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Applying Step One of Net Income's TACTICS - Think Links

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RESULTS! That's what business leaders from all walks of the marketplace are striving to achieve. Net/web technology, which includes the public Internet and World Wide Web, Intranets and Extranets, gives business new tools and strategies to cut costs, boost profits and enhance the productivity of their overall operations. Discovering how to use the power of Net/web technology requires learning to think about business strategy in new ways.

If you take a look at the key processes you've defined in your strategic analysis, you'll find that within your business there are key flows of information and goods that make up your core business processes. And there are key flows of information and goods between your business relationships and value chain.

What you want to do is take your key processes and key relationships and use Net and Web technology to develop tactics that support your strategy, to develop tactics that transform your vision into action, whether you're a small, local business or a global giant. The way you'll do that is to apply the seven key TACTICS that we have found to be effective.

What is the TACTICS Action Planning System?

TACTICS stands for:

Think links

Automate

Customize

Transform

Inside/Outside

Core Functions/Big Payoffs

Start Now

THINK LINKS

The first step of the TACTICS Action Planning System is to THINK LINKS, because links are power. The power of your brain, according to brain researcher Bill Calvin, is its ability to make connections, to make links. The power of the Web and all the technology that surrounds it is the ability to link information, ideas, and people. You can use this technology effectively if you think about links. But how?

Look inside your company. Booz, Allen & Hamilton looked there for ways to link various centers of knowledge important to the firm's success. Texas Instruments linked folks worldwide to share Best Practices.

Look at your value chain. Marshall Industries sees itself in the middle of such a chain, providing services to both its suppliers and its customers by using net/web technology.

Look at your partners and alliances. Lockheed Martin shows how this works with the usual multi-company team in what they call Generic Project X (for more detail check out how this is illustrated in Chapter 11 my latest book, Net Income. In aviation/aerospace, three, four, or more large companies need to work together to produce a single product. In addition to the key players, there are also a host of subcontractors. If they're going to work together, you have to keep them on the same page, and you have to keep them focused, and you have to keep them communicating. It turns out that Net/Web technology is an excellent way to do that.

When Lockheed starts a project, the first step is to create a Web site for it. Now the number of people who have access to that might be 20 or it might be 200, and that creates certain security problems. Different participating companies each will have its own portion of the Web site. There's also a need for program-wide information. That's where action items and checklists and calendars would be.

THINK LINKS: STEP ONE IN TRANSFORMING STRATEGY INTO RESULTS ORIENTED ACTIONS

Let's stop for a minute and look at how the TACTICS Action Strategy THINK LINKS can be applied in leadership functional area of a business.

HOW TO THINK LINKS IN LEADERSHIP:

Leadership is about links and information. But the leadership challenge when you start thinking links is a bit different from than the others we talk about in this book. As a leader, you need to understand that every link is a potential for communication.

That means that you can start from either end of the link. Start by thinking about who it is you need to communicate to do your leadership job effectively. Donald Beall, the Chairman and CEO of Rockwell International Corporations, communicates his vision and direction with a link off both Rockwell's public web site's home page, at http://www.rockwell.com/, and off their Intranet, RWEB, home page.

When we think of how Rockwell extends it's leadership links their are three sections on their Site Map that immediately come to mind. First under the 'Home Section" off their public Web site they have links to Welcome, What's Hot, Did you know..., Contact Us, Site Search Legal Disclaimer. Then in their "Current News" section they have links to Current News, Press Releases, Quarterly Earnings, Reports and Dividends, Rockwell in the News, Rockwell Perspectives. And finally in their "About Rockwell" section they have links to About Rockwell, Rockwell At-a-Glance, FAQs, Science Center, Rockwell Global, Rockwell Video, Corporate Responsibility, Key Executives, Rockwell History.

The Corporate Responsibility link in their "About Rockwell" section takes you which describes what being a responsible corporate citizen at Rockwell means. The Rockwell Perspective link in the "Current News" section contains the text of Donald Beall's presentation on "How and Where R & D Partnerships Make a Difference: An Industry Perspective." In this presentation he clearly illustrates and communicates the qualities of leadership needed for effective R & D partnerships.

Lockheed Martin exemplifies leadership with links of their "Corporate Overview" section to Our Values, Lockheed Martin Leadership, A History of Mission Success and Lockheed Martin Corporate Ethics & Business Conduct. The "Our Values" is a collection of essays by Norm Augustine, the President and CEO of Lockheed Martin, communicates the companies values in the areas of Ethics, Mission Success and Teamwork.

While this kind of visionary leadership communication is important it is also equally important that leaders make sure there are communication links that make their leadership Vision, Values and Goals happen. And don't forget to look at who needs to communicate with each other in order to be most effective. Work to establish links there as well.

For example National Semiconductor uses it's internal Web as a catalyst to stir employee innovation and enhance collaboration and efficiency. Their internal Web provides a selection of complementary communications alternative to telephone, e-mail, and video conferences. Tim Stuart, Information Services Consultant for National Semiconductor said in his interview with Netscape, "The Web helps to bridge time differences. You can publish something and let someone draw from it after you go home. It's better than dragging someone out of bed for a conference call," he says. "If we can give people a new way to communicate and make that communication richer, then we can make better products faster and more efficiently."

Don't stop, though, with the links that you establish. Look at the links that are already in place and think about how you can either make them move effective, or use them more consciously to establish values and direction. Email Discussion Groups and Newsgroup Forums are active areas employees from different departments and wide spread geographical locations can get together to discuss problems, issues and concerns while they share their expertise and brainstorm innovative solutions to the daily challenges they face.

Communicating with unremitting diligence is a necessity for effective leadership. Repetition, it has been said, is the mother of learning. It's also the mother of leadership.

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