Last week I wrote a blog about how Business Acumen Skills Lead to Business Outcomes Skills. I’m not
sure exactly why, but it turned out to be one of the most popular blogs I’ve ever written so something hit home with the more than 3,000 subscribers who receive it, comment on it, and pass it on to others. From the feedback, comments, and dialogues I’ve had about the blog with colleagues who are very close to me as well as people who were complete strangers before last week, it seems that the practical aspects of what I wrote about made sense and many found it extremely useful. Here’s a comment from a participant of a High Potential Leader program I conducted several years ago who is now a General Manager:
“Rob, this was spot on. Sent it to all leaders on my team for them to read and report back to me how they are going to get their direct reports to be more outcomes focused by understanding business acumen better. Thanks and let me know if you have some sort of basic business acumen online program or something I can pass to the teams.”
We emailed a bit over the week (and I set him up with a demo subscription to Business Acumen 101) about Outcomes Skills, Business Acumen Skills, and eventually about leadership skills and what skills are needed to lead to strategy execution. I started thinking about it more and concluded that while Business Acumen skills that drive Outcomes Skills are critical to have, there is something missing; the interpersonal skills needed to execute to the outcomes.
In today’s volatile, uncertain, competitive, and ambiguous business environment (VUCA), business outcomes and interpersonal relationships can often be at crossroads. Unfortunately, if leaders choose the wrong path it could lead to devastating poor business outcomes.
To explore the topic a little further, I developed a simple 2 by 2 matrix that looks at Business Outcomes vs. Interpersonal Skills.
Here’s a quick overview of each quadrant and some takeaways from a leadership perspective:
NO FOCUS – Weak Business Outcomes and Low Interpersonal Relationships
Basically, this is business and leadership chaos. Relationships here don’t matter and there aren’t enough business acumen skills to drive success. This is a classic case of no focus and poor leadership.
TOO COOPERATIVE – Weak Business Outcomes and High Interpersonal Relationships
In this quadrant, people are basically “too nice.” This is a situation where there is a disconnect between focusing on the business outcomes to achieve results and the leadership skills needed to create a culture of accountability and a results mindset.
WIN-AT-ALL-COSTS – Strong Business Outcomes and Weak Interpersonal Relationships
In this quadrant, people are basically cold-blooded killers who just focus on the results at all costs and don’t care at all about relationships.
TRUE PARTNERSHIP – Strong Business Outcomes and Strong Interpersonal Relationships
This is the true balance between business and people. In this quadrant, relationships matter as much as the outcomes and I believe very strongly that it’s the only quadrant that is sustainable for long term success.
What are the Takeaways?
While this may be an interesting topic, it’s meaningless unless it can be used for positive action. Here are two immediate suggestions:
Conduct an organizational or departmental assessment
Which quadrant is your company or department in? Is it in the three that aren’t very good? Is it in the positive quadrant (TRUE PARTNERSHIP)?
Take Some Action
If your organization isn’t in TRUE PARTNERSHIP the you need to figure out why and take some action. What three things can you do immediately to start to drive toward the upper right quadrant?
