L'art de (se) diriger ( le blog de Laurent Pellegrin)

Voici directement en anglais, le résumé d'un post d'Anthony Tjan tiré de Harvard Business Publishing sur la nécessité pour les PDG d'écrire en début d'année un mémo en 5 points qui me semble particulièrement pertinent.

"Here is our five-point plan on how we develop and use a CEO Memo to the Board in our companies:

1. CEOs begin preparing an annual memo at the end of each year that summarizes their most important lessons over the past 12 months and their top four to five priorities for the coming 12 months. There are never more than five priorities for a 12 month period. An important rule for us: a new priority cannot be added until one is completed.


2. The first of these priorities is almost always: "Achieve the financial plan." The memo should refer to the top line and bottom line target or to the date when these targets will be agreed upon between management and board.


3. Other priorities reflect the top strategic initiatives for the year, which may include such things as new product launches, customer service enhancements, or new market locations.


4. This memo is then used as a recurring framework for update discussions and board meetings. For example, the first page of each board meeting presentation throughout the year is often an update on the major priorities as stated in the annual memo. The priority agenda in the memo also offers an opportunity to drill deeper into one of the specific priorities for the key purpose of a board or update meeting.


5. Regarding the lessons learned: we can accept failure, but we cannot accept not learning from past mistakes. Once a year, a CEO should share with the Board and with employees, what the most important lessons were and what it means for the organization going forward.

There it is. Nothing magical, but an annual priority agenda is one of those seemingly obvious things that is rarely done. I have no stats, but my conservative guess is that less than 10 percent of companies undergo such an exercise. I am sure that people feel that they do some version of this, but the litmus test is individually asking leadership members of a company what the top three priorities are for their company and seeing if their answers diverge We've just found it easiest to put it down on paper and to use it as a "ground hog day" agenda guide throughout the year to see if we are making progress against the big picture.