The goal of every business is simple: Increase Customer Satisfaction, Generate more Revenue, and Maximize Profits.

‍

Achieving this goal in today’s challenging and turbulent economic conditions has become increasingly challenging. Businesses responding to competitive pressures, technology changes, and demanding end users, coupled with a dissatisfied and disconnected workforce, and ineffective management and governance systems, are undergoing great change. Change that is resulting in significant enterprise outages, loss of customers, disconnected and disheartened employees, and loss of skilled and experienced staff. Change that can offer enormous opportunities or substantial threats.

This change is fuelling interest in a few behaviours:

1. Acquiring newer and more expensive Technologies (Hardware/Software) and Consulting Services to resolve availability issues, without first understanding the Employee BEHAVIOURS that are causing the availability issues.
2. Hiring external auditing firms to conduct an organizational assessment, AFTER effort has been undertaken to HIDE or quickly clean up problematic areas from the Auditors, without realizing that this will not contribute towards sustainable organizational improvement.
3. Suppressing and altering SLA performance data or modifying SLA calculation criteria to avoid negative visibility to senior management, without first understanding the true ROOT CAUSE of the SLA misses or taking MEANINGFUL actions to prevent continued negative impact.
4. Attempting to stabilize operations to improve Availability (Minimal to Zero Downtime), Compliance (Business Controls & Audit Readiness), Finance (Revenue & Profits), and Customer Satisfaction metrics, without first understanding the impact of INEFFECTIVE Management & Governance Systems.
5. Identifying new ways to engage the employees and improve their connectedness to the organization’s vision, mission, and goals, without first understanding the root cause and impact of the Employees THOUGHTS, FEELINGS, and ACTIONS/INACTIONS on the organization.
6. Trying to implement new innovations such as Cloud, Big Data, Analytics, and Mobile Applications, without first addressing the underlying and foundational issues impacting ORGANIZATIONAL GROWTH, STABILITY, and employee ADOPTION of the new innovations.
7. Outsourcing of various support functions to reduce cost and focus on core competencies, without first establishing robust SLAS, PENALTIES, & VENDOR MANAGEMENT Processes, or assessing SUPPLIER CREDIBILITY.
8. Differentiating through innovation to expand into new markets, target new customers, and deliver new and improved services to existing customers to drive business growth, without understanding the impact of a DISENGAGED Workforce on the expected results.

In any of these cases, success is dependent on implementing organizational change that not only understands the delicate and important interactions between technology, processes, and people, but realizes the importance of an effective employee engagement & enablement system. A system that strives to better understand how and why the employees are thinking and feeling a certain way, and how those thoughts and feelings are translating into actions or inactions. No matter how new or innovative the technology is, or how many processes have been written, unless the employee behaviours are understood and addressed, the organization will always struggle with implementing change, and risk will always be inherent in the day to day operations.

It is understandable that CIOs and CTOs will always turn to technology to address organizational challenges; however, there must be a balance between having the right technology and having an engaged and enabled workforce that will manage and use that technology.

The M3 Framework’s Unified Delivery Model strikes the right balance between establishing employee engagement initiatives (People) and governance and management systems (Processes & Technology). Engaging and enabling the employees will help to improve employee satisfaction, which in turn will increase employee productivity, efficiency and overall loyalty to the organization. Establishing robust governance and management systems will drive standardization and stability.

The framework has been developed over the course of 15 years of global corporate experience, leveraging work at 20+ global clients, across numerous industries and countries. Regardless of the business your organization is in, or the speed at which technology is changing, the practices I describe in this book are timeless and will help you to achieve standardization and consistency in the way you manage your customers, your people, and your business.

To begin this transformation journey, we will leverage the new M3 Framework that includes strategic and tactical plans to achieve the Unified Delivery Model. The framework involves: 1 – conducting a Management HealthCheck to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses, 2 – establishing a robust management framework – Management Foundations – for front line managers to focus on their people, their customers, and drive day to day operations, and 3 – establishing a strong governance system – Management Governance - led by a resilient leadership team.

The M3 Framework, leveraging the Management HealthCheck (MH), Management Foundations (MF), and Management Governance (MG) will allow you to identify key focus areas, improve your line management system, and apply the right level of governance to drive organizational wide improvements. The result will be Increased Revenues, Maximized Profits, and Improved Customer Satisfaction. The framework will transform your Enterprise into a world-class, high-performance organization that will deliver outstanding business outcomes and increase the overall value, value that will be seen by your customers and shareholders.

‍