Time, Talent, Energy: Overcome Organizational Drag and Unleash Your Team’s Productive Power

229 Pages·2017·4.69 MB·English

by  Michael C. Mankins

TIME
TALENT
ENERGY

MICHAEL MANKINS | ERIC GARTON
TIME
TALENT
ENERGY
Overcome Organizational Drag and
Unleash Your Team’s Productive Power
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Library of Congress Cataloging- i n- P ublication Data
Names: Mankins, Michael C., author. | Garton, Eric (Writer on
organizational effectiveness)
Title: Time, talent, energy : overcome organizational drag and unleash
your team's productive power / Michael Mankins and Eric Garton.
Description: Boston, Massachusetts : Harvard Business Review Press,
[2017] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2016037615 | ISBN 9781633691766
Subjects: LCSH: Organizational effectiveness. | Management. | Corporate
culture. | Personnel management.
Classifi cation: LCC HD58.9 .M3555 2017 | DDC 658.4/022—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037615

eISBN: 9781633691773
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National
Standard for Permanence of Paper for Publications and Documents in Libraries and
Archives Z39.48-1992.
CONTENTS
Prologue: The Truly Scarce Resources 1
1 An Organization’s Productive P ower—
and How to Unleash It 9

PART ONE
TIME
2 Liberate the Organization’s Time 35
3 Simplify the Operating Model 57

PART TWO
TALENT
4 Find and Develop the “Diff erence Makers” 85
5 Create and Deploy A ll- Star Teams 117

PART THREE
ENERGY
6 Aim for Inspiration (Not Just Engagement) 137
7 Build a Winning Culture 167
Epilogue: The Virtuous Circle 193
Acknowledgments 203
Notes 205
Index 211
About the Authors 221

PROLOGUE
The Truly Scarce
Resources
Too many companies are living in yesterday’s world. They
are seeking competitive advantage through traditional meth-
ods, and they aren’t fi nding it. And they are missing their
main opportunity for boosting performance and outstripping
competitors.
Let us explain what we mean.
Strategy is the art and science of resource allocation. CEOs
and their senior teams are ultimately responsible for setting
strategy. So the hallmark of great leaders is the ability to allo-
cate their companies’ scarce resources to outpace rivals.
For most of the past fi fty years, the n umber- o ne resource
executives obsessed about was fi nancial capital. Money was
scarce, and those who could obtain it and put it to work most
effectively were likely to come out on top. Companies such
as General Electric and Berkshire Hathaway were lauded for
the discipline with which they deployed their capital. The
Boston Consulting Group’s famous growth- s hare matrix put
1
TIME, TALENT, ENERGY
capital allocation at the heart of corporate strategy. (It advised
executives to milk their companies’ “cows” to fund growth in
their “stars.”) Even much of today’s thinking about mergers
and acquisitions is premised on the relative scarcity and high
cost of fi nancial capital. Overpay for your next big deal, the
theory goes, and your company’s shares will suffer. In short,
disciplined capital management was fundamental to business
success.
But today’s world is different.
Financial capital is abundant and cheap. Our colleagues in
the Bain Macro Trends Group estimate that total global capi-
tal has more than tripled over the past two decades and now
stands at roughly ten times global GDP.1 As capital has grown
more plentiful, its price has plummeted. For many large com-
panies, the a fter- t ax cost of borrowing is below the rate of
infl ation, meaning that real borrowing costs hover close to
zero. Indeed, any reasonably profi table enterprise can readily
obtain the capital it needs to buy new equipment, fund new
product development, enter new markets, or even acquire new
businesses. To be sure, executive teams need to manage capi-
tal as carefully as ever; to do otherwise is to shoot yourself in
the foot. But right now, the allocation of fi nancial capital is no
longer a source of competitive advantage.
What are today’s scarce resources, the new sources of
competitive advantage? For most companies, the truly scarce
resources are the time , talent , and energy of their people, and
the ideas those people generate and implement. A single great
idea, after all, can put a company on top for many y ears—
think of Apple and the iPhone, Netfl ix’s decision to develop
original content, or even the thumbs- u p “like” at Facebook.
Lots of smaller, everyday good ideas can enable a company to
pull away from competitors. But ideas don’t just materialize;
2
Prologue: The Truly Scarce Resources
they are the product of individuals and teams who have the
time to work productively, who have the skills they need to
make a difference, and who bring creativity and enthusiasm to
their jobs. In this era, in our brave new world of abundant and
nearly free fi nancial capital, what separates the best from the
rest is leaders’ ability to manage human capital in the broad-
est sense, meaning the people and ideas that produce results.
The more talented people a company attracts, the more effec-
tively it focuses their time on v alue- adding missions, and the
more energy those people bring to the workplace, the higher
the quality of their ideas and the quantity of the output they
produce.
Just as some companies once wasted fi nancial capital
through a host of misguided or myopic moves, many of today’s
enterprises squander their precious time, talent, and energy,
most often unintentionally. Perhaps they add new products,
open up new markets, and acquire new businesses. Or they
grow from a startup into a global enterprise, adding structure,
professional management, checks and balances, processes,
and policies along the way. But then they begin to experience
what we call o rganizational drag . The complexity of their struc-
ture increases with each new product, market, and business,
bloating costs and slowing decision making. Employees fi nd
themselves wasting time on needless internal interactions,
unproductive or inconsequential meetings, and unnecessary
e- c ommunications. The organization gets in the way of get-
ting things done. Not many of us can generate great ideas
when we are trapped in thickets of meetings and bureaucratic
procedures.
Even when a company minimizes this drag, it may deploy
and team its talent in ways that undermine performance.
Maybe, for instance, it spreads its top talent evenly throughout
3