The Cranky Middle Manager Show #64- Unlocking Strategic Gridlock with Pam Harper
The Cranky Middle Manager Show #064 (MP3 10.1MB 29:34Min)
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Show Notes
0:00 Welcome to Episode 64 of The Cranky Middle Manager. Today we talk Unlocking Strategic Gridlock with Pamela Harper. The show is dedicated to all Middle Managers just muddling through. The show is dedicated to General Charles Lee, someone more renowned for mucking up a perfectly good battle plan than having Fort Lee, New Jersey named after him.
3:12 Yeah, I’m in that kind of mood so it’s time for another quote from Oscar Wilde.
4:25 What is Strategic Gridlock? Bless her heart, Pam thinks it’s a mysterious paralysis… I don’t think it’s mysterious at all but then my glass is half empty…which reminds me, I have to go refill my glass.
6:40 Pam tells a story that later shows up in this White Paper. Truth is, the further into an organization they go, the less everyone knows the big picture. I come up with a beautiful example…. gee, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while I guess.
10:34 How do organizations do everything right and still go wrong? A big issue is- Do the internal and external stakeholders even understand the strategy?
13:34 Then the darned thing has to be communicated and internalized. The problem is the communication needs to be credible, which is setting the bar a little high in most instances.
17:34 Do people know why they should execute the strategy? What’s in it for them?
22:23 Do you have the checkpoints and milestones in place?
24:50 Now we get to it….how do Middle Managers impact strategy? What can we do (within our sphere of influence)
Resources
The usual suspects appear- Freakonomics,
The Balanced Scorecard (we talked to one of the authors, David Norton back in show24)