a 'look book' for an alumni magazine redesign

ANDREW HESKINS DESIGNS _

_ LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL REVIEW

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Thoughts on the current LBSR and ideas for future look and focus


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_ WHERE THE MAGAZINE IS NOWThere’s nothing terribly wrong with the magazine today. There’s lots of interesting and well-written content, and a variety of illustrative styles. However, the pacing feels a bit off. The magazine falls into a rhythm of mainly four page articles, roughly falling into the same template. It might be better to have some longer features of six to eight pages, and fewer features in total. Overall the magazine lacks a cohesive identity, not helped by the wide variety of styles. I believe this publication would benefit from some stronger magazine-wide design elements such as page furniture and typography colour to bring everything together and create a unique identity.

LONDON.EDU/ LBSR6 ISSUE 1 - 2016 © LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL RE VIE W

Women in developing countries could be $9trn better off if their pay were equal to that of men. The global employment participation and wage gap between women and men totals $17trn. Closing the chasm could increase women’s income by up to 76 per cent, globally.Source: actionaid.org

More people have a mobile phone than a toilet. In fact, a third of the global population lives without access to toilets. Yet every $1 invested in water and sanitation provides a $4 economic return.Source: water.org

Opportunities in bite-sized numbers

Small data

1/3

90%Nearly 50 years of military rule have ended in Myanmar. Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in November 2015, with more than 90 per cent of the vote. Source: bbc.co.uk

7m

$17 TRILLION

40%When a company’s debt and earnings (as measured by earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) ratio is near one of the scores set by rating agencies, it is 40 per cent more likely to cut R&D spend – damaging long-term prospects. Source: Taylor Begley, Assistant Professor of Finance, London Business School

Climate pollutants create severe risks to health. More than seven million premature deaths annually are linked to air pollution. A 2015 WHO report highlights four ways to reduce the risks. It estimates that between three to five million lives could be saved annually by 2050. Source: who.int

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Uber’s recent fundraising puts a value of $50bn on the business, three times higher than in 2014, making it the fastest ever startup to reach $50bn.Source: Forbes

Spotlight Small data

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There are nearly 200 million Africans aged between 15 and 24, making Africa the youngest continent in the world. By 2040, Africa’s young workforce will also be the largest. Evidence shows that young people in sub-Saharan Africa are more entrepreneurial than elsewhere, as 28 per cent of them run their own businesses. Source: gemconsortium.org

28%

One in five people worldwide cannot read or write. That equates to 796 million people across the world. Illiteracy costs the global economy more than $1trn each year. Moreover, 72 million children miss out on secondary school education altogether. Source: worldliteracyfoundation.org

2 °CTo bolster the global commitment of no more than 2°C of warming, 190 nations met at COP 21 Paris in December 2015. The biggest emitters have committed to cut their emissions. The EU is to slash its emissions by 40 per cent by 2030. The US will cut them by 28 per cent by 2025. Source: cop21paris.org

In less than a decade Airbnb and Uber have become giants; but the sharing economy still offers pockets of growth. By 2025, five sectors – peer-to-peer finance, online staffing, peer-to-peer accommodation, car sharing and music and video streaming – could generate revenues worth $335bn. Source: pwc.com

2025 $50 BILLION

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Market drivers

Why sowing the seeds of knowledge reaps growth

Ideas. Strategies. Results.

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL REVIEW

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Profit by lossHow to benefit from failing

Made to measureHow to be braver in your accounting

Credit notesWhy not to chase your rating

Go from good to greatAdvice on how to become a leader

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deliverable results for customers. Our data shows that not only are

mechanisms to coordinate across units less effective than those for alignment, but informal means of coordination and reliance also work poorly. In the survey, we ask: How much can you rely on others to do what they say they will do? We found t hat more t han 90 per cent of managers say they cannot rely on colleagues in other units to do what they say they will do all of the time. This contrasts with around half who say the same for their boss or direct reports (85 per cent say they can rely on their boss all or most of the time).

2 Execution is just implementing a plan In facing this challenge,

many organisations try to script coordination by describing in detail who needs to do what and by when, with specific implementation plans. However, when operating in the real world, things change constantly. Adjusting to local circumstances as markets shift is the very essence of execut ing st rateg y in volat i le markets. Effective execution depends on leaders ensuring that the strategy is clear, which means specifying the overall aim as well as the non-negotiables of how to get there. When this clarity is created, and senior leaders know what lies within and outside of the boundaries of strategy, they have sufficient autonomy to adapt flexibly to local circumstances and changing market conditions while maintaining alignment with the overall company strategy.

3Execution is one size fits all Strategy execution essentially

involves doing three things at once – aligning activities and resources with strategy; coordinating across f unct ions, business units and geographies; and adapting to local circumstances and changes. But firms will struggle to find the perfect balance across these three, often competing, dimensions. W hile ba la nce is d i f f icu lt, it is a lso unnecessary. What is critical is that companies find their fit, or unique execution approach, which means u n d e r s t a n d i n g w h a t m i x o f

firms, hundreds of decisions and actions at multiple levels make strategy execution happen. The leaders closest to these choices are best placed to make these tough calls, ensure alignment within their own areas of the organisation, coordinate with colleagues in other units and guide local adaptation.

Five approaches for better strategy execution

1A holistic view A good place to begin is to take a holistic view of

the key drivers of execution and understand how they fit together. It helps to start with the fundamentals – the basic building blocks companies have to work with. Consider that organisations have a top executive team and a group of leaders and managers distributed throughout. T he s e t w o g r ou p s a r e of t e n disconnected from each other and the stated strategy. To work together effectively they need a better shared understanding of what matters most, why it matters and what is and is not working. Shared context creates common ground around the strategy

Executing strategy in an uncertain environment requires agility and adaptation

desired results, executives often ascribe the failure to a great strategy brought down by poor execution. But failure to execute is always partly, if not wholly, due to the way in which the strategy itself is formulated. Strategy is fundamentally about distinct choices as to how a company creates and sustains economic value. A failure to execute often starts here, with a failure to make and then communicate these tough choices.

5 You need top team help if you want to execute A common belief

among senior managers is that to make execution work, you need a senior team member to swoop down and help solve all the problems. But this is not the reality; rather, it is the group of distributed leaders – those closest to the market and customers – who are the real heroes of execution. It is they who need to make the majority of the critical choices implied by the strategy. In complex


a l ig n ment, coord i nat ion a nd adaptation are most critical to their strategies. For firms attempting to deliver integrated solutions to common customers, excel lent coordination is needed. For those that create value through individual units adapting quickly to changing conditions, adaptation is most important, and overlaying too many mechanisms for coordination can detract from the speed necessary to adjust. Of course, the diagnosis is only the first step. Once companies acknowledge their fit, they must then adopt an execution approach with the right mix of the three.

4Strategy and execution are d ist i nc t f rom each ot her

Thinking we can separate strategy from execution is perhaps one of the biggest myths of execution. When organisations fail to achieve their


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Ideas Strategy

will not do much to move the needle. What’s more at issue is that too much focus on performance – hitting numbers or delivering targets – can hamper other critical aspects of execution, such as coordination to serve integrated services or solutions to customers.

Executing strategy in an uncertain environment also requires agility and adaptation. And when there are fai lures, t here needs to be an environment in which tough issues ca n be d iscussed open ly a nd honest ly. Adaptat ion involves innovation and experimentation, where the essence of experimenting is to learn. And most experiments, by definition, fail. Organisations must embrace a learning culture that tolerates mistakes or failures and allows people to innovate.

5 You need good data to execute The amount of data on hand to

i n for m de c i s ion-m a k i ng h a s exploded in recent years, and most ma nagers gat her a wea lt h of information about customers, compet it ion, tech nolog y a nd macroeconom ic t rends when formulating company strategy. If the past is a good guide to the future, intuition can be valuable. But in a complex, ambiguous, fast changing environment, it can be a trap. Trusting gut instincts can lead people to place too much reliance on past patterns. Data needs to be interrogated, ambiguous patterns explored and alternative stories developed to ensure that execution is based on the current reality rather than a familiar past or deluded desires.

Effective execution is an enduring challenge. It is hard because it means facing and resolving the tension between apparently conf licting needs. The trade-offs are live, real and tough to make. Mastering it is rare. But the rewards are great.

Rebecca Homkes ([email protected]) is a Teaching Fellow at London Business School Don Sull is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management

Resources‘Why strategy execution derails and what to do about it’, Harvard Business Review, with Don Sull

think is being communicated and what is actually understood?

Part of the issue often lies with the strategy itself. As mentioned, strategy is about making choices. To be effective for execution, the strategy must articulate a simple story that tells us where the organisation is going to play and compete; how it will win in that space; and what the top priorities are that will make this happen in the mid-term. Success is not simply the result of increasing effort. It will only be achieved if the distributed leaders understand this simple story and the criteria they should apply in making the critical choices they will face in executing in their markets.

3Do the right things We also often fail to make the distinction

between the needs of strategy and operat ions, but t hese a re not synonymous. Strategy is not about doing everything right; it’s about doi ng t he r ig ht t h i ngs. Ma ny managers equate execution with f lawless delivery on a company’s operational processes through tools such as lean, Six Sigma and total qu a l i t y m a n a ge ment . W h i le operational efficiency is necessary, it is not sufficient. The bigger struggle for most firms is how to allocate resources across competing priorities and initiatives. The most critical resources an organisation has – cash, people, and senior managerial time – must be allocated where they matter the most, and reallocated as the situation develops.

Execution is about focusing time, energy and resources on the few things that will do the most to create value, which can only be understood when tough choices have been made.

4Build a culture for execution While culture is certainly critical,

most organisations are not focusing on all of the right aspects of culture to boost execution. Too many focus singlemindedly on building a culture of performance. While performance matters, it is not a silver bullet for execution effectiveness. Our research shows that most companies already do this well and minor improvements

and helps leaders to align actions, coordinate activities and adapt as circumstances change.

Successful execution then depends upon making and delivering on performance commitments across the organisation. Firms need both the hardware (such as incentive systems, management by objective processes, and service level agreements) and the software (cultural forces) to manage these commitments around t he organisat ion, across units and outside the firm. In sum, firms should use all the tools at their disposal when it comes to execution: shared context, leadership, and the hardware and software to make and keep commitments and renegotiate these when circumstances change.

2Strategic clarity at all levels One of the killer questions we

ask is: What are the top priorities for your company over the next three to five years? On average, less than 60 per cent of distributed leaders converge on even one top priority for their company. Why is there a disconnect between what executives

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hat is execution, and what do we know about it? First,

we k now t hat it matters. Ask CEOs what is top of their mind, a nd t he y a l mo s t a l w a y s s a y execution. Studies consistently show this ranks as the most pressing challenge for executives. We also know that most companies struggle with execution: recent studies suggest between two thirds and three quarters of companies fail to get the intended results from their strategies.

There is also a large and persistent gap between the time we devote to better understanding how to develop strategy and that devoted to e x e c ut ion . T h i s c re ate s a chasm between the two that is not on l y c ou nter produc t i ve, but potentially disastrous.

tools such as KPIs and nested objectives. The reality is that in most firms tools to aid alignment are working fairly well. What holds execution back is that in most complex organisations the real challenge stems not from lack of alignment but from the need to coordinate across multiple functions, departments and units. This is especially pronounced when trying to deliver exceptional customer experiences or integrated solutions. In such cases, coordination of activities is critical to getting things done. While we have many tools (such as management by objective systems) to translate objectives and commitments into action going up and down the hierarchy, we have far fewer for translating commitments made across the organisation into

O ver t he pa st fe w yea r s, a colleague and I have been conducting research on how to better execute strategy, through in-depth work, case studies, and an innovative survey tool of over 12,000 senior executives and managers in more than 400 organisations, to help close these gaps in our understanding.

Below are five common myths about what execution is, which contrast with some of the realities of executing for results, especially in turbulent markets.

Five strategy execution myths

1 It ’s a l l about a l ig n ment A commonly held myth is that the

challenge of execution is about aligning activities and objectives up and down the company hierarchy, through

Rebecca Homkes demystifies strategy execution and suggests an approach for improving resultsIllustration by Tim Lahan

Translating strategy into results

Ideas Strategy


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Richard Jolly offers ten key pieces of advice on how to lead a company through times of change

C O U R A G E , C A R E

A N D C O M M U N I C A T I O N :

A T O O L K I T T O L E A D

T H R O U G H C H A N G E


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Ideas Leading change

Richard Jolly is Adjunct Professor of Organisational Behaviour at LBS. He teaches the School’s Leading Change programme

Build your team. They need to understand your ambition and be committed to ensuring it happens.Recent research found that 68 per cent of employees questioned didn’t understand their company’s vision. How can people work together towards a shared goal if they don’t know what it is?

Have the courage to confront the difficult conversations – things typically get worse the longer you avoid them. Base these conversations on facts, not feelings. You need proof of how people aren’t hitting the mark. Remember that as a leader, you’re a teacher. You need to give your employees the information they need to do well, even if it’s hard to give.

Create an environment where people believe they can impact the firm – increasingly the role of senior executives is not to lead change, but to create the conditions for others to do so. ‘Command and control’ doesn’t work in complex f irms. You can’t impose change – your employees need to find their own ways to solve the challenges and bring them to the table. It’s your job to empower them to do that.

Be a role model of the behaviours you want from others. People aren’t really listening to what you say, but t hey a re m i m ick i ng you r behav iours. Role models have an infectious passion for their work and live according to their true beliefs. People have a sixth sense for integrity in others.

Foc us you r t i me on you r key priorities – don’t get distracted by the thousands of things competing for your attention. Analyse what percentage of your time you spend on your top three priorities – you probably al low yourself to get distracted by easy, trivial activities that don’t add real value to the organisation. Protecting time to think is critical – don’t fall victim to ‘hurry sickness’!

Trust your instincts – in the second half of your career, you are more likely to fail because you are too careful. You are not in a china shop.Organisations typically fail not because they have the wrong strategy, but because employees don’t do what they think is right for the firm. Beware of the killer phrase, ‘They should…’. There is no ‘they’.

Ensure people know that you care about them – showing empathy leads to them caring about the firm and your ambitions.Empathy is sometimes called the deepest form of respect. It shows you care about pe ople more t h a n r u le s a nd regulations and builds strong links between employees and teams.

Get momentum. Often, change happens gradually, so build from common ground where people already agree to enable you to get traction. Change can take its toll on human and financial resources. Some employees may want to see the benefits of part of a big change before venturing further down that path.

Map your stakeholders – list the key people involved in making the change happen: how do they feel about it and what strategy do you need for each specific person to get them to play their role? Who can you get to influence them if you can’t do so yourself?

Over-communicate – people want to know where we are going and what, specifically, you need them to do differently to get there. People feel valued simply by leaders sharing information with them. It shows you trust your staff and helps them to do their job. Most senior executives are terrible communicators, but think they are great. And ask for feedback to check employees have understood.

When change goes wrong, the results can be devastating. Apart from the money and resources wasted, some of your people will have put in all the extra hours for, well, nothing. And there’s nothing like wasted effort to kill morale. My ten principles can give those leading transformation a scaffolding to build on amid the shifting sands of change. It’s hard, but possible, and our best leaders will make their mark on history with their flexibility, bravery and foresight.

eading through change demands a different set of skills and strengths to the ones you find on the standard ‘What makes a good leader’ list. Upheaval brings the best and the worst out in all of us, and leaders, as the example-setters, have the most important role to play.

Richard Jolly is Adjunct Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School. As Co-Director of the School’s Leading Cha nge prog ra m me, he’s one of t he world’s top aut hor it ies on t he cha l lenges of lead i ng through change. He’s boiled his years of experience down to ten key takeaways.

For more information visit london.edu/lcp

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_ YOU CAN’T BE ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLEWell you can, but it comes at a cost: you can’t do all of them really well. A look at the current audience and objectives in the brief reveals that the magazine is pulled in all sorts of directions. For instance, to be a widely accessible magazine that appeals to everyone, but one that broadcasts the London Business School’s reputation for research and thought leadership. As such, the end product feels very generic. Which makes me wonder...

• What are your priorities?

• Who is your primary audience?

• Can certain parts of the audience be better reached by more targeted use of communication portals, such as digital?

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10k - INSTITUTIONAL READERSHIP

35k - ALUMNI AND SUBSCRIBERS*

5k - MARKETING

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

BROAD AUDIENCE

OBJECTIVESPRINT AUDIENCE

ALUMNI MARKETING

2.5k - EMIRATES

* Just how does this figure divide up? How many subscribers are not affiliated with the London Business School?


4

_ WHAT ARE YOUR READERS READING?Knowing what else your target audience is reading will help define what will make your publication stand out. What else might you expect to find in readers’ inboxes or magazine racks? The Economist? Management Today? F.T.? Fast Company? BA Business Life? City A.M.? Knowing more clearly what appeals to your readership will make it easier to target them.

• Regular reader surveys can help paint a clearer picture of who your actual audience is and what it expects from LBS.


5

_ DESIGN IDEASInfographics can be a great way to engage with your audience, particularly if the information is dealt with in a fun and visually exciting way.

Delayed Gratification describes itself as “slow journalism.” It publishes four times a year and is a look back on the previous quarter. Given LBSR is published three times a year, could that approach work for your publication?

DELAYED GRATIFICATION

BUSINESS LIFE

DELAYED GRATIFICATION

WIRED


6

_ DESIGN IDEASPeople matter: put a face to your contributors. A strong roster of regular contributors can build a loyal following.

SINGAPORE

BUSINESS LIFE HIGH LIFE

BUSINESS LIFE

WILLIS RESILIENCE

WILLIS RESILIENCE

OBSERVER MAGAZINE


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_ DESIGN IDEASPresent ideas and thought pieces as interviews or “voxboxes”. Put the focus on the alumni/interviewee and less on generic/stock illustration.

WILLIS RESILIENCE

NET MAG

QUALITY WORLD

WIRED

NET MAG


8

_ DESIGN IDEASDramatic, dynamic typography will also reduce reliance on stock images/illustrations.

BUSINESS LIFE

PORT

QUALITY WORLD

QUALITY WORLD


9

_ DESIGN IDEASReconsider the digital versions of the magazine. The app version is little more than a PDF of the magazine WHILE the online version lands on what is effectively a search page which doesn’t reflect the design and style of the original magazine format. A more editorial-based landing page with curated content would be more inviting. The articles themselves can follow the magazine design more closely.

WILLIS RESILIENCE

BAILLIE GIFFORD TRUST


10

_ OTHER CONSIDERATIONS“I think this is a fantastic opportunity to re-examine the magazine in all of its formats. Could alumni be better catered for with separate, targeted newsletters and emails, for example? Is there scope for a magazine-wide theme/subject for each issue? Would it be better to publish less frequently, but make the magazine larger with more in-depth articles and thought leadership, giving it a longer shelf life/relevance? I can help!

PORT

PORT

BOAT

DRIFT

DRIFT

a 'look book' for an alumni magazine redesign

Design