How Do Leaders Deal Effectively With Too Many Initiatives At The Same Time? Part #2

As I pointed out last week, numerous organizations across the country are being swamped by too many initiatives. It is accelerated convergence and senior leaders and especially middle managers are on the verge of burn-out with how to cope with it all.

When dealing with this major problem, we, as leaders, need to have the will and the discipline to make hard choices. This will include having the courage to count and assess current initiatives, establish priorities after candid feedback and finally to put in place a sunset clause to all initiatives so those executing them are required to reapply for funding on a regular basis. 

John Doerr in his book, Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs (Portfolio, 2018) recommends we ask the following question when setting up a new goal: “How does the new goal stack up against existing ones?” Rose Hollister and Michael D. Watkins in their article, “Too Many Projects: How to deal with initiative overload”(September-October 2018 issue of the Harvard Business Review) recommends we ask the following two questions: “Does it [the new goal] have a positive impact on the business?” “Does it have a positive impact on the culture?” I believe all three of these questions are excellent starting places to prevent initiative overload.

From my experience, we are rushing the goal setting process and not actually spending enough time in in-depth thought and reflection. We are forgetting to explore whether or not the organization has the capability to support new goals and whether or not the employees have a level of individual competency to execute the goal in a successful manner.

Furthermore, Matthias Holweg, Bradley Staats, and David M. Upton in their article, “Making Process Improvements Stick”, in the November-December 2018 Harvard Business Review explain that early results that lead to process improvement can actually lead to back sliding. As they explain, to prevent back sliding, after the initial improvement, there needs to be viable support from senior leaders. “Without it, front line workers believe that the company’s enthusiasm for the effort has wandered, and backsliding ensues.” With strong support, 35% greater improvements happen after a year. However, there needs to be “consistent measuring and monitoring” for continued success.

To help with the aforementioned challenges, Matthias Holweg, Bradley Staats, and David M. Upton recommend three ways to help initiatives achieve sustained improvements over time. First, leaders need to communicate “the program in a clear narrative that aligns with the organization’s purpose.” Second, they need to direct “efforts toward pain points whose easing would clearly benefit employees.” Third, they need to ensure “that senior leaders act as coaches, enabling small wins to increase employees’ motivation and engagement.”

This week, remember that the biggest barriers to change and initiative overload are confusing strategies. So, can you clearly state what are the strategies of your company and why they were chosen? If so, are you and your team on the same page with this level of clarity? Finding common ground and common answers will make a big difference during the coming weeks.

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

How Do Leaders Deal Effectively With Too Many Initiatives At The Same Time? - Part #1

It was early in the morning as the COO and I sat down with her team. She explained to me that all of the staff were overwhelmed by the volume of work that needed to get done. There was just too much to do every single day and there was a trend of poor execution of the work when they were doing it. As she explained to me and the team, “Excellence is not so excellent these days.” As the group discussed this situation, there was a consensus that many people were getting sucked into very small and not very important details that caused them to not finish what they had already started.

So the question they asked me that morning was “What can we do to help our people?”

My answer that morning began with a quote and then moved to a question. The quote by Michael Porter was the following: “the  essence of strategy is choosing what not to do…”. I followed this with another quote of his which states “the essence of  [strategic] execution is truly not doing it.”  

I wish I could have had everyone around the table instantly read the following article: “Too Many Projects: How to deal with initiative overload” by Rose Hollister and Michael D. Watkins, September-October 2018 issue of the Harvard Business Review. Then, we could have moved into a very fruitful and important discussion, I instead asked those gathered a simple but significant question: “What is the difference between a goal, an objective, an initiative and a checklist?” You could have heard crickets or a pin drop in the room. What followed was a very good and in-depth dialogue to clarify key terms.

Most of our current challenges are multifaceted, i.e. made up of many different aspects, interconnected, and constantly changing. The upshot is that everything is getting boiled down to a checklist mentality. Working with a  binary mindset of “done” vs. “not done” causes many sideways cyclone, i.e. a time period in an organization where multiple projects are arriving at once. 

The late William Bridges points out that during times like this people need the following:

- clarity of purpose, i.e. understanding ”why?”

- a picture of optimal performance, i.e. the look and feel when we reach the goal

- a plan, i.e. the step-by step goals of how to get to the above picture

- clarity about my part in all of it, i.e. role clarity

Rose Hollister and Michael D. Watkins in their article, “Too Many Projects: How to deal with initiative overload” (September-October 2018 issue of the Harvard Business Review) note that the roots of the problem fall into the following four different areas:

- Impact blindness - being oblivious to the number and cumulative impact of the initiatives an organization has in progress, and a lack of a mechanism to identify, measure, and manage the demands initiatives place on managers.

- Band-aid initiatives - projects are launched to provide limited fixes to significant problems… none of which may adequately deal with root causes.

- Cost myopia - cutting people without cutting the related work…. people are working harder with fewer resources.

- Initiative inertia - lack the means (and the will) to stop existing initiatives…. they have no “sunset” process for determine when to close things down.

As Hollister and Watkins explain, the most common solution to this problem is to prioritize by function or department. However, these priorities can not be set in a vacuum as many initiatives work across different groups within the organization. Furthermore, they are often set without feedback. Remember most leaders lack a full view of demands across the entire enterprise.

Another common solution is to establish overall priorities without deciding what to cut. Leadership teams often engage in prioritization exercises that define and communicate where people should focus their energy. However, they undermine those efforts if they don’t also do the hard work of deciding what trade-offs to make and what has to stop.

Finally, some leadership teams end up making across-the-board initiative cuts. The problem with this is that when leaders are asked to make cuts in all departments, each group finds its own way to comply. However, this does not take into consideration overall organizational priorities and interdependencies.

This week, I strongly encourage you to read the following article: “Too Many Projects: How to deal with initiative overload” by Rose Hollister and Michael D. Watkins in the September-October 2018 issue of the Harvard Business Review. It will be very good food for thought.

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