Collisions

 

Innovation is often the result of random conversations -- collisions -- where ideas outside your industry are applied to your own.  We want to acccelerate those collisions among people.  Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos

I’ve been challenging the leaders with whom I am doing executive coaching to think differently about how to generate new ideas and creative solutions.  Too often, we default to traditional sources such as discussion with peers or attendance at industry or trade group events.  Not that these are bad things but, if this is the only exposure to different ways of thinking, don’t be surprised when we find ourselves limited to traditional solutions.  We need to seek out collisions.

Several years ago, my brother introduced me to Fast Company magazine.  With heavy components of design, IT, and sustainability, it was not really connected to my own profession (at the time military engineering).  But, I am quite certain that I took some idea from every issue and have been a loyal subscriber for almost 15 years now.  I find the same thing in Inc. magazine, a periodical devoted to entrepreneurs and creativity in business.  I’ve got stacks of pages I have ripped out, saving for some later use.  I am quite certain my military teams benefitted from these ideas, all from quite different settings.

Whatever it might be, we need collisions.  I have been to a few of my buddy Steve’s monthly Ripple sessions.  These are networking groups in Austin with amazing diversity, people with whom I would otherwise never meet, yet ideas I would most certainly be a fool to miss.  These events (Steve calls them Ripples) generate collisions – with people, ideas, and concepts different than my own.  They may not be perfectly aligned with what I do but they may be enough to move my thinking in a direction I otherwise may never choose.

The same can be said for the relationships we make and the friends we collect.  We need to be intentional about seeking out people and ideas different from our own.  The dialogue may not change our perspective but it will most certainly help strengthen our arguments, identify weaknesses in our positions, and cause us to examine our assumptions.  Two of my dearest friends could not be further from me politically.  Yet, every time I am with them, I am inspired by their passionate convictions and the energy they have for what they do.  They both make me think and for those collisions, I am thankful. 

Finally, leaders are responsible for creating collisions within their organizations.  From the April 2013 Inc. magazine, “Teams produce many more ideas when team members are encouraged to challenge one another in a debate setting, according to a 2004 study in The European Journal of Social Psychology.”  Co-author of the study, Jack Goncalo, a professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University, says that debate “makes people diverge, so it reduces conformity.  It also fosters competition.”  Leaders seek opportunities for this sort of healthy debate in meetings and when evaluating alternatives for solving problems.  These collisions, not between people but among competing ideas, are exactly what we need in our organizations to help break the mold and broaden our thinking.

As leaders, we cannot allow ourselves to be satisfied with the status quo.  We must keep growing, keep developing.  Sometimes, a good, solid collision is exactly what we need.

Let’s commit to collisions today.  Subscribe to a magazine, pick up a book, or join a group that is different than your norm.  Generate some healthy debate in your meetings.  Get outside of your comfort zone.  Do yourself a favor though.  Have a pen and paper handy.  You never know when one of those collisions might be a game-changer.  That’s LeaderBusiness.  

March Tables

When I was a young Army lieutenant during the "Cold War," I participated in a REFORGER exercise.  This served as the opportunity to practice the worst case scenario that our military strategy envisioned, with the deployment of thousands from the United States to Europe, drawing pre-staged equipment, and fighting east to the East German border.  It was all practice, of course, but it helped us understand the implications of moving people and equipment to do battle with the Soviets. 

Movements in Europe were a very challenging operation.  Nothing was easy about moving a 60-ton tank with a steel bridge on top of it.  It got us across small rivers just fine, but it did not take the narrow turns of Germany's small towns very well.  Multiply that times the thousands of trucks, tanks, and armored vehicles that maneuvered by Highway, through small villages, and across open farmland.  It was a transportation nightmare, one with no margin for error.  One broken down tank could stall thousands of civilian cars and military vehicles behind it.

Transportation officials orchestrated all of this through published "March Tables."  These tables indicated precisely the speed to maintain and when each convoy needed to hit the start point (SP) in order to keep formations from bunching up.  To do it correctly, convoys needed to be at the appropriate speed as they pass the SP -- usually a visible landmark like a highway overpass or a bridge over a river.

These times were important enough to the Commanding General of my unit, the 2nd Armored Division ("Hell on Wheels!"), that he would literally be at the SP, march tables in hand, looking at his watch to see that units met the published timeline.  His standard was very clear -- Hit the SP at the appropriate time, + / - 5 seconds.  That's right.  If you did not get your 60 ton vehicles to the start point within 5 SECONDS of your SP time, you would hear it from him.  There was no question what the standard was for all of us.  And there was no doubt why.  Time mattered.

I never thought much about it at the time.  I was, after all, just a lieutenant.  Thinking wasn't really part of my job description.  I just did what I was told, ensuring my team understood the standard, and that we met it.  But now that I am less a "Doer" and more a "Thinker," I see the value in this approach.  Here is where something like this incredibly difficult standard makes sense as I look at it in the rear view mirror:

• The standard is the standard.  It was important that the General mandated a very clear standard.  There is no question on "+ / - 5 seconds."  The General wanted people to meet this standard but not just because he was a tyrant.  The timeliness of organizations hitting the SP would dictate movements for everyone else.  Being late would have implications for thousands of others.  Standards are set so that everyone -- teammates, peers, superiors -- can have confidence in what we will do.  Other things are set in motion accordingly.  When we can start to believe that meetings will start and end at a specific time or that others will have tasks completed by a set deadline, when assumptions that we make in planning become reality to those who know they must not let others down, then standards truly add value.
• Leaders value time.  I suspect that the General was making a clear point that time mattered, that what we do with time impacts others and, by publishing his very precise standard, he wanted it to be a priority for others.  The emphasis on every second made it clear that precision mattered.  Leaders value their own time, they recognize that their actions (or inaction) impacts others, and they demand no less from their team. 
• People re-spect what the leader in-spects.  I am sure of this -- the fact that the General was on the SP with his march table and watch helped reinforce that this was important to him.  Being physically present further reinforced the importance.  Sure, he could have sent someone else or had units call him as they hit the Start Point.  Being there sent a clear message:  It's important to me so it better be important to you.  Setting standards without inspection add little value.  In fact, it can have the opposite of the intended effect.  Standards that are never met, without repercussion, lead to poor morale and cynicism.  Leaders inspect and hold people accountable to meet published standards.
• Organizations that do the little things well usually do the big things well.  In the grand scheme of things, I am sure one could argue this was a trivial matter.  What would it matter if a unit missed their start time by TEN seconds?  Probably not much.  But I am sure that the General felt that if his organization could do the little things like this well, then larger operational things, for which timing, standards, deadlines, and performance were equally important, would also be done well.

Friends, as we go into 2013, perhaps we can reexamine how we think of time.  Let's make it count.  Let's be part of a team where our word means something and where the discipline to do things right -- on time and to standard -- can have the sort of impact that I am sure it did for the mighty "Hell on Wheels" Division.  Set your clocks and let's start thinking differently about time.  Starting at Midnight on 12.31.

Plus or minus...5 seconds!

That's Leader Business!

Huddle Up

When I was at Army Ranger School, the concept of a morning huddle had a much different meaning than it does now. First of all, morning might have meant 2:00 am, somewhere in the middle of the Florida swamps. A huddle might have included the patrol leader, point man, compass man, team leaders all studying a map with a red-lensed flashlight -- on their bellies, under a poncho. Five or six hungry Ranger students comparing notes, revising the plan, making sure they were still on track to accomplish the mission.

A morning huddle today certainly has different structure (although I do recommend doing it on your belly with a red-lensed flashlight under a poncho). But we use them for the same purpose: compare notes, revise the plan, make sure everyone is aligned for mission accomplishment. We use them to start the day, start the week, or start a project phase.

Scott Snair, author of the Complete Idiot's Guide to Motivational Leadership, suggests the following key points to keep your meetings on track (his points in bold, my comments added):

-- Limit the guest list. Less is usually better, although if you can bring in a shift or the whole office and still keep the meeting short, it is a great way to align the team. Perhaps rather than "limit," perhaps "manage the guest list" is more appropriate.

-- Restrict your goals. Review top priorities and identify major issues. Don't make this a staff meeting or a forum for people to talk about their weekend. Hit the highlights and move out.

-- Prepare. Hand out schedules, key action items. I like to look at all my metrics (finances, personnel, program execution numbers) prior to my morning huddle.

-- Hire a pitbull to keep things moving. This meeting should not take more than 15 minutes. Someone needs to keep the team on schedule.

-- Get lost. Don't allow the mini-meeting after the meeting. Leave your morning meeting and get out and see the troops. Stick around too long and...you'll never leave.

Whether lying on your belly in the swamp at "O Dark Thirty" or meeting with your shift before getting started, morning huddles are critical to align the team. Keep them short, stay focused, and get back in the fight! Start your day or your week off right. You can use my red-lensed flashlight and poncho if you need it.

That's Leader Business. Hooah!

Death by Staff Meeting

If you are like me, you are tired of staff meetings. People sit around, lost in their own thoughts, waiting for their time to speak. They perk up, say their thing, then return to their own world for the rest of the meeting. No one is listening to anyone else. Only the boss is paying any attention, and he probably already knows most of what is being presented.

What they heck are we doing? Where does it say that we have to have these meetings? If they don't add value, I have two simple words for you...KILL THEM! Stop having them and see if anyone notices. And if the world doesn't end, you may be okay.

Now I'm not suggesting that we kill all meetings. I am a big fan of the Morning Huddle and Battlefield Update Briefs (more on this coming soon). But it is these weekly staff meetings that we continue to hold -- because we've always held them -- that need to die. Pull the plug, eliminate the staff meetings!

There is another way to get this information. Stay connected. Meet face-to-face. Communicate. Let your team know that information normally saved for the staff meeting should be shared as a matter of routine -- not held to look good during the weekly session. Circulate your battlefield and get the information you need to make decisions.

Replace Death by Staff Meetings with...Death to Staff Meetings! That's Leader Business.

The Morning Huddle

I'm probably not alone in my struggles to make meetings more productive. How can we strike the right balance between meetings that have the necessary exchange of information yet do not drag on and waste everyone's time?

Inc. magazine has an interesting take in "The Art of the Huddle: How to run a prompt, productive, and painless morning meeting." Daily huddles are short (no more than 15 minutes), start and end on time, and allow leaders to ensure that the organization is aligned. Problem solving is forbidden (i.e. deferred to a different meeting that does not take the entire group). The meeting is entirely focused on what people are doing...not how.

Morning huddles should produce the following results:

- Keep people focused on strategic goals

- Provides timely answers to hot issues

- Ensures team members are accountable to each other

- Identifies issues that require more detailed follow-up

- Validates and synchronizes top priorities

Does this sound like something you need? The article suggests that this is a no-brainer for small companies to maintain an entrepreneurial culture and to maintain momentum on strategic goals and objectives. But I should also add that I first learned of morning huddles in Rudy Giuliani's book (Leadership) and know that this is certainly value-added in large organizations (as it was for the Mayor of New York City).

Some of the techniques in the article - keep everyone standing, start before lunch, rotate responsibilities for leading the huddle - all sound like great things to try. If you're like me, your meetings need some improvement. Let's try some of these techniques and see if they help improve communication and yield higher levels of productivity. I look forward to hearing about some of your successes! I'll let you know if my meetings get any better as well!

Huddle up, team! This is Leader Business! Hooah!