Who is Anthony?
We talk about strategic planning, aligning teams and getting them to their One Destination.
Key Takeaways
1. Organisations can fall into the multiple destination trap, both the CEO and their leadership team and the rest of the organisation, are moving in different directions. And the challenge is getting their entire organisation not only aligned to where they want to go, making sure they're going to the right place, but setting up the structure systems, processes, and strategies in order to get them there.
2. You only control half of the communication, the receiver controls the other half.
3. One of the challenges that CEOs have, is that their job is to be visionary, and to be ahead of their people, so they can lead them. But if they are too far ahead of their people, their team will actually regress
Valuable Free Resource or Action
https://www.smestrategy.net/strategic-planning-consultant-strategy-facilitator
A video version of this podcast is available on YouTube :
and on linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stuartwebb_we-talk-about-strategic-planning-aligning-activity-6866377938296803328-SPTs
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Transcript
Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)
Stuart Webb 0:22
Hi, and welcome back to ah, not rocket science five questions over coffee today I have with me a actually, it's lemon scented water, which is not quite the same as coffee, Anthony, I hope you've got something as a refreshing forever beverage in front of you.
Yes. Good, man. Good, man. So I'm here today with Anthony Taylor from SME strategy. I'm really looking forward to this. Because I think this is a really big and important topic. So welcome to the podcast. Anthony.
Anthony Taylor 0:50
Thanks for it. Great to be here. I'm very excited to chat.
Stuart Webb 0:52
Okay, terrific. So, you know, I'll start these off with just the simple question, I hope sort of kicks everything off. So can you just in a few words, a sentence or two Anthony describe your ideal client who you're trying to help?
Anthony Taylor 1:05
Yeah, absolutely. So our ideal clients are CEOs of companies that are between 10 and 100 million, which in one way is a large range, and another not so much. And those CEOs are trying to grow their business, they want to have a legacy. They're entrepreneurial, they care about people, and they want to grow and move forward. And those are the people that we've been really helping the best over the past 10 plus years of doing what we do.
Stuart Webb 1:30
I mean, is there a is there sort of, you know, you say that they range is there a particular stage in their growth that you really find is the ideal one?
Anthony Taylor 1:39
I'd say from you know, everybody's got like, sort of, it's more the the growth stage, so 10, to 2020, to 5050, to 100, they all have a similar problem, it's just as a different flavour at the time.
Stuart Webb 1:52
Okay, so that brings us to the second question there, really. So what is that problem? What is the thing which they're struggling to do, which they try and do on their own without help?
Anthony Taylor 2:01
Yeah, so I was trying to save it for that. But, you know, we call it the multiple destination trap, you know, gotta be good guess. We call them multiple destination trap, it's that both the CEO and their leadership team and the rest of the organisation, they're moving in different directions. And it's not necessarily that it's their fault, it's, it's actually a byproduct of their success, because after getting to a place where they want it to go, now they're placed with a whole new set of options, a whole new set of opportunities, a whole new set of concerns and needs and wants. And the challenge is getting their entire organisation not only aligned to where they want to go, making sure they're going to the right place, but setting up the structure systems, processes, and strategies in order to get them there. And so they call us to help them get aligned, move forward, and, and set the team up for success.
Stuart Webb 2:55
Really important stuff, Anthony, because I know, you're right, this is not something which people sort of set themselves out to do. It's a byproduct of everything else that's going on the fact that they're building a business, and they just, you know, you get lost in the fact that somebody has decided there, they grill over here, there's somebody else that's growing over here, getting that alignment is so difficult when you got everybody pulling, you know, in so many directions, trying to make the company grow as quickly as you can. It's just one of those problems. It's a byproduct that you have to sort of try and fix.
Anthony Taylor 3:24
Absolutely. And some might say it's not rocket science. But the ability to actually do it properly, in addition to your full time job is really challenging, because you're in it, and you can't see all of the challenges, and you've got your day to day going. So you're trying to you know, build something over here, while you've got to maintain, you know, keep your eyes on the road in front of you. So it's, it's challenging. But you know, it just requires a lot of focus, but then the benefit is that sort of next stage of growth. That's why some CEOs are great at certain stages, because they have that experience. It's when they have to get to a new stage, a new transition that has a whole new set of growing pains, and we just complement and add to that.
Stuart Webb 4:08
Yeah, that's a great point. I think it's a great point. So many CEOs do have that sort of slightly different skill set, don't do that. You just need to, I just need to know where to compliment and where to use that energy to sort of help them to bounce off somebody else in order to get there. So So what's the valuable free resource you offer those CEOs in order to be able to take them to that level that the audience might be interested in?
Anthony Taylor 4:32
Well, there's actually two so one, you know, I put the put the link to the website SME strategy down, man. There we go. And so on there you can see a link to our scorecard. So as a scorecard to be able to assess where your team is at to see if you are you stuck in the multiple destination trap or if you're moving towards one destination, then the reason why we wanted to give this scorecard away and there's also a chat bot if you want any other tools and resources is that sometimes it's hard to have those conversations, it's hard to say, Hey, are we on the same page, but by using a survey that just one out of 10, it takes, you know, seven minutes to do, you can begin the conversation with your team of saying, oh, you know, we aren't clear on where we're going, or we don't have the right communication or our, you know, our tracking isn't sufficient for us to get to where we want to go. And so it's a really easy intro to have with your team, but also a great self reflection to say, oh, maybe I'm not as aligned as I thought I was. But you're too busy moving forward to actually look backwards to see where the rest of your people are at.
Stuart Webb 5:35
I think the other thing that those sort of things help most CEOs do is the fact that they're fairly sure that they were very clear in their last communication of what the direction is. And so only when you get that feedback to say, wait a minute, where did they get that idea from? Or Good grief? That was That was eight months ago, when When did when did I not update everybody on the fact that eight months ago is beyond? Beyond the history of this, there's this organisation that that's when you begin to realise that actually communication is a very long process. Sometimes there's no,
Anthony Taylor 6:03
yeah, it's, well, it's, you only control half of the communication, the receiver controls the other half. But one of the challenges that CEOs have, it's sort of the bane of their work is that their job is to be visionary, and to be ahead of their people, so they can lead them. But if you're too far ahead of your people, your your team will actually regress, because there's too much of a gap. So you have to maintain a healthy distance between you and your team, but also not take for granted the fact that your brain is a couple steps ahead. And you think what you're saying is very clear, but everybody else wasn't privy to your thoughts. Like surprisingly, they can't read your mind. And then that's when the gaps that's when the frustration that's when the uncertainty happens, and it plagues leaders everywhere.
Stuart Webb 6:47
Brilliant Santini that sort of really brings me to my fourth question. So is there a particular concept or book or programme that's affected you and you've used as a source of inspiration that you'd like to leave as inspiration for the people listening and watching at the moment? Yeah,
Anthony Taylor 7:02
I mean, there's so many great books. So for me to choose one is a challenge. I really like so I'm gonna say from good to great. That's probably the best book about like thinking about that. But I'll say the caveat that that book is just awesome. And it really gets you that understanding. But I think for me, it's the complement of the sub skills, a complete approach, dare I say, I'm trying to, you know, put as many plugs in there as possible. But because you got to understand the people, you got to understand where they're thinking, you got to understand the culture, you got to understand change management at that level. So if all you have is, and I'm going to say like, there's a book called Scaling Up, great book, but if all you have is the tool to lead the strategy, you miss the people part. And the people part is really what's going to make the biggest difference, because I can give you a strategic planning template, which you can get from a website for free. But if you don't know how to engage your people to move forward, you're going to have more challenges.
Stuart Webb 8:07
Brilliant. So look, this has been a great discussion, Anthony. And I guess there's one question that you're currently thinking, I wish you'd asked me this one. So I'm going to give you the free the free pass here. What's the question? I should have asked you that I haven't. Yeah. And don't don't leave us in suspense, answer the question as well.
Anthony Taylor 8:22
Well, you know, I would say, where do people where do people fail? Doing? This is probably the biggest question. And I kind of alluded to the people side. But I think the biggest thing, the biggest failure and the question you didn't ask, it's where people fail? And the answer is that they're too damn busy to do the work. And the best way I've heard this explain, was the time irony of the urgent is that CEOs and leaders will spend so much time dealing with what's on fire, that they don't take the time to step back and look at root cause or look at systems or look at process and, and they react. And so you know, what we do we facilitate strategic planning sessions for organisations, we do those two, three day off sites, but it allows you to pause, step back and actually look at the system because you're not going to fix the problem using the same approach that got you to the problem in the first place.
Stuart Webb 9:19
I think I think that is absolutely brilliant. I love what you're talking about. I think it is so important. So many organisations fail to understand the need to engage and fail to understand that the curve that you know, the communication is, is passing through the organisation. I think a lot of what you're talking about is so valuable. I really appreciate you having conversation with us. Listen, if you want to get on to watching these live so that you can ask questions of people like Anthony when they come on and talk about this. Please subscribe at TC a dot FYI, forward slash subscribe over to the HTTPS thing, but it's TTA dot FYI, forward slash subscribe. Get onto the mailing list so that you can get an A notification that we got people are going to be coming on. He's going to give some brilliant advice like this. Anthony, thank you so much for just spending a few minutes with us. I know you're off to go and do something really very much more important than this. Now you're going off to watch a soccer game, which I think is gonna be so much more important than that, than there. So really, thank you very much for taking a few minutes out of your day and spending a few minutes with us. Let's never get onto this website, get onto Anthony's SMA strategy dotnet website because there is some really valuable stuff there. I really highly recommend you get on and have a look at some of that. Some of those strategic planning frameworks that he's been talking about. Really great stuff. Anthony, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us. Really appreciate it. I look forward to watching some of this stuff. Developing the real into into some of the businesses I know you're gonna help.
Anthony Taylor 10:46
My pleasure, sir. Thanks for having me and folks, your audience watching
Stuart Webb 10:49
No problem. Thank you
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