Strategic Positioning

28 Strategic Positioning CHAPTER OUTLINE Strategic Planning—Its Birth and Death ..................................................................................... 492 It’s About the People ...............................................................................................................493 Positioning Over Planning ........................................................................................................... 493 Ask the Right Questions ..........................................................................................................495 Strategic Positioning Sessions ..................................................................................................496 Retreat Objectives ....................................................................................................................497 SWOT Analysis ..........................................................................................................................497 C-SWOT Analysis .......................................................................................................................498 Watching for Resistance ..........................................................................................................501 Organizational Cadence .............................................................................................................. 501 Performance Statements ............................................................................................................. 503 Using Statements for Forensic Laboratory Reporting ............................................................504 Balancing and Reporting the Production Data ......................................................................505 Use of Statements in Strategic Positioning .............................................................................506 Cash-Flow Projection ................................................................................................................... 508 Organizational Momentum and “Managing Up” ...................................................................... 509 Unleash Your Human Resources ................................................................................................. 511 Ten Rules of Professional Excellence .......................................................................................512

By now, it should be clear that leadership and management are two different endeavors. Leadership, on the one hand, transports people to a future state of existence through motivation, inspiration, and engagement. Competent leaders have an uncanny ability to see possibilities before they are apparent to others. And in the most impressive acts of leadership, leaders can coach, mentor, and empower people to surpass their own self-imposed limitations. Leadership is as close as we come to time-travel, propelling people and teams into the future by communicating a vision and cultivating widespread belief that the vision is attainable and worth the investment of time and effort. Management on the other hand is the interrelated set of decisions and actions that are required to deal effectively with things that are happening right now. In this regard, management is every bit as important as leadership because a leader’s focus on the future assumes that today’s business is being handled appropriately. The price we pay to enjoy the future of our choosing is to be responsible with the priorities before us today. This chapter, however, draws attention to the important activities and priorities that fall within the proverbial gray area separating management from leadership. It is here that today’s environment can either collide violently or synergistically with tomorrow’s HR Management in the Forensic Science Laboratory. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-801237-6.00028-2 © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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possibilities. It is called strategy, and it is an important but highly misunderstood aspect of executive leadership. The word strategy is a modern derivation of the Greek word strategos, a term used in ancient Greece to describe a military general. Even today, strategy is generally understood to be the organized culmination of thought-processes, predictions, decisions, and actions necessary to achieve important goals and objectives despite the ever-present countervailing forces that will tend to prevent it. The purpose of strategy is to win, and to win by overcoming the odds.

Strategic Planning—Its Birth and Death In the 1920s, Harvard Business School developed what became known as the Harvard Policy Model, an approach for businesses to maximize their competitiveness by conducting systematic assessments of their current environments, predicting how those environments will change in the future, and taking whatever actions are necessary to ensure corporate stability and sustenance. Over many decades, leadership and management theorists continually added to the growing body of knowledge about corporate strategy, resulting in what became known as strategic planning—a process for gathering and understanding relevant information about today’s realities and designing a path on which to journey into the future. Through strategic planning, companies could ostensibly gain a competitive advantage and therefore increase profit margins and market share. In the 1980s and early 1990s, government agencies found themselves under greater pressure from the public to improve their efficiencies and perhaps function more like businesses. This became a rallying cry for government watchdogs who argued, sometimes quite accurately, that the public-sector had become mired in bureaucratic red tape. In 1993, Congress passed the Government Performance and Results Act aimed at requiring federal agencies to prepare strategic plans, mission statements, goals and objectives, and a host of other performance-improving methods. Strategic planning, therefore, emerged as a growing trend in governmental agencies, just as it did in the private-sector, due to the false perception that strategic planning was a secret ingredient to effective executive leadership. Unfortunately, history may likely show that all strategic planning ever really created for most of its hopeful advocates were large three-ringed binders packed with elaborate plans that no one ever looked at. For all the time, effort, and money put into strategic planning by countless companies, governmental agencies, and teams, what comes of these undertakings are often nothing more than well-organized sets of information about today’s environment that have little relevance for tomorrow’s opportunities and challenges. Economist Bill Conerly, writing for Forbes Magazine on March 24, 2014 in an article titled “The Death of Strategic Planning: Why?,” pulled no punches in exposing the reality of strategic planning in many businesses: Many companies abandoned strategic planning in the recent recession. Their practice had been to gather for a three-day executive retreat to develop the strategic plan and play golf. After the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, the

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team would define the one most likely path for the external environment. The executive team would then develop the appropriate strategy for that one vision of the future. By lucky coincidence, the team always developed the strategy that the CEO wanted going into the meeting. This author, having participated in many strategic planning sessions over many years, has directly experienced the phenomenon that Bill Conerly explains in his article—the laborious development of strategic plans that magically aligned with what top management wanted all along. And to understand this dark side of strategic planning is to understand why it became so popular and why it is quickly fading as a legitimate leadership tool.

It’s About the People Too often, strategic planning is used as a crutch by executives having poor or underdeveloped leadership skills or self-serving motives. Given enough time at the helm, their insecurities, lack of vision, and inability to connect with people eventually erode their organizational cultures, leaving them and their teams vulnerable to stagnancy, lost opportunities, and the inability to react effectively to changes in their environments. As things get worse, strategic planning offers a glimmer of hope and the chance to feel like something meaningful is being done to turn things around. It is perhaps the short-term sense of unity and accomplishment that strategic planning offers that fueled its growth and popularity in the latter half of the 20th century. Then, armed with elaborate strategic plans and palatable feelings of optimism, notes Bill Conerly, “the future didn’t cooperate.” To say that strategic planning is never a valuable exercise is a judgment that isn’t necessarily supported by the evidence. Indeed, if done properly and with an open mind, strategic planning can give organizations the competitive edge or operational stability they’ve been lacking. Too often, however, strategic planning is initiated by executive leaders having no interest in making changes or following plans that conflict with their existing notions. So, why do they insist on strategic planning? Because they see the strategic planning process as something that can be engineered and controlled so that it validates what they already want. This lack of emotional intelligence, which encourages the manipulating and micromanagement of people, is the same lack of emotional intelligence that tricks leaders into thinking they can get away with it. But, in reality, strategic planning that is hobbled by duplicity and insincerity does nothing but inflame cynicism and bad feelings among the members of a team. So, although strategic planning became a popular fad in corporate and governmental America, its misuse as a method of manipulation seems to have guaranteed its eventual demise.

Positioning Over Planning Planning is good. But forensic science laboratories might consider a different approach to strengthening their strategic well-being. If leadership is the art of motivating and inspiring

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people, positioning is the practice of optimizing an organization’s ability to function effectively in its current environment. Strategic positioning is a responsible approach for balancing and modifying current priorities to align with future possibilities. But it is not an exercise intended specifically to create a plan. Unlike strategic planning, strategic positioning is an endeavor that occurs in the present moment, a focus on what is needed right now—choices that must be made today, or the strengthening of weaknesses that are currently limiting an organization’s performance. Certainly, thinking about the future and how it might unfold is a valuable and necessary part of the process, but strategic positioning does not lock an organization into a single plan. Instead, it sets up the conditions whereby competent decisions can be made to react effectively to unexpected changes in the environment. Strategic planning produces a plan. Strategic positioning produces strength. A well-positioned forensic science laboratory is able to: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

Deliver reliable and relevant services Balance output capacity with demand Work collaboratively with stakeholders Hire and retain qualified and engaged employees React quickly and reliably to unexpected occurrences Secure resources needed to get the job done Take advantage of emerging opportunities Mitigate looming threats Maximize its potential

Establishing a strong strategic position requires organizational awareness, recognition of changes in the environment, consideration of circumstances and options, and the making of decisions that will maximize positive outcomes for the laboratory.

We often observe a specialized version of strategic positioning at work in sports. In golf, for example, a player is described as being in a good position to win if he is at or near the top of the leaderboard with just a few holes to play—especially if the player is wellprepared, familiar with the golf course, has been playing well, has not made bad decisions in the tournament, and seems mentally focused on what he is doing. Being in a “good position,” therefore, means that a person or team has a reasonably good chance of achieving or sustaining success—whatever that means to those involved.

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Nestled at the core of effective strategic positioning is awareness. And although this may seem on the surface to be a statement of the obvious, all organizations are highly vulnerable to being hypnotized by their own familiarity with their internal and external environments. As teams become settled in their routines, they lose some of their abilities to recognize strategically significant changes to their environments. It is not different from a person who forgets that a fan is running in her office. When she turns the fan on, she hears and sees the fan operating and is perhaps aware of the noise for a few minutes. But after a short while, she is no longer aware that the fan is even there. This ability of the human mind to tune out distractions has evolutionary and practical benefits. But in a competitive or strategic environment, this softening of our senses leaves us vulnerable to ignorance.

Ask the Right Questions The hypnotic effects of environmental familiarity can be easily neutralized simply by asking the right questions on a regular basis. Self-scrutiny is the primary antidote to complacency. Organizations, teams, and individuals lose strength in their strategic positions when they fail to ask themselves questions that might otherwise awaken their senses of awareness. Important questions that should be asked by administrators of forensic science laboratories, for example, include: What do our customers say about us behind our backs? What is the status of our laboratory’s relationship with our parent agency? Does the capacity of our laboratory meet the needs of our customers? Are we investing enough time and energy in preparing for the future? Where can our budgetary priorities be improved? What factors are enabling our progress and how can we better leverage them? What factors are limiting our progress and how can we mitigate them? What economic indicators might help us predict future tax revenues? What crime patterns can we observe in our caseloads that might help us predict future demand for our services? Questions give rise to awareness. Awareness motivates action. Action produces strength. Strategic positioning is an organizational initiative aimed at building strength by increasing awareness. It is not necessary to prepare elaborate plans, mainly because strategically relevant circumstances change so quickly and unexpectedly. Instead, strategic positioning is a form of preparation that builds an organization’s confidence in its ability to navigate turbulent waters. Before attempting to explain how strategic positioning can be done in a forensic science laboratory, it is important to distinguish business positioning from governmental positioning. In business, strategic positioning means gaining a competitive advantage within an industry so that a company can deliver goods and services within a marketplace that values them. A well-positioned company is more competitive and able to bring value to consumers that other companies can’t—or can’t do as well. In government, however,

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strategic positioning is a continuous effort to be well-resourced and able to deliver, now and in the future, a solid return on the investment of taxpayer dollars. For forensic science laboratories, like all government agencies, strategic positioning is sometimes a daily affair, with decisions being made and actions being taken that are intended to strengthen a laboratory’s ability to function effectively in its current and future environments. The remaining sections of this chapter will present methods that can greatly assist in improving the strategic position of a forensic science laboratory.

Strategic Positioning Sessions Strategic positioning can be as formal or informal as desired. It all depends on the preferences and goals of the leaders concerned. Strategic positioning can be done by teams, work units, laboratories, or systems of multiple laboratories. Whatever benefits are to be derived from strategic positioning will depend entirely on the effort invested. But, as a rule for forensic laboratory administrators, it is beneficial to have a major, 2- or 3-day annual retreat where discussions can take place, then have brief quarterly follow-up meetings to discuss updates, current events, and emerging issues that are of strategic importance. A strategic positioning schedule for a forensic science laboratory may look something like this: January February March April May June July August September October November December

SP follow-up meeting—2 h SP retreat preparation—4 h Strategic positioning (SP) retreat—3 days

SP follow-up meeting—2 h

SP follow-up meeting—2 h

In the above schedule, we see that a strategic planning retreat is scheduled for the month of April. Ahead of the retreat, a preparation meeting is scheduled for March during which laboratory administrators may convene and solicit the input of employees about what topics should be prioritized during the retreat. If many topics are submitted for consideration, it may be necessary to either lengthen the duration of the retreat or limit the submissions to those that are deemed highest priority. Following the retreat, four quarterly follow-up meetings are scheduled during which administrators will briefly discuss the state of the current internal and external environments and reflect on any changes that have occurred since the last meeting. Of course, laboratories can determine for themselves

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what schedule is followed, but they should afford themselves enough time to openly and comprehensively discuss whatever issues and topics are most relevant to the laboratory’s strategic position. As much as possible, HR should be involved in the strategic positioning process. HR can provide valuable assistance in scanning the current environment and offering suggestions for what priorities should be emphasized in the coming year. If, for example, tax revenues are projected to increase such that an opportunity to hire new employees is possible, HR may have inside information that may be valuable to the laboratory’s leadership. Yet this involvement of HR has the added benefit of giving HR staff an opportunity to directly interact with laboratory administrators and therefore expand the awareness HR has about the laboratory’s priorities, challenges, and opportunities. This has the long-term effect of making HR more useful and responsive.

Retreat Objectives As the name implies, a retreat is an escape, of sorts, from one’s familiar surroundings, usually to inspire contemplation and clarity of thought. Although off-site retreats are not necessary to conduct meaningful strategic positioning sessions, they are recommended as a way to build team chemistry and eliminate the inevitable distractions that come during onsite meetings. Getting away from the laboratory may sometimes be necessary to fully leverage the time committed to strategic positioning. Retreats that Work: Everything You Need to Know About Planning and Leading Great Offsites—2nd Edition by Campbell, Liteman, and Liteman is a 2014 book, published by Pfeiffer, with a variety of tips and insights on hosting retreats and making the most of the experience. Other valuable resources exist in print and online that can help meeting planners design an effective retreat. In some instances, organizations opt to hire a facilitator who takes on the responsibilities of hosting the meeting, moderating discussions, and ensuring that sessions run according to schedule. The possibilities are limitless. Most important, however, is the need to spark deep, meaningful conversations about a variety of important topics in a short period of time. In addition to applying the methods explained in this chapter, it is highly recommended that specific laboratory managers and employees be selected to conduct research prior to the retreat, then present their findings and recommendations during the event. With enough attendees present, breakout sessions may be possible to allow teams or subcommittees to tackle individual subjects and report their deliverables back to the main group. To reiterate, healthy conversation is key to fully assessing a laboratory’s strategic position. It is an opportunity that must not be wasted.

SWOT Analysis SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It is a strategydevelopment method reportedly introduced at the Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s where famed management guru Albert S. Humphrey learned of the method and

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refined it over the course of his long and illustrious consulting career. It is a handy leadership tool that can be used, formally and informally, to assess a laboratory’s internal and external environments. Called a SWOT analysis, the method allows organizations to scrutinize themselves and the many relevant circumstances that are likely to affect current and future performance. SWOT can be a very effective way to initiate discussion and sustain valuable brainstorming sessions. The result is a significantly expanded awareness of an organization’s overall strategic position. To conduct a SWOT analysis, organizational thought-leaders convene to discuss their organization and its internal and external environments. A facilitator documents the input of participants regarding the following: Strengths—The attributes of the organization that are advantageous or will tend to make the organization successful in what it does. Weaknesses—The attributes of the organization that are limiting or tend to prevent the organization from achieving its goals. Opportunities—Decisions that can be made and actions that can be taken to produce benefits for the organization and strengthen its strategic position. Opportunities can be short term or long term. Threats—Occurrences that could potentially harm the organization and weaken its strategic position. Threats can be short term or long term. As the input of participants are charted, and if the facilitation of the SWOT analysis is done properly, the exercise of identifying the most relevant strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats will have the secondary benefit of sparking impromptu discussion and debate about the strategic environment. These discussions should not be allowed to confuse the task at hand, but the facilitator should make note of the topics and opinions being communicated and ensure that they are covered later in the strategic positioning effort. A common mistake that is made during the execution of a SWOT analysis is to confuse strengths for opportunities, or weaknesses for threats. For example, having several employees with poor customer service skills is a weakness, not a threat. The associated threat, however, might be the decline of customer satisfaction and collaboration if the weakness is not corrected. Similarly, having ample resources for the purchase of equipment is a strength, not an opportunity. The associated opportunity might be the possible purchase of robotic technologies to increase the speed of DNA testing.

C-SWOT Analysis In the experience of this author, SWOT analyses produce valuable information about organizations and their strategic positions. But the work product can sometimes be excessively broad and fail to lend insight on individual issues. In the forensic laboratory sciences, operations are heavily affected by a wide variety of independent issues that require specific attention. For this reason, the author has used and proposes a modified SWOT

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analysis that has proven to be valuable in a forensic laboratory context. It is called a C-SWOT analysis, where C stands for Contextual. It is a method for evaluating organizational position specifically within a particular context. To begin a C-SWOT analysis, meeting participants are asked to consider the following question: What are the top 10 topics that we will most likely discuss over the next 2 years? Upon being confronted with this question, participants will likely produce many responses. All of them should be documented or charted as concisely as possible by the meeting facilitator who will then ask the meeting participants to rank all the issues in their order of importance to the laboratory. (Because humans have biologically wired tendency to look for threats, it is important for the facilitator to remind the participants to think of positive topics that are cause for optimism.) The following is an example of a list that representatives of a forensic science laboratory might produce after identifying their top 10 topics: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Senate Bill 187 on rape kit testing requirements The next gubernatorial election The ongoing problems with our heating and cooling system The Sanchez murder trial Steve’s upcoming retirement and the hiring of his replacement The increase in prescription opioid drug submissions The preparation of our next accreditation application Installation of our new quality-system program Authorization of overtime for the latent print backlog The new federal grant for backlog reduction in non-DNA disciplines

After the top 10 list is created and agreed upon, the participants are asked a second question: What five topics will require the most attention of the laboratory’s administration? This question forces the participants to identify the top-five issues that are of the most strategic significance. The exercise may spark vigorous debate, which should be accommodated but moderated by the facilitator. Yet it has the effect of forcing critical distinctions between topics that are of general importance and those that are of strategic importance to the laboratory administration. This does not mean that the other topics are not important or will not be given attention. It simply means that the laboratory’s administration can only direct its attention to those key issues that are of the greatest strategic relevance. For example, the top 10 list above might be distilled to the following: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Senate Bill 187 on rape kit testing requirements The next gubernatorial election Installation of our new quality-system program The new federal grant for backlog reduction in non-DNA disciplines The ongoing problems with our heating and cooling system

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These top-five contexts become the basis for the C-SWOT analysis. The facilitator will specify a time allowance for the discussion of each context, for which a complete C-SWOT chart will be created. For example, the C-SWOT chart for the next gubernatorial election may look as follows:

Upon the completion of a C-SWOT chart for each context, all strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats will be combined into a single chart, with the five context charts being kept available to facilitate the discussion. After carefully considering the final consolidated chart, the participants are asked one final question: Based upon the chart, what actions can we take to ensure the strongest strategic position for our laboratory? The actions that are identified as being necessary for the laboratory to take become the strategic priorities of the administration. Delegation of activities to individual team members may occur now or when the meeting is over. Whenever possible, target dates should be set to ensure timely completion or the reporting of progress. Over the course of the year, the scheduled follow-up meetings will provide a valuable opportunity to

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discuss successes, setbacks, and changes to the environment. The completion of priority actions will be documented and discussed. If new priorities or action-items are deemed necessary to maintain progress toward the laboratory’s strategic objectives, these can be scheduled and assigned during the follow-up meetings as well. Based on the entire C-SWOT analysis, five priorities may emerge that deal specifically with the gubernatorial election, such as the following: (1) Develop a laboratory information booklet for the new governor and staff (2) Include the legislative affairs director at upcoming laboratory staff meetings (3) Prepare a legislative white paper on the laboratory’s legislative objectives and their positive impact on public safety—include fiscal impact estimates (4) Appoint a laboratory representative to serve as a liaison to the new governor’s transition team (5) Prepare a comprehensive media guide about the laboratory for the state’s association of journalists—distribute prior to the election

Watching for Resistance It is worth noting that facilitating the transition of a conversation from contexts to actions can require some thoughtful prompting and attention to the moods of the participants. As this author has directly witnessed, the strategic priorities of an organization come to life when actions are proposed. This is a pivotal moment in the strategic-positioning process. As action-priorities are outlined, feelings of anxiety can arise in those participants who are less tolerant of change, have a vested interest in the status quo, or have an emotional attachment to current ways of doing business. It is at this moment that things get real, so to speak. Facilitators and leaders must pay close attention to this phenomenon and be prepared to intervene when anxiety rears its ugly head, or when change-resistors attempt to sabotage the efforts of the team.

Organizational Cadence Chronic stress is an insidious and dangerous limiter of organizational and individual performance, with its primary cause being uncertainty—uncertainty about the future, uncertainty about case volumes, uncertainty about court commitments, and uncertainty about what hardships tomorrow might bring. Forensic science laboratories have inherently chaotic environments marked by considerable uncertainty. Chronic stress, therefore, is a constant threat to the well-being of laboratories and their employees, not to mention a clear and compelling detriment to strategic position. If it is agreed that uncertainty is an organizational threat facing most or all forensic science laboratories today, then why would laboratories not try diligently to compensate by creating certainty? If, for example, a laboratory strives to host one staff meeting per month, failing to follow a regularly repeating schedule creates additional uncertainty. And this is what many laboratories do. Instead, if the laboratory schedules its staff meetings for the

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first Tuesday of every month at 10 am, and adheres to that schedule without deviation, it has the effect of adding certainty to the operational environment. The added certainty comforts employees and lowers their anxiety. This injection of certainty into the workplace by following a prescribed schedule is called cadence. It is a principle based on the actual experiences of corporate leaders at IBM who recognized the importance of identifying tasks and priorities that are most important to the company or individual teams, setting them to a repeating schedule, then following the schedule without deviation. In the case of IBM, cadence was used to build trust and lower anxieties among clients. Sales reps would call on clients in what were called cadence calls, regularly occurring communications between IBM and its customers. By following a cadence schedule and holding sales representatives accountable for their performance, IBM, in a short period of time, transformed itself from an undisciplined, chaotic company into a reliable, trustworthy partner. When organizational cadence is established, with a variety of critical tasks, meetings, and responsibilities being set to a regular schedule, it takes approximately 9–12 months for the effects of cadence to positively influence employee behavior and performance. Among the most remarkable benefits of cadence observed by this author is the reduction of timewasting emails. Many administrators complain about the volume of email they receive from within their own organizations. This is indicative of organizational anxiety. Consider the following scenario. Dianne is a trace evidence examiner for a local crime laboratory. For several months, she has voiced her concerns about a documented procedure that is out of date and in need of revision. She has discussed the matter with her supervisor, who has assured Dianne that a change will be made as soon as possible, but nothing has been done. Dianne is deeply concerned because she knows that she and the other trace examiners are conducting work in violation of the procedure as written, an issue that could arise in court to the embarrassment of the employees and the laboratory. Dianne’s anxiety grows and she finally sends a series of emails to the laboratory director and quality manager. Several email exchanges take place until Dianne’s supervisor steps in and orders Dianne to stop her communications about the procedure. Dianne’s situation and the email exchanges taking place within the laboratory are classic examples of anxiety being fueled by uncertainty. Dianne is uncertain about how and when she can communicate her concerns about the trace evidence technical procedures and know that her concerns will be heard and given serious consideration. As her anxiety grows, she seeks to comfort herself by expressing her opinions through the most convenient of channels: email. On the other hand, if the laboratory had a cadence schedule whereby technical procedures are updated twice a year, prior to which employees are specifically encouraged to submit recommendations for revisions, then Dianne’s anxiety is assuaged by the certainty of knowing that an appropriate time will come when she can express herself. Instead of sending anxiety-filled emails, Dianne is more likely to make

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a note for herself and wait for the next scheduled invitation to submit input about procedure revisions. If something is judged to be important to the strategic position or reliability of a forensic science laboratory, then it should be scheduled and the schedule should be followed exactly—without exception. When a laboratory sets a cadence schedule and follows it, not only does it lower employee anxiety, it builds the perception among employees that their laboratory can be trusted to do exactly what it says it will do. Through organizational cadence, employee morale can rise, uncertainty can be lowered, trust can be nurtured, and strategic position can be strengthened. The following are just a few examples of important tasks and priorities associated with the operations of forensic science laboratories that can be set to a cadence schedule: • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Management reviews Internal audits Annual health and safety training Staff meetings Summer barbeque Holiday party Performance evaluations and appraisals Annual employee-of-the-year awards Review and revision of technical procedures Annual budget preparations Annual accreditation report Customer satisfaction surveys Instrument maintenance checks Monthly laboratory clean-up

Some may argue that such rigidity is suffocating to employees, that it suppresses innovation. But the exact opposite is true. Structure and predictability eliminate the uncertainties and anxieties that extinguish people’s creative energies. The more predictable a work environment becomes, the more creative and collaborative its employees become. Innovation requires risk-taking. Unfortunately, ambient chaos tends to make the risks appear worse than they are. As a result, chaotic environments suppress creativity. Creating cadence in an organization has a profound impact on the morale and sense of well-being enjoyed by employees. As a result, they perform better.

Performance Statements Laboratory administrators are tasked with the formidable challenge of monitoring and reporting data that are indicative of laboratory performance. In the forensic laboratory sciences, there are so many kinds of information associated with different technical

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disciplines that as more data are gathered, the more confusing they may become. Indicators tracked by the latent print unit, for example, may be very different from those in the controlled substances unit. And, to the extent that other entities or parent agencies depend on a laboratory’s production reporting as the basis of decision-making, the more clear and concise the laboratory’s reporting is, the more confidence it will be earn among stakeholders. It is certainly acceptable, even recommended, that forensic science laboratories be aggressive in monitoring and organizing a variety of production data that can serve as the basis of future decision making. To reiterate, the most important factor in establishing a strong strategic position is awareness. The production data that today’s LIMS systems are able to produce give laboratory administrators ample opportunity to construct reliable and useful methods for gathering information, organizing it so that it can be studied, and reporting it to persons or entities who have a legitimate need to understand it. Unfortunately, most laboratories do not produce reports that are readily understandable to their stakeholders. To emphasize the value of simplicity in the reporting of data, consider how monthly bank statements are created and provided to account holders. Each statement has a starting balance and an ending balance. New deposits made during the reported month are added to the starting balance while checks, withdrawals, and fees are subtracted. At the end of the month, a final balance is tabulated and reported in the statement. By studying her statement, an account holder can see how the value of her cash-assets changed over the course of the month and she can reconcile her statement with her own income and expense records to ensure everything is accurate.

Using Statements for Forensic Laboratory Reporting Despite the wide variety of metrics and measures that forensic science laboratories can potentially track in their daily operations, only a few critical indicators are of value to stakeholders. It is these critical indicators that can be gathered and reported in monthly and annual performance statements, not unlike the bank statements mentioned earlier, that afford interested parties an opportunity to clearly understand how their laboratories are doing. But first, let’s review some of the indicators, previously covered in Chapter 5, that are most reflective of laboratory performance. Cases—A single criminal investigation may be counted as one case, usually assigned a police investigation number, as well as a laboratory case number once evidence is submitted for processing. Tracking case volumes has some value for laboratories in that each case represents a single crime, which has obvious public safety significance. As crime rates rise within a jurisdiction or multiple jurisdictions, the laboratory serving these areas will see a corresponding increase in case submissions. Cases also correlate with the number of submissions made to a laboratory within any given period of time. But because it is impossible to predict how many items of evidence may be submitted in

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a single case, the tracking of cases has only limited value in measuring total laboratory production. Work Assignments—An assignment (sometimes called service request) is a request for service forwarded to a technical unit in the laboratory, such as DNA or toxicology. A single case may have multiple work assignments, particularly in complex cases with lots of evidence. Work assignments are usually indexed based upon their dates of creation and dates of completion. Any work assignment, therefore, that has been created but not yet completed, is part of the laboratory backlog. Although the labor commitment can vary among different work assignments due to the unpredictability of the amount of evidence to be tested, even those for the same forensic discipline, work assignments are the most useful indicator of laboratory performance.

Balancing and Reporting the Production Data At the start of each month, every forensic science laboratory has a starting backlog, a total count of both cases and work assignments that are waiting to be worked in all disciplines. Of course, the same holds true for individual disciplines or work units that have work assignments pending. During each month, a laboratory will create many new work assignments as evidence is submitted for analysis. It will also complete work assignments by conducting the necessary analyses and issuing reports that include the results or conclusions of the scientists. At the end of the month, a formal statement can be created that summarizes the activity for the month.

This balanced reporting of laboratory backlogs and production is necessary to earn the confidence of stakeholders and funding authorities. And it should be done for both an entire laboratory and its individual work units. Doing so allows for a clear and convincing expression of a laboratory’s productivity and backlog data during a given month. In some instances, however, the automated date-indexing of new and completed assignments may not allow for a perfect zero-balance equilibrium to be achieved. There are a number of technical reasons for this that are not necessary to explain here. A small administrative correction, however, can be made that brings the numbers into balance if necessary. As long as this correction is done transparently, there should be no concerns about the integrity of the data. Using such a correction allows for a balanced statement to be produced for any time period.

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In the above example, the laboratory’s information management system did not measure a balanced backlog. Accounting for this expected discrepancy, the laboratory applies an administrative correction to bring the equation into balance. Because the correction is so small as compared to the size of the backlog, it can be considered statistically insignificant.

Use of Statements in Strategic Positioning The reporting of laboratory backlogs and production data must be clear, concise, and unambiguous. Over the long run, consequential management and funding decisions will be made, in part, based on this information. For each reporting period, there must be a starting backlog and ending backlog that reconcile perfectly with all new and completed assignments. In the experience of this author, the positive benefits that this method has in persuading authorities to provide ample funding and staffing for a laboratory are almost miraculous and worth the effort. Below is a copy of a monthly performance statement issued by the command of the Michigan State Police Forensic Science Division in Lansing, Michigan. Readers will notice that the statement reports backlog and production numbers for individual laboratories, disciplines, and for the laboratory system collectively. Also included in the statement is a current count of occupied and vacant positions. Over time, the inclusion of staffing data with backlog and production data allows laboratory progress to be evaluated in relation to staffing levels.

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A monthly performance statement published by the Michigan State Police Forensic Science Division in May 2012 while the author was serving as Director. The intent of the statement is to report and certify an ending backlog that is reconciled, or balanced, with the new and completed work assignments for that month.

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Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the above performance statement is the signature of the Director. This formal certification and the willingness of a laboratory administrator to accept responsibility for the information lend credence to the report and give stakeholders and funding authorities an added level of confidence in the report’s accuracy and authenticity. Few things could be more valuable to the strategic positioning of a laboratory than its ability to earn this confidence.

Cash-Flow Projection Strategic positioning may identify environmental conditions that require a considerable outlay of funds. The purchase of new equipment, major staffing changes, facility remodeling, overtime, and other significant expenditures exhaust precious resources but may be necessary for a laboratory to achieve its long-term goals. Some projects, of course, require many kinds of expenditures, such as a laboratory expansion project calling for the remodeling of existing space, bringing new instruments online, and training new employees. But to bring such important projects to reality, it becomes necessary to persuade higher authorities that they are needed. Certainly, strategic positioning can help establish a firm basis upon which to advocate for funding. But to effectively negotiate and manage a major project, it is necessary to project how funds will be spent over time. Cash flow is the movement of money into and out of an organization or project fund over time. A cash flow table is a planning tool that projects when certain kinds of income and expenditures are expected to occur. Imagine, for example, a laboratory that wishes to create a new Assistant Laboratory Director position, but must first convince its city council that the proposal is justified. The laboratory plans to remodel a small area of space to accommodate a new office, after which the vacant position will be announced publicly. To convince the city council that the laboratory’s administration has carefully evaluated the financial impact of the initiative, a 5-year cash flow table has been prepared to present at the next council meeting: A cash flow table allows future allocations (income) and expenditures to be projected over the life of a project or other important priority Cash Flow Table—Assistant Laboratory Director

Allocations NIJ grant General fund Expenditures Facility upgrade (construction) Annual wages Employee benefits and costs Recruiting and selection costs Furniture and office equipment Total allocations Total expenditures Balance

FY1

FY2

FY3

FY4

FY5

Total

50,000 10,000

0 27,750

0 106,410

0 107,470

0 114,630

50,000 366,260

(27,000) 0 0 0 0 60,000 (27,000) 33,000

(11,000) (23,450) (9300) (4500) (12,500) 27,750 (60,750) 0

0 (83,230) (23,180) 0 0 106,410 (106,410) 0

0 (83,230) (24,240) 0 0 107,470 (107,470) 0

0 (86,760) (27,870) 0 0 114,630 (114,630) 0

(38,000) (276,670) (84,590) (4500) (12,500) 416,260 (416,260) 0

The table can be used for planning and justifying expensive proposals.

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Projecting cash flows when proposing funding for important projects or initiatives allows funding authorities to plan their appropriations over time, which lightens the upfront cost-burden to the organization. In the previously described project, a total 5-year cost of $416,260 is projected. But the cash flow table shows that the outlays over the first 2 years will be less than $100,000 as the laboratory completes the remodeling project and begins searching for its job candidate. So, the total fiscal impact of the proposal will not be felt early on, which gives the laboratory and its funding authority an opportunity to plan. HR, to say the very least, plays a crucial role in helping laboratory administrators project staffing costs whenever project proposals involve wages, benefits, and other employment costs. In establishing strategic priorities that require large expenditures of fiscal resources, it is both helpful and empowering to project when those outlays will be made. Tables can be made to chart weekly, monthly, or yearly cash flows depending on the nature of the initiative. If multiple funding sources are used to underwrite a project, cash flow charting can help visualize the relationship between allocations and expenditures, for both laboratory administrators and the funding authorities they are attempting to persuade.

Organizational Momentum and “Managing Up” Bosses need help. They sometimes even need direction by those they are leading. Strategic positioning requires that laboratory supervisors and administrators influence those to whom they report. Called managing up, it is the ability of a subordinate employee to persuade or motivate his superior manager. Healthy organizational cultures allow influence to flow up the chain of command just as easily as it flows down. When persons of authority fail to permit themselves to be led by the people they are leading, a breakdown in organizational effectiveness occurs over time. For a forensic science laboratory to achieve a strong strategic position, it cannot be unnecessarily or unfairly impeded by its parent agency or upper-level authorities—especially in those instances when a parent agency has little or no understanding of the forensic laboratory sciences. But to manage up, the laboratory must have its act together. It must establish itself as such a well-oiled machine with so much momentum behind it that it becomes risky to get in its way. The principles described in this chapter can empower forensic science laboratories to manage up with greater effectiveness. In particular, cadence and the issuing of monthly and yearly performance statements help solidify a laboratory’s reputation as being wellrun and deserving of a parent-agency’s respect and collaboration. As upper-level authorities witness continued leadership excellence from within the laboratory, where decisions and actions are well-reasoned and rarely based on arbitrary or emotional foundations, it is far more likely that laboratory administrators will be given the support and latitude they need to achieve their goals. Consider, for example, a laboratory that has a recent history of rising case volumes without any staffing increases to lighten the burden. The laboratory director, Roger, has repeatedly visited the director of HR, Rebecca, to discuss what is happening, but to no

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avail. Rebecca realizes that case volumes are, in fact, increasing and that there have been no new hires in the laboratory over the last 5 years. But, for some reason, she questions Roger’s assertions, whose pleas for additional staffing seem not to be based on any hard evidence. Something just doesn’t seem right, and she is not ready to initiate a hiring effort for the laboratory until she feels confident that doing so is the only way to address the recent uptick in evidence submissions. Here is the problem. Roger is relying too heavily on his own reputation and personal interpretations as the basis for persuading HR to cooperate. He has no formal method for gathering and reporting production data on a regular basis. Yes, he has provided HR with copies of automated reports that he printed in the laboratory’s information management system, but they have no authoritative heft, and they do not establish any meaningful relationship between case volumes and current staffing levels. Nor is Roger’s desire for a staffing increase based on any reliable analysis of how overtime or other flexible staffing arrangements might also help address the problem. Although Roger believes he is justified in his beliefs, they are only beliefs and do not give other authorities, including Rebecca, any clear and compelling reasons to act. Roger realizes that he is failing to make his case and decides to take a new approach. He notifies HR that he will be conducting a monthly production and staffing analysis that will occur on the first day of each month. With this analysis being set to a cadence schedule, Roger will carefully study the data and develop official performance statements showing the following indicators for each month: • • • • • • • •

Starting backlog Work assignments created Work assignments completed Ending backlog Number of filled positions Number of vacant positions Total regular staff-hours worked Total overtime-hours worked

After 6 months, Roger consolidates the data into a single report, which includes Roger’s signature and a personal guarantee of accuracy. But in looking at the data, even Roger is surprised by what he sees. In those months where overtime hours are highest, there is a noticeable decrease in the laboratory’s total production-per-hour. Roger realizes that overtime is not working and that perhaps his employees are getting burned out when overtime usage is highest. Although this seems to support Roger’s opinion that overtime is not an effective long-term strategy, even he did not realize what was happening. So impressed with the enhanced perspective that his analysis has afforded him, Roger and his staff retroactively analyze the previous 2 years using the same method. After 6 months, Roger prepares a presentation and visits Rebecca in HR to explain his findings. Impressed with the amount of work and his careful analysis of the data, Rebecca pays close attention to Roger’s presentation and realizes that HR has no choice but to collaborate with Roger to find a

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solution for the rising volume of work. She is not sure what that solution will be, but Roger now has her attention. In the above example, we see a laboratory director who has learned how to manage up by establishing momentum. This momentum was brought on by creating cadence and establishing a formal and useful way of reporting critical laboratory production indicators. Said another way, Roger got his act together. He found a better way to do business that had a more influential impact on HR. But to do so, it became necessary, as it always does, to earn the confidence of his superiors and eliminate any perception that Roger’s concerns were just emotional reactions to a stressful situation. Too often, forensic science administrators become so busy and overwhelmed with work that they discount the importance of doing due diligence when seeking the support of their upper-level command. Already hurting for resources and possibly short-staffed, it becomes increasingly difficult to take on additional burdens. As a result, they make the mistake of pleading for help without ever making a compelling case for it. Managing up is a critically important factor in establishing a strong strategic position. Having the cooperation and support of upper management, if possible, can be the difference between solving serious problems and being consumed by them.

Unleash Your Human Resources Employees in any organization have basic hopes. They want to wake up in the morning looking forward to their work, know that their employer is taking care of them, and go home at the end of the day feeling good about what they did. In this regard, there is no greater component to strategic position than a mutually respectful and collaborative partnership between employees and their employers. Perhaps this is why classical strategic planning became so popular—too many organizations fail to nurture healthy relationships with their employees, requiring gimmicky fabrications of leadership to compensate for the effects of eroding organizational cultures. To be strong, forensic science laboratories must assemble and empower a team of qualified, motivated professionals who can be trusted to meet their responsibilities without being micromanaged or treated like children. Suspicion must give way to trust. Threats must yield to opportunities. An attitude of scarcity must be overtaken by an appreciation for the abundance that exists for those willing to see it. Today’s priorities must be balanced with tomorrow’s possibilities. And, to reiterate a core theme of this book, a disengaged and sometimes aloof HR function must transform itself into the laboratory’s single-most valuable strategic partner. Forensic science laboratories can achieve nearly any goal if all members of the team align themselves with its transcendent, existential priorities. Finally, forensic laboratory professionals are not entitled to a bright future without having to selflessly invest their time, energy, and commitment. Being able to interact as a trusted member of a team today is a small price to pay for the right to hope for a better tomorrow. In this regard, the author wishes to leave readers with 10 Rules of Professional

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Excellence aimed at building the interpersonal relationships that are necessary to thrive in today’s challenging professional environment.

Ten Rules of Professional Excellence 1. Be the example—What you do is more powerful than what you say. 2. Be kind to people all the time—You are not smart enough to know how other people deserve to be treated. 3. Don’t expect repayment of your generosity—Enjoy the success that results from it. 4. Demand excellence with a smile—Grumpiness doesn’t inspire anyone. 5. Don’t expect people to be like you—One is enough; enjoy people as they are. 6. Coach people through their bad times—They will bounce back faster with more respect for you. 7. Allow others to coach youdWe all need support to succeed. 8. Inspire people to greatness—The environment you create is your only legacy. 9. Never give-up on people who are trying—Expect effort, not perfection. 10. Don’t punish yourself when you stumble—Your ego is not important to the team. For the forensic laboratory sciences to enjoy a bright and hopeful future, the people in its workforce—its human resources—must accept and meet their responsibilities to their profession and to each other. If they do, there is a wonderful future awaiting them.