Implementation of Enterneering® = ‘Chicken-and-Egg’ Problem?

For a successful implementation of Enterneering® within your company is advisable to adopt an approach that is as fully integrated as possible, in which the most important goals, tasks, and measures from Enterneering® are included with the other strategic goals and measures of your company as part of the regular corporate planning process. It is not advisable to implement Enterneering® as a parallel event, or in separate systems or processes. The higher the degree of integration of Enterneering® in the company's management system, the more sustainable the successes will be.

To follow this recommendation, the company must have a suitable strategy and plan with which the goals and measures of Enterneering® can be integrated. What does this mean? And what should the corporate planning be like to enable a meaningful integration?

podcast

To dedicate oneself to the planned development of the company in the Enterneering^® sense, strategic management and corporate planning do not have to be perfectly established. However, there should at least be an awareness of strategic goals, and a long-term plan, in the company. Ideally, a suitable instrument or process will already exist to operationalise the corporate strategy, i.e., to realise it in practice.

The key is to have suitable practices in the company to divide the strategic corporate goals into implementation-oriented individual goals, facilitating the derivation and decision-making of concrete measures for them. A classic example is the use of milestones, measurable success criteria and realisation dates. A strategic roadmap or a company backlog often forms the basis for these practices. Companies that have a corresponding approach and practical experience thus have a starting point for integrating goals, tasks and measures in the context of Enterneering^®.

If such processes or practices do not yet exist in the company, it is advisable to give the implementation of the elements Philosophy and Strategy priority over the other tasks in Enterneering^® and to start with them. In this case, the knowledge gained so far, and the derived goals and tasks in Enterneering^®, form a topic memory (backlog) for the initial phase of establishing strategic planning. It can be assumed that further goals, tasks and measures from the company and its business model will be added to the above-mentioned contents in the topic memory during strategy development or plan creation.

It is advisable that the company focusses on a few elements, or perhaps even just the two elements of Philosophy and Strategy, in the first round or the first year of the new strategic planning. A first-time introduction of an integrated and operationalised strategy and planning revolves much around behavioural changes for individuals and organisations, as well as around leaving comfort zones [🡕] or habitats. This form of change should be carried out with due care and mindfulness, and in small steps. Entrepreneurs and executives facing this challenge should understand and accept that the success of these initial developments and changes will determine the success of the development steps in the future.

If the company already has an operationalised strategy, then its core elements form the starting point for the implementation of Enterneering^®. The following basic questions now arise:

Goals: Do dedicated goals, tasks and measures in the areas of culture, people and organisation exist in the company's strategy and planning?
Anchoring: Are there differences in the way the Enterneering^® elements are anchored compared with other content, such as those related to products or projects?
Resources: Have dedicated resources (time, know-how, money) been planned for the realisation of the Enterneering^® objectives?
Driver: Who is responsible as the main driver for the pursuit or coordination of the Enterneering^® objectives?

Goals

As part of the preparation for the implementation of Enterneering^®, concrete insights, goals and tasks that need to be integrated into the company's strategy and planning should be available. No special circumstances or approaches apply here. On the contrary, the same requirements and quality characteristics apply to the contents from Enterneering^® as to all other contents of corporate strategy and planning. They must be meaningful and useful enough, far enough in the future and generally be considered feasible. Further, the reason a goal should be realised, and what the successful implementation will ultimately lead to, i.e., what concrete contribution the achieved goal will make to the company's success, must be clearly defined. The fewer special features the contents from Enterneering^® have compared with the other contents, the lower the risk of unequal treatment or an unintentional classification of individual strategic goals.

Anchoring

There are several ways to anchor strategic goals in a business plan in such a way that they can be successfully realised in practice and are measurable. As already explained, the anchoring of the content from Enterneering^® and that of other content should be the same. In other words, it should be ensured that, as far as possible, in the consciousness of the company and its employees, the goals derived from Enterneering^® are considered just as significant as other business goals.

The principle is to avoid the emergence of parallel worlds regarding the perception and implementation of individual elements of the corporate strategy. In this way, goals in Enterneering^® can be implemented as honestly, transparently and authentically as possible. This is very important for this type of ‘soft’ goals. In terms of an operationalised strategy, planning should always take place in stages and ensure a consistent link between the top strategic goal and the lower operational implementation measures.

Goal Future result
➥	Tasks Solution requirement
	➥	Measures Action for the solution

Some possible instruments or methods of anchoring and operationalisation are:

Traditional Milestone Plan
Company Backlog
Strategic Roadmap
OKR Tableau [🡕]
Balanced Scorecard [🡕]
(…)

Other success factors in anchoring include a dedicated change approach, a communication concept and the involvement of promoters and multipliers.

Implementation of Enterneering® = ‘Chicken-and-Egg’ Problem?

Resources

It is important to recognise and accept the fact that real resources are necessary to achieve the goals in Enterneering^®. It can be observed time and again that companies act in this context as if the realisation of the associated measures would be possible in parallel with existing resources. Approaches to postponing the implementation planning of these topics until ‘later’ can also be observed. This refers to statements such as ‘...this is part of the standard task of the managers or the HR department...,’ ‘...we will clarify this in more detail during implementation and focus on getting started first...,’ and ‘...these are soft factors anyway, which can hardly be planned...’.

As with any other goal and implementation measure, the success of Enterneering^® depends on a clear understanding of the necessary talents and expenses, as well as their availability. Typical elements of a resource assessment in Enterneering^® are:

Time requirements and know-how of the management.
Time requirements and know-how of managers.
Qualification and resources of the human resources department.
Internal communication resources.
Budget allocation for external support and media.

Driver

For the successful implementation of the goals in Enterneering^®, a clear commitment and a minimum level of capacity during the implementation are vital among the management and the executives. Delegating the so-called client role and the driver role to the organisation (for example, to the HR team) is often a helpful option only under certain conditions. Some tasks cannot be delegated effectively; the role of the driver in Enterneering^® is generally one of them. Attempting to delegate this role will usually only work at the cost of loss of impact.

One option to support senior management in fulfilling this role is to bring in a temporary C-level person who possesses the necessary stature and operates with senior management's backing. This person can be nominated as a kind of change or transformation master, similar to a Scrum master, and can take charge of the coordination of issues in Enterneering^®. Ideally, they should have relevant practical experience, including in leadership, and be as free as possible from conflicts of interest within the company organisation.

Empower yourself in Enterprise Leadership 5.0

Access knowledge and get guidance or training for practical implementation. Interact with like-minded people or acquire suitable coaching if needed.

First time here? Find the right use case for you!