Leading through Intent
Striking the optimal balance between autonomy and alignment.
A range of factors makes strategy execution difficult:
As human beings, we have all sorts of biases and personal interests that influence our actions.
Furthermore, when we operate within complex circumstances, emotions and stress contribute to the unpredictability of our behavior. If we also operate in complex environments where shared references are lacking, misunderstandings are likely to affect both our conversations and decisions.
When we add to this the challenge of operating in a changing environment, strategy execution becomes even more formidable.
In an ideal world, executing strategy is easy:
First, you decide what outcomes are important. Then, you plan how to achieve those outcomes.
And finally, you execute the plan by taking actions.
Easy, right? Wrong!
The Leading through Intent approach
Leading through Intent is based on a well proven fact: Most people want to make a positive difference in their work and are willing to invest all their skills and efforts if they get the opportunity.
Sadly, in most organizations, a lot of this human potential is wasted. Either because our processes have grown too complex and hard to relate to, or because people do not really feel psychologically safe and empowered.
Leading through Intent is designed to get more people involved in making decisions close to their work. The approach offers true empowerment by moving the responsibility to the people who do the work.
Working with the dynamics of autonomy and alignment
Autonomy and alignment are usually seen as opposites that we must choose between: Either we choose high alignment, or we choose high autonomy.
But there is a better way of addressing this. Under the right circumstances, we can have high alignment and high autonomy at the same time. If this is achieved, everyone is working towards the same outcomes, while using the freedom their autonomy gives them to make independent decisions. This is what Leading through Intent is all about.
If all team members fully understand the intent (the what and the why), we can loosen up operational control, allowing team members to take responsibility for how things get done.
Becoming intent driven high performers in only one year
The TARGIT case
Read the story of how TARGIT, a leading business intelligence Software as a Service company, moved from below average to high performance on both team collaboration and leadership quality in only one year.
And more importantly: How they became an intent driven organization with a high degree of autonomy, involvement and strategy alignment.
