
Attracting, retaining, and effectively using human capital

Integrating both new and existing programs, tools, and methodologies, the Competitive Fitness Program™:

Provides a new context for understanding today's performance challenges based in the new science
Shifts the focus from "command and control" management to leadership
Creates effective feedback loops throughout the enterprise
Implements knowledge development programs to support employees as they organize themselves against enterprise goals
Provides ongoing coaching to ensure substantive, permanent change
Measures all enterprise activity and results - not just financial performance
Communicates ongoing results to encourage responsiveness changing conditions
Ensures that the physical environment promotes effectiveness

ENTERPRISE FITNESS WORKSHOP
The Competitive Fitness Program™ begins with an Enterprise Fitness Workshop which:

Introduces the concepts and tools used in the Competitive Fitness Program™
Develops a joint understanding of the challenges facing the enterprise
Puts these critical issues in a new context - what it means to be an adaptive enterprise
Jointly agree on and design details of a Competitive Fitness Program™ tailored for your enterprise
Facilitate development of action plans which reflect group objectives and realistic goals
Integrates existing management theories and programs to make them more effective

Based on the results of Enterprise Fitness Workshop, Allison-LoBue consultants work hand-in-hand with your people to actually implement the program components which have been designed.

LEADERSHIP
The leadership component of the Competitive Fitness Program™ refocuses the attention and energy of the management team from management - "command and control" - to leadership processes which support the new enterprise model. These leadership processes focus on:

Creation of enterprise context by establishing purpose and values
Alignment of all enterprise activities with these core values and purpose
Creation and coordination of networks to promote improvisation and innovation
Development of human capital
Implementation of a measurement system which transform data about results into organizational learning and knowledge/wisdom

These activities are strongly supported by individual coaching at the senior levels.

FEEDBACK LOOPS
Positive feedback loops enable people and enterprises to adapt by providing accurate information regarding activities and results. In most organizations today feedback goes only one way - up the chain of command (financial performance, budget results) or from management to staff (performance appraisals). This one way feedback does not provide information concerning changing conditions nor encourage adaptation or behavioral change.

The Competitive Fitness Program™ works to:

Identify and remove dysfunctional feedback loops
Create feedback loops which foster continuous adaptation - electronic, paper based and face to face
Create an enterprise DASHBOARD focused on key performance measures
Continuously evolve feedback loops based on results and changing environmental conditions

These feedback loops provide the basis for continuous adaptation and permanent behavioral change.

KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT
Effective use of the intellectual capital and knowledge generated by its employees is critical to an enterprise's Competitive Fitness in the new economy. Well-implemented knowledge development programs support and encourage employees to organize themselves in order to achieve peak performance. The Competitive Fitness Program™ works to implement knowledge development programs which identify, share and effectively utilize organizational learning. They:

Assist the enterprise to acquire, store and utilize knowledge capital
Encompass skills, internal and external information, tacit knowledge and learning
Ensure that every member of the enterprise has the tools, knowledge and information needed for effective performance and decision making
Incorporate feedback loops which evaluate usefulness, provide for ongoing evolution of content and foster a knowledge capital culture
Transform data regarding results into organizational knowledge and wisdom

We are in the information age. The Competitive Fitness Program™ will help you transform information and data into usable knowledge and wisdom.

COACHING
Training and coaching is an integral component of the Competitive Fitness Program ™. These activities are intended to help people to develop new mental models and the specific skills required to become a high performer in an adaptive enterprise. In addition to formal classroom training, Allison-LoBue consultants provide behavioral coaching at all levels in the enterprise.

For leaders, coaching is highly individualized and based on long term relationships. For the broader employee base, coaching is scalable and administered via email, telephone, video-conferencing, intranet, facilitated meetings and task oriented work. The depth and scope of this coaching support sustainable change across a large organization at a reasonable expense.

MEASUREMENT
The Competitive Fitness Program ™ provides ongoing assessment and measurement in relation to new behaviors and techniques. In the competitively fit enterprise, the ability to understand and track results, feed them back to the enterprise and modify activities based on this feedback is essential. Measurement tools must themselves evolve to meet the changing needs of the organization. Allison-LoBue assists clients to implement flexible, focused performance measures - based on the principles of the feedback loop - which will naturally adapt to changing conditions.

COMMUNICATION
The competitively fit enterprise is built on a foundation of open communication and trust at all levels of the enterprise. Without strong, two way communication between enterprise employees and leadership which is continuous and consist, accurate information is not made available for decision making and dysfunctional behavior impedes enterprise performance.

The Competitive Fitness Program™ not only deals with formal communication regarding the program itself but more importantly with the day to day, one on one communication within the organization. Coaching, team facilitation and various self-assessment tools are used to improve overall communication within the enterprise with a strong emphasis on interactive forums and feedback.

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN
When you walk into the offices of a competitively fit organization, you can see and feel the energy, goals, and style of the organization. Often, businesses create an environment which supports computers and the status needs of the enterprise and neglect the needs of the human beings who make up the enterprise. Therefore, the immensely powerful results which can be gained from attention to these needs are not achieved.

The Competitive Fitness Program™ enables clients to gain velocity through attention to the physical design of their offices and factories-without enormous spending.

The Competitive Fitness Program™ uses:

1. A Variety of Tools and Techniques

2. On-going Assessment and Feedback

3. Training and Coaching

4. Continuous- Evolving Measurement of results

... to help enterprises achieve peak performance and Competitive Fitness in today's rapidly changing business landscape.

For more information contact Mary Ann Allison or Stephanie Austin

TODAY'S PERFORMANCE CHALLENGES

Business leaders today are facing a new set of performance challenges. and the old solutions aren't working the way they used to.

CHANGE IS RADICAL AND ACCELERATING RAPIDLY
Competition is increasingly aggressive and coming from new and unexpected sources. How do you:

Retain existing customers
Dramatically increase market share over historic levels
Develop a market image as a leader/innovator in the eyes of both customers and competitors

Market needs, products and customer perception of value are changing every day in unpredictable ways. How do you:

Utilize "high touch" distribution channels to "learn" about and anticipate customer needs
Achieve customer service satisfaction levels which are dramatically higher than the nearest competitor
Enable customization and on demand delivery of products and services based on customer needs
Effectively apply technology to enhance interaction with the customer as opposed to dehumanizing it
Deliver major IT projects on time and on budget

Businesses must be flexible and adapt quickly in order to survive and prosper. The old organization structure, hierarchy and management systems can't adapt fast enough.

Using proven principles from the new sciences, The Competitive Fitness Program™ helps businesses become more flexible and adaptive by implementing a new organization model that enables employees to sense and evaluate changes in the marketplace and respond with appropriate action. Implementation of activity networks based on need, skills and knowledge and elimination of the roadblocks inherent in the "command and control" structure, allow enterprises to adapt continuously to the changing business environment.

STRATEGY IS GLOBAL - EXECUTION IS LOCAL
While the world grows smaller by the day. How do you:

Mobilize an effective multi-cultural, cross-functional workforce to rapidly develop a new product or service
Learn and adapt to customer needs and preferences for each customer segment in every marketplace

The Competitive Fitness Program™ works to implement effective feedback loops at all levels - incorporating both behavior and results. These feedback loops provide the enterprise and its agents with the information required to adapt to changing conditions at the local level. It also provides every enterprise agent with the ability to develop, share and utilize knowledge so that the right resources are deployed against critical initiatives - both globally and locally.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION IS UNLIMITED AND INSTANTANEOUS
However, knowledge, ideas, lessons learned and wisdom are being irretrievably lost every day. How do you:

Create a decision making process which reduces time to market from years to months
Effectively link people to foster innovation and creativity
Get the right information to the right place at the right time

The Competitive Fitness Program™ works with your team to put in place the tools to identify and capture enterprise critical knowledge and learning and the culture to effectively share and utilize this knowledge. With this foundation employees can organize themselves to achieve enterprise goals, evaluate results and make appropriate adjustments based on changing conditions. This frees management to focus on issues of leadership, strategy and human resource development as opposed to event management and control of day to day activities.

WE LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE PEOPLE ARE THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
But it is harder and harder to attract and keep the right people. How do you:

Reduce turnover to a fraction of the industry standard
Create an enterprise-wide commitment to shared purpose and values
Operate based on policies, practices and procedures which are fully aligned with these values
Establish a clear reputation as the preferred place to work in your industry - supported by objective assessments
Establish teamwork as a core value and a core competency

During the Competitive Fitness Program™ Allison-LoBue consultants will work with you to articulate your enterprises' purpose and values and then implement a process which reviews existing policies, practices and procedures to ensure that they are aligned with core values. The program works to implement a culture of teamwork and empowerment based on trust, open communication, effective use of feedback and commitment to shared goals. This culture fosters innovation, flexibility and adaptability.