cascading HIGH PERFORMANCE High Level, Strategy & Design
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This is a high level, strategy & design document for the performance development of our people at Mimecast.
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e are an agile, creative, entrepreneurial, free thinking organisation. We are clever people who like simplicity and a degree of informality around what we do. While we admire the achievements of other organisations, we are not looking to emulate or ‘copy’ other organisations.
Performance at Mimecast is about the results of what we do. Those results can and will be measured in hard metrics, customer experience, feedback and the strength of our commercial pipeline. We will deliver multi-platform initiatives, in consultation with all functions. Have no doubt, Performance is about results.
Our communication and consultation will be focused on all ‘agendas’ and ‘social styles’, we’ll keep it simple and, for those who want detail we will offer a robust deep dive. Innovation, creative thinking & collaboration. Performance. The Mimecast Way.
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Consulting
We still have a lot of listening and consultation to do within the business. This document will doubtless change and be adapted as we work through the various development tasks with you.
Supporting
Growing
We see the Performance team as an on-going global, support service for you. In partnership with your teams we know we can achieve legacy for our people.
There will be growing pains, as any successful organisation grows there are inevitably barriers to change and tensions within the existing framework. Our job is to balance challenge and support, while facilitating the implementation of best practice.
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GOALS 5
#TRANSFORM Deliver mind-set transformation around what being a ‘Mimecaster’ means.
Appeal to hearts and minds, a ‘grown up’, results based philosophy.
Offer a robust support platform for both organised and selforganised learning.
To leave people feeling empowered to implement continuous improvement solutions.
Challenge and stretch those who think that they already do. “High performance” Take people beyond the superficial behaviours. Inspire people to take regular, lasting, personal action around ‘high performance’.
Ensure our end to end operating models are high performing. Nurture a culture where high performing, agile minded, employees are rewarded.
Align to and connect people to other resources, departments and teams.
Demonstrate, model and benchmark specific high performance behaviours and align them with our business issues.
Build and support the systems that facilitate ‘Leadership at All Levels’.
Engage our people using high impact, straight talking, inspirational comms. 6
#ENGAGEMENT • Master first’ approach in everything, so a truly consultative approach.
• Fuelling the campaign with authentic content, using real world Mimecast stories, for relevance and impact.
• Identifying and exploiting key
• High impact internal campaigning, owning the ‘organisational development’ agenda at every stage and keeping the story fresh.
• Driving engagement through serious gaming,
viral video, social networking, user generated content, senior sponsorship.
communications assets making the very best use of Mimecast leaders and spaces (online, environmental, digital, event).
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Envision 8
An agile minded and skilled program population of “Collaborative” Leaders that leverage “total leaders” demonstrating Leadership at All Levels. each other’s skills and expertise to innovate today and champion change for tomorrow. Leaders who have been challenged and supported by the experience, and now have the courage to continually challenge themselves and others.
Personally accountable for the decisions they make because they are aligned to the Mimecast Way.
A greater feeling of being ‘connected” to each other and to our regional offices.
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Strategy 10
Delivery Options Regularly scheduled live facilitated programs Tailored just in time programs Virtual classroom, VC and podcasts Train-the-Trainer, Performance Coaches & Performance Clinics E-learning, video and interactive PDFs
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PICTURE 12
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Leadership
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YOU This begins with the employee. We are putting the individual at the heart of the Mimecast world.
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We will help Mimecaster’s to prepare and perform like elite athletes.
For some, it is truly transformational.
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We will provide the core training opportunity for personal leadership.
Some call it high performance coaching.
ESSENTIALS
IP ERSH TRAININ AD G E L
Unlike other top down tell initiatives, performance at Mimecast will be driven by having the right people in the business, with the right DNA, who will be striving for high performance.
Some call this performance psychology.
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The ‘Performance Pie’ will prepare our people for a High Performance mindset.
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Performance Pie
Delivering a high permormance mindset
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High Performance Training
Establishing a High Performance Mindset
Performance Masterclasses
Performance Clinics & Pitstops
Live Project Planning
High Performance Behaviour Workshop
High Performance Coaching Live Projects
G.R.O.W. Coaching
Review Continious Improvement
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Leadership Lead/Inspire/Change/Strategy/Personal Leadership/Brand/Global/Culture Hiring the very best DNA
Building our culture, the Mimecast Way Selling Mimecast Executive Coaching Situational Leadership Brand Leadership
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Succession Planning, Growing Talent
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Creativity & Innovation
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Executive Presentation Skills
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Critical thinking Leading a Cross Functional Business Approach
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Territory Planning
Strategic Decision Making
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Leading through Customer Experience
Strategic Influencing
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Leading Change
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We will offer an advanced ‘deeper dive’ extension of the leadership modules including; Advanced module, Alumni and Skilled Practitioner
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Mimessentials
Interviewing Skills
Building High Performing Teams Using Emotional Intelligence Understanding Social Styles
Selling the Mimecast Story
Managing Performance
Communication Skills
Fundamentals of Feedback
High Impact Communication Skills
Objective Setting
Coaching Skills
Problem Solving
Learning to Listen
Understanding Change
Decision Making
Developing your personal brand
Influencing Others
Avoiding conflict
Managing People
Critical thinking
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Preparation Skills
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Managing Teams
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Mentoring, Coaching & Just In Time Just In Time
can bring; can we see increased productivity and profitability if we invest the time and money in either programme?
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Prevents training being wasted on people who leave the job before the training they received is used on the job.
The answer to this is ‘yes’ if the right Allows employees to receive training steps are taken to implementing when they need it...not weeks or months later. either type of programme.
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Coaching and mentoring are widely Eliminates the need for refresher used in the business world today. training due to subject knowledge loss caused by a lag between The bottom line is focused on training and use. the actual business value they
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ENGAGEMENT 21
Here are our current key projects
High Performance Programme Leadership Programme Management Essentials Multi-Platform content Mimesole (self-organised learning environment Performance audit Performance Platform
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review/audit LISTENING AUGUST / SEPTEMBER
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5 Steps to continuous improvement
Define a purpose and goals
Build a change team Define acountabilities
Create a value proposition for change
Create clear guiding principles and governance
DEFINE
DEVELOP
Create content, applications and processes
Generate key stakeholder support Enrol end users in process
DirDIRECT
Integrate new processes and promote mind-set
Monitor and overcome barriers to change
Create methods for distributed acountability and learning
Design for continuous improvement
DELIVER
Impr
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
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5 steps to continuous improvement
Identify Stakeholders
Here’s What The Performance Review Will Look Like Consult on needs analysis
We have already identified the key stakeholders for the Performance Review. Each person is being consulted on the purpose of the review, how it will work and what benefits we might expect to reap from the results.
DEFINE
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5 steps to continuous improvement
Capture feedback
Here’s What The Performance Review Will Look Like Summarise and theme bucket
Once we’ve captured the data we will summarise quantitative and qualitative data. The data will then be summarised and placed into themes/buckets.
DIRECT
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5 steps to continuous improvement
Rate/ Prioritise levers
Here’s What The Performance Review Will Look Like Generate key stakeholder support Enrol end users in process
Once we can see the themes formed from the feedback it will be sensible to rate and prioritise our training focus. The data will tell us the story. It will be critical to generate support from all stakeholders, we are confident people will be really keen to facilitate continuous improvement.
DIRECT
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5 steps to continuous improvement
Training/ Opportunity
Here’s What The Performance Review Will Look Like Performance review feedback session
The training opportunity, or the opportunity to do things better, whatever that may look like, will present itself. It’s our job to then hold a review feedback session with the teams involved and work out the best way to support the opportunity.
DELIVER
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5 steps to continuous improvement
Implement
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Here’s What The Performance Review Will Look Like Implementation should be agreed with the team, the how and when… Until we know what the ‘story’ wll be and what we will hear back from you all, it remains a question mark!
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
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Travel Schedule Visits per Year USA 6 – 8 per year Remote offices 1 per year RSA 2 – 3 per year Aus 1 – 2 per year 30
CRITICAL DEEPER DIVE
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MISSION CRITICAL DEEPER DIVE
Technology is changing everything. For industry leaders charged with keeping pace today and planning for tomorrow, the lesson of what happens to organizations that fail to embrace change is clear: adapt or die. The speed at which changes occur in industry has grown exponentially, and is claiming victims among firms long considered leaders.
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MISSION CRITICAL DEEPER DIVE
Today, business leaders face the same challenge. If they are not ready to fundamentally change the way they do business, and do it quickly, they may meet the same unfortunate fate by losing out to smarter, more responsive competitors.
In a world where investors are demanding more information about what they’re buying and how their investments are doing, and where regulators, too, are requiring increased reporting, we must be able to respond quickly and accurately.
We will not allow this happen to Mimecast; the internal talent needed for brand legacy is here now.
Let’s leap forward now rather than reactively fighting a rear-guard battle to preserve yesterday’s methods.The perfect storm of
new technology, more demanding clients, the need to do more with less and much sharper regulatory scrutiny, create the opportunity for Mimecast leaders to transform their businesses and to position themselves for on-going, legacy building success. This adaptation is imperative not just for growth and continual improvement, but for survival.
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importance of... 34
...SPEED Google’s interface is so simple. No ads, no clutter, just a query box, a banner (sometimes replaced by a ‘doodle’) and two buttons - ‘search’ and ‘I’m feeling lucky’ (I’ve yet to find anyone who regularly uses the latter). Google interface is designed in that way, and won’t change fundamentally, because people “will always use the easiest and fastest way possible to find information” The point is that people need to work at speed, and anything that gets in the way will be bypassed or ignored. If the Performance department can’t respond at speed and deliver value it will be seen as a failure.
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...Flexibilty Expecting everyone to line up and follow the same instructions is a recipe for failure. We need to develop approaches and strategies to support different functions and individual goals in a nuanced way. If there’s one lesson organisational development needs to take from the failure of HMV and the others it is to fully grasp the speed and nature of the changes that are sweeping through most organisations –
increased expectations of speed, relevance, and solutions that are just-in-time and not a minute late. Not only that, but also the increased expectation that people development will deliver high value solutions to our organisational challenges at Mimecast (globally) and immediately help drive performance and productivity.
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Study 37
Case study Why did Nokia fall from industry leadership to also-ran status in the space of less than five years? Their answers were predictable: “They lost touch with their customers. True, but almost tautological – and interesting to note that this is the same Nokia that in the early 2000s was lauded for its customer-centric marketing and design capabilities.” “They failed to develop the necessary technologies.” Not really true – Nokia (NOK) had a prototype touchscreen before the iPhone was launched, and its smartphones were technologically superior to anything Apple (AAPL), Samsung, or Google (GOOG) had to offer during the late 1990s.
“They didn’t recognize that the basis of competition was shifting from the hardware to the ecosystem.” Again, not really true – the “ecosystem” battle began in the early 2000s, with Nokia joining forces with Ericsson (ERIC), Motorola, and Psion to create Symbian as a platform technology that would keep Microsoft (MSFT) at bay.
Through this period, the people at Nokia were aware of the changes going on around them, and they were never short of leading-edge technology or clever marketers. Where they struggled was in converting awareness into action. The company lacked the capacity to change in a decisive and committed way. 38
Case study The failure of big companies to adapt to changing circumstances is one of the fundamental puzzles in the world of business. Occasionally, a genuinely “disruptive” technology, such as digital imaging, comes along and wipes out an entire industry. But usually the sources of failure are more prosaic and avoidable – a failure to implement technologies that have already been developed, an arrogant disregard for changing customer demands, a complacent attitude towards new competitors. In such cases, the ultimate responsibility for failure rests with the CEO. But if such failures are to be avoided, it is clear that the CEO cannot do it on his or her own. People across the firm must keep their eyes open to changes in their business, and to take responsibility to push their new ideas and challenge existing ways of working. Obviously, this isn’t easy to do, but if there is a better understanding of the problem then there is a chance for improvement.
One example: Old and narrow metrics. What gets measured gets done, but we don’t refresh our choices of measures frequently enough, and we end up with massive blind spots. Nokia didn’t think of Apple and Google as competitors until it was too late. A friend of mine took the reins at a major national newspaper in the U.K. in the early 2000s, and it took him more than a year to persuade his colleagues that Google should be added to the list of competitors they used to benchmark their performance. The solution here? Define your relevant market as widely as possible, so that your market share is as low as possible. And measure customer behavior very carefully – are they defecting? To whom? And why?
So what are the enemies of agility you should be looking out for in your organization? Here are my “big five”: Ossified management processes. Things get done in big firms through management processes – budgeting and planning, performance management, succession planning. These processes create simplicity and order, but they also become entrenched and self-reinforcing. 39
Case study A disenfranchised front line. The first insights into changes in your business environment come from the people on the “front line” – salespeople, developers working with third parties, purchasing managers. But their voice – if it is raised at all – typically gets drowned out among all the others clamoring for executive attention. The solutions here are far from easy, but they include technology-based systems for sharing front-line information quickly with those at the top, as well as informal networks and cross-cutting task forces designed to address specific threats and opportunities. Lack of diversity. Nokia’s top executives were all Fins of similar age and background, and this surely hampered their ability to make sense of their changing business environment. Of course, we are all more comfortable working with people with similar worldviews and as a result we end up with inevitable blind spots. The solution? Hire people with different frames of reference from our own, or at least find a way to bring their point of view to the table. In the late 1990s, Infosys (INFY) had a program called “Voice of Youth” designed to bring the insights of the under-30 crowd to the attention of the 50-something executive team.
The solution here is clear: you need to find ways to develop a culture that encourages trial and error. Google, Amazon (AMZN), and Netflix (NFLX) are all great examples – they have all had their share of dud products, but everyone accepts them as part of the package.
Intolerance of failure. The bigger and more successful a firm becomes, the more riskaverse it becomes. Executives say they want innovative new products and services, but they expect them all to succeed. And, needless to say, this attitude breeds caution and rigidity.
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LEADERS 41
LEADERship at all levels In a healthy, high performing organisation, like Mimecast, Leadership should be evident and recognised at all levels. • Leadership can be taught and learned. • Leaders are committed to their own active learning. • Leaders are committed to their own learning – and the learning of others • Leaders set a clear and compelling strategic direction within all situations and contexts. • Leadership is often situational and that presents both challenge and opportunity for Mimecasters.
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It is sometimes cited that most senior leaders and executive can describe strategy (about 90%), but that a markedly small number (perhaps as little as 4%) can communicate strategy effectively. So, if an organisation is committed to growing leaders at all levels, there should be far greater speed and close connectivity in the way that strategy is communicated and
interpreted through the organisation. It is no longer realistic to expect the interpretation of strategy to be in the hands of the few at the so-called ‘top’ of the organisation. When these principles are understood and practiced then the true value of ‘leadership at all levels’ will manifest itself.
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improvement
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Continuous improvement CI is about doing better, task through task, year on year, through team based, and incremental progress. At the core of CI is the leader’s ability to engage with the team, based on their credibility. In fact, the ability of an organisation to deeply CI with measurable success is of itself, a test of leadership credibility and a demonstration of a healthy leadership culture. A CI culture is founded on the principle that leadership can and should be demonstrated at all levels of an organisation. In fact, a CI culture should ‘unlock’ and uncover leadership potential across functions and levels (and often, especially in front line operations). A collateral benefit of a CI culture is the value of harnessing leadership talent outside of traditional hierarchies.
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Continuous improvement
‘Team’ is about partnership and engagement - a key principle and theme of CI ‘Do better’ – is about incremental improvement, It does not necessarily point to a ‘break through’ or ‘quantum’ in improvement. It points to the value of improvement, built upon improvement ‘Next year’ and for every following year – is ‘in for the long haul’. CI is, therefore, not an initiative, a project or a programme – it is a long term commitment to a working culture.
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Establishing continous improvement Assuming that the value of establishing a CI culture is acknowledged and understood, it raises the question of the extent of the gap today in Mimecast and the major challenges for the creation of a CI culture. There are likely to be various sources of data which would help (without creating any new data). • Employee surveys • Project quality and efficiency data • Ability of Mimecast to implement process or business improvements • Operational metrics around compliance, resolution of defects, repetition of problems/defects
Moving towards a CI culture within Mimecast has some important conditions for success: Key performance indicators to measure the path from starting point onwards towards the desired kinds of improvements need to be clear – and because many will be ‘soft’ ones, the need for clarity is all the greater We also need to have sight of the metrics, that will enable them to assess the current state and the rate of culture change Leaders at every organisational level need to be clear about and understand, at the practical level, what accountability they have for shifting culture in the workplace – and to be motivated to carry out that task on a daily basis.
• Debrief and dissemination of best practice
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Continuous improvement
Question for Consideration To what extent does Mimecast have an urgent focus to ‘fix things’? What may need to be done to create a clear context for leaders that the focus is now shifting towards establishing a different culture (one that is more in line with CI and which allows CI to focus)?
Benchmarking example… The following ‘from …to’ provides a high level picture of the differences that an organisation may see as it progresses towards a CI culture.
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Continuous improvement Unclear/inconsistent understanding of CI
Common language, tools and concepts about CI throughout the organisation
Implications for leadership behaviours, practices and decision making are not universally understood
Continuous Improvement has a clear, integral place in helping leaders to perform to the highest levels, consistently
Tensions about CI – its priority? When to approach Applicability of CI, its breadth and limitations are understood work through a CI perspective is unclear. Examples of good practice with some business results emerging
The organisation has a track record of leaders working through a CI culture, with the ability to accumulate and communicate business results
Some leaders direct and proscribe projects and solutions
All leaders engage, value expertise and are skilled in reconciling different contributions
CI focuses on operations and local leadership practices
CI is reinforced through leadership behaviours and role modelling through all levels and across all functions
Unclear as to how CI is reflected in all HR practices and knowledge management
Reward, recognition and knowledge management work together, alongside leadership practices, to reinforce a CI culture
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Leadership behaviours This section highlights the behaviours, which most closely align with creating a CI culture.. This also lays the framework for the ‘HOW’ section of this document. Leadership behaviour is clearly one of the most powerful indicators of a culture and the most powerful lever for changing a culture. The following areas of leadership behaviours and practices support a CI culture: • Personal leadership, which establishes trust and credibility – creating the conditions for engagement • Behaviours to create and sustain engagement • Ability to work with a team, yet also flex the approach to individuals, so that the value of the team is greater than the sum of its individual members • Prioritising the work of the team, so that is connected to the broader context of the organisation and the its goals • Leading to create shared knowledge and experience – to speed up the cycle of CI
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Leadership behaviours A major difference between high performing and medium performing teams is confidence in their team leader. For a leader (especially in the context of highly technical businesses), confidence is goes beyond their technical knowledge and expertise and is founded on principles of credibility. There are some key attitudes and behaviours, which distinguish high integrity leaders. Consistent framework and approach to all situations and decisions – one which they are willing to explain Strong personal values about how people should be treated. This does not mean being ‘soft’ – it does mean demonstrating fair and consistent standards Clarity about what they know and what they can affect – and equally, honesty when situations are complex and uncertain – therefore, recognising that being open to contributions from various sources is likely to lead to the best solutions.
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Leadership behaviours The links to some core areas of personal leadership: • Influencing styles – creating an effective CI culture requires different influencing styles, driven by issues such as context (urgency, complexity, scale of the issue), likely responses of individuals and teams – with the overall aim of drawing out contributions being the constant • Building and leveraging relationships – a CI culture is characterised by seeking out and valuing the full range of expertise to bring to bear on a situation or problem. Systematic mapping of relationships and the ability of the leader to influence others to contribute will also lead to finding the ‘unusual suspects’, who could bring a new, valuable and wholly unexpected contribution.
In essence: The importance of personal leadership is that it is the foundation of engagement – and without personal credibility, it is not possible to engage with others. Essentially, leaders need to earn engagement through their personal leadership.
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Team Working within Highly Technical Organisations
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Team working within highly technical organisations Because it is often overlooked in highly technical organisations, the personal and the emotional A key element of leadership, in a CI context, is the needs of individuals can become even more manifest in defensiveness, protection of a ability to recognise each individual contribution specialist point of view and unwillingness to and yet to be able to synthesise and reconcile share knowledge. Therefore, the leader can have diverse and possibly conflicting contributions. This is especially important where a team may be an even more challenging task in ensuring that each individual expert in the team remains highly comprised of numerous experts and where the team may have to relate to other expert teams. It is engaged, feels valued and respected, including tempting to think that expertise is somehow devoid at times when their particular point of view or approach may not be adopted. of emotion or personal needs – when in fact, the role of the leader in understanding individuals and their drivers is hugely important. Creating a team which is more valuable than the sum of its parts:
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The leadership practices which impact the value of the team include: • Delegation – in the context of CI is about ensuring that people feel genuinely energised, have the experience and resources to make a real contribution. By contrast, it is NOT about ‘lobbing the problem over the fence’ to people, who then feel exposed or under supported • Decision making – alongside delegation, the spectrum of decision making from leader led, collaboration through to consensus are all applicable in a CI context. The leadership judgement about the most effective approach to decision making, in various CI contexts, is the key to creating and sustaining a CI culture. People need to be able to understand and trust why different decision making styles are being adopted – yet the overall culture is consistent • Optimsing expertise – using a planned and intentional approach to valuing expertise in the context of CI. Whilst not all expertise is equally relevant or appropriate to a particular CI issue, the overall principle that people need to see is a consistent value in action that expertise is valued. The leader needs to be thoughtful about how the specific expertise of one person is used – and equally, why, in a particular context, another’s expertise is not so applicable.
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summary 56
Executive Summary Contracting – being clear about the up-front way in which we can work together as a team, approach risk, innovation, success and failure Synergy – the role of the leader in integrating and valuing different viewpoints and approaches to a situation is key to the CI approach. Quality of the conversation – directly supporting a CI culture through honest, open exploration, not pre-judging or closing down too quickly Coaching – using each CI situation as an opportunity to learn, master and adopt and capture knowledge for future use End of year review – not just about the outcomes, but HOW we got there
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ROI 58
Just about all meeting or event activities fall under the definition of learning. We measure ROI through the learning of information, skills, attitudes and relationship learning.
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Traditional information and skill learning …is typically evaluated by means of tests, preferably both before and after the learning activity in order to define the size of the knowledge or skill gap and the extent to which it was filled by the learning exercise. But tests are rarely practical in the traditional business setting. We use therefore the second best, and very much quicker and easier method of ‘self-reporting’ “Tell me how much you know after the session, how much do you remember, on a scale of 0 to 100%? It is also perfectly reasonable and practical to ask the delegate to indicate at the same time on a percentage scale their level of knowledge or skill both before and after the session.
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Behaviour Behaviour is the application of learning, maybe to stop doing something, doing something differently or doing something new, as a result of a cognitive change, some kind of learning experience. Learning is sometimes defined by its application; it is the proof of learning having happened. You may give the participant a certain product experience, but if he or she has no opportunity to apply the newly acquired knowledge or skill, the learning was wasted.
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Planned actions It is useful to start by measuring intended application immediately after learning. ‘How do you plan to use what you have just learned?’ By suggesting possible actions and asking delegates to consider whether they are likely to happen or not, we are also communicating ideas for application and to some extent, perhaps, strengthening the commitment to apply. We call this the measurement of planned actions.
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Intangible values It may not be practical or economical to attempt to convert all business impacts into monetary values. Those which are not converted are referred to as ‘intangibles’.
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In Summary 1. Force The Pace Of Adapting
3. Understand Business Conditions
4. Benchmark Relentlessly
We should encourage leadership at all levels and we must be proactive in adapting; we all responsible for the recipe for a competitive, high-performance enterprise called Mimecast.
Adapting to conditions that do not exist is not much different than sticking to the status quo in the face of obvious change. Adapting effectively always begins with a sound reading of where business conditions are headed. Time that we spend understanding trends in demographics, technology, economics, finance, trade, politics and society is time well spent. Since not all enterprises are affected by the same business conditions in the same way, it is also important to know just what business conditions matter most to your enterprise. Future business conditions are never certain, but study and good advice can increase the odds of getting the future right.
Are we gaining ground in product, quality, service, image, customer satisfaction, unit cost and profitability comparisons with competitors?
Adapting involves change, and most people resist change. Put adapting at the top of the agenda. Preach it! The need to adapt is one message that can and should become a badge of honour
2. Resist Denial Denial is a psychological state where employees refuse to accept a harsh reality. The belief that all will be well in the enterprise if you just give it time is a sure sign of denial. Another sure sign is the belief that business conditions have not changed, or at least have not changedenough to matter. Denial is recognized as a necessary stage in organisational development, call it growing pains.
So, let’s foster cross functional relationships and cross functional reporting around Business Intelligence.
Benchmarking can be hard on the ego, but it is one of the best and earliest indicators of trouble in adapting.
5. Watch For & Deal With Burnout The best antidote for rapid change is competence, focus and energy in the executive suite; the tired, cynical and exhausted can do huge damage fast. Our High Performance programme offers mind-set support and best practice.
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In Summary 6. Continuous Improvement Alfred P. Sloan, the legendary architect of General Motors, argued that strategy followed structure. Sound strategy, and by extension sound execution and performance, is unlikely to flow from a badly designed organization. The faster the pace of change, the more important it is to continually monitor and upgrade structure. In times of rapid change, we can be especially sensitive to structures that stifle initiative and innovation, frustrate communication and reward process over performance and output.
7. E thics & Governance Always Matter Rapid change exposes potential poor governance. Rapid change creates urgency and pressure; high performance will allow us to be properly grounded and check our organisational health (governance) at regular intervals. Business Intelligence.
8. L et’s Not Minimize The Importance Of A Small Step There is an adage in baseball that says that when rebuilding or reorganizing, a step in the right direction is far more important than one big step. The adage applies equally to business during periods of rapid change. It does not take many small steps to leave an enterprise substantially better adapted if the steps are all in the right direction. Over time, a small step in the wrong direction will be magnified many times.
9. Let’s Look For Opportunity For the organization that is well managed, well financed, responsive and nimble, rapid change is just what the doctor ordered. Opportunities abound. The status quo makes it tough for the new or the small to take on the established. Rapid change puts everything up for grabs. When the business history of Mimecast is written many decades hence, there is a good chance that adaptability will be the characteristic that ultimately most distinguishes our brand. When the psychologist Carl Gustaf Jung talked about the “thousands of years of struggle for adaptation and existence,” he was talking about humanity. However, he could have been talking about business. If you do not adapt, you will cease to exist. The only question is when. It is that simple! The last word on this important subject goes to the great poet, Robert Service: This is the law of the Yukon; That only the strong shall thrive; That surely the weak shall perish; And only the fit survive. (The Law of the Yukon)
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Thank you! We look forward to working with you all as Mimecast moves forward into the future.
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