Putting Everything to Work

It is now time to apply the concepts, models, processes, and tools provided in Chapters 1–8. Rather than have you go back and search each time, critical figures will be repeated here, in the context of applications.

When defining where to go and justifying why you want to go there, use the basic steps provided earlier in the context of change, choices, and consequences; your decisions, your results, your consequences:

•   The Ideal Vision—Mega, where to head,

•   The Organizational Elements Model—what are the linked three levels of results and what are the methods and resources to use,

•   The Six Critical Success Factors—making sure you get to where you should go.

To guide your actions from concept to application to success is:

•   The Six-Step Problem-Solving Process—for finding and implementing the best ways and means to get from here to there.

Know what not to do as well as what to do. In addition to knowing the right things to use and do, you can also benefit from knowing what not to do—choosing what is useful, not simply what is conventional. We can count on change happening: we can take control or wait for things to happen to us. We may be proactive or reactive. Be proactive.

Business cases and Mega Thinking and Planning. In most organizational activities, one is expected to provide a “business case.” Business cases, at their best, identify and document the relationship between what is spent (time, money, resources) and what benefits are derived for the organization in the short run. Business cases usually stop at Macro—the payoffs for the organization—and usually relate to payoffs in immediate fiscal quarters or immediate years.

As sensible as this might seem at first, conventional business plans almost always fail to formally factor in the value added to external clients and society. Because they do not include Mega, they are incomplete. It is risky to base any plan, including a business plan, only on return-on-investment/return-on-equity for the organization alone.

Use the cost–consequences information and procedures provided in Chapter 3. This is vital for you to demonstrate value added.