Kolar Associates

Driving results through clarity and focus

The idea

The power of focus is amazing. Focus and concentrate light and get a laser that can cut through steel. Focus your body and movement and you can break a board with your hand. The same holds true for teams. A well-focused team creates more power and impact for your organization.

Most leaders use goals and KPIs to focus their team. This works well when those goals are defined in terms of outcomes and results. Too many leaders confuse activities with results. Completing a task is not a result. Realizing the benefit of that completed task is.

While goals and metrics can focus your team, they only provide part of the picture. To complete the picture and ensure long-term success as well, your team should be clear on three basic questions:

  • What are we? - Every organization or department has a unique purpose. Surprisingly the members of those organizations aren’t always aligned in their understanding of that purpose or the scope of the organization's responsibilities and goals. As a result, people often are working at cross-purposes.
  • Who are we? - Getting results is no longer enough. The organizations that stand out also understand "how" they get things done. In other words, they have a clear, consistent, and distinctive culture.
  • What do we do? - Most people understand the daily tasks for which they are assigned. Yet, it can be easy to lose sight of the big picture when stuck in the details. "What we do" is not about activities. It is about the business levers whose performance fall under the control of your organization or department.

A well-focused team will deliver better and more efficient results. They will also be more satisfied and engaged when they understand the impact of their work.

The story

The quality department in a large manufacturing company had a process reengineering team. Team members were experts in Six Sigma, Lean, and other reengineering techniques. They served as internal consultants to other departments in the organization.

As cost pressures increased, the team realized that it could sell its consulting services externally. Over time the team grew considerably to meet the demand. The team was driving revenue but the company had a problem. The internal departments were not getting the consulting services they needed. When they did get consultant time, they were often placed in back of the queue. The leaders of the other departments began to complain about the lack of support. The director of the quality team said that he wanted to help them but his first priority had to be on revenue-generating clients. After all, they were the ones who funded his large payroll.

The director had inadvertently lost sight of his primary purpose and scope. Without realizing it, he shifted his focus from supporting manufacturing to making money for the company. The problem was that the company's overall purpose wasn't to consult. It was to produce products. The incremental revenue he created was a tiny fraction of the operational or revenue losses created by poor quality and inefficient processes. By losing track of his scope, purpose, and value, he undermined the overall success of the company.

Training offerings

Brad customizes and tailors all of his training courses to incorporate content, issues, and examples that are unique to your organization. In addition to his standard courses (listed below), he can create custom training experiences adapted to your unique needs.

Standard courses (click for more detail):

    We currently do not have any standard courses. If you would like a workshop developed for your organization, please contact us.

Consulting services

Let Brad help you create focus around the scope and intended outcomes of your organization or department. Brad will shift your thinking from defining yourself based on the generic activities and processes that your organization executes to honing in on your organization's unique and specific contribution. Brad works with leaders at any level in the organization who are looking to better focus their people's efforts.

  • Defining organizational scope – this is different from mission and vision. Organization scope provides a clear and tangible set of boundaries that both focuses and empowers your people to deliver.
  • Developing and communicating cultural (behavioral) expectations
  • Defining your organization's value tree - creating clear line of sight between your goals, the four to five things that your organization must get right to meet those goals and the performance/metrics needed to measure success