What happens when a problem arises?

A couple of posts ago, I asked what happens when someone brings a problem they’ve discovered to the leaders’ attention. I want to go back to this topic as this is where so many people think they know what’s going on in their organization and can either see this as an opportunity to learn or can brush things off as not that bad.

When you think of the team you’re on, whether that’s your job, your family, or community group, there’s bound to be something that comes up where someone sees things not going as they ought. If you can’t think of a time like this, than you’ve either found the dream scenario of working relationships or something’s not quite right.

If you honestly can’t think of a time when there hasn’t been a discovery of sorts, take a closer look. Maybe the leader of the group is brushing things off casually and quickly when things are brought to his/her attention. If you can think of a time like this, it’s time to start noticing these little brush offs, and speak up. Say something. Great stories always have necessary tension (note: this doesn’t mean turn everything into a fight, but allow the group to have tough conversations and really think things over for the good of the whole) if you really can’t think of a time when a problem has been brought to the team, then chances are your people don’t feel safe to share. They could be concerned about being ridiculed, like they aren’t smart enough to understand why this “problem” is necessary or that they don’t understand the industry. If you’re the leader, one way to start building trust in sharing is to ask your team what could be better. This concept from Harvard professor, Sheila Hein, is about the feedback loop. If part of the problem is you, and safe feedback loops aren’t a regular rhythm in your organization, you’ll never know what others could help improve and ultimately help the organization grow.

Do you find yourself on the opposite side and your team has no issues giving feedback but the way the conversation happens feels disorienting and unhealthy? Does it seem like there’s always that person who “finds” things and has a hard time not seeing the roadblocks to your vision? This can sometimes be easier to work with than a group who can’t see the problems or won’t acknowledge them, so you may be in luck!

It really is a positive thing that your people can speak openly to you. After all, I’m sure some of the things they’ve brought up over time have been things that truly need to be addressed. But if it feels overwhelming or like they just have a negative personality, one way to try to harness their ability to see details clearly and use it to further the vision is to give clear opportunities for them to share any concerns. Going back to some points from Sheila Hein, give a clear time frame of when the feedback should be given. Maybe you have a monthly meeting with your team, one way you could implement a defined feedback loop is to ask the group at your next meeting to send you 1 thing they think you’re doing well as an organization and 1 area they think you can grow as an organization. Asking for 1 item gives the group an opportunity to share concerns but also let’s you know where things could be great and ensure it’s on your radar. Depending on the feedback, you can ask deeper questions, and find out if the problem is a process to resolve or is it a personality issue between your people (maybe it’s you).

The one crucial element to trying this, is that you must receive the feedback well. You can’t control what people say, but you can control your response. If you take offense or get upset immediately, take a breath. As the leader, if you don’t respond well, you’ll begin to unintentionally communicate that the group is not really valued when they give feedback contrary to your own opinions. If these individuals really provide an added value and you trust them, then remember that when hard conversations begin. You want them on your team or you wouldn’t have asked them in the first place. Remember their strengths and that they are here for a reason as well. If you are having a difficult time remembering why you asked them to join or what the value they bring truly is, then in a kind and caring way, ask them why they are a part of the group? What makes them excited to be there? Knowing this, will also help you remember when they have comments that seem to cut to the bone, that they’re bringing these things up because they care. Even if the delivery of their words sometimes has a hard way of showing it.

If you have a person who just seems to derail every conversation, set some ground rules. Give them the opportunity to share concerns, but keep things moving forward. If the conversation feels like a hamster wheel, take a break. Ask if you can get together for coffee and really dive in but that everyone has value to add in other areas and that you want to honor them as well. Maybe it’s a matter of setting a coffee meeting with the person after each monthly meeting where they can go into detail but it doesn’t stop the other key elements from being a part of the group conversation.

Knowing how to handle conflict and how your team approaches problems, will give you a competitive advantage. By better understanding how to “fight” so to speak, you’ll be able to find ways to problem solve faster and better by using everyone’s strengths.

3 Books

I love the covers of books. I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I also love to see the thought someone gave to this prized piece of work and how they want to put it out into the world. Book covers invite you into an underlying theme of the book itself. The three books I’m planning to read over the rest of this year definitely have covers that set the tone for how they want to help you strategize your work and life. A couple of these I’ve half-read before but want to give them the time and headspace their content deserves.

1. Scrum: the art of doing twice the work in half the time.

This book blows up the theory that multi-tasking gets more done. Sutherland uses techniques from his days as a journalist in extreme locations (think war-torn countries) and how he was able to help his team accomplish more despite the obstacles constantly surrounding them.

2. Help the Helper

I love the hands reaching from “p” to “l” on this one. This book was recommended to me and has been on my “to read” list for a while. (I have a toddler and work full time so reading either gets pushed off my “must get done” list or I may or may not have a record of falling asleep while reading. So it takes me a while to finish a book.)

Help the helper is a basketball concept. Great players know that when a teammate goes to help another teammate, a hole is left open. Great players fill in this gap. It’s these quiet ways that ensure defense is strong and offense can capitalize on opportunities. This book is about taking that concept to business and develop ways to reward your “players” who help others and don’t just focus on what their specific role covers.

I’m really looking forward to Help the Helper.

3. The 4 Disciplines of Execution

I learned about this book at an annual leadership event I attend. Similar to Scrum, this book gives you practical tools for how to accomplish your goals, but uses a different approach and names the pitfalls that keep you from getting things done. (Is email inbox: 0 really the most helpful goal to have?)

These books have some promising insights to help you get the important things done and to keep the important things top of mind.

Happy reading!

Is the time right?

Is there a right time for a strategic plan? And if there is, how do you know if you’re there? If you’re asking these questions or others that relate to the larger purpose of what you’re doing, a strategic plan is needed but there are additional factors you should consider before jumping in with both feet.

First, if your organization is foggy on purpose or suspect that your processes aren’t helping you get things done, this is a great indicator that you need a strategic plan to provide solutions.

But, maybe you’re on the flip side and things are going great, but you’re in new territory and want to be certain that all the details are covered, you need a strategic to stay on course.

Another key factor to determine if the timing is right is if your team is ready. Do you trust each other? If anyone doesn’t feel safe to share candidly or give real, honest feedback, any plan you create will not work. Let me clarify, the key influencers and leaders of your organization are a gold mine of knowledge. They know the entry level workers, how the other managers feel about decisions, and know the leader of the organization’s (you) blind spots. These leaders need to be able to share the good and the bad openly to create needed change. If your organization has a lack of trust, even on small levels, it can sabotage your plans. One way to know if you have trust, is to think of the last time anyone brought a problem to the group of leaders’ attention. But that leads to a whole other post.

Using these filters on your organization’s current state will give you insight to determine if you’re ready to begin a strategic planning process. If these filters of lacking purpose or systems, taking new ground, or establishing trust, open your eyes to other areas that need to be addressed, there are things you can do. The fact that you’re asking any questions is a step in the right direction. You’re working to build a culture that not only gets things done, but is healthy and meaningful.

Vision Casting

“Where there is no vision, there is no hope.” George Washington Carver

We all understand that you have to have vision in order to make things happen. But how do you help others see what could be when it’s not yet, or even close, to a reality?

Vision casting makes or breaks strategy. The best plans can be crushed simply by not having those who need to go with you understand or be bought in to our strategy to accomplish our vision. If you’re a one-man-show, you only need to envision yourself. For most of us, we have to bring others along the journey; whether that’s our employees, our boss, our spouse, or our family. We have to help the people who are going to be doing the hard work alongside us to get a taste of how things could be better. We must paint the picture of how life could be different.

This can be easier said than done. Many of us, once we see our own vision, can’t go back to the mindset of not seeing the vision. While it’s great to have focus, we must put ourselves in the shoes of those with us. If they don’t understand the difference between our current reality and the possibilities ahead, our ability as a team to have success on a larger scale will be in jeopardy. But why wouldn’t we want things to be better? Why does vision casting sometimes seem more challenging than it should be?

In my own experience, moving from current state and trying to grasp a new reality is not a pain-free ride. It’s hard work. There are problems that we didn’t anticipate. There is conflict as we all learn how to navigate this together.

As the leader of the group, your job is to continually remind the team that there will be a pay off. That while we may land with bumps and bruises, the new territory will have greater rewards than what we can grasp now. That this tiring challenge will come to an end.

If you fail to vision cast over and over, you allow space for doubt to creep in. Second guesses start to enter the team’s mind. Heck, as the leader we will probably have those doubts and second guesses ourselves! But we must remember, the light at the end of the tunnel is coming. You can’t just expect to cast vision once and the vision will stay afresh in the hearts and minds of our team. It’s a reminder. We all need to be reassured sometimes. We all need to keep our strategy to achieve our vision top of mind so we know we’re in this together.

When we view vision casting as a checkbox to be completed, we overestimate that this is a one and done process. We forget that when the work gets hard, we all need someone alongside us telling us it’s going to be worth it and that we are here together.

Let’s make a renewed commitment to ourselves and to our teams that vision casting is a frequently needed element. Let’s keep on-point of our strategy and remember it’s always darkest before the dawn.

How-To: Prioritize the Steps of Your Plan

One of the most crucial steps to any good plan is deciding how to prioritize your next steps. Have you ever been in a meeting when a group is trying to set priorities? It always starts out nice and easy but many times it spirals into this disagreement that feels like like you’re on a treadmill to nowhere and it’s up to the most stubborn, loudest voice to decide. Yeah, I’ve never been in that meeting either.

While passion can absolutely be a good attribute to have, this way of decision-making isn’t going to generate the results you want for a project and it chips away at morale of the team. Not good.

Priorities must be set with intention, collaboration, and vision. Respect them. Priorities by definition give you the freedom to say yes to some things and no to others. This means that if you let the biggest personality, loudest voice, or most senior level person be the only one to make the decision, every other person is told they don’t have as much to contribute, they aren’t smart enough to help figure out the right path, and, most importantly, that they aren’t valued.

So how do we decide when everything seems so important? Maybe everything is on fire? Here are some basic rules to follow when setting priorities to give your plan a solid foundation.

1. Process. In general, you want to keep in mind not only which tasks you’re choosing but also which tasks should happen first. The process of a project is a lot like a puzzle. Some pieces have obvious places where they belong, like a corner piece, and others don’t, like a center piece in a puzzle of the clear, blue sky. This is where you dump all the steps on the table and organize. Where are there obvious steps? If you’re making a marketing piece you must have content written before it can go to copy-editing or have the photo image selected before you send it to design. If you can clean up some of the mess just by organizing, everyone has more brain space to focus on harder decisions.

2. End Game. I know, you’re wondering why I didn’t list this first. Isn’t the vision of why we do things the most important? Yes, that is true. But in my experience, getting a team to make progress on prioritizing together is a small win that helps build momentum. Using the example from above of having written content before copy-editing, some things just have a natural order. It doesn’t matter what type of project it is, because you can’t edit text that doesn’t exist. Helping your team feel that sense of accomplishment early will give them the feeling like the 5 minute warm-up of their 30 minute workout is complete. Now that those easier decisions have been made, you need to know your vision for this project so you can make harder judgement calls. This is the space to make those calls, right after you get an easy win.

3. Timeline. Many times, we create these elaborate plans and are clueless about the fact that we need to accomplish the task/project in 2 weeks. Or we rush to complete something when we could have given it more thought and care to create a better product. When we simply pull out the calendar and face the reality of time, this helps us better understand what is essential.

These steps in prioritizing are building blocks. From here, you can add in layers that help your specific team work well or pivot because you know what doesn’t help them. You can bring your team together knowing everyone has been given a chance to use their voice, the project has been given care and is well thought out, and the vision that everyone was excited to join in the first place remains at the center.

4 Keys to Leading Across

Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.com

When I first started working, I admired those who were considered leaders. There was an aura, of sorts, that calmed the room when they entered, a confidence that followed them and seemed to bless their decisions. It also felt to be a very top-down system. The “leaders”, whether good or bad, always had the power, authority, and appeared to be supported by a hierarchy.

Fortunately, I’ve learned that while leaders do have authority and power, the good leaders aren’t found in a top-down system. The good leaders are the middle managers who can not only lead their employees but can influence their peers and even superiors. The good leaders are individual contributors who can shape process and offer effective decisions by leading across.

This type of leader, in my experience, relies on 4 key traits:

1. Humility: this one probably goes without saying. When someone has the ability to gain respect of those around them and shape the culture, it’s a powerful set of cards they hold. But to have this power and understand they also need grace and don’t know it all, it results in a humility that people want to follow.

2. Relationship Builder: leaders who know they can’t do it on their own have a leg up in leading across. They can reach out to others about utilizing their skills on a project or team with an attitude of showcasing the other person’s talent and not using them to get ahead.

3. Keep the Good of the Whole in Mind: leading across means looking for ways that keeps the big picture in mind. Having the wisdom to know when it’s ok to loose the battle because it will contribute to winning the war is a special skill in many boardrooms.

4. Make the #1 Priority the Focus of the Team: leaders who know their big goal have the freedom to say no to what will keep them from accomplishing their #1 priority. This freedom cascades down to their team and keeps everyone focused with fresh vision.