Category: Decision Making

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Are you afraid of the voters?

Politics is in turmoil. Some really divisive issues and equally divisive politicians are making headlines around the world.

Much of the recent press coverage refers to a lack of trust, while some politicians are telling us they don’t trust journalists. Fake news, anyone?

This lack of trust leads to politicians avoiding disclosure, fearing censure from voters. They get caught hiding things, so voters trust them even less. The voters think politicians have their own agenda and undisclosed motives; the politicians think voters and the media are out to ‘get them’.

This destroys any chance of cross-party cooperation. Anyone who crosses the line will be branded as a traitor, no matter how important the matter may be. Major issues such as healthcare or gun law in the US and, of course, Brexit in the UK are all topics where politicians of different parties hold similar views but can’t or won’t cooperate with one another.

This same theme of trust – or the lack of it – can be seen in businesses, everywhere.

Many businesses suffer from the ‘silo syndrome’, where functions and departments don’t cooperate but follow their own agendas. That can lead to conflicting messages being delivered to customers and suppliers!

Equally common is the division between ‘them’ and ‘us’, with management on one side of the fence and the workforce on the other.

Symptoms of a ‘them and us’ culture operating become apparent when there is a workforce that seems disengaged, a lack of innovation in the business, and often a clock-watching culture in place.

The good news is that, with a little bit of bravery being shown by the leaders of the business, these challenges can be dealt with.

The starting point is communication. If you, as leader, explain your decisions and, even better, share your objectives for the business with the workforce, you can remove the barrier. It won’t come down all at once, and it will take continuous effort to keep it down. But, if you communicate and do these things, you’ll get a workforce that’s engaged and can take your business to another level.

Don’t be afraid of the voters.

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What does success look like?

For some people, success means having a fancy car or a big house.  For others, it might be finding a perfect balance between work and home life.  For yet others, it might mean being able to afford exotic holidays.

People are different and are motivated by different rewards.

When you’re leading a team, one huge challenge  is identifying what motivates the different individuals within that team.

A bigger challenge is being able to communicate clearly how an individual will know what success means for their job or area of responsibility.

Many years ago, I surveyed the staff of a somewhat dysfunctional organisation.  One of my questions was, ‘When doing your job, how would you know when you’ve been successful?’

Most could not answer this. They had not thought about the real purpose of their role, why their job existed, or how the company would benefit from employing them.

There needs to be a reason for the existence of every role in a company and there needs to be an expected outcome for each role. That’s how success can be measured – that’s where the company receives its return for the wages and salaries it’s investing.

A useful exercise that’s often set for people in start-ups or small businesses aiming to grow is to get them to draw the organisation chart they feel will be appropriate to their business in (say) 5 years’ time. This exercise helps business leaders define the roles a business needs to foster growth – rather than simply hiring someone else to do more of the same.

What’s more difficult, but probably even more valuable, is to apply a similar discipline to existing businesses. Break the business down and look at each area:  Why does this function exist? What’s the purpose of this role? What does success look like in this job?

That can easily lead to a realisation that an organisation is shaped around the skills and personalities within it. How the organisation has developed is not the culmination of premeditated design but the result of happenstance and unplanned growth.

Those same factors could well explain what’s preventing further growth. That’s why it’s important to ask defining questions – identify goals for each role and what success in achieving them looks like, then consider how they align with the goals of the organisation as a whole.

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Annihilate your ego!

One characteristic that seems to be common to leaders who get the best from their teams is their apparent lack of ego. There are leaders who undoubtedly have giant-size egos, but don’t confuse showmanship and pizazz with egoism. There are many who play the showman but, underneath all the showbiz, they are focused on leading and promoting teams.

If you don’t watch out for the ego, it can trip you up.

Allow your ego to get in the way and you will claim more credit than is due to you. That in turn diminishes the efforts of the team and will be demotivating for them.

Your ego can also get in the way when you make a mistake. We all make mistakes – as the old saying goes, the person who never made a mistake never made anything – but your ego can prevent you from recognising a mistake. This can mean the consequences of the mistake become more serious: let’s say you took a wrong turn, but instead of realising the direction you had taken was wrong straight away, you continued down the wrong path, eventually seeing your mistake and having to retrace your steps a great distance.

That same ego will make the team hesitate to suggest you might be wrong!

The ego is also at work when things go wrong – it will be somebody else’s fault, not yours.

But what happens if you annihilate your ego?

You’ll praise the efforts of your team – not just to their faces, but publicly.

You’ll spot those mistakes faster.

Your team will find you more approachable and they’ll make more suggestions.

So how do you get started? Simply try saying ‘we’ and ‘us’ at every opportunity. Every time you say ‘I’ you’re in danger of letting the ego take over again. The only time you should use ‘I’ is when you’re taking the blame or assuming ownership of a mistake or failure.

The results will be noticeable: you’ll find that you get given more credit – both by your team and by your customers. You’ll be basking in reflected glory!

 

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Business is not like a game of chess

There are many instructive parallels between playing a game of chess and the challenges of running a business.

To win in chess, you have to plan your attack carefully and anticipate your opponent’s moves. While you are attacking, you must not neglect your defence. Moving a piece into an attacking position but allowing it to become isolated is likely to result in the loss of that piece.

Many business leaders fall into the trap of thinking that their customer is their opponent.  That’s not the way to achieve success!

Chess is usually a game for single players with one opponent, but in business you don’t have just one opponent. You probably have many.  There are plenty of people who could steal the pieces you have left isolated. These pieces equate to the customers you have neglected and left alone.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though, because business is anything but a single-player game. Not only do you have your own team, you can call on lots of other people who will help you to succeed. They include your suppliers, your partners – even your customers.

Go back to the basic reason why your business exists, then look at it from the customer’s perspective – not your own. You will realise that your business is, in some way, enabling your customer to solve a problem or achieve something.

Take this concept of ‘solving a problem’ and use it to sharpen and hone everything you do. Look to remove all the things which don’t add to that singularity of purpose.

Doing this rigorously will make your customer’s life much easier.

It will make selling to new customers – who have similar problems – much easier.

It will make attracting new customers much easier.

It may even save you money and time.

It’s not like a game of chess. It’s much simpler than that. Just focus on doing the right thing to solve your customer’s problems.

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There’s no smoke without fire

‘There’s no smoke without fire’ is a phrase I remember from my childhood, but these days it seems to have fallen into disuse – or at least into much less frequent use.

 

If you have a wood-burning stove at home, as I do, you can observe the truth of this statement quite literally. If the ashes from the previous fire are still producing smoke, you can make a new fire by adding more fuel.

 

In business, you need to follow the smoke trail to its source. You need to find the ashes. If they are smouldering, fan them into flame or put them out. Don’t just leave them!

 

Fires, from a business perspective, can be good or bad! One trail of smoke might be an increase in customer complaints. If you don’t measure this, or worse, if you are measuring the levels of complaint but not getting the message they’re telling you, you will have a fire on your hands. And that could be destructive!

 

If you don’t find the ashes and make sure they have been put out, you are kidding yourself about their potential to re-ignite.

 

Continuing with this metaphor, another example can be found when good people leave the business. Exit interviews will often shed light on situations, events or people, but if you don’t utilise the feedback this provides, you’ll be wasting the time spent in the interview.

 

More difficult to spot are the trails of smoke that lead to ashes you want to fan into life. These could be process improvements or innovative ideas that haven’t been fully formed and presented. That’s when you must encourage, coax and cajole the embers to leap into life.

 

Take the time to spot and follow the smoke trails.

 

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Easy and right may not be the same thing

In life and in business you may find yourself having to make a choice between doing the easy thing and doing the right thing.

Doing the easy thing is having that second biscuit, or not saying anything when a colleague steps over the line. Or it might be agreeing with the customer – when you know they’re making a poor choice.

It’s more difficult to decline the extra biscuit and get some exercise.

It’s more difficult to confront the colleague and deal with their poor behaviour.

It’s more difficult to disagree with the customer and help them make a better choice.

The difficulty with all these examples is that they require a degree of confrontation. We see confrontation as a prelude to conflict.

Most of us don’t like conflict and go out of our way to avoid it!

Taking the easy way out offers short-term gain but may well lead to long-term pain.

The colleague who steps over the line once is likely to do so again. It could be that the rest of the team see this and, almost by default, the line is moved – what was previously considered unacceptable behaviour now becomes acceptable.

The customer who makes a poor choice is going to regret it. That regret will probably lead to resentment – it’s your fault, so you get the blame.

That biscuit goes straight to your waistline and stays there!

It’s much better for you and for your business if you focus on doing the right thing, not just the easy thing.

Over time, your colleagues will respect you and your customers will value your frank opinion. You will develop a reputation for integrity and honesty.

Businesses that have that kind of reputation find it easier to sell their products or services. They always know the difference between ‘easy’ and ‘right’.

 

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Disagree with respect

I’ve observed some worrying trends in meetings I’ve been attending lately.  It seems people are afraid to speak their minds during a meeting for fear of being seen as disrespectful. Another trend is that voicing disagreement is seen as a sign of treasonable disrespect and leads to a shouting match!

Neither of these trends is conducive to good business conduct.

Robust characters exist in every business. They’re naturally inclined to dominate the discussion, brushing disagreements aside.

Timid people who fail to get their point across can become frustrated. This probably results in them leaving the business sooner or later.

A good chairperson will encourage the timid ones and rein in more robust individuals, to ensure a balanced debate in which all points of view are heard.

If you listen to debates in the House of Commons or House of Lords,  MPs and members use arcane-sounding language such as ‘My honourable friend’.  But using such language is designed to ensure that disagreements are not taken to be disrespectful.

You’ll also hear phrases such as ‘With respect, I disagree’, but these words are often spoken in a way that contradicts their meaning!

As a business leader, it’s your job to maximise contributions and input from all members of the team – and that includes allowing them to disagree with you.

If you invite constructive criticism of yourself and your actions, you’re setting an example to everyone in the team. There’s nothing wrong with constructive criticism and it’s not disrespectful or insulting to disagree with what other people are saying.

An additional benefit of this approach is that your ideas and suggestions will be examined in much more detail. As the saying goes, ‘If you really want to understand something, teach it’.

Being open and inclusive in this way has a positive impact, both on team culture and the atmosphere in meetings. Encouraging criticism from team members stimulates openness. Creating an open environment means that others (including junior staff and those who are timid) feel able to volunteer their thoughts and ideas too.

Which is easier – trying to do it all on your own or getting others to contribute?

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You get paid to make decisions

If you’re in a leadership role, one of the things your team expect from you and need you to do is make decisions. They want you to provide leadership. In very simple terms, what this means is that you tell them what’s happening next, and what direction they need to take.

If you don’t make decisions, this will give rise to frustration and annoyance. The team are ready and waiting to go, but until you tell them which direction to take, they can’t start!

Of course, you should take time to gather the necessary evidence before coming to a decision, but don’t fall into the ‘analysis paralysis’ trap.

Equally, don’t be rushed into making the wrong decision by impatient team members who may not understand all the complexities involved.

However, not every decision requires lengthy consideration!

If the consequences of getting a decision wrong are small, you can make quick, almost instinctive decisions. It’s when the consequences are substantial that you should take your time and gather evidence before arriving at a decision.

Think about the consequences first.

Once you’ve made your decision, the next step is to communicate it. Until you share the decision, you might as well not have made it!

When you share a decision with others, it’s often (but not always) a good idea to share the rationale behind it as well.  By doing this, your team can appreciate the factors you’ve taken into account in reaching your decision.

This has two main benefits –

First, your team can see what you’ve thought about, and understand what you’re trying to achieve.

Because of this, they may well feel able to take further action, moving the business in the right direction with less input from you.

Equally, your team may be aware of factors you have overlooked and can bring them to your attention.

The second benefit is that transparent and open decision-making builds confidence among the team members and influences their view of you as a leader who ‘knows what they’re doing’.

Who would you rather follow – a leader who makes seemingly random decisions, or one who makes decisions that are carefully thought through and clearly explained?

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It’s not a fire

We had a problem with our supplier – they were offering us a really long lead time for an item we needed quite soon if we were to meet our customers’ expectations.

The comment made by the supplier was a little direct –

‘Lack of planning on your part does not constitute a fire on my part’.

We won’t be using that supplier in the future. What they said to us isn’t something I would ever recommend you say to a customer either. But it is worth keeping their comment in mind when you are next chasing a result.

Are you under pressure because you didn’t plan properly?

If that’s not the case, where is the fire?

At what point did your project or program get away from the planned timeline? What caused that to happen?

When you know these answers, the most important questions to ask yourself next are, ‘What could we have done to avoid this?’ and ‘Should we build in an allowance for this to happen again and put remedial measures in place?’.  (The answer to this second question is ‘Probably yes’ – unless it really was a unique set of circumstances.)

Most projects fail for two main reasons –

The first reason for failure is because they are not properly planned;  they aren’t broken down into measurable and achievable steps that have performance indicators attached to them. If you don’t set a target, how will you know when you’ve  achieved it?

The second – and perhaps more worrying – cause of failure is when both the plan and a means of measuring it exist, but the outcome is ignored or skipped over. Sometimes this can happen when the failure of a project means the loss of face or status is too great to accept. The project team can’t bring themselves to admit failure – and that can mean they move the target!

The more complex the project, and the more moving parts it comprises, the more important it becomes to break it down into manageable pieces, so you can measure performance at the lowest level.

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Look for the cause

Whatever business you are in, it is worth considering cause and effect whenever something good or bad happens.

It’s a bit like a doctor diagnosing the illness that is causing the fever, not just treating the fever, but far too often we focus on preventing the bad stuff, not repeating the good stuff.

The same principle applies to quality systems. There are procedures and processes like root cause analysis and the 5 whys principles that help you determine the real cause. Once you have done that you can prevent the root cause, which prevents the effect.

I am at least as interested in what went well as I am in what went badly. Eliminating errors and preventing problems is great, but doesn’t move the business forward.

A few months ago I had a meeting with a prospect who was initially quite hostile, so much so that I struggled to get him to agree to a meeting at all. I’d been introduced by a colleague, so he had expressed an interest in getting his business ready for sale, but even so he was difficult.

The meeting went OK. It was not the most positive experience, and I think if you’d asked me to rate my chances of securing work immediately after the meeting I would have said perhaps 30%.

Two days later, I had a phone conversation with this same person. He was really enthusiastic, telling me that he was just off on a business trip but that he would be in touch and we would be working together.

I like the effect – having a prospect tell me that he will be engaging with me is good news, but without knowing the cause I could not repeat it.

When you have a sales meeting that fails or a marketing campaign that didn’t work, I suspect you have a review process to determine why. Do you have the same process when you win?

(By the way, I think my prospect became my fan as a result of reading my book, Deal Finance)