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I lead a $1.2B aerospace services business and we have set ourselves a goal to double in size and improve our margins 100%.  Simlar to the examples Mike gave in the podcast the analysis shows that the goal is achievable but there is lots of resistance - starting with the leadership team.  I'd be very grateful if the Manager Tools community could provide us with some ideas to break through the barriers.  My perspective is that we have three emotional blocks:

1. The opportunity for growth is limited over the next few years - people are struggling to see past this

2. The business is actually made up of 6 smaller businesses (spares, maintenance, etc.) and the only way to achieve the goal is for the businesses to collaborate - ie one may have to 'give up' something for us all to win.

3. We will need to do things differently to get there - new businesses, new ways of managing existing businesses, etc.

 

Thank you in advance for your ideas!

BJ_Marshall's picture
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You mention your goal is to double in size, but I am confused about what you're doubling. Is it revenue? Staffing?

For your goals, I would suggest trying to make them MT goals by adding a time component. You want to double your size and improve (always a trick word) your margins by 100%, but by when?

- BJ

jhoblyn's picture

BJ

Thanks for the question.  Our goal is broken down into several components - revenues, margins, RONA, customer and employee.  We have a road map that takes us to our destination in 5 years with annual targets for each of the metrics.  The roadmap also includes the key initiatives each with an owner, timeline, etc. (who does what by when!).  The challenge is to get past the metrics and engage the whole team emotionally in the plan - starting with the leadership team but also the rest of the organzation (5,000 people).

I hope that helps

J

wendii's picture
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Two ideas:

1) reading your story I remembered a drawing I'd seen which had been done to explain strategy. A literall map of the way might be an idea. You can see the one I saw on the video on this site: http://www.delta7.com

2) I thought about things that come together to create better things - like cookie dough and icecream and books and technology and architects and interior designers.. if you had a load of those examples like:

cookie dough + icecream = yum
books + technology = Kindle
Architect + interior designer = beautiful home

and then your teams = the end game.. that might be a starting point for a conversation.

HTH

Wendii

jhoblyn's picture

Wendii,  Thank you very much for your ideas.  I really appreciate your taking the time to noodle on our problem!  The Delta 7 website is interesting - we will take a closer look.

J