Navigate the Swirl. Richard Hawkes
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has support functions that make it all possible, such as accounting, IT, HR, and so on.
These activities each rely on human beings, of course, but they also include resources, processes, technologies, and so on, so I use the term capabilities to describe them, and I group capabilities into four types of business capabilities: Develop, Sell, Deliver, Support. A capability is a strategic factor critical to creating value in a business or for a customer. It can be almost any kind of key factor or point of leverage including an activity, a skill, an expertise, a resource, a process, a product, a way of working, or a type of culture. This distinguishes capabilities from roles, which are the groupings of responsibilities we assign to particular people in order to enact those capabilities.
Based on my initial insights, I started to create a simple model. On one side was Develop and Sell. On the other was Support and Deliver. The people on one side developed the products or services and sold them. The people on the other side delivered the products and provided customer support. It was basic, but it broke out the essential elements of the business in such a way that anyone could understand the workflow. I worked with this model for a time, and it was very helpful for a number of small businesses. It provided clarity about roles and gave leaders a workflow map that made it easier to diagnose bottlenecks, identify gaps, and untangle overlapping responsibilities. I also noticed something else: When I would speak about this model with leaders and team members, it got them focused on the business as a whole, visualizing it as a complex social system. It seemed to give them permission to work on the business together, not just in the business—to rise above the operational trees and see the forest, so to speak. So, I was pleased with the basic tool. Soon, however, I hit a wall—in the form of a large enterprise.
I was scheduled to give a presentation to the executive team of this company, a national clothing retailer, during which I planned to use my model. While preparing, however, I began to realize that the version I had been working with up until now was inadequate to represent their workflow. A large enterprise like this was a different beast compared to the small companies that I'd been applying this model with so far. In order to help them design a better system of roles that would eliminate many of the problems they were having in their operations, we needed to be able to effectively visualize their business as a system. And my model simply wasn't good enough. I was worried it would create more confusion than clarity. Sitting in my hotel room, the night before the session, I found myself undergoing a mild panic at the recognition that in a matter of hours, I'd be standing in a room full of executives with a blank slide unless I could figure out how to fix it.
I didn't give up. I considered the issues, examined their existing organizational structure, and compared it to the model I had developed. Eventually, late that night, I had a breakthrough. I needed to separate Develop and Sell as well as Support and Deliver. In fact, Develop, Sell, and Deliver each formed a discrete part of a workflow process. Further, there were feedback loops between Develop and Sell, Sell and Deliver, and Deliver and Develop. So was it a circle? No, because circles don't clearly distinguish one part from the other. It was more like a triangle, with three clearly differentiated but connected sides. I sketched out my makeshift triangle on a piece of paper and went to sleep.
In the morning, bleary-eyed and more than a little insecure about my nocturnal breakthrough, I presented the model to the CEO (Figure 2.1). He glanced at it briefly, and then exclaimed, “That's exactly right! It describes us perfectly.” Later that day, I led a four-hour discussion using this newly created business triangle with the company's executive team. Since that day, my colleagues and I have used the Business Triangle hundreds if not thousands of times with countless companies. It's become one of the foundational pieces of the Growth River approach to unleashing transformation to grow and scale teams and companies.
FIGURE 2.1 The Four Business Capabilities Around the Business Triangle
Develop-Sell-Deliver—three sides of any business activity. Together, those capabilities make up the basic elements of any workflow. Support, I realized, was something else entirely. Functions like accounting, IT, or HR, are not directly responsible for the customer experience. Rather, they are responsible for economies of scale within the business. In that sense, they “support” the business, and are best represented as a circle around the triangle.
Business refers to a system of capabilities and roles designed and managed to develop, sell, deliver, and support products and services to target customers toward competitive advantage. The Business Triangle is a way to visualize this definition.
Business capabilities are strategic factors critical to creating value in a business or for a customer. Capabilities answer the question, “What do we need to have in place to execute our strategy?”
Role refers to the function, responsibilities, and accountabilities assumed by a person or a team in a particular situation, scenario, or system.
The Business Triangle provides business teams with an approach to visualize and discuss operating models and organizational structures, which are the place where most company transformations fail. When you visualize and map processes with your team, and use those visualizations to define and organize shared work, you are creating shared language. And, that shared language will enable you and your teammates to accelerate crucial conversations, which will enable your team and company to become high performing. People are able to negotiate how, why, and for what purpose they will interact. We should never underestimate, in business or in life, the power of creating an authentic sense that “we're in this together.”
The Business Triangle is applied by business teams to visualize the business social system, which includes the flow and interdependencies of capabilities and roles in companies that constitute a business. In Figure 2.2, you can see a simplified example. The capabilities and roles are roughly in sequence of the flow of value around the sides—a discussion that often generates insights. Next to each capability is the name of the business team member who is playing that role, and as such, is responsible for managing and continuously improving those capabilities. Of course, each business will vary a little when it comes to the specific capabilities and roles that populate each side of the triangle.
FIGURE 2.2 Example of the Business Triangle
In the Business Triangle for a startup company, the leader's name may show up multiple times against capabilities and roles, because they essentially do everything—develop, sell, deliver, and support! But as the business grows, this changes. In a small to medium-sized business, there may be several people working on each side of the triangle. In a large business, there are likely to be multiple triangles, representing the many business segments or models within the enterprise.
Kairos and Chronos Balance—Time to Work In and On
In high-performing business teams, members plan and make time to work both in and on the team and business. They are good at focusing on tasks to be done but are also good at taking time to step back and reflect on progress. They manage a good balance between Chronos and Kairos time.
We can describe two types of conversations and meeting agendas, using the two Greek words for time: Chronos and Kairos (see Figure 2.3).