Good fights
February 25, 2010
I got some interesting responses from my last post on handling irritants. It led me to think more about the inevitable fights we have on leadership teams.
We shouldn’t be surprised when leadership teams experience conflict. Whenever there are important issues and people with strong opinions, there will be fights. As Peter Drucker once said, “Not to have an opinion after having experience would argue for an unobservant eye and a sluggish mind.” Strategic discussions, policy deliberations, and even everyday operational trade-offs will often prompt friction and, shall we say, the open exchange of ideas.
The question is, what kind of fights does your leadership team have?
A recent HBR article on the topic got my juices going on this. And I humbly offer my simple grid to help prompt some thought on the conflicts you have in your leadership team. (Yes, this model works for domestic relationships too, but that’s my marriage therapist-wife’s department.)
(Click on the thumbnail to see a larger view!)
The message of the model is simple – we’re trying to manage two variables when picking fights: what we fight about and how we conduct ourselves before, during, and after the fight. If we can fight constructively about substantive things more often than not, we won’t do the things that leadership teams typically do – and we’ll waste less time, focus more energy on important things (like serving customers!), and maybe even enjoy work more.
So here’s the question: In your leadership team’s last planning cycle, how much time and energy was spent in each of these quadrants? What additional business value could you create next time by simply pushing more time and energy up and to the right? What can you personally do to influence that shift?
Worth pondering…
Handling Irritants
February 18, 2010
A while back, I was talking with an extraordinarily successful leader about his company. As often happens with astute leaders, the conversation eventually swung to the quality of his leadership team. He has been working hard to improve the prospects of his business despite the challenges in his market – and that includes both getting clear on strategy and raising the game for his team members.
At one point, he paused mid-sentence and blurted out something that obviously had been bugging him for a while:
I know how to keep my team moving toward our goals. But how do I handle the irritating things that my team members do on a regular basis?
That got me thinking, because let’s face it, we all get irritated plenty. Sometimes people have little quirks and mannerisms that bother us. Sometimes they hold views that irk us. And I’ll bet people would have the same thing to say about each of us as well. (In fact, this same leader went on to say, “You irritate me sometimes, Ted!” Tell me about it… get in line!)
So here are my thoughts on how to handle irritants so that they don’t get in the way of important strategic work (and anyone who has been with a leadership team when trying to discern strategic direction knows irritants can affect how well those exercises go):
- Hijack your own brain. When you find yourself irritated, ask yourself a question that gets you out of knee-jerk response mode. Something like, “What is important to that person right now?” works sometimes. Distract yourself with something more productive. Maybe even ask, “How am I contributing to this person being so irritating right now? What am I doing/not doing to reinforce this situation?”
- Ask yourself, “Is it worth it?” If you’re getting worked up, just check to be sure it’s worth it – or if you’re engaging in your own irritating habit of making a big deal about little things. This is also a great question to ask before commenting on the irritating behavior – either to the person directly or behind their backs.
- The “G” Word – As much as others irritate me (and believe me, they do), I know that I’m that irritating person for somebody too. (Maybe even two somebody’s!) A little grace – giving people more patience than they deserve – can go a long way when you’re in stressful times.
What do you do to get work done despite the irritants?
Goal Season – What do good goals look like?
February 10, 2010
A few weeks ago, with a new year upon us, a client asked me an intriguing question:
You spend your life helping people identify goals. What are the classic mistakes people make in goal-setting?
Spoiler alert: I’m not going to simply review the virtues of SMART goals in the remainder of this post. While having smart goals is definitely better than having stupid ones, I’m assuming most readers have been taught that handy acronym (though I’d love someone to give me the definitive answer of what the A stands for – I’ve seen at least half a dozen alternatives).
My client is right. I’ve spent nearly 20 years interviewing senior executives about their goals and priorities. I’m sure I’m well on my way to 1000 such interviews and I’ve seen leaders who have had a great grasp on their direction and others who – well, let’s just say some trains of thought never reach the station.
As you and your team set goals for 2010, here are a few characteristics of great goals I’ve seen over the years:
- SMART – OK, I lied. If you do nothing else, it’s not a bad idea to have goals that are Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-bound. If your goals need to go to school to get smarter, that’s a good start.
- Connect to value: Too often, even when I talk with senior leaders, their goals have surprisingly few “so what’s” to them. I’m interested in the fact that you are going to implement that huge new technology system. But how will the successful achievement of that goal benefit customers, owners/shareholders, employees, and/or other key parties in your value network? This is particularly important for staff groups (IT, HR, Finance, Marketing) since their internal stakeholders are so often asking the question (perhaps out of your hearing), “Why are we spending that money on that project instead of X?”
- Make them few enough to promote focus: I know, you’re saying that’s basic. I with I had a buck for every executive I’ve met who has 6,7,8,9… goals. Every one of us thinks we are exceptional, but most human beings (and every organization I’ve known) can only focus on a very few things at a time. Think 3-5 maximum and I think your team members will give you a standing O. (OK, maybe not – but a little fantasy doesn’t hurt.)
- Give innovation and growth priority: Most team members intuitively know that long-term success depends on adjusting and trying new things. Yes, we need to take care of basics (especially in tough economic times), but I find that organizations need some sense of where the new life-blood is going to come from. Otherwise, people start to mutter Einstein’s “If we do the same thing expecting different results…” quote to themselves. That’s a sign they are losing belief in the long-term viability of the current operating philosophy. They’re looking for what will take the organization to the next level of growth and performance. Do your goals speak to that?
So that’s my starter on what makes a good set of goals. What would you add from your experience?
Goal Season – Are strategic plans dead?
February 2, 2010
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal argues that our current economic environment may have rendered strategic planning obsolete (subscribers can click here to read the whole article). As an Accenture partner is quoted saying,
Strategy as we knew it is dead.
Really?
Read a little deeper in the article. The leaders and consultants profiled didn’t stop scanning the environment and planning responses that would help them to succeed over the long haul. Instead, they changed a couple of key features in how they planned:
* They accelerated review cycles. Rather than quarterly or annual reviews, they moved to monthly reviews so that they could act quickly on changing scenarios.
* They considered more variables and different scenarios.
* They made decision-making more experimental and adaptive instead of making decisions all at once for the next five years.
If anything, these may be good planning disciplines, not concessions to a lousy economy. Leading thinkers in entrepreneurial planning have long advocated a more experimental approach to decision-making and planning since most entrepreneurial ventures deal with a lot of unknowns.
For instance, Rita McGrath and Ian MacMillan describe this approach to planning in their excellent book, Discovery-Driven Planning. Their basic premise is simple enough:
* Make plans knowing that you can’t possibly master all of the variables before moving to implementation.
* Identify and document assumptions behind your plans.
* Be sure that those assumptions (and especially the assumptions that will most dramatically impact your success) will be tested as early and as cheaply as possible as you move forward in your plan.
* Review progress and the validity of your assumptions at each milestone – and adjust, curtail, or harvest learning from plans that have failing assumptions.
Of course, as in most things, this process sounds simple but it’s not necessarily easy since it requires a whole new mind-set to pull it off. But it puts the lie to the notion that strategy is dead. Maybe it’s just getting more nimble.