Category Archives: Accountability

Curiosity Did Not Kill the Cat

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“I don’t feel like a Jedi,” Dalton explained. “My head tells me to move to the next step, but my body feels resistance. The tightness in my chest is unsure.”

“Of course, you are unsure. The future is full of uncertainty and ambiguity,” I replied. “That is why you need all your creative energy to find the best path. With your judge looking over your shoulder, your body will win, taking you back to familiar patterns even though they did not work in the past. Under pressure, most people revert back to what seems familiar.”

“The resistance is the struggle?” Dalton asked.

“Your resistance is the first struggle. But, you don’t have to win completely, you just have to open the door to possibility. Your judge will keep you blinded to a limited set of alternatives, this way or else. It’s a familiar problem in parenting. Under pressure to bring a child into compliance, parents resort to repeating themselves, increasing frequency and increasing volume. If I told you once, I told you a thousand times. Even though it doesn’t work, the familiar pattern persists.”

“And?” Dalton tilted his head.

“And, the struggle against resistance is counterintuitive. You cannot fight it, you have to relax into it, give yourself permission to fail. Resistance only works when you are rigid and frozen. That is the source of the resistance. Discovery and exploration only work when you adopt curiosity.”

The Force

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“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “How did you get that from Star Wars?”

Dalton shifted in his chair. “Look, it all started with a calamity on the shop floor. Materials were late, a machine broke down and Fred didn’t show up for work. My manager was miffed because I missed our production target. I am not saying that my manager is Darth Vader, but that is the way I felt. Dark side stuff. Some of that dark side lives inside and I listen to it. My guess, we all listen to it. That is the source of my inner critic, my judge. I’ve lived with my judge all my life, so he is a familiar character. My judge knows me and is very persuasive, always providing a way out, projecting blame on everything around me, so that, should I fail, it is not my fault.”

“And, if that is what you believe, what does that do for your team’s problem?” I asked.

“It certainly doesn’t help me look at alternative solutions. In fact, looking for blame keeps me in the past where there is certain to be a scapegoat.”

“What changed?”

Dalton’s spirit was up. “May the force be with you. You said I had to give myself permission, even permission to fail. The force won’t help you unless you trust the force. I had to slow down, relax. Thank my inner critic for sharing the tightness in my chest. Armoring up to protect myself may provide defense, but it cuts off the creativity I need to solve the problem.”

“Young Jedi,” I pronounced. “You are ready for the next step. Discovery, exploration, creating alternatives that might solve your team’s problem.”

The Dark Side

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“Do you think that a change in your thinking can change the outcome of the circumstances with your team? Do you believe that a thought has the power to do that?” I asked.

Dalton was slow to reply. “My brain tells me that is so, but this tightness in my chest has me off-balance. My head says yes, my body says no.”

“So, who is in charge?” I tilted my face. “You know the body is just a connected series of neurons charged up with hormones and other chemical cocktails it produces. If your body could talk, what would that tightness in your chest be telling your brain?”

Dalton started to laugh, proving, in spite of the circumstance, that he had a sense of humor. “My body would be saying – Brain, you are up against a really difficult problem. As your body, we know there is a possibility of failure, so we have served up some chemicals to prepare you for defeat. Brain, we know that you have aspirations to solve your problems, but the body knows better. Do you feel that tightness in your chest? That tightness is just our resistance to your aspirations. We have been driving that resistance all of your life, and that is why it feels so familiar. We know you have aspirations right now, but if you would just put those off until tomorrow, or even next week, we will release the tightness in your chest. In fact, if you could find a smaller aspiration, a smaller problem, we wouldn’t put up such a fuss.”

I nodded my own chuckle. “Where did you get that?”

Dalton nodded. “Star Wars.”

Inside Critic

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“There is a next step?” Dalton repeated.

“Yes,” I replied. “Did you think that just having confidence was going to solve the problems your team is trying to work through? Positive thinking will only get you so far. We have to do a little reality checking. But, you can’t move to the next step until you cut yourself some slack. I know a physician in Kansas City who has a sign up in his office. WELCOME to my practice. Please understand that I don’t carry malpractice insurance, and I make mistakes all the time.”

Dalton erupted a light chuckle, but he saw the irony.

“If he is your doctor,” I continued, “and you are looking to lay blame for your illness, you’ve got the wrong doctor. But, if you are looking for someone to help you discover the best path to take, you may be in the right place.”

“So, what is the next step?” Dalton asked.

“I just told you. Discover the best path. But, you can’t go there until you give yourself permission to fail. You will not be able to clearly see possible alternatives. The judge inside you will cloud your thinking, create anxiety and generally stir up resistance to resolving your team’s underperformance. Your inside critic wants you to feel defeated before you even start.”

Moving from Calm

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“Sometimes you have to slow down to go fast,” I repeated. “How do you find calm?”

“That’s a very strange question,” Dalton replied. “Every part of my body wants to move fast. My manager wants this fixed, now.”

“Let’s temporarily set your manager aside,” I said. “What, inside of you, makes you want to fix this now?”

Dalton struggled with the question. He finally breathed. “If I don’t fix this, now, I will have failed. I was just promoted to manager two months ago, I was proud. Now I am failing. Maybe I was promoted by mistake. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to be a manager.”

“Which part of you is thinking that?” I asked. “What part of you is telling you that?”

Dalton’s eyes darted the room, looking for an answer. His vision finally settled in his lap. “It’s just a feeling, a tightness in my chest,” he finally said. “I feel it now. It feels bad, and as long as I feel this way, I don’t know what move to make.”

“Who else do you think you might disappoint?”

“I think about my father. He passed away seven years ago, but he is still on my mind.”

“And, what would your father say to you right now?”

“He wouldn’t judge me. He would probably tell me that he had confidence in me.”

“Can you give yourself permission to say the same thing?” I asked.

Dalton thought, and nodded. “Yes.”

“Then, we can move to the next step,” I said.

“There is a next step?”

Calm

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“But, there were reasons that the team didn’t hit their output target. Materials were late, a machine broke down, and Fred didn’t show up for work,” Dalton explained. “Ever since I got promoted from supervisor to manager, it seems like everything lands on me.”

“Indeed it does. How does that feel?” I asked.

“I fell overwhelmed. There are so many more moving parts. And, my manager expects me to anticipate and prevent things going wrong.”

“So, what do you think is causing your distress?” I prodded.

“It’s my manager, all the stuff that is going on around me,” Dalton commiserated.

“And, how do you feel about that?” I continued.

“Frozen. I don’t know what to do next. When I was a supervisor, I just had to react and fix. But, now, fixing doesn’t happen fast enough. There is too much going on,” Dalton breathed.

“How do you find calm?”

Dalton stopped. “Calm?”

“Sometimes you have to slow down, so you can go fast. How do you find calm?”

Act of Creation

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
I see the guidelines for creating a vision, but it seems a little far-fetched. Actually, I think most vision statements are far-fetched. They are too vague, or too warm and fuzzy. They describe a world that doesn’t exist.

Response:
Exactly, a world that doesn’t exist. Planning is about creating the future. And you are right, most vision statements are too vague. A vision statement should describe a specific point in time and should be detailed, rather than vague. Whenever I write a plan, my vision statement is often the longest part of the whole plan. It is detailed in its description of how things look and how things work. The more descriptive the vision, the easier the rest of planning steps flow.

What’s the Level of Work?

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“But, we need to ramp up quickly,” Bruce explained. “We have a lot riding on this project.”

“What’s the rush,” I asked.

“We didn’t know if we were going to get the project, it was a very competitive bid process. But we pulled it off, at least the contract. It’s fast track, four months to complete with liquidated damages on the back end if we miss the deadline.”

“When you say ramp up, what do you mean?” I wanted to know.

“We have the production crew to do the work, they’re coming off of another project. But, the project manager is moving to Seattle to start another job. He was good, and a great opportunity for him. Unfortunately, that leaves us in the lurch. I need a project manager and I need one, now!”

“What’s the level of work on this project?”

Bruce stopped to think. “It’s only a four month project, so that’s S-II. I am hoping there will be a decent candidate pool. Sometimes, we post for a job and no one shows up.”

“How does risk play into understanding the level of work in this project?” I pressed.

“There are lots of moving parts, lots of detail, and if we miss the deadline, our profit could be wiped out pretty quick,” he replied.

“But, we have computer software to handle the detail,” I nodded. “What about the risk embedded in the uncertainty of the project?”

“What do you mean?” Bruce furrowed his brow.

“Will you need to trust your suppliers to deliver on time? Hold their pricing? Are the materials in the spec even available? What’s the lead time on materials? Will you depend on your client for approvals? What could hold up the permits for approval? I know you will have subs on the job. Are they dependable and available in each phase schedule? What if there are change orders? How quickly can you identify something out of scope and its impact on the contract? Is the client litigious? To keep the project on track, how will you schedule quality inspections to make sure each phase meets spec before you can move to the next phase?”

I saw the blood begin to drain from Bruce’s face. I continued. “I think this project has more to it than the 4 months timespan after mobilization. The relationships and synchronicity required have to be developed way before mobilization. The trust in your subcontractors needs to already be in place now. This is more likely an S-III project that started before you even got the contract. The biggest mistake most companies make is underestimating the level of work in the project.”

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Uncertainty in the Project

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“Let’s look at some of the specific decisions that you have to make today that will have impact later in the project?” I said.

Taylor sat back. “Okay. Let’s just look at the buy out,” he started. “In the buy out, I have to purchase some large pieces of equipment that will be installed. I have to work with our project managers and also with our purchasing guy. Here are some of my decisions that I have to make today, but it may be months before we find out if it was the right decision.

“Will the price of this equipment (to be installed) go up or go down. If I make a commitment now and the price goes up, I am a hero. If I wait to make the purchase and the price goes up, I am a goat.

“Will the vendor that supplies the equipment still be in business a year from now. I may have to put down some deposit money. But even if we lose the deposit money, the real risk is trying to scramble at the last minute to find an alternate supplier. The costs may have changed and some of this stuff has lead times. If the project gets delayed because we don’t have the equipment on-site to be installed, we may be liable for a delay claim.”

Taylor stopped.

The Best of Intentions

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“But everyone understood that we had to land the project for the team to get their bonus,” Lindsey protested.

“No, you understood that. The team understood something different. If they gave it their best and worked really hard, the team would get the bonus. So, they worked really hard and gave it their best. The only person who was in position to make decisions was the manager. The team didn’t get their bonus because of their manager.”

Lindsey was quiet. “So, we set up a system that, in the end, created a divide between the manager and the team.”