Responsibility: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
I have loved sitting on the sofa with each of my children watching their animated movies. Yes, I am easily entertained and I laugh at everything. I also have a long attention span and suspend disbelief as soon as the movie begins. Every so often, however, one of the characters - good or evil - will say something that immediately sends my mind reeling, and it happened during A Bug's Life. So, there I am enjoying the movie and my son's reactions to the characters and, wham!!, a grasshopper's words jumped through the screen and hit me in the mouth so hard the change in my pocket rattled. And here it is.
The bad guys of the movie, the grasshoppers, have shown up looking for their annual offering of food from the ants below who have toiled to prepare it - only it's gone when the grasshoppers arrive. The goofy ant has ruined the whole thing without anyone knowing. The grasshoppers corner the ants, looking for an explanation. Identifying the queen/princess the leader of the grasshoppers accuses her of failing her task, to which she says, "...It's not my fault." That's not the lesson. It's what the grasshopper said next that stopped me in my tracks, "Your in charge! Everything is your fault!"
Here's the thing, taking responsibility is the only way anything gets done. If you want to be valued by your friends, bosses, peers and those who look to you for leadership (heck even yourself) you've got to take responsibility when things go wrong. The princess ant looked and sounded quite pathetic attempting to slide the blame off to unnamed others, and so do you. So, the next time something bad happens, follow the grasshopper's words and follow these three steps to accountability, and more importantly, improved results for your customers.
1. See your customer. When you see people distancing themselves from issues or challenges, you can be sure they are not thinking about their customer. In fact, I think it's impossible to look out for the customer at the same time we're looking out for ourselves. When we focus clearly on the people impacted by the mistakes of our organization, we change our view of things and are more willing to do what must be done.
2. Fix now, learn later. When fixing something for our customers, speed and accuracy are of the essence - but accuracy is more important. As leaders, we have to help people focus on the right thing. In an organization I led we had two goals for every key customer deliverable - quality and timeliness. People can get confused wondering which is more important. I always answered this way - accuracy first and it's identical twin is getting it done on time. I believe one can explain a day late to be sure everything is correct, but it is impossible to recover from poor quality by reminding people how quickly you got it done.
3. Commit yourself and your organization to 3.7 rules. #1 - do what you say you will do. #2 - do it when you say you will do it. #3 - do it right the first time. #3.7 - take responsibility for failure in #1, #2 or #3 and learn from them.
Very little of worth, that I can think of, has been accomplished by people who didn't feel like they were responsible for much more than their portion of the job at hand. In fact, it is more likely that they have taken responsibility for things that weren't theirs, viewing the failures of others as their own and putting their customer first.
Don't just take responsibility - seize it.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
First Hand Inspection . . . Breaking The Grip of Comfort
My son Wade and I have been visiting universities during the past month or so as he is just about to enter his senior year of high school. He, like his brother and sister, is a good deal brighter than his father - we are all thankful for their mother's participation in their overall genetic makeup - as evidenced by (1) the rigor of his academic pursuit and (2) his very high performance in it. Something curious has happened during our visits, most of them to out-of-town universities.
The day before we left he shared with me that he thought all of this visitation was a waste of time. He knew where he wanted to go - the hometown school with every course of study and major imaginable and that is just down the road. He loves the sports, the facilities, the reputation and the closeness to home. He was blown away by the visit there. So, to his thinking, why spend the time and money exploring these other opportunities?
Suffice to say that his attitude has changed. A week ago he wanted no part of this exercise and now both of the schools we just visited are on his short list of places to attend. What happened? Why the change of heart? You see, he's had a realization that I hope I can give to you today and that is this: when important decisions are on the line, close personal inspection is key to breaking through our assumptions and out of our comfort zones.
What decisions are you facing today, in your job, your department or your business? If you take a deep look at the way you are thinking through those decisions, one of the key processes you use is the manner in which you will gather information that will help you. How much personal inspection are you taking in? Or are you depending on reports, statuses and a consultant's PowerPoint deck?
I'd like to suggest a better way - personal inspection. Talk to customers. Talk to your associates. Form your own fact-based perceptions based on personal inspection. If you don't have the time to do this - please listen to this - you may not be the best person to be making this decision. If it matters, you need to spend the time. Here are three reasons that your decision to set aside time for personal inspection of the situation is so critical:
1. "It's important." A team of managers and analysts were convening a lazy weekly meeting to provide updates on an effort to clear up errored accounts. 2 inch thick copies of the green bar computer paper - the list of each errored account and the value of the error and the type of transaction were listed there - were piled up neatly in front of each person while the group reviewed a separate status report. The executive over the operation made an impromptu stop into the meeting and pulled up a chair, asking to see a set of the green bar reports and the status report.
2. It affects customers. Rather than working from a status report, the executive I mentioned asked everyone who was working on the items noted "on page 143 of this report". You never saw 12 people flip to page 143 so fast in your life. No one in the room seemed to have yet taken this group of errors on. The executive then reminded everyone that every name on the report represented a real, paying customer whose account was not correct and that every day that went by without action meant we weren't doing our job for them. The status report of their perceived progress wasn't relevant - it was every name of every customer that deserved better.
3. You learn more about your business and its culture. What that executive learned on that particular day wasn't that he had a lot of accounts that needed repair. He learned that the culture of the operation was about status reports, ratios and having a regularly scheduled meeting. His goal in attending the meeting wasn't to speed up everybody's pace, it was to help them see that what mattered were their customers, and that they deserved everyone's very best attention and effort.
Prior to that meeting about 25% of the errors had been cleared in a 2 month time. Within the next 6 weeks, the remaining 75% of the work was completed, with new controls in place to avoid these types of buildups in the future. Leaders get involved and help their teams see the bigger picture and commit to something bigger than the job at hand.
Don't let status reports and PowerPoint presentations simply tell you what's going on - find out why? Your perspective will improve and you be given an opportunity to help others do the same - isn't that what leaders do?
The day before we left he shared with me that he thought all of this visitation was a waste of time. He knew where he wanted to go - the hometown school with every course of study and major imaginable and that is just down the road. He loves the sports, the facilities, the reputation and the closeness to home. He was blown away by the visit there. So, to his thinking, why spend the time and money exploring these other opportunities?
Suffice to say that his attitude has changed. A week ago he wanted no part of this exercise and now both of the schools we just visited are on his short list of places to attend. What happened? Why the change of heart? You see, he's had a realization that I hope I can give to you today and that is this: when important decisions are on the line, close personal inspection is key to breaking through our assumptions and out of our comfort zones.
What decisions are you facing today, in your job, your department or your business? If you take a deep look at the way you are thinking through those decisions, one of the key processes you use is the manner in which you will gather information that will help you. How much personal inspection are you taking in? Or are you depending on reports, statuses and a consultant's PowerPoint deck?
I'd like to suggest a better way - personal inspection. Talk to customers. Talk to your associates. Form your own fact-based perceptions based on personal inspection. If you don't have the time to do this - please listen to this - you may not be the best person to be making this decision. If it matters, you need to spend the time. Here are three reasons that your decision to set aside time for personal inspection of the situation is so critical:
1. "It's important." A team of managers and analysts were convening a lazy weekly meeting to provide updates on an effort to clear up errored accounts. 2 inch thick copies of the green bar computer paper - the list of each errored account and the value of the error and the type of transaction were listed there - were piled up neatly in front of each person while the group reviewed a separate status report. The executive over the operation made an impromptu stop into the meeting and pulled up a chair, asking to see a set of the green bar reports and the status report.
2. It affects customers. Rather than working from a status report, the executive I mentioned asked everyone who was working on the items noted "on page 143 of this report". You never saw 12 people flip to page 143 so fast in your life. No one in the room seemed to have yet taken this group of errors on. The executive then reminded everyone that every name on the report represented a real, paying customer whose account was not correct and that every day that went by without action meant we weren't doing our job for them. The status report of their perceived progress wasn't relevant - it was every name of every customer that deserved better.
3. You learn more about your business and its culture. What that executive learned on that particular day wasn't that he had a lot of accounts that needed repair. He learned that the culture of the operation was about status reports, ratios and having a regularly scheduled meeting. His goal in attending the meeting wasn't to speed up everybody's pace, it was to help them see that what mattered were their customers, and that they deserved everyone's very best attention and effort.
Prior to that meeting about 25% of the errors had been cleared in a 2 month time. Within the next 6 weeks, the remaining 75% of the work was completed, with new controls in place to avoid these types of buildups in the future. Leaders get involved and help their teams see the bigger picture and commit to something bigger than the job at hand.
Don't let status reports and PowerPoint presentations simply tell you what's going on - find out why? Your perspective will improve and you be given an opportunity to help others do the same - isn't that what leaders do?
Friday, July 23, 2010
"Tape It Up...And Get Back In There!!"
A friend and former colleague of mine wrote me the other day encouraging me and letting me know that he appreciated my 'Broadlight Perspectives' and found them helpful. Quick action note: if you haven't encouraged someone recently, do it today before you go to bed - I guarantee you it will matter. Well, I hadn't seen or spoken to him in some time and his note came at an important time. It reminded me immediately of a story he told me about his time in college.
We were working through some challenging issues at the time, the specifics escape me, but he was ably involved in cleaning up the mess. One day we were talking about how difficult it was for the people involved to face into the challenges they had created for themselves. He then shared a story that shocked me a little at the time but provided a glimpse into the man I knew. He had played football in college and during a particular game injured his arm - forearm I believe - quite badly. He had to come out of the game because the pain rendered his arm, at the time, incapable delivering the needed violence for effective play.
Now the coach came over and asked what the problem was, to which my friend answered, "I think it's broken." The coach looks at the arm and seeing no bone sticking out instructs my rugged friend to 'tape it up and get back out there'. Now it's interesting what happens next. Even though it hurt terribly, my friend found the wherewithal to, in fact, have someone tape the thing up and he went back into the game.
Do you have an 'inured arm' right now that has put you on the sideline? Is your pride wounded? Is confidence in yourself or those around you shaken a bit, leaving you unsure of your capabilities to deal with what's coming? These issues are likely very complicated, so I'll not insult you with a 3 step solution to something that may take 15. I do think however we can get you 'taped up' and back in the game if your willing to grit your teeth and run back out there:
1. Call it what it is. Wilford Brimley, in the movie Absence of Malice, is grilling a federal attorney regarding the source of some information in a critical case that had gotten to the press. The attorney tries to defend himself by saying there must have been a 'leak' somewhere. To which Mr. Brimley's character responds, "A leak! The last time there was a leak like this Noah built himself a boat." Face into the issue without trying to minimize it. If it's a performance failure that's what it is. If it's a personal mess, it won't help you or anyone else to gloss over it. There is amazing freedom in finally taking a deep breath and acknowledging our situation for what it is.
2. Know what's next. You may not know the complete list of 30 things that might have to be done to square the issue away, but you likely know the first one - and however difficult it might be you have to take that step before anything else can be done. We can at times paralyze ourselves to inaction because of a daunting task in front of us. Get the ship out of the port and use the rudder - that's why it's there.
3. Forget it. Many of us are world class weightlifters at lugging around our failures long after the lessons have been learned and the issues addressed. We love to pull out the old tapes of our failures and play them over and over again just to give ourselves a good upper cut to the chops once in a while. Try this the next time (maybe today): Take a 3 X 5 card, write the issue on it along with the words "I fixed It". Read it. Smile. Tear it up, throw it away and walk out of your office/cube/desk. Walk directly to someone in your office that you admire (professionally) and tell them about the example they set and why it's important to you. Focusing on others brings you forward to now, after all today is hard enough without lugging 'yesterday' around with you.
By they way, my friend did play the rest of the game and later found out his arm was truly broken. He was able, for a short time, to get by with force of will and determination lugging that broken arm around. Ultimately, however, he had to take the tape off and do what must be done to heal it and move on.
Do the same for yourself.
We were working through some challenging issues at the time, the specifics escape me, but he was ably involved in cleaning up the mess. One day we were talking about how difficult it was for the people involved to face into the challenges they had created for themselves. He then shared a story that shocked me a little at the time but provided a glimpse into the man I knew. He had played football in college and during a particular game injured his arm - forearm I believe - quite badly. He had to come out of the game because the pain rendered his arm, at the time, incapable delivering the needed violence for effective play.
Now the coach came over and asked what the problem was, to which my friend answered, "I think it's broken." The coach looks at the arm and seeing no bone sticking out instructs my rugged friend to 'tape it up and get back out there'. Now it's interesting what happens next. Even though it hurt terribly, my friend found the wherewithal to, in fact, have someone tape the thing up and he went back into the game.
Do you have an 'inured arm' right now that has put you on the sideline? Is your pride wounded? Is confidence in yourself or those around you shaken a bit, leaving you unsure of your capabilities to deal with what's coming? These issues are likely very complicated, so I'll not insult you with a 3 step solution to something that may take 15. I do think however we can get you 'taped up' and back in the game if your willing to grit your teeth and run back out there:
1. Call it what it is. Wilford Brimley, in the movie Absence of Malice, is grilling a federal attorney regarding the source of some information in a critical case that had gotten to the press. The attorney tries to defend himself by saying there must have been a 'leak' somewhere. To which Mr. Brimley's character responds, "A leak! The last time there was a leak like this Noah built himself a boat." Face into the issue without trying to minimize it. If it's a performance failure that's what it is. If it's a personal mess, it won't help you or anyone else to gloss over it. There is amazing freedom in finally taking a deep breath and acknowledging our situation for what it is.
2. Know what's next. You may not know the complete list of 30 things that might have to be done to square the issue away, but you likely know the first one - and however difficult it might be you have to take that step before anything else can be done. We can at times paralyze ourselves to inaction because of a daunting task in front of us. Get the ship out of the port and use the rudder - that's why it's there.
3. Forget it. Many of us are world class weightlifters at lugging around our failures long after the lessons have been learned and the issues addressed. We love to pull out the old tapes of our failures and play them over and over again just to give ourselves a good upper cut to the chops once in a while. Try this the next time (maybe today): Take a 3 X 5 card, write the issue on it along with the words "I fixed It". Read it. Smile. Tear it up, throw it away and walk out of your office/cube/desk. Walk directly to someone in your office that you admire (professionally) and tell them about the example they set and why it's important to you. Focusing on others brings you forward to now, after all today is hard enough without lugging 'yesterday' around with you.
By they way, my friend did play the rest of the game and later found out his arm was truly broken. He was able, for a short time, to get by with force of will and determination lugging that broken arm around. Ultimately, however, he had to take the tape off and do what must be done to heal it and move on.
Do the same for yourself.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
It's Not A Black Swan . . . It Really Isn't
Nassim Nicholas Taleb has unwittingly provided 21st century management - and maybe you - with the slickest silicon coating they could ever have asked for. Having read the book that carries this escape clause, I know Mr. Taleb would tell the misusers of his creation they should be ashamed of themselves. You've seen it - maybe even done it. It has become fashionable of late for people today to lay their issues and poor performance fully at the feet of a nefarious bird - The Black Swan. I have heard it used to explain the circumstances leading to the most recent bursting financial bubble as well as leaking oil in the Gulf of Mexico. In my simple words, Taleb's Black Swan events occur and could not have been predicted based on what was known at the time. Any way, this is not the same as failing to consider downstream impacts of your decisions - in multiple (including catastrophic) scenarios.
Let's de-construct the sub-prime mortgage mess to clarify what is and isn't an unpredictable event - in wild shorthand. First let's level set that for most of us this looked like an overnight failure and wondered how in the world it could happen so fast. Well, it didn't happen that fast. Investment grade bond yields were falling for years so investors were clamoring for places to earn better returns. Armies of really smart people set to designing a way to generate higher yields. The process began with banks (loosely used term) lending money for homes to people who should never have had them (o.k., gross generalization). These loans are sold upstream to investment banks who further packaged them into, well, essentially AAA rated securities with seemingly no downside risk with better yields than, uh, normal bonds. Oh, and the people who rate the riskiness of the securities are paid by the people who want to sell them. Go back and read that last sentence again before you move on.
Now that you've seen some of the parts of this little party let me ask you this: if you knew it in advance what would you have said? I know you wouldn't say it made perfect sense and was a riskless money machine. The risks are obvious. Lending $500,000 to a guy that can't make payments on $10,000 - it happened. "Banks" selling every loan they make and having very little in the game - huh? Ratings agencies being paid by the people they have to review and rate products for. By the way, someone did see it coming and made a lot of money waiting for it to blow up. So, it was predictable and therefore not a Black Swan.
And neither are the things that go south in your department, desk, company or with your clients. One of the greatest worries I have over all this finger pointing at black birds is this - it tells me people aren't learning from their mistakes. Are you? Are you helping your business, peers, team and yourself improve by facing into things that you could have? Here are three keys to stopping the spread of 'black swans' and improving performance in your organization:
Let's de-construct the sub-prime mortgage mess to clarify what is and isn't an unpredictable event - in wild shorthand. First let's level set that for most of us this looked like an overnight failure and wondered how in the world it could happen so fast. Well, it didn't happen that fast. Investment grade bond yields were falling for years so investors were clamoring for places to earn better returns. Armies of really smart people set to designing a way to generate higher yields. The process began with banks (loosely used term) lending money for homes to people who should never have had them (o.k., gross generalization). These loans are sold upstream to investment banks who further packaged them into, well, essentially AAA rated securities with seemingly no downside risk with better yields than, uh, normal bonds. Oh, and the people who rate the riskiness of the securities are paid by the people who want to sell them. Go back and read that last sentence again before you move on.
Now that you've seen some of the parts of this little party let me ask you this: if you knew it in advance what would you have said? I know you wouldn't say it made perfect sense and was a riskless money machine. The risks are obvious. Lending $500,000 to a guy that can't make payments on $10,000 - it happened. "Banks" selling every loan they make and having very little in the game - huh? Ratings agencies being paid by the people they have to review and rate products for. By the way, someone did see it coming and made a lot of money waiting for it to blow up. So, it was predictable and therefore not a Black Swan.
And neither are the things that go south in your department, desk, company or with your clients. One of the greatest worries I have over all this finger pointing at black birds is this - it tells me people aren't learning from their mistakes. Are you? Are you helping your business, peers, team and yourself improve by facing into things that you could have? Here are three keys to stopping the spread of 'black swans' and improving performance in your organization:
- Acknowledged the failure and own it. It's critical that leaders name the failure and refuse to lay blame on a confluence of uncontrollable events. It tells everyone in the organization that we must do better and that improvement begins now.
- Asked harder questions and get to the core issue. Most of us stop at the point that we get a plausible explanation for what happened. I've had to say, more than once to very intelligent people, "I know WHAT happened, we have to answer WHY?" You see, it's 'why?' that gives us insight into other things we might be overlooking. You may find it's as a missing control, or more difficult strategic capabilities gaps. Here's what you know - the same organization that put the process in place that is failing put a bunch of other stuff in place. The core issue can point to additional pain points.
- Apply what you learn to your overall operating environment and customer-facing processes. This is where performance improvement and customer satisfaction can make big gains. I've seen a single insight - phone calls take too long - lead to additional improvements to other areas of an operation which end up reducing costs and improving performance well upstream from the customer phone call. Every business needs that kind of improvement.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
It's Not Your Budget . . . It's An Investment
That's right, somewhere in your organization budgeting for next year has already begun. As budgeting cycles seem to begin earlier and earlier it seemed appropriate to write today about a perspective on something near and dear to executives and managers everywhere: "What's going to happen to my budget next year?" Now, I recognize that the last 2 years have wrung much of this concern out of people. But the discussion is still there. Rather than wondering how much it will increase over last year, the concern has simply moved to how much it might be reduced.
There are two problems with this question, one is a problem of perspective and the other is a problem of leadership. Let's tackle perspective first: the idea that it's yours at all. It is not. It never was and never will be. It's not about you. If you are not there does the department cease to exist for that reason? Did it increase momentously the day you arrived and just because of it? Your firm has determined - for the time being - that the function you manage requires some allocation of it's limited resources to ensure delivery of results for it's customers. That's all. It's just a number. Your client doesn't know what it is and doesn't care about anything but getting results / service / satisfaction from you.
The second, and in my view more significant problem is one of leadership. Do you sit around waiting for the finance people to tell you what your resources will be? Do you begin dropping hints that service is going to suffer if your department's budget is reduced, let alone failing to provide the increased resources you are asking for? I've heard these arguments and I can tell you from experience they (1) aren't accurate and (2) suggest a lack of commitment to results.
There is an opportunity for you to change - forever - the way you and your business peers look at budgeting that will release you from the death-spiral conversations of the past and increase your engagement and results. Interested? Here are three steps to budgeting freedom. They are difficult but not complicated.
There are two problems with this question, one is a problem of perspective and the other is a problem of leadership. Let's tackle perspective first: the idea that it's yours at all. It is not. It never was and never will be. It's not about you. If you are not there does the department cease to exist for that reason? Did it increase momentously the day you arrived and just because of it? Your firm has determined - for the time being - that the function you manage requires some allocation of it's limited resources to ensure delivery of results for it's customers. That's all. It's just a number. Your client doesn't know what it is and doesn't care about anything but getting results / service / satisfaction from you.
The second, and in my view more significant problem is one of leadership. Do you sit around waiting for the finance people to tell you what your resources will be? Do you begin dropping hints that service is going to suffer if your department's budget is reduced, let alone failing to provide the increased resources you are asking for? I've heard these arguments and I can tell you from experience they (1) aren't accurate and (2) suggest a lack of commitment to results.
There is an opportunity for you to change - forever - the way you and your business peers look at budgeting that will release you from the death-spiral conversations of the past and increase your engagement and results. Interested? Here are three steps to budgeting freedom. They are difficult but not complicated.
- Understand deeply your organization's strategy, current performance and the role you and your team play in it. Do you really grasp how your business is performing against the most critical measures? Understanding this can help you anticipate future actions that may be taken if earnings are down, expenses trending the wrong way or there is a change in focus. We all want to believe that our function/team/role in the equation is absolutely mission critical and should be treated as a fixed cost (unless you want to increase it). I worked for a wise man once who said something that stuck with me: "At some point, every expense is a variable expense." I want to tell you he's been proven prophetic in my career more than once - and you know it to be true as well.
- Look at your budget as an investment in the business that requires a return. No matter what the number you are given, your mission critical results must be delivered to clients without whining about it. This perspective helps the leader on two levels. First, it helps you communicate with your team in a positive way when things get difficult and it helps you focus on the parts of your organization that are the most critical to your mission. Your budget is no longer cut, but rather the company can only invest so much in what you do. Secondly, and maybe most importantly it helps you think of your area of responsibility more strategically. Are we doing the right things? Can we make a bigger impact by focusing resources differently? Can I actually argue that I should give some of the investment back because I can get the results with less money, raising the ROI of my team?
- Challenge your team to think as if they are a supplier rather than a department. So much of what's wrong with our thinking inside companies today is due to a lack of competition. What if you started thinking like your company had a choice: it can buy from you or from an outside firm? It's a little bit of mental gymnastics but you can get good at it. You will research outside businesses to see what they're doing. You'll have ideas pouring into your office. Oh yes and one other thing - you will have to start marketing your results to the organization. You're the top sales person for your corner of the world, so you have to make it happen.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
BLT #8 - Count The Cost First . . . Miss The Opportunity
"This grieved me heartily; and now I saw, though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it." - Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe)
"...this culture, and we as members of it, have yielded too easily to what is doable and practical and popular...(and) sacrificed the pursuit of what is in our hearts." - Peter Block (The Answer To How is Yes)
If I asked you to pick from these two quotations the one that most readily and fully describes your views, which would it be? It's a little like being asked which of your children you like better. Each one touches a different part of your soul so you can't pick. Crusoe's words come from the realization that he does not possess the talent, materials or strength to build a boat that can set him free from his island imprisonment. He seems to be sorrowful for having tried to do something too hard or too big for him. It seems foolish to him now that he even began the work. Oh, if he'd only asked a few more questions. Could he have avoided this if he'd completed a business case and cost-benefit analysis?
If you can flip over and join me on the other side of your brain, Block's words also ring true to us, condemning our objective, six sigma-ized, 5 month budgeting process pragmatism. Somewhere along the way we have sacrificed our passion and vision to what we know can work or what will sell with the people who will decide whether to fund your idea. But you can't just fund every nutty (sorry) idea that comes along so there has to be some rational way of allocating scarce resources to the things that matter most.
It has been my observation with many important strategic capabilities decisions that the true and best way through marries what appear to be two opposing views of things into something that makes the best of both. I'd like to offer an STA (See - Think - Act) for you in these challenging situations where completely new thinking is needed, but conflicts with what you think can be sold upstream.
Tomorrow - It's Not Your Budget...It's An Investment
"...this culture, and we as members of it, have yielded too easily to what is doable and practical and popular...(and) sacrificed the pursuit of what is in our hearts." - Peter Block (The Answer To How is Yes)
If I asked you to pick from these two quotations the one that most readily and fully describes your views, which would it be? It's a little like being asked which of your children you like better. Each one touches a different part of your soul so you can't pick. Crusoe's words come from the realization that he does not possess the talent, materials or strength to build a boat that can set him free from his island imprisonment. He seems to be sorrowful for having tried to do something too hard or too big for him. It seems foolish to him now that he even began the work. Oh, if he'd only asked a few more questions. Could he have avoided this if he'd completed a business case and cost-benefit analysis?
If you can flip over and join me on the other side of your brain, Block's words also ring true to us, condemning our objective, six sigma-ized, 5 month budgeting process pragmatism. Somewhere along the way we have sacrificed our passion and vision to what we know can work or what will sell with the people who will decide whether to fund your idea. But you can't just fund every nutty (sorry) idea that comes along so there has to be some rational way of allocating scarce resources to the things that matter most.
It has been my observation with many important strategic capabilities decisions that the true and best way through marries what appear to be two opposing views of things into something that makes the best of both. I'd like to offer an STA (See - Think - Act) for you in these challenging situations where completely new thinking is needed, but conflicts with what you think can be sold upstream.
- Don't Think About How You'll Do It - Yet. The more experience we have with getting big things funded, done or even agreed to the more our ideas gravitate to the center. We naturally edit ourselves out of certain difference-making ideas because something on the Crusoe side of our mind says we don't have the budget/resources/patience. Look, I was the cold-hearted limited thinking CFO so I know what this looks like. I've learned because of exposure to visionary, creative thinkers and the benefit of an open mind to see value in letting truly reaching ideas run their course. Just focus on what's right and different and 'wow!'
- Sell 'What?' before 'How?'. Once we've got the idea we might want to jump to the step of figuring out what it's going to take. Why? It's the natural progression of business thinking and the cadence of the way we get things done. I suggest we ought to take the time to connect people to the 'what' first and invite them into the vision of what we're trying to do. I can tell you as the finance guy, when I slowed down long enough to truly 'get' why something was a great idea before I focused on the numbers, I became part of helping figure out how to get it done. I was sold - now we just had to make it work. THIS IS IMPORTANT: Get 'yes' to the idea first.
- Figure Out How Your Going To Deliver. Notice I didn't tell you to do your best to get it funded from here, leaving it up to those invisible powers to decide. You should now feel an obligation to get this thing done. This will be hard and may be frustrating. This is where the visionary thinking has to meet up with the realities of scarce resources, short-arm sales commitments and your own unwillingness to admit that some parts of your idea are more critical than others. Figure what the most critical capabilities are that you must build to bring your vision to life. Don't say the red bell and the blue whistle are critical when they are aren't. Don't let your commitment to the purest form of your idea keep you from getting it done.
Tomorrow - It's Not Your Budget...It's An Investment
Monday, July 12, 2010
BLT #7: The Running of The Bulls . . . A Silly Way To Spend A Day or Run A Business
I just read another headline offering some shocking news - more people have actually been hurt during a running of the bulls somewhere that such things are done. The picture that went with the headline just make no sense at all. A lady, who appears in her 40s or 50s is just about to be sent rocketing skyward wrong end up by a bull. It appears, from what I can gather, that when human beings run around taunting huge, powerful surprisingly fast animals with what amount to swords growing out of their heads that, well, the people can get hurt. When I read things like this I wonder what runs through people's minds to take those kinds of chances in a completely chaotic, unpredictable situation. But we do it everyday, you and I.
Naturally we aren't running with bulls, but we are running with competitors, clients and regulators in a more and more chaotic world. We happily enter the street with our happy little red scarves (products, services, processes, technology) along with the other people with happy red scarves just like ours and get to running. In a sense, we are trying to compete with the bulls and each other by reacting to what they do, say, ask. I suggest another way. Rather than running in front of the bulls, it seems to me to make sense that we ought to step into a small walkway, observe the bulls and the other red scarf wearers and then choose a path to run on. Why take the bull on directly? Why bunch together with a lot of other red scarves? I hope you agree that more thoughtful approach is more likely to keep us uninjured, and successfully fighting another day.
Here are three thoughts for dealing better with the bulls and other red scarves in your world:
Naturally we aren't running with bulls, but we are running with competitors, clients and regulators in a more and more chaotic world. We happily enter the street with our happy little red scarves (products, services, processes, technology) along with the other people with happy red scarves just like ours and get to running. In a sense, we are trying to compete with the bulls and each other by reacting to what they do, say, ask. I suggest another way. Rather than running in front of the bulls, it seems to me to make sense that we ought to step into a small walkway, observe the bulls and the other red scarf wearers and then choose a path to run on. Why take the bull on directly? Why bunch together with a lot of other red scarves? I hope you agree that more thoughtful approach is more likely to keep us uninjured, and successfully fighting another day.
Here are three thoughts for dealing better with the bulls and other red scarves in your world:
- Know the bulls (and yourself) better than anyone else. If you want to get in the street with bulls, you better know about their behaviors and strengths and accurately assess them against your own. A person who knows when a bull is going to veer to the right 2 seconds before the person next to them is more likely to keep running - while the other person is trampled under foot or sent flying to the hospital. Become best friends with your marketing partners. I don't mean the people who make pretty flyers and brochures. I mean the people who study and understand market behavior, consumer trends and can translate them into potential capabilities needed in your business. Know what they're doing and why.
- Take a different path from others. It seems obvious that running in a crowd of red-scarf wearing adventure seekers is more likely to lead to injury and failure. Have you ever tried to run in a crowd? You can't run as fast or change direction when you need to - you end up flowing with the crowd. All the bull sees is a big crowd of red and he's after IT. In today's fractured markets, we can't afford to keep fighting like everyone else -we'll get gored by the horns of commoditization and value deflation. Look for capabilities you and others don't have - then build and deliver them in a memorable way. Never run with the pack again.
- Find out what bulls like and do it better than anyone else. It seems obvious to me that wearing red to aggravate a bulls makes no sense. That's what everyone is doing. Competitors often try to dress up what they do in a crowded marketplace to seem different but just end up making the customer see red. We need to find and connect with our client's needs in a way no one else does or can and deliver on our promises flawlessly. That sounds like panacea, but if you don't figure out how to do it, you'll be fighting for smaller and smaller wins.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
BLT #6: Elevate Your Learning Quotient (LQ) . . . Ask More Than You Answer
There's an old rule/law/proverb (confession, for all I know someone made it up 10 years ago) that if you are talking you can't be learning anything. Now that I think about it, it was probably written by Mrs. Stantz my 1st and 2nd grade teacher and that wasn't 10 years ago. Anyway, I didn't talk a lot but it seemed like it was at all the times she was talking. She apparently felt that what she was saying had more relevance to the subject at hand. So, she told me to "stop talking and listen or we'll go see the principal." Mr. Gerber's office wasn't far away and I'd just been there - so I stopped and listened.
Mrs. Stantz, it turns out was a leadership development genius. Buried in the verbal backhand to the back of my head was a lesson for us all. No matter who you are and no matter how good you think you are at listening, you probably still talk when you should be listening to what others have to say. It's cultural. We're a competitive bunch and we need to show others that we know our stuff. Or that we're smarter than our peers. Or that we have information power over those who report to us. But to truly lead - bosses, peers or your team - you have to listen more than you talk. I've got three steps you can start using in your staff meeting on Monday (yours or your bosses), a meeting with a client, or any other meeting you're in.
1. Ask more questions than you answer. This is your Learning Quotient: (questions asked / statements made). If you find yourself talking too much, working too hard to make people see your way, ask them to expand a bit on theirs or how their perspective deals with a certain situation.
2. Tie the discussion to your strategy. It's critical for more conversation to revolve around alignment with your purpose for being and how whatever you're talking about moves you in that direction. It may surprise you at first that people don't want to face that question, or deflect it as soft puffy stuff. If you and your team get good at this you will be amazed at what you can get done - and maybe more importantly what you will stop doing.
3. Look for ways to make ideas better, rather than prove them wrong. Many discussions - you've been in them - devolve into an argument of alternative perspectives. Learning goes out the window because no one's trying to make anyone's idea better, but spend all the energy trying to win. Your team, your department and your business loses when you allow this. You work with smart energetic people - you may just find you like their idea better.
Leader's listen more than tell. Become a better questioner than arguer.
Mrs. Stantz, it turns out was a leadership development genius. Buried in the verbal backhand to the back of my head was a lesson for us all. No matter who you are and no matter how good you think you are at listening, you probably still talk when you should be listening to what others have to say. It's cultural. We're a competitive bunch and we need to show others that we know our stuff. Or that we're smarter than our peers. Or that we have information power over those who report to us. But to truly lead - bosses, peers or your team - you have to listen more than you talk. I've got three steps you can start using in your staff meeting on Monday (yours or your bosses), a meeting with a client, or any other meeting you're in.
1. Ask more questions than you answer. This is your Learning Quotient: (questions asked / statements made). If you find yourself talking too much, working too hard to make people see your way, ask them to expand a bit on theirs or how their perspective deals with a certain situation.
2. Tie the discussion to your strategy. It's critical for more conversation to revolve around alignment with your purpose for being and how whatever you're talking about moves you in that direction. It may surprise you at first that people don't want to face that question, or deflect it as soft puffy stuff. If you and your team get good at this you will be amazed at what you can get done - and maybe more importantly what you will stop doing.
3. Look for ways to make ideas better, rather than prove them wrong. Many discussions - you've been in them - devolve into an argument of alternative perspectives. Learning goes out the window because no one's trying to make anyone's idea better, but spend all the energy trying to win. Your team, your department and your business loses when you allow this. You work with smart energetic people - you may just find you like their idea better.
Leader's listen more than tell. Become a better questioner than arguer.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
BLT #5: Anticipation: See Around Corners To Raise Performance
A couple of weeks ago I read an article about BP and their lack of anticipation and preparation for events such as the drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. My immediate reaction was to lay the criticism aside as so much piling on to a debate the other side can't win. After all, it is relatively easy to be critical of one's management once things have gone badly. Thinking further on it, though, I realize that a number of things happen to us in our jobs that we try to chalk up to 'I didn't see that coming!'
Computers lock up. Internet sites go down. Strategy changes. Key people leave. Offshore deep ocean drilling rigs explode and leak a million (or two) gallons of oil a day. People outside your organization screw things up and you've got the mop and bucket patrol. We are often judged on our ability - and we judge others this way too - to react to those problems after they have occurred. BP has amassed about as much brainpower as can be mustered to work on this problem - and still it leaks. The mop and bucket aren't good enough for this mess - and it might be time to get rid of that solution for your world too.
Today's the day to trade in your mop and bucket and get some night-vision-around-the-corner goggles. What if rather than bumping around in the dark you could see what was coming and do something about it before it happened. Before your best customer realized you don't have good enough training for new associates. Before your internt goes down and your phone lines light up like a christmas tree. Before your rig blows up and gushes oil a mile under water where it can't be fixed. Anticipation is the name of the game. Rather than assuming things will be fine, how about solving the mess you see coming. Make three things part of your daily thinking - even writing about it at the end of the day in a journal to help you begin your night vision training.
1. Step back and ask "What's the worst failure you could put your clients through?" What is it about your product or service that is difficult for clients to deal with? Have you listenedd to 100 client calls (random ones)? Look at your last 2 or 3 big operational delivery issues - what caused them? What other problems could that same failure cause that no one's talking about?
2. Look for the core processes that must break for your client to have that bad experience. We assume everyone will do everything right, especially when their work is out of your control. If you care about your client, don't let anything sit outside your sphere of influence. You can't afford to stand by and watch someone else drive your client out the door. Start a dialogue with them today.
3. Finish the job - Design a solution that pays for itself. Develop the ability and discipline to make recommendations that include a business case that has benefits outweighing costs. To often I've seen colleagues throw problems and solutions over the wall and then pile on with "I told you so" after the failure occurs. A good idea is only half an idea if you don't drive out the value for your boss, division, company --- and client.
Computers lock up. Internet sites go down. Strategy changes. Key people leave. Offshore deep ocean drilling rigs explode and leak a million (or two) gallons of oil a day. People outside your organization screw things up and you've got the mop and bucket patrol. We are often judged on our ability - and we judge others this way too - to react to those problems after they have occurred. BP has amassed about as much brainpower as can be mustered to work on this problem - and still it leaks. The mop and bucket aren't good enough for this mess - and it might be time to get rid of that solution for your world too.
Today's the day to trade in your mop and bucket and get some night-vision-around-the-corner goggles. What if rather than bumping around in the dark you could see what was coming and do something about it before it happened. Before your best customer realized you don't have good enough training for new associates. Before your internt goes down and your phone lines light up like a christmas tree. Before your rig blows up and gushes oil a mile under water where it can't be fixed. Anticipation is the name of the game. Rather than assuming things will be fine, how about solving the mess you see coming. Make three things part of your daily thinking - even writing about it at the end of the day in a journal to help you begin your night vision training.
1. Step back and ask "What's the worst failure you could put your clients through?" What is it about your product or service that is difficult for clients to deal with? Have you listenedd to 100 client calls (random ones)? Look at your last 2 or 3 big operational delivery issues - what caused them? What other problems could that same failure cause that no one's talking about?
2. Look for the core processes that must break for your client to have that bad experience. We assume everyone will do everything right, especially when their work is out of your control. If you care about your client, don't let anything sit outside your sphere of influence. You can't afford to stand by and watch someone else drive your client out the door. Start a dialogue with them today.
3. Finish the job - Design a solution that pays for itself. Develop the ability and discipline to make recommendations that include a business case that has benefits outweighing costs. To often I've seen colleagues throw problems and solutions over the wall and then pile on with "I told you so" after the failure occurs. A good idea is only half an idea if you don't drive out the value for your boss, division, company --- and client.
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