BIG Leadership: building the case for change and leading what comes next

There is no shortage of evidence that organisations struggle to turn strategy into sustained results.

Most do not lack governance activity. They have boards, executive committees, strategy processes, budgets, portfolios, risk registers, audit plans, performance reports, delivery methods and supporting technology.

What they often lack is a reliable connection between them.

Strategy may not translate consistently into priorities. Operational targets compete with change objectives. Investment decisions become separated from resource realities. Risk and assurance information is reported without a clear connection to the objectives that matter most. Boards and executives can receive large quantities of information while still lacking a dependable view of whether their strategic intentions are being achieved.

These are not simply reporting or process problems. These are leadership problems.

Ahead of our BIG Leadership discussion session on 7 September, we have developed a new white paper:

BIG Leadership: from purpose to delivery, and from initiative to organisational capability

The paper brings together learning from the BIG Body of Knowledge, our previous discussions and events, and feedback from strategy, governance, risk, portfolio, PMO, finance, technology and operational perspectives. It explores what leadership is needed both to create an integrated governance capability and to use that capability once it exists.

Two kinds of BIG Leadership

The paper develops two connected ideas.

Leadership of BIG is the leadership needed to:

• recognise the problems in the organisation that BIG Capability can resolve
• build support with stakeholders, secure sponsorship for development and implementation if the BIG framework
• develop and implement the BIG capability and
• forever leadership and management of the new BIG capability.

Leadership through BIG is the leadership needed to use the resulting capability to connect purpose, vision and strategy to decisions, resources and delivery – and then use performance, uncertainty and learning to re-steer the organisation.

Both are essential.

A framework, operating model or technology platform will not deliver better strategic results by itself. Capability creates the conditions for better leadership, but leaders must still make choices, expose trade-offs, respond to evidence, adjust priorities and hold the organisation together across Business-as-Usual, Value Creation and Change.

A document for bottom-up and top-down engagement

The paper has been written to support engagement in both directions.

Bottom-up: helping interested parties build the case

Many people can see part of the problem from where they sit.

• A strategist may see a disconnect between an agreed strategy and the choices made during the year.
• A portfolio or PMO professional may see too many initiatives, weak prioritisation and sponsors who cannot secure the resources needed for delivery.
• A finance leader may see investment proposals, budgets, costs and benefits being managed through different processes.
• An operations leader may be expected to maintain performance while absorbing change without adequate capacity or clear priorities.
• A CIO or data leader may see fragmented information and technology, while recognising that systems cannot fix an operating model that has not been defined.
• Risk, governance and assurance professionals may see that their information is not naturally connected to the objectives and decisions it is intended to support.

Each perspective is legitimate. Each may also be partial.

The paper can help these interested parties move beyond promoting a local solution. It provides language, concepts and questions with which to explore whether their concern is one symptom of a wider organisational issue.

The aim is not to arrive at the executive table announcing:

“We need to implement BIG.”

It is to help leaders recognise:

“Several of the problems we are experiencing may be connected. Is it worth examining what a more integrated capability would look like?”

That is a more realistic starting point for building a guiding coalition.

Top-down: helping boards and executives recognise the need

The paper can also be used as an engagement document with board and executive leaders.

Its opening challenge is deliberately direct.

Can the governing body answer:

• What are our mission-critical objectives?
• Who is accountable for them, and what is their current performance?
• What uncertainty, threats and opportunities affect their achievement?
• Is the remaining uncertainty acceptable?
• What decision or intervention is required?

If the board and CEO do not demand and use integrated information about objectives, performance and uncertainty, there may be no executive customer for wider integration.

Support functions will continue doing their best from their individual perspectives. Executives will continue attempting to make sense of multiple reports. Decisions will continue to depend on interpretation, influence and incomplete connections.

The paper therefore asks boards and executives to consider not only the quality of the reports they receive, but the system through which purpose, strategy, accountability, investment, resources, delivery, performance and assurance are connected.

Why change is difficult

Improving integrated governance sounds rational. The organisational response may not be.

Greater integration can make priorities and trade-offs more visible. It can reveal whether resources follow declared strategy. It can expose weak accountability, contradictory objectives, optimistic business cases, poor information and informal decision-making.

That may create anxiety.

People may fear losing autonomy, influence, information advantage or the ability to secure exceptional treatment for their own priorities. Leaders may be uncomfortable with information that challenges previous decisions or exposes uncertainty.

These concerns are rarely expressed directly. They may appear as apparently reasonable objections:

• “We already have governance.”
• “All we need is a better dashboard.”
• “This will create bureaucracy.”
• “We should concentrate on delivery.”
• “This is an IT problem.”
• “The organisation is not ready.”
• “We need a complete business case before investigating.”

Some objections will be valid. Others may be delaying mechanisms, narrow interpretations or rationalisations for fear and inertia.

The leadership challenge is not to accuse people of obstruction. It is to create a sufficiently safe and objective basis for examining the current situation.

From concern to capability

The paper does not advocate diving immediately into a large transformation. It outlines a journey that begins with First Steps.

First Steps are used to raise perception of need, understand different stakeholder perspectives, compare the current and desired states and build enough consensus to do something.

Only then does the organisation move into deeper discovery and envisioning:

• What capability is needed?
• For whom?
• Across which parts of the organisation?
• At what level of maturity?
• What value should it deliver?
• Who will sponsor, own and operate it?
• What roadmap is realistic?

A pilot may then test the proposition against a real leadership or governance problem.

The pilot should not merely produce a new dashboard or demonstrate a technology. It should connect genuine objectives, accountabilities, information and decisions across at least one organisational boundary.

From there, the organisation can build and connect the necessary enablers: governance arrangements, accountability, information, data, Business Support, assurance, enabling processes and suitable technology.

Adoption and culture change must follow. Ultimately, the capability must become part of how the organisation operates rather than remain the output of a temporary programme.

Aim high – or win one step at a time?

The paper also considers the choice between a strategically sponsored, top-down approach and a pragmatic sequence of local improvements.

A board or executive sponsor may have the authority to commission an organisation-wide vision and roadmap.

Elsewhere, the journey may begin from a portfolio, strategy, finance, governance, technology or business-unit problem.

Neither route is automatically right.

Attempting enterprise transformation with only local influence is an adoption risk. Remaining tactical when strong enterprise sponsorship is available may leave substantial value unrealised.

The practical principle is:

Match the initial scope to the authority and influence available, but connect each step to a wider vision.

A tactical improvement should create reusable assets and stronger connections, rather than another isolated process, report or system.

A holistic vision should still be delivered iteratively, demonstrating value and learning as the capability develops.

Who owns the capability?

The paper distinguishes between several leadership roles:

• the executive sponsor who creates authority and sustains attention
• the guiding coalition that provides cross-functional support
• the delivery leader who manages development
• the capability or product owner who remains accountable for continuing value
• the operational custodian who runs and supports the operating model
• the assurance function that provides independent confidence

This leads to one of the paper’s most important questions:

At what point does BIG stop being an initiative and become part of how the organisation is led?

Programme management may be suitable for creating the capability. Product-style ownership and effective Business Support are needed to maintain, operate and improve it over time.

BIG is a connective framework

The paper is also clear about what BIG is not.

BIG is not a universal theory of organisations, nor is it a substitute for the bodies of knowledge and specialist methods already available across strategy, governance, finance, risk, portfolio, programme, project, product, technology, assurance and organisational development.

There is already a great deal of excellent professional wisdom.

The BIG question is whether those capabilities work together.

BIG provides concepts, principles, components and roadmaps to help organisations examine and strengthen the connections between them. Its ambition is not to replace specialist expertise, but to help that expertise contribute to a coherent organisational capability.

The release series

The complete white paper will be available to help participants prepare for the BIG Leadership session.

In the weeks leading up to the event, we will also publish five shorter extracts. Each will explore one part of the argument and create an opportunity for focused community discussion. (this may change depending on progress and feedback)

Extract 1 – Why change?

Why apparently competent governance, strategy, risk, finance and delivery arrangements can still leave boards and executives without a reliable view of mission-critical objectives, performance and uncertainty.

Link: coming soon

Extract 2 – Getting BIG onto the right agenda

How different stakeholders experience the problem, how bottom-up concerns can be connected, and how a guiding coalition can turn local frustrations into a wider organisational proposition.

Link: coming soon

Extract 3 – The emotional and political reality

Why resistance to integrated governance is not always technical or rational, and why safety, candour, empowerment and constructive challenge matter.

Link: coming soon

Extract 4 – From concern to capability

The BIG approach from First Steps and discovery through piloting, roadmap development, enabler construction, adoption and sustainment.

Link: coming soon

Extract 5 – Leadership through BIG

What leaders must do once the capability exists: connect purpose to strategy and delivery, balance competing demands, respond to performance and uncertainty, and re-steer the organisation.

Link: coming soon

As each extract is released, this page will be updated with the relevant link so that it becomes a guide to the complete series.

Join the discussion

There is no magic answer to purpose delivery.

Sustained results require inspiration, but also hard work, joined-up behaviour, dependable information, clear accountability and repeated leadership attention.

We have extensive professional knowledge. We have frameworks and methods. Technology can increasingly connect information across systems, and AI can help process evidence, identify relationships and surface insights.

The remaining barriers may be structural, behavioural and political.

That is why leadership matters.

On 7 September, we will explore the leadership required to create an integrated capability – and the leadership required to operate it.

The white paper and the five extracts are intended to inform that discussion, not close it. We want the experience and perspectives of board members, executives, strategists, governance professionals, portfolio and PMO leaders, finance, operations, risk, assurance, technology and everyone else interested in improving the connection from purpose to delivery – and back again.

Read the full white paper: Link: coming soon

Reserve your place at the BIG Leadership session 7th September 7pm UK? :

Before then – why not come and meet with is at our Summer Speak easy – 3rd August 7pm UK? Ask questions, network etc

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