The Six Behaviors of the Effective Enterprise

No matter how intelligent a leader’s strategy for change, it will fail without the dedicated support of the rank and file. Winning that support often requires more effort than devising the strategy itself.

Effective and intelligent behavior is important in all knowledge work. People tend to think of such behavior as particularly important in “valuable” problem-solving or decision-making situations and other high-level tasks such as determining corporate strategy. However, contrary to that notion, intelligent behavior is equally —often more—important on the factory floor and in detailed work throughout the enterprise. As indicated earlier, most enterprise strategy is determined in the boardroom but is implemented by the individual actions of employees throughout the organization. Hence, improving the quality of the myriad of “small” decision-making and problemsolving situations that are part of every employee’s daily work cumulates into significant improvements in knowledge worker performance for the whole enterprise. It makes the difference between a high-performing organization and a well-intending, but stumbling, organization.

Behaviors are functions of circumstances, traditions, availability of resources, and other factors. More importantly, they are also directly dependent upon what people know and believe and therefore are influenced by systematic knowledge management. Among all the behaviors in the enterprise, six behaviors stand out:

1. Ethical, Safe, and Approachable Behavior

Any enterprise that expects to survive over the long term needs to adopt a governance model that minimizes internal strife and counter effective behaviors. In the spirit of good senior management operating philosophy, everyone responsible should attempt to foster an ethical, safe, and approachable environment that supports effective situation-handling by employees. Specific aspects of the corresponding behavior tend to be:

— Open, honest, and communicative to build solid understanding of issues with the security that there are no hidden agendas or other problem issues.

— Helpful and approachable managers and coworkers who all work to achieve enterprise success and viability.

— Managers acting as role models for personal attitudes, conducts, and leaders.

— Ethical and fair treatment in dealing with problems and opportunities.

— Trusting in the attitudes, mentality, and capabilities of managers and coworkers.

— Responsible and accountable for personal actions with tendencies to practice “The Buck Stops Here!” actions.

2. Effectiveness-Seeking Behavior

The enterprise continually works to renew and reinvent itself. It seeks to find the best and most effective approaches to operate and conduct business —within its internal operations and in all external relations. The employee effectiveness-seeking behaviors tend to be:

— Constantly learning and innovating with the goal of innovating faster and better than competitors —and not only learning faster than competitors.

— Implementing valuable innovations and exploiting IC assets quickly and wherever applicable.

— Delegating, collaborative, and trusting.

— Culturally supportive of strategy and mission.

— Goal oriented.

— Alert to advances among competitors and other parties.

— Considering many possible scenarios for future developments and challenges.

3. Consistent and Durable Behavior

In spite of the constant changes brought about by innovations and external changes, the effective enterprise is able to maintain a stable and reliable operation and uphold a solid reputation in the marketplace. It also emphasizes a healthy balance between short-term requirements and long-term viability. Specific aspects of this behavior tend to be:

— Focused on providing products and services that predictably and consistently increase market value and foster customer loyalties. Factors of product and service characteristics (in order of importance)

— Consistent product quality and conformance to specifications

— Dependable delivery of products and services

— Product features —high-performance products

— Fast and reliable deliveries

— Low prices of goods and services

— Flexibility—new product introduction

— Flexibility—quick design changes by customer request

— Broad product line

— After-sales service

— Broad distribution

— Rapid volume change —support of just-in-time (JIT)

— Effective promotion and advertising

— Proactive and decisive to escape avoidable problems, exploit opportunities, and ensure competitive leadership.

— Fiscally conservative to ascertain that the enterprise consistently is financially healthy.

— Providing stable and predictable working conditions for employees throughout the enterprise regardless of necessary changes.

— Avoiding personnel layoffs and reducing personnel turnover to provide workforce security and trust, retain access to personal IC assets, and minimize personnel and hiring costs.

4. Employee Engagement Behavior

The degree to which employees are engaged in their work is repeatedly found to be a major factor associated with enterprise productivity.7 In most organizations, people are deeply engaged in their work less than 20 percent of the time on the average. Instead of being deeply engaged, they perform much of their work by rote without examining what situations might require beyond what is normal. Desirable employee engagement behavior often reflects a deeper mentality and tends to be:

— Aware that they have the understanding to do things “right”

—this awareness provides employees with the security and motivation to engage.

— Focused on “doing the right thing,” particularly when it requires adjusting actions to different circumstances — instead of treating each situation as routine.

— Considering the implementation of every task as an integral part of implementing enterprise strategy.

— Quick to pursue critical thinking and other fundamental approaches in complicated and unusual situations.

— Delivering “completed staff work.”

— Practicing “closing the loop” by reporting back.

5. Stakeholder Supportive Behavior

The outstanding enterprise knows its stakeholders and how they are valuable to the enterprise’s performance and viability. The enterprise also understands its responsibilities toward the stakeholders —that it is relied upon to provide economic returns to owners, secure livelihoods to employees, provide the town or area where it operates with services, products, and economic support through its payroll and sourcing, and so on. The supportive behaviors tend to be:

— Concerned with an understanding of stakeholders’ needs, objectives, and welfare to fulfill them to the greatest extent possible and to build support and loyalty.

— Responsible and accountable for actions that affect shareholders.

— Socially oriented and understand that the enterprise has obligations and responsibilities toward its stakeholders and society in general.

— Environmentally oriented by considering secondary and tertiary environmental effects from actions.

6. Competitive Behavior

A significant behavior characteristic of the enterprise is its competitiveness —its ability to deliver competitive value and attract customers to choose its products and services over competing ones. Competitive behaviors take many forms and are driven by several underlying factors such as dealing competently with customers in friendly and efficient ways while maximizing both customers’ and the enterprise’s objectives. The behaviors involve individuals, teams, departments, and larger entities and tend to be:

— Competitive in spirit with commonly shared desires “to be the best.”

— Competent, informed, efficient, expedient, reliable, responsible, quality conscious in all work and planning.

— Understanding of customers and their customers to be able to deliver products and services of greater value and cost effectiveness than their competitors.

— Advanced and leading —but practical, innovative, and curious about how things can be done better.

— Communicating competitive and other intelligence quickly and targeted together with critical evaluations of how reliable the intelligence is and what it might mean.

— Versatile, agile, and flexible, with the capabilities to quickly change directions when conditions warrant it.

— Bold, proactive, quick-acting, anticipatory, goal oriented, and farsighted, with wide horizons for the purpose of being better than competitors.