A former Army colonel shares four steps leaders can take to get the information they need when they need it.
For business leaders, there are few things more unnerving than making critical decisions with enormous consequences, only to later discover that key information relevant to those decisions had not been conveyed.
by Kellogg Insight | for Industry Week
Photo credit: Thinkstock
Leaders who don’t want to be caught off guard when making critical decisions may want to take a cue from the military, says Robert Hughes, a retired Colonel in the U.S. Army and clinical assistant professor of executive education at the Kellogg School.
In the military, the stakes are often too high to let details fall through the cracks. So it has developed a robust protocol for ensuring that people across the organization are aware of how they need to share information.
“Critical information flow is a leadership responsibility,” Hughes says. “As they approach the planning process, leaders need to ask: What’s important for me to know? When do I need to know it? And what decisions will this information help me make?”
Fortunately, the military’s protocol applies just as readily in the civilian world. Hughes describes four steps for managing the communication of critical information throughout your organization.
Establish specific information priorities (and do so as early as possible)
When companies are planning major operations—a new product rollout, an advertising campaign, the opening of a satellite office—it’s important for leaders to establish information priorities. This means determining the most important information they will need in order to decide—as early as possible—whether the plan is moving forward as intended, or whether it might need to be adjusted.
For example, a leader might determine that it is critical to know: Is there the potential for a disruption to our supply chain that will cause delays greater than 24 hours? Are there any emerging regulatory changes that will prevent us from entering our intended market in the first quarter of next year? Are our competitors launching new products that will challenge our products in the next six months? Timely answers to these questions will be necessary for making the operation a success.
“The leader’s role is to define what success looks like for each operation,” Hughes says. “Then you think about what essential information is needed throughout the plan to achieve success.”
