Decision-making In The Middle of A Pandemic

All over this world, people are overwhelmed and doing their best. At work and at home, people are making small and large decisions. It is exhausting and it is very challenging. Sometimes we forget that “Life seeks organization,” says Margaret Wheatley in her book, Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time. (Berrett-Koehler, 2005), “but it uses messes to get there. Organization is a process, not a structure.” Many days we struggle with the messy nature of this time period and we desperately want organization and structure.

One the reasons we are struggling, especially in the area of decision-making, is that we have encountered an unknown unknown, a phrase former U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld made famous in 2002. As he explained” “there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. There are also known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And … it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”

In recent executive coaching sessions over the phone, I have spent a great deal of time talking about making decisions and decision architecture. In the beginning we need to think of decision-making as a four step process, namely preparing to make a decisions, making a decision, executing a decision and evaluating a decision. This framework can be used at work and at home. And since most of of are working from home, it would be good if everyone at home is aware of this framework.

In the Preparation Phase of decision-making, leaders sense what is happening in their environment and identify the problems that are taking place. From my perspective, this is the stage where I have to sort the noise from the signal. What information is actually useful, important and something I need to pay attention to vs. what information is just noise, i.e. non-salient factors or interference? As I answer this question, it is good to do an analysis of causality, i.e. what is causing what to take place. Furthermore, I need to think about what is the best way to make and execute my decision, i.e. the decision architecture. 

One interesting thing for me as an executive coach is that when I see good decision-making taking place in the midst of COVID-19, I see that all people involved know two very specific things. First, they understand the difference between what is a priority and what is a goal. Second, they know whether or not they should bump an issue up to a higher level in the company. Clarity about these two things are making a major difference between functional teams, all working digitally from home offices, and dysfunctional teams who are struggling in the exact same working environment.

In the Call Phase of decision-making, leaders actually make a decision. Most people think of this as the single moment of rational analysis based on knowable and quantifiable variables. In reality, it is a dynamic process influenced by multiple variables which are often outside of a leader’s direct circle of control or influence. The best leaders make decisions that influence now but they also set up a framework for others to make successful decisions.

From my perspective, the people who are making the best decisions right now are the ones who stop and think carefully about the impact and precedent that they are setting when the decision moves to the execution phase of the process. This depth of clarity does not happen instantaneously but with time and good coaching, it can become a learned and executable skills set.

In the Execution Phase of decision-making, a leader needs to mobilize resources, e.g. people, information, and technology, to support it. One of the most powerful resources is to make sure people have the time to work that is not interrupted by other people’s agenda’s or goals. Given current events and how many people are feeling overwhelmed and are overwhelmed, we have to recognize that everyone in the workforce has a reduced bandwidth for execution. Their minds are just full of trying to figure out the known unknowns and still being blown away by more and more unknown unknowns.

Finally, in the Evaluation Phase of decision-making, we engage in an evaluation process to determine whether or not our decision was effective. One thing I think we need to remember in the midst of this global pandemic is that the outcome of good decisions should be a shared commitment to continual improvement and a shared level of clarity about how all our decisions connect to the mission of the organization and our own personal sense of purpose in our lives.

For those of you who want more information about decision-making, I encourage you to read the following article: “Making Judgment Calls: The Ultimate Act of Leadership” by Noel M. Tichy and Warren Bennis in the October 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review.

As always, stay strong, stay healthy, stay safe, and keep in touch. I look forward to seeing you on the other side.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

How do leaders build successful teams? - part #2

Picking up where I left off last week, leaders often make two other mistakes when building their teams.

First, they forget to focus on the factors that create high-performance behaviors. We already know that effective leaders clarify purpose and direction with the team. To get everyone aligned and moving in the right direction, the team must agree on the answers to the following four questions:

- What are we suppose to accomplish?

- Why should we do it?

- How will we do it?

- Who will do what?

By clarifying these performance expectations, we, as leaders, need to be very thoughtful in our choice of who is on the team. I recognize the importance of performance focus and expectations, but, when most leaders tell me their expectations in reality all they have done is to define specific steps to achieving a goal. The problem is that by defining specific steps we as leaders think we have control of the team. The reality is that we as leaders have less control than the people who report to us. 

Furthermore, the people who create high-performance behaviors know the difference between what are required steps, e.g. ones related to health, safety or accuracy, and the optional steps, i.e. different ways to achieve the desired outcome. The problem is that most leaders think they are the one who is accountable for the team’s performance. They believe that if they retain control and focus people on performance then everyone will behave and get things done. The reality is that people are messy and all of them do not think or behave the same.

Therefore, the best leaders define results and outcomes during the expectations discussion. This means figuring out what is the right result and the right outcome. They do this by discussing the following questions:

- If the SMART goal is achieved, what is the result? The outcome?

- What difference will achieving the goal make?

By clarifying the results and the outcomes, we are letting people take responsibility for the route they take to the outcome. Please note that this requires of us as leaders to trust people.

One interesting I have noted about successful teams during the last 2 years is that they have a very defined schedule for team meetings. They fall into the categories of strategic, operational, and learning. And these subjects are not all covered in the same meeting.

Furthermore, during these different meetings all involved are clear about the decision architecture, i.e. how to make a decision, and the decision rights, i.e. who actually gets to make the decision.  Richard Hackman in his book, Leading Teams: Setting The Stage For Great Performances (Harvard Business School Press, 2002) says that this degree of clarity “prevents the danger of the team overstepping the actual bounds of their authority.”

The second big problem in building teams is that many leaders do not focus on continually creating clarity. Many think of it as a one and done, and that clarity created at the launch meeting is suppose to sustain people through out the entire time of team execution. 

To help avoid this being the problem, I often ask leaders to tell me their on-going message to the team.  In essence, what are they focusing on with their team. Most give me a generic answer, but I have observed that the best are constantly on-message and share it in the written and spoken forms of communication. Plus they are very specific in their role modeling.

This week, do not underestimate the importance of face to face meetings and analog based communication. Focus more on forming and norming stages than on performing and improving stages in your team building. And remember Robyn Benincas’ Four P’s of Commitment from her book, How Winning Works: 8 Essential Leadership Lessons From The Toughest Teams On Earth (Harlequin, 2012): preparation, planning, purpose and perseverance.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Delegation is Not Dumping

When things get crazy busy in the trough of chaos, some leaders just dump and run. They race into a meeting, late from their last meeting, and listen for a few minutes before deciding what to do. Then, they speak quickly and dump all of the work onto those in the meeting before running off to their next meeting. It’s a classic dump and run form of leadership. It’s not even command and control which, for the most part outside a strict military hierarchy, is mostly control and command. No, this form of leadership is mostly listen, freak out, react, dump, and run. It never works even if you’ve been doing it for eons.

First, dumping work onto people is not delegation. It’s just plan disrespectful to those who receive it, and who more likely are already busy themselves. Second, it reflects internal chaos rather than just external chaos. Third, it never builds ownership and quality outcomes. It’s just plain sloppy leadership.

When you meet excellent leaders who work for very good companies, they recognize that delegation is the transferring of clarity, focus and the authority to complete a task or project in a timely and accurate manner. They start by building ownership and clarity. This happens before the act of delegation takes place. When an excellent leader builds a day to day work environment where people are respected, trusted and treated with dignity, this same leader also role models these characteristics. Then effective delegation is a successful by product of their initial work.

Next, when an exceptional leader does delegate, they first make sure people understand the problem they are trying to solve and understand the decision architecture around the problem, i.e. who can and who can not be involved and how to make the important decisions related to the issues that are being delegated.

Finally, exceptional leaders recognize that the day to day experiences of employees impact not just the day to day life of the company, but also impacts the company’s ability to execute it’s strategy. I keep reminding leaders at this time period that the ways they lead and delegate in 2018 have a direct impact on what kind of company they will be in 2023, a mere five years away from this winter.

This week, do not choose to dump and run. Coach everyone within your circle of influence to not do it either. When we no longer tolerate poor delegation, we are making a long term commitment to doing the right things for the right reasons.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

How Successful Leaders Think

Bill Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company magazine, wrote, “Leaders who change the game recognize that success is not just about thinking differently from other companies. It is also about caring more than other companies - about customers, about colleagues, about how the organization conducts itself in a world with endless opportunities to cut corners and compromise values. You can't be special, distinctive, compelling in the marketplace unless you create something special, distinctive, compelling in the workplace. Your strategy is your culture." 

I agree with this quote on so many levels. Given all my travels and three decades of work, I have clearly seen that success is about caring more than other companies about customers, partners, colleagues and the organization as a whole. Furthermore, I fundamentally agree with the idea that “your strategy is your culture.” When I step back from the day to day hustle and bustle of work and look at the bigger picture, I notice the following about how successful leaders think and successful companies work.

First, we live in an era of nonstop interruptions and disruptions. Right now, there are continual external disruptions to the established order of how things get done. The impact of this constant lack of continuity from quarter to quarter, year to year in systems, service and production has yielded a high level of burnout and cynicism amongst many employees, plus a general decline in a disciplined commitment to the pursuit of excellence.

Second, we live in a world filled with me-too thinkers, and fast followers. With strategy and competitive advantage being so transparent, any and every idea, service or product is constantly being copied, tweaked and/or slightly customized by the competition. There is very little originality in the world of product or service delivery, and there are very few people who want to take the risks associated with being original or unique.

Third, we live in a period where tunnel vision is epidemic. As many organizations rush to solve pressing operational problems and preserve market share in an unstable or deteriorating market, they often experience a loss of peripheral vision, i.e. strategic awareness and understanding, causing them to loose sight of the true underlying factors that created their success in the first place. Using a Jim Collin’s metaphor, they zoom in rather than zoom out most of the time.

Fourth, after all we have experienced since September 2008, there still are leaders who believe that they are entitled to success given all they have achieved to date, and how hard they have worked. To them, success is viewed as “deserved,” rather than fortuitous, fleeting, or even hard earned. These individuals believe that their success will continue no matter what the organization decides to do, or not to do. As Jim Collins wrote in his book,  How The Mighty Fall and Why Some Companies Never Give In, HarperCollins, 2009, these individuals role model an “Undisciplined Pursuit of More.”

So, given this context, how do successful leaders think?

As Reed Hammans noted at the Spring 2012 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable, successful leaders understand that “information is not knowledge” and knowing is not doing. From my vantage point, I see more and more people who are on bended knee worshiping technology as the solution to all problems. And more and more people are blaming technology for not providing for them the solutions they want. Finally, more and more people complain about having too many e-mail and text messages than ever before. But we must understand that being successful is less about technology and more about psychology. Human beings are human beings with all of our frailties and strengths. 

The first step in understanding how successful leaders think is to recognize that they see problems and the future in a holistic manner. They examine how different elements impact or interact with each other from a holistic vantage point. Successful leaders do not, by default, break down all problems into pieces and work on them separately or sequentially. As Roger Martin in his wonderful article called, “How Successful Leaders Think”, Harvard Business Review, June 2007, notes “Opposable thumbs- opposable minds.” Successful leaders are able to see the same problem from different vantage points, and different perspectives.

From what I observe and understand, when successful leaders see problems in a holistic manner and understand the dynamic nature of problem solving, they carefully begin by defining the problem, issue or challenge. The key to this process is that they determine the salience of all the factors related to the problem even if it is not in line with their department or organization doctrine, e.g. a head of finance department that considers a qualitative measure to be as important as a quantitative measure.

Next, rather than discard factors to simplify a problem, they embrace the diversity of factors in a problem, recognizing that not all information is accurate and not all knowledge is current.

With the above in mind, successful leaders also analyze the context, people, the variables, and the language around the problem, exploring linear vs. non-linear causality. For example, direct or linear causality is a straight line and sequential development or cause in a certain situation. On the other hand, in-direct or non-linear causality comes from the examination or exploration into non-linear elements impacting what is taking place, e.g. two people in the work place that are struggling to communicate well, each being impacted by external events like the health of an aging parent or a son getting involved in a prank at school.

Once the above has been done well, successful leaders determine the decision architecture related to a problem or challenge. After better understanding a problem and figuring out the variables involved, they then look to what are the decision-making variables, e.g. who?, what?, when? and how?. Then, they methodically examine the decision-making variables and make a decision. After the decision has been made, successful leaders mobilize people and resources to implement the decision. The goal of all this level of work is to align themselves and their team so that everyone understand why the decision was made the way it was made.

We live in tough economic and political times. Understanding how successful people think and work through these tough times gives us a road map to a better way. Now is the time to strengthen our culture and our strategy by thinking better and more effectively.  

This week, practice slowing down and thinking more holistically. As Jim Collins’ often wrote, zoom out before you zoom in is the first step to fixing something.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Leaders and Decision-Making - part #1

I was meeting with a young mid-level manager when he shared his desire to teach problem solving to his key supervisors. Over time, he had realized many of the phone calls he was getting were from front line supervisors about problems they were having. As he explained, “I realized we were really dealing with issues related to decision-making on a daily basis. While I have helped them to learn the difference between technical and adaptive problems, many of the callers have framed up the problem before them as neither technical nor adaptive. For them, this is a crisis. What do I do?”

One of the first things we need to remember is that people, strategy and crises are the three most important areas that leaders make decisions. And when we as leaders make the right decisions, they will yield good outcomes. However, the big question for many leaders right now is this: What are the good outcomes or results we are seeking?

First, a lack of clarity around the desired outcomes or results is part of the current challenges we are facing. When we expect leaders to be competent in driving results through others, we also expect them to be able to articulate the desired results, and why these are the desired results.

Second, we as leaders at times forget that effective decision-making includes a “redo loop.” This typically happens when we discover that we can not, or did not mobilize and align key stakeholders. If this happens, then we need to go back and reset the context, i.e. the why, for change.

Third, we need to remember that there are four stages to decision-making, namely preparation, the actual decision, execution and evaluation. Leaders who improve their decision-making and the decision-making of others do this by improving the preparation stage. Here, the best leaders help all involved focus on the salient factors. Kevin Cashman in his book, Leadership From The Inside Out: Becoming a Leader for Life, Berrett-Koehler, 2008 calls it the CIA Model of decision-making. He suggests we focus on the following three things:

- What can we control?

- What can we influence?

- What must we accept?

By having a framework to prepare to make a decision, we empower all involved to think through the decision rather than simply react to the situation before them This, in essence, gives them a decision architecture for today and in the future.

This week, review with your direct reports the decision architecture for your office or organization. This will be a powerful first step in helping people improve their decision making.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257