Do you ever feel that way? That you wish you had videotape about what really happened to break an endless debate?

Dueling opinions can lead to debate on top of debate.

And then, in the heat of verbal banter or battle (take your pick…you know the culture at your workplace), whose opinion wins, anyway?

Is it the louder one? The biggest, most prominent group? The person who’s highest in the hierarchy? (And is the outcome of the debate always essentially the same?)

The next time debate breaks out, get the video out.

Best way to make an internal sale, a Seth Godin post, includes a short video by Ji Lee of Google that makes the point beautifully, in two to three little minutes.

In the video, brief man-on-the-street interviews with a series of customers show that very few know the difference between a browser and a search engine. Not that the difference matters to everyone Lee talks to, but if it does to you, the video makes a powerful point about the confusion.

It also shows that it’s not safe to make assumptions and proceed very far in the product design or process improvement cycle without checking those assumptions out.

If you work in a business, who are the people whose opinions count for debate-breaking purposes (or better yet, debate-preventing purposes)?

Your customers.

Lee’s video is a fast, fun, and powerful one to see. One can only imagine how quickly this particular video ended internal debates at more than a few companies.

You can create your own debate-breaking or debate-preventing video with a sample of customers.

Start by answering these questions:

1. Who are the customers?

2. What do you think they want or need with this product or service, specifically?

3. What assumptions are you making that you need to check with them?

Then let the video speak.

Are you – or is someone who reports to you – full of good intentions, great ideas, and many good starts…but fewer “finishes,” and tangible results?

Could your action-orientation and delivery of real results use a tune-up?

If so, here are a few places to start:

1. Just get moving

Get in the habit of taking action.

An action orientation is partly inclination, partly pure habit, just like anything else that produces consistent results.

It’s a bit like the advice prolific writers provide, ”Pick a place, any place. Get started. Get moving. You can always revise or adjust. Just start. Get moving. Keep moving.”

2. Strengthen and maintain your focus on your goal

Envision success in all phases and forms of the project.

And then let that success-fullness guide you as you move forward step by step.

3. Experiment

You know where you want to go. You know what you think will work.

But if you’re less than certain of the successful course, do a small test of the plan. Then, based on that, adjust and play the plan out.

4. Create the measurements and guides to help your team run full tilt

Create measurements, process instructions, follow-up and check-in points, and other action guides.

This will help people on your team to monitor and manage their progress most easily and consistently.

They need to know where they are on the path to the goal.

They need to avoid straying off course.

They need to be able to adjust if they’re less than fully effective as they work.

If you’re leading the team, you can help the group stay on track through your questions, interactions and feedback.

But to the degree you can, provide them the tools so they can monitor and manage their own actions as much as possible.

5. Reward the movers, shakers, action takers and results makers

You get the behavior you expect in an organization.

You also get the behavior you monitor and reward.

Set the goal. Create or improve the process. Set the pace. Then reward the behavior and results you want to see more of.

6. Focus on applying lessons and training for continual improvement and results, not just acquiring new skills

Many a company hires great individual contributors, each a very intelligent person, in his or her own right.

And then…in some of these companies…the many brilliant individual contributors cannot (or do not want to, if we are honest) collectively, row a boat.

It just may not be in their DNA or their experience base to work well together, though that’s what many jobs require now to be successful.

As a leader, you may have to start now to lead more by expectation, teaching, coaching and reinforcement.

And of course, there is always the leadership power of consistent, persistent follow-up.

A strong orientation to action is one of the top ten characteristics of great leaders.

Action-orientation is not as common a characteristic as you might think.

“Making an idea work is more difficult and more important than having the idea in the first place,” notes author and consultant Edward de Bono.

At many companies, there’s great eagerness and competition for new and intellectually engaging assignments such as figuring out how something could be done. These may include various design and new product or service creation projects.

But when it comes time for some of the every day, nitty-gritty aspects of turning the great potential of those possibilities into consistently bankable results, well, volunteers for those actions are sometimes harder to round up.

And yet, if you’re an action-oriented leader or a member of a team whose focused efforts yielded results – especially if they were as good or better than you were prepared for – there’s nothing quite like the thrill of that collective achievement.

That’s when the responsibility of leadership and the accountability for action – whatever level of the organization you’re in – is clearly worth the risk that the role and its need for sustained commitment to action brings.

What works to move from good ideas, great intentions and high potential into focused action, eventually producing tangible results?

“The most important and visible outcropping of the action bias in excellent companies is their willingness to try things out, to experiment,” note authors Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.

Here’s the bottom line on those with an action orientation: they focus not on the ways things might go wrong, or the risks of the pursuit, or the blame they’ll lay if things go wrong.

They focus on the possibilities, the multiple ways they can get the job done.

They make their way persistently and creatively over, around or through any barrier they find. Or if the barriers turn out to be perceived rather than real, they set those barriers aside.

Focused, action- and results-oriented leaders and teams get the job done, one way or another.

…not really.

Everyone wants not to need to do process improvement. Who wants a problem staring them in the face?

Or if they must roll their sleeves up, they want to be well beyond the task and have it done already.

They just don’t want to go through the process of process improvement, themselves.

And certainly not today (on almost any day).

Until…they find out that…amazingly…it can be a creative experience. A puzzle to be solved. A solution to be designed. A memorable team experience that yields great stories for many days.*

And that the savings in time and money that they have created add up, more than they might have guessed.

It also brings accolades, from the people whose lives have been eased – for starters.

These customer experience improvement makers, problem eliminators, and opportunity creators find that process improvement, well-done, becomes a source of many good things, in ways they could not have imagined.

And they learn the lesson that the journey as well as the destination is sometimes worth the trip.

So…until they figure out that getting beyond the muck, the mess (whatever it is), and the problem that continues to drag them in, weigh them down, and keep them from getting on with the work they were really hired to do…

Well, until then, they won’t want to do process improvement, themselves.

Since avoiding the process improvement experience cannot always be arranged, here are a few quick reminders about the basic steps for improving any process (stay tuned for more information on each of these steps, and other business process improvement ideas in the months ahead):

1. Figure out what’s going on. What is the problem, exactly?

2. Find out what’s causing it.

3. Be clear about who the customers are for the process improvement you’ll create.

4. Talk to these customers to find out what they would consider a success story with the improvement that’s underway.

5. Create a plan to get rid of the cause of the problem and create that success story for the customers of your work.

6. Get to work putting the solution in place.

7. Celebrate your success in ways that count with the people who helped you out.

*A client once said to me after a very successful business process improvement project we worked on together, one about which she’d been quite uncertain ahead of time, “The LAUGHTER! Oh, the laughter!” The team felt the same way. It was very productive AND it was fun and memorable.

Could your decision-making skills use a tune-up? Do people and teams you work with need help here, too?

Here are four steps to follow to make better decisions:

1. Frame the decision

Ask yourself these questions as you clarify and “bound” the decision you must make:

What’s it about?

What are you trying to improve, change or create? Why?

Who are the “customers” of the decision? In other words, who are the people who will be affected by the decision, once it has been made, and implemented?

What criteria will the “decision customers” use to evaluate if the decision and the way it was implemented were successful?

When does the decision need to be made? When does it need to be implemented?

What constraints do you have about the decision you make?

Who is making the decision? Who is advising the decision-maker/s? Who will be informed about the decision?

2. Gather information

What information do you have to make the decision?

What information do you need to make the decision? How can you get it in a timely way?

What assumptions are you making that you need to verify or change? How will you do that?

3. Decide

Make a decision, based on your decision frame and the information you’ve gathered.

Create a simple “decision diary” to record the decision, your assumptions, and information you used to reach the conclusion.

This gives you information you can go back to in order to improve the decision-making process and quality.

And if you can’t reach a decision or conclusion, what’s missing that will help you break the impasse?

Do you need more information about the “decision customers” and what their criteria are for an effective decision?

Do you need more data?

Do you need to test and refine the decision with a sample of people who will be affected by it, before you finalize the decision and announce it, formally?

4. Evaluate and improve

After the decision has been made, announced, and implemented, record the results of the decision, as objectively as you can in your decision diary.

Gather feedback about the decision from people who were affected by the decision. See what they think about the decision and how it was communicated and implemented.

Periodically and regularly (perhaps 1-2 times a year),work with others on your decision-making teams to take a look at your decision process and results, using the decision diary, and other information you may have gathered.

What works well about your decision-making process?

What needs to be improved, specifically?

Finally, how do the results of your decisions compare with what you expected they would be?

Use the results of this analysis to continually improve the process and increase the yield of your decisions and team.

Being able to make good decisions – at all levels of the organization – is vital to your company’s success.

Decision-making skill, one of the top ten characteristics of great leaders, is increasingly important, and increasingly difficult.

Consider this thought:

“Some problems are so complex that you have to be…well-informed just to be undecided about them.”
Laurence J. Peter

Great decisions can have deep and lasting effects on many people.

Think about the far-reaching impact of these three decisions:

- Columbus’ decision to seek the New World

- John F. Kennedy’s decision that the US would land a man on the moon

- Rosa Parks’ decision not to give up her seat on the bus

Poor decision-making is equally powerful, but in undesirable ways. Bad decisions can have devastating effects on people and organizations.

Think about the impact on US and world financial markets of a few false assumptions about market risk and what was adequate oversight.

It all added up to very big, very bad surprises for many people and institutions.

What are the primary problems with decision-making?

Here are just a few:

1. Being unable to decide without a lot of information.

And then, being unable to swim one’s way through the sea of data, information and opinions to reach a valid, effective and timely decision.

2. Being decisive – but too much so.

Decision-makers may reach conclusions quickly, based on too little information, or inaccurate and untimely information.

3. Simplifying information so much that it’s stripped of significance.

Data and information may be overly simplified – or it may be unwieldy.

Either way, it may be difficult to synthesize for deeper meaning, powerful conclusions,and good, sustainable decisions.

4. Disowning one’s decisions.

This can occur if a leader fears the push back that naturally happens at some point in almost every change process.

We’ve touched on ways that decisions can go wrong.

How can decision-making go right?

Great leaders ensure that they have solid, accurate, timely information for the decisions they must make.

And they make sure that their decision-making process is effective, and continually improved.

These are some of the main characteristics of good decisions:

- Timely

- Well-informed

- Take into account the needs of the people most affected by the decision and its outcomes

- Match the criteria for making that decision

If your decision-making processes could use a tune-up, give me a call. We’ll work it out.

Choosing the right strategy and implementing it successfully is one of the top leadership skills.

If need be, how can you strengthen your strategic skills?

And how can you coach people who work with or report to you so they can strengthen their strategic contributions to your mutual success?

Here are a few approaches you can use:

1. Use scenario planning

First, identify the variables that create the highest risk and opportunity for your company. These could be vulnerable to signficant change in the months or years ahead – making you vulnerable, as well.

Next, imagine the extremes things – both positive and negative – that could happen for each of these success-critical variables.

Now push your imagination further. Envision MUCH more positive and MUCH more negative circumstances for each variable than originally came to mind when you envisioned what could happen in the future.

Then, having stretched by envisioning extreme alternatives, choose a few scenarios that you think are most likely to happen, having considered many possibilities by now.

Next, choose the most likely scenario. You may find it valuable to gather data that will help you hone and verify your instincts.

Finally, consider what actions you would take if some of the other also-likely scenarios happened, rather than the one on which you’re placing your bet, and investing all your resources.

2. Design for the solution after this one

The strategy you choose now, and the actions you take, as a result, will affect the future. That could prevent or solve future problems, and it could also initiate other problems.

To minimize the negative impacts of the strategy you choose, imagine when your company may need to set the next strategic direction, whether that happens in 5, 10 or more years.

The strategic thinking and choices you make now affect the opportunities that will be open to your company at that future time. Envision your strategic choices now fitting into the choices that must be made then. See if that perpective helps you to make a better and more confident strategic choice now.

3. Learn and practice games of strategy

This idea doesn’t need a lot of explanation. Learn and practice chess.

4. Learn from the masters

Choose someone who was or is legendary in your field for their strategic skills. Learn about them, and how they demonstrated their strategic skills.

What can you learn about what they achieved, their thought process, and other aspects of how they achieved success?

How can you apply that to your work of selecting your strategy now?

5. Create the time and space to be strategic

A big part of strategic success is carving out the time and space so strategic skills that are present can be tapped.

If you never get away from the day-to-day, you’ll never be able to fully see the big picture – to anticipate issues well before they become major problems, and to see greatest opportunities open to you, and how to make the most of them.

Create the time and space regularly so that strategy can emerge, be implemented, and adapt, as need be, as you move your company ahead.

Strategy. Strategic.

Do those words make you feel excited or energized? Or does your heart start racing a bit in fear, at just the mention of strategy, and the responsibility it brings?

Leaders’ reactions to strategic opportunities run the full gamut.

Some people like the excitement of sizing up the future and placing their bets on a particular course of action and events which setting strategy really represents.

For others, the word “strategy” and “strategic” make them break into a fearful sweat. For this group, the risks of getting it wrong seem higher than the thrill of getting it right.

Strong strategic skills – strategic thinking, strategy setting, and strategic management – are among the top characteristics of great leaders.*

The essence of strategic ability is that, of the many paths of action open to an organization, great leaders can see and take the strategic course most likely to lead to success.

They can find their way, no matter what their companies face, to optimal customer satisfaction, process excellence and ease, and profitability.

When you set strategy, you’re placing your bets – and committing your resources – to what you believe will happen in the future, and what your best response is likely to be to the changes ahead.

What’s really involved in being a great strategist?

You must be able to envision the game playing out fully – not just magically and effortlessly arriving at a successful final outcome.

You must have alternative paths figured out in case the paths you envision are wrong, or eliminated.

You must have or be able to get the resources to turn the strategy into effective action.

You must have good information, and know how to use it for good decision-making, having considered decisions from many different points of view

You must have the confidence to choose the best course, and stay that course or adapt, as you see what’s happening as time unfolds and conditions continue to change.

You must keep your eyes on the ultimate prize, your vision of success, given the current circumstances at any point, and what may lie ahead.

If your comfort with strategy is not what you’d like it to be for greatest success, give me a call, and we’ll work on it.

Change in an organization can be sought, or resisted – or some combination of both.

Handling change well is a major part of strategic management. And that is, essentially, top leadership’s primary role.

Here are few thoughts about change. Ultimately, it is inevitable in so many ways:

Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time.
Sara Paddison

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.
James Arthur Baldwin

Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted.
Unknown

A problem-solving comment on Twitter the other day gave me pause.

The writer noted how much easier problem-solving is when people don’t “switch sides.”

“’Sides. Staying on your own ‘side.’ Interesting,” I thought.

It brought back recollections of another dilemma that dogs many problem-solving teams. It’s the me vs. we, conflict that can stop progress cold.

Here’s just one example. A few years ago I was working with a client to lead a full-company self-assessment and improvement team.

One person in the group kept using the words, “me,” “I,” and “mine.” As I kept listening to her comments, I realized she never used the word, “we,” in any circumstance relating to the team.

At a meeting one day, I decided to learn more about her way of thinking. It appeared to have a lot to do with the team’s not-yet-effective dynamics. They were far behind what six other teams working on the same large project had been able to achieve in their team processes and effectiveness.

“What would it take for you to use the word ‘we?’” I asked.

She stopped, suddenly, surprised.

She hadn’t realized how much she was standing on the edge of the pond, not jumping in, and maybe never intending to, really. And that it was hurting her, and the full team, a lot.

She thought she’d been a good team member by showing up to the meetings…sort of. By being there…sort of. By getting her name on the team roster right away, by doing her part to consistently warm a seat.

The “What would it take for you to use the word ‘we?’” question led to some other realizations and breakthroughs for her and the team.

Soon they had great traction, focused action, all leading to great results.

Taking sides, and the me/I/mine frame of mind miss the point, ultimately.

The adversary is rarely the other team, or another point of view.

What if you and everyone on your team were aligned against the real adversary – the problem and consequences that you share if you don’t figure out how to work well together effectively?

What if you, collectively, could take away the causes of the things standing in the way of your mutual success?

And in any case, the right answer – the most supportable, sustainable, effective solution – probably resides somewhere between the extremes that two “sides” are likely to devise and advocate.

Find we, instead of me or I. Find our solution, not yours or mine.

Then free yourselves to address the next problem in line.

You all benefit from an effective, sustainable solution – no matter whose idea it originally was.

Just remember, you’re not alone.

These issues affect many teams, in business, government, sports, education and more.

If you need help breaking out of taking sides, or me/I/mine vs. we dynamics, give me a call. We’ll work it out.