Apply What Mars Learned About High Performance Teams To Your Organization
Adopt, Emulate or Adapt the Framework to your organization because good ideas are meant to be shared
We’ve gone through the entire Mars Framework for High Performance Collaboration. We’ve talked about the three Imperatives that sit behind the six Practices. Are you ready to put the HPC Framework to work?
There are three ways that you can do that: You can adopt the Framework as it is, you can adapt it to your organization or you can emulate what we did to develop the Framework.
Adopt
Let’s talk first about adopting it. You can just take it as it is in the book. Mars, Incorporated has very graciously said, “Carlos, we are happy for you to share this with the world.” Mars believes that the HPC Framework has great value. They think their customers should be learning about it and their consumers, too. So, just take it and use it. The book tells the entire story and is your guide to understanding and using the Framework.
Keep this in mind: The HPC Framework is tuned to the Mars culture. For example, the names of the Practices. Take Inspire Purpose and Crystallize Intent. Where did we come up with those words, and why? If you’ve been following these podcasts you’ll know that the Mars culture is extremely action-oriented. We wanted names for the Practices that were about doing and actions. Clarify Context, is a clear example. It’s stating an action beginning with a verb. Inspire Purpose is a little more unusual but follows the same rule - we are asking teams to Inspire themselves through purpose. We also want teams to Crystallize their shared Intent. There are action words throughout the Framework: Cultivate Collaboration, Activate Ways-of-working, and Sustain & Renew round things out.
Adapt
All these names came from our need to make the Framework fit the action-focused Mars culture. But you can call the Practices whatever you want. That’s adaptation, the second approach to bringing the Framework to your organization. Take the Framework and choose words that fit your organization better, if need be. Or, if the words are fine, you might say, “Six Practices? I think it’s actually five for us.” Or maybe you prefer four Practices. Or a square graphic instead of round. That’s all good. The research is there to support that the underlying ideas are right, and that is what matters.
Emulate
Finally, you can emulate what we did. You could emulate our research process rather than the Framework itself. What would that entail? We had an internal consultant - me - working with teams around the globe at various levels and we got a lot of rich data. Go gather some data. Then ask some questions: ”What’s inhibiting collaboration around here today?” “When it does work, what is driving success?” Then begin to formulate your own approach. It can work. You have to have an organization to back you on it. But, I can confidently say that it’s a lot more effective than just buying something off the shelf because it worked somewhere else. It’s more work, sure. But if you emulate our process you can create something that works for your organization, your culture.
So, those are my basic guidelines for how to apply the HPC Framework in your organization. If you have more questions about how to use the HPC Framework, take a listen to my other podcasts or buy Lessons from Mars wherever you prefer to buy books. Or contact me. Let’s talk!
