Debate or GO? or Stall?

Awhile back I wrote a post about Debate Phase vs. Go Phase.

These labels help timid people raise issues when it’s helpful (Debate Phase) and then keep everyone focused on execution vs. talking more, when it is time to go. (Go Phase).

I got some questions about what to do when people undermine Go Phase with passive aggressive behaviors, when they continue to debate behind the scenes, expecting or trying to get the Debate Phase to re-open.

Let people know you are serious

The basic remedy here is that you need to let people know you are serious about the new work in GO phase.

The natural habit of an organization is not to change.

People will always go back to what they were doing before if you are not explicit about making the change stick.

Behaviors don’t change for 2 key reasons

1. Dissenters. Passive aggressive people really don’t agree, and they are trying to do something different on purpose.

2. Reality strikes back. People with the right intentions cave when the reactive pressures of the day re-assert themselves, and they get nervous about doing something different or strategic.

As soon as the first person jumps ship and goes back to the old way of doing things, then others will think, “oh I guess we are not doing this new thing any more and I better get back to reacting to the emergencies like before, because that is what is valued. I believe this to be true because I can see people acting the old way, and I haven’t heard about the new thing in awhile”.

I recommend these strategies to my clients to avoid 3 common failures to predictable, on-time execution and to make change stick.

1. Track Progress Better

Have someone help you track progress.

Do you find yourself communicating strategy, assigning work and owners, and then absolutely hating doing the follow-up to keep checking in with everyone to see if things are on track? Or just being too busy with customers and other things to do a good job at this. When I was a CEO and GM, I know I struggled.

I was lucky early in my career to have someone on my team who was great at this. I assigned the work. He wrote it all down, he made sure I didn’t fail to assign specific owners or dates. Then he relentlessly followed up with everyone involved, and created tracking reports for how we were doing on finishing the things we committed to.

If you are not doing a good job tracking progress you will fail to execute.

If you are not good at this yourself, get someone on your staff to do this for you, or you will never get the important things done. I had a person on my staff to do this for me for the next 15 years of my career once I learned this lesson. I would have failed without it.

2. Communicate More

Have someone help you communicate.

Once you make your decisions and you are in GO phase, communicate a lot. Communicate more than you ever thought you could. Get bored to death with your message.

Talk about key initiatives in every communication, in every meeting, in every 1-1 discussion. Make sure that when people see you coming, they know you are going to want to hear about the key initiatives that are in GO phase.

If you are not communicating regularly, you will fail to execute.

If you are not in the habit of communicating regularly, or other things keep you too busy to focus on it, get someone to help you do this.

Have them put you on a schedule for email and group meetings.

Have them write up a straw-man of the communication. Have it include milestones and great examples of how people supported the new strategy, and questions for you to answer about what people are confused or concerned about.

Don’t ever go more than 1-month without revisiting and communicating your progress on key initiatives with everyone involved.

3. Set a good example

Don’t let sloppy behaviors get in the way

I have seen leaders who say they are serious about execution, that it’s the most important thing to them, but then they are late to their own staff meetings. Or they let missed deadlines come an go and never mention it or deal with it.

If you want your organization to be good at executing, you to set a good example for the quality of execution you expect with your own behaviors. And you need to hold people accountable when things don’t get done.

If you have people helping you track and communicate, it’s just a matter of your following through. (but you still have to be on time for meetings!)

What do you think?

What has delayed execution in your organization and what have you done about it?
Share your thoughts by leaving a comment!

If you want more ideas on leading better execution download my free report on leading change called “Too Busy to Scale”, or learn about the Strategy into Action^TM work I do with executive leadership teams .

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Organizations waste a lot of time communicating badly.

They fall into the trap of talking about things that have already been decided, or not talking when input is genuinely needed.

Problem 1. People don’t speak up when they should

Executives don’t know all the answers (even if they act like they do).

They rely on healthy debate from their team to get all the important information, opinions and concerns out on the table.

Without that, they can’t make a good business decision.

But the other side of the story is that people often feel punished for speaking up.

When they try to give feedback to the executives they get shot down. It feels like their inputs are unwelcome.

If this happens often enough they stop even trying. Why bother if my ideas are never acted on, and I only get grief for speaking up?

Problem 2. People keep talking when they shouldn’t

I have seen management teams waste huge amounts of time by revisiting decisions over and over again, questioning the direction and circling back for more data.

When this happens, the organization is slow to engage because they perceive the continued discussion to mean that the direction is still in question. So they wait for the answer instead of moving forward. Or they continue to add to the conversation, raising even more issues or data to help inform the decision.

SInce the executives think the decision has already been made, they get really frustrated that people are slow to act, not engaged, and stalling forward progress with more questions, inputs and arguments.

DEBATE or GO?

One of the best tools I have used to fix this is a simple model of Debate Phase vs. Go Phase. I make it clear that for every initiative or decision, there is DEBATE time and there is GO time.

Debate Time: Talking, Questions, Input, Arguments are welcome.

During debate time, I make it clear that I want to hear people’s opinions. I want to hear the arguments. I want everyone to fight for their point of view.

That’s how I get the best and most complete information.

Make a Clear Decision

After debate time is over, I make it clear who owns the decision, and make sure the decision gets made.

GO Time

Then I make it clear that we are in GO time. The decision is communicated and the action is officially kicked off. This is the time to engage in the work, not in the debate. The debate phase is over.

Expected Behavior & Trust

This simple frame and set of labels builds an atmosphere of higher trust because people can understand the rules of the game. They know when and how to participate without getting their head handed back to them.

You give them a chance to feel safe raising their opinions or arguing the point (which you need them to do) because by definition you are in debate phase.

By setting this structure, you can make it clear that during debate time, the expected and valued behavior is to speak up.

Then once you announce the decision has been made and make it clear that it’s GO time, people trust that you will stick to the decision, and that the expected and valued behavior is action, not more talking.

If you found this useful, you can subscribe to this blog for free and get updates in your email or RSS reader.

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1. Get Facebook Updates.
Click “Like” to get more great business leadership updates on Facebook

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3. Get your copy of RISE… now on Amazon

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People, Process, and Profit

I had a mentor teach me that that business success was based on these three things in this order.  People, Process, Profit.

Do things on purpose

From decades of watching successful business leaders, lessons learned  from my own experience as a GM and CEO, and my work with business leaders today, I know that focused, proactive attention in these areas can help you reduce risk and go faster.

And… leaving them to chance can stall your growth.

1. People: Respect People

If you can motivate a talented group people to personally care about growing your business, you have won a big part of the game.

Common misstep: Seeing and treating people as interchangeable resources, instead of as talented, creative partners and contributors in your business growth.

Develop your people and your team. Hire the smartest people you can find, and encourage and support everyone to develop – at all levels.  Trust people to take on big things, fail sometimes and learn.  Always be building capacity so your team can do more next year than the did this year.  See people development as having a hard ROI.

Communicate a lot. Have a bias toward openness, not secrecy.  Make people feel included and informed – all the time.  Tell the truth.  When you can’t share everything  don’t stop talking. Share what you can.

Say thank you. Creating a culture of recognition is a very powerful thing.  Make sure you have ways of knowing when good things happen, and personally thank people.  Make recognition and appreciation a process and a habit.

Manage performance. Do great things for your top performers and have consequences for your low performers.  You can’t hide your reluctance to deal with poor performers. Everyone sees it, and it degrades trust and respect.

Acknowledge peoples’ lives outside of work. Invite them to bring their whole self to work, and don’t make their life outside of work need to be in so much competition.  A great example of this I heard recently from Stan Slap is to put all of your team’s major personal events and commitments on the work calendar or project plan, so that the whole team can see it, and do their best to plan and work around them.  Wish I thought of that 20 years ago!

2. Process: Get stuff DONE

Execute well.  Manage and finish the important things.

Common Misstep: I am surprised at how many organizations  regularly tolerate not getting done, the things they say they want to do.

Deliver on time. If you are not delivering on time. Fix it.  No business can scale if you don’t have the fundamental ability to deliver what you say you will.  And people love to get stuff done.

Just enough process. Judge the right amount of process for the size and state of your company.  Too much process can stall a fast growth start-up, but not enough will keep a mid-size company from being able to grow, and meet commitments.  Decide the right amount, (it’s not none). Put it in place and prioritize it.  Make the adherence to the process that supports critical outcomes a higher priority than the work. It’s the only way to mature behaviors and get there.  (And you are investing in building even more capacity for the future.)

Measure the most important things and improve. Make sure you are measuring the things that truly matter.  What are the key drivers in your business?  What makes your business happen?  What are the three things that need to happen before someone buys? How do you know that enough of those things are happening?

Make room for strategic thinking and actions. Don’t be so busy with your current business that you fail to make time to work on your bigger,  future business.  You need to carve out time, people and budget to make sure you are not forgetting to grow your business while taking care of your current revenue stream.

3. Profit: Stay connected to reality

Always be clear about the external perceptions and financial performance of the business.

Common misstep: Tactical activity and wishful thinking can obscure the harsh realities of how well your business is really doing.

Everyone knows how we make money. It is vitally important that every individual knows how the company makes money.  What product lines and geographies does the revenue come from? Which of those are the most profitable?  What are the fixed and variable costs?  Every person should know their role in both the income and expense picture.

External Input, Validation and Measures: Always make sure you are getting the truth from customers, and make sure enough of your measures are externally driven.  Don’t congratulate your self too much for delivering beautiful products and offers on time, that the customers don’t find valuable.

Know what’s (really) going on. Come out of your corner office and spend time in the trenches.  Kind of like the TV Show, Undercover Boss, but without the disguise. Spend time with the front line workers, see what they are doing and how they are thinking about the business.  You will learn more real, valuable information than you can ever learn from your chain of command. It’s not that your managers keep secrets, it just that the information doesn’t boil up with as much clarity and  richness as you will learn from getting personally involved.

Sell something. Be acutely tuned to what is selling.   How can you  improve,  accelerate or make the sales process more compelling, effective and efficient?  Go on sales calls.  Try and sell your products personally.  Know what works and what flops.  Find and deal with obstacles to the sales process.  Know inside and out how your company finds, develops and closes business.

People who are personally motivated, working within a well managed environment that enables them to finish and deliver things, with clear financial accountability will create a profitable growing business.  People, Process, Profit.

As a leader, it’s your job to deal with high level issues: strategies, abstractions, and financial models.  But if you spend all your time at that level, you can lose touch with reality. 

You get insulated from what is actually happening where the products and the services meet reality — where they meet the humans who build, sell, service, buy and use them.

But if you can stay grounded in reality, you will avoid nasty surprises, realize more opportunities, and be more successful at implementing an even better strategy.

Build in Time to Listen

The best way to stay connected is to do it on purpose and build time in your schedule to listen. 

Not only will you be smarter, but your people will see you as “getting it”, which helps keep them motivated and focused on things that really matter.

Here are some examples of what to listen for and how to do it:

1. Listen to understand what business you are really in.

I find that I can sit back at headquarters and imagine I am in any business I want to be in. 

That façade is shattered as soon as I go on a sales call.  Not because of what the customer tells me, but because of what the sales rep tells me in the drive to and from the client meeting.

When you get stuck in traffic with a sales rep you learn about what is really working and not working, both in terms of how you try and sell what you do, and what you actually deliver. 

You learn what your competition doing with your specific customers, and what the local channel, service, and sales partners are doing to help or hurt your business. 

One time I learned that my own consulting organization was preventing my sales organization from closing business because they had conflicting incentives.  You just don’t see those things as clearly back at HQ. 

If you never take the time to hang out with sales and service people, and understand what is working well, and what makes their life hard, you miss a huge opportunity to find ways to reduce risk and grow your business. 

You get much better at strategy in the conference rooms when you take the time to see it in action in the real world.

2. Listen to know what customers actually like and don’t like about you.  

Watch your customers use your product, ask them to tell you what they think it’s for, and what it is most useful for.  More often than not, the most important things will not be the ones you are thinking and saying they are.

I ran development once for a software product that was so hard to install, it was embarrassing.  For months, the task to fix it always seemed to be a low priority for the engineers. So I had a handful of engineers go out to customers with the sales team and personally participate in the install.  They became so personally embarrassed the install was fixed in a week.

One time I learned that the reason my product was at a competitive disadvantage was because it arrived at the distribution center in one big box full of little boxes that all had bar codes on them.  The competitor’s product arrived in one big box with 20 bar code labels on the outside of the box.  Here I was thinking that the greatness of our product was the important thing!

You will get insights to make enhancements and cut costs you would never have thought of, without listening directly to what customers are experiencing and what they care about.

3. Spend time in your customer support center.

There is nothing like working a shift on the customer support line.  Take the calls personally or listen in.  You will find that customers struggle with things you never would have thought of, and find small changes that reduce your call volume and increase customer satisfaction dramatically. 

One business realized that a vast majority of people were calling to make sure that their online order was received.  After the CEO spent a day on the customer service line, they were able to make a small change to their online order confirmation process and reduce their call load by more than half overnight.

More often than not, it isn’t the core of your products that irritate your customers, it’s the stuff that happens around the edges.  You need to listen to find out.

4. Learn if what you think you are doing is happening.

There is a big difference in rolling out a strategy and having your organization actually do it. 

You can get all the right answers from your management team, and still not have the right priorities being acted on where it counts by the people who build sell, and support it.

I look for ways to test what is actually happening.  For example, when my organization decided to re-position a product line, a few months after the rollout,  I called customers I knew in different parts of the world and asked them what the local sales teams were telling them about our strategy.

If it was the old stuff, I knew I hadn’t done a good enough job getting the strategy executed.  Don’t assume things stick until you test them.

5.  Listen to stop doing stupid stuff

All organizations are screwed up to some extent.  So is yours.  If you think it’s not, it’s probably because you are not listening enough!

I always built time in my schedule to listen.  It could be as much as having 100 1-1 meetings over a course of a few weeks, when I needed to jump in and do a turn around.  In more of steady state growing business I would regularly schedule breakfast or lunch sessions with groups of people, or dedicate 4 hours a week to talk with individuals in the business.

If you make it a point to talk to people at all levels of the organization, you find out that you are doing a lot of stupid stuff. 

You might find groups of people with competing efforts.  You may find people putting great effort to support a product no one is selling, or you are investing in equally in products that have wildly different revenue potential, becasue no one knew what to stop doing.

And you will typically will find wonderfully talented people who are buried beneath weak managers.

You won’t know if you don’t build in time to listen.  Once you learn, you can start to optimize.

6. Listen to thank and recognize people

I find even if it is my best intention to thank and recognize work well done, the biggest problem is simply missing when good stuff happens. 

This is not just a large organization thing.  I have seen this in small groups of 5-10 people, where someone can do something heroic, and if the manager was out that day, it goes completely unnoticed.

The trick is to put a process in place to make sure that people across the organization are feeding you good news about what individuals do.  I let my team know that I want and expect to hear about work that should be recognized, and I promise to call the person, or write a note within 24hours of being notifed. 

Once you put this request out there, it gains momentum.  You get good news, and you don’t miss opportunities to thank people.

What can you do?

You don’t need to be a CEO or a general manger to benefit from getting and staying connected to reality.  We all have lots of activities that fill up our day, and insulate us from the reality of our business.

Talk to a sales rep or a service rep once a month, go on twitter and search for your product name, order your product and try to return it.  The most valuable information you can contribute to your business is to be the voice of what is really happening.

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