Chapter 10
Directions for the Journey: Getting from Here to There
Don't chase the latest management fad. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission.
Now that you've gone through nine chapters of this book, you've learned a lot of information about performance that should help you generate better results. But to have learned a lot about performance isn't enough. Most organizations are replete with examples of managers making poor decisions, following many fads, and doing quick fixes—while failing to understand what is really going on. These managers usually have the best interests of their organization at heart. Most of them are highly qualified, well educated, and very experienced. Yet in too many firms, the same patterns of seeking a magic bullet or instant solution still occur over and over. This chapter seeks to synthesize what you've learned and thus help prepare you to make the right decisions and avoid focusing on the wrong answers.
The Seductiveness of the Simple Answer
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
There are both a tremendous temptation and a great pressure to try and find a simple answer, both to explain why problems exist but also in terms of solutions. There are many reasons for this deep-rooted tendency. But it's critical that you resist it. This is not an argument for complexity or obtuse and difficult-to-understand positions and programs. But the push for simple answers instead tends to produce simplistic answers. It often results in black-or-white dichotomies and a categorization of people, processes, and explanations that ignores diversity and individuality. You can see this in a range of organizational approaches—benefits packages that rely on just one incentive (stock or bonuses), motivational speakers (an approach that assumes everyone just needs to get jazzed up), upgrading computers (if we just give everyone a better machine it will get better).
There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't.
Smart managers resist the temptation for superficial explanations of a problematic situation. For instance, think about how some managers talk about motivation. Employees are often labeled as either hard workers or unmotivated. But the reality is that throughout the workforce, motivation runs through a range of levels and standards. I may be very motivated by a task that engages me but “unmotivated” when it's close to quitting time. You may like working with your peers (and produce well in a group) but lag when doing solo work. Other employees may get bored easily or feel as if they've been treated badly by the firm, and thus perform well on some tasks but not others.
By oversimplifying things, we group elements (employees, behaviors, problems, issues) into overly broad categories that invite facile responses that ultimately end up failing to make sense of most circumstances. Oversimplification complicates our efforts to solve work problems. In the rush to make things simple, we tend to instead render them superficial.
Clarity versus Simplicity
Turning complex issues and opportunities into effectively simple—as opposed to simplistic or easy—constructs is truly the managerial art form of this new millennium;…organizations and the people who run them have to become more creative about how they manage clarity and simplicity. Spending an extra two or three weeks on making a project definition simpler or more accessible can save months of time in rework and maintenance from casually accepting a definition that the people actually doing the work find too complex.
The challenge is not to make the complex simple. That is a false challenge that denies the reality of organizations and how work is done. Rather, the challenge is to make the complex clear. This is part of the reason why analysis up front is so critical and why a systems perspective matters—both serve to clarify and align, especially in seeking solutions. A system, when explained and clarified, creates order out of a mass of data and conflicting information. It doesn't simplify the system, but it does crystallize issues and clarify them. So the challenge is not to reduce performance problems to simplistic declarations or facile and naive solutions. The challenge is to clarify. Thus, a critical element of good performance is avoiding the tendency to look for simplistic solutions.
When the solution is simple, God is answering.
How can managers distinguish between simplifying and clarifying? You can do this by keeping this distinction in mind:
• A simplistic approach seeks to reduce things to one or two issues and operates from the assumption that there is ultimately a core or basic problem to be dealt with—and once that is fixed, everything will fall into order.
• A clarifying approach doesn't seek to reduce issues but instead defines the order, sequence, and relationship of events. Rather than argue that it all boils down to one factor (whether motivation, skills, attitude, or another variable), this approach explains how a series of variables interact—it makes sense out of clutter.
Data versus Dogma
Most ailing organizations have developed a functional blindness to their own defects. They are not suffering because they cannot solve their problems but because they cannot see their problems.
Executives need to move to evidence-based management. Using data rather than dogma to make decisions produces a more objective approach to generating results. Unfortunately, it isn't quite that simple. It's too easy for managers to insist that they're being objective when they're often just looking for data that justifies their preexisting beliefs. Even managers who are attempting to be objective often fall victim to their assumptions and perspective, which limits what they're capable of perceiving.
Here are basic principles for evidence-based management:
• Build an organizational culture in which people are encouraged to tell the truth, even if it's unpleasant. Don't blame or fire the bearer of bad news.
• Make a commitment to fact-based decision making. This means taking the time to get data rather than acting on the basis of anecdotes.
• Question assumptions and challenge beliefs. Recognize that your perceptions limit your ability to see what is really going on, so welcome opportunities to see from different perspectives. Just because you think you're being objective doesn't mean you are.
• Recognize that all recommendations have risks and even the best solutions have side effects. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing, only that if you haven't spotted the downside, then you should admit you don't understand the solution.
• Don't phrase problems as the absence of a particular initiative (“The problem is that Jim doesn't provide enough feedback” or “If Jane would just train her staff, then our cycle time would be reduced”). This produces a bias problem that usually limits honest analysis of what is really going on.
• Avoid basing decisions on strongly held beliefs, what you've done in the past, or on uncritical benchmarking of what other firms have done. If you think there is a winning option from the past, identify what features of that culture and system provided support for the initiative.
This may initially sound like a cautious approach to working, as if you need to study everything to death before acting. Nothing could be further from the truth. You're simply changing the standards you use to make decisions. You're now making an effort to be objective, demand data, and avoid acting on the basis of whims, moods, and speculation. Companies like Harrah's that have adopted an evidence-based approach are quick to act. And their actions are more likely to be successful as well as sustainable. Becoming an evidence-based business is a fundamental cultural change for an organization.
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
An evidence-based approach also entails perceptual challenges. Organizations operating according to evidence-based management principles aren't just asking for data when making decisions. There is a mindset within these businesses that seeks to challenge assumptions. Executives recognize that everyone has blind spots—things about which we are ignorant and we aren't aware that we're ignorant. It's not possible to know everything. But smart organizations identify these blind spots. They also challenge beliefs, look for disconfirming information, and are open to different interpretations.
Falling for Fads
The seductive appeal of new ideas doesn't make old ones obsolete.
It is easy to be pulled in by fads and new initiatives. Part of the unstated message with a hot new development is that perhaps someone has discovered the magic bullet that will solve all problems and transform also-rans into market leaders. When struggling with problems that have you bogged down, it's so tempting to grasp for something that promises to solve everything—and quickly, too! It's not that there are no new good ideas (or a variation on this theme—that everything has already been invented).
But this tendency to be taken in by fads is doubly painful for organizations. It not only leads to abandonment of some worthy efforts (if only they'd been given more time and a more systemic approach had been taken), but it also ruins many new ideas. Six Sigma, Total Quality Management, quality circles, workout processes, learning organizations, and many other ideas all have value, and some organizations have been very successful with each of them. Yet for many executives, these ideas have been tried (poorly or inappropriately) and have become four-letter words, never to be given another chance in the organization.
It's important for businesses not to make changes on the basis of “newness,” or because competitors have started making similar changes—the corporate version of keeping up with the Joneses. Businesses should make changes on the basis of fit. And it's also critical that in evaluating any such potential change, an organization examines the cultural and organizational support that would be needed to make it work.
Take the example of Six Sigma. When GE enjoyed success with Six Sigma, what about GE in particular contributed to that achievement? What parts of GE's cultures were supportive and consistent with Six Sigma? What organizational aspects, if absent, would have caused Six Sigma to fail at GE? Most organizations that attempted to jump on GE's bandwagon failed to consider these questions and treated Six Sigma as if were a single, magical solution rather than an initiative that was influenced and supported by a host of cultural and systemic elements within GE.
Hitting the Mark
Throughout this book, we've considered seven specific steps that will help you move your organization from its current situation to one of high performance. Each chapter has provided the details for achieving these steps:
1. Set clear and compelling goals.
2. Focus on what matters.
3. Analyze performance gaps.
4. Choose systemic solutions, not quick fixes.
5. Learn from your best.
6. Give feedback that matters.
7. Implement change to support a high-performing workforce.
Let's review each step.
Step 1: Set Clear and Compelling Goals
Great success only comes when you focus on what really matters. Are you spread all over the place or on the few things that will bring the greatest rewards?
Its sounds a bit counterintuitive, but just because something's broken doesn't mean it's worth fixing. There are more than enough problems in any organization for you to take on—so make sure you're not spending time and other resources on relatively trivial things. You need to focus on items that will have the most impact on the organization. So it's critical to be clear about priorities. Asking these questions will help you discern if a goal is the right one:
• Is the goal bounded? How will you measure success? Is it time bound? Are there metrics or a baseline to measure against?
• Is it really a goal? Is this goal, by itself, sufficient, or is it actually a means to something else? For instance, would you really be happy with, say, “improving morale,” or is this goal really the method to another goal (in this case, reducing turnover)?
• Does the goal matter? What indicates it's a priority? Why focus on this issue now?
• Is there a commitment to action? Who owns this issue? Who cares about this? Why now? Why has it been allowed to persist for so long?
• What will the impact be? If this goal is—or isn't—met, what will happen?
Answer these questions, and you'll know if this potential goal is worth pursuing.
Step 2: Focus on What Matters
Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
In my experience, for many managers, trying to focus on what matters is probably the most challenging aspect of this book's content. Although we can all understand that organizations care about results, we're so ingrained to judge behavior and evaluate people by how they act that applying this step is difficult. Remember, the point here is not that behavior is irrelevant, only that we start first by focusing on what people are supposed to accomplish. Accomplishments or outcomes are easier to measure (and thus performance is easier to assess), less subjective, and fairer to workers (where there may be multiple paths to the same objective).
It's a mistake to focus on the behavior of performers—key tasks and tactics—before clarifying the desired outcomes in some detail—accomplishments and milestones.
It's critical not to define behavior as the definition of good (or bad) performance. It will be tempting to argue that the specific behavior your organization emphasizes truly is about results. Any time you find yourself focusing on a particular behavior, these questions will allow you to assess if it's a legitimate measure of performance.
• Does the employee's behavior result in something positive (for example, having a friendly demeanor with a customer produces a sale)?
• Is there more than one way to successfully accomplish what needs to be done?
• Is it difficult to accurately and objectively measure the behavior (percentage of eye contact, degree of friendliness, or level of initiative)?
If you can answer “yes” to any of these three questions, then the behavior itself doesn't constitute performance. Instead, you should use the result of the behavior or the accomplishment as the way of assessing performance.
People tend to become so engrossed in activity that they lose sight of purpose.
Remember, by focusing on behavior or personality traits, we tend to lose sight of the importance of accomplishments or the behavior's supposed result. We also fall victim to a rigid mentality that work requires everyone do things the same way, even if there are multiple acceptable ways to achieve the same result.
Step 3: Analyze Performance Gaps
The systems perspective tells us that we must look beyond individual mistakes or bad luck to understand important problems.…We must look into the underlying structures which shape individual actions and create the conditions where types of events become likely.
When managers see problems, they often make snap decisions about what to do. The trouble with this approach is that until we understand why something happens, we can't make intelligent decisions about how to close the performance gap.
How do you know if efforts to identify why a problem is happening are wrong? Try answering these questions:
• Were you able to figure out the cause of the problem without having to conduct any analysis?
• If you did gather data, is it based on only one or two examples?
• Did you decide that there is one obvious cause to the problem?
• Is the cause phrased as “He made a mistake” or “She did it wrong” or as “They showed poor attention to detail”?
• Does the problem definition indicate a lack of something that implies what the solution should be (such as “not enough oversight,” “lack of training,” or “insufficient funding”)?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you probably haven't nailed down the cause analysis. You've likely come up with a culprit that is too simplistic, is phrased in such as way that it isn't sufficiently objective, or doesn't provide a good understanding of what is going on. Until you correct that, you're likely to be spinning your wheels.
Step 4: Choose Systemic Solutions, Not Quick Fixes
The “quick-fix” mentality also makes us system-blind.
Admittedly, there is tremendous pressure to act quickly. The world is a more and more competitive place, and there isn't much time to study, reflect, and deliberate. Yet these are exactly the reasons not to try quick fixes. To act without systemic analysis doesn't solve problems and usually requires the organization to later go back and yet again fix what was never corrected.
Also, the problem isn't in acting quickly. It's in acting without taking a systems approach. Poor performance doesn't happen in isolation. It is self-reinforcing. There are aspects to the system that reward and reinforce the suboptimization. Until you understand how it all fits together (which is where systems thinking comes in), you aren't going to be able to solve it. Here are some tips for thinking and acting systemically:
• Does your performance analysis explain what it is about the system that rewards and encourages poor work?
• Do you understand why the problem persists?
• Does each solution include components at the organizational, process, and per former levels?
• Do your solutions build in efforts/plans/steps/methods to change or remove the system incentives for the prior behavior?
• Could you diagram the performance problem as a process that shows the reinforcing elements or loops that make the problem a continuous one?
If you answered “yes” to all these questions, you're well on your way to understanding not only why the problem isn't isolated but also how to make the kinds of fundamental changes that will have staying power.
It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem.
If you don't understand the context, you don't understand the problem. Looking at problems in isolation tends to oversimplify the issues. It also removes any understanding of how the system influences the behavior. But the challenge in understanding the problem isn't that the people with the most experience will be the most knowledgeable. It's that people who understand the system's dynamics are also more likely to understand the context and thus the problem.
Step 5: Learn from Your Best
The fact is, the differences between peak performers and everybody else are much smaller than everybody else thinks.
Exemplary performers not only are your best producers; they're also the key to identifying how to improve everyone else. As you saw in earlier chapters, the differences in results between exemplars and the rest of the workforce are extreme. But while the difference in productivity may be great, the differences in behavior are usually small. The failure to recognize this explains why so many businesses do such a poor job improving performance—and why exemplary workers are so rarely seen as the means of identifying improvement.
Big results can come from small differences. That's why studying the best workers is so invaluable. Often, the key distinction between a star performer and the rest of the pack can be reduced to a couple of small actions:…a self-developed job aid to enhance memory, an extra step taken, a little more precision on a task that others often goof up. You don't have to make all other employees be like the best workers. You just need to understand how the best do the work—and if that same method can be transferred to the rest of the workforce.
In chapter 7, you were given a checklist of things that top performers do that results in better performance. That checklist is a tool to help you spot who the best performers are as well as to identify why they're so good. Here's a list to help you determine if the person you've picked is truly an outstanding performer—or just an employee who behaves the way you wish everyone else did:
• Does the outstanding performer consistently produce better results than everyone else (either across the board or in the specific task or function they're supposed to be outstanding at doing)?
• Is it possible to measure the differences in behavior between the outstanding performer and the rest of the workforce?
• Does this outstanding performer do a better job of following company policy and obeying the rules?
• Is this outstanding performer outstanding at all or most aspects of the work?
If you answered “yes” to the first two questions, you might indeed have identified a truly exemplary employee. Answering “yes” to the last two questions doesn't indicate an exemplar. You could have an outstanding employee and answer “no” just as often to the last two questions.
The first way to determine if someone is exemplary is by their performance—not how they behave or act, but by their accomplishments. Even if they appear to look and behave much like other employees, you should be able to identify a performance gap, even if it's in one small area—such as a database that is more accurate and easier to access.
As for following rules and procedures, exemplars are more likely to violate policy if they feel it gets in the way of the work. Managers are more likely to identify someone as an outstanding worker because that person is easier to manage, follows the rules, and doesn't make waves—all things that are irrelevant to most performance results. It's important to not confuse the concept of a “good employee” (someone who looks and acts as we wish others did) and a “good performer” (someone who does the work better and produces better results than anyone else).
It's also important to remember that you may not have employees who are great at everything. Instead, it may be a case of workers who do outstanding work in subsets or specific tasks. Taken as a whole, each person doesn't appear outstanding, but in a specific area of focus the individual is exemplary—and someone others could learn from.
If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.
It's also critical not to view great workers as simply much more gifted than everyone else. Remember the research on geniuses—it's a function of work, practice, and dedication. One of the ways to help identify exemplars is to look for those who not only talk about wanting to get better but find ways to practice what they do—to hone their skills. Recognize that outstanding workers don't happen by accident. Even if they can't explain their ability, they have showed tremendous dedication to honing and improving their work.
This doesn't, however, mean that harder workers are better employees. Outstanding individual performance doesn't come easily. Look for the employees who, without being told to do so, develop their own job aids and work-support tools. Or who hold spontaneous postmortems or after-action meetings to learn from what just happened. Or who bring in their own tools in place of what the company provides so they can have something more precise or of higher quality. It's important to distinguish between the motivation of wanting to get ahead (working longer hours in hopes of getting a promotion or bonus) and wanting to do a better job (working longer hours because the existing standard seems inadequate to the employee).
Step 6: Give Feedback That Matters
There is nothing more demoralizing than a leader who can't articulate why we're doing what we're doing.
Information issues are the single biggest contributor to performance problems at work. Workers aren't told what they need to know, specifics about work expectations, or the timeliness of information—issues that account for a high percentage of performance gaps. And though this area is the least expensive to correct, it may not be the easiest. It usually involves changes in organizational culture as well as more awareness by managers of what kinds of information are critical. But better information doesn't usually require a lot of new expenses, new computers, a major reorganization, or significant additional resources.
One area of information to consider involves expectations. Management almost always overestimates how clear task expectations are with employees. And it's usually not OK in most organizations to admit that you don't know what you need to know. So it's always good to go to the staff after work—especially after something has gone wrong—and ask these questions:
• How well do people know what is expected of them at work?
• If we asked people, could they tell us (accurately and in detail) what is expected with specific work assignments?
• To what extent do jobs match actual job descriptions?
• How are goals and priorities set? To what extent do they change daily? How much are workers involved in the goal-setting process?
• What do people need to know to do their jobs that they aren't being told?
Step 7: Implement Change to Support a High-Performing Workforce
I can't change the direction of the wind but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
Although there are many tips for dealing with change, probably the most important pieces of advice on change from this book would be to remember the dismal record of generic change approaches and the failure to address issues on a systems level.
Generic change efforts fail. Initiatives need to be specific to the organization. Standardized implementation programs don't work. People are individuals, organizations are unique, and efforts to produce change need to be adapted to the specific situation.
Any approach that doesn't take a systems perspective will usually fail. Organizations are systems. Any problem persists because other factors, influences, or elements in the system either encourage it or collude to let it continue. To seek a change by altering only one piece of the puzzle while ignoring the rest of the system almost always results in a return to the status quo and a wasted effort.
Here are some tips to keep in mind when looking at change initiatives within your organization:
• If the solution or the change initiative is simple, then it's probably going to fail. There is rarely one cause to a performance problem, and almost never only one solution.
• If the initiative worked in another company, it will work in yours only to the extent that you also transfer the cultural and support functions that allowed the program to succeed in the original company.
• If you can't identify the system support and cultural elements that enabled the program to succeed, then you don't know enough about the initiative to tell if it will work.
• If your solution engages the system on only one level, then it won't stick.
• If the problem has gone on a long time and your attempted fix is a quick one, then it won't stick.
Many change and implementation issues depend on the circumstances. But a failure to take a systems perspective with respect to any organizational change is effectively the kiss of death for the new program. Regardless of how well intentioned or how smart the initiative is, without a systems approach to change, it will end up on the organizational scrap heap.
Send-Off
If the solution were easy to see or obvious to everyone, it probably would already have been found. Pushing harder and harder on familiar solutions, while fundamental problems persist or worsen, is a reliable indicator of nonsystemic thinking—what we often call the “what we need here is a bigger hammer” syndrome.
All organizations have performance problems. What's unfortunate is how frequently businesses make these problems worse. At the heart of this failing is the common tendency to jump on fads, go with simplistic approaches, and neglect to objectively analyze the problem. In this book, you've learned a process for dealing intelligently and effectively with performance issues within your organization. Competitive pressures drive a lot of these mistakes. And as tempting as it is to take shortcuts in the interest of time, if you take a systems perspective when you look at performance problems, you'll not only get better results but in the long run you'll save time and resources.