Tag Archives: teamwork

Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire – Laura Dribin

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Give a man a fire and he’s warm for the day. But set fire to him and he’s warm for the rest of his life. Terry Pratchett

Everyone wants to be a hero.  Children dream of joining the fire department to fight fires or police department to save a life.  We love heroes.  We give them awards, we sing their praises. 

Even when a business runs into problems, they look for some employee(s) to be heroic and save the day.  And often this is how large strategic initiatives are pulled out of the flames.  In fact, some companies are always in firefighting mode using their heroic employee(s) to “fix” the fires. 

Superhero Business Woman with tablet

Fighting fires is no way to run a business.  Putting out a fire is way more expensive than implementing safe consistent practices that utilize fire alarms and fire extinguishers to minimize risk.  Putting out fires is tremendously disruptive and the after affects can linger long after the fire is extinguished. 

Let’s use a scenario.  You have a wood burning fireplace in your house.  There is no covering over your fireplace to keep the cinders contained. One cold night, you decide to enjoy the warm, cozy fire, but you leave your house to grab some brandy for a hot toddy. While you are out, the cinders spread, start a fire and burn down your house.  Fire fighters come and put out the fire. There is quite a bit of damage.  No worries, your insurance help you to rebuild.  So you build a new house with a new wood burning fireplace. Do you use a cover to protect your house?  What about fire extinguishers or smoke alarms or escape plans for your family?  Or do you rely on your heroes, home insurance and fire department, to mitigate all risks?  It doesn’t make sense, right? So what sense does it make for a business to consistently rely on heroes to save the day?

I looked up the job description for a fire fighter and what I found was extremely interesting.  Out of 10 task descriptions, only 1 actually forces them into extinguishing a fire.  The remaining nine descriptions involve best practices, governance, continuing improvements and education.  http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/recruiting-hiring-advice/job-descriptions/firefighter-job-description.aspx  

Firefighter and Lieutenant helmets

So why do so many companies rely on heroes to fix their problems? I know that every now and then, there is a fire in a company that needs everyone to scramble and may need that hero to successfully complete that task. But too many businesses make this the norm.  I believe that heroes become a crutch for businesses and a symptom of an organization in a reactive mode (of firefighting) rather than a proactive mode of driving the company’s direction. 

As I speak with my clients and potential clients, I am no longer surprised when someone conveys to me that their best project manager is hero-like.  I am often pointed to the heroes that seem to excel at getting the job done right.  The project they are running has a big issue that may result in the project failing and the “heroic” project manager ends up pulling the project out of the burning building. 

I am not a believer in heroes in business.  Too often I find that the “hero” might have saved the project from failure but what isn’t addressed is that they also may have caused the fire in the first place.  Leadership sees that the hero knocked down walls and moved mountains to fix the problem and saved the day.  Yet, at the time that the hero is saving the day, no one is realizing that if the hero had worked through their preventative process (better planning process and methodology), the problem might not have occurred.  (Remember, fire fighters have 9 process improvement tasks and only one firefighting task.)  When heroes are fighting fires, often someone will get burned.  Long hours, stressful periods of time, finger pointing….

One of the largest programs that I ever worked on earlier in my career was an eye opener.  The program was huge and budgeted at $100 million.  We worked hard to properly plan and then proceeded to a risk management plan.  We came up with contingency plans for the risks that seemed most likely.  We even put cut-over dates in our plans for the contingency plans.  Fast forward, this huge complicated program had some smoke alarms going off but any major fire was prevented by switching directly to the contingency plan with little fanfare.  If something happened, we already had worked through how we would deal with it.  (This versus the hero mode of something happening and then all hands on deck to try and figure out how to address it while the fire was burning.  )   In the end, one of the key stakeholders said that this program was so easy.  They didn’t see why they needed a program manager.  This effort was non heroic in their eyes because fire prevention is less visible than firefighting.

A well run organization should not be in a constant need for heroic actions.  It should be striving for a process that minimizes the need for heroes.  Consistency in how a company delivers.  Governance, process, thoughtful strategic execution.

So long story short, I challenge all C-Level executives out there to make a resolution for 2017 that you will focus more on creating best practices around how you deliver value.  You may be surprised as to your value proposition at the end of the year. Think of your business mascot as Smokey the Bear and remember, “Only YOU can prevent forest fires!”

Better a thousand times careful than once dead.   Proverb

 

 

The Remedy for a Sore Rump

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“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”

Theodore Roosevelt

 

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A few years ago, my team and I took the Strengthsfinder’s assessment by Tom Rath.  In a nutshell, it is a personality assessment that helps identify your strengths.  There were no surprises when I took the test other than one.  It put my “strongest” strength as Responsibility.  At first I thought it was way off until I started thinking about all of my behaviors.  The truth is that I take responsibility for pretty much everything around me.  Even if I have nothing to do with it.

So with the responsibility of the world on my shoulders, I am writing this blog to B^*&ch about the demise of accountability in the workplace and life.

I recently had the misfortune of having to pull one of my consultants from a client.  The consultant was not succeeding and it was evident that the project would suffer if they continued.  I’d love to say that I have a perfect record of picking strong, senior level resources, but no one’s perfect. (This story is a combination of a few similar situations over the last 27 years).   Here’s the difference though, my client didn’t tell us to pull the consultant.  They didn’t see the problems that we did.    We told them we needed to act.  We explained the reasons we were failing and how we would fix it.  I was reminded of the most important lesson from what happened next.   The client’s reaction? Gratitude and surprise.   They shared that they might have seen some of this but they overlooked some issues.  I even received a call from a client executive thanking me for the way that we handled the situation.  The executive said that in all their years, no other consulting firm had proactively taken action and pulled their own resource.  They’ve always waited to be told to remove someone. Once again proving to me that accountability is one of our most important differentiators.

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And therein lies my issue.  When did accountability become such an extraordinary expectation?   Or maybe the expectation is being met but the expectations are too low. Everyone seems to use the term responsible in place of the term accountable. I believe that is an error that sets up a series of unfortunate consequences.  Why?  In my 25+ years of work experience, I have only met a handful of people that weren’t responsible.  (I’ve dealt with a few con artists unfortunately).  For the most part, people want to do the right thing and will put forth the effort to meet expectations. The number of people I have met who take accountability for their actions and their work has been far fewer but much more important to an organization’s success.

From frivolous lawsuits to finger pointing to blaming our woes on another group of individuals…why is it so difficult to take ownership for our own decisions?  If you screw up at work, don’t point the finger at someone else! I’m always amazed at the strength of an apology.  I learned a long time ago that problems don’t fester when someone apologizes.  I think it’s because no one expects an apology so they prepare for a fight and then are thrown off when they get an apology instead.  An apology often helps people move on so that I can focus on how to correct the problem rather than spend time discussing the past.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t make it a practice of accepting other people’s mistakes but it does come in handy when I want people to focus on fixing something rather than being stuck on figuring out who can be blamed.

Studies show that when we set higher expectations and give our children opportunity and support, they will rise to meet those expectations.  Shouldn’t CXOs be setting higher expectations for their employees?   Shouldn’t we all be setting higher expectations for ourselves?   Until that happens, I will be happy to uphold accountability as one of our company differentiators.

 

Laura

 

 

 

Life Lessons from the Magic Kingdom

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I just got back from Disney World with my fiancé. He had never been to Disney in his life and didn’t take his children as they were growing up.  His excuse is that he took them to Space Camp.  I wasn’t buying it.  His punishment….a few days at Disney.  So we packed our bags and bought our Disney tickets (due to the latest increase, we used our retirement IRAs to pay).  Our mission: (which he had no choice but to accept) find anything with the Dopey character on it.  See, I love Dopey.  Though as I’m getting older, I’m starting to have a thing for Grumpy too…but I think that has more to do with my age and the loss of my remaining filters.  But I digress.

I know that most people think that I’m nuts (I prefer “special”) but fairy tales do in fact teach you about life. Being the project manager I am, my perspective is that it teaches you about maneuvering life in the business world.  For instance, fairy tales teach kids (and enlightened adults) about the benefits of diversity.  Diversity comes in all shapes and sizes.  Take the seven dwarves.  Each dwarf is a caricature of the team members you work with.

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Take Doc.  Doc was the (self-appointed) leader of the group.  Think project manager/department manager.  He/she doesn’t always have the right answers, often has to deal with some aberrant behavior but uses leadership skills to take control when the going gets tough.

Bashful.  This is your introvert.  This may be a tech resource that would rather be working on the computer than working with the people in the room.  They know what they are supposed to do but don’t like to be in the spotlight.  They don’t like when you ask questions or put them on the spot.  They prefer to be a wallflower.

Grumpy.  We often call them the Doubting Thomas on the team. Grumpy is the first one to grumble about a new project or a change in the organization but when tragedy hits, he/she is still waiting to charge in to help.  Yet, as a whole, the doubting Thomas is too often ignored.  Sort of like the boy who cried wolf.  But if you listen, you may realize that there is some truth to their complaints.  They are often the best risk managers in the organization.

Sneezy.  The sick day team member.  The one whose slack the team has to pick up because Sneezy is (either legitimately or not) out sick.

Sleepy. This one makes me personally nervous.  You know the one.  I look over during a meeting and find Sleepy asleep.  Not fully engaged, Sleepy has a hard time keeping up since THEY AREN’T CONSCIOUS!!

Happy. The team member everyone wishes for.  No matter what the task or the workload, they always have a smile on their face.  The Zen Masters of the team.

Dopey. Dopey tries hard and is always positive.  Dopey has the right attitude so may be the best team member to mentor.  When given Grumpy, who may be smart but have a lousy attitude or Dopey that may not be as smart but has a desire to learn, I’ll take Dopey every time.  Not sure that my fiancé likes that fact too much.

sevendwarves

As diverse as the dwarves were in their thinking and their personality, they worked together as a team. Each dwarf added something to the total household and they came together in the mines and in their rescue of their houseguest.  Face it.    Where would Snow White be without them?

So, I think I’m going to make an annual trek to Disney going forward. It is amazing the type of insight fairy tales can bring to real life.  (Plus, I am still looking for that perfect Dopey t-shirt.)

Laura