Goals, Format and Leadership to Develop High Performance Management, and, Help Shape Rapidly Scaling Technology Businesses

1. BUSINESS REVIEW
MEETINGS
Goals, Format and Leadership
to Develop High Performance Management, and,
Help Shape Rapidly Scaling Technology Businesses
JULY 9, 2019
DAVE LITWILLER

2. PURPOSE OF
BUSINESS REVIEWS
To Bridge Between Tactics and Strategy
• Create a focal point and build capability spanning strategy
and tactics, the immediate and the important
• Take greatest advantage of opportunity rich environments
with a high rate of internal and external evolution
• Develop people, especially leadership traits in middle
management
• Build strength and flexibility at the boundary between
current KPIs (articulating current competitive optimization),
and the judgements and adaptations that go beyond what
current indices directly inform to keep ahead of a rapid
pace of internal and external change
• Help people to understand the company-wide effect of
operating decisions

3. PURPOSE OF
BUSINESS REVIEWS
• Develop cross-functional integration and learning across
the management team
• Simultaneously manage for both short- and long-term, not
overly tilting to one or the other
• Build and diffuse intellectual honesty, self-analysis and
self-action to cultivate management autonomy away from
business reviews
• Give geographically distributed teams (remote teams) the
ability to work and make routine decisions more quickly, by
building mutual trust through reciprocal understanding of
each other’s thinking, goals and optimizing criteria

4. CADENCE
• Typically:
• Quarterly in medium growth rate businesses
(CAGR of 20% to 40% per annum)
• Monthly in high growth rate businesses
(CAGR of 40% to 200%+ per annum)

5. SCOPE OF MEETING
• Single business unit organization:
• Presiding and second level managers for each major
function
• Multiple business unit organization:
• Business unit general managers and their reporting senior
managers

6. PRELIMINARY CONDITIONS
FOR SUCCESS CONDUCTING
BUSINESS REVIEWS
• Timely, accurate, comparable financial reporting of actual vs.
plan by product, project, function, location and business unit
• The ability to navigate and course correct at any level cannot
be effective without timely, consistent, reliable visibility and
control of the money
• Multiple indices/KPIs for core competitiveness and
productivity measures, since any single metric can hide as
much as it reveals
• Demonstrated ability to delegate routine efficiency and
productivity improvements
• The ability to more broadly manage and lead for both the
short- and long-term requires a baseline ability in
decentralized capacity to lead and manage incremental
adaptive change

7. STANDARD
REPORTING FORMAT
To bring discipline, aid in prompt anomaly detection, and
avoid gaming through creative formatting to avoid
uncomfortable issues, a standardized prescribed reporting
format for each reporting manager is required:
• Completion status of action items from the last business
review
• Problems vs. the prevailing operating plan (or budgetary
plan), and what the manager’s organization is doing about
them
• Progress for the period vs. the prevailing plan
• Variance root cause analysis and discussion
• Lucky breaks that served to meet plan, but may not recur

8. STANDARD
REPORTING FORMAT
• Short-term fixes for issues that occurred, and, longer term
training and tools being put in place that will prevent
recurrences and reduce risks of similar issues
• How much and by when improvement will be realized over
the coming period
• Updated forecasts over the next twelve months
• Status of key objectives for change and progress
• Tactical
• Strategic
• Emerging or probable future issues, opportunities, and
changes since the last review

9. DATA SOURCES
Internal:
• Current tactical operating data should flow directly
(ideally, self-generating) from daily and weekly reporting
tools to provide monthly or quarterly reporting and trends
• The challenge for leadership is that neither inter-group
tensions nor sometimes even what most business review
participants will acknowledge as the elephant issues, are
typically well captured by current operating data

10. DATA SOURCES
External:
• Considerable effort usually needs to be applied keeping
external data, and externally referenced data, current and
as data-rich as possible:
• Customers, market size, growth, share, segments,
competitor dynamics and productivity
• The challenge for leadership is to keep from devolving to
anecdote driven decision dynamics when referencing
external matters. Otherwise, the gift for storytelling can
trump sound data and analysis in business review
meetings

11. PRE-READING AND
MEETING MECHANICS
• Participant presentation materials, in the prescribed format, should
be compiled such that they can be distributed to all participants in
the business review three business days before the meeting
• The expectation for all participants should be that they will have pre-
read and familiarized themselves with the material
• The business review meeting itself is for commentary and dialog
among all participants, not learning the background material
• Five to fifteen minutes for each reporting manager during the
meeting is typical
• Efficiency is key to sustained effectiveness of business reviews
• It takes practice to get to this level of throughput, but it is achievable

12. EMPHASES FOR
PRODUCTIVE BUSINESS
REVIEWS
Focus should be on:
• Organizational interfaces, interdependencies, and
integration of work across functional, geographical,
hierarchical and business unit boundaries
• Participating individuals each taking responsibility for his
or her professional development
• Broadening the individual’s perspective to better guide
self-development
• Developing a shared sense of what thoughtful risk taking
looks like, since a necessary ingredient for smart failure
(as the tolls on the road toward creating major success) is
high individual performance expectations

13. EMPHASES FOR
PRODUCTIVE BUSINESS
REVIEWS
• Co-ordinating and learning together
• Transparency, speed of problem resolution and
opportunity exploitation, and team engagement
• Developing shared views about the evolving form of
normal vs. abnormal conditions, and how to react to
emerging problems
• Always feeling a degree of dissatisfaction with the status
quo, and relentlessly pursuing better

14. EMPHASES FOR
PRODUCTIVE BUSINESS
REVIEWS
• Under Normal Business Conditions:
• Keeping a strong focus on the voice of the customer, and,
continuous improvement as widespread operating
disciplines
• Under Disruptive Conditions (whether externally caused
or internally):
• Understanding and developing the ways that increased
centralization of authority and responsibility will be carried
out until the time of highest danger has passed

15. ROLE OF THE PRESIDING
EXECUTIVE OVERSEEING
THE BUSINESS REVIEW
• Actively coaching in real-time; focusing as much on the team
and team dynamics, as the operating and strategic issues at
hand
• Demonstrating the behaviours expected from reporting
managers at all times, such as candor, collaboration,
forthright and timely communication, raising good questions,
rigor, attention to detail and ownership of outcomes
• Keeping up a tension to perform, while also a comfort to be
forthcoming
• Requires maintaining a balance between praise,
encouragement, and critical discussion
• Modelling the meeting preparation and thoroughness
expected from all other participants

16. ROLE OF THE PRESIDING
EXECUTIVE OVERSEEING
THE BUSINESS REVIEW
• Asking good questions, that constructively probe thought
processes and solution spaces
• Leading from the demonstrated authority of how to get at
knowledge, rather than the authority of position (most of the
time)
• Asking questions that get at the crux of the ingrained
assumptions, multiple facets of issues under discussion,
competitive dynamics and operational excellence
requirements for the business
• Posing questions that produce the most rigorous thinking, and
push people beyond their comfort zones
• Framing some questions such that people can’t answer them
with current knowledge, thus requiring fresh investigation at
the source which will likely drive new insights
• Focusing people on the right problems

17. ROLE OF THE PRESIDING
EXECUTIVE OVERSEEING
THE BUSINESS REVIEW
• Getting reporting managers to stretch themselves and
their teams
• Seeing the gaps, uncovering problems, and helping others
to learn to see similar gaps and self-correct to fill those
lacunae
• Identifying and then acting upon differing participant
assessments about what is in good shape, what defines a
minor variance, and what constitutes a major deficiency
• And then, maintaining ongoing calibration about the shared
definition of divergences and what responses they call for

18. ROLE OF THE PRESIDING
EXECUTIVE OVERSEEING
THE BUSINESS REVIEW
• Displaying curiosity, discerning standards, and working to
learn and grow
• Showing willingness to call for better results and plans
when presented with deficient performance or expectations
• Being forceful enough at times that the business review
does not become toothless, but not so forceful that people
conceal issues or other voices are drowned out
• Exhibiting openness to new approaches
• Making sure there is broad participation in the dialog

19. ROLE OF THE PRESIDING
EXECUTIVE OVERSEEING
THE BUSINESS REVIEW
• Being adaptable to ambiguity and contradictory points of
view, but not indecision or inaction
• Fostering constructive conflict and exploration of
legitimate business alternatives, while curtailing conflict
based on interpersonal issues
• Drawing out the immutable truths that everyone can agree
upon about a pressing issue, even if there is disagreement
about what to do next
• Exhibiting a drive to achieve, and persistence through
tough obstacles
• Confidence (when rooted in relentless problem solving)
and resilience are contagious

20. ROLE OF THE PRESIDING
EXECUTIVE OVERSEEING
THE BUSINESS REVIEW
• Maintaining balance in meeting time and emphasis
between period operating results, and longer-term
innovation, change, and strategic development programs
• Clarifying objectives for reporting managers as
circumstances evolve, so they can operate in a more
coordinated, autonomous way away from the business
review
• Knowing when to speak. As the presiding executive, once
you vocalize your point of view, you change the remaining
dialog and process toward decisions or action
commitments

21. ROLE OF THE PRESIDING
EXECUTIVE OVERSEEING
THE BUSINESS REVIEW
• Propagating change in a timely fashion:
• Goals, objectives, priorities, preferred methods and
allocation of resources
• Imparting the right way to negotiate and arbitrate among
goals, objectives, KPIs, functions, geographic locations
and business units, building sub-group problem solving
capacity and avoiding undue escalation of issues

22. THE RIGHT WAY FOR
PARTICIPANTS TO ASK
FOR HELP
• Asking for help is core to transparency, collaboration,
integration across the business, and ability to discuss
challenges openly to avail the best thinking and resources
• It needs to be done with respect for the commitments and
pressures that others are facing
• What is not OK:
• Downplaying or concealing problems until it is too late,
remaining time and options have dwindled, and only then
asking for help

23. ACTION ITEM AND
DECISION REVIEW
Second to Last Item for Each Business Review:
• Recap of Action Items: Name of assignee, deliverable and
deadline, including work items needed to reach a pending
decision point quickly
• Decisions: Major decisions taken, along with reasons why,
as well as leading alternatives considered and dismissed
• Included among decisions should be cross-functional and
cross-business unit resources identified to help resolve
difficulties or exploit favourable circumstances

24. LAST BUSINESS
REVIEW ITEM
• A reminder and a call to action that we are one team

25. SIGNS OF A GOOD
BUSINESS REVIEW
• Information is actively sought by a broad base of
participants
• People who report difficulties are not treated as pariahs;
the focus is on problems, not punishment, and there are
absolutely no “pot shots” in the meeting or outside
• There is a shared responsibility to improve and grow as an
organization
• Cross-group collaboration occurs naturally and
spontaneously

26. SIGNS OF A GOOD
BUSINESS REVIEW
• People want to get to the core of anything that causes
failure, and are ready to help
• New ideas are welcomed and given ample consideration
• Difficulties are seen first and foremost as opportunities to
improve the system
• Participants see the pressure to perform as helping them
reach their highest level of individual and group
performance

27. COMMON BUSINESS
REVIEW PROBLEMS AND
A SAMPLING OF FIXES
Common Business Review Problems:
• Presenters trying to run out the clock and get offstage fast
when they have significant difficulties
• Détente, where mutual reciprocity builds that presenters
will not query each other
• Participants attempting to delegate their problems up, or,
decisions overly centralizing to the business review
meeting
• Weakly informed opinions substituting for facts

28. COMMON BUSINESS
REVIEW PROBLEMS AND
A SAMPLING OF FIXES
• Participants failing to feel the pressure to perform for their
peers, if not for the presiding leadership or the good of the
business
• Contributors wanting to solve only part of the problem,
such as a parochial version of the difficulty, rather than
the whole problem
• Participants sticking doggedly to the same tiring methods
of issue investigation, resolution and improvement, with
declining results and productivity

29. COMMON BUSINESS
REVIEW PROBLEMS AND
A SAMPLING OF FIXES
A Sampling of Fixes:
• Work with a pace setter function, business unit or task
force that can set a high bar for quality and results, to
drive peer pressure to perform. Peer pressure is the main
motive force over time
• Bring more Voice of the Customer into the business
review. Customer interview comment summaries from the
past period in the pre-reading, as well as retention, churn
and NPS’s can help shift focus outward
• Get more vitality in the dialog by asking people to
advocate an opposing viewpoint to their previously stated
position

30. COMMON BUSINESS
REVIEW PROBLEMS AND
A SAMPLING OF FIXES
• Get a group of the smartest, self-starters with the most
first-hand knowledge of a key issue to work together
• Better still is a smaller issue where tangible results are
likely to be realized and shared more quickly
• In ultra high growth businesses, where talent acquisition
is almost always a governing constraint to other
advances, put emphasis on each reporting manager’s
contribution to sourcing, recruiting, hiring and onboarding
talent, and promotion of the company being a premium
employment destination for the highest performing
individuals and teams

31. IN BETWEEN
BUSINESS REVIEWS
The Presiding Executive Needs to:
• Further draw out participants’ points of view
• Narrow communication and information gaps
• Fix misunderstandings, to keep trust high and enable an
ongoing high tempo for decisions and action
• Resolve emotional tensions among the team
=> Doing so improves discussion, deliberation, problem
solving and decision making for future business review
installments

32. REFLECTION FOR THE PRESIDING
EXECUTIVE TO IMPROVE FUTURE
BUSINESS REVIEWS
• Ask yourself, what would need to happen for me to be able
to stop answering questions, and just have to ask
questions?

33. SUMMARY
Business Review Meetings Help Company Performance and
Sustainable Growth:
• Generating high quality learning and a shared frame of
reference
• Creating tempo for the business both optimizing the present,
and adapting to a rapidly changing environment to both
exploit emerging opportunities and forestall developing
threats
• Setting expectations of high quality for participants both in
and away from the meeting, to guide their thoughts and
actions in their day-to-day management and leadership work

34. SUMMARY
• Showing people how to instigate, integrate, set priorities and
get better together at what they do balancing short- and long-
term horizons of concern, tactical and strategic matters, as
well as incremental and bigger step changes for the business
• Engaging a larger portion of management in strategically
impactful work, at the same time as increasing execution
capacity
• Building the less-intuitive, less-obvious perspectives of
general management more widely throughout the
organization

35. FURTHER
DISCUSSION
For arrange discussion about conducting monthly and
quarterly business reviews for impact, growth and leadership
development in rapidly scaling technology businesses:
dave.litwiller@communitech.ca