When managers don’t know what to do, they often make a wasteful and disrespectful mistake: they try to control people with rules when it is clarity that is needed. Here are some examples: Rule: You must work a 40-hour week, arrive no later than 8:30, and take an hour for lunch. Clarity: You must make discernible progress on fronts A, B and C and alert me to obstacles you can’t remove by yourself so I can help and the organization can continue to afford to pay you. If any of these requires you to be on site at 8:30 in the morning, then of course you have to be here. And when you finish A, B, and C, it’s time to talk about what comes next. Rule: Every meeting must have an agenda. Clarity: Don’t start a meeting unless you know what must be different when it ends. A list of topics on a nicely formatted piece of paper does not mean you will walk out of the room with significant outcomes. I want results, not agendas.
My clients, readers, and audiences complain frequently about getting dragged into issues that ought to be resolved without their help. Every time an issue is escalated one, two, three, even more levels, the cost is significant. “Why can’t people just solve these problems themselves?” they ask. Well, you can’t eliminate a problem without eliminating its cause so here are the 10 most frequent causes of unnecessary escalation. 1. Unclear Priorities Employees can’t make decisions without understanding the factors that should govern those decisions. Sometimes those factors are project specific – requirements, customer expectations, cost/schedule trade-offs – and sometimes they are company wide and involve strategic priorities – priority accounts, product life-cycle plans, customer service expectations, quality/schedule trade-offs, etc. Without clarity, employees often need to escalate what could be simple decisions.
When we began this whole Urban Experiment, we thought seriously about never owning a residence again. We thought about renting furnished apartments and being free to come and go with ease. Maybe six months in one city, three in ski country, and then a year somewhere else. We could have many urban experiments in cities here and abroad interspersed with travel and vacations. Why own a place? My work involves lots of travel and phone conversations. No reason to travel from the same place all the time! But now, 9 months into this wonderful experiment, we still can’t get Mass Health Connector to get our address right! They aren’t the only ones, but certainly the ones that have sucked up the most time. The day we finally get all the address changes right, we’ll be ready to move again!
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:
I brought Ann in as a speaker for the Women Business Owner’s Alliance, knowing that she would give a strong presentation, but her talk exceeded my expectations. I have heard some of her material on her videos and in her newsletters, but she was really energizing in person and just what I needed in my “state of victimhood” around having an incredibly heavy workload right now. I changed my conversation about having too much to do, and started feeling better right away. The WBOA is an organization that supports women entrepreneurs at all stages of business, from people just considering starting a business, to people like me who have been self-employed for ten years or more. What I so appreciated about Ann’s presentation is that it was relevant to all of us, no matter where we are in our business trajectory. Ann’s advice is relevant to more than just business people — getting clarity truly applies to all aspects of life. As such, I think Ann would make a great speaker for a wide range of audiences and organizations. Amy Woolf, Principal, Amy Woolf Color Consulting
When I founded Uncommon Clarity, Inc. over a decade ago, my initial focus was on creating organizational clarity so organizations could be more efficient and effective. However, it wasn’t long before I discovered how little strategic clarity existed in most organizations. It is impossible to improve performance without strategic clarity. You have to know what you are trying to achieve! Trying to improve performance without strategic clarity is like trying to win a race without knowing which direction to run. If you cross the finish line first, it is either sheer luck or evidence of zero competition. So how do you know if you are operating with strategic clarity? Here are five signs:
Did your parents ever tell you to “Watch your mouth!”? Mine did. But today, I am telling you to watch your mouth for a completely different reason. Why? Because your language controls your mind, your mood, and your perspective. I will never forget an interview I heard with the US Olympic gold medal gymnast Aly Raisman. When asked about the pressure of competition, she responded that she doesn’t feel pressure, just excitement. By substituting the word excitement for pressure, she totally changed her thoughts and her perspective. The language we use to describe our feelings and mood, even when talking to ourselves, has tremendous power. You can choose to be stressed out or you can choose to be challenged and excited like Aly. In a speech I gave last week, one point I made was that the words “too much to do” and “not enough time” are victim words. Using them is simply an abdication of responsibility for making decisions about priorities. One attendee wrote me a few days later to tell me she recognized her “state of victimhood” immediately, changed her language about having too much to do, and started feeling better right away. By choosing to be in control instead of being a helpless victim, you will regain your sense of purpose and power.
“Process people” love me. At first sight. These are the people who perceive processes, seek processes, and, given a chance, create processes. They crave recognizable beginnings, middles, and ends accompanied by discernible progress. Order and efficiency make them happy. As a result, they are the people most aware of the daily chaos that kills corporate productivity. They desperately wish their companies would learn to create greater clarity. If you aren’t a process person, you may not have a clue what I’m talking about. Perhaps you don’t see the chaos. You don’t really think in terms of process. You aren’t aware of the fact that 50 – 90% of your time, and of those around you, is not adding value for which customers are willing to pay. Meanwhile, the process people drive you crazy. You see them as the guys who want to document everything. They are always creating new forms and demanding you follow new procedures. To you, those efforts to create order look a whole lot like bureaucracy and you wish they would just go away and let you get your job done in peace. And you are right. A good deal of the time, process people ”solutions” are often more orderly than efficient. Rules, forms, and procedures create systems, and systems should not be confused with clarity. I see numerous systems daily that are complete overkill, miss the root cause of the problem, and/or locally optimized to make one set of tasks easier, usually at the expense of others, including customers. Here are just a few examples:
I’ve worked with Ann on two different strategic planning processes, for two different organizations, and I really like her ability to listen intently and sort through layers of information from a variety of perspectives. Ann cuts to the chase and distills what is important while still honoring the intentions of each individual. She also keeps things light, on task, and moving along quickly so we finish on time. Ann has a great ability to strategically outline the work that needs to get done and frame it so that it is doable and not just a plan that sits on the shelf. We definitely accomplished all of our objectives and have an excellent platform for continued progress on our own. I would certainly welcome Ann’s ‘uncommon clarity’ on future projects! I recommend her highly to any group doing thoughtful strategic thinking and planning. Erin Williams, Executive Director, Worcester Cultural Coalition
“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.