1)  Identify and Prioritize the tasks to be done (experience powers ability to identify tasks with the most impact).

2)  Develop skills and efficiency in completing tasks (which improves productivity).

So, I will use a basic example… Let’s say you want to drive SEO traffic to your site for the keyword phrase hip hop beats.  You’ve defined your desired result:  top 20 rankings in the SERPs (search engine results pages) within 60 days.  Now, we work backwards.  You have a general sense that the general skill/capability is SEO knowledge.

After doing some research, you find there are two ways to optimize: (a) onsite, and (b) offsite.  Your research tells you that offsite has a much larger impact, but your intuition tells you that the onsite optimization is much more in your control.  You make a list of the tasks you think need to be completed for each.  You notice that some tasks are repeating themselves.  For example, for each page of your site, you have to write unique title and meta description tags.  Aha!  You’ve identified a process, that you can map out, explain, and teach someone else to do.  But writing unique title and meta description tags alone are only part of the process.  You realize you have a CMS, and you can grant access to your employee so that they can implement them as well.

You end up with some little instructional guide that someone can follow to help them do their job effectively.  It might look like this (abbreviated for this example):

1. Search google for keyword phrase and review top 5 results titles and descriptions.

2. Write a compelling title and description incorporating the keyword phrase.

3. Login to the CMS with your user/pass.

4. Edit the Title and Meta Description fields appropriately, and click Publish.

This is an example of a small process, which is part of the bigger, much more complex process of SEO.  It enables managers to leverage resources who are not expert in SEO to get results by having very clear instructions.

Now, for your exercise:

1) Pick a goal.

2) Figure out the required skills to achieve it.

3) List all tasks.

4) Identify the processes and create a training guide for each.

In a future article, I’ll talk about managing for success using the agile Scrum methodology.

These are some questions you should ask yourself as you think about which topics you want to focus on:

• What capabilities do my competitors have?
• What areas do I want to beat them in?
• How do I develop our capabilities?
• How do I build a sustainable advantage?

By becoming a better teacher, you can facilitate growth.  But remember, before you can become a better teacher, you need to decide what you are going to teach (and learn).

I have found that a quick way to define capabilities quickly is to follow this process.

1. Brainstorm – jot down as many capabilities as you can think of.  I like to use a mindmap style of brainstorming so that I can relate the ideas via branches and lines.  Remember: the key to a brainstorm session is that you put your mental sensor on hold.  All “bad” ideas should be written down.

2. Organize – now, you may have a complete mess of a list.  If you’ve mindmapped it, you may be partially along this path already — which capabilities are related to each other?  Can you form them into a hierarchy?

3.  Consolidate your list.   Is there overlap?  Can you roll some up into a group?  For example, if you have “sorting papers, filing, stapling, collating” you may be able to roll them up into “paperwork organization”.  At this point, do not toss your old lists out, because you’re going to need to break down each capability down the road.

4. Prioritize your list.  Which capabilities are the most important?  I have two quick ways to do this:  you could list relative benefits of each capability, create a weighting scale, etc… or, the easier, HAVE/HAVE-NOT comparison:  You ask yourself (or others in your strategic steering committee) what would the impact be of being the best in this capability? What would the impact be of being average in that capability?  Select from three possible answers for each question:  Huge Impact; Maybe?; No impact.  Compare both columns.

5. Select your top 3 strategic capabilities, and write a statement that can be used to communicate to your investors and employees the importance of focusing on those.  For example, “By leading in market research, copywriting, and conversion optimization, Adam Enterprises workforce will provide competitive advantage to our clients.”  Why 3 things?  Well, you can chunk them up and down, but it is hard to focus on more than 1 thing at a time (3 is my limit).

Did this exercise help you? What did you think of this article?  Leave a comment and let me know.