This past week was the celebration of the UK Monarchy’s Diamond Jubilee marking 60 years of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. Some readers may have not bothered with watching the hype of its four days of ceremonies while others just cannot get enough of it. The existence of a royal family is always a curiosity for citizens in countries, like the USA, that do not have one. In the USA, the President and first lady are the default king and queen. Political pundits often write about the benefits of having royalty. One benefit is it allows the politicians in a nation’s government to focus on governing while the royalty can handle the tea-and-crumpet social aspects with its citizens.
What if companies had their own king and queen along the side of the CEO, COO, CFO, and all the other vice-presidents of the executive team?
A King and Queen in your Organization?
You really have to use your imagination to think of how having a king and queen would change the dynamics of operating a company and applying business analytics along with enterprise performance management methodologies and other decision support actions. Here are a few:
• Similar to citizens of countries with royalty, employees could have audiences with the king or queen requesting favors or petitioning appeals such as for a new office with a window or a salary increase.
• Much of the public relations work and interrogation by Wall Street investment analysts that consumes the valuable time of the executives could be shouldered by the king and queen. Royalty are effective at communicating in grandiose terms without requiring any analysis or facts to support their statements. They can easily be substitutes for the executive team thus freeing up the executives to steer and control their company. New product releases can be ceremonial with heralded proclamations.
• Royalty is about diplomacy. Management is about speed in accomplishing change. There is overlap, but with a king and queen a company can build strong brand recognition in its markets. Why have a CEO in a TV commercial when the king or queen (imagine some day Kate Middleton) can deliver that message?
• Courting important customers or prospects with large sales opportunities is critical for revenue growth. Meetings with them can be held at the king and queen’s palace, like Buckingham Palace in London, rather than at a sterile headquarters building. The king and queen can meet-and-greet.
• Analysts who draw insights from their discovery and investigative research but are ignored by their managers and executives can sneak their findings and recommendations to the staff of the royalty. Sometimes doing an end-run flanking maneuver is an effective way to get buy-in.
• During a nation’s times of crisis, such as a military war, in countries with royalty, the reigning king or queen address the country. This was highlighted in last year’s Academy Award winning movie, The King’s English. For a company, when a fierce competitor invades a company’s market or aggressively increases market share, of course it is the executive team’s job to have analysis performed and redirect the strategy to combat the losses. But the king or queen would be the communicator to its managers and employees. Aligning employee work, effort, and priorities with the executive team’s strategy requires vision and inspiration. (Strategy maps, a balanced scorecard, and KPIs will help.) The executives can do the former, and the king and queen can do the latter – inspire.
• Similar to patronage workers, with jobs resulting from their political connections (and I grew up in Chicago understanding how patronage works), under-performing employees can be re-assigned to be staff of the king and queen. This will allow high performers, who waste much of their own energy figuring out ways to work around the entrenched employees who have lost their sense of urgency, to accomplish strategic goals faster.
Did you watch some of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee ceremonies? I bet so. Your reason why may give you thought to considering my fantasy thoughts above.
Originally published by the International Institute for Analytics
