Category Archives: Accountability

Controlling the Future

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“We have the forecast,” Samuel said. “All on a spreadsheet. We know what we need to sell by the end of this quarter.”

I looked up, smiled. “Do you mean, you know what you hope for? Do you mean, based on your explanation for the shortfall last quarter? Or is this just a guess?”

“Well, none of those. It’s just what we believe the CEO would be happy with,” Samuel explained.

“It’s nice to have an agreed upon target,” I surmised, “but do you think it will just happen from the number on the sheet or are you going to make it happen? Do you think you have the power to intervene on what will happen?”

“We are going to try,” Samuel looked determined.

“What will happen, will happen,” I replied. “Are you prepared to intervene in what will happen?”

“I told you, we will put in our best effort.”

“And, what if your current best effort isn’t good enough? Are you prepared? Look, your forecast is a target, not a predictor. We don’t know what is going to happen, nor do we control it. We don’t control what customers do. We don’t control what our competitors do. We don’t control how our supply chain performs. The only thing we can do is to prepare for whatever may happen. So, when it does, and it will, we are prepared. What does that preparation look like?”

You Are Part of the Problem

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“You make it sound like the project failed, because it was our fault,” Roland pressed back. “The customer was being unreasonable.”

I held up my hand. “Stop,” I said. “Your customer came to you with a project. Projects are full of problems. They came to you for solutions. The first rule in being part of the solution is not to be part of the problem. Your explanation sounds eloquent, even reasonable, but your customer did not come to you for an explanation. Your explanation tells me more about you than it does about the project.”

Roland’s face turned glum. “So, we learned about the difficulty of the project, the time pressure of the deadlines, the negative demeanor of the customer. You said we missed something in our post-mortem.”

“What you missed,” I continued, “was your own contribution to the problem. You knew the complexity in the project, but mis-estimated your team’s capability to deal with the complexity. You knew the time pressure, but did not know your team would mis-fire in the face of that pressure. You knew the customer was prone to anger, but did not prepare to manage expectations. These are the lessons your mistakes were trying to teach you. Until you face those lessons, your next project will see a similar outcome.”

Learning From Mistakes

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“We got it,” Roland said. “This was very painful, to examine the sequence of events that caused our last project to fail. It cost us a lot of money, wasted energy and almost got us sued. But, I think we know how it happened. Expensive lesson.”

“So, you are trying to learn from your mistakes?” I replied with a question.

Roland nodded in agreement. “I think it is important, part of our debrief, a post-mortem.”

“It’s valuable to look at your mistakes,” my nod matched Roland’s nod. “What did you miss?”

“It’s a very tough client. They had an unreasonable timeline, very demanding, put us under a lot of pressure,” he replied, as if his team had been tortured.

“I assume you knew this client?” I stared. “I assume you looked at the project schedule, and agreed to it. You knew what the stakes were. These are NOT things you missed. What did you miss?”

“I was just trying to tell you why it was such a difficult project for us,” Roland pushed back. “Final analysis, I don’t think we missed anything.”

“People always tell me they learn from their mistakes. Mistakes are rarely that instructive. The reason we don’t learn from our mistakes is that we fail to examine our own contribution to the problem. You are going to have difficult customers, with unreasonable demands inside a high pressure project with tight deadlines. All of that was known before you signed the contract. What you missed, your failure in the project was not due to the project. The failure was your assessment of your internal capability, or lack of capability. Your contribution was that you ran out of talent.”

The Value of Advice

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“So, I have to know where I want to go, before I get advice?” Sebastian clarified.

“You are going to get advice all the time from everyone around you,” I said. “Whose advice do you listen to? You have to make a judgement about the guidance you receive, whether that guidance will create the outcomes in line with your pursuit.”

Sebastian was silent. Not stony, but reflective.

“Is what people tell you important to your pursuits, or their pursuits?” I continued.  “Is their guidance based on an objective reality, or their interpretation of reality? Hint, objective reality is hard to come by. It is important to inquire of other interpretations, but ultimately, you have to decide your own interpretation. It is only you with a precise understanding of your journey and its destination.”

Certainty or Readiness

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“But, I want my plan to be realistic,” Tyler protested. “I want to think about the most likely scenario, and set in place the steps to meet our objectives.”

“Yes, but the most likely scenario rarely happens,” I replied. “Planning is all about readiness. Your realistic plan may be wrong, and the steps you set in place may lead you down a path of futility.”

“But I still have to have a plan, don’t I?”

“Yes, a plan that considers a number of scenarios, with contingencies and alternate paths to the goal. A plan is less about certainty and more about readiness.”

Prescriptive Solutions

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“I got my weekend reading done,” Lucas was proud. “This is the second management book this month,” he nodded.

“I encourage reading,” I replied, eyeing the bright red cover, written by a famous author. “What did you learn?”

“This guy has a recipe he says is guaranteed. If I just follow the steps, he promises the same result he had with his company.”

I smiled. “Do you respect this author? Do you believe he was successful in the problems he tackled? Do you think he had a deep understanding of his circumstances and his points of leverage?”

“Absolutely,” Lucas nodded. “The author is very well respected, with a very successful company.”

“Do you think the author has a deep understanding of the problems you face, with your company, in your market, with your team?” I wanted to know.

“Well, of course not, he doesn’t know my specific problems,” he said.

“You see, for this book to helpful, you have to understand your problems as deeply as the author understood his problems. And, they will be different. Whatever prescription he laid out is unlikely to work in your scenario. The value in the book is not the prescriptive solution, though that is what everyone skips to. The value is in the understanding of the problem, the analysis, alternative solutions. Understand your problems as deeply as the author understood his.”

Management Panacea

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“I have a new team,” Alex announced. “We had a tough week. I think I may have thrown them into the deep end of the pool and just expected them to swim.”

“How so?” I asked.

“I know it was a complicated project, but it was the next project on the schedule, had to be done,” he described. “Lots of moving parts, a bit of coordination. Problem is, this new team didn’t even have the basic fundamentals down, much less the ability to sequence each step of the process.”

“And, your game plan?” I wanted to know.

“I was thinking about one of those team building programs, you know, get everybody to know each other. I hear good reviews for that type of activity.”

“Do you really think that’s the problem?” I shook my head. “You have a new team, no skills, no understanding, practically incompetent. No little program, no matter now popular, is a substitute for incompetence. That team building exercise may be useful down the road, but what would be a more important first step?”

It Started With Pizza

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“You know that pizza party we had last Friday, for all the people on the team who stayed late, helped us get that project shipped?” Henry smiled.

“Yes,” I replied, waiting for the rest of the story.

“That worked so well, I thought I would expand that idea,” he added. “I think, if I offered restaurant gift cards for extra effort, things might perk up around here.”

“I am all for extending appreciation,” I nodded. “Sometimes, pizza goes a long way. But, what do you think will happen with your gift card program?”

“Sometimes, I see people slow walking pieces of projects, no skip in their step, no smiles, no enthusiasm. I thought maybe, if I gave out a few gift cards, this might be a happier place.”

I winced. “If you create a gift card game, do you think it will be a happier place, or do you think you simply create a culture of performance for gift cards?”

Competence and Happiness

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“A new day, a new way?” I asked.

Sophia smirked. “Yes, but this is more difficult than I thought. I mean, I thought I would like this kind of work, I thought I would be good at it.”

“Conventional wisdom,” I said. “Isn’t that the pursuit of happiness? Find something you like and you will be good at it.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I like the work, it’s interesting, but it doesn’t seem to come natural to me,” she said, shaking her head.

“It is possible you have it backwards,” I nodded. “We like activity in which we are competent, not the other way around. Just because you like something doesn’t mean you are competent. Just because you are interested and read a book about basketball does not mean you are a good 3-point shooter. On your way to becoming a good 3-point shooter, which takes practice over practice, as you become competent, you will find your happiness. Those who are competent in their pursuit will find the most satisfaction. Those who are not competent, who did not practice, will soon become disinterested and go another way.”

Bitter Solution

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“It turned out to be a slippery slope,” Noah described. “We had the answer right in front of us. The entire team saw it, but they hesitated.”

“He who hesitates is lost?” I asked.

“I’ll say,” he replied. “The solution to the problem was going to be expensive, with no real way to push off the risk. So, we sat with the problem, we argued about it, complained about it, we pointed fingers at the enemy. All of that, instead of solving the problem.”

“In the end?” I wanted to know.

“In the end, a competitor, who was willing to do the work, swooped in and snatched the contract from our fingers.”

“And your analysis?”

Noah took a breath. “It was like we would rather argue, complain and blame. We would rather sit with the problem than come up with the painful solution we didn’t like. It may have been a bitter pill for our competitor, but they got the contract, and the margin that went with it.”