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The One Thing You’re Doing That Alienates Your Team

February 8, 2021 by Dustin

I was Dan and Laura’s new manager and I knew perfectly well what they didn’t. I knew that their first assignment with me was really risky. It was a project for which there was no guaranteed outcome. There was, in fact, a nearly 100% chance I would have to order considerable re-work, and a better than 50% chance their project would be canceled and they would be transferred to another project. None of this would be due to any fault of theirs. This was simply how this type of project ran: It was a proactive project to position the business for an opportunity that might never materialize, and so it might be changed or ended suddenly.

Here was my challenge…

Dan and Laura were very vocal that they were fed up and frustrated with Bill, their previous manager. They made no bones about the fact that they considered Bill to be “random” bordering on “thoughtless.” I believe the word “capricious” even came up, along with a complaint that “management always fails to plan.” Dan and Laura were fed up because Bill had canceled what they were working on and it seemed to them like the cancellation was random and seemingly without reason.

So here I was, with a team clearly alienated by their previous manager who had “randomly” canceled their work. And there was easily a better than 50% chance that I would have to either radically change or cancel their first project with me, too, risking alienating them even further.

The fact of the matter is managers and workers often have opposing interests at risk of alienating each other. It’s a matter of how you handle it.

Managers and Workers Work Toward Opposite Interests

Here’s the challenge with this situation and many like it. Very, very often – and often without realizing it – managers and employees are working toward opposite or at least very different interests. This can cause very interesting perceptions of each by the other.

For example, the higher you go in management (or as an owner) the less your day is about your own tasks and the more it is about decision making with imperfect information, managing risk, and reducing uncertainty. This often means making decisions “for now,” and changing your mind later when more information presents itself.

That sort of “mind changing” is the type of thing that can show up to workers as “random” and as a symptom of “lack of planning.” You know that’s not true, and you know there’s often no such thing as “certainty.” But quite generally, a worker working to deliver against goals perceives those goals and plans as both real and stable. And who can blame them: We generally talk about plans and goals not only as though they are real, but as things for which our workers are accountable.

As a result, the natural conflict is some managers think workers are inflexible or unreasonable, and some workers think managers are flakey, random, or lack planning skills. It’s the classic “in-group / out-group” conflict that has existed between managers and workers since….forever.

How to Manage Uncertainty and Not Alienate Your Team

With Dan and Laura, we managed this situation by sitting together and doing basic planning together. The truth was the exact work to be done wasn’t yet planned and there were lots of things to decide about the work. By talking openly and honestly about the situation and determining what work to invest in together, we achieved a couple of super important things.

  1. It let us share the uncertainty and ambiguity.
    Most folks can actually handle a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty, but only if they know about it, and preferably if they know about it in advance. By talking about how uncertain the project was upfront, Laura, Dan, and I were all on the same page going in as to what might happen with the project and it helped us choose our work better. Simply seeing and sharing in the uncertainty can really help.
  2. It let Dan and Laura buy-in and take ownership.
    By having a hand in planning, Dan and Laura felt bought in. There was actually a pretty narrow band of outcomes to choose from in this case. But still, when you have a chance to participate, you naturally feel more bought in.

The simple act of planning work together, sharing in the ambiguity, and sharing buy-in goes amazingly far in uniting the teams together.

So What Happened?

Sure enough, the project did get canceled. But because we had planned together and scoped out a suitable initial phase and knew it was an initial phase, any disappointment was just that – just a little disappointment. It wasn’t a judgment about management in general, or any person (ahem… me!), or anyone or anything else.

People just want some form of certainty, even if it’s certainty manufactured from solid, respectful communication.

Filed Under: Uncategorized, Teams Tagged With: planning, teams

Teams That Take Charge, Part 2: An Irresistible Offering

February 2, 2021 by Dustin

  • Part 1 – Know, Like, and Trust
  • Part 2 – An Irresistible Offering

When last we left Charlotte, she had just shared her lament, “I wish they would grow up. I wish they would care as much as I do. Ok, maybe not as much as I do, but I wish they would care, or act like it. I don’t want to play referee. I want to get back to building something. And I want their help.”

The thing is, I had already spoken to “them” (key members of her team) and my assessment was that they really were passionate and really did want to drive the business to succeed.

The real problem was that, to a person, each had a slightly different idea of where the goal posts were planted. And those differences were big enough to cause confusion and friction that showed up at various times as gamesmanship, lack of commitment, empire building – you name it.

Sometimes People Don’t Know What They’re Working Toward

Even when placeholders, goals help productivity by anchoring focus.
Even when placeholders, goals help productivity by anchoring focus.

The natural mental and operating state for an owner or senior manager and the natural mental and operating state for an employee is constantly at odds with one another. Most employees are working toward particular goals that seem structured and real, at least to them. That is, employees buy into goals as being “real” and fixed in time and space.

Conversely, the higher you go in management, eventually to ownership, things look far less stable and predictable. There are so many moving parts, it can get challenging to set goals at all. So to do so, often we “set a goal for now, and we’ll change it if we have to.” That’s just a fact of management. A wise woman I greatly respect once told me, “In business, go with what you know, and when you know more, change it.” What the manager sees as sound planning and decision-making strategy, the employee sees as capricious, and generations of in-group/out-group psychology march forward unchanged.

This Calls For A Little Theater

I’m the first to admit that business planning, and strategic planning, can often amount to little more than business theater.

But it is exceptionally important theater. It is powerful, necessary, and done well, can have great impact.

You as owner or senior manager need to for a time suspend disbelief and plan as best you can. You already know you’ll make small pivots as you need. The other and perhaps most important part is that the people who look to you are looking for certainty that only an irresistible offering and a solid plan can provide.

Whatever You Do, Don’t Do This

Thing #1 Not To Do: Don’t skip this. “This” is the process of crafting your irresistible offering and rallying everyone around. Just don’t. More on this in a minute.

Thing #2 Not To Do: There will come a time in this process when you will be asked to contemplate “why” you are in your business. Your “why” does not have to be revolutionary, earth-shattering, or selfless. But it also cannot be “to make money.” “To make money” is an assumed function of literally every business entity, including non-profits. Your “why” should focus on the value you provide to your audience. This is a hard rule with me.

Build an Irresistible Offering and Rally Everyone Around

A critical step is to communicate direction and goals to all, frequently.
A critical step is to communicate direction and goals to all, frequently.

Having said my two “Don’t Do’s,” there is absolutely no secret sauce here. So I’ll tell you the exact things I do with my clients. Ready? Here’s what we do.

Values – personal and business. Vision for the business. Mission. And a variation of the Business Model Canvass – the exact variation depends on if you’re going for VC or M&A activity or not.

These are things taught in every MBA course. These are absolutely things you can do yourself.

These are things nobody does themselves.

Secret sauce #1 is showing up and making you do them. Perhaps “helping” you do them sounds more friendly.

Secret sauce #2 is helping draw out and craft why this effort, this entity, this dream is an irresistible dream for your employees to be a part of and your customers to partake in. And to help craft the way to communicate that, again and again and again.

Filed Under: Uncategorized, Teams

Infographics

February 1, 2021 by Dustin

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Improved SMART Goal Setting, Now with a FREE Template!

January 2, 2021 by Dustin

SMART goal setting

At the time of this writing there are literally more than 600 million Google results for the search “s.m.a.r.t. goal setting.” There is literally nothing new to write on the topic and therefore absolutely no reason to write article 600 million and one.

Other than I refer to the concept a lot and whose article would I rather link to?

Introducing article 600 million and one…

But seriously… I’m going to attempt to do the impossible and leave you with:

  1. One improvement over the same ol’ tired SMART definition.
  2. Give you a simple template to use to spin your words and craft your goals.

Let’s go.

Why SMART Goals?

The idea behind SMART goal setting is that, when setting goals, your job is to be as clear and unambiguous as possible.

This helps you as the goal setter. It serves as a forcing function to ensure that you’ve set a quality goal. That is, a goal that is complete, has been well thought-through, and that just simply makes sense. When some component of the SMART formula is missing, sometimes but not always it results in a goal that is unworkable.

It also helps those people who are going to be asked to work toward the goal with you. It is critical they correctly understand the goal the same way you do, right? Imagine if you’re expecting the goal to be complete in three weeks and they are thinking three months. The resulting conflict is at least exhilarating if not productive!

SMART goals show up in general goal setting, in OKRs, and specifically in setting Objectives for OKRs, and in a variety of places. So let’s take our pass through the acronym.

The SMART Parts

Let’s dive through the acronym and see if we can improve on it.

Specific

The more specific you can make a goal, the more understandable it becomes to others.
The more specific you can make a goal, the more understandable it becomes to others.

This is, in my opinion as noted above, the majority of the value of SMART goal setting. challenge yourself to get as specific as you possibly can. Then drill deeper. Then drill deeper still. So like the Lean technique of asking “5 Whys,” drill layer after layer to get more specific.

Let’s take an example.

  1. Increase sales this quarter by 25%.
    1. Increase sales this quarter by 25% in the Pacific Northwest
      1. Expand sales to existing customers this quarter by 25% in the Pacific Northwest.
        1. Expand sales to existing customers in the Pacific Northwest through adding sales of related products, resulting in an additional 25% of new revenue.

I don’t know about you, but the first one is so unspecific it makes me nervous. And I’ll admit the fourth one is so specific it’s a bit prescriptive. But that can be okay. Regardless, point made. You can drill down and get specific, and that’s a good thing to do.

Measurable

Measurable goals help promote focus and achievement.
Measurable goals help promote focus and achievement.

A really like the concept of measurability and emphasize it a lot. Like, a LOT a lot. If you can create a goal that is measurable, it’s always better than one that’s not.

To get specific (ahem), we want to:

  1. Avoid descriptive goals, like “high sales” or “low turnover.”
  2. When possible, avoid “binary” goals, where things are either achieved or not, true or false. Sometimes it’s not possible to avoid these. For example, we might have a goal to, “Hire a new Director of Operations.” That person really is hired or they aren’t. There’s no, “a little pregnant,” and there’s no, “a little hired.”
  3. Use counted or “discrete” data. Like “win five new customers,” or, “find 20 new leads.” Discrete data is just data that is counted in whole numbers where the data can’t be subdivided into smaller bits. (Please, do not divide your customers into bits as much as they may make you want to.)
  4. Use continuous data. Continuous data are things that can take any value. These are things like, “time to close a sale (in days),” or, “average customer satisfaction rating.”

Making goals measurable makes it much easier to tell how you’re doing along the way, when you’ve achieved your goal, and if you’ve exceeded it.

Achievable

Goals should be achievable.
Goals should be achievable.

Ever have one of those projects where half the way through your customer moves the goalposts on you? Yeah, that’s no fun. Everybody wants to succeed. That’s why it’s really important to make sure that any goal you craft is actually something that can be achieved.

By “achievable,” I mean achievable within the laws of the universe, our society, and business generally. I don’t mean that you won’t have to work your butt off for it. And it may well be possible that at the time you craft the goal, the goal may not be achievable by you. But it does mean that you are able to see a plan whereby, adding resources, you are and/or will be able to achieve the goal within the time frame you’re setting out.

Realistic vs. Reach

Goals should inspire you to reach beyond where you are and achieve something bigger and beyond.
Goals should inspire you to reach beyond where you are and achieve something bigger and beyond.

This is where I kick it up a notch1 (can’t use that – it’s trademarked) raise the bar2 (ditto) make SMART goal setting a bit smarter.

I’ll be honest, I’m not a buyer of “Realistic” goals. We just got done saying that your goals need to be “Achievable.” Aren’t achievable and realistic close enough to the same thing for you? They are for me and I don’t need dictionary definitions to back me.

What I would be a buyer of is actual “goals” as defined by Dictionary.com. Take a look.

Goals are the achievement to which effort is directed.

Now we’re getting somewhere. Take a look at how “achievement” is defined.

Achievement is a great deed accomplished through superior effort.

And here we have arrived at the shortcoming most SMART recipes have that we’re going to fix right now.

A goal isn’t a goal unless it causes you to REACH for something you don’t already have, do, know, possess, etc. Unless you’re reaching to improve yourself, your business, your condition, or the condition of whatever it is that you’re setting a goal about, you’re not setting a goal. You’re just setting an ordinary “task.”

So, dear Pivot Habitor, henceforth, SMART goals mean you REACH out in front of you to improve your condition.

1 Trademark of Bruder Group LLC
2 Trademark of Raise the Bar, Inc.

Time-bound

Goals should be time-bound. That is, assigned a deadline by which they must be achieved.
Goals should be time-bound. That is, assigned a deadline by which they must be achieved.

Pick a time, any time. Really – almost any time will do.

There is something about goals where they don’t become “real” until there is a time frame attached to them. Don’t believe me? Get your goal all set up to your liking. Then step back and attach a date to it when it must be accomplished.

One of two things will happen. Either you will feel energized and the time frame will make you feel committed.

Or you will hit the brakes faster than you knew brakes could be hit. It never fails. Goal setting goes great… right up until it’s time to attach deadlines. And then certain goals get parked.

You know what? That’s okay. The first thing I said at the start of this article was that a goal where all of the elements were present was better, more complete, and more thought out than one where any were missing. If attaching a deadline causes you to park the goal, then that was the outcome that is meant to be. For now.

SMART Goal Setting Template

Use this template for SMART goal setting.
Use this template for SMART goal setting.

There is an easy way to incorporate all of the above, and it’s to use a super-simple template.

Because I’m a fan of measurable goals, your first step is to pick some measure or metric that will serve as the focus of your goal — something that you want to change through the work of implementing your goal. With that in hand, just complete this template:

My Goal

[ Increase / Decrease ] < choose one

(insert measure or metric)

from ( starting value ) to ( ending value )

by ( deadline )

resulting in ( greatness of impact )

As an example, let’s return to our Pacific Northwest sales goals.

My Goal

Increase Pacific Northwest month-over-month revenue to existing customers

from $100,000 to $125,000 by the end of Q2

resulting in the ability to issue bonuses to the sales team for Q2 efforts.

I’m the first to admit that adhering exactly to this template is stifling. So don’t do that. Use it as an initial guide to get all your parts in order. Then wordsmith and re-arrange to your heart’s content./

Bringing it All Together

Hopefully, article 600 million and one on SMART goal setting has given you a new insight, made you a little smarter, and helped along the way. Reach out and let me know your thoughts.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Intro to KPIs

December 21, 2020 by Dustin

KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, are a powerful professional management tool small-to-medium businesses can easily apply to up their game. KPIs are one of the two primary systems I use here at Pivot Habit, with OKRs being the other.

This page captures the links that walk through background information as well as exactly how to apply KPIs in small-to-medium businesses. If you get through this and still have questions, please reach out and ask.

KPI “How-Tos”

  1. What Are KPIs?
  2. Measures and Metrics
  3. Outcome and Performance Metrics
  4. Defining KPIs
  5. Defining a Performance Budget
  6. KPI Review Process

Deeper Dive into KPIs

  1. KPIs vs OKRs
  2. Benefits of KPIs
  3. KPIs as Strategy and Alignment
  4. KPI Cadence and Time Frame
  5. KPI Pitfalls and Mistakes

Download the KPI Planning and Tracking Worksheet

Save hours of work by starting with a pre-made Excel Workbook featuring examples, explanations, and built-in calculations.

Download the KPI Workbook

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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