Before AI Amplifies The Wrong Things: Building A Synchronized Enterprise

Yeah.

I love working on that problem alone.

And this is really kind of a pre-technology question.

And I've found that, you know, I've built a whole framework around this.

And it really starts by observing the organization itself.

It starts by just simply listening.

And there's kind of four key points in an opening conversation.

Talking to people across functions, levels, and locations.

And asking, what do you do? What problems do you have in what you do? What do you love about what you do? But really the key question, and you asked about kind of the baseline and the metrics.

I'd love to ask this question, and it's just baked into this conversation, is how do you know if you're successful? And it's interesting to see and hear how people respond.

One of the challenges I find is that there can be alignment in an organization, but alignment is static.

It's an event.

Synchronization is ongoing.

So by asking this question across an organization, it gives you kind of that observational capability of whether All levels, all functions are talking about the same measures of success without getting formal, without having to recite, you know, this is strategic priority one, this is strategic priority two, because you want people to be comfortable in answering in their words, but then observe whether they're all pointing towards true north, at least for that organization.

So continuing on with that, there's kind of three evidence streams.

It's what are people, what are they saying? What are you observing in their environment? So what I mean by that? Are metrics visible? So if they are able, first of all, oftentimes I find that there's a disconnect right there.

Just in understanding what are we all trying to do? And you'll find that operations and sales and accounting may all answer differently.

They may have a generic, you know, here's the one, you know, here's your strategy.

Here's our mission.

But how do I know if I'm successful today? You would expect somebody at the front line to answer in terms of today.

not in terms of one year or three years, and that's okay.

But are they measuring success in the same way that, I don't know, purchasing is, in the way that sales is? And I'll give an example of a disconnect that I found and brought the solution right into the operation.

And that's that simple question uncovered that operations was operating, actually, surprisingly, at a higher level than sales was expecting to operate.

Because operations thought all customers are equal.

But sales understood that, no, they're not.

Yeah.

I love working on that problem alone.

And this is really kind of a pre-technology question.

And I've found that, you know, I've built a whole framework around this.

And it really starts by observing the organization itself.

It starts by just simply listening.

And there's kind of four key points in an opening conversation.

Talking to people across functions, levels, and locations.

And asking, what do you do? What problems do you have in what you do? What do you love about what you do? But really the key question, and you asked about kind of the baseline and the metrics.

I'd love to ask this question, and it's just baked into this conversation, is how do you know if you're successful? And it's interesting to see and hear how people respond.

One of the challenges I find is that there can be alignment in an organization, but alignment is static.

It's an event.

Synchronization is ongoing.

So by asking this question across an organization, it gives you kind of that observational capability of whether All levels, all functions are talking about the same measures of success without getting formal, without having to recite, you know, this is strategic priority one, this is strategic priority two, because you want people to be comfortable in answering in their words, but then observe whether they're all pointing towards true north, at least for that organization.

So continuing on with that, there's kind of three evidence streams.

It's what are people, what are they saying? What are you observing in their environment? So what I mean by that? Are metrics visible? So if they are able, first of all, oftentimes I find that there's a disconnect right there.

Just in understanding what are we all trying to do? And you'll find that operations and sales and accounting may all answer differently.

They may have a generic, you know, here's the one, you know, here's your strategy.

Here's our mission.

But how do I know if I'm successful today? You would expect somebody at the front line to answer in terms of today.

not in terms of one year or three years, and that's okay.

But are they measuring success in the same way that, I don't know, purchasing is, in the way that sales is? And I'll give an example of a disconnect that I found and brought the solution right into the operation.

And that's that simple question uncovered that operations was operating, actually, surprisingly, at a higher level than sales was expecting to operate.

Because operations thought all customers are equal.

But sales understood that, no, they're not.