In my experience as a turn-around manager I learned that an effective intervention to turn around a bad situation had to be both swift and effective, like the biker on a rope needs both correct steering and sufficient speed to maintain balance (circus artists and cartoon figures excluded). One needed to take the right decisions at a high speed, if not, time would pass and with that trust (‘balance’), hope and success would fleet. More concrete, that would mean:

A vision that is enticing for all stakeholders (where do you bike to), which means that there must be a role for all participants. If there is no substantive role for somebody, he or she does not belong at the table. Then an intervention is needed to remove those that do not belong at the table. Also if that is painful. It is a real art, however, to make parties aware themselves whether they belong at the table or not. If that conclusion is correctly drawn, then also the stakeholder themselves have proven their professional proficiency.  If a real stakeholder is – or feels – not represented, the setup is flawed. In such a setting each stakeholder will need to be given ‘his due’.  If the value proposition does not allow for each stakeholder to be properly rewarded, apparently the value proposition is not good enough.

Velocity in decision making (sufficient speed). Time pressure requires the right pressure to the bicycle pedals, too little speed usually will lead to failure. Shifting might interfere with the cadence and lead to halting. Some rules that help and maintain velocity:

• • Equal valuation for similar roles. Several times I have seen great entrepreneurial ideas succumb to internal haggling about rewards. And in the end, what is more important: that you become a millionaire, or whether you are 7 or 14 times a millionaire? Same thing about salaries: nothing can trouble the waters more than one individual being able to negotiate for a better salary than another while adding the same value. In the ideal company (not possible in all cultures) everybody’s salary would be open to all colleagues – and they could be explained by management.
  • Fail fast: set milestones that need to be reached. If the milestone is not reached apparently you are pulling a dead horse. Then kill the project and just salvage what you can. But be prepared to draw up a new plan with a proposition taking advantage of the new landscape, if possible.
• Fair pricing. No haggling about 0,9 or 1,1; the price is 1,0 and there is not sufficient time to ‘optimize’ pricing

Follow the proper process realizing the proper value creation (one fibre of the rope after the next)

• • First agree on the right value creation process/proposition to the market
• • Then agree on everybody’s overall role/position
• • Each role comes with specific responsibilities
• • Allocate sufficient resources/budget to each role
• • In case of commercial processes: describe Market dynamics, only then the P&L, Cashflow and Capitalization Table
  • Only at the end, one can attribute the proper rewards to the various responsibilities because only then there interrelationships can be assessed.

Credibility and earning trust (the safety harnass, or not)

• • There is no long term ethically successful business venture where somebody gets cheated out of his or her fair share.If everything needs to be ‘lawyered out’ it takes too long to survive to maintain velocity. Thus, if there is no trust there is no reason to engage in conversations.
• • If somebody betrays me, they loose their reputation so I will take the chance.
• • A contract is legally binding, a given word morally. Guess which one I find more compelling.
• • Therefore I generally try and confirm my understanding of the words given, this helps to eliminate misunderstandings and prevents the unnecessary undermining of mutual trust.
  • And then we circle back to ‘stakeholders’: one’s starting position, whether it is societal, job, reputation or stake(holder backing), they all can provide credibility. Which again is needed to get groups into movement, or: without proper support, how do you keep the rope steady?

Hopefully the above strikes a cord, and I would be interested in hearing additions or other opininos.