“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison***
When I was young, my Dad loved watching westerns on TV, “cowboys” as my parents would call them. I didn’t see the attraction. I didn’t understand the appeal. Then one day, as my Father was watching TV, I slowly became enthralled in the “cowboy” he was watching called “Hang ‘Em High” starring Clint Eastwood. I was surprised to find that, like other movies, it featured a point, a plot and a purpose! I watched the whole movie! I loved it! After that, I had an entirely different view of westerns. It became clear to me that I just never understood that while it had a different appearance, a unique style and a different approach, it was still valuable and served its purpose.
Organizations are the same way. The owner, the founder, the CEO usually has a picture, a dream of how they want things to look and feel to all parties. Like a movie, they have a dream of how big, how great and how unique they want things to be. The dream may include logos, taglines, color schemes… a look and feel for their distinctive brand. That picture might be western, vintage, contemporary or whimsical. Church pastors are no different. They step into their roles with excitement and exuberance over their plans and visions for worship, community outreach and mission driven impact on individual members, guests and families. So much vision and glory and then reality strikes! Somebody who has been given responsibility for some or all of the dream, just doesn’t see what we see. They don’t see the value of it. On the contrary, they see their own vision. Even if that vision appears to be similar or comparable, it is not the same. They are planning to change channels when you leave the room, robbing others of the chance to see, experience and benefit from your original plan and purpose…your movie.
My contention here will be this: When the lead person – the owner, founder, CEO, Pastor starts an organization, they usually have a clear picture of what they want to see. They usually work diligently to pass what they see, on to others who they entrust to help them build a successful environment, service, product and brand. What I have seen time and time again is a disconnect between that leader’s big picture and those to whom he or she entrusts it to. What I also see is that when the disconnect reveals itself, that leader may not be able to acknowledge that a disconnect actually exists. When an organization becomes considerably large, it is easy to lose sight of what’s happening throughout the organization or pinpoint trouble spots but when the organization is small or midsized, it can be a bit easier. Nonetheless, leaders have to stay connected and keep their eyes and ears open.
1. Stay Connected – Know What’s Happening Around You
It is impossible to be in leadership and always know what others are doing when we are not around. Giving thought, in advance, to how things should occur and monitoring if they are actually occurring that way is a must. Again, it is usually those we entrust with our vision, that take it to a place we didn’t plan for it to go. Maybe they don’t exhibit our philosophies, they don’t follow our policies or they implement strategies and activities that we would not condone. It has to be addressed but can only be addressed specifically, when we become knowledgeable of their conduct.
Once known, consider whether the behavior was intentional or unintentional. We know it is intentional when they hide it. Unintentional erred behavior can easily result from a lack of training, a lack of communication from the top, a lack of vision casting or a lack of accountability after providing these elements. They may need to be retrained, reassigned or removed before they do irreparable damage.
I knew a manager who was totally convinced that the supervisor and lead worker who worked under her were not only exceptional at the technical aspects of their jobs but that they conducted themselves ethically, and accurately represented her management style in leading their work team. She received a complaint from an employee regarding discrimination and unfair employment practices.
This manager, who was frequently away from the office, was sure this employee was sadly mistaken. She was rather protective of her lead staff because they were hard workers and had worked with her for years, however, she was sincerely committed to addressing the concerns of the other employee also. After some digging, the manager discovered that all of the concerns and accusations made by the individual employee were actually true. Her trusted supervisor and lead worker were making leadership decisions that were favorable towards themselves and others yet unfavorable towards the lone worker. These decisions impacted overtime approvals, overtime pay, breaks, vacations, department morale and more. The manager was mortified. She had no idea these things were happening. Not only was she embarrassed by her ignorance but she felt she had made matters worse by defending the individuals at fault. She was not the company owner but unfortunately she was held accountable for what went wrong with her team. The entire incident cost her company a great deal of time and money to rectify.
Keep Eyes and Ears Open
In the scenario above, the manager’s response was a positive one, in that she burrowed to the bottom of the mess to find the truth. The mistake she made however, was in not knowing what was actually happening on a routine basis in her area of responsibility. She, like many of us, assumed all was well, while she attended to other matters. Whether we manage an organization or a unit within an organization, we must keep our eyes and ears open.
In keeping eyes and ears open, we may need to incorporate the input of others. We can use formal and informal means of feedback and communications. Confidential employee surveys, suggestion boxes, one on one conversations and ensuring that everyone has a voice in group meetings. In large organizations where anonymity is not compromised, hotlines can also be used.
2. Sustain Capability – at Every Level
Unfortunately, we don’t always plan ahead or anticipate problems occurring. Have a plan in place that addresses something when it goes wrong before it brings about further disaster.
In a 2015 Forbes.com article entitled, “Why Organizations Fail,” George Sattell, a former contributor, wrote “[Organizations] are highly efficient at specific tasks, but often fail when confronted with a problem they weren’t designed for. The seeds of dysfunction are seldom recognized until it’s too late.”
Unfortunately, many a leader can say, “We were a high performing team… until we weren’t.” So what happens? After we keep our eyes and ears open, incorporating the assistance and feedback of others, there is still more that has to be done to ensure ongoing success. One of these things is planning for failure in advance so when it happens we’re prepared to address it.
According to Professor Matthew Semadeni, a professor of strategy at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, the average organization is designed to succeed. We don’t really know how to fail. “Become comfortable with the idea that no matter how great your planning, you’re going to have some kind of failure,” He said. We need to become acquainted with the process of making mistakes and fixing them for greater future success.
It amazes me how we become “married” to a process or a way of doing things, so much so that when faced with the reality that that process is broken, we go back to business as usual, insisting it’s something other than “our” process. Taking ownership is great but let’s not take it too far. I remember sitting in a meeting designed to analyze broken processes, if you will, and listening to a variety of catastrophes just waiting to happen and fix them before they get there. The goal was to listen, learn, make modifications and find resolutions, and in a very brief time frame.
I distinctly remember tackling a set of issues in a billing and collections area. One particular concern was the amount of money that was or was not, being collected on outstanding bills. There was information on amounts and numbers collected by individual collectors. It would appear that some collectors were better than others. There was some discussion of moving individuals with lower numbers into other jobs or dismissing them altogether and hiring more staff on day shift. Their department was under a great deal of pressure as collections were a primary source of revenue. After drilling things down a bit more, and asking a multitude of questions, it turns out, the larger collections were taken during late afternoon, early evening hours before the department closed around 6 p.m. (Clearly when the majority of customers had gotten off work and could return calls make payments). One clear resolution that would improve customer service and collection amounts, was not to eliminate jobs but to extend hours for the department. It would make sense to staff more than one collector in the later hours and keep the department open until 7 or 8 p.m. They could easily move one or two of the first shift collectors, whose numbers were lower anyway, to the busier afternoon and evening hours, giving them the opportunity to increase their productivity and collections. This would be a better option than job eliminations. In addition, the restructuring would allow everyone in that job category to look at the new hours for each position and indicate which opening and hours they would prefer, thus creating a boost in morale should there be individuals who desired more suitable hours for their lifestyles.
This simple change made a huge difference in rectifying a major issue. It required getting a cross section of analytical minds into a room to problem solve, each person bringing a different perspective and skill set to the table. This form of problem solving also allows others in the organization to gain understanding of how things work outside their areas and open lines of communication across functions. Such an approach can also eliminate the domino effect that can occur when one area makes a change that creates problems for other areas that no one ever anticipated. What is essential to the success of such meetings is that all ideas and inquiries are taken seriously and treated with respect.
3. Speak to the Culpability of Responsible Parties
It’s easy to resolve issues, move on and forget about it, with the hopes that all will go well and we never have to revisit the problem again. That is not realistic however because the problem may have been rectified but the imperative remains to discover what or who was at the root of the problem in the first place. If this goes unaddressed, the problem will reoccur, this time in conjunction with the new process, simply because the underlying root cause still exists.
I often state, “We lead people and manage things.” In the previous scenario, we worked on managing a “thing,” a process. We now must address the other half of the equation – leading people. Is there a leadership issue that needs to be addressed in this scenario? Did they cause the problem? Did they overlook the problem? Did they deviate from the vision and training they were originally given?
They must be informed of the importance of adhering to a certain set of standards in behavior, leadership, problem solving, mission and vision. They are to understand that they are there to use their talents and gifts but they are starring in the organizational leader’s movie. Even if they don’t see the value in it, like I couldn’t see the value in my Father’s westerns, they have to respect the movie maker’s dream and fulfill the vision. One day it will make sense and if it doesn’t, another thing my Father taught me would apply. If a movie ended in a way we did not like, he would laugh and say, “Well, if you don’t like the way the movie ended, you’ll just have to make your own!”
Closing Thoughts
I’m not sure what additional comments I could make after that last statement other than this, before things go awry, let’s learn to think about the good and the bad and plan a course of action to address it all as we lead and manage for success. Whether we like it or not, leaders in an organization are there to support the vision of one person and that’s the one who created it. In doing so, we learn and we grow so we can master it. There is a scripture that says, “And if you cannot be trusted with what belongs to someone else, who will give you something that will be your own?” Luke 16:12.