Alignment
Whose Life Is It Anyway?
It’s absolutely fascinating how much leverage going green has gained. It’s hard to miss the marketing, packaging, and commitments that continue to grow and show. Many of us make green choices daily, some bigger, some smaller, and some to feel better, all with positive impacts. My observations are that, in consumer goods, the visible focus is on producing “from recycled” materials or from producing from benign components or processes. But what about all the really big stuff we build, produce, or operate?
The globe is dotted with far too many closed facilities, done with their productive lives, some nasty, awaiting a future that may never look green. Nobody likes them and they serve as reminders and warnings for decision makers. It is easy to presume sinister capitalists or overzealous weapons producers as the blame, but it is hard to escape that it’s a lot about economics and prosecution of the national will and multiple interests. Economics is a bit like physics in that processes will frequently follow the paths of least resistance. Similarly, extraction and harvesting economies have denuded the landscape, inviting regulation and in some sectors and countries, restoration efforts, but not yet without irreversible consequences. Getting to green may require multiple generations and someone to pony up on the costs. There is no Utopia, and the noble natives of the planet Pandora exist only in fantasies; and illusions that these harmonious societies ever existed are unsupported history. It’s challenging, because what got us here may eventually constrain us from getting there. What got us here was our capacity to solve problems and overcome obstacles, motivation notwithstanding. How we frame what are problems and opportunities drives important directional decisions.
After all, decisions are typically biased by the productive capability of what we make, build, or operate. What that means is that there is far more weight and attention given to the costs, effectiveness, and efficiencies of fabricating, constructing, and operating than to what happens at end-of-life. For lots of the big stuff, end-of-life is typically far into the future, messier to deal with, and makes the review and approval process more “difficult.” I’ve tested this hypothesis multiple times over many years, and the responses are consistent, end-of-life and decommissioning are not a big factor in the design discussions. Perhaps that is changing.
Over the last 50 years, some of the ugliness that we contend with as enterprises, governments, and consumers has to do with the direct costs and externalities ensuing from unplanned outcomes or effects at end-of-life. Granted, many plans and proposals have language addressing full life cycle costs, yet the evidence of subsequent actions have not aligned. A lens that I’ve found to be helpful is that what we get is precisely what our design, fabrication, and operation is supposed to give us. If it is not giving us that, then we have to investigate, the design fabrication and operation, where the errors or defects were generated that result in what we’re getting. It is as true for what we’re doing today as for what yet awaits us when we have stop or abandon the process. We’ve already designed, built, and operate with end-of life costs, to a good or poor degree.
The challenge ahead is not simple, simplistic, nor easy. Our economic systems create powerful forces and motivators. I really love the life that technology enables and don’t really want to give it up. I have many friends who build and operate some of the really big stuff and they are good, intelligent, highly principled, and ethical people. They care about the welfare of our world and their legacy as much as we do. The challenge is striking the balance between a more certain today and a sometimes very uncertain tomorrow. It gets really hard, when our positive economic rewards are about what we do in the present. They are immediate and positive, versus far into the future and negative. Which would you pick?
For visionaries, this creates an opportunity. The storms of growing public sentiment and distrust of some industries creates an awesome opportunity to design and differentiate with a smarter end-of-life offering. Smarter end-of-life creates value, reduces compliance burdens, fosters complementary lines of business, impacts investor perceptions, and can have a transformative effect on vision, values, and behaviors. For revisionists, a different family of motivators is often necessary. Carrots have longer lasting benefits than sticks.
Sometimes, the military does this well. The really good conquest and occupation strategies are done and executed against a well developed exit strategy. Forethought enables us to manage the present from the future.
“The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.” Sun Tzu
Oh, Now I See!
“I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.” Mark Twain.
“Oh, now I see!” It’s a phrase we use so often to convey that we understand, or get it. We use sight as a metaphor for understanding all the time. The word lens is used to mean a channel through which something can be seen or understood. “Mary sees the world through rose colored lenses,” (an optimist, or naive). We are creatures of pattern recognition and our conjuring process requires imagery to put things in place, or to make sense of what we experience or think. We will typically apply what we know (our storehouse of imagery) to what we see and work hard to make sense of things.
Lenses matter and the choice of lenses have interesting effects on what follows. We believe that lenses allow us to see better, and that is true, but for a very limited and specific range of stuff. The lens is helpful in that it blocks out an infinite number of things we could see or consider so that we get clarity and detail on what the lens puts into focus for us. I’ve looked through telescopes and microscopes, sunglasses and readers, wide angle lenses and telephoto ,,,, all bringing into focus different stuff and making me oblivious to everything else around me. If driving fast, I do no longer see what was in front of me seconds before. Nor should I, be looking anywhere but where it’s critical when driving. Texting while driving is illegal in some states, thank goodness.
In our enterprises, we make choices about lenses all the time. We don’t call them lenses, even though they affect what we see and subsequently interpret. If our lenses are the wrong ones, then we’ll just have to deal with interpreting what we see and worry about what we don’t see. If our lenses cover too much to absorb at once, because we’re driving the business so fast, then we’ll just to trust our luck that we did not miss an important turn-off or on-ramp. If our business roadways are all smooth and devoid of danger or speed traps, then it doesn’t matter so much. If the scenery doesn’t change or we’re not trying to take our enterprise anywhere new, then all is good.
Among our most important lenses are what we measure, how well we measure, how often we measure, and what we do with what we measure. They are important if we do actually do something of value with what we measure in time to make a difference. It does us little good to find out that we missed a turn-off two weeks or a month ago, unless we’re pretty good at u-turns and restarts, except when opportunities don’t wait around for us to u-turn. Also, who decides what to measure, or who interprets what we measure, or who decides what to do with what we measure, or who reports what we measure, or doesn’t report what we measure is likely to matter a whole bunch too.
When we go for our annual physical, all the same measurement stuff applies, and we surely hope the doctor and the lab get it right. I lost a cousin to cancer this weekend because a doctor and a lab got the measurements wrong years ago when they could have done something in time to save Bob’s life.
So, when was the last time you checked the lenses you use at work, home, or play?
“There are three classes of people; those who see, those who see when they are shown, and those who do not see.” Leonardo da Vinci.
Truth or Consequences?
I heard someone on the news use the term “oil tsunami” to describe the river of oil currently sweeping across the gulf and the devastation it is delivering to those in the water and on shores. It is an interesting analogy in imagery, but it misses the big point, this growing glob of pestilence was triggered by man, by many people making a whole bunch of choices and decisions. The complexities of how it began and the complexities on how it may one day end are still unraveling. The forces of nature that have been unleashed still defy our technology, techniques, and even our collective confidence. Sadly, it does illuminate a darker side, not new, about the economics of the process. Responsible economists articulate the importance of incorporating the impacts of externalities into decision making. What that means is that what we do can have an adverse impact that transfers the burden, costs, and consequences of dealing with the mess to someone else. In the broadest sense, the total costs of what we do are bigger than our accounted costs and subsequent prices we charge.
This is not only about oil, it is about lots of stuff, including many of the apparent bargains we grab at the supermarket and the fast food chain; or other apparent benefits from subsidized markets . In retrospect, the people that are responsible for perpetuating the calamities like the oil spill can appear as sinister, sometimes a true characterization, but they are seldom so in isolation. To a great extent, the engines we put into play, as consumers demanding lower prices, and as investors expecting greater returns, create value systems with biases, meaning skewed or unbalanced. The levels of bias or balance are important dimensions of good or poor decision making. My oversimplification is that historically we are rewarded by one system, economic, and are constrained and sometimes punished by another, societal and public. These systems are not equal and have never been balanced, primarily because of one set of these consequences is pretty immediate and the second set is improbable and if so, in the distant future.
We, as individuals and as enterprises, are very cognizant of these consequences. Our perception and expectations of these consequences are big, really big drivers of behaviors. Lots of research by very capable people has validated this relationship between consequences and behaviors. Let’s not expect balanced behaviors from unbalanced consequences.
We, when in pain, will exercise economic consequences, but often as a reaction to harm done. On the flip side, our efforts to regulate and control some of these “big” behaviors are sadly oversimplified, undernourished, and in systems that are unattractive to the clever, talented, and ambitious among us. When we overlay on this system the behaviors of those focused on reelection and keeping their local economies well fed, we already know what happens.
Interestingly, this week, squeals are emanating from across the big “pond” about the economic impact that pensioners (investors in BP) are feeling from the precipitous drop in the value of, and anticipated dividends from BP. Posturing and deflected blame, insinuated bias on the part of the US press, public, and politicians as a cause for the externalities. Consequences are driving these behaviors as well.
Messy and complex, isn’t it? Thoughts?
How Did You Get So Ubiquitous?
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” – Winston Churchill, House of Commons, August 20, 1940. Many recognized this as the timeless phrase describing the valiant effort by the British Royal Air Force Fighter Command during August 18th, 1940. It has come to represent the Battle of Britain and lives among the legendary victories, Agincourt, Trafalgar, and Waterloo. The Battle of Britain was very different, strategically, tactically, and operationally. The Battle of Britain developed a fascinating strategic application that becomes ever more relevant, Strategic Ubiquity.
Under the genius of Air Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding, the RAF Fighter Command overcame overwhelming odds against the behemoth German air forces. Dowding did so through technology, stealth, organization, managing awareness, resource dispatching, and mostly agility. I will leave the details to those willing to invest in further reading as many hundreds of books abound. The principle of Strategic Ubiquity manifested the ability to “be everywhere” with much fewer resources than thought possible. The strategy also generated a world class pull system for delivering aircraft long before the Japanese could spell Deming or develop what we apply as Lean. Again, this is a different tickler for the curious. This strategy incorporated leveraging the agile integration of cross-functionality and achieved measurable synergy, one plus one equals three; even more for the curious …
At this time in military history, great powers (military or commercial) relied on quantity, power, and mass as a strategic hammer with which to overcome the opposition. More, everywhere as deployed resources, that could battle it out until consumption won out or size scared the opposition into submission. RAF Fighter Command under Dowding harnessed the power of more information, deployed to the right people, specific to the purpose of the specific people, and in time to act. It was “predict and prevent” rather than “detect and correct.” Downing’s resources, his “chicks”, always feigned to be too few, but were able to be where they were needed, when needed, with as close to real time data and awareness as then unimaginable. The few, through agility, were able to execute against the many. The strategy did not completely lift Clausewitz’s “fog of war”, but did much to see through it. It was not a software thing, it was a process thing. It was an agile thing…
Strategic Ubiquity is something very doable. With the right focus, discipline, and follow-though, the leverage created by technology can be game changing. There is a way to think about it, plan it, deploy it, measure it, and sustain it.
Agility is much more than an athletic term and ubiquity is more than being everywhere. Strategic Ubiquity is about being at the frontiers where and when the business battles are fought, not everywhere where battles may be fought. A few (300) agile Spartans along with a few thousand supporting Greek city-states in the Second Persian War picked the straits of Thermopylae for good reason. Agility put the right resources with the right focus, discipline, follow through and technology to achieve a strategic objective of delay. It was not Strategic Ubiquity circa 550 BC, but Dowding’s Fighter Command made it happen in the summer of 1940.
Today’s dynamic business environment demands capability on multiple fronts and challenges how to plan, build capability, and then have sufficient agility to win. It’s harder and too expensive to be big enough to be everywhere. Garrisons, be they business or military are places where waste is born and bred.
‘Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.’ Sun Tzu
What’s the Score?
Have you ever balanced a scorecard? What did you do? How did you decide what balanced meant? What did you do with the scorecard? Did you win? Was it a competitive win or was it a within the scorecard win? Would an outsider evaluate you as a winner without seeing your scorecard?
The balanced scorecard has been a source of lots of debate and consulting armies going about guiding organizations on keeping score. My observation has been that too often the exercise has amounted to filling data into a predetermined template from what data is available and accessible with follow on work to “interpret” what the scoreboard means. What continues to nag me is the distractions that some predetermined “balanced” views may precipitate.
First, no two categories are ever equal. But if you try to make them equal on a scorecard, you will get unintended consequences. The more something is claimed in a slogan, the less likely it is true in measurable practices.
“Employees are our greatest asset” is a statement of value, not a measure of opinions that are captured in an employee satisfaction survey score. What does the scorecard really measure? I would argue that, if asset quality matters, maybe it should measure how quickly we acquire good assets, secure the most out of the earning capacity, and then how quickly we dispose of bad assets. However, political correctness and actually treating people as assets is challenging and likely look bad on surveys. A scorecard would be sensitive to what the game is and how people are to be utilized at what stage of the game. The categories are dynamic as well as the numbers. Take a hard look at what tracking “training hours” does within very large organizations. You will find some interesting compliance systems that actually govern the speed of learning (check the on-line stuff) so that the scorecard hours are achieved. Yes, we are willing to slow down the quick studies and reduce their productive time for the sake of the “score.”
Financial strategy is even more dynamic and much more complex. What we desire to emphasize on the balance sheet or the income statement is very different for industries, organizations, health, global economy, volatility, growth, risks, competitors, asset mix, exposure … to name a few. So, the scorecard categories and weights are dynamic, not static, so the scorecard structure is not structural, but fluid. A structured scorecard in a dynamic environment will always lag the signals and thereby trigger responses inappropriately. Does it enable or constrain the best decisions? And, we can’t use the scorecard to score itself.
Customer satisfaction is a fascinating score to evaluate, if it leads to better decisions in time to make a difference, where it needs to make a difference. How often have we observed what appears to be poor business decision making in order to appease a “customer tyrant” for fear of low satisfaction scores? We all have. So again, the complexities of a dynamic world require sufficient agility in the relationship between what matters virtually so that the “score” leads to proper action. Again, what does balance in the score really mean and what does it really drive in behaviors? Does the statistical “dulling” effect hide the scary customer stuff happening on the fringes where risks are born and changes are incubating?
Now, for those that feel this is going in the direction of winging it and data anarchy, not so. Score is important, but balance cannot always be predetermined or should be hard-wired in dynamic environments. If life is quiet and stable and predictable, this may be an irritating and irrelevant sounding blog posting. I don’t know anybody like that anymore.
The questions that we should be vigilant about measurement and scorekeeping must be configured around decision making only. Data is useful for what I am about to decide. That’s it. The scorecard, scoreboard, or dashboard must fit the game we are playing and where and when we are playing it. Balance can be a dynamic challenge for multinational entities in a multi-polar world.
This should be exciting, if we agree. It is exciting because technology today enables transparency at the speed of light. Our interconnectivity and networked interconnections have the capacity to render a view to enable dynamic balance. Balance is a consequence of judgment and agility. Both require virtual transparency that grabs new and relevant lenses to look at what is happening when the decisions can alter the future most effectively.
Thoughts?
Just in Case
Just in case. When packing for a travel, what did we add to the bag as we said, “just in case?” Did we sufficient “in case” stuff that we paid extra weight fees for our baggage? When walking into the closet and seeing a wardrobe assortment spanning 6 years and 50 pounds ago, do we hesitate before reaching for something to put into the give-away bag saying, “maybe I’ll wear it keep it, just in case?” How about the files we keep in our desk drawer or in a section of our hard drives, just in case? Do any of the books on our shelf look brand new and unopened after a decade of taking up space, but we keep them, just in case? Are we saving five year old magazines for “when I have some time to read them?”
When setting standards or targets for performance, how large are the “safety cushions” of time we put between when we are done and when it is due, just in case? When preparing a presentation, how many additional slides do we build with details and tangential data, just in case? When ordering materials, printing out decks for a meeting, ordering food for a meeting, setting inventory levels, how much do we add for just in case? Just in time belongs to the confident, but just in case belongs to the fearful. How about our staffing and resource loading? Do we staff up for not coming up short on a peak day, just in case, then find things to do on the slack time?
Management by “just in case” is expensive. Not only is it expensive in inventory, it is costly in added complexity, capability decay, waste, but actually the creation of resource scarcity and often very poor fit. Just in case becomes the catch all phrase for the uncertainties in life, be they rational or irrational, be they quantified or not. How often do we ask the question, what will this cost in opportunity if the just in case doesn’t happen? There are plenty of data and tools that abound to rationally address tangible inventory and the science of supply chain management can transform much of the visible.
Let’s think about the opportunities lost because of just in case.
- What did we not do while spending our time on just in case?
- What did we not consider that was relevant because of the focus on the irrelevant baggage of just in case?
- How much of our focus is dulled because of lugging lots of just in case in our minds or in front of our eyes?
- How many resources sat idle in the wrong place on the wrong topic while we ran into scarcity where it counted because of just in case?
- How much time and how many resources did we tie up or consume on training too many on too much because it was easier to deploy something to a shotgun approach, just in case?
It’s a challenge. Focus is hard and hard choices are what engage our brains and challenge our habits. We may be at a really interesting fork in our lives. It may well be the fork where the direction we chose will require all of the focus, discipline and follow-through we can muster to succeed.
- How much baggage can we afford to bring along?
- Do the reasons or fears that determined what we brought along for “just in case” still determine what we should bring along for tomorrow?
- What are the factors that should determine tomorrow’s just in case?
- Are they determined by the consequences of what happened last time?
- How does the virtual and connected world change all of this?
On the Dock of the Bay
Have you thought about how we make decisions? It’s fascinating and frightening. I believe decision making is by far our greatest Achilles Heel. In his book, “Fateful Choices, Ten Decisions that Changed the World”, Ian Kershaw delivers a monumental and insightful lens into decisions by world players during 1940-1941, leading to the catastrophes of World War Two and beyond. It uncovers complexities, blind spots, paradigms, megalomania, group think, and perversities of gaming. The tugs-of- war within closed doors and the powers at play within and outside the decision makers’ line of sight are overwhelming. At the end of the day, people often allow their smallness decide the fate of millions and the subsequent direction of the world.
The same can be said of the events that led to our current economic and financial catastrophes and consequences. The same can be said about how we individually decide and the impacts we have on others.
What we read of history often sounds like a linear series of events that had clear cause and effect, heroes and villains, smart and stupid as the drivers. Not so simple. My own attempt at simplicity leaves a lot out, but I conclude that two big factors in decisions are:
- The lens we put on things.
- How we frame the way we will make choices.
The challenge with decisions involving multiple players gets messier because often there are multiple lenses and the frames at play. Lenses are essential for what they bring into focus and what they leave out. Framing is essential because it sets forth the remaining and discarded degrees of freedom. Time and consequences fuel the process and create many of the biases.
This topic is important today for us individually and for our organizations. How we evaluate our environment and the choices it prompts us to make depends on what we see (our lenses). Do we see scarcity and the commensurate hunger and fear that it creates? Do we see abundance and the commensurate opportunity and confidence we can harvest? Do we rely on what time has taught us about good and bad, cause and effect, right and wrong, or ask if the rules have changed and the drivers may be different? Have we led and managed from personal “genius” or by process? I have come to believe that in stable times process trumps personal genius and in changing times, the genius card takes the pot.
The framing of how we can decide is a tough one, but one aspect we can work at improving. Again, it is affected by what we envisage as time available and consequences, but constrained by what our lenses put in front of us. Personal choices carry an infinite number of variables and are compounded by beliefs, values, personal history and levels of personal insanity, ignorance, knowledge and education. Business choices carry the variables that are precipitated from a business economic or public service value system. Both matter.
When I read accounts of events and decisions, they are usually developed because there were consequences that are far reaching. A lens on the decisions made within these accounts invariably carries a post hoc focus on the extent and impact of the consequences, good or bad. That’s the problem with retrospect, not the advantage. So I will oversimplify again.
How often do we manage the present from the future? How often do we stand five, ten or more years from now and look back into today and the sequences of events that came about? It is not a frivolous pretend exercise, but rather a visionary versus incrementalist lens and frame for decision making. Looking at tomorrow with a future retrospective lens may surface that which is unseen from where we stand today. Why? Because the behaviors of other players and the many “what ifs” will carry more weight, essential weight.
The other part may have to do with whether we see scarcity or abundance ahead. That affects how I regard you and you regard me, personally or collectively. We can choose to create the visionary future we see or remain a spectator at the dock waiting for a boat to come for us. Either way, consequences will follow.
“Whenever faced with two choices, always take the third.”
The Real Deal
While driving this morning I caught some news on the radio. One disturbing bit of news reported that a large defense contractor in Great Britain is facing potential fines of over $1 billion for alleged bribery paid in pursuit of business. This contractor is a major supplier to the US Department of Defense and the alleged acts took place outside the US. Still, the news should be disturbing to all of us. Many have heard the line, “That’s just the way it is over there. If you want to get business, you have to play the game.” The government of the United Kingdom does not agree! So, what’s the net value of that business when we deduct the penalties and fines? What will that do to their competitive position over the next ten years? Will people understand that bribery is abhorrent here, but acceptable there?
To the overwhelming number of ethical and principled firms, this is not about you!
After this last year of colossal failures in the financial system and unrepentant players, what should we expect from captains of industry? Last year we heard a similar line, “Everybody’s doing it. If we don’t follow suit and make the loans, we will not get our share of the money to be made.” Where is the money now?
I’ve read many written statements of values, ethics, behavior, and respect for investors, customers, employees and the public at large. So, how do we know they are more than paper? How should we know? The very saddening answer is that more regulation will precipitate. More controls, inspections, reports, hearings and constraints on productivity and value creation. What’s the real cost to the many precipitated by others? Do we really believe that we should know because a regulator will tell us it is so?
I know organizations that live, breathe and behave in accordance with great values and ethical standards. They are successful, competitive, and a magnet for people seeking employment. In fact, I wrote about one a few months back, May I have a word with you? …. Values. These folks are the real deal.
Let’s go back to respect for the stakeholders. How will the stakeholders benefit if those values and behaviors are the real deal?
- Investors will benefit from the confidence that their moneys are not sitting on a time bomb waiting to destroy returns and long term value.
- Customers will benefit because their prices don’t carry the burden of graft and decisions are easier when the integrity of the supplier is unchallenged by a clean track record.
- Employees will benefit from never facing a choice between earning a livelihood and behaving in alignment with personal values and beliefs about honesty.
- Society at large will benefit the most from the reduced costs, increased employment and better value without the burden of regulation and constraints to growth.
The list of benefits is big, too big for a blog.
So, who decides what is next? Who has the responsibility?
Let’s ask the person in the mirror for starts. How will that person make choices today? When we ask the same question tomorrow, what will be the answer?
Cool Beans!
Today I experienced something some really cool healthcare! It left me contemplating that maybe we really do have the capacity to sort out the hurdles we face with the healthcare issue. Today I needed to make an unplanned visit to my physician. With a fully booked schedule (this doctor is good…), one of his team understood that variability and timing creates opportunities, parked me in the waiting area and got me in within 20 minutes. That was great by itself, but the cool part followed.
One aspect of getting my medical guidance from this physician is his impressive use of data and technology. Whenever we meet, the discussion around the vitals is on point, virtual and current. I like that. Data is good. From what I gather, the preponderance of his data travels purely on the back of electrons, who I have found are less prone to hick-ups than those transferred with fingers. I like that. Electrons are good.
I often rant that electrons are far better at some tasks than people like me are. They make less mistakes, don’t complain, don’t have eyesight problems, are fast, don’t forget (I do…) and lots of other great attributes. We’re codependent with electrons, so we can make a good team now and in the foreseeable future. Today I saw electrons kick some serious butt. I needed a prescription for what ailed me.
My experiences with getting a prescription enjoy the benefit and difficulties of many years and some ailments. Getting the prescription generated and filled can be slow, require several hand-offs, prone to errors throughout, and have carried significant transactional costs and liability insurance burdens of the risks and importance they have. Lots of hands and lots of eyes aren’t free. Lots of compliance requirements and the fear of suffering consequences are also very costly. They also have a number of queues in the process of being filled. When we add to that the transactional costs created by insurance coverage, the non-valued costs added to my little pill are scary to contemplate. After all, we’re not electrons, so we have to check stuff to make sure. I don’t like that. Non-value adding costs are bad.
Today I watched Doc, key in my prescription into his electronic tablet, ask for and then input the local pharmacy information, hit the magic key and confirmed receipt at the destination. These friendly electrons did that is a few seconds. I left his office and by the time I drove up to the window at my pharmacy, the little pills were ready. Those living in Cyber-land may say, “So what? That’s easy…” My reply is, “This is cool beans!” I like that. Cool beans are good.
I see promise in this little experience. I see the endless possibilities to tackle this yoke and fear of health care around our collective necks. Solutions are possible. The promise of process improvement still has lots of legs! These hard times may yet precipitate the best of times. Actually, we’re reading this because of our friendly electrons!
I don’t want to minimize or oversimplify what is ahead. The challenges are huge. The players are difficult. The stakes are high. The tactics are ugly. The rhetoric is offensive. The suffering is real. But the opportunity is great. There is opportunity in every storm. I hope and pray we can get past all the storm coverage and move on to finding and harvesting these opportunities.
“When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that ‘a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.’ So with men, if you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one.” Abraham Lincoln
“How Aren’t You Doing?”
How aren’t you doing? That’s right, how are you at what you’re not doing? Have you ever been asked that question? I hope so! How well do we choose what to do and what to measure?
The answers to the questions tell much about how we think about work, prioritize and, most importantly, focus. Are we conditioned by our business systems and rewards for accomplishment such that we spend much of our time discussing, measuring, and reporting what was accomplished and done well, that is, what we are doing that we should have done. Could we perhaps be in the grips of the “more is better” paradigm? More is better has many dangerous consequences, across many dimensions, including the lethal supersizing of fast foods. More is better leads to business execution and reporting obesity. Business obesity is a big killer.
When putting together the yearly set of goals and objectives, do we develop a list of three or four that are truly critical to business? Or are we more likely to “brainstorm” a list of thirteen or fourteen? Upon review of our list, how many were really big deal items? How many were in the bag already? How many were anxieties driven, perhaps, to push off a nagging issue into the next cycle? When submitting the long list of items, are we confident that we’ve made great choices and we have a means to always do the critical first and the trivial last?
How do we decide what to measure? When reviewing our performance data, how much of it reports what got done? How much reports what did not get done? How should we spend our leadership and management time when reviewing performance data? Do we spend our time on what is going well or what is not? By the way, how much do we consume in resources measuring, compiling, reporting and reviewing all the data around what is OK? Are we generating noise that masks the signals we want to hear?
We may be doing and measuring too much and far too little at the same time. Yep, we may be creating an overabundance of activity and data that hides the real scarcity of attention on the critical to success.
- First, does our planning have a bias towards “covering our parts” with enough objectives so that we are not criticized for overlooking something? Does that lead us to put the trivial many on equal footing with the significant few? Does that lead to resource and funding obesity? Does that make prioritization more difficult, complex, and political? Hmmm?
- Does measuring the positive obscure or blur out the dangerous negatives? Where do we want our attention? Do we want it on what is supposed to happen and is happening? Why? Would we better served on focusing on what was supposed to happen and didn’t and what was not supposed to happen and did?
Say we’re investing time and money with our physician for yearly physicals and quarterly check-ups.
- Lots of important stuff gets measured for the yearly “planning and strategy” session around achieving our strategy, the one about healthy and lengthy living. What do we want out of the session? What do we want to know and what do we expect from the physician in terms of action items for the coming year? Do we want a plan with fourteen objectives, or four?
- During the quarterly sessions, how much attention do we want on the items that doing well and how much on the stuff that may be killing us? What do we want our physician to talk about during our limited time together?
- How is practicing focus, discipline and follow-through with our personal health different than practicing them for our enterprises?
So, how aren’t you doing today?
