Bob Dylan
asked in his thought provoking song, “Blowin’ In The Wind”:
How many roads must a man walk down,
before you call him a man?
And then he
really gets on it with:
How many times will a man turn his head
and just pretend he just doesn’t see?
Well, almost
50 years after Dylan wrote this amazing song, this makes me want to ask:
How many times will we turn our heads and pretend we just do not know any better
when we see huge organizations make major mistakes?
I know, I
know … you can’t sing my question to the Bob Dylan music, but nevertheless, I
have had it with organizations that refuse to grasp the reality about the
sequence of steps in Strategy-Process-People-Technology.
To be successful today, you must:
- First do Strategy
- Then do Process
- Then do People
- And lastly do Technology
The
sequence here is what this is all about. If the sequence is broken, then the
results will also be broken. But in spite of this, I continue to see
organizations get this wrong in a big way. The two most common mistakes that I
see are:
- Organizations jumping right
into Process without knowing the Strategy
- Organizations starting with Technology
(example. we WILL use ABC ERP) without understanding
Strategy-Process-People
Well, I
have stopped turning my head and am yelling, “Stop the music!” It is time we really grasp the essential
rule that sequence matters. Please help pass this along:
- First we do Strategy
- Once we understand the Strategy,
then we design the Process
- Based on the designed Process,
we next determine the People
- Working with the Process-People,
we then define Technology.
We have
turned our heads too many times and found ourselves just “Blowin’ In The Wind.”
What song are you singing these days?
More Resources
Strategic Market Planning
Global Supply Chain Podcast
Photo Credit: Dave Goodman