Iraq is a mess. Much of the blame lies with the TE-TBD Syndrome. Too Eager To Be Done. It affects all of us. Not just a weary President faced with declining public support, increasingly frustrating Iraqi leadership, and a war he never wanted. We all wanted to be done with Iraq, some much sooner than others. It doesn’t matter. When we are Too Eager To Be Done, we stop investing the time, energy, and resources needed to continue learning, make smart decisions, manage risks, and successfully wrap up what we’ve started. Too Eager To Be Done Syndrome leads to wishful thinking, dismissal of key indicators, and hand-waving. We are bored, tired, and eager to move on. We want it out of sight, out of mind. That’s when things fall apart. Iraq. Your employee engagement project. The platform consolidation effort. That massive training program that never changed anything. Big launch. Slow fizzle. To avoid TE-TBD, you must recognize when you are succumbing to its power. Before you start dropping the ball, dismissing the issues, ignoring those employees who’ve invested their hearts and hours, and gearing up for the next shiny yellow project. When you get that first strong Urge To Be Done, take notice. Figure out why you feel the way you do. Was the consolidation effort really a bad idea or is it your implementation methods that need tweaking? Hold up the mirror, reexamine the original objectives, and invoke the discipline to make conscious, informed decisions that consider more than the obvious options and consequences. Note also that there is energy in that Urge To Be Done. Harness it to increase your focus and determination. Find a new champion, change up the team, jack up the volume on the progress indicators. Backing down may be the right thing to do.… read more →
Five minutes and 15 questions could save you 50%! Why? Because clarity produces better results faster with greater confidence and commitment. Wondering how clear your organization is? Check Your Clarity Index now!
This month’s Clarity Award is a shared honor. Janice Mazzalo of PeoplesBank and Tom Moran of Financial Partners are the winners based on their clear messages involving two sides of a common problem. Both were part of a panel discuss on workplace culture and a question was raised about dealing with personnel problems. Janice pointed out that zero tolerance policies are an abdication of responsibility by those who ought to be able to use judgment and ensure any punishment fits the crime and employees get reasonable assistance to help them succeed. On the flip side, Tom made it clear that no one has a constitutional right to work in any company. Together, they framed a difficult problem. Employees deserve: Clear expectations regarding goals and behaviors, Regular feedback and support so they know where they stand and have a shot at success, and Compassion. They also deserve supervisors with the confidence and courage to tell them they aren’t fitting in and should look elsewhere. You benefit no one by keeping someone in a position where he or she isn’t succeeding. You also commit a grievous injustice to those tolerating or making up for the short-comings of the under-performer. When you think about it, a simple cost/benefit analysis applies nicely to difficult personnel decisions: Is the employee’s net contribution clearly positive or do you have reason to believe it will be very soon? In other words, does this person create significantly more benefit than cost? Cost includes hand-holding, training, undesirable precedents, patience, salary, distractions, anger, frustration, bad examples, damage control, and more. So, do not create rules to replace judgement and if an employee is more trouble than he is worth, let him go!
From Cambridge, Massachusetts to San Francisco, the Uber wars are underway. Riders love the app driven service, cabbies are screaming about the competition and tax evasion, cities are losing revenue, and public safety agencies are worried about riders. As a result, status quo constituents are throwing every rule in the book at Uber in the hopes of turning the clock back. How silly is that! Meanwhile, a parallel war is erupting in the world of lodging. Airbnb connects travelers with non-traditional lodging. Swap cabbies with hoteliers and the story is practically identical. This is a lousy, wasteful, and unproductive reaction to innovation. Consider for a minute the wasted time and money being spent fighting what is inevitable. We are going to use our phone apps to find lodging and rides. That’s a given. The ability of the Internet to connect buyers to non-traditional providers is also a given. Pretending this is not the case is foolish.
Stories of drought in the west led me to fear too little water when I arrived at Utah’s Canyonlands National Park. I was wrong. Our five days and 53 miles of paddling down the Green River were gorgeous, fascinating, and nerve-wracking. High water meant the normally copious sandbars were submerged along with the campsites and picnic sites they usually provided. The heralded side canyons with their sparkling trickles and mostly dry creek beds were nowhere to be found. Our shoreline came in three flavors: Vertical walls, Quicksand muck, and An invasive called Tamarisk so thick it may as well have been another vertical wall My companions could not understand why I, an expert canoeist, would be anxious. The answer was simple. We had so few options! There was no going back and extremely few opportunities to get off the water. One of the things I do for my clients is create the clarity that allows them to recognize the best options when they see them. Tough to pick the best option when you haven’t any! We were at the mercy of rising water, falling water, flash floods, heavy winds, storms, the setting sun, and luck. For me, luck is not a strategy. Another thing I frequently do is increase the number and quality of options my clients can see. Wish I could have pulled that trick on the Green. A fast and powerful river with a quicksand bottom holds all the cards. I did it once though, when the water level fell a foot and a half leaving our canoes mired in muck a hundred yards from flowing water. No time for that story here, but remind me to tell you the next time we talk! In the meantime, I suggest you distinguish between your average decision and those where… read more →
“Is the Hard-Nosed Boss Obsolete?” (WSJ May 22) cries for clarity. In a nutshell, tough bosses are not terrible bosses; terrible bosses are terrible bosses. Terrible bosses are disrespectful, demeaning, and don’t act in the best interests of the company. That’s about it. All the other adjectives and examples raised in association with tough bosses by this article do not make someone a bad boss: Being direct Killing underperforming initiatives Firing underperforming employees Not sugar-coating Being aggressive Making tough decisions Being demanding Employees value bosses with high expectations for themselves and others who are also compassionate, kind, and fair. If you continually demonstrate your ability and determination to help the company and its employees excel, being direct, demanding, and plenty tough will never be obstacles.
When I was accepted at Tufts University in Boston I arrived feeling like a Geographical Distribution Requirement (GDR). My classmates were from both coasts, had attended fancy schools, dressed differently, and made fun of the way I talked. I was quite certain I’d been admitted strictly because they needed someone from a small town in fly-over country. I kept my mouth closed throughout the fall and left the talking to my incredible classmates. It was well into the second semester before I realized that many of the fancy talkers weren’t saying anything. Not because they weren’t smart, but because they had been allowed, or maybe even encouraged, to talk regardless of whether they had something to say. They undoubtedly scored high marks in class participation. They used big words, spoke with poise, and said nothing. It was an eye-opener for me, a product of Lake Woebegon who would not dare waste anyone’s time unless I had something important to say.
New York Magazine announced that the secret to better meetings is to stand up because sit-down meetings last longer and produce no better results. I have news for you. By that logic, you’ll save even more time by cancelling your meetings altogether. Of course standing up shortens meetings. Because it makes people physically uncomfortable. But that certainly doesn’t mean you will accomplish more per minute. If you don’t know how to get results in meetings, you shouldn’t be running meetings at all! But I’ve got more news for you. If you can’t run effective meetings, it has nothing to do with meetings. It has everything to do with a lack of clarity about what you are trying to accomplish, a lack of shared processes for fundamental tasks such as decision-making, planning, problem solving, and strategizing, and a lack of language to quickly get a group on the same page so you can agree on where you are and next steps. Quit blaming meetings for the wandering, confusion, and lack of progress evidenced by your company’s meetings every day! Start creating clarity instead!
Companies that would never tolerate disruptions to a production line tolerate sloppy thinking and massive confusion every single day. Everything takes longer than it should! And the farther you are from the production line, where both flow and snags are obvious, the less aware you are of the waste and mistakes. Are you clarity blind? Can you see the extent to which confusion sucks up your profit, time, opportunity, and morale? It is time to make your company’s cognitive processes as efficient as your physical processes! The potential is enormous. This could be your new competitive edge! Act now: Watch my short video about creating clarity to improve results, speed, confidence, and commitment. Get started by sharing these clear, pragmatic, and valuable publications with your organization: – How to Make Better Decisions Faster – The Worst Mistake to Make When Overloaded – Poor Communication – What Does It Really Mean? – Ten Points for Smarter Email – The Secret to Great Meetings that Every Employee Should Know – Simplify – Why Training Fails Contact me to learn how I have helped other companies create the clarity that produces better results faster with greater confidence and commitment. It is time to raise the bar. Don’t put up with another minute of sloppy thinking, poor communication, delayed decisions, or struggles with commitment, engagement, and accountability. If you would like to receive a complimentary copy of my value-packed monthly newsletter, you are invited to subscribe today.