BLT #31: Managing Tradeoffs . . . Use Process to Avoid Traps

Jeremy's Dilemma
Jeremy was facing the most difficult choice of his young life.  He is 8.  Choices are hard when you are 8.  Jeremy and his father had spent the afternoon running errands, the last of which brought them to the local big box toy store.  While his dad had been hunting for specific items for upcoming family birthdays, Jeremy had spied two bright shiny toys he simply could not live without.  He'd picked up the targets of his admiration - quietly placing them in the cart without saying a word.

When they reached the checkout, dad noticed the additions.  A wordless request, that every parent knows, came across Jeremy's face.  It says, "Dad, I just have to have both of these so that I can be a complete kid.  Without them I am undone."  Or something like that. 

Dad has long ago stopped reacting to every whim and fancy his young son picks up on.  He bends his knees, stooping down to his son and says in a firm yet loving tone:

 "Jeremy, you may have one of these toys but not both.  He stands back up and waits patiently . . . for Jeremy to choose.

Your Difficult Choices
What choices are you facing right now in your business?  Do you need new technology for your sales force to help drive growth?  Have your internal systems also fallen behind?  Your marketing team needs a team of web content managers but hasn't got the budget to hire them.

You need them all, and have a case for each, but cannot raise the capital or attract investment from home office to do it all in one year. 

You can do one.  Only one.

How will you decide?

Acknowledge and Avoid The Traps
When many business leaders are faced with these challenges they typically fall in to one of four traps: The Knowledge Trap, The Noise Trap, The Sales Trap and The 'Or' Trap.

The Knowledge Trap attracts the attention of the leader because they are familiar with the issue and may even have had a client tell them directly that they are dissatisfied because of it.  An executive that grew up in sales may have a bent toward sales management or contact management investments, where an operations leader will focus on back office integration and efficiency.  Jeremy knows what he enjoys and his choices are driven there.

The Noise Trap corners the executive via an energetic and passionate champion who has access to the executive.  Because one person has more access to the decision executive, they have more opportunity to push an agenda that supports a single view of the business.  The executive may, in a moment of weakness under a barrage of arguments for addressing the need, concede that something "ought to be done."  The leaders words are then used to support investment on up the line with escalating commitment owning the day.  Too late to back down.

The Sales Trap.  What executive has not been told that they need to invest in specific and pointed technologies or processes because, " we are losing bids to companies who have it" and "we're the only one's without it - it's starting to become a requirement?"  To be sure there are instances where such statements rightly represent the situation, however, more often they are anecdotal and circumstantial.  There may be ten reasons you didn't win the business, but it is easier to cope if it's just one.  The allure of growing sales by investing in technology is, sometimes, too attractive to pass up and often a goose chase.

The 'OR' Trap.  Many discussions of prioritization rest on the assumption - stated or not - that since we cannot do all that is requested, we must pick one and let the others wait a year.  An alternative is to press harder for the detailed needs of each.  It is possible - I have seen it - that one does not really NEED 6 web content managers.  Studying the specifics of where we are and focusing on the most important deliverables that we can make a great start with 2 this year.  Rather than buying and implementing the newest (name your technology) we ought to make use of one of the other 4 the company's various divisions are using.

The Crisis Moment
Each of these traps are effective at snaring management's attention because they are in the moment.  Real time feedback on a lost deal provides an intoxicating opportunity and momentum to address an apparent need.  A person whom you trust also has an agenda, but you listen because of your high thoughts of them and their work.  Your own background works against you, drawing to spend time and money on the things you know best.

Replacing 'Traps' With Process
Determining which investments to make, or even which issues to evaluate requires rigor and a willingness to have challenging conversations.  Rather than hoping for everyone to follow such a process you will need to build one and find an owner for it.  I have seen and experienced success with a process I simply refer to as 'The Five Gates'.

I've used this picture for a number of reasons.  First, it demonstrates boundaries between each phase of the decision process.  You can't get from one to the other without crossing a line.  Those lines might be thought of as 'gates.'  Secondly it reveals a truth about making decisions - all the ideas can't get done.  The decreasing size of the circles figuratively illustrates what you already know:  if we do the process correctly, opportunities and ideas fall off along the way so that only the strongest survive. 

Let's go through each of the stages:

Strategic Fit refers to the clarity and specificity with which the opportunity addresses the business' strategic biases and priorities.  The opportunity must clearly move the business toward one of it's strategic pillars and help deliver metrics committed to.  There must be a strong cause/effect relationship.  All people on the earth may be separated by six degrees, but ideas to move your business ahead cannot be.  There is no end to the creative wording that can be used to help an idea appear to fit the strategy.  Be wary of rosy, overpromising terminology.  Rigorous discussion and questioning within a culture that welcomes challenge and debate moves a great way toward ensuring your firm will only work on the most important things.

Validating The Opportunity requires getting outside-in feedback that supports the issue being addressed.  One client complaining about responsiveness of your ops center or your internet presence cannot be expected to generate funding for 20 new people or a 6 month web re-design.  This step requires a clear understanding of the cause/effect relationship toward the results the company seeks.  New products are a particularly nice fit for this.  Two key questions are to be answered in this phase:

• Is this a problem that needs to be solved?  Why?

• If we solve it, can it generate the kind of impact we seek towards our strategic ends and the metrics by which we measure progress?

This is not product design or pricing - this is simply determining whether enough of our clients - or those who aren't our clients yet - are attracted to the idea of resolving this problem in a unique way that can add to our value proposition or fix something that is deteriorating our brand.

If the opportunity is real and substantial (you have to develop some hurdles to be cleared) you begin designing alternative solutions.

Develop and Test Alternatives.  As with most things, there is more than one way to solve most problems.  Are we sure we need to tweak the product, or is our compensation program not set up to reward the behavior we seek in the field?  Does one product solution create a greater use of company resources and capital and is the resulting client interest and buying expectation enough to validate taking the risk?

Build A Business Case.  Now you have to go fight for scarce resources.  It is likely your company has a format for business cases.  It will include all of the costs - both the project and ongoing maintenance / unit costs - that will result directly from this effort.  You will also include all of the benefits to accrue to the firm because of the effort.  These will come in the form of increased sales and revenue and / cost reductions.   All costs and benefits, including the pattern of their arrival need to be approved by the people who will be responsible for delivering them.

It is worth mentioning here that you will find it useful to have someone reviewing all business cases for the assumptions, reasonableness and fit with the organization's capabilities. 

Prioritize.  You will likely still have more opportunities than funding.  It is at this point you must have a clear roadmap for doing things in the right order - making the most important investments that move the business farthest in it's strategic quest.  This will frustrate many, but will illustrate to the entire organization what is important and why.  Then stick to it.

The Broadlight "See, Think, Act" for Managing Tradeoff Decisions: 

See trade-offs as an opportunity.  Rather than wringing your hands about the limitations and difficult decisions, view them as an opportunity to clarify the purpose and goals of your organization.  It's odd, but you have an opportunity to give your organization a gift :  clarity of purpose and a path to get there. 

Be aware that your biases and experience may interrupt sound decisions - don't discard them, but manage their impact.

Think through the choices with a process.
The best way to demonstrate clarity is to use an objective process to make decisions from gate to gate.  When something falls off the list, there needs to be a clear explanation.  If an idea survives, it should make sense to everyone.  I've seen items survive on a project list that doesn't make sense to half the people who see it - that can't continue.

Act with focus to achieve the most important few.
Nothing says what is important like a clear, short list of priorities.  Then drive objectives and measures through the organization that are in line with these priorities.  Schedule regular updates and report-outs to continually show leadership's commitment.  Just as important:  give much less time to lower priority issues.


What did Jeremy do?
Our young friend Jeremy made his choice, but only because his father required it.

   In doing so, he left something behind.

       He'll get it one day, or maybe he won't.

           What he chose tells us that he knows what's most important to him.

Do your choices say the same about you?

BLT #30: Alignment Is Hard . . . Do It First!

The List
Take a look at your 'To Do' list for a moment. . . go on, dig it out.  Find something your organization, or your boss - jeck just you - has placed a top priority on?  You know they tell you in all those get-things-done-through-better-organization books to label those very important things as "1" or "A" on the  list.  In gross violation of the rules you may have quite a number of 1's - I've even heard people call things 'priority zero' to make sure it gets in front of all those 1's.  I kid you not. 

Now, if your list looks like that and you are an intelligent person, imagine all the other intelligent people's lists looking just like yours.  But, they don't look like yours do they?  They have completely different 1's and 0's.  And this might be the person you need to help you get your project done!!

Now, let me ask you: with all these lists and all these number 1's and zeroes causing anxiety, night sweats and a general feeling of unease throughout the day - how is anything getting done? 

The answer is that things are getting done, but they may not be the most important for the business' long term success.

Alignment is Leadership's Job
This problem - misalignment - causes an incredible amount of frustration and wasted time as well-meaning, talented people try to fight through the tangled mess of their lists and get something accomplished. 

That this problem exists isn't a surprise.  I doubt I've presented a scenario to you that is foreign to your experience.  What is surprising is that, too often, this problem is left to the wrong level of the organization to address - at the wrong time.  I've seen many leaders simply take the directives and objectives given them and parcel them out to direct reports, wishing them God's speed.  I believe someone who has reported to me might remind me that, yes, I have done it as well.  For the record, I am guilty and have vowed not to do it ever again. 

In many cases these goals are challenging of themselves not because they do not make sense, but that they make a different sense depending on whom you are speaking to. 

This is a leadership's opportunity to make big difference in the business' execution of it's prime goals and objectives.

I suggest there is a fairly clear way for a business' leadership to be sure they are operating from a single set of aligned goals and priorities

1.  See alignment as the first order of business.  Once all the strategizing, futurizing and syergizing (note: not a word!) and all the other buzzword-izings are complete, it is leadership's singular job to be sure every line on the org chart is aligned with getting the right things done.  How is this going to affect service?  What is our message to sales?  How will IT, Finance and Ops work together to get this done?  Where are possible snags we must deal with?  How will we obtain funding to do this?  Whom do I/we need to meet with to gain buy in.  If these questions aren't addressed up front, the chances of success drop significantly.

2.  Think through the key objectives and messages for communication.  One of the most surprising things I have witnessed is a management group's apparent alignment around a set of goals, yet an evaluation of their objectives - the stuff they get rewarded for - shows they aren't going to place the same priority on them.  If the finance leader has an objective to lower expenses in the business, but the people with line budgets don't share in that objective it is at best going to be a tough go (This is a completely crazy fictitious made up problem example just to illustrate.  Really.).  At worst they will experience infighting and affect the team's overall performance.

Once agreed, it is critical that management speak with one voice to the people who must carry out these important tasks.  I've actually seen marketing groups be asked to plan out the audiences and messages for internal communications just as deeply as if the business leader were going to be interviewed on television.  This preparation fixes into everyone's minds the key objectives and actions needed for success.

3.  Act by showing your commitment and involvement.  The business leader must take a clear stand, publicly, on the challenges, opportunities and priorities of the business.  When a business' priorities are left to make their own way through the organization's tangled and mangled communications web, nuances are left out.  Questions go unanswered.  Progress is blocked.

Once communicated the business leaders must have mechanisms - weekly standup status meetings, centralized project status databases and reporting with weekly updates and issue resolution protocols.  Key objectives need visibility and a sponsor with the horsepower and influence to clear the brush that the project team cannot.

By thinking these challenges through and making clear prioritization calls, leadership can help the organization - and everyone in it - focus on the right things.  Without this, well... they won't.

Now, back to your list.
So, what are you going to do with that list?  Depending on where you sit you may have more or less control as to what's on it.  One thing you must do is avoid being a victim of misalignment.  Is your activity for the day/week/month aligned with the most important priorities of your business?  If so, do you have clear partners with similar objectives in the key parts of the organization you need to support your efforts.  If not, find them and get your goals aligned.

Remember I said it's leadership's job - and you are a leader!