If your organization is at all on top of things, your production line is lean and mean. The processes used to produce and deliver value for which customers are willing to pay are well-defined and reliable. You measure productivity in widgets per hour and expect 99.9% uptime and nearly zero defects. Priorities are clear. Routines are well-established. Roles are well-understood. Employees know exactly what to do, how, how well, with whom, when, and in what order. When necessary, they make decisions with confidence and without delay because they understand the objectives, options, and trade-offs, they have appropriate authority, and they know where to turn for additional information. In other words, they are Radically Clear. As a result, they are ultra productive. This is the region marked by the letter A on the graphic. Now consider what happens outside that region. As you move away from production and into ‘The B Zone,’ clarity takes a dive! And with it goes productivity!
Strategies fail more often than they succeed. Occasionally it’s because they are stupid strategies. Most of the times the cause is a lack of clarity – a lack of specificity about where you are headed, how you will get there, and what must change. Consider these examples of typical failures:
Did you know that almost no one made the word ‘priority’ plural before the 1950s? Having multiple priorities probably made about as much sense as describing something as ‘very unique.’ Something is either unique or it isn’t. And something is either the priority or it isn’t. Makes sense to me! Once you have two priorities, what is the priority? And once you have two, why can’t you have three? How about four? Where is the line?
My husband and I were interested in purchasing a condo when we found out there was a lawsuit against the condo association. We really liked the condo, so we hired an attorney to help us understand the risk. After asking a multitude of questions over the course of several days, our attorney suggested we look elsewhere. “You just won’t be comfortable no matter what,” was his rationale. He was wrong.
When I graduated from college, I was not even sort of ready for a full-time job. I saw “real jobs” as a prison sentence that would end my flexibility and steal my chances to travel. Friends proved me right by getting hired and then promptly saying no to every opportunity while they just worked every day and awaited that first week of vacation six months down the pike. So I latched on to seasonal and temporary employment for a year or so instead. I worked at a resort, drove school buses, pumped gas, sold minnows, substituted at the local high school, and tutored the truant officer’s son who refused to go to school. Between times, I moved around, mostly by bicycle. I always made enough to get by.
Great bosses are hard to come by. If you have one, quit taking him or her for granted! If you don’t and your boss is preventing you from doing your best, what can you do about it? 1. First, try to work things out with your boss
One of my great pleasures is working with sharp, knowledgeable, dedicated, and determined leaders and Board members of impressive non-profit organizations. These organizations are almost always doing amazing things, but too often I find them feeling totally strapped and constrained by resources. The staff is overworked and underpaid. Most non-profits walk a fine line between hope and despair. Financial limitations, and the insecurity that creates, lead to way too much focus on money and the wrong metrics. When you focus on money, you devote most of your time to boosting donations, memberships, and attendance. You constantly brainstorm new schemes to attract more of each. Meanwhile, you don’t care who donates, joins, or attends, as long as those numbers are going in the right direction. The problem is it does matter where the money comes from. That money, and your considerable efforts to acquire it, control how you use your limited resources. Typical consequences of chasing money include:
Both the New York Times and Inc. have written about Zappos’ holacracy recently. Why isn’t it working? Order is essential. You can’t work with other people to produce anything, especially anything of significance, without order. I don’t care if you are throwing a dinner party or building an airplane. Decisions must be made, responsibilities assigned, and plans laid. In a traditional hierarchy, “the boss” drives the decisions and assignments. A holacracy is an effort to replace the traditional hierarchy with a more flexible, organic, network so different people can assume different roles, including being ”the boss,” depending on the circumstances and their skills and interests. In theory, it sounds great. In practice, not so much and this is why:
“Ready, Aim, Fire” is so old-fashioned. Careful, thorough, risk averse planners simply need not apply. This fast paced, action oriented world demands a lot less “readying” and “aiming.” Pilot programs are a great response. Until they succumb to these common ailments: 1. Collaboration killers If your goal is results, you need everyone driving toward those results and partnering for success. When you set up a pilot program, you shift the focus from achieving results to judging the program. People who need to be steadfast collaborators become observers and critics instead. An “us vs. them” mentality ensues and you won’t get the partnership you desperately need to succeed. 2. Discouraging persistence Dogged determination drives more projects across the finish line than any other force. Pilots rarely generate that level of determination. Instead, a noble champion and a fan or two are often seen slaving away while others dismiss the work as ”just a pilot” – a short term, temporary, half-hearted inconvenience.
I remember when my husband and I first considered having a baby. We discussed how it might be better to wait. I don’t remember that conversation, but I do remember the realization that we would never be ready. If we had waited until we had had enough money, wisdom, and kid-free experiences – until we were completely ready, we never would have had children! If you wait for everything to be perfect, you will never do anything. Nonetheless, I witness daily examples of people delaying action on their top priorities while they plan, practice, research, check with a few more people, or wait for someone to return from vacation or maternity leave. In other cases, they distract themselves completely by “getting all their ducks in a row” or tackling low hanging fruit of little importance. I have a Fortune 500 client who has postponed the start of our project every month since October because they aren’t quite ready. A business owner who attended my most recent speech has been thinking about doing a webinar, but isn’t quite ready. Next thing you know, it will be December again! Don’t spend February getting ready. Get clear about your priorities and figure out what concrete steps you need to take today, tomorrow, and next week so that on March 1st you can look back at February as a month of amazing action, not a month of preparation!