5

Make It Easy
How to Make Keeping Commitments (Almost) Painless

Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.

—CONFUCIUS

It’s time to move to the ability side of our model. We’ll start with an example. Kyle, a political analyst who works for you, was supposed to write a position paper for an upcoming debate and have it on your desk by noon, but he didn’t. You call him in for a private discussion and describe the gap. He lets you know that he really wanted to do what he promised and says that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t. The specialist who conducts the statistical analysis was hospitalized with a burst appendix, and she’s the only one who understands the data.

In any case, Kyle was prevented from doing what he agreed to do. And then he did exactly the right thing: He immediately called to let you know about the problem, but you were in a meeting across town. He left a message on your voice mail and then tried to track you down. In short, he wasn’t able to meet his commitment and did his best to let you know. This was definitely not a motivation problem.

DON’T MISDIAGNOSE

Having just read the last chapter, you decide it would be a good idea to tell Kyle about the natural consequences of missing the deadline. You figure that he needs to know, so you share:

“Let me tell you something. If people ask the wrong questions at the debate, we’re going to look like a bunch of dopes because we don’t have the position paper.”

Kyle turns ashen, mumbles something about tracking down the specialist, and dashes off like a scared rabbit.

“Now he’s really motivated!” you think to yourself.

We hope you wouldn’t actually do this. Being the steely-eyed smart person you are, you would note that Kyle was motivated to do the job. Piling on more reasons for doing something he wasn’t able to do in the first place would be the wrong cure. Indeed, it would be cruel. Kyle needs help removing the barriers he’s facing, not a kick in the pants, and so that’s where we’ll turn. What does it take to help others remove any and all barriers they face? Better still, what can we do to make it easy, even painless, for others to complete their assignments?

Motivation and Ability Are Inextricably Linked

To learn how to enable others, let’s start by examining two of the more subtle aspects of motivation and ability. First, motivation and ability are linked at the hip. They aren’t separate entities. More often than not, they blend into one another. Here’s why. If something is hard to do—perhaps noxious and boring—it’s demotivating. Who really wants to muck out a horse stall? Or fill out expense reports? Or write a term paper?

Here’s our first question: If a job is difficult or revolting or tedious, does this constitute an ability problem or a motivation problem? The person is not able to do the task, at least not easily, and as a result is not motivated to do it. What are we looking at here?

By the purest definition, if individuals can do a job but are not doing it, it’s because they aren’t motivated. The metaphorical test that people often apply to this question is “If you held a gun to their head, could they do it?” If the answer is yes, they’re able but unmotivated.

This simplistic yet violent test doesn’t serve us well. If a job is truly impossible, it’s a clear-cut ability problem. That’s an easy call. For instance, Kyle tried his best to finish his project but was prevented from finishing on time. This had nothing to do with motivation. However, if a task is difficult, disgusting, or dreary, we need to think of the problem in a more complex way. It’s not pure ability. It is a composite problem with both motivational and capability components.

Here’s how the two elements come together. In the short run, if a task is undesirable but not impossible, we can crank up the pressure and get the job done. Over the long run, we want to find a way to remove some of the factors that make the job undesirable, or we’ll constantly be looking for ways to motivate people to do what they hate doing. And that’s never fun.

Motivation and Ability Can Be Confused

Here’s another concept to keep in mind. When diagnosing the cause, we have to be dead certain that we haven’t confused motivation and ability. As completely different as the two things are, people don’t always make it easy for us to tell whether they don’t want to do what’s been asked or can’t do it. In fact, we pretty much assume that if we ask nicely enough, people will tell us straight out whether they couldn’t complete an assignment, they wouldn’t, or both.

For instance, Wanda, a service-repair technician who works for you, doesn’t show up at a client’s office. You ask what happened, and she comes back with “I went there, but the doors were locked. I used my cell phone to check what was going on and got voice mail.”

It was a clear-cut ability problem. When you’re lucky, people come right out and tell you if a problem was due to motivation or ability.

Ambiguous Cause

But you’re not always that lucky. More often than you’d like, the other person (in this case, Wanda) comes back with something such as “You know; stuff came up.”

This response is just ambiguous enough to be dangerous. You need to probe for can’t or won’t. With this in mind, you ask, “Are you saying that you ran into a problem or that you didn’t want to do it?”

Wanda continues to baffle you by saying, “You know how it is. I just never got around to it.”

You probe one more time: “I’m not sure what you’re saying. Did you choose not to do it, or were you unable to do it?”

Complicated Cause

Finally Wanda fesses up. She tells you why, and as is often the case, it’s complicated: “I hate working for those guys. They look over my shoulder and complain the whole time. They give me the creeps. I was hoping if I didn’t show up, you’d schedule someone else.”

There you have it: she didn’t want to do it (for understandable reasons), shirked the job, didn’t let you know, left the client hanging, and was hoping that you’d reward her by sending someone else to the tough client. She chose not to do it (motivation), and as is often the case, she was not all that motivated because she was not all that able. She didn’t know how to deal with a tough client.

You’d probably start this conversation with the fact that she chose not to do the job, left the client high and dry, and hoped you’d somehow look the other way. That’s a serious infraction. You might eventually work with Wanda to help her get better at dealing with tough clients, but you’re not likely to start there. In any case, this problem, like most, is fairly complicated and requires a detailed diagnosis and multiple solutions. Without going into all the sources, you’re only going to be able to deal with a subset of the underlying causes.

Masked Cause

Believe it or not, sometimes people purposely hide the genuine source of a problem. If they fear that they’ll get in trouble for not being able or not wanting to do what’s been asked, they may stretch the truth to avoid new problems. For example, an attending physician asks a medical student to insert an intravenous line into the chest of a 75-year-old patient. The student isn’t quite sure how to do it, but when the doctor is called away to work on a cardiac arrest, the student says nothing. Instead, he attempts to insert the line and punctures the sac around the woman’s lung, and the patient later dies of related complications. A woman dies because the student is uncomfortable saying that he just might be unable to do what he’s been asked. (This actually happened.)

Perhaps the most common ability problem that people try to hide is their illiteracy (23 percent of the population is illiterate). Employees fear they’ll lose their jobs if they admit that they can’t read or do basic math. You ask, “John, how come you didn’t set up the new equipment?” John couldn’t read the directions, tried his best, and failed. He thinks he’ll be fired if you find out that he can’t read, and so he answers, “I hate doing that kind of stuff. It has all those fancy numbers and charts and things—not that I couldn’t do it if I wanted to.”

If you interpret this response to mean that John doesn’t like doing the task, you’ll want to explain the natural consequences: “John, we have two clients waiting on the job, and the longer you take getting the equipment up, the longer they’ll have to wait.”

This, of course, is a doomed conversation, because no matter how many consequences you explain, John is still stuck.

As strange as this may sound, it’s not uncommon to discover that employees who are being disciplined for excessive resistance or even insubordination are hiding the fact that they couldn’t do what they had been asked to do. They chose discipline over shame or, worse, what they believe is the possibility of being fired.

Probably the most common form of masking takes place when people cover up their lack of motivation with a bogus ability problem. This often occurs when a person figures the boss doesn’t really care what happens but then the boss shows up wanting to know why the job wasn’t done. Suddenly an ability block sounds better than saying, “I didn’t make it a priority.” Thus, people come up with whoppers like these:

“I would have been here for the early meeting, but my alarm didn’t go off.”

“I would have mowed the yard before your lawn party but was wondering if maybe I should cut it shorter than usual.”

It’s important to listen carefully to the answers to your diagnostic questions. When John states, “It’s got all those fancy numbers and charts and things—not that I couldn’t do it if I wanted to,” a careful person might continue probing about difficulty, making it safe for John to say that he has trouble with the directions.

In responding to bogus motivation problems, it’s common to give the person the benefit of the doubt the first time: “So what are you going to do to ensure that your alarm goes off next time?”

If excuses keep cropping up, you have to deal with the pattern as in this example:

“This is the third time you’ve run into some kind of problem. We’ve been patient, but the fact is, you have to make those early meetings.”

“The last five times I asked you to do a chore around the house, you agreed, I left on an errand, and then you came up with questions and didn’t do the job.”

YOUR JOB: MAKE IT EASY

Let’s say you’ve diagnosed the cause and the other person can complete the task, but it’s really horrible and tedious. Now what? It’s your job to help remove the barrier. It’s your job to help make it easy. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with this. In fact, some people take pride in their ability to inspire others to complete noxious or tedious tasks. In truth:

There is no great honor in being a leader or parent who is able to encourage people to continually achieve the nearly impossible. It can be gratifying to be an effective motivator, but the best leaders don’t simply inspire people to continue to do the gut-wrenching, mind-boggling, and noxious. They help people find ways to ease the gut-wrenching, simplify the mind-boggling, and nullify the noxious.

This is where accountability experts truly shine. They see themselves as facilitators, enablers, and supporters, not armed guards or cheerleaders. This self-image may go further in separating the best from the rest than does any skill they actually possess. Skilled individuals take pride in helping others make things easy. It’s part of their Golden Rule. It’s what they do.

Less skilled and more controlling folks have a different view of their role. They get people to do whatever it takes at whatever the cost and then brag about their leadership prowess. For them, making other people’s burdens less burdensome is a sign of weakness. The home version of this attitude isn’t any more attractive—for instance, getting your spouse to open up about a sensitive issue by piling on a truckload of guilt and manipulation. Why would anyone ever want to do such a thing? Because it’s a power trip and some people love power more than they love relationships or even results.

Believing that it’s praiseworthy to be able to compel people to complete tasks that are painful paints an intriguing yet counterintuitive picture of leadership. After all, human beings are forever finding ways to avoid pain and seek pleasure, not the other way around.

Distasteful tasks may be good for people at some level, and it’s true that employees are generally getting paid to do them; but if they’re normal human beings, they’re going to try to find a way to get out of dreadful jobs or at least make them easier. Don’t most of us use automatic garage door openers, punch TV remote-control buttons, and open cans with a special gadget of some kind? We don’t need any of these things, but they make life easier.

It’s important to make this distinction between necessity and convenience because we must be comfortable with the idea that it’s okay for people to want to find an easier, more convenient way to do a job.

Desiring to get out of hard and noxious work doesn’t reflect a character flaw; it’s what smart people do.

When your 12-year-old son goes to great pains to invent an automatic back scratcher or cons his friends into pushing him around the mall in a wheelchair, you can view him as either lazy or creative. And when someone who works for you runs into an ability barrier where the job is difficult but not impossible, you can apply your motivation tools to inspire him to keep his nose to the grindstone. Or you can find a way to make the task easier. Or you can do both.

For the remainder of this chapter, we’re going to look at how to make it easy for others. We already know how to motivate. And we’re going to take pride in the fact that we’re making it easy. It’s the smart thing to do.

TOOLS FOR MAKING IT EASY

Jointly Explore Barriers

Knowing what to do with an ability barrier is actually fairly simple: jointly explore the underlying ability blocks and remove them. That’s easy. In contrast, knowing how to remove those barriers requires our attention. That means we need to know if others can’t do something because of personal (they don’t have the skills or knowledge), social (friends, family, or coworkers are withholding information or material), or structural (the world around them is structured poorly) factors. But before we consider the ability side of our Six-Source Model, we’ll have to break years of bad habits.

Avoid Quick Advice

When we hear that someone faces an ability barrier, we habitually jump in with suggestions. We don’t even think about it. We’re experienced, and we understand how things work, and so when we see an ability challenge, we roll up our sleeves and fix things. It’s positively Pavlovian. We see a problem, and bing, the gate is up and our tongues are off and running.

When people come to you and explain that they’re at their wits’ end, it’s nearly guaranteed that you’re going to tell them what to do. After all, they’re asking you to tell them what to do. Nevertheless, jumping in with your answers isn’t always the smart move.

Should You Do It Yourself?

Let’s see how this problem plays itself out. A child brings you a broken toy, and you fix it, or at least you try. After all, the child either doesn’t know what to do or doesn’t have the skills or tools to do it, and so it’s obvious that you need to do the work. It’s the helpful thing to do. Or is it?

Resourceful people realize that when others face an ability block, you can either tell them outright what to do (if you know) or invite them to help come up with a solution: “What do you think it’ll take to fix this?” “Would you like to help me?” Savvy folks choose to work jointly through ability blocks. They fight their natural tendency to jump in with an answer and instead involve the other person. Here’s why.

Involvement Both Enables and Motivates

Enables

If you involve others in solving problems, two important things happen. First, you get to hear their ideas. People may not know exactly what to do, but they probably have a good idea about what doesn’t work. Actually, they may know exactly what to do but need materials or permission to do it. In any case, start ability discussions with a simple question: “You’ve been working on the problem. What do you think needs to be done?” Ask them for their ideas. Invite them to put their theories, thoughts, and feelings on the table. They’ll start to identify the barriers source by source.

When people aren’t completely certain about what to do or if it becomes clear that they don’t understand the situation fully, it’s perfectly legitimate to chime in with what you think might help. Of course, how you toss in ideas makes a big difference. Style counts. The feeling of the conversation should be one of partnering. You’re working together as intellectual equals, both of you throwing in your thoughts.

Motivates

There’s an important secondary benefit to involving others. When people are included in coming up with a potential solution, they’re more likely to be motivated to implement it, and that’s important. Consider the following formula:

Effectiveness = accuracy × commitment

Most problems have multiple solutions. The effectiveness of a solution depends on the accuracy of the chosen tactic. That’s obvious. It’s equally important that the person implementing the tactic believe in it. That’s where commitment comes into play.

A solution that is tactically inferior, but has the full commitment of those who implement it, may be more effective than one that is tactically superior but is resisted by those who have to make it work.

Let’s be clear about what we’re proposing. Many people argue that the reason for involving others is to trick them into thinking the ideas are their own so that they’ll work harder to implement them. We’re not suggesting that you manipulate people into thinking that your ideas are theirs. Involving others is not a cheap trick. We’re simply proposing that other people do have ideas, that getting them out in the open is to everyone’s advantage, and that when people are involved in the entire thought process, they see why things need to be done a certain way and are motivated to do it that way.

By involving others, you empower them. You provide them with both the means and the motive to overcome problems.

Start by Asking for Ideas

Involving people is better than merely telling people. But how should you do that? This is quite simple.

Start by asking other people for their ideas. They’re closest to the problem; start with their best thinking.

When we first trained people to deal with ability problems, it all seemed so simple. You ask others for their ideas, you get to hear their best thoughts, and they’re empowered. What could be easier? Who could possibly mess this up? As it turns out, there are several ways to go wrong. Here are the top three tactics to avoid.

Don’t Bias the Response

As we trained people with these materials over the years, many participants would try to involve the others in resolving an ability problem in the following way:

“So you haven’t been able to get in touch with the lawyers. Here’s an idea: drive over to their office and wait until they return. What do you think?”

People who choose this tactic understand only half of the concept of empowerment. As long as they give the other person a chance to disagree, they feel okay.

Unfortunately, when you’re speaking from a power base, offering up your idea first and then asking for the other person’s approval misses the mark. You’re likely to bias the other person. First, you’re filling his or her head with your idea, and this can cut off new thinking. Second, you may inadvertently be sending the message that your idea is what you really want, and so others are not about to disagree with you.

In the example just mentioned, the person is likely to say, “Perfect, I’ll drive across town.”

Ask other people for their thoughts; wait for them to share their best ideas, and then, if it is still necessary, chime in with your thoughts. For example, when you are speaking to your teenage son about not clearing two feet of snow from your driveway, he explains that the gas-powered snow thrower is jammed.

You ask, “What will it take to fix it?” You have an idea but wait to hear what he has to say. He explains that he ran over the Sunday paper and the machine ate it, and now its throat is jammed. From there he explains what it’ll take to clear it, what he’s doing, and how long it’ll take. You offer an idea about a better tool and a way to use it, and together you come up with a plan for what he’ll do.

Don’t Pretend to Involve Others

This mistake in involving other people in solving an ability barrier is propelled by two forces. First, you already have an idea and would prefer to implement it without involving others. Second, you believe that you now have to involve others because it’s the politically correct thing to do. Here’s what you come up with: you simply pretend to involve others by asking for their ideas, after which you subtly manipulate them to come around to your way of thinking.

As you might suspect, this technique comes off as glaringly manipulative. It looks more like sending a rat through a maze and periodically throwing it a pellet for making the correct turn than like engaging in a legitimate effort to involve another human being in removing an ability barrier. Here is an example:

“What do you think it’ll take to get these things out on time?” you ask.

“How about if we put more people on the job?” (You grimace and shake your head.)

“I guess I could work overtime myself.” (This time you frown deeply.)

“I don’t know. What if I leave out a few steps along the way?”

“What did you have in mind?” you inquire.

“We don’t have to shrink-wrap the materials. That’ll save a couple of hours.”

“No, not that. Maybe the paperwork.”

“I could leave out the billing until …”

“I was thinking of different paperwork,” you hint. “How about the environmental reports?”

“I love your idea. Delay the environmental stuff, and oh yeah, thanks for coming up with the perfect solution.”

People laugh when they watch a video of this script because this kind of thing happens all the time. Some parents practically have a doctorate in this technique:

“What would you like to have for dinner?” Mom asks.

“Mac and cheese!” the kids shout.

“I was thinking of something with more green in it.”

“Really old mac and cheese.”

“Funny. How about something with vegetables?” Mom continues.

“Mac and cheese with green beans.”

“Nope,” Mom says with a frown. “Too starchy.” And the endless search for what Mom really has in mind continues.

The problem with these interactions is not that the person in authority had an opinion. These people do have opinions, and they’re certainly allowed to share them or even give a unilateral command. That’s not the problem. The problem comes when this person attempts to pass off his or her opinions as an involvement opportunity. The sham ends up looking like a game of “read my mind” and is quite insulting.

Involve others in solving ability blocks only if you’re willing to listen to their suggestions.

Don’t Feel the Need to Have All the Answers

This mistake is the product of low confidence and a bad idea. Newly appointed leaders are often unwilling to ask their direct reports for their thoughts because these leaders believe that if they don’t appear to know everything about the job, they’ll look incompetent. In their view, asking for ideas isn’t a smart tactic; it’s a sign of weakness. When they are facing an employee with an ability problem, the newly appointed do their best to share their insights. The last thing they want to do is query an employee who not only reports to them but obviously needs help.

Of all the bad ideas circulating the grapevine, pretending that leaders must know everything is among the most ridiculous and harmful. Leaders earn their keep, not by knowing everything, but by knowing how to bring together the right combination of people (most of whom know a great deal more about certain topics than the leader will ever know) and propel them toward common objectives.

Confident leaders are very comfortable saying, “It beats me. Does anyone know the answer to that?” or “I don’t know, but I can find out.”

A couple’s version of not involving others takes an interesting turn. We’re often unwilling to approach a loved one with a high-stakes problem until we’ve come up with the exact solution we want. The uncertainty of approaching a conversation without a bulletproof plan can be terrifying. What if we can’t fix it all? What if there is no answer? What if our partner comes up with a really stupid answer? Thus, we think up everything in advance, precluding the other person’s genuine involvement.

Completing the conversation in one’s head—before one actually speaks—nullifies the whole purpose of an accountability conversation. The idea should be jointly to create shared solutions that serve your Mutual Purpose. If you feel compelled to prefabricate answers, consider this: you don’t have to make it all better. All you have to do is collaborate. As you develop shared solutions, well-handled accountability conversations become the glue of your relationship; they help you face and conquer common enemies. Don’t exclude your partner by developing a plan before you’ve even opened the conversation.

Parents struggle with the same issue. Should they hold true to the adage “Never let them see you sweat”? Obviously, kids need to know that adults are confident and in charge. They feel secure believing that grown-ups know what to do. So whatever you do, don’t ask them for their ideas. It’ll freak them out. Still, wouldn’t it be better if children learned early on that their parents may be trying their best but don’t always know everything?

Get over it. It’s okay to ask children for their ideas. They will eventually (say, by age seven) know more than you do about all things electronic. Take comfort in the knowledge that you don’t have to be omniscient or even “semiscient.” You’ve been around. You bring home the bacon and cook it. You’ve been potty-trained for years. Don’t worry. You already have enough power and credibility to guilt-trip your kids.

Look at the Six Sources of Influence

Let’s assume that after observing someone who has failed to live up to a promise, you carefully diagnose the situation. It’s clear that the other person is motivated but can’t do what he or she has been asked. You stop, pause long enough to stifle your ingrained impulse to jump in with your best and smartest recommendation, and say, “You’re closest to the problem. What do you think needs to be done?”

Having asked for the other person’s view, it’s time for us to return to our diagnostic tool. We need to think through jointly which of the potential sources is at play. We need to listen to the other person’s recommendations and then do our best to partner with that person in thinking through the root causes.

This can be tricky. When it comes to motivating others, any single source can overcome all the detractors. You may hate doing your job, your friends may make fun of you for doing it, and your family may offer no support whatsoever, but you need the money. You’re motivated. When it comes to motivation, one source is all it takes.

With ability, the opposite is true. Any single barrier can trump all the enabling forces. You know what to do and have the right materials to do it, but your coworker hasn’t done his or her part. You’re missing only one element, but you’re dead in the water. When it comes to ability, since a single factor can stop all the other forces in the universe that have joined together to make it possible to do what’s required, you’d better be good at exploring all possible detractors. Otherwise you could be minutes away from a severe disappointment. You, along with the other person, had better be good at exploring all the existing as well as all the potential ability barriers.

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Brainstorm Ability Barriers

Let’s assume that the other person is willing to look at the various forces that are making it hard to do what’s required. But he or she is not completely aware of all the forces at play. The two of you will have to brainstorm the underlying causes. And if you want to do that, you need to be good at dealing with ability barriers that stem from personal, social, and structural factors.

Personal

Brainstorming personal ability issues can be tricky. As we suggested earlier, people often mask their inability. They’d rather point to other barriers than say they can’t do something, particularly if the task is a basic part of the job. Make it safe for the other person to talk about personal challenges. Calmly ask about his or her comfort with doing the job, knowledge levels, and other skill factors. Keep the conversation upbeat.

Social

The enabling or disabling role others play is typically easier to discuss. This is about what other people are or are not doing, and so it can be less threatening. Nevertheless, when the people you’re talking with worry about “ratting” on their colleagues, they may cover up for their friends by blaming other factors. Once again, make it safe to talk about colleagues and coworkers. Don’t use a “find-the-guilty” tone. This isn’t about blame or retribution; it’s about finding and removing ability barriers.

Structural

The role the physical world plays in the problem is generally the easiest to discuss. People willingly point fingers at the things the company is doing to make their life more difficult—if they remember to think about them. Remember, human beings often forget the role of things in preventing them from achieving what they want to do. People also accept the physical world around them as a given, something that can’t be changed: “Things have always been this way.” Kick-start people’s thinking. Ask about everything from systems, to work layout, to policies and procedures.

Three More Hints

As you jointly brainstorm ability barriers, don’t forget to ask yourself the following three questions as the discussion winds down.

image Will this person keep facing the problem? When you are removing ability blocks, you must ensure that the problem won’t keep resurfacing. Coming up with a one-time fix is hardly the preferred solution. For instance, the person doesn’t have the materials needed. Making a phone call to secure the material solves the immediate problem but doesn’t answer the question “Will this problem occur again, and why?”

image Will others have similar problems? This companion question explores the need for extending the solution to others. For example, a person doesn’t know how to do the job. The two of you come up with a development plan. Will others need a similar plan, or is the problem unique to that person?

image Have we identified all the root causes? The ultimate question, of course, is “Have you brought to the surface all the forces, fixing them once and for all?” For instance, the person needs to take a software course. Why didn’t the existing course help? The teacher was ineffective? Why was that? Japanese executives encourage leaders to ask why five times. We suggest that you probe until you’ve dealt with all the elements once and for all.

Advise Where Necessary

Our goal has been to collaborate with the other person in bringing to the surface and resolving ability blocks. We don’t want to rush into solutions too quickly or force our ideas onto others. Besides, as we’ve argued all along, the people closest to a problem are likely to see more barriers than anyone else can. Nevertheless, there are times when people do need help. They can’t see the barriers that have them stymied. In this case, it is our job to teach and advise, to point out stumbling blocks. In short, our job is to make invisible barriers more visible.

Think Physical Features

What kinds of barriers are most likely to remain a mystery to people? As we suggested earlier, most people have a hard time seeing organizational or environmental factors. The “things” around us are often static to the point of becoming invisible. Left to our own devices, we’d be the frog that boils to death in the pot because we miss the fact that the heat around us is increasing. We have a hard time noticing subtle forces such as the design of the environment, the availability of tools and technology, the chain of command, and policies and procedures.

For instance, your increasingly estranged relationship with your teenage son may be affected by the fact that he moved into the basement. Now the two of you bump into each other only in and around the vicinity of the refrigerator. Since you’re on a diet and he no longer frequents the family room, you hardly see each other anymore. Be sure the natural flow of the physical world supports your social goals. Think “things.” Help others see the impact of the physical world.

As far as work goes, it can be helpful to encourage people to identify the various bureaucratic forces that are preventing them from doing what needs to be done. With time and constant exposure, people start to accept rules, policies, and regulations as a given. They start treating them like commandments or laws of nature. Soon these highly constraining walls of bureaucracy become invisible.

Make them visible. Play the role of ignorant outsider. Keep asking, “Why can’t we do that?” If a policy is no longer relevant, find a way to do away with it. If a rule is excessively constraining, secure permission to release the constraint. Every time someone passes a new company rule, you can bet it’s in response to someone making a bad choice. Now everyone is restricted from ever making a choice:

“Listen up, folks. Roberta broke the law yesterday, so we’ll all be going to jail.”

Keep in mind that rules and policies don’t solve everything and that the ones you make in-house you can unmake.

If you really want to help people identify hidden barriers, attack the paperwork. Look at forms and signatures as targets for change. If people can’t complete their jobs on time because it takes seven signatures to get started, revisit why the signatures are required.

One company cut its response time in half by reviewing such a policy. The typical customer-service response couldn’t begin until seven people signed off on a form. This was the liberating idea: Typically, three of the people needed to give approval, but the other four only needed to be informed. Allowing employees to act after three signatures and then routing the form to the other four after the fact rocked their world.

By all means give people easy access to the information they need to make the right choices. Make sure that from the mass of data that’s out there, the right data are in front of the right people at the right time. For example, quit complaining that your daughter isn’t following her diabetes regimen if she’s cut off from the data (her various blood sugar levels and the consequences of each one) that would encourage her to do the right thing. You can harangue. You can beg. Or you can put numbers and charts in front of her.

Here’s another helpful tool. To help surface all sources of influence, ask, “If you ran this place, what would you do to solve this problem?” Asking people to assume the role of the big boss can be extremely liberating. Freed from the shackles of thinking from within their own fields of influence, they begin to look for ways to remove every company-made barrier.

In short, think hidden forces, think lots of forces, and keep at it until you’re satisfied that you’ve wrestled every single barrier to the ground.

CHECK BOTH SIDES

As you finish an accountability conversation, there’s a danger that despite your efforts to surface all the causes behind an ability problem, you still have unfinished business. The person still might not be motivated. How could that happen? This typically occurs when you describe a problem and the person immediately identifies an ability barrier. People tend to point to an ability block because it’s less threatening—even when they may also have conflicting priorities.

That brings us to our point. The fact that people start by identifying an ability block doesn’t guarantee that once it’s removed, they’ll actually want to do what they’ve promised to do. Once you’ve finished identifying and removing ability barriers, check both sides of the model. Ask, “If I get the work-up to you by two o’clock, are you willing to do what it takes to finish the job by five, or is there something else I need to know?”

Checking both sides means that you end a discussion of ability by checking for motivation. Of course, it goes both ways. If a person starts with “Do you really want me to do that? It’s such a pain,” and you spend time explaining the natural consequences until he or she agrees to comply, there’s a chance the person may also be facing an ability barrier or two. Once the person has agreed to comply, check the other side. Check for ability problems: “It sounds like you’re willing to do this, but is there anything standing in your way? Is there anything else we need to deal with, or can I count on you having this to me by Tuesday at nine?”

Once you’ve dealt with motivation, check ability. If you start with ability, check motivation. Remember to check both sides.

Make It Safe for Others to Search

Let’s end our discussion of ability problems by considering a difficult case. You want to brainstorm root causes with another person but don’t have the authority to do so.

For instance, your boss promises to give you a hand with customers during peak hours, but he’s routinely unavailable when you need him. Are you really going to have to motivate your boss to live up to his promise? Is that what’s going on? One thing is certain: you want to get to the root cause. Does he dislike helping out because he doesn’t like working with hostile customers? Does he think the work is beneath him? Are other priorities more important? Has he forgotten how to do the job?

You don’t know what’s actually going on here. Your only goal is to talk to your boss, identify the real forces behind his not helping, and learn if he’s going to keep his commitment or if you’re going to have to find a way to live without his help. That means you have to encourage your boss to join with you as you brainstorm reasons he isn’t keeping his commitment. Or if you’re in a real hurry, you could just step in front of a moving train.

Ask for Permission

We’ve talked about this before. If you lack the authority to require another person to discuss root causes, you can do so only by permission. So ask for it. If you do have the authority, ask for it anyway: “Since we agree on the problem, could we take a few minutes to talk about what’s in the way of solving it? I’d like to be as helpful as I can in making it easy to avoid the problem in the future. Would that be okay?”

Ask for Feedback

Perhaps the most gracious way to open the door to a complete discussion of underlying causes is to ask if you are adding to the problem. When you take responsibility for your contribution, you make it safe for other people to do the same thing: “My goal is to solve the problem. I’m particularly interested in learning about anything I might be doing to contribute to the challenges you face.”

Prime the Pump

People often feel unsafe discussing root causes because they fear that any analysis will make them look weak or selfish. If they’re not able, that’s bad. If they’re not motivated, that may look worse. You need to change this view. Your job in leading a root-cause discussion is to let others know that you see them as people of worth who are currently unable to do what’s expected. This isn’t about fixing their character; it’s about a fixing a problem.

One of the best ways to assure others that you’re not going to get angry when you learn the root cause is to “prime the pump,” or take your best guess at possible causes, without looking stressed, miffed, or judgmental. This helps others start the flow of information by making it safe for them to speak honestly. Priming works only if you take your best guess in a way that tells the other person that you’re okay with him or her admitting to what you just described. Word choice, body language, and tone of voice make a huge difference. Consider the following question: “Is that too hard for you?”

Now read the line in a patronizing way. Next, do it in anger. To draw on your real talents, read the line with sarcasm. Finally, try to be respectful. Imagine that this is a person you care about and genuinely want to help. How does that affect your delivery?

When priming is done well, it provides others with real-time visible evidence that you’re not going to demean or criticize them for honestly discussing the real issues. In short, your success depends on whether you see other people as human beings or villains. If you’ve come to see others as people you want to help succeed, most of the time you’ll do just fine.

 

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Make It Easy

We’ve carefully described the gap and are now listening to see if the problem is due to motivation or ability. In this chapter, we examined the ability side of the model. When the other person isn’t able, it’s our job to make it easy.

image When facing ability barriers, make impossible tasks possible and nasty tasks less nasty. In short, when others face ability barriers, make it easy.

image Jointly explore root causes. Take care to avoid jumping in with your own solutions. Empower others by allowing them to take part in diagnosing the real cause and coming up with workable solutions. Ask others for their ideas. Remember the all-important question “What do you think it’ll take?”

image When others can’t identify all the causes, jointly explore the underlying forces—include personal, social, and structural factors. Remember the model. When necessary, stimulate the brainstorming process by including your own view of what some of the barriers may be.

image Once you’re finished with surfacing and resolving ability barriers, check both sides. See if others are willing to do what’s required once you’ve taken steps to enable them. Just because they can do something, doesn’t mean they’re willing.

What’s Next?

Now it’s time to move on to the next problem. What happens if you’re in the middle of an accountability conversation and a whole new infraction emerges? Do you dare deal with it? Do you dare not? How can you stay both focused and flexible?

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