Dr. Alex Tawse: What middle managers need to drive strategy execution (001)

In today’s episode I interview Dr. Alex Tawse, professor of management at Georgia State University. We talked about the three critical components of successful strategy execution and what companies can do to support middle managers in the effort to maximize effective change across the organization. This is empirical research, not anecdote. Implementing these concepts in your organization will lead to successful outcomes. I hope you enjoy. Please leave me feedback in the comments section on this episode, and on what you would like to hear going forward.  Enjoy….

Key Takeaways:

·         Skilled middle managers are critical to strategy implementation

·         Senior executives should place just as much emphasis on the process of execution as they do strategy planning

·         Middle managers need time and space (and training) to be effective

·         Capability, Commitment, and Coordination are statistically significant elements of successful execution

·         Accountability, Predictability and Common Understanding among all levels are critical components of Coordination

Call To Action:

·         Submit comments on what YOU believe are critical elements of strategy EXECUTION.

·         Email me your thoughts and suggestions for future episodes

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 5:29 What does effective strategy implementation look like?
• 9:30 Why can't we execute better when we are sending out the messages
• 11:18 Getting Middle Managers change ready
• 24:01 How does Coordination play a role in SI?
• 29:13 Top takeaways

Transcript

All right, so my first guest today is Doctor Alex Tawse. Dr. Tawse is a clinical associate professor at the Department of Management at Georgia State University. 

 He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and international relations from Stanford University, and MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and his Ph.D. From the University of Houston, specializes in strategies for over 20 years of business experience 

 serving as CEO. This acquisition company and the oil and gas industry. 4s Institute and as a CPA for Price Waters Waterhouse Coopers in Silicon Valley. Uh. He has published several interesting articles on strategy implementation, one of which is the basis of this interview titled Strategy Implementation The Role of Middle Manager Leadership and Coordination, published in the Journal of Strategy and Management. So, Doctor Tawse, how's it going? 

 It's going well, Chris. Thank you for having me. Great. Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. I think we're going to learn a lot from you today. Um, tell us a little bit about the beginning. How did you get into this field? Um, 

 kind of what sparked that for you? 

 Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a combination of things. Um, uh, one from my consulting experience, um, you know, being inside firms and, uh, realizing  that. 

 One thing. 12s Problem for executives and. Managers all over the world, and we don't really have a good understanding of how to help people with that because we we don't know exactly what it is. Uh, so so that was the first thing. And then, you know, when I made the transition to academia and started, you know, looking into to research and, and things like that, I recognize that there was, in terms of management at least, that there's sort of two camps. You have the strategic camp, which is focused on organizational level outcomes, and then you've sort of got the organizational behavior camp, which is about, you know, leadership, and then, uh, uh, communication and interpersonal relationships and how that's, you know, various outcomes there. And the two were were sort of again, there's quite a divide between the two. Um, and the strategic camp was not very much focused on the doing part, which, which again gets into the organizational behavior elements. Um, and so you're either, you know, put in sort of a strategy macro camp or an organizational behavior micro camp. And I think there was a big opportunity there to address this issue of, of how do these micro level behaviors, leadership, uh, communication, um, etc., coordination, how the organization actually functions and how does that impact the execution of a strategic plan? Um, and so that's that's where it all started and started digging into what had been done in that space and came to realization that there's a big, again, a big sort of gap in the research, I think, or at least an opportunity for, uh, for further work to be done there. Uh, and that, that that's how I got started and that's, that's how I got on this track of focusing on strategy implementation. 

 Yeah. I mean, I noticed that too, when I was, um, kind of doing some literature reviews and, you know, your, uh, your research and your name was one of the first that came up that was actually looking into this space. So, um, yeah, it is it is a relatively newer field that I think people are starting to pay attention to. Now, when you think about. Strategy or effective strategy implementation. What does that look like? 

 Yeah, that's a great question because that's that's the first question. That's that we actually tackled my my first couple of papers were with a colleague. He was my my office mate when we were both getting our PhDs in Houston to bash, um, and so we wanted to do a sort of a review, get a handle on where the research was, what do we already know about this, and realize one of the biggest issues is there's no clear sort of understanding of what effective strategy implementation looks like. What what is it like? What are the key components? What are the key elements? What are the key constructs? What should managers be looking for and trying to do within organizations in order to foster a climate of effective, uh, execution of strategy? So we reviewed over, uh, 500 papers or so and tried to organize all the data to figure out what that was, and we narrowed it down to three essential elements. And this was tricky. There's there's some other ones that we could debate and maybe another call we could think about, you know, expanding this. But but we identified three essential pieces that that have to be present. The first one is sort of a little bit obvious. And that's organizations have to be capable of executing this strategy. So that gets down to, um, you know, people, capabilities, resources, uh, software tools, all those things they need to have the resources and capabilities to actually execute a plan. Obviously, if you've got, you know, a plan, a strategic plan that requires a lot of innovation, you have to have a lot of innovation capability and resource development, engineers, talent, all those sorts of things. So they have to be capable. Um, the second one is sort of the motivational side. People have to be committed and motivated to execute, uh, the strategy. So that gets really into the OB field. And there's a lot of work done on on commitment and motivation. But that's that's certainly an essential piece of it. People have to be, uh, in the right space and doing the right things and motivated to work together and work towards accomplishing strategic goals. And then the third one, which which I find personally the most interesting because it's the most complex, and that's the coordination piece. Um, and that's where I think organizations really struggle because, you know, they're so focused on, on specializing that, you know, we get siloed organizations. People aren't communicating and working together, uh, towards a common goal. And that's where it gets really tricky. So the sharing of information, uh, the sharing of resources, organizing that information in the right way, getting people on the same page, they have a common understanding of what the goals are and the current situation are and and who to go to for what. Uh, that's the coordination piece. So again to summarize this is the three C's capability. Uh commitment and coordination are the three essential elements. And when you've got those three things. And you've got a good chance. But any short shortfall in any one of those is going to cause you problems. Um, and a quick, quick analogy just to drive that home, if you think about the analogy I like to use is a sports team, football team or a soccer team. And you think about, you know, what makes one team better than another. And it's generally obviously the skills, the capability of the players, but also their drive, their commitment. Or, you know, is the team motivated to play together and and the teamwork, which is the coordination piece. So if you've got those three things, again, you are in a good position to execute on the game plan or execute the strategy that the organization is trying 

 to do. Yeah. It's interesting. Some of the things you just mentioned, um, you know, I've been in, uh, in organizations for 20 plus years, two and I could see from a senior executive level standpoint that, you know, I've got the management of change communications. I send out all the notes. And, you know, we think we do the the PowerPoint presentations and we have our meetings. And I think people are getting the message, 

 why is it that we still feel that, you know, what's missing in the execution piece of this? Why can't we execute better if if we feel that people are, you know, I'm I'm sending out the messages. I think people are getting it. But what's happening down below? Maybe I don't have visibility to that. Any thoughts there? 

 Yeah. Yeah, I, I think it's tricky because, you know, on one hand, you know, at a senior level, your primary responsibility is to come up with a plan and effectively communicate that plan right to to say, here's what, here's what, here's where we're going, here's the vision, here's the strategic plan. Um, and it's sort of but the how to get there is complex. And I think sometimes executives, senior executives maybe don't have a full understanding of the complexities within the organization. Um, to, to overcome that hump. It's a key piece, certainly, is the communication of the strategic plan that is, you know, has to be done. People have to know where they're going and hopefully why they're going there as well, which also helps into the motivational piece. But again, once you get into working across departments, you have different personalities. Sometimes organizational structure can get in the way, you know, how are people being compensated? What types of things are you measuring? You know, so if you have a strategic change within an organization or you set a direction, you really have to think about the complexities of, you know, what kind of software systems are you using? What sort of measures are you, um, applying? How are you holding people accountable? Are you making sure everyone knows their role in this? Everyone has a common understanding of not only their role, but everyone else's, um, and all those sorts of things. So it's it's not that. Um. 1s Uh, that you can't do it is just it's just complex. And I think that complexity is often lost in the shuffle. And it takes it takes a lot of hard work, basically. Right. It's not just about communicating the message. You have to really think very consciously about it. And coming up with a plan is not good enough. You have to also put a lot of time and effort and energy and leadership into executing and getting people all aligned to, to execute. 

 I like what you just said, time, effort and leadership. And one of the things that I as and when I was reading your research that I kind of thought about was you talk about the importance of the middle manager, you talk about the coordination as being critical, but you also talk about investing in leadership training. And I don't just mean how to be a leader in those middle managers. But, you know, do you feel there is enough training and organizations around getting your middle managers change ready? Meaning, I know I have a job to do. It takes up 120% of my day and I'm busy. I have, you know, minimal resources. I'm just trying to get the work done. However, we're doing a merger or a divestiture, or we have a major implementation of an ERP that we have to go through. How do I get my people ready to understand that this is change and not have fear of change, but be kind of and it's not just change ready? It's. Very. Jane's ready, if you know what I mean. Like it's almost enthusiastic. Change readiness. Do you see anything in organizations that could be done better to get middle managers in that sort of mindset? 

 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, um, yeah, it's a critical piece. That's that's not, uh, we don't do enough to help middle managers with that role because because they are sort of they're the key implementers, so to speak. Uh, you know, they bridge the gap between the plan and the execution. You know, that we've got people doing work. They're adding value, uh, or through a product or service to customers. Uh, you know, executive leaders are focused primarily on, you know, what should we do? But the middle managers are focused on how to get it done. I mean, that's sort of their their job. They they're the linchpin between between those two. And we don't give them enough help. Um, one because again, you know, understanding what what they need to do. Well, the three C's I talked about earlier, but two, they have, you know, they're pulled in different directions. They have to keep keep the, you know, keep the keep the lights on, keep the keep the engine moving, uh, and make effective change. And, and that's very tricky, you know, that this brings in another whole, uh, realm of research, change management to fit into this right, to bolt on. And that's why this is so complex. It's not just strategy. It's not just leadership, but also change management. Um, and helping them gain the skills required to do that. You know, we don't we don't do that very well even in, you know, I teach MBA classes. We have a little bit of it. But, you know, a lot of these graduates are going to go on to be involved in major, um, you know, change events with organizations and tasks with that. And we we don't do enough to help because, uh, it also leadership in general and change manager in general. We know, uh, there's a big difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it. And it takes a lot of practice and failure and all those sorts of things. So we need to we need to give people more resources, more time, um, and, and help them along the way. A little bit of hand-holding, give them the space to think and do this in addition to their regular job, which is managing people and keeping the machines on and keeping the process efficient and effective. Um, and it's really a difficult task. And it's it takes more than just the middle management. It takes a lot of top leadership support of middle managers and doing it together to really pull the organization. And yeah, 

 yeah, I really like what you just said. I mean, I um. 1s We're so busy trying to get through the day with all of the tasks in the meetings, but I find it when I do have those moments where I can just take a pause and sort of critically think or reflect on what I'm doing and kind of get out of that flow state and into my reflection zone. I sort of that's where a lot of those new ideas start to pop up. And, um, yeah, I think giving that time and space is, is going to be critical. Uh, going forward, I want to get into the research a little bit with you. You your research involved studying over 400 individuals at a major municipality that was undergoing a five year change transformation. Can you tell us a little bit more about that situation, what you can, um, and kind of what was going on and why they asked you to come in and what were you trying to study? Uh, 

 research there. Yeah. Yeah, that that was my my dissertation paper that, that turned into a, you know, published paper, uh, later on. But but I wanted to test some of these relationships that my, you know, my, my colleague and I had found, um, and, and put them to the test in practice. Right. There's one thing to come up with a theoretical model of, you know, here's capability, commitment and coordination and various other things. Um, but I wanted to put it to the test. And in particular, my focus again, was on the coordination piece, which I think is is the most difficult. And also maybe the and which makes it the most important thing to focus on. I think, you know, people have a pretty good understanding of motivation. They're pretty good understanding of capability. Coordination is is tough, uh, especially in large organization. So, uh, I was lucky enough to, to be able to work with, uh, yeah. Large municipal organization going through. They were doing a massive change of their whole, uh, system, transit system. Um, and they were about halfway through. There were about year two of a five year plan, uh, which was ideal for, you know, me testing this. And they were very gracious to let to let me, let me do the work. Um, but we did a lot of surveys, both in terms of what the plan was at the the upper echelon sort of the executive leadership and their role in how they prepared, uh, the organization for this, but really focused in on the middle managers and their teams, um, and, and thinking about, uh, what, you know, how effective are each one of those teams in terms of execution? So that's, that was sort of the dependent variable there. How effectively are each one of these teams executing the strategy that's been defined? Um, and then how well are these leaders, their behaviors, how are they influencing that and what is that relationship and how does coordination fit in? Are they helping their teams coordinate and work together and how does that influence? Um, those outcomes. So yeah, we, we, we had about 400, uh, people that we interviewed across, you know, getting those various levels. Uh, the actual sample size is a little smaller because again, we were looking at team performance. So I think we had, uh, if you get the data, 42 teams or something around that. Uh, so those 42 middle managers leading 42 teams with, you know, some senior executives, um, above them. Um, but but but it was great. We found out a lot. We measured. 1s Uh, in terms of behavior. That's the other tricky thing. Like how what what sort of things influence the coordination and effective execution of strategy. Uh, so we looked at leadership. Uh, again, we those are common constructs. People know what they are. Those types of behaviors seem to be strongly linked with the research we've done in strategy implementation terms of, you know, motivating people, keeping them informed. Um, so transformational leadership, you know, being a charismatic leader. And we also looked at one other type of leadership called instrumental leadership. So we covered sort of the, the, the motivational side, which is very, you know, that's what transformational leadership is very much focused on charismatic leadership motivation, you know, being available, connecting with people, sort of the interpersonal skills. Instrumental leadership is more practical in terms of getting the job done, being clear about what the goals are, helping people make sure they've got the right, uh, resources to get the job done, measuring, um, performance. Very kind of practical, just getting things done type of leadership. Um, and so we measure both those we wanted to kind of have both sides. And we found that both both are effective. 1s So and both are important um, in that process. And both seem to influence that outcome through coordination. Uh, meaning that those behaviors that help people work better together. Um, and I'm kind of, uh, stop me if I'm getting into too much detail, but the coordination piece. Yeah. Uh, we based on another, um, trying to remember the, uh. Okay. And and Becky, I think are the are the two authors behind that. I'll need to look that up for you. Um, but they did a they did a deep dive into what is coordination. And they determined that there's three essential components to coordination. One is, um, accountability. So people are accountable for their actions. Two is an element of predictability so that there's some consistency. Right? Uh, to a process. And the third one is common understanding so that people are aware not only what their role and responsibilities are, but everyone else's role and responsibility, so that you know how information should flow and how product should flow and where to go to and who to talk to, when and where and why. Um, so leadership that sort of foments a culture that does those things improves strategy, implementation outcomes. They help people execute on strategy better. 

 U1 

 20:20 

 Yeah. Let me let me say that like a repeat back a couple of things that you said. And I also when you were talking about transformational leadership, um, and um, the instrumental, I think it was an instrumental leadership. Correct. Yeah. It's I kind of when I was reading the research, it sort of reminded me of one is left brain dominant, one is right brain dominant. You've got the transformational leadership, very charismatic right brain, uh, a lot of EQ, a lot of skill. And then you've got the left side, a lot of the IQ, like, let's just be practical, get this done. Was wasn't one of those. Not as, um. Correlated with execution? Yes. More than other one. 

 U2 

 21:00 

 Yes. Yes. Transformation of both. Both of the types of leadership directly and positively and significantly influenced directly uh, strategy implementation effectiveness. So both were had a positive influence. Now when you put in, um, a mediator of coordination in there to say, does it influence effectiveness because coordination because the teams are more coordinated. Uh, transformation leadership also showed that, uh, instrumental leadership did not quite meet the 5% threshold. Now, um, you know, part of that was probably our power that we had, uh, you know, we had 400, uh, interviewees, but, uh, again, 42 teams is a little tight for the types of relationships and the number of relationships we were trying to tease out. It was a positive relationship, but it was slightly above, um, that 5% threshold. So technically, no, not significant, but it was positive. And I strongly believe that if we had a larger sample size, it would also, I think 

 U1 

 22:07 

 it depends on the culture of the team. If you want to bring it to real, like the practical world, you know, you could have, uh, like the military, for example, very much the old command and control style, um, that that whole instrumental leadership is certainly there. There's not a lot of, um, of um, in my experience, anyway, in the military, there wasn't a lot of the soft skills, uh, I guess, if you will, the EQ, um, or if it was there, it was purposely hidden. Uh, but we were still very effective in executing a mission that you have to do. Very discreet mission. But there again, there wasn't a lot of ask of middle management to do what what we're asking them to do today and organizations, which is to think broadly, think on your own, um, you know, solve problems, get ready for change. And so I thought that was a pretty interesting piece. Um, let's come back to a little bit about if you know, what would you advise companies start thinking about in terms of the, 

 U2 

 23:02 

 um, the 

 U1 

 23:03 

 relationships that are important in the organization the most with the middle managers? How do we, um, you know, you've got senior executives, you've got middle managers, you've got individual contributors. Um, how do we, uh, how do you think about those things in that coordination piece? Uh, because it seems like we want to get really good, get better at that coordination piece. What are the critical relationships there in organizations to get 

 U2 

 23:27 

 better at that? Yeah. Um, you know, I think there's a number of ways to do it effectively, but I think the most important one is. 1s Top managers, no upper echelons executives put a lot of time and effort into the planning process as as they should, uh, to come up with an effective strategic plan for the organization. Um, what I would like to see is a recognition by them and the effort by them to do the same when it comes to execution, and recognize that middle managers also need to have that time, um, and process like a process to formally think about how to execute effectively, because that's not what happens. You know, you get the plan and it gets handed down and the execution. There's no there's no process to it. Right. It's it's individually. Uh, and that's where the coordination gets lost. Uh, some middle managers are recognized, you know, and they're good at it. They have transformational leadership skills. They can get people on board. They're good at communicating. They get everyone together. But there's big gaps, right? You get you get a variance across. And you don't get that communication, especially when you have, you know, organizations that have lots of different departments, uh, if they're physically in different locations, you're missing that common understanding. That coordination piece becomes even more difficult. So you have to, uh, I think you can do it. It just needs to be a formal process to do it. And again, with top management leadership and recognition that middle managers need that time and space and that process and their help and resources to do it, to formalize it, don't just have a planning meeting, have an execution meeting. Uh, and this gets back to one another paper that I wrote way back when in terms of, you know, human nature, it's much easier to plan than it is to do, uh, from a just an emotional, uh. 1s An emotional sort of. Um. Energy standpoint, right? It's easy to plan a vacation. This is a plan a night out. But as we get closer to actually going out and doing it right, it becomes more difficult because we have to do things right. We have to coordinate, we have to take it put in an effort. So it's it takes less effort to plan than it is to to do. And that just needs to be recognized in organizations and supported by top managers to work with the people that are tasked with executing, to give them the support, time, resources and a process. Right. And and every organization is going to be different. Strategies are different. Like you said, some some strategies require more interpersonal relationships between people. Some, you know, like the military, much less. So it's very structured. You know, instrumental leadership may be, you know, much more effective there, right? Command and control, top down rather than more autonomy given to individuals. It depends. But as long as organizations recognize what it is, um, and give middle managers the support and time and resources to do it and formal process to do it, then I think organizations will be much better at it. 

 U1 

 26:41 

 No, I completely agree with that. Um, we're getting close on time here. I think, um, we've answered a lot of the questions that actually I had, um, planned to ask you through through the course of the conversation, which was great. 

 U2 

 26:55 

 Um, I mean, if, if there's any you gave a lot of key takeaways here. Uh, I love the time and space. Uh, peace for middle management to support the training, getting them really change. You know, I can just imagine there's a lot of middle managers out there struggling with managing people, managing process, um, managing micro changes within those processes and therefore that that is in conflict with maybe a broader corporate strategy, um, or a major, uh, because, you know, with, uh, with our C-suite or senior executive in an organization, as you said, they're doing a lot of planning work. They're getting a lot of inputs from, you know, the the executive board or consultancies or what have you, about which, you know, way to take their company. It's hard for them to reach down and understand all of that complexity and that micro change that's happening and how to get it aligned to a new direction that the company may need to go. Um, so I really love what you said about, um, you know, giving managers time and space and training to have that ability to think out, uh, get out of their role for a moment and kind of think about the broader strategy and where they're going. So a lot of sharing and coordination. But as we 

 U1 

 28:12 

 get down to the last few minutes here, um, what do you think are the the top 2 or 3 takeaways that you would like to leave? Um, anyone who may be listening to this podcast, uh, from middle manager or senior executive. 

 U2 

 28:26 

 Yeah. Let me I'll summarize one thing and then let me add two things that that I think are also important. Uh, first is again having an understanding of, you know, when you're struggling, when leaders are struggling with the execution piece, why isn't this coming to life? Uh, take a moment and think about, uh, is this a capability issue? Is this a commitment slash motivational issue, or is this a coordination issue? So I would use that that framework to help get a handle on what the problem is. And maybe maybe it's all three. It could be all three. But but I think that is one. Uh, at least that was our intention is to help managers have a rough framework of identifying pain points. And and that will help guide what you need to do about it. Um, uh, the second thing I'll think about in terms of addressing those issues or improving the capability commitments and coordination of. Of your organization is you've got two sort of levers. You have two resources or two ways of going about it. One is, um, a structural kind of control lever. So make sure that you've got the right, um, performance measures in place. Make sure you are, uh, evaluating people in a way that drives behavior towards the strategy, that strategic plan that you're trying to achieve. Uh, and make sure you've got the rules and sort of guidelines. Right. The policies of the organization are not getting in the way. So that's sort of the rules, policy structure, make sure people are are talking to the right people. Right. You've you've got the right lines of, uh, you know, connection on your organizational chart, those sorts of things. So that's one lever. The other lever is more the transformational stuff. Right. What is the culture of the organization? How are you treating your people? How how do people communicate with each other? What's what's important, right. How are decisions made? Um, and that's the cultural side. And if you can create a culture where change is more natural, and that generally means, you know, being open to experimentation, for example, not blaming people so much and pointing the finger at people, but focusing on the process and eliminating, you know, going to the root cause of problems in terms of from a process perspective, although the lean stuff that I learned. Right. Uh, so having a culture where change is more natural, that's also really going to help when you have, you know, large change initiatives, people are going to be more open to that process, and middle managers are going to be more experienced with it than, than not. And then the last thing I'll say is, I think it's important when we talk about roadblocks or issues that companies face, uh, in terms of, of strategy execution or change management in general, and that is large software systems. It's a little pet peeve of mine, but again, from a consulting perspective, uh, and I'm sure you have experience with it as well. Even though you know how the process should work, you have these systems in place. And organizations are often run by large, you know, ERP systems. They get in the way because you have to do it according to what the software is telling you. And that is a that's a really it's a problematic it's not an easy one to overcome because, you know, millions and millions of dollars are spent on these things. A lot are invested. But you have to have sort of an honest look at are those software systems that are embedded, holding us back from what we want to do, because people are behaving in a way to match what this software is telling them to do and not what they should be doing. And so you have to take a really hard look at that. Yeah. 

 U1 

 32:25 

 Doctor Tarzi, I would say it's been a pleasure having you, um, as my first guest on this podcast. And, you know, I've, I've learned so much just even having read your research, but having talked to you here live. Um, really, thank you for your time today, sharing your insights with us. Um, I am sure that I'm going to go back and listen to this once, you know, we get all of the the edits and once it's up on the, the podcasts. But I'm sure this is going to be beneficial to people. And I would really love to have you back on as a guest. Um, to talk about another one of the topics that we, that we touched on in, in podcast today. So, um, any final remarks? 

 U2 

 33:04 

 Yeah, just thank you, Chris. Uh, you know, it's it's my pleasure to do it. This is, uh, this is an area of research and a, you know, an area of business that I think, uh, is ripe for, um, you know, sort of more work to be done. I applaud you for for putting a spotlight on it. And, uh, I think you're in the right place at the right time that it's gaining momentum. And certainly practitioners need the help. Um, and, yeah, I'd be happy to come back anytime and talk. 1s Talk with you about it all day. I think there's so many different directions you can go. Um, and I appreciate again you you having me on? 

 U1 

 33:43 

 Awesome. We'll have a great day. And, uh, thank you, everybody, for listening. We'll be in touch.