Business literacy is a five-step process that connects individual effort to organizational strategy. It’s how businesses can achieve transformation and mobilize an overwhelming force (your full organization) against their strategy to win key business results.
At its core, business literacy is communication.
- First, in educating members on key facts related to a strategy so they can discover new perspectives and collaboration (often through large visuals, like posters).
- Second in the dialogue that happens when everyone sits down, informed, and on the same page to discuss how their department, team and individual efforts can work together in a single direction.
Business literacy: Using visualization of business insights, statistics and facts to support learning to inspire each member of an organization to discover how they can connect their abilities and desires to the strategic direction.
Our Approach vs Others (Financial Literacy)
When organizations bring in an expert to help, use financial terms, educate people on best-case ratios, and examine business impact through balance sheets and monthly reporting—looking at what must be done to move closer to their projections.
Although this approach produces results, it focuses too heavily on strategy and execution and not enough on helping employees connect their work to the change that is underway. Too much time is spent presenting information, and not enough time is given to the dialogue that happens after new insights are discovered when individuals can talk about the business and have the tools to personalize strategic direction.
Most companies focus on strategy development and execution, focusing little time on efforts to help employees mobilize—helping employees connect their job roles to the strategic direction.
Phil Drouillard
At Lighthouse NINE Group, we approach business literacy from a people position first.
Lighthouse NINE Group’s Unique Approach
When we work with an organization, we like to set out large pieces of paper to collect what leaders think is happening in their organization, who they think is buying their services or products, and how they perceive their biggest challenges and opportunities.
Leaders make decisions based on nebulous terms rather than real key drivers for change.
Phil Drouillard
Leaders we work with say, “It’s difficult today to pull people together and understand the direction they’re going!” Of course it is without trying to understand the different landscapes and the education level of their organization.
How to Change it
A curious nature brings business literacy to the forefront as it seeks to understand and correct.
Phil Drouillard
Business literacy is how we achieve business transformation. It begins with understanding the current landscape and updating the core business strategy. Then, the widespread dissemination of business information creates a shared understanding of market drivers and the necessity for business change and aligns individual action and discretionary effort with the core business strategy.
The 5-step business literacy process begins with researching and debunking notions and then proceeds with creating discovery learning materials (posters, ‘storyboards’) and dialoguing with employees to connect the dots and inspire, ‘Ah ha!’ Moments as individuals collaborate and personalize the communicated values and strategy.
5-Steps to Change Business Literacy
Step1: Kick-off Meeting and Diagnostic
In this initial stage, we like to get executives thinking by placing three large pieces of paper on tables and having them fill in what they think of their organization’s competitive, customer and financial landscapes. After a few days of research and interviewing top executives, heads of operation and so on, we come back with the truth. And this ‘de-bunking’ of their assumptions sparks a great discussion about how they need to evolve their strategy.
In this step, you must
- Define Achieving Business Transformation priorities
- Review strategic business objectives
- Research relevant reports
- Identify major business drivers, success factors, and key performance metrics
- Create solution images with key messages outlined
Step 2: Development and Piloting
In the second phase of the journey, we test our initial concepts and messaging before going into production. This step includes:
- Draft vignettes of learning poster design and confirm applicability with design and implementation team
- Create learning poster
- Research and develop appropriate factoids
- Create a table leader guide
- Identify and orient the pilot group
- Conduct pilot implementation and
- evaluation to validate poster image and guide
- Refine and finalize learning poster, factoids and table leader guide based on pilot experience
- Develop participant workbook
Step 3: Production
The next step is to create educational and promotional material you will use during the next rollout phase. Production can include:
- Co-ordinate with a printing company for the printing of posters, factoids, participant workbooks, and table leader guides
- Collate and package all printed materials for shipment
Step 4: Rollout
The rollout involves articulating the business model, rapid information dissemination, and engaging employees through high-energy, facilitated learning sessions, group meetings, and continuous reinforcement using interactive tools.
And it occurs during several key meetings commencing with management participation. Each meeting has specific objectives, such as experiencing the business literacy process, understanding new strategic behaviours, and creating action plans. These meetings involve managers, employees, and senior leadership in dialogues that connect business strategy with individual actions:
- Manager Meeting: Managers experience the journey and understand any of the insights (or ‘ah ha” moments) in the first phase. During these meetings, you can:
- Identify and remove personal barriers to performance
- Understand new strategic behaviors required
- Understand managers’ role in the rollout or cascade of the materials
- (Pre-Event) Department Orientation Meetings: These meetings are to introduce the Business Literacy process to employees before the major event. It functions to:
- Expose employees to the restructuring plan
- Determine departmental strengths and barriers
- Prepare departmental restructuring objectives
- Employee Events (either small or large scale): Dialogue with senior leadership and fellow employees from across the organization regardless of level to connect discretionary effort to new organizational strategy.
- (Post-Event) Department Action Planning Meetings: Review the experience and share personal impact to keep employees engaged and a part of the process. These meetings should:
- Build departmental and personal action plans
- Create sustainability plan
- Generate new process improvement ideas and share best practices
Step 5: Continual Reinforcement
Measure the impact of business literacy intervention in five areas to establish sustainability of the plan, the effectiveness of the rollout and how you can improve moving forward:
- Communication Effectiveness
- Change in Understanding
- Contribution to Planning
- Quality of Action Plans
- Results to Objectives
The measurement process typically utilizes pre- and post-event surveys and the tracking of identified performance criteria.
After employees are fully aligned with your business strategy, you need resources in place to sustain change. As you receive shareholder and customer insights and look at employee performance, you need a process for eliminating the gap between individual effort and your strategy. This is where great business literacy can create a common knowledge base of business processes and changes in market trends.
Why Business Literacy is Important
Participation, Involvement and Empowerment
The three-phase meeting approach ensures department alignment by engaging the entire organization in ways that lead to ownership and commitment to the shared future direction.
A Strong Sense of Community
By staging an event where employees come together and begin to see the big picture, they create and believe in something bigger than themselves and their department. Using “max mix” tables ensures that employees get a representational view of the entire organization.
Use Real Examples As Key Drivers For Change
Having employees connect to the big picture and continually review and share data from their own department keeps the meetings dealing with reality rather than simulations.
A Level Playing Field
The information and common understanding of the strategic issues, external environment, financial and work processes informs people at all levels so they can make better decisions. Continuing to provide this information through ongoing meetings or via internal communiqués becomes a requisite.
Shared Problem-Solving
People will support what they have been part of creating and have a vested interest in solving it.
Simultaneous Change/Effective Leadership
Management is called upon to lead, listen, participate and respond to issues. Their authentic, heartfelt response in this approach wins over many in the audience.
Transfer Of Learning
Through this process, employees are given the tools necessary to impact business results and continue using them repeatedly.
What This Means for Your Organization
Good business literacy is a powerful retention strategy for organizations. It also creates less turbulence in the culture, as an organization is able to anticipate, absorb, and act upon key industry and customer trends without rocking the boat.
I want to give you the takeaway that good business literacy creates discretionary action. When all employees are focused on financial performance, quality, and customer care, they take the initiative to find better ways and push harder. When they understand the business’s competitive position and its value to customers and can support why they do what they do and why the organization exists in the first place.
Now imagine in your organization: What would it be like if everyone saw their work closely connected to your business strategy and worked in the same direction?
What could you accomplish?
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