More Gossip
Our last discussion was about the game “Gossip” and the calamities resembling the Tower of Babel and the language disconnects that impact our enterprises. In that initial article, I mentioned that we might need a Rosetta stone as a tool that enables translations within our organizations. I believe that the issue is not so much the need to change the language and cultural legacies within enterprises. That endeavor is onerous and tough to sustain. Perhaps the alternative is to have a shared common language that threads up and down and across the enterprise. For that to work, the language needs to be devoid of complexity, stuff to memorize, and applicable to the present and alternative futures we may face or choose.
The simplistic answer is characterized by the old adage, “In God we trust, all others must bring data,” which has a necessary component, objectivity, but insufficient. Data is very expensive, so we want to be smart shoppers. Let’s first ask: what data, whose data, and the myriad of when and how questions that will need to be answered in perpetuity. There are also questions about the data believability and measurement issues that need attention. As smart shoppers, we should decide first, then buy that which we need critically before we spend on that which we may also want. Since our wallets are limited, less is better, parsimony rules. So how do we decide?
I’ll go back to two earlier questions in the “North by Northwest” discussion. Where are you? Where are you going? Then, with the answers to the first two questions in hand, we should add the third question, “What are the critical few things that we need to deal with and manage to thrive while we’re executing here (our mission), and also get to where we’re going (our vision) with as little investment, loss, or delay as possible?” You should conclude that there are many items that pale in importance to the critical few. That should get us a good starting point. It also means that reality says that some items go to the top of the shopping list while others go to the bottom or off completely. Money spent on items on the bottom of the list may leave us short on the items at the top. Ouch, we may have to choose and also say no. This is not about how to build a budget and allocate spend, but rather how to execute with line of sight to the vitals.
Yes, that means the work that some resources are doing are far more important than what others are. When you find the important ones, be they in their processes, projects, functions, departments, budgets, contracts, suppliers, and customers, map them on a big wall. Find a way to connect them to what is critical. That’s the beginning of deciding where to build the first team that goes to common language class. Starting with what really matters will help us during the subsequent steps.
It’s like taking our enterprise on a road trip from Orlando to Phoenix. There are costs to side trips. In fact, having clarity about where we are and going enables better choices along the way. The value of a GPS for travelers is very high, perhaps one for navigating our organization may be a good investment. Good maps have a common language and seasoned travelers know how to read them.
Not everybody is navigating. Ready to go?
