SIX DISCIPLINES SOFTWARE –

MAKING IT EASIER TO BUILD

ORGANIZATIONS THAT EXECUTE

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What Type of Software Does Your Organization Need?

People who express interest in Six Disciplines approach us with a variety of organizational

needs. Some want performance management; others desire goals management; still others

are aiming for better execution. Six Disciplines is a management system that address all of

these needs, but we often describe ourselves as an “excellence program” because that is the

heart of what we do. Six Disciplines helps you and your organization achieve operational

excellence.

Most organizations have certain objectives in common. They want to achieve better

performance while also being a great place to work. They want to grow profitability, and they

want to have great relationships with customers, team members, and all other stakeholders.

They want to be an organization that works well and is something they can be proud of.

The purpose of our program is to help build a strong, agile organization that know how to

identify what is important (strategy) – and get it done (execution). A key contributor to the

success of the Six Disciplines program is its platform of supporting software.

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Like an Exercise Bike, Software Often “Sits in the Attic Gathering Dust”

Six Disciplines invests a lot of time and money developing professional software to support our

management system – but we do not view ourselves as being in the software business. Not

that we don’t appreciate the value of software. In fact, our founders have started and built

several successful software companies. We know what an asset good software can be, but we

also know that many organizations do not receive maximum benefit from their software

investments. Their software is like an unused exercise bike, sitting in the attic gathering dust.

For this reason we do not sell software. Instead, we incorporate it into a complete

management system that includes ongoing coaching, leadership development, and an agile

strategy execution methodology.

So if you’re looking for a do-it-yourself organizational improvement program that is built

around a software application, you need read no further. We are not the partner for you. If,

however, you see software as a component – albeit an important and necessary component –

of an overall management system for operational excellence, then please read on.

An Integrated Software Suite that Supports Methodology, Coaching,

and Leadership Development

Supported by three key elements – coaching, software, and leadership development –Six

Disciplines is the foundation of a robust year-round organizational improvement system that

helps your organization achieve and maintain true excellence. The software “leg” of our

management system includes six components that help you successfully manage the following

critical business activities:

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Plans

Analytics

Collaboration

Performance

Actions

Surveys (assessment gathering)

Fully complementing the Six Disciplines methodology, our software links long-term vision

(strategy) with short-term action (execution). It also links people at all levels of the

organization – from top to bottom and left to right – in a collaborative network that promotes

agile, teamwork-driven action.

This completely integrated software suite offers a variety of important benefits to the

organization striving for excellence. The following sections highlight just a few.

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Plan Clarity Increases Performance

Organizational performance is

governed by how well people

communicate. Paradoxically, as

organizations succeed, they

grow faster – and their ability to

communicate becomes more

difficult. The chart at the right

shows why. A team that grows

from three to 25 people

increases by eight fold – but the

number of possible communication paths increases 117 fold! Simply put, most organizations

outgrow their own ability to execute. This is the execution paradox.

Defining clear plans and goals help cut through this complexity. Research from Bersin by

Deloitte states that organizations with a high level of goal clarity are four times more likely to

have strong business outcomes. Planning and goal setting matter! The Six Disciplines Plan

Manager application is designed specifically to help you develop clear plans and goals.

Frequent Goal Reviews Improve Agility

A proven approach for making an organization more responsive and receptive to change is to

implement an organization-wide system for tracking, reviewing, and revising goals. This

framework builds an organizational rhythm that fosters regular communication and creates

mutual accountability for knowing the status of goals – and what needs to be done next in

order to reach them.

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Six Disciplines incorporates the principle embodied by President Dwight Eisenhower who said,

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” In other words, the value of a plan is the

understanding that comes from the collaboration required to produce it. The Six Disciplines

Meeting Manager application is deeply rooted a culture of communication, collaboration, and

teamwork – a culture created through regular, meaningful team member meetings to review

and revise organizational plans. Not for the purpose of producing more plans, but for

increasing understanding and agile response to changing conditions.

Collaborate to Solve Problems Faster

As the old saying goes, “Defining the problem is half the battle.” The most important step in

the performance improvement cycle is engaging people so that they fully understand the

problem or opportunity lying before them. But it is equally important to help them collaborate

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successfully so they can solve the problem or seize the opportunity. The Six Disciplines

Collaboration Manager application is designed to help the whole team engage – even the

quiet ones – so that your organization can benefit from everyone’s unique perspectives. This

approach not only results in better solutions, it also builds stronger team members and

greater teamwork as people learn to listen to and respect each other.

Provide Ongoing Feedback – Avoid “Once and Done”

Many organizations have experienced the once-a-year performance review – and they are

increasingly abandoning this traditional practice for ongoing, more real-time, more up-to-date

streams of feedback between team members and team leaders (employees and managers).

These continuous feedback opportunities can take the form of weekly team check-ins,

quarterly one-on-one check-ins, multi-rater feedback and a reshaped annual performance

review process that emphasizes future skills and leadership development, instead of past

performance.

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With the Six Disciplines Performance Manager application, your organization gets the best of

three performance management worlds: continuous feedback, multi-rater feedback, and

developmentally focused annual performance reviews.

Improve Evaluations with Development-Focused Reviews

Because performance feedback is continuous under the Six Disciplines program, the annual

performance review process can now shift from a performance-based to a capabilities- and

skills-development process that is more effective for evaluating teams and team members.

This process is specifically designed to devote less time to reviewing the past, freeing the

dialogue between team leader and team member to be more forward-thinking, future-

focused, and career development based.

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Action Management Overcomes “Tyranny of the Urgent”

Dwight Eisenhower encouraged

those around him to ask two

questions whenever they

encountered a new demand on

their time: Is it important? Is it

urgent? Without a method for

evaluation, the urgent always

overwhelms the important. Our

Action Manager application works

in conjunction with the rest of the

Six Disciplines management system to help team members keep track of all their activities plus

manage and prioritize them within the context of what is important to the organization.

Of course, proper priorities is a battle that’s never won. But an organization’s performance is

the sum total of how well this ongoing battle is fought. Action Manager gives your team

members the tools they need for this fight.

Practical Surveys Turn Viewpoints into Action

We created our Survey Manager application after

seeing how many organizations, including our own,

were using surveys to gather great feedback – but

then doing very little with the results received (other

than using them for discussion topics during

meetings). It’s easy to obtain feedback from inside

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and outside of an organization. Turning this feedback into meaningful action that helps the

organization improve is another story, however.

Many free or inexpensive survey resources are available to organizations, but almost all of

these extend only as far as providing survey results. Survey Manager, on the other hand, is

built for action, allowing you to tie stakeholder feedback directly to organizational goals. This

helps you identify areas of improvement, spot opportunities, and initiate activities that lead to

effective goals management and more complete goals achievement. Survey Manager’s

integration and its trending capabilities promote faster learning and performance.

Build an Agile Organization That Gets What’s Important Done

Six Disciplines and it’s supporting software tools provide the foundation for bringing your team

members to a point of clarity where they can:

Articulate three to five goals that accurately describe their responsibilities.

Competently manage three projects that will improve organizational results.

Develop a prioritized list of actions (“to do’s” that need to happen today, tomorrow, etc.)

and then follow through on this list.

This process of reaching this point is not always

simple. At times, your team members may not

understand all the “whys” of what they are doing.

But the outcome – an agile organization that gets

the important things done – is well worth the effort.

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Clear Plans and Frequent Reviews Work!

Recent research

from Bersin by

Deloitte indicates

organizations that

review and revise

goals and plans

more frequently

outperform those

that don’t. Part of

this process is developing leaders and team members who understand how to have

meaningful and constructive one-on-one conversations, with the objective of improving

individual and team performance.

Today’s leaders must

develop the attitude that

it is their responsibility to

develop their team by

providing objective

feedback, asking probing

questions, and building a

supportive and

transparent working

relationship with each team member. At the very least, Six Disciplines recommends one-on-

one conversations no less than quarterly, and more one-on-one conversations between team

member and team leader at least monthly.

Six Disciplines provides the framework for this kind of meaningful interaction between team

leaders and team members.

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Engage Team Members – Turn Best Practices into Habits

Good software is useless without good habits for using it – and forming and maintaining best

practices cannot happen without leadership. At some point, all organizations that are growing

become leadership-constrained. Leadership here does not mean simply those at the “top” of

the organization. Instead, it refers to the leadership that is exercised by every individual within

the organization. From years of experience across a wide range of industries, we’ve found that

the real cost of leadership development is not the expenses related to leadership training.

Instead, it’s the failure to engage people in what they’ve already learned – thus failing to turn

best-practices into habits.

Six Disciplines uses our software tools to reinforce a year-round process that makes leadership

development a priority at all leadership levels within your organization. A clear synergy exists

among the components of our program. The software makes leadership development more

effective, and leadership development leads to better use of the software. The result is self-

leadership, continuous improvement – and a purpose-driven organization!

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Why Six Disciplines?

What makes Six Disciplines unique is that all of the key components of our excellence program

have been carefully researched and proven to save you both time and money.

Our approach is different (in 3 ways):

1) We provide ‘process completeness’ by uniting strategy, operations and front-line

engagement practices into one system.

2) We provide ‘solution completeness’ by weaving together a proven excellence framework,

leadership development, coaching and software into a single service. The result is a new

type of management system that equips leaders to engage everyone in shared purpose in a

lasting way.

3) We stick around. Our ongoing coaching model means that we stick around to help make

your organization better and better over time.

Four assurances it works:

1) It has been field proven in over 150 clients since 2001.

2) Clients tenure is 7 years and increasing,

3) We guarantee it works by having no long-term contracts (30 days) and

4) Independent research of more than 2400 organizations world-wide confirms that

systematic management approaches in general work, IF they are fully implemented.

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Next Steps

To quote Stephen Covey, the next step is “to seek to understand.” The best way for you to do

that is to have a discovery phone conversation with one our Six Disciplines Certified Coaches

so we can understand your needs and answer your questions. Our promise to you is that after

we understand your situation, we will tell you with all honesty whether our management

system is a good fit for your organization. Let’s connect today. Give us a call at (866) 344-8517.

About Six Disciplines

The Six Disciplines Company, founded in 2001, is head-quartered in Findlay Ohio and uses regional coaches to deliver our services. Six Disciplines (our offering) is a management system for purpose-driven leaders. This system equips leaders to engage people in shared purpose – unlocking potential, increasing fulfillment and improving performance. This system provides leaders with: 1) Six proven processes --for aligning strategy, operations and individuals around shared purpose 2) On-the-job training -- that introduces and reinforces 30 leadership competencies 3) Ongoing, onsite coaching -- to guide and provide lasting results and 4) Mobile software --to manage plans, dashboards, continuous communication and collaboration.

For more information contact: Nathan Strong (nastrong@SixDisciplines.com)

Copyright © 2016 Six Disciplines. All rights reserved.