Saying 'Yes' Means Saying 'No'

One of the frequent problems I encounter from both managers and their employees is a lack of clear priorities.  When this topic comes up I see eyes roll and I hear voices drop in resignation. These workers are strung out trying to manage more and more items on the ‘to do’ list.  The sense of being overwhelmed permeates the conversation.  

Back in the late 90’s I was a general manager for a service company. We were awarded a contract to provide a new service in another part of the country with the project kick-off just 30 days away. To meet the deadline required a total commitment by management on this one project.  My boss, John Schaeffer, understood the project requirements and he allowed us to focus on just this project.  He made sure that we had everything we needed.  Schaeffer kept other things from getting in the way.  Most importantly, he gave us permission not to do other unrelated tasks but rather give them to him to handle.  As a result of the ability to focus on the new service, the project exceeded customer expectations and we were awarded more contracts. 

Managers are responsible for establishing and maintaining priorities.  They are accountable for sustaining the effort by safeguarding employees’ focus on the priority.  To do this, managers need to say ‘no’ to other demands.

Saying ‘no’ to an additional requirement is foreign to some managers.  These are the same managers who are finding themselves and their staffs pulled in too many directions.  Effective managers evaluate a new requirement in light of existing priorities/ resources.  When it doesn’t pan out to take on the new task, they communicate no by saying - ‘I can’t support this request at this time’; ‘We are already committed on a high priority’ or ‘Working on this new project will require me to modify work on this other priority.’  As far as being concerned about telling the boss these things, most managers want to hear the truth as it helps avoid doing something that doesn’t make sense.

An analogy for setting a priority is asking employees to do something hard, for example asking them to climb to the top of a mountain.  If the manager decides that after they get half way of the mountain to tell them this is the wrong mountain (priority), expect the following reactions – anger, frustration, loss of confidence.  Most critical, manager credibility takes a hit.

 

If something is going to be added to the pile of things to do, then something needs to come off the pile in order to free up resources for the new task.  If a shift in priorities is required, the manager needs to be deliberate so employees understand the new priorities. 

 

Saying ‘yes’ to a priority, means having to say ‘no’ to other tasks.  Doing this will produce better results by focusing on the priority task.

To Be a Better Leader Takes Practice

Several years ago, my daughter became engaged. After getting over the initial shock, my wife shared with me that we should take ballroom dance lessons to prepare for the father – daughter dance. My immediate reaction was to run away from this as fast as I could. My wife let it rest for a while but she brought it up again. To avoid dance lessons I developed a list of demands - private lessons, Monday evening & not expensive. I thought I had dodged this idea again.

I had a little bit of a reprieve until my wife found a dance teacher who met all my requirements. I was trapped. I had to go, but at least I wasn’t obligated to continue after the first lesson. At the initial dance lesson my biggest fears materialized. I couldn’t dance and I felt incredibility awkward. I was about to tell my wife that I wasn't going back when she preempted me by telling me that our daughter was very excited to hear about the dance lessons. The next time she was home she wanted to practice. I was stuck. There was no way I was going to disappoint our daughter on her special day.

The next lesson was worst than first because my apprehension about taking lessons had turned into reality. However, my wife was patient and the teacher knew how to coach me – build my confidence, get the simple steps going, let me fail and learn from my mistakes. After developing a bit more confidence and starting to be almost comfortable, the teacher told me it was time to get on the dance floor with other dancers and encouraged us to go to a dance. How do I avoid this?

There is a parallel between this story and trying to enhance leadership skills. At some point a manager is going to realize that they need to improve their skill set in order to deal more effectively with the challenges they face. With such an epiphany many of us are taken back. Denial and avoidance can set in as we try to work around the deficient skill. We are reminded over and over of this shortfall in our leadership skill set. It won’t go away.

At some point we may resign ourselves to addressing the need. We seek advice or read a book. But despite this preparation we remain hesitant to take the next step and put it into action. Why? Our reluctance to put into practice the new skill is partially attributable to the anxiety of doing something unfamiliar, the sense of awkwardness and the fear of failure.

It can be helpful to gather information and seek suggestions. However, to learn the new skills, you have to practice it in your work setting - you have to ‘get on the dance floor’. Eventually you muster enough courage to overcome those obstacles and try the new skill. There you feel insecure and conspicuous with a strong desire to flee. Most likely the initial attempts will be met with a sense of failure. Only through repetitive practice in the work setting do we acquire a new skill.

There are multiple requirements to achieving a change in your leadership skills – having a feedback system, understanding the mechanics, including coworkers in your efforts. All of these are important. The critical step to improving a skill is practice until the awkwardness dissipates and the skill is acquired.

One last note, we continue to take dance lessons. Our teacher wants us to learn how to tango. I’m not worried about it.

Being Easy is Relative

When I started my business, I decided I could save some money by developing my own web page. I kept encountering phrases like, 'easy to use' and 'you'll be up and running in no time'. Needless to say, none of it was easy.

I kept running into jargon - domain name, hosting - that didn't make sense. I tried the on-line help and had the same experience. Finally, I called technical support and asked for help. They used lots of web speak which was frustrating. After walking me through the web page design process, the results didn't work because the company was having technical difficulties. I called back a day later and was told to discard the process I was instructed to use previously. So, we started the process all over again.

What is easy for one person may not be easy for someone else. I can recall when I’ve asked to have something done which I thought was easy, to only find out that there were significant problems encountered. These challenges led to delays in completing the task and frustration by the people trying to accomplish the task. I was unaware of these problems until after the task was completed or had gone badly off track.

I tried to apply these lessons by using the mental phrase, 'It is always easier when someone else has to do it'. This helped me to remember that it is important to include the person who has to accomplish the task in the planning discussion. I found that when I did this the likelihood of accomplishing the objective increased significantly. Sometimes the plan I thought would work was greatly modified as result of this process. The resulting plan ended up being more complete, realistic and had buy-in from those who had to execute it.

This planning process led to better results with fewer challenges. I sought out the folks who had to carry out the task to both recognize their efforts and to find out what challenges presented themselves. This interaction produced even more lessons learned and facilitated better planning for the next project.

Using this method doesn’t eliminate all the potential problems but it does help significantly to reduce the chances of them occurring. It takes time to do this but I have found it well worth the investment. There might be concern that this process will lead to modification of the objective or the deadline. Yes it can, but only if you choose to after weighing all the information. By simply being involved in the planning process, higher levels of commitment by those who have to carry it out will be realized.

Using the approach of including others in the planning stage will return much better results. And after all, this process is easy.

Death by Meeting

One of the topics I hear about frequently in my line of work is meetings.  When the discussion comes up I encounter deep sighs, a roll of the eyes and pained facial expressions which tell it all – a sense of dread.  Meetings don’t have to conjure up these negative feelings.  

Al was my first boss when I reported to the Pentagon in late 1990.  It was a busy place as the nation was preparing for war in the Persian Gulf.  Shortly after arriving, Al asked me to attend a meeting to discuss deployment of Army units.  You may have a mental picture of the military meeting where the General sits at the end of table and does a lot of talking.  Far from it, she acted as a facilitator by pointing out the meeting objective, encouraging everyone to participate and challenge each other, to thoroughly air out concerns and she made sure the meeting stayed on topic. 

What happened as a result of this process? There was a lot passion about the best course of action, conflict surfaced and many ideas were shared.  At then end of the meeting, the General made decisions and assigned responsibilities for follow up.  The meeting lasted three hours.  It felt more like one hour.  After the meeting I observed friendly conversations between people who had a heated discussion just 15 minutes earlier. 

At the end of my debriefing with Al, I commented about the meeting and how much conflict there was.  He told me the meeting was so effective, so purposeful because of the conflict and how that it kept everyone engaged.

The idea that conflict is necessary to effective meetings is foreign to many companies.  Conflict is viewed with apprehension given the concern for the tension which would be created and the fear of ill will after the meeting.  Conflict doesn’t have to produce these results. Patrick Lencioni in his book, ‘Death by Meeting’, talks about the need for conflict as a key requirement to effective meetings and how to avoid the negatives associated with disagreement.

Lencioni’s premise is that disagreements on what to do and how to do things exist in companies.  These disagreements serve as obstacles to accomplishing objectives unless they are surfaced and worked through.  Meetings serve as a way to identify, discuss and resolve the conflict.  The role of the boss in the meeting is to get the disagreements on the table and get them aired out.  The folks in attendance are expected to speak candidly about the topic and to hear out other viewpoints.  The ensuing discussions help keep everyone involved and serve to gain a better understanding of differing opinions.  Ultimately the boss makes the decision with the full expectation that folks go out and implement the decision. Is this process perfect?  No, there may still be some disagreement however the challenges presented by the disagreement are reduced significantly.

‘Death by Meeting’ is an easy read and includes simple techniques which can be readily adopted to make meetings effective.  Changing meetings to be more effective takes time but the effort will be well rewarded by the increase in effectiveness and productivity.  Your people will deeply appreciate the results and could be swayed to look at meetings as really helpful and rewarding.  Sounds like a pretty good investment.