Nobody Killed the Initiative. It Just Faded.

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Execution Fade Isn’t a Project Management Problem — It’s a Leadership One

But it started so well…

Most strategic initiatives launch well — clear rationale, visible leadership backing, a kickoff. Then, somewhere around month three to six, the attention quietly moves on.

Steering committee meetings get skipped. Updates get shorter. The thing that was going to change how the organization operates becomes one more line item.

This rarely looks like outright failure.

More often it’s one of three quieter outcomes: the work limps across the finish line, delivered by a team that stopped believing leadership cared about its success.

Or the scope shrinks to match whatever resources are left. Nobody formally decides that or owns it.

Or the bar gets lowered, the team declares victory, and everyone quietly knows what actually happened.

Each version is survivable enough that no one has to name it which is exactly why the pattern repeats.

 

Execution Fade is a leadership team problem, not a project management one. And it has real cost. The sunk budget and resource costs. The project team’s sense that their time was wasted. Another opportunity lost or challenge left partially unaddressed.

 

Two important fixes for Execution Fade.

  • Put the initiative on the standing leadership team agenda and check it against the original intent, not just activity.
  • Make one leadership team member (not the program lead) fully accountable for each initiative. Tie their goals and their incentives to it. Ownership at the program level gets you coordination; ownership at the leadership level gets you commitment.

The launch is the easy part. Sustained attention has to be managed on purpose. Like anything that’s important, it doesn’t happen on its own.

That meeting is costing you more than you think.

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Your presence in certain meetings isn’t helping. It’s editing.

 

As a senior leader, what is your impact on meetings?

You’ve probably done the work of cutting low-value meetings from your calendars. Have you ever looked at what your presence in certain meetings is costing the people around you?

When a Director or VP or someone even more senior shows up to a working session or team meeting, the room changes.

The meeting becomes a performance

Debate narrows. Decisions that were forming get pushed aside. Most people in the room are managing up instead of solving the problem. Instead of a working session, and the real conversation happens afterward in the hallway.

I’ve seen this happen in so many meetings I’ve been in. It’s not about intent — most leaders attend these meetings because they care about the work. It’s about effect. Presence at the wrong stage of a decision doesn’t improve the outcome. It can shortcut the thinking that makes good outcomes possible. 

On a project years ago, the team I was leading had gotten into a rhythm and were making real progress. Then my boss came in the room. She asked questions we’d decided upon weeks ago, added ideas she saw as helpful but lacked context. My team shifted almost immediately to make her happy, rather than make the right decision. It then took us multiple meetings to get back on track.

The practical fix isn’t to become less engaged.

It’s to be more deliberate about what kind of engagement a given moment actually needs — input, oversight, or a decision. Those are three different roles, and showing up the same way to all three is where the cost accumulates.

Two actions worth taking this week

  • Audit the recurring meetings on your calendar and identify which ones you attend out of habit rather than necessity.
  • Then pick one working session where your team is developing a recommendation and don’t attend — let them bring you the output instead. Notice what’s different about what they bring you.

5 Keys to Making Better Leadership Decisions

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Are you tired of your team struggling to make crucial decisions?  Looking for better results? Effective decision making can mean the difference between surviving and thriving as an organization. Here are 5 essential elements of a success decision-making process.

  1. Don’t approach all decisions the same. In a recent global survey, McKinsey looked at how ‘winning’ companies approach decision-making.  They differentiate decisions based on three criteria:
    • Frequency
    • Risk
    • Importance

This combination of factors helps define the decision, who’s involved, the level where the decision should be made, and which tools will help ensure the best decision is being made.  Decisions can be:

    • Big bet: infrequent and high risk/high importance
    • Cross-cutting: frequent and high risk/high importance
    • Delegated: frequent and lower risk/lower importance
  1. Define clear objectives: Before making any decision, ensure that everyone on the team knows the objectives and goals that the decision is meant to achieve. Too often we assume everyone is on the same page only to find out the opposite. Have explicit conversations about the goals and objectives it will achieve.
  1. Balance psychological safety with intellectual honesty. Jeff Dyer et. al. discuss how intellectual honesty and psychological safety are key to incremental and breakthrough innovation and learning – both outcomes of decision making.  Create a decision-making environment where people feel comfortable sharing their concerns, questions, and ideas while also allowing for difference and ideas to be debated and explored.
  1. Be aware of decision bias. We all have biases.  It’s part of how our brain functions.  However, we need to be aware of those biases and push against them.  Common decision biases include the sunk cost bias, confirmation bias, and the herd mentality.
  1. Evaluate and learn. After making a decision, take the time to evaluate the outcome and learn from it. This will help your team make better decisions in the future.

It’s important to note that decision-making, especially at the strategic level, should follow a process that fits your organization and culture.  With few exceptions,  the process should be followed consistently, so that everyone knows how it works, shortcuts aren’t taken, and that consistency creates efficiency over time.

If you’re not happy with results of your decision-making, no matter how long you’ve been doing it that way, or how recently you changed the process, don’t be afraid to review and revise the process. Most organizations can benefit from a third party to help them understand their strengths and weaknesses and how to re-engineer their decision-making. At the very least, start with these 5 keys.

10 Tips to Help Your Team in a Disrupted Environment

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Coronavirus is creating more disruption than many of us have ever experienced. It impacts our personal lives and professional lives. It’s doing the same for everyone around us. The situation changes daily with closings, cancellations, and now, decisions to have many people work from home.

Working from home may be a new way of working for some people or old hat for others.  Either way, it’s now a reality for everyone. Here are some tips to help you successfully lead your team as they adjust to working in a new way, in a new location, in a world of disruption.

1. Reflect. how are you feeling about what is going on? How do you feel about the remote work? In times of uncertainty, your team largely will calibrate their response to the uncertainty based on your response. Set up routines for yourself to help you ‘keep calm and carry on.’

2. Show empathy. people are experiencing everything from minor concern to outright fear, not to mention disruption on multiple fronts. In addition, people may not be able to create the most productive work environment. Schools may close. They may have older relatives they need to check in on. Their ability to shut it all out may be taxed. Talk about Feelings First.

3. Move off email, communicate real time. Even in the most email-driven organizations, we see each other all the time. When everyone is remote, we don’t. Relying only on email can feel isolating. Pick up the phone. Get on Skype. Make a live connection.

4. Set up a cadence for communication. What was your cadence up to this point for team and individual meetings. Keep that. What else do you need to add? This is a rapidly changing situation. At a minimum, daily updates, should be the norm until the pace of disruption slows down. The length of the updates can change, but the regularity shouldn’t change abruptly.

5. Check-in, 1-on-1. do personal check-ins with each person. Make sure they are adjusting well and have what they need to succeed. Ask questions. Actively listen.

6. Collaboratively create contingency plans. There are lots of unknowns and risks right now.  What contingencies might your team need? For example, how will the team adjust if members become ill and are out for several days? What if someone has an ill family member they need to care for? Working collaboratively on these plans will create buy-in and better solutions.

7. Create a virtual break room.  Create ways that team members can catch up with each other and chat. It can be as simple as having each other’s cell phone numbers to send texts, hop on Skype/Facetime or actually call each other.

8. Focus on engagement. It’s really easy to feel disconnected when everyone is remote.  Key drivers of engagement are helping people feel they are part of something bigger, the ability to make progress and feel competent, and the ability to make decisions about how one works. Make sure your team members are feeling good about these factors.

9. Break the tension. This entire situation can be nerve wracking.  If your team is not dealing directly with the health crisis, building in some fun could help bring some relief.  A silly contest, posting pictures of your ‘home office’(which may be the kitchen table!), a rotating responsibility to share a dad joke everyday could be just what the team needs.

10. Review the week. Whether on shared drive, Slack, or a live meeting, review the week with everyone. What did we accomplish? What issues are we having? How is our communication cadence working? How is everyone feeling?

One of your goals is to create a level of predictability for your team in a highly unpredictable situation. The more quickly you can use some of these tips consistently, the quicker you will all create a rhythm that works for your team.

Do you need some help getting your head wrapped around what to do with your group, specifically? Do you want someone to help your group exceed expectations in a very difficult environment? Call Edith at 1.978.475.8424 or email her at e.onderick-harvey@nextbridgeconsulting.com.

Keep Your Team Focused on Shifting Priorities

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When is the last time that you felt like things were comfortably status quo? Changing business strategies, morphing project parameters, and turnover that leaves you short-staffed are more the rule than the exception these days. So how do you ensure your team stays focused in an environment of ever-changing priorities? Clear communication with your team and proactive change leadership are key to keeping your teams engaged and on track. Here are three strategies you should employ on a regular basis.

Strategy 1: Talk About Priorities Regularly

Setting priorities doesn’t come naturally to everyone. The good news is that it’s a skill that can be learned relatively easily. Start by making it a part of your ongoing conversations with your teams. Yes, work with them regularly, in a structured way, to help them establish and revise priorities. For more on that, Derek Lidow outlines “A Better Way To Set Strategic Priorities” in this Harvard Business Review article. But it’s also important to engage the leaders who report to you in general, ongoing conversations about their priorities. It helps them become more fluent in the language of managing priorities and it conveys the importance you place on that fluency. And it helps you to gauge how closely their priorities are in step with yours and the organization, and where their prioritization skills need to be improved.

A lot of leaders struggle with how to engage in everyday conversations with their direct reports about priorities. Here are some questions to start the conversation:

Strategy 2: Get Ahead of Changes in the Workplace

When teams get hit with unanticipated changes, it can feel like “here we go again… another fire-drill.” Well, preventing fires is a lot more effective than putting them out, especially when they seem to crop up on regular basis. Not only is it a more efficient approach, but it keeps the level of frustration down when people don’t feel blindsided.

As soon as you anticipate changes that will affect your part of the organization, reach out to your direct reports (or your leadership team?). Apprise them of what you know and ask them questions. You want them thinking about this… really engaging in the challenges ahead. The earlier they’re involved, the better their responses will be. And they’re also likely to provide food for thought that will help you manage the change upward.

Consider these conversation starters to help make the inevitable transition happen more smoothly:

  • What obstacles do you anticipate with the upcoming change?
  • What knowledge and skills do you think will need to be shored up to make this change work?
  • Which of your team’s current priorities can take a backseat while we’re transitioning?

Strategy 3: Teach Your Team to Shift Gears On Their Own

Ideally, you want your teams to be able to shift their priorities effectively with only the lightest of steering on your part. That leaves you more time to focus on strategic issues. The challenge? Too many managers have been taught by their organization and past bosses to take direction on prioritization.

If you’ve been leveraging the first two techniques, this third one will be easier. Some things to keep in mind:

  • First, make sure they’re well-acquainted with your organization’s business strategy and goals. They provide a framework for them to understand what their priorities should be.
  • Second, in the simplest terms, what are your highest-level priorities? “Client problem resolution will always be my number one concern.”
  • Third, what are your expectations on the latitude they have for changing priorities and how to communicate with you about them?

If you want them to better manage their own priorities, never, ever tell your direct reports what you want right away. Encourage them to present you with their ideas first. Probe for why they’re thinking the way they do. Test their assumptions. Here are some effective conversation starters for setting parameters and promoting self-reliance:

  • Let’s talk about our organization’s goals and how they should be reflected in our department’s priorities. How do you see them aligning?
  • If you were in my shoes, what would be your biggest priority? Why? How will you reflect that in your priorities over the next quarter?
  • On a regular basis, you’re more than capable of managing your team’s priorities. Here’s what I want you to do any time you’re on track to miss your monthly goals…

Once upon a time, managing priorities was a standard, quarterly process. Now shifts happen too often and too quickly for such a static approach. In my Harvard Business Review online article 5 Behaviors of Leaders Who Embrace Change I talk about how critical it is for every leader to integrate change leadership into the very fabric of who they are and what they do on a daily basis. An essential part of that is guiding your team leaders’ ability to re-prioritize.

Am I Dressed for This?

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Much of the country is experiencing record-breaking, bitter cold this winter.  And yet, some weeks, we’ve had snow storms on one day, with bright sunshine and 50 degrees the next.  In a few months, we’ll be experiencing heat and humidity.  The old saying goes ‘if you wait a minute, the weather will change.” As human beings, we readily adapt to these weather changes. We build a wardrobe for whatever the weather in our area brings – hot, cold, rain, snow, sun, etc. 
 
You could apply that old saying to what happens at work these days – wait a minute, and it will change. As I sat yesterday evening in front of the fire, I was thinking about what kind of wardrobe we are building for ourselves at work so that, when change happens, we have what’s needed to adapt. Are we building an athletic wardrobe so that when we need to reach  across silos we are comfortable and able to move easily?  Do we have our creative hat when we need to approach a challenge in a new and unique way?  Do we have our metaphorical heavy coat so we can get results even when things feel blustery? 

Too often we put on armor to protect ourselves from having to adapt and change.  Wouldn’t a wardrobe with a nice pair of shorts help us to be comfortable when things get heated?  Or a well-tailored coat for when we have to face a cold front?  Or a comfy pair of jeans for when we need to be ready to stretch and reach feel so much better?
 
What are you doing to not only broaden your work wardrobe, but to update it for what’s needed in 2019? How about your teams?  Are they stuck in a snowbank?

Spending Time With the Right People at Work?

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Now that we’ve reached the middle of the year, it’s a good time to take a step back and assess how we are progressing. Usually, when we do this type of assessment, we look at progress against our business plan, project timelines or other priorities we’ve identified.

I suggest we all take a look at our key work relationships and assess how those are going.  We all know that our work relationships are important for a wide variety of reasons. We also know that these relationships shift over time. Perhaps someone who it wasn’t important to have a good working relationship with in the past is now an important partner. Someone who we worked closely with in the past moved to a new role or division and we don’t really work together anymore. And sometimes, there are people we need to build relationships with but we don’t because they are difficult… or perhaps building a new relationship with them is outside of our comfort zone.

Assess the balance in your network of work relationships and ask:

  • Who are you spending a great deal of time with? 
  • Why do you spend that much time with them – familiarity? The ease of the relationships? Because you need them to get work done? It could be a combination of reasons.
  • Based on what you want to achieve, is that the right amount of time to be spending with them?
  • Who are you spending less time with but should spend more because they are important to success?
  • What needs to happen for you to be able to spend more time building the relationship?  Do you need to spend less time on those relationships that are comfortable but not as important to the work? Do you need to force yourself out of your comfort zone?
  • What’s your plan for building or expanding the relationships you need to work on? Set 2 or 3 goals for making the necessary changes to rebalance your relationships and put them into action now.

Who Is On Your Personal Advisory Board?

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You’re standing at the precipice of a career-level decision. But all the options seem to have relatively equal merit – or equally poor merit. Perhaps the consequences seem a bit murky. What do you do? How do you choose? If you’ve developed an advisory board, you reach out to them for counsel. After you gain some perspective, you’re better prepared to make the decision and deal with the challenges that come with it.

Everyone should have one. Few of us do.

A personal advisory board is similar to an advisory board that many organizations make use of. Except that it’s for individuals. It’s typically not formal. And most boards don’t meet as a group, though some leaders are capable of garnering that level of support. For most professionals, it’s simply your own set of advisors that you can tap into. Sometimes, it’s for basic conversations; sometimes for helping you “sound out” ideas. Other times, for pointed advice.

A good advisory board is more than just a random group of networking colleagues. To be sure, it leverages your networking skills to “assemble” the board, but it’s more intentional in its construction and purposeful in its usage. It certainly serves as part of your broader networking efforts, but is designed from the start to be more strategic and deeply advisory in nature.

7 Guidelines for Building Your Advisory Board

When seeking out and choosing board members, most people are not going to ask “want to be on my advisory board?” The board is more of a virtual construct, though it serves a very real purpose. In any case, you should try to cultivate a trusting relationship and be up front with them . “I value your perspective and would like to be able to chat with you from time to time. Get your advice on occasion.” Some of this might happen in the normal course of your day, if it’s someone you work with or are formally mentored by. Here are some guidelines for building your personal advisory board:

  • Be Intentional – Your board is assembled based on your career aspirations and specific professional goals. What types of knowledge, experience, and skills would be most helpful to you? Which roles, businesses, and industry exposure do you need? Create a list or a spreadsheet. From there, you identify the people you would like to “recruit” for your board.
  • Think 360 Degrees – Seek out a varied set of people… those in leadership levels above AND below yours. Choose peers and employees. Leverage both clients and service providers. A well-rounded board is critical to helping you develop an agile approach to your thinking and decision-making.
  • Diversify – One of the biggest mistakes leaders can make on the job is surrounding themselves with those who think, decide, and act just as they would. It creates group-think and limits the depth and breadth of your team’s capabilities. Know your blind spots and aggressively address them. The same applies to your board. Choose from across gender, ethnic and generational boundaries, among others. The more diverse your board, the richer your perspective.
  • Evolve it– as your career and development needs change over time, so too should your board. You will have different challenges as an executive than you did as a supervisor. When you change roles or industries, the mix of your board should change as well. Also, no matter how carefully you choose your board members, some of them won’t work out. Perhaps their advice turns out to be ineffective. Or maybe they’re never available to you. Re-evaluate both the overall composition and individual members of your board at least annually.
  • Selective but Multi-level – you have only so much time to devote to your own development, so you have to make choices. There’s no magic number, but 5-10 people seems about right. You should network more broadly but create at least two levels of your board. The 80/20 rule can apply here. You spend 80% of your time with 20% of your primary network. The rest is spent finding and cultivating relationships that will be important to you down the road.
  • Pick straight-shooters – the worst advice is often the advice you don’t receive. You can’t afford to get sugar-coated or partial thoughts and ideas from people. Choose people who you know to be straight-forward communicators. And make your desire for frankness known. Finally, look for people who have the emotional intelligence to deliver such talk in a way you can hear and use.
  • Practice Reciprocity – so far this all sounds a bit self-serving. It shouldn’t be. The only way this works in the long run is if you approach this from a win-win perspective. What do I have to offer? Do your members sometimes need advice, an introduction to someone, or help on a quick project? Return the favor. Even if one of your board members is a mentor well above your pay grade, ask sincerely and confidently how you can help them.

How you leverage your board will depend greatly on a number of factors, including your comfort level and the type and quality of the members you recruit. Some people will stick to occasional conversations where they will try to absorb information and ideas. Others will ask for formal mentoring.

A growing number of people have formal, scheduled developmental or problem-solving conversations every month, sometimes in small groups. Each person comes with one or two challenges they need to figure out, and they spend time bouncing ideas off each other. There’s no exact formula, but the more specific you are about your needs and your understanding of others’ needs, generally the more productive the relationship.

We’ve all read the advice that we should manage our careers like we do our jobs. We should also take a page from forward-thinking organizations that leverage advisory boards. These boards become a strategic partner, helping the company with insights and advice critical to their success. By taking an intentional, disciplined approach to development and decision-making ability, leaders at all levels can reap the same rewards.

Who Are We Today? Who Do We Want To Be Tomorrow?

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Three weeks ago, I had the pleasure of working with two executive teams. Their businesses are very different.  One is over 20 years old with almost 4000 employees.  The second is a start-up driving towards commercializing its first product.  While different, both of them were exploring a common question.  Who are we today and who do we want to be?

In both cases we started with who the team wanted to be so we could frame that sometimes more difficult conversation – who are we now?

Answering this question requires that these executives become aware of and more comfortable with the answers to several other, deeper questions about themselves and the team:

  • Do we fully understand who each of us is?  Do we understand how each of us filters information, makes decisions and communicates?
  • Are we aligned around a common vision of where this company or department is going?  And how are we, as a team, are leading it? This may seem obvious, but misalignment amongst leadership is a common cause of organizational dysfunction and average performance.
  • Are we role-modeling the characteristics we want this organization to exhibit?
  • How are we pushing each other to step out of our comfort zonesin a productive and effective way?  Innovation doesn’t happen when everyone is comfortable.
  • How do we provide impactful feedbackto each other so that we increase the team’s effectiveness rather than diminishing it?
  • What about when the inevitable happens – when we’re sometimes annoying each other? Are we avoiding certain people?  Aggressively confronting them?  How well is it working? There’s a third option that gets better results.

Why so many questions?  Because good answers require good questions.  In today’s environment, personal and organizational curiosity is a prerequisite for leadership and business growth.  And if you’re not digging deeply…, you’re limiting the depth and speed of your growth.

Which Blind Spots are Hurting You? Your Team?

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“Knowing yourself is the root of all wisdom.”
– Socrates –

One time when working with a coach to prep for a job interview, I was videotaped.  I was completely unaware of some of the things I was doing.  With the help of the coach I was able to see the behaviors that could interfere with my success.  I was made aware of my blind spots.

The most successful leaders I work with are always looking for ways to continue improving, and that includes uncovering and addressing blind spots… which often change over time.

Blind spots can be feelings and thoughts we have, mental models we employ or behaviors we exhibit that we aren’t fully conscious of.  Or behaviors that we just aren’t aware are producing a negative result.  These could include overestimating your change agility or being too data driven.  Perhaps relying too heavily on your own enthusiasm for a project, or not knowing about a new market disruptor that is about to impact your business.  And we are all familiar with leaders who don’t see how their communication style is impacting others.

Not understanding your blind spots can significantly limit your success as a leader.  It limits your team’s performance.  It can even cost your company its market and customers. 

Some leaders don’t understand that they are shutting down innovation or new thinking.  I work with teams all the time where performance is hurt by members who don’t realize, for example, that they’re interrupting too often, or conversely, not vocally contributing enough.

Kodak famously had a blind spot about the impact of digital photography on their market.   They chose to do nothing with the very technology that was invented by one of their own engineers in the mid-1970’s. From the executives’ viewpoint, they were incredibly successful.  They dominated the market.  Why worry?

Other people usually see your blind spots long before you do, so you don’t want to be unaware of them for long.

One of the best way to discover them is through frank feedback from others, coupled with self-reflection.  Here are three approaches to gathering feedback that, when used effectively, will uncover your blind spots:

  • Conversations focused on feedback.  You may be thinking, I’ve asked people to give me feedback and I don’t’ get any.  Don’t discount the fact that you may be getting feedback, but it’s either too subtle or you’re not tuning into it. Remember – it’s a blind spot. And many people are reticent when given general invitations. Can I really give feedback about anything?  It’s more effective to ask for feedback about specific situations or behaviors.  If you’re having trouble with employee feedback, ask a peer you trust.  If it’s a team issue, ask someone who worked with you on another team.  Finally, if you’re known for not asking or for not reacting well to feedback, it’s going to take a while.  Be patient.  Keep at it.
  • Formal 360 feedback.  Handled correctly, this can be a powerful tool for collecting feedback because it is often gathered by someone other than you and then shared with you. This can help people feel safer about sharing what may be unpleasant for you to hear. I use a mixed approach of a survey tool and confidential interviews to help the executives I work with gain a 360 perspective.
  • Validated, reliable self-assessment toolsthat generate in-depth feedback about your personality preferences.  They are predictive of how you typically behave in various situations. I’ve found Insights DiscoveryTMto be one of the best of these tools.  It’s easy to use and utilizes a straightforward framework that generates nuanced, personal results.

Simply becoming more self-aware and identifying your blind spots is not enough.  You can know that you’re coming across as a jerk and still continue to be a jerk.  You need to be purposeful in applying that awareness to your own improvement.  Some people refer to this as mindfulness – being self-aware and acting with intentionality.

Follow up on your new awareness with an intentional approach for development.  It should include:

  • Yourself through coaching or numerous different learning opportunities
  • Your team through conversations focused on how each other’s strengths and blind spots impact the team, as a start
  • Your organization through purposeful development of a culture of self-awareness and intentional action.

There are a number of strategies and techniques you can employ to overcome blind spots.  If you’d like to continue the conversation, please contact me at 978-475-8424 or e.onderick-harvey@NextBridgeConsulting.com.