You are on the hook! You know how important this new initiative is. Everyone knows how important this is! So you assume the right resource decisions are being made and implemented because if you don't complete the transformation, the whole organization is at risk. The new work must be getting the attention and resources that it requires because everyone has agreed that they are committed to moving the new strategy forward.

What Everyone Is Thinking

Yikes! I've been asked to do this new stuff, but I still have all of my current workload, and I don't have more resources. So I can't move forward on the new stuff until I get some more resources.

Or…

This new stuff does not affect my team, so I'll just assume resources are being moved around elsewhere, and I'll keep my head down and keep doing my work. I'm not going to volunteer to give up resources from my team. I'll do everything I can to support the transformation; it's just that it doesn't involve me at this time.

Resource Reality

Another harsh reality during the “Middle” is that resources will never self-optimize to support a new initiative, strategy, or transformation. Never. New stuff requires resources to do it. And very seldom does new stuff come with new, additive resources. So if you don't work through resource shifts out in the open, top-down, on purpose, they will not happen. Even if the organization as a whole has absorbed the importance of the strategy, no one will voluntarily give up resources to fund the new work.

You need to make sure that you have specifically resourced the activities necessary to achieve the outcomes you have put on your timeline. I realize that this sounds almost too basic to say, but I can't tell you how frequently I see organizations commit to plans without specifically applying the necessary resources to support those plans.

This happens often because resource discussions and decisions are hard. Really hard. It's tempting to avoid making hard choices, so those choices are delayed—and so before execution even starts, the strategy is at risk.

If there are no new resources to be added, the ability to do new stuff requires taking resources from old stuff. Simple. But difficult.

As an example, I remember doing a strategy session with a client where they kept talking about their growth strategy for India and China. In the room was a woman I'll call B, who was heading this initiative. After about half of a day of talking about the importance of growth in India and China, among other business priorities, we got to the discussion about resources. To jump to the punchline, through forcing the discussion on resources I discovered that B (who had significant revenue assigned to her in the official business plan over the next two years) had no team and no budget. B was alone with no funding.

I said to the group, “In looking at your budget, it seems like your actual strategy is to have one person (B) investigate and write a plan for growth in India and China, not an actual strategy that should have revenue attached to it.” They admitted that, in fact, they did not have a strategy that had revenue attached to it, and they changed their plan.

I see this all the time.

Your strategy is not what you say it is. Your strategy is where you put your resources.

Think about that. You can say whatever you want about what your strategy is, but if you want to know what your strategy actually is, just look at your budget. Remember, strategy is not what you talk about or hope for; it's about what you do. Your budget reflects what you are actually doing. Your budget tells the truth. Your budget describes what you will be doing, specifically throughout the Middle.

The problem is that getting clarity about where the resources come from causes conflict, and people tend to avoid conflict. But without assigning resources clearly to the new stuff, you'll never even start.

You need to work through the productive conflict and make the specific decisions about resources unambiguously clear. Resources will never self-optimize behind the scenes. You'll need to make tough decisions and hurt some people's projects (and feelings). Don't be fuzzy about how the new stuff will be resourced. The resource discussion and commitment will always be challenging and will always require clear, often painful decisions. I'll talk more about working through this type of resource conflict in the V = Valor section in Chapter 20: Clarity and Conflict.

Remember, Great Isn't cheap

Sticking with the idea that your strategy is what your budget says it is, one of the biggest mistakes I see business leaders at all levels make is to commit to a 100 percent plan on a less than 100 percent budget.

Here's how it starts. You have proven, maybe from your job interview, or your discussions or proposals, that you know exactly how to build or fix something to get the company to best in class in your area. So you'll have said: “Here is how I would improve the [quality, competitiveness, customer satisfaction, marketing effectiveness, service, sales performance, etc.].”

People are impressed because before you got there, they didn't even know what best in class looked like, and now they are really excited that there is someone who really knows what they are doing and can take them there. The company is expecting a huge transformation…but then without the right, realistic resource discussion the following can happen:

1. They expect you to deliver the dream scenario that you talked about.
2. They underestimate how far behind the company currently is and think it's not that big of a journey.
3. They don't give you enough budget to do it.

It's vitally important that, within the first moments of this discussion, you push back in a highly credible way so you are not set up to own an un-doable commitment.

Here is a great way to have this conversation.

Show the Scope of the Journey

One of the reasons that decision makers underestimate the resources required to get to a competitive position is because they do not fully realize the size of the hole they are in; or they don't fully understand why, or even that they are in a hole.

They know the company is not performing in your area as they wish, but because they do not have your expertise, they can't see the 37 reasons why. If you don't show them the depth of the hole you are in, they will expect to get to best in class right away just because you showed up.

If you don't show them the reality, there is a good chance they will believe that the only thing between the low point where they are now and best in class performance is you, with no additional staff, budget, or time to get there.

Don't let this happen. Act right away. Create something that looks like Figure 5.1. The vertical axis is whatever it takes to be competitive in your specific space.

Show the True Cost of Improving

You then need to give the management choices for different levels of outcomes and show that they cost different amounts. The conversation you need to lead goes something like this: “OK, if you only increase my budget 10 percent, we can fix these three things, and add one item, but we can't add most of the competitive features. If that's the funding choice you make, this is what you will get.”

The chart looks something like Figure 5.2.

You need to share the ownership of the problem with the decision makers. This is not your problem alone. This is a choice that the company needs to make.

Your job is to shine the spotlight on clearly defined choices, not to own all the risk of an un-doable strategy on your own.

Do yourself a favor and make sure you paint the resource reality clearly as soon as you can, and sign up for only as much as the funding allows. Share the knowledge of the scope of the journey. Share the decision about the level of investment and agree on expected outcomes throughout the Middle with the whole management team. It's not just you who should feel the pressure. Make sure everyone is sharing in the pressure to make the right resource trade-offs and has the same definition of success.