Plan Hard and Implement Soft
VANCOUVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
October, 2000

Essential Management Concepts
JONNIE MARTIN


Somewhere in my constant reading about organizational development theories I stumbled upon this piece of advice: Managers and business owners must learn to “plan hard” and “implement soft.” This speaks to the need to make level-headed business decisions, apart from emotional issues. It also reminds us, however, that we cannot be quite so dispassionate when forcing the decision upon everyone else in the organization.

One business associate of mine gave a perfect example. After she took over management of a particular organization, she quickly realized that she had a performance issue with a long-term employee. This particular person performed far below the norm of everyone else in the company and served as a drag on the energies of the team. Despite months of coaching and counseling, the employee’s attitude and performance did not budge and the gap between them and everyone else widened.

Finally this manager and others on the executive team made a hard decision: to terminate the long-term employee. They were wise, however, in using a soft implementation program. They offered the employee numerous options on the manner and timing by which he exited the organization. He was able to leave on his own terms, with ego intact.

What an excellent example of this theory. The company managed “hard” – made the right business decision for the company regarding the termination – but they had the wisdom to implement “soft” – to give due consideration for the feelings and humanity of not only the exiting employee but those who worked around him. This approach takes a little longer than some other options but the results can be sterling.

This balanced approach to business is not all that easy to maintain. Business owners and managers typically have one bias or another. They either manage with a strong hand, making hard and fast decisions, and carrying them out with equal speed and energy – OR – they manage with a tentative and gentle hand, avoiding the more distasteful decisions and putting their companies at risk. Neither extreme is desirable.

There is a great deal of damage done to an organization when an aggressive manager moves quickly to decision and quickly to implementation. Even if the decision is a good one, the fallout is considerable from such a forceful approach. It creates a hostile environment in which employees feel under siege. Energy is spent defending against the next imagined attack. The employees are not privy to the logical thought progression that led to the decision. All they experience is the severity of the changes swiftly visited upon them.

It is equally ineffective if a manager seeks to avoid the hard decisions of business. Some passive personalities find it difficult if not impossible to deal with difficult issues. They cannot seem to deliver negative reviews, terminate an employee, or downsize the organization when the market shrinks. One business owner I knew was watching her organization crumble around her because she could not bring herself to chastise the actions of her two wayward department heads. She did not want to hurt their feelings. First you must decide upon the standards to be observed in your company (the hard business decisions) and then you must communicate those standards in a professional and humane manner (the soft delivery). If the staff member chooses not to observe the rules, you then must take further action. This includes the hard decision to discipline or terminate, also delivered in a gentle but firm manner.

Here’s a few tips for “balancing” hard decisions against soft delivery plans.
  1. Keep a strong focus on the goals of the organization and measure all decisions against those ideals. When making a decision, always ask yourself: what decision moves us towards those goals; what’s good for the company.
  2. Be intimately aware of the factors critical to the success and stability of the company. If you make decisions that de-stabilize the company, you threaten the livelihood of everyone in the organization. Don’t compromise the organization.
  3. Be holistic in your decision-making process. Realize that a decision that favors one person or department may be damaging to the whole. This will help when you have to make a decision that will adversely affects someone.
  4. Accept that there are times that you have to make tough decisions. There are times that leaders will not be popular. There are times that leaders must stand alone. You have to keep the broad view in mind, look to the long-term horizon.
  5. Involve others in helping you make hard decisions. People are more likely to buy into the final decision when they have been involved in the thinking process, when they see the complexities, when they weigh the alternatives.
  6. Assess the damage from any decision. Who will be hurt or disadvantaged? Begin to think about how you can soften the blow. Involve those people in creating the process of implementation. Allow them to choose between acceptable alternatives.
  7. Keep in mind that people are feeling animals first, thinking animals second. Guide them into rational thinking processes when a hard decision is being made; understand and empathize with them during the pains of implementation.
  8. Remember that a softer, gentler implementation plan will also affect the general morale of the company. Even if an employee is not affected by the hard decision they will notice the way you treat those who are affected and judge you accordingly.