S1E9 - Resources – Show Me Your Budget and I’ll Show You Your Strategy

“If you don’t resource it, you don’t believe it.” In this episode of Leadership Matters, Glenn Price and Terry Reynolds dig into the brutally simple truth that your real priorities are revealed by where the money, time and people actually go – not what’s printed in the slide deck.

They explore why leaders under-resource big goals and hope sheer effort will fill the gap, how chronic under-resourcing quietly drives burnout and cynicism, and why leadership itself is one of the most misunderstood (and misallocated) resources in the business. From shifting headcount to where the real “must-win battles” are, to using tech and AI to amplify people rather than just adding more bodies, this conversation gets very real about funding what matters and starving what doesn’t.

If your budget and your strategy are telling two different stories, this episode will help you decide which one to believe.

Transcript

Welcome to Leadership Matters, a Vision to Results podcast series recorded by LeaderShape Consulting. My name is Glenn Price and I'm joined by my business partner and co-host again, Terry Reynolds. And this podcast series is designed to help leaders take their vision and deliver a result. Now, if you've been following along in the series, we have finished step one, which was set direction and it had three rational components, vision, strategy and alignment. We then hit our first set of emotional drivers in engage and excite, which were experience, believability and desirability. And we're now working through the third step of enable and execute another set of rational drivers. And we talked about structure in our last podcast and we were about to talk about resources. Now the really interesting thing, I mean, we say this inside the book, if you don't resource it, you don't believe it. I think you can tell what matters, Terry, in an organisation by where the money, time and people go. I mean, that's the proof test, right?

Yeah, look, think leaders love declaring priorities. They say how important something actually is. It's come out in the strategy. They're going to focus on it. But at the end of the day, it comes down to how well it's resourced, both financial and people and all those types of things. And I think that really sends a very, very clear message that we're last year we did X or Y and we're going to take resources from that because it's not a priority this year and we're going to focus here and move those resources. You've said something really important there. Remember back in our strategy podcast, we talked about strategy is as much about saying no to stuff or stopping stuff than it is starting it. And if you don't say no, then every year when you set your priorities, no wonder organisations are under resourced is that they're trying to do everything. Well, what you end up seeing is, this growing structure. What we talked about last time around historical priorities.

And the structure continues to grow and grow and grow and becomes completely outdated based on what you're trying to do this year. Oh, look, I've even got one client in their, in their new org structure. They've decided not to do a particular service and that service has people attached to it and it is currently running and they were bold enough to go, that is not where our core competitive strength is. We're going to need to let those people go and focus back on the priorities. Now they'll do that in the right way, but that's true strategic resourcing, right? When you've got a group of leaders, let's simplify it. A group of leaders sitting around at the exec table and somebody goes, look, I know I've got an increase in headcount in my budget, but it would seem like, Terry, you've got the priority at the moment. You've got the momentum in your part of the business. You take my headcount and at risk to my own team having to push for the next six months. I offer this headcount. mean, that's true resourcing. Now I'm using people as one example of resource, but resources could be time, money, tech. mean, how many times do we see a change in strategy, even a change in organisational structure? But you and I both know when we hop in the car and we're driving home from the offside or the series of conversations that we've had around strategy, if they don't change their tech stack, there's no way that they're going to be able to take advantage of what that strategy is. One of the podcasts earlier we talked about is around believability.

What impact do you think it has on believability when the resourcing is not supporting what people are trying to do? Typical leadership conference. So you've just heard about all of the priorities and the slogans and the marketing statements and they're all show and tells. And then somebody gets their hands on the budget, which tells you the truth. Where are you putting your big bang for buck and what's being resourced? So I guess that leads me to the resourcing truth test, right? Like how do you know if something's genuinely a priority from listening to you say follow the resources, right? That's how you genuinely know it's a priority for the organisation. Well, look, I think it, you know, yes, you need to follow the resourcing, the time, the focus, all of those types of things. If they're not there, it's not a priority, it's just a preference, right? And sometimes you'll see CEOs that will follow their preferences but not put bang behind bark. And I see this in particularly in partnerships where you're trying to get all the partners on board about a priority that you want people to spend money on, which is partner money.

That is a really, really tough call to get everyone to agree to that. Why do you think leaders do that then? So whether they're partners, equity partners, leaders of a private organisation or a publicly listed organisation, they tend to commit to the big goals, right? But then what you're saying is that they under-resource them. And there's an element there where I think some of the leaders I've worked with, they're hoping effort, like, come on, we'll get the right people on the bus, we'll just give a lot of effort and that will make up and fill the gap. I'm incredibly conscious that listeners to this podcast could be going, well, that's all right for you two to talk about, but I'm under resourced to begin with. We're operating off the smell of an oily rag, right? So I don't think I've ever seen an organisation perfectly resourced, but why do you think leaders then do these big priorities, these big goals, and then under resource them? That seems like insanity to me.

Well, I think that the real acid test in focusing on these things is around creating a level of tension. And I think that the tension for the leader often is uncomfortable. that is that prioritisation always creates discomfort and makes tradeoffs. People want to focus on the left and not the right. And there's going to be arguments around, want resourcing here because I think that's more important. And I think when you think about our VTR model, is that you look right at the top and if all of that is not done right around, you know, we use the language or we have in the past around must-win battles, you know, where are your big bets, all of those types of things. If that's too broad, that strategy piece, that's just sorry, yeah, the strategy piece, then I think we've got problems. You know, I can't help but think often when, as you were speaking and you're talking about resource, I'm thinking back to people and money and know, tech, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm thinking about the broader organisation. Do you think leadership itself is a resource? Because I found myself in a previous life, I spent a lot of time with the squeaky wheel and I went, oh, thank God, I don't need to worry about that country or that team because they've got good people, they're executing really well. And so my own time as a resource, my leadership resource was given to where the challenges were not necessarily those that were doing really well. And maybe that sent…in fact, not maybe, it definitely sent a message about where my priorities were. Yeah, look, what you've said resonates with me around if you're sent to a country because we want to start an office in this country, but there's one of you that goes. Maybe what happens is that the support is not there. It's like what we'll do is we'll dip our toe in…we'll try the market. We minimise the risk if it all goes awful, as opposed to going, do you know what? What we'll do is we'll do this properly. We'll send two or three or four people. We'll make sure that we set it up right. We'll give it every chance of success. Whereas that requires a bold decision by that leader or the CEO to go, I'm going to commit to this. I do see that though, right? So if you think about, don't know, opening up a new product line, opening up a new office, putting boots in the ground in a different country, et cetera, et cetera.

I think it's easier for leaders to start and resource those new initiatives because there's a level of energy there. We're doing something different. We're going to do this. And so everybody kind of gets with why resource is being put behind a new initiative. But what I don't see back to this, what are you saying no to to enable you to move forward? I don't see many leaders starving the ones that aren't working. It seems like they're hesitant to pull people out of that and you can't do everything. You can't do everything. And this is the thing. The reality is that, you know, that sometimes if you are starting something new, it's not a...from a budget perspective, and I mean more financial than people, it's not about having to go to market, find some people, find the cash, et cetera. Maybe it is an internal reshuffle and that's finding people with some capability to be able to redeploy them into focus areas for those new priorities for that coming year. 

I understand under resourcing for a period of time, right? Or maybe it needs to justify that that initiative can make some progress before we go all in, right? I get that. But don't you think that chronic under resourcing drives burnout? And then, you know, what happens to the believability and desirability? You've now got me brought into the strategy. I'm believing in it. I want to do it. But I don't have the tools that enable me or I don't have enough people to be able to execute on everything that you're asking me to do, I think that's directly connected to mental health and burnout issues. without a doubt. think that the expectation, you know, and sometimes the people that are chosen for these types of things are probably pretty self-led. So actually the burnout becomes part of them letting themselves down because they have such high expectations of themselves.

But actually the organisational expectations are so high that they were never going to achieve them in the first place. Do you see AI tapping into that to try and reduce this level of burnout or be able to produce work faster with less? Yeah, look, I think there's a real opportunity there. think that, you know, as long as there is some level of lead up period and I'm thinking about you and I being dumped into countries and make this work or whatever the case would be. Imagine if you had three or four months to get ready for it and then you moved in as opposed to from day one, the clock starts ticking. You need to produce enough to pay for yourself. need, know, it's a green field. You don't know any clients. You're not building on the back of a cash cow that you've got in that particular country, et cetera. So I see a real opportunity for AI to help people set those types of things up and maybe that, you know, learn to earn ratio become a lot quicker. I sort of struggle with that when I have a client that says, hey, this seems under resourced in this particular area, you take a look and you start first with the investment and then you look at people and it is under resourced with the capability and competence that they currently have. Right. So you've changed your vision. You've changed your strategy but you haven't changed the skill set of the people that you've got. And we'll talk about that in our next podcast on development. But I do think that AI can do the heavy computational lifting that enables us to remain human. Yeah, look, I think, yes, it can help. What my experience says is that at the end of the day, from a resourcing perspective, good people are just hard to find. You know, we're all fighting for the same people. The people. war for talent, right? It's always there. And, you know, if people will always say, well, we just don't have the best people in house, so we'll go to market. And the problem is, is you're going to somebody in market that you really don't know a lot about, you know, that they don't understand how the organisation works. May not have the right DNA. All of that. All of that. And that's a problem. It's interesting, isn't it? Capital equipment we would measure return on investment. right? Or a return on capital. I've yet to see an organisation that goes return on individual. Like you've got two leaders at the same grade or you've got two people at the same grade that are working for your customers. What's the return? And because success leaves clues, right? I also think that you're right. It's hard to find good people. What I would say my experience globally is, is that good people know other good people. And so I think that there is a, when it comes to resourcing, yes, from the people element, try and create an environment. As we said before, you're a talent magnet, right? People want to come and work at your organisation. Two, you can use technology intelligently, right? So that you're able without just, here's the proof line for me. Never have I found that throwing people at a problem is the solution. Right? And so,

Can we use technology to augment and amplify the impact of people so that it's not about throwing more people, it's about making sure, and I hate that I'm saying this, but work smart in terms of making sure that they get to the outcome faster. I think that's really important. But I don't think leaders track. They track equipment, they track technology, they track investment, but they don't track the return on people. No, no, and it's sort of funny, isn't it, because all of these things need to be supporting each other and that is that you can have all the right resourcing but if the structure doesn't support the resourcing you've got then there's a problem because people can't do what they need to do, this thing's getting in the way. It's pretty rare in organisations where somebody will come to you and go, I've got too many people. I need to give some people back. It's always, we're not hitting our number, we messed up on that process, whatever the case will be, it's because we haven't…There's two FTE missing. That's the problem. We're short staffed. We don't have good quality people. It's always blamed around that, always. 

So you can see how critical resourcing is to making sure that we don't leave opportunity either for engagement or financial results on the table. And so here are some top tips for leaders on how you can resource execution intelligently. Step one, align your resources to priorities. not personalities, and that goes just as much for people as it does for projects. Stop funding your favourites. Fund what actually drives the result. And sometimes that will feel uncomfortable. And Terry, you throughout this whole podcast series, you've talked about the requirement for courage. And I think that requires some leadership courage. 

Make the invisible visible. So track time, track focus, track capability as seriously as you do equipment and cash. They're all finite resources, get really, really good at knowing where you're placing them and what the return is. 

Three, reallocate boldly. We would suggest the best clients that we work with are constantly asking on a quarterly basis, what are we still resourcing that no longer matters? And then being able to cut that. 

And then last of all, invest early in the execution infrastructure, right? So the fastest way we believe to kill momentum is to under-resource the systems and peoples that turn that.

that strategy into action. You're going to have to make some calls about where you're placing your bets. If you had $100, where are you placing that in terms of your resources? We always end with a reflective punch. So in this podcast, we'd like to ask the question, what would your budget say about where your true priorities are? If people were to understand where you're placing the money in the cash, what would your budget say about your true priorities? Hope you're enjoying the podcast series and getting value. We look forward to talking to you on the next series.