Critical Thinking Cafe

CEOs Still Struggle with Implementation

What good is a market-transforming idea if you can't move it beyond an idea? According to a Conference Board survey conducted in 2007, CEOs in 769 companies crossing 40 countries define their greatest challenge as "excellence in execution" (38%) with their third highest concern being "consistent execution of strategy by top management" (31%). (HR Magazine, January 2008, page 10.)

It appears that senior executives continue to underestimate the energy, relentless focus, and broad engagement across an organization that are required when trying to implement strategic and lasting change. Perhaps a close second is the dramatic need for mid-life leaders to take the time to understand what people in their organizations need and want before they will embrace and execute wholesale or even minor change.

We've known for a long time that people do what they do for their reasons, not ours. I can't help but wonder if our on-going corporate struggles with executing change are less a statement about the face of change than they are a statement about leadership's lack of engagement with the people a change impacts.

An Artisan's Perspective on Anticipating Problems

Since I don't have much of an aptitude (or the necessary level of patience) for building things, I haven't spent much (any) time reading Popular Woodworking magazine--until a colleague showed me an insightful article in the October 2006 issue that talked about Avoiding Mistakes when woodworking. As I reviewed this article by master chairmaker Michael Dunbar, I grew intrigued with the similarity between what he teaches people building chairs and what we teach people building organizations.

A discussion one day with our president, Mark Smith prompted me to email Mike at the Windsor Institute and ask him for an interview. He kindly consented and the result of our engaging conversation is now available on our website. If you're interested in becoming more effective in critical thinking--especially if you want to avoid problems whenever possible, check out how Mike helps people avoid costly and demoralizing mistakes in his woodworking classes.

Mike and his colleagues have developed over 40 principles to guide people and prevent unnecessary problems. I find them good reminders in my corporate environment as well. Here are a few--

1. The answer to most questions is, "It depends."
2. You cannot fight grain.
3. The first rule of math is, "The answer must be believable."
4. You can't get out of a hole by digging.

Mike Dunbar knows that "you avoid a lot of problems by thinking about what might happen." A few minutes invested now in reading his insights could save you a costly mistake later.

Gravedigging Paramedics?

The city of San Francisco can't afford to give up pricey real estate for cemeteries, so not far from that grand city hundreds of acres of land are dedicated to massive cemeteries in the little-known city of Colma (1.98 square miles and 73% of it is cemeteries). Several years ago I was involved in sales in the Bay area and I discovered these cemeteries provide a serene place to eat lunch.

While eating in my car one day I looked into my rear-view mirror and saw a man standing by a graveside, leaning on a pole, carrying on a fairly animated conversation. I began to feel sorry for the fellow thinking he'd probably recently lost someone he loved and was working through his deep grief. My compassion was instantly shocked into amazement when I saw someone climb up out of the grave! No, nothing supernatural happened--my scene of grief was actually a couple of grave diggers completing another grave site--with one of them in the grave and the other standing next to it talking with his buddy.

So what does that story have to do with anticipating problems? Nothing. But it creates a nice bridge to a story that does show a creative effort to anticipate and prevent a recurring problem--at a rather strange location.

A group of cemeteries in Melbourne, Australia has installed defibrillators to resuscitate mourners attending funerals and the company has trained gravediggers in how to use the defib units. Elderly people generally have older friends and a couple of collapsed mourners a month, or calling the paramedics a few times a years are more than the executives at Cheltenham cemeteries can accept. The company has installed defib units so the grave diggers can provide emergency services to mourners who are overcome at a grave site.

While a cemetery obviously wants new business--people dying on the grounds creates a bit of a PR nightmare. A creative solution gave this organization international recognition and a practical way to bring value to its clients.

What creative ways have you found to prevent unwanted problems in your company?

Hiding Problems in a Zero-Defect Culture

You don't hear much about zero-defect companies anymore. Maybe that's because people have finally figured out there aren't any in existence. As I've traveled down the corporate road I've wondered from time to time how flawed people in a very flawed world are supposed to achieve perfection in anything. It's pretty ludicrous, when you think about it.

Early in my career I worked for a company that got all excited about achieving zero defects in our processes. In my youthful exuberance I was one of the people leading the charge. We really tried to eliminate all unfilled orders and any mistakes in how work was handled. It was a worthy aspiration. But after visiting offices where I found unfilled orders that were never recorded and were then conveniently filed in the trash I made an enlightening discovery. Zero defect cultures don't result in the absence of defects as much as they generate sophisticated ways to hide defects so they go unnoticed (and therefore unpunished).

Even with the best efforts to anticipate and plan for problems, some mistakes will occur. Realistic customers understand that and if you have a proactive method for fixing problems when they happen--you can usually keep a customer.

One of the fastest ways to promote dishonesty in an organization is to bridle people with unrealistic expectations.

IT Security: A Problem Worth Anticipating

Several years ago I met a young man after he had been terminated from his role in IT security at a large service company. As he explained his work to me, it became apparent that in the most simple and unrefined terms, this guy was a skilled hacker--the kind of person you want on your IT team because you don't want to find out what kind of damage he'd do if he was on the other side. I kind of wondered if he was hired so the company he worked for would have some measure of comfort that they knew what he was doing. . .at least during the day.

I was reminded of this man after listening to Ron Rittenmeyer, President and CEO of EDS speak at the Ernst & Young Management Briefing Series presented by SMU's Cox School of Business. Mr. Rittenmeyer's presentation could make you afraid to share any information more personal than your shoe size. But his balanced and reasonable perspective gives one confidence that the battle for IT security has not been lost and that you can still bank on-line and sleep at night.

What struck me most during Rittenmeyer's talk was how much the subject of IT security is like the issue we discussed yesterday. It seems that like politicians, some IT departments can't get attention without a crisis. In many organizations the need for greater levels of security is recognized only after that security has been violated. After hundreds of credit card numbers show up on someone's PC a reactive step gets taken to enhance security when a proactive initiative might have prevented the problem from ever taking place. But how do you get people to invest in a solution to solve a problem you don't yet have?

The consensus from yesterday's comments is that our society tends to be reactionary by nature--an unfortunate situation for those charged with trying to protect sensitive information for companies and individuals. But organizations that play light with security need to consider this: If you don't have time or resources to invest in preventing a problem--what makes you think you'll have the resources you need to fix the problem after it happens?

Bonus Pay for Fighting Fires

It is pretty sad when a corporate culture rewards dysfunctional behavior. In too many companies, managers build their careers around their ability to put out fires--to jump from one near disaster to another, applying superficial and temporary solutions and getting high praise (or a bonus) for saving a project or operation from going down in flames. By the time the quick-fix comes apart, enough time has passed to allow people to safely blame the recurent problem on another set of circumstances--or another manager.

Any growing organization may have some fire fighting--you can't always anticipate and prevent every possible hiccup in a plan. But when a corporate culture supports or even promotes a "patch it up, we'll fix it later" management style you're encouraging people to find value and a sense of importance in being busy, living under constant time pressure, and allowing the urgent to smother the important.

Insecure managers thrive on the need to be needed. Constant fire fighting in an organization ultimately points to a failure to adequately anticipate problems and implement measures to prevent problems before they occur. Frequent fire fighting can also point to a need to address the core issues behind problems--rather than only resolving the symptoms.

Living on the edge of a crisis keeps the adrenaline junkies happy--but it's a lousy way to manage corporate growth.

Avoiding Pain

It's hard to watch people experience pain you know they could prevent.

I’ve given some thought to how the leaders in two non-profit organizations are managing their way through large-scale change. Both organizations are growing. Both are involved in large site expansion programs. Both have high levels of activity and rely on hundreds of volunteers to accomplish their goals.

Over the past several months, Organization A has seen several key staff people leave or move into different roles with little explanation given for the departures and changes. To an outside observer—and to some more directly involved—while there is general agreement about what each department is supposed to do, there is no cohesive vision or plan that glues all the activity together. During this change process, individuals leading this respected organization have communicated very little with the people trying to carry out the group’s purpose and goals.

Organization B is going through the upheaval and discomfort of expansion and growth as well. But in this organization, there is a deliberate, well-planned, clearly articulated change management process going on. The leadership of this organization regularly communicates what is happening, the challenges each step will bring, and how the organization will work through each stage of the growth process. There is a clear, easily-defined vision and everything the organization does is linked with that mission and purpose.

Apparently, Organization A doesn’t understand that all problems are the result of change, but not all change has to create problems. Even positive changes like growth and expansion can cause problems—major problems—unless deliberate steps are taken to anticipate and plan for those problems. Ohio State Professor Paul C. Nutt’s research has found that one of the most significant ways to increase the likelihood that a change will be implemented successfully is by communicating with and engaging the people involved in a change before the decision or change takes place.

During a time of organizational change you cannot over-communicate with the people involved—especially if those people are volunteers and not tied to the organization on a daily basis. If the leaders in an organization do not tell people what is going on—the people will make up their own story based on what they observe. Once that happens, it is very difficult to dislodge a false reality and convince people to believe and embrace the truth about the situation. People will tend to hold tightly to their perceptions of reality because of the often unconscious distrust of the organizations’ leadership that takes root during the silence.

Whatever changes you’re introducing in your organization—even if the changes are positive and wanted—take time to anticipate and plan for the problems your changes will create. Help everyone involved understand the potential problems, realize how they will impact your organization, and take steps to prevent problems from occurring by anticipating and planning for them. And throughout the change process—communicate, communicate, communicate. Often resistance to and delays in implementing new initiatives are directly related to not soliciting input from those involved with the facts, criteria, and reasons for a decision.

The Death of Innovation

Several years ago I met with a purchasing manager in a well-respected global technology company. In an effort to protect identities, let’s place him geographically somewhere in the western hemisphere. . . Two consultants and I had developed a dynamic process for implementing change in an enterprise and we were confident our system could bring great value to this mammoth organization.

After listening to our presentation, this purchasing guy leaned back in his chair and replied, “You know what I do whenever top management tells me to do something? I sit on it and don’t do anything.”

We must have looked a bit incredulous so he continued, “I don’t do anything because as soon as I try to do what they told me to do, they’ll read another book and tell me to do something else. So I just sit on it and don’t do anything.”

Somewhere in that company well-intentioned leaders pursue creative ways to bring innovation, new ideas, and fresh energy to all levels of that organization. And somewhere deep in the bowels of that company sit people like the guy I met who quietly smother those initiatives by inactivity and indifference. Perhaps he has been given too many great ideas with no plan for turning them into reality. Maybe he has run into problems when he makes changes so he has stopped trying to change anything.

I wonder how much time in senior executive strategy sessions the leaders in that company ask themselves, “Now what will we do if the people we count on to launch this don’t do anything? How can we prevent problems from developing as we implement this plan?”

Innovation without implementation creates aggravation. After watching one brilliant idea after another die on the road to implementation, it is easy to understand how people become like the manager I met. Many companies focus significant human and financial resources in the pursuit of innovation. I wonder how much energy those companies put toward ensuring their innovations are successfully implemented.

In an insightful article titled Innovation: The Classic Traps (Harvard Business Review, November 2006) Rosabeth Moss Kanter draws from years of research and observation when she writes, “Too often. . . grand declarations about innovation are followed by mediocre execution that produces anemic results, and innovation groups are quietly disbanded in cost-cutting drives” (page 73).

If your latest revitalization effort is stalled like a beat-up truck on a dusty road your problems might have more to do with your failure to anticipate problems than the quality of your new ideas. Anticipation is the first step toward prevention. The surest way to prevent a problem is to plan for it.