Working Smarter : Management

Lessons in Bad Management: Felix the Flying Frog

Fred Nickols — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:40:00 GMT

I first heard the parable of Felix the Flying Frog in the early 1970s. It appears in many places nowadays and its author is unknown. I think its staying power owes to the many points it illustrates – some subtly and some not so subtly. It has great utility as a discussion piece for use in reflecting on life in organizations – and life in general for that matter. Toward that end, you will find some potentially useful questions at the end of this version.

* * * * * * *

Once upon a time, there was a man named Clarence who had a pet frog named Felix. Clarence lived a very modest life based on what he earned working at Wal-Mart but he never gave up his dream of being rich. One day, hit by sudden inspiration, he exclaimed, "Felix, we're going to be rich! You will learn to fly!"

Felix was terrified at the prospect. "I can't fly, Clarence! I'm a frog, not a bird!" Clarence, disappointed at the initial response, told Felix: "Your attitude isn’t helping matters. I think you can benefit from some training."

So off Felix went to a three-day course where he learned about the history of aviation, the basics of aeronautical engineering (e.g., lift, thrust, drag, etc), gliders, parasailing and the lives of famous fliers. (For obvious reasons, the instructor did not mention Icarus.) After the training and on the first day of the "flying lessons," Clarence could barely control his excitement (and Felix could barely control his bladder). Clarence pointed out that their apartment building had 7 floors, and each day Felix would jump out of a window, starting with the first floor and working his way up to the top floor.

After each jump, Clarence and Felix would analyze how well he flew, isolate the most effective flying techniques, and implement the improved process for the next flight. By the time they reached the top floor, Felix would surely be able to fly.

Felix pleaded for his life, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. "He just doesn't understand how important this is," thought Clarence. "He can't see the big picture."

So, with that, Clarence opened the window and threw Felix out. He landed with a thud.

The next day, poised for his second flying lesson, Felix again begged not to be thrown out of the window. Clarence opened his pocket guide to "Managing More Effectively," and showed Felix the part about how one must always expect resistance when introducing new, innovative programs. With that, he threw Felix out the window again. THUD!

On the third day (on the third floor), Felix tried a different ploy: stalling. He asked for a delay in the "project" until better weather would make flying conditions more favorable. But Clarence was ready for him: He produced a timeline and pointed to the third milestone and asked, "You don't want to mess up the schedule, do you?"

From his performance appraisal feedback, Felix knew that not jumping today meant he would have to jump TWICE tomorrow. So he just muttered, "OK, let's go." And out the window he went.

Now this is not to say that Felix wasn't trying his best. On the fifth day he flapped his legs madly in a vain attempt at flying. On the sixth day, he tried “visualization.” He tied a small red cape around his neck and tried to think "Superman" thoughts. It didn't help.

By the seventh day, Felix, accepting his fate, no longer begged for mercy. He simply looked at Clarence and said, "You know you're killing me, don't you?"

Clarence pointed out that Felix's performance so far had been less than exemplary; failing to meet any of the milestones he had set for him. With that, Felix said quietly, "Shut up and open the window." He leaped out, taking careful aim at the large jagged rock by the corner of the building.

And Felix went to that great lily pad in the sky.

Clarence was devastated. His project failed to meet a single objective he set out to accomplish. Felix not only failed to fly, he hadn't even learned to steer his fall; instead, he dropped like a sack of cement. Nor had Felix heeded Clarence's advice to "Fall smarter, not harder."

The only thing left for Clarence to do was to conduct an after-action-review and try to determine where things had gone wrong. After reviewing the records and giving the data much thought, Clarence smiled knowingly and said, "Next time, I'm getting a smarter frog!"

Some Questions:

How did Clarence’s expectations get so out of line with Felix’ capabilities and how might better alignment have been achieved?
Why did Clarence reach so quickly for training as a solution?
What role did the power differential between Clarence and Felix play in shaping the course of events?
Why was Felix so compliant, even in the face of his own destruction?
What blinded Clarence to the role he played in the failure of his attempt to make Felix fly?
What talent did Felix possess that might actually have made Clarence and he rich and why didn’t Clarence see that?

About the Author: My name is Fred Nickols. I am a writer, an independent consultant and a former executive. Visual aids of one kind or another have played a central role in my work for many years. My goals in writing for SmartDraw’s Working Smarter blog are to: (1) provide you with some first-rate content you can’t get anywhere else, (2) illustrate how important good visuals can be in communicating such content and (3) illustrate also the critical role visuals can play in solving the kinds of problems we encounter in the workplace. I encourage you to comment on my posts and to contact me directly if you want to pursue a more in-depth discussion.

Getting from Losses to Commitments: The Change Acceptance Cycle

Fred Nickols — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:20:00 GMT

The purpose of this post is to review The Change Acceptance Cycle shown in Figure 1 and to extract from it some pointers for managers caught up in organizational change.

The Change Acceptance Cycle

Let’s start in the upper left, with a common form of change, the introduction of new ways or arrangements at work. This might be a new process, a new system, a new policy, a new organization in the wake of a merger, acquisition or a just plain old reorganization.

It is rarely the case that changes are welcomed with open arms; they are almost always seen by some people as having losses attached. The losses might include a position, a title, a personal sense of comfort, a sense of competency, the disruption of personal and working relationships, a fiefdom, or even employment itself. The negative reactions people have to changes, then, aren’t to the changes but to the losses they create.

The initial reaction of many people is one of shock, disbelief, and even disorientation. Their world has been or is about to be turned upside down and they are discombobulated to use a good old-fashioned word.

From there, people try to quickly restore some semblance of rhyme, reason and order to their world, which for some, has been turned upside down. They do this in various ways; by denying the change will occur or will affect them; by dismissing it as inconsequential or irrelevant; and by simply disconnecting from what is going on around them, hunkering down and pretending it isn’t happening.

But reality sets in. Then people have strong emotional reactions. Some get angry, really angry. Some become fearful and are paralyzed by that fear. They don’t know what to do and so they do nothing. Others aren’t necessarily fearful but they do become anxious about what the future holds and this anxiety saps their energy and dominates their thoughts. They wallow in “what if?”

Another stage of emotional reaction is marked by sadness for the loss of what was; perhaps for friends co-workers who have been moved to other areas; perhaps for a loss of confidence rooted in mastery of the old ways that has been displaced by a lack of familiarity with the new ways; and perhaps for the loss of an organizational culture that was once highly valued. Sadness is not far from depression and people can and do become depressed. Often they become passive, like victims awaiting their fate.

Some bog down in one or more of these stages but, sooner or later, most begin to look toward the future. They get their heads up and start looking around. They also start jockeying for position in the new order, bargaining for their personal situations and scrambling to find a place for themselves.

As they begin making their way out of this cycle, they begin to accept whatever they’ve viewed as losses and they begin to accept the new ways, too. They see hope in the future and they begin to commit to the new ways.

Thus it is that people accommodate, adjust to and accept change.

Some Pointers for Managers

The first thing to know is that change and accompanying losses are inseparable. People see what they see and if they see loss there is a loss involved – at least for them. Moreover, people don’t resist change per se; instead, if they resist at all, they resist what they see as loss.

Not all is doom and gloom. Not everyone has a negative reaction to change and the intensity of the reactions people have varies with the change, the person and the perceived loss.

People go through this cycle in very different ways. Some scoot right through it; some plod along one stage at a time; some bog down in one or more stages; some seem to make their way through and out of it but then something knocks them right back into it; and some people seem to move back and forth between one stage and another. The point is that you have to deal with your people as individuals; there are no one-size-fits-all approaches to helping people accept change and its associated losses.

Chances are, in addition to helping your people get through this cycle, you have to go through it yourself. Who will help you? How do you get help? Where are you in the cycle and how do you move on? More specifically, what losses do you and others see as attached to the change? Are they real or imagined? Can you compensate for them or are they givens?

People can and often do help each other. Co-workers can be just as effective as bosses in helping each other make their way through the change acceptance cycle.

So what can you do? Well, for one thing, you can talk about it – with your people, with your peers and with your boss. You can use the cycle diagram in Figure 1 to focus the discussion and to examine the current state of affairs. You need to know where your people are in this cycle. They need to know where you are and where their co-workers are. You need to know where your boss is and your boss needs to know where you and your people are. The diagram gives you a framework for examining, discussing and dealing with the reactions to change and for facilitating the acceptance of change.

A blog post is hardly the place to set forth detailed descriptions for dealing with the many specific techniques for helping people through the cycle of acceptance but it is a perfect place to point you to some very helpful resources. One of the best in this regard is William Bridge’s best-selling book, Managing Transitions (2^nd Edition).

Corporate Culture: A Case of Monkey See, Monkey Do?

Fred Nickols — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:42:00 GMT

Did you ever wonder how your company’s culture – that set of beliefs, traditions, and behavioral norms that determines “the way things work around here” – came to be? Or why, when you try to change it, it seems so resistant? Well, here’s a little story about a scientific experiment that shows how culture comes into being and why it is so resistant.

The experimenters began with a cage, a set of externally enforced boundaries. Inside the cage, they hung a banana on a string and placed a set of stairs under it. They then introduced five monkeys into the cage. Before long, one of the monkeys started to climb the stairs toward the banana. As soon as it touched the stairs the experimenters sprayed all the other monkeys with really cold water. When another monkey made an attempt to get the banana they again sprayed the other monkeys with cold water. After a while the monkeys prevented any of their group from going after the banana.

After the cultural prohibition against “going for the banana” had been established the experimenters put away the cold water. They took one of the original monkeys out of the cage and introduced a new one. Upon spotting the banana the new monkey went after it. To its surprise and dismay all of the other monkeys attacked it. After another attempt and attack the new monkey learned that if it tried to climb the stairs and get the banana it would be assaulted and so it stopped going after the banana. It had been acculturated, assimilated into the cage’s “don’t go for the banana” culture.

Next the experimenters removed another of the original five monkeys and replaced it with another new one. The second new monkey went to the stairs and predictably it was attacked. The first new monkey took part in this punishment with enthusiasm! Similarly a third original monkey was replaced with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.

Every time the newest monkey took to the stairs it was attacked by the other monkeys. Most of the monkeys that were beating it had no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they were participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After all the original monkeys were replaced none of the remaining monkeys had ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever approached the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they knew: “That's the way it's always been done around here.”

And that is how a company’s culture is formed: Acceptable and unacceptable behaviors are initially established in response to important external events but, over time, all that remains are strongly-held notions about what is and what isn’t acceptable behavior. The origins of these beliefs vanish with the departure of the members of the group who were present when the patterns and standards were initially established. In a long-lived organization, there might be no members left who know why a given behavior is considered acceptable or unacceptable. Yet all members of the organization are quick to enforce whatever the cultural standards might be.

So how do you break out of this culture trap? Well, you start by trying to find out what’s behind those cultural do’s and don’ts. Why is this expected or required? Why is that prohibited? And don’t accept “That’s the way things are done around here” as an answer. In some cases, you might find there are very good reasons for this or that prohibition or requirement. In others you won’t. In all cases, what you’re out to accomplish is to eliminate blind adherence to behavioral norms.

If you want to prevent hardening of the cultural arteries, try this: Every two or three years, conduct a simple cultural audit (see the decision tree below). Identify whatever behavioral norms are at work and determine why they are in place. See if they are still valid. None of this means that all or even any cultural standards will be eliminated; what it does mean is that if they no longer make any sense you can probably do away with them and, if they are to stay in place, people will know why – and your company’s culture will make sense instead of simply being a case of monkey see, monkey do.

Basic Cultural Audit

From Start Up to Shut Down: The Rise and Fall of an Organization

Aaron Stannard — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:32:00 GMT

Most people agree that organizations have a life cycle; that, like people, they pass through some identifiable stages. Some see seven stages, some see as many as eleven. All agree that movement from one stage to the next must be managed. Failure to do so leads inevitably to the demise of the organization. In this post we’ll look at a life cycle model that has six stages (see Figure 1).

Figure 1

Start Up

The first stage is Start Up, what some call “Launch” and others call “Venture.” Here, the founder(s) and close associates set out to establish a business, to develop and market a product or service. There is little in the way of formality, procedures, documentation and status differentials. Improvisation is the order of the day. Energy levels are high and the goal is to get the business up and running.

Growth

If Start Up is successful, the next stage is Growth, which entails expansion and no small amount of chaos, especially if the growth is large and rapid. The Start Up stage can succeed with “fly by the seat of the pants” management; the Growth stage cannot. It is in this stage that the need arises for more formal procedures, more specialized jobs, organizational structures, reliable systems, and probably a different kind of employee, one more suited to the emerging, formalized management and organizational structure.

Success

Assuming the transition from Start Up to Growth is successful and Growth itself succeeds, the organization enters a period or stage of Success. Growth continues, markets or at least niches come to be dominated, more products are launched and lead their field, revenues and profits are impressive. Now there is much to lose and risk-aversiveness enters the scene. The entrepreneur is replaced by the steely-eyed executive focused on the bottom line. Enter now the notion that the organization has arrived; that it has standing in the world of business.

Fit & Fitness

What happens during these first three stages is hinted at by the vertical axis in Figure 1. It is labeled “Fit & Fitness.” “Fit” refers to the alignment of the organization with its environment. There is a good fit between the organization, its products and services, and the needs and wants of its customers. The organization bests its competitors and is attractive to investors and lenders. It is seen as a desirable place to work. “Fitness” refers to the capabilities of the organization; its processes are efficient and its technologies are leading edge; its people are loyal, engaged and committed; its marketing prowess is as good or better than that of its competitors and it is creating demonstrable value for its stockholders. Making it through the first three stages is very much a matter of establishing a good fit with the environment and ensuring the fitness of the organizations processes, systems, policies, management and employees.

Bureaucracy

At the peak of its success, the organization enters a new stage: Bureaucracy. It has arrived; it knows best; it becomes an institution. Attention turns away from customers, competitors and the larger environment and focuses on internal matters. Risk-aversiveness grows more intense and energy goes into protecting turf, status and the status quo. People are hired on the basis of how well they fit in, not what they bring to the organization. Discussions seem more concerned with what is suitable and how the organization’s image will be affected than with how to target and achieve important results. This stage marks the beginning of the long, slippery slope downward toward decay and the eventual demise or shut down of the organization.

Decay

Between Bureaucracy and Shut Down lies Decay. This stage is marked by the deterioration of the organization. It might be gradual and take a long time or it might be quite sudden and dramatic. Customers and even entire markets are lost. Operations stumble, products perform poorly and isolated plants and operations are shut down. Talent begins going out the door and continues on its way elsewhere. At this point the fit between the organization and its environment is questionable and the fitness of the organization is obviously impaired. Eventually, the deterioration of the organization is such that it can no longer survive and it enters the final stage: Shut Down.

Shut Down

Shut Down can literally take the form of shutting down all operations, of boarding up the windows and doors and abandoning all facilities. Or it can take the form of dismemberment, of breaking up the organization and spinning off or selling off its part pieces. It might take the form of bankruptcy, from which might emerge a shadow or shell of the former organization, but the organization that went from Start Up to Success is no more.

This cycle is not inevitable. For one thing, many organizations never get out of Start Up; others fail during Growth and some even collapse during Success. So, all along the way, at each stage, there is the possibility of failure; success is never guaranteed. And so the transitions to and through each stage must be managed. This is especially true of organizations that make it through Success and find themselves in the stages of Bureaucracy or Decay.

Renewal

The way off the slippery downward slope is via Renewal, a return to a focus on “Fit and Fitness” that marked the first three stages of the life cycle (see Figure 2). Organizations have two shots at Renewal. The first is when they realize they’ve become a Bureaucracy and that Decay and Shut Down lie ahead of them. The second is when Decay sets in and the organization faces a crisis of survival. (The ideal point for launching Renewal would be at the peak of their success but the odds of convincing people of the need for Renewal at that point are slim to none.)

Figure 2

As Figure 2 suggests, attempting Renewal during the Bureaucracy stage is more likely to succeed than when the organization has already slipped into Decay. Nevertheless, turnarounds can and do happen. The only time it is too late for Renewal is when the organization is in Shut Down. The goal of Renewal is to reestablish the Fit & Fitness of the organization, to realign it with its environment and to rejuvenate renew its capabilities.

So what do you do with this life-cycle view of organizations, this view of their rise and fall? Well, you can start by asking yourself some fundamental questions:

Where is my organization in this life-cycle model?
What stages have we already been through and how were those handled?
What stages lie ahead of us and what are we doing to prepare ourselves for them?
How good is our organization’s “fit” with its environment?
How “fit” are our organization’s capabilities for the stage we’re in and the stage we face?

You can also ask these questions of others in your organization and discuss their answers and yours. If your efforts are blunted, or pooh-poohed, or dismissed out of hand, it might be the case that your organization is somewhere out on that slippery slope down into Decay and Shut Down. In that case, you might want to start looking for a position with an organization that is making its way up the leading edge of the life cycle curve.

Strategy IS Execution: Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot

Aaron Stannard — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:54:00 GMT

Things don’t always turn out as planned. This is especially true of strategy. The strategy you contemplate or envision and that same strategy as it plays out are often two very different matters. Strategy as realized is the result of efforts to execute strategy as contemplated. Said a little plainer, “What you get is the result of what you do.” Hence the title of this post: Strategy IS Execution.

The effectiveness of a strategy involves getting it right and doing it right. On the one hand, you have to envision the right course of action. On the other hand, once you settle on a course of action, you have to carry it out properly. The interplay of strategy and its execution yields a 2 x 2 matrix (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 – Strategy and Execution

If your strategy and its execution are both flawed, the effort is "doomed from the beginning." Your chances of success are zero, nil, nada, zilch.

If your strategy is sound but its execution is flawed, you are guilty of muffing it. You have “botched the job.” The real but hidden danger here is that you will be quick to blame the strategy instead of its execution. With the strategy condemned, a new one, perhaps of lesser quality, will be sought out. A series of events in which sound strategies are botched during execution can result in a series of shifts to increasingly inadequate strategies. This can lead to a downward spiral in the level of your organization’s performance.

An odd situation arises when your strategy is flawed but you execute it flawlessly. In this case, you are doing extremely well something you shouldn’t be doing at all. When this is the case, you are "flirting with disaster." You run the risk of shooting yourself in the foot. For example, if your organization has little in the way of competition and believes its products are seriously under-priced in relation to their value, you might elect to raise prices as a way of increasing revenues only to discover (to your chagrin) that very strong price sensitivity was there all along. The result is a sudden and unexpected loss in volume and revenue, perhaps also giving birth to serious competition.

Only when your envisioned strategy and its execution are both sound do you stand a pretty good chance of success. Even then success is not guaranteed. If your competitors have better strategies and execute them with more dispatch, diligence and dedication, you will still lose the battle of business. So, even if you get the strategy right and even if you carry it out efficiently and effectively, all you can really say is that the odds are in your favor, that you have "a fighting chance."

The matrix in Figure 1 emphasizes the importance of making certain that the right strategy is selected and that it is properly carried out. Three out of four possibilities lead directly to failure of one kind or another. Only one of the four possibilities holds forth any hope at all and it hinges on a sound strategy coupled with sound execution — doing the right thing right.

This all boils down to some basic questions you might ask yourself about strategies you are contemplating and might implement:

Assuming we have the right strategy, do we have the capabilities required to execute it properly?
Assuming we have the right strategy but muff its execution, what is our recovery strategy and how do we avoid blaming the strategy?
If we have the wrong strategy, what are we putting at risk if we are really effective at implementing it?
If we have the wrong strategy, what are all the costs that we incur as a result of muffing it?

Finally, in terms of parting advice, I have two points:

Don’t opt for a strategy you can’t implement.
Don’t shoot yourself in the foot as the result of implementing the wrong strategy.

Five Ways Leaders Screw up their Change Initiatives

Aaron Stannard — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:58:00 GMT

The reported failure rate of change initiatives is about 70 percent. It ranks right up there with reengineering efforts (and for many of the same reasons). The success rate of change initiatives could be greatly improved if those who launch and lead them would stop screwing them up. That’s right, the high failure rate of change management initiatives owes to some basic blunders by change leaders. In this post I’ll review the five blunders listed below.

Making people the target.
Ignoring objections.
Phoney involvement.
Quashing resistance.
Putting consultants front and center.

Making people the target. A centerpiece of most change efforts, if not the centerpiece, is people; in particular, their behavior. You might as well declare them the enemy. That’s too bad; they should be your allies. When you, as a change leader, point to the people of your organization and say “Your behavior has to change,” you just lost the key to a successful transformation: the commitment of your people. And in making them the target, you exempt yourself whether you mean to or not. As a leader, your rightful place is in the thick of things, not above or apart from it all. The targets of a transformational change effort should be the organization, its systems, its processes, its policies, and its structure, but not its people. After all, organizations don’t do anything, people do – and if you want to make change work it is people who will have to do that. Want some advice? Stop drawing a bead on your people!

Ignoring objections. Unless you’re an absolute genius, whatever change initiative or program you’re launching could probably be improved. The starting point for improvement is with honest criticism and well-founded objections. People see things wrong with what’s coming down the pike at them and they give voice to what they see. Does anyone listen? No! Instead, they are told they are not “team players” (whatever the heck that is) and their objections are ignored or they are punished for giving voice to them. As a change leader, you are cutting yourself off from vitally important information about your change program when you ignore objections. Get in the habit of listening to objections and criticisms and, better yet, understanding them.

Phoney involvement. Ah, yes, involvement – the supposed key to getting people on board. Well, what happens most of the time is that the involvement is phoney; it’s nothing more than a sham, undertaken because someone believes that paying lip service to involvement will obtain buy-in. It doesn’t. Instead, people spot right away that their supposed involvement is just another management ploy. There is no real involvement; what people say doesn’t matter and it doesn’t change things one iota. Only when what people say actually makes a difference is involvement genuine. Only when they can actually shape the form and nature of the change program is their involvement genuine. And only when their involvement is genuine does the change become theirs and genuine commitment shoves make-believe buy-in to one side. The solution is simple enough: Open up your change program to real influence by the people of your organization.

Quashing resistance. There is always resistance to change and often for good reason. Far too many change leaders are primed and prepped to quash it the moment it rears what they see as its ugly head. In so doing, they cut themselves off from the positive side of resistance. There might be a fatal flaw in the change program that its sponsors can’t see; the change program might inadvertently be trampling on some strongly-held values and beliefs of great importance to the people of the organization – and to the organization itself; those who want to sign on are turned away because they want to remove a few of the blemishes from the program; and the informal leaders who are seen as leading the resistance are driven underground where they wage guerrilla warfare against the change. Sabotage is not unheard of. Don’t quash resistance; embrace it, exploit it, take advantage of it – and, most important, listen to what it and the resisters are trying to tell you. Turn your opponents into your allies.

Putting consultants front and center. This is perhaps the worst and most egregious blunder of all. To totally transform an organization is to change it from top to bottom; its culture, its systems, its processes, its structure, its products, its services, its markets, its relationships with customers and suppliers and the larger environment, and its relationship with its people. It is to change a way of life. This kind of change cannot and should not be handed off to consultants; it has to be owned and led by those in charge and by the people of the organization. To put consultants front and center is to position the change effort as a job for hire, as something beneath (or beyond) the leadership of the organization. You, not the consultants, need to be front and center. Putting consultants front and center is basically an abdication of responsibility for leadership and the people of your organization will view it as such. Can you make good use of consultants? Sure you can; they can provide extremely valuable insights and ideas. But if you genuinely believe the organization needs to be transformed, then step up and lead the effort yourself; don’t hand it off to consultants.

What do Shooting Down Enemy Airplanes and Solving Business Problems Have in Common? - Part 2

Aaron Stannard — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:04:00 GMT

Introduction

As I indicated in Part 1 of this post, there are similarities between solving the fire control problem and solving business problems. The basic problem and the basic process are almost exactly the same: hitting a moving target and the absolute necessity of having a running or continuous solution in order to do so. The easiest way of comparing the two is via a civilian version of the flowchart used in Part 1 (see Figure 2).

Got Problems?

There is no shortage of targets (i.e., problems) in the civilian world. Unlike the military, very little time is spent waiting around for the action to begin. In the civilian world, action is ongoing.

Prioritize & Select

There are always more problems to be solved than there are resources available to devote to solving them. As with targets, business problems must be prioritized and then selected. As with targets, the level of threat posed might be one criterion for setting priorities. Return on investment (ROI), that is, the ratio of the payoff of solving the problem against the cost of solving it might be another. Regardless of the criteria used, business problems, like targets, must be prioritized and selected for resolution. In a word, they, too, must be “targeted.”

Define, Measure & Monitor

This is the counterpart or equivalent of “acquire and track” with respect to a target and here is where a great many civilian problem-solving efforts go astray. Business problems are rarely defined (i.e., isolated, located and articulated); they are more rarely measured in terms of their costs and the benefits of solving them; and, rarest of all, business problems are hardly ever monitored on an ongoing basis so as to know at all times their status, their costs, the benefits of solving them and the effects actions taken are having on them. Making matters worse, problems are often asserted at the executive level, wrestled with at the middle management level and actually tackled at the line management and workforce level – all with very little two-way communication and even less mutual understanding.

Figure Out What to Do (Continuously)

Just as with the fire control problem, a solution to a business problem must be determined. And, just as with the fire control problem the solution must be kept current. Business problems are not fixed, static math problems with fixed, static solutions. When it comes to solving business problems, it is not so much a matter of coming up with a solution as it is a matter of making sure your solution keeps up with the problem.

Solving business problems is a matter of crafting an intervention, of changing things in one or more places so as to have the desired effects as measured somewhere else, often on the bottom line. In a Gun Fire Control System (GFCS), the solution is configured by a computer designed and built for that purpose. In a business, solutions are configured by people, and the solutions they configure vary with their skills, experience, biases and the problems themselves. So, if the heart of a gunnery system is the computer, the heart of a business problem-solving system is people. Moreover, instead of solving just one kind of problem, which is all that is expected of a GFCS computer, people must tackle and solve a wide range of problems. They are general problem solvers.

Got a Solution?

In a GFCS, the computer operators can tell if the computer has a solution to the fire control problem. Making that call with respect to business problems isn’t nearly as easy. If a solution is an intervention, a course of action intended to bring about certain effects, it’s important to understand just how the planned course of action will indeed produce the desired effects. If the linkages between the course of action you’re contemplating and the effects you’re seeking aren’t clear, you probably don’t have a solution.

Obtain & Assign Resources

Just as the gunnery officer on board ship cannot take a target under fire unless and until the ship’s guns have been released to his control, it is often the case that managers who are working business problems will require more and different kinds of resources than they ordinarily have under their control. There is, then, a requirement to obtain and assign resources to roles, tasks and responsibilities that must be fulfilled in order to solve the problem at hand. Frequently, this requires making a case for those resources.

Take Action

Taking action in a business setting is not a simple matter of loading and firing the guns (although it often looks that way and “hip-shooters” can be found in just about every organization). The actions necessary to solve important business problems often entail complex, multi-layered courses of actions – interventions that must be orchestrated and coordinated over time (often long periods of time). And, just as is the case with the fire control problem, these solutions, these courses of action, these interventions, must be kept current, which is to say they must be kept aligned with what is an ever-changing problem situation. Too often, I fear, we are guilty of solving the problem that was, not the one that is and certainly not the one that is about to be.

Assess the Effects

This should be an easy, almost automatic step but, unfortunately, it isn’t. This is because, as noted earlier, we often fail to adequately define, measure and monitor the problems we set out to solve. Were we to do so, noting the effects of our actions would be comparatively simple. Instead, we push measurement and assessment to the back-end of the process and there it languishes for want of interest and resources. Consequently, instead of a steely-eyed assessment of the effects of actions taken, what frequently happens is that those in charge declare victory; they announce that the problem has been solved and all concerned move on to whatever situation is now center stage.

Results as Desired?

As the preceding item suggests, this decision is often made in a de facto manner, the consequence of declaring victory. Successes are claimed, failures are buried and the problem is swept under the rug until such time as it resurfaces, often bearing a new label and just as often being made the target of old solutions also bearing new labels. But, if the decision is an honest one, the problem either has been solved (or affected to an extent such it is no longer a priority) or it remains a focal point for action. Again, the importance of maintaining a “running” solution is apparent.

Summary & Conclusions

As I asserted at the beginning of this two-part post, I am convinced that much of what I know about solving problems I learned as a Fire Control Technician (FT) in the Navy. The lessons I learned go well beyond the Fire Control problem itself. I also learned to troubleshoot complex systems, a form of problem solving known as “fault isolation” and which lies at the heart of the much-vaunted Kepner-Tregoe approach. The two most important lessons I learned are these:

1. Problems are dynamic and solutions must be dynamic as well; moreover, solutions must keep pace with the problems they are meant to solve;

2. All problems are embedded in some larger structure and the solution to the problem lies somewhere in that larger structure.

Can what I learned be passed along to others? I think so. I’ve tried to do that with many of the articles I’ve written about problem solving, solving problems and an approach I call “Solution Engineering.” I hope others find this post and my other articles helpful in honing and otherwise improving their own problem solving skills.

Click here to read Problem-Solving Lessons Learned in the Navy, Part 1.

What do Shooting Down Enemy Airplanes and Solving Business Problems Have in Common? - Part 1

Aaron Stannard — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:04:00 GMT

Introduction

Surprisingly, the answer to the question in the title of this post is “A Lot!”

Shooting down an enemy airplane is done by a weapons system that solves what is known as “the fire control problem.” What I learned about solving the fire control problem while serving in the Navy has been of great value to me in solving the kinds of problems I have encountered in businesses and other organizations during my civilian career as a consultant and executive. The central point I’d like to make in this post is as follows:

Most problems encountered in organizations are dynamic. They are, as people so often say, “moving targets.” There is not and can never be a static solution to a dynamic problem. The first lesson to be learned from the fire control problem is this: to hit a moving target requires a continuous or “running” solution, one that is regularly updated to reflect the current situation. Dynamic problems are not “defined” and then “solved.” Instead, the definition of this kind of problem evolves over time as does its solution. Dynamic problems must be measured and monitored, just as targets are tracked. If you do not approach dynamic problems in this fashion, you are likely to solve the problem that was, not the problem that is.

Solving the Fire Control Problem

With the exception of stationary targets ashore, the basic problem to be solved is that of hitting a moving target, of putting a projectile or some other explosive device where the target will be – and to do so from a platform that is itself in motion. The calculations involved in performing this feat constitute what is known as “the fire control problem.” The flowchart in Figure 1 illustrates the basic process of taking a moving target under fire and, if all goes well, of destroying or disabling it. A guided tour of this process follows.

Got Targets?

A target might be a convoy, an ammo dump, a bridge, a road, a concentration of enemy troops, an enemy ship, an enemy aircraft or even a missile. Except in actual combat or during training exercises, there are no targets. But, once the fighting starts, numerous targets present themselves.

Prioritize & Select

Owing to the presence of multiple targets offering varying degrees of threat it is necessary to select the target to be taken under fire. This typically happens as a consequence of prioritizing targets based on the degree of threat they present – to your ship or perhaps to some other ship or assets you are trying to protect. You can’t take all targets under fire simultaneously; you must choose.

Acquire & Track

Once a target is selected or “designated” the task at hand is one of acquiring and tracking the designated target. The component of the Gun Fire Control Systems (GFCS) that serves this tracking purpose is the fire control radar. Once acquired, the target’s position and movement can be monitored and tracked. This information is fed to another component of the GFCS, the GFCS computer.

Solve the Fire Control (FC) Problem (Continuously)

The target is moving, the ship is moving, the deck of the ship is rolling and pitching and, in the case of a piloted aircraft, the pilot doesn’t want to be greeted by a projectile and so the target is frequently taking evasive action. Figuring out where the target will be and calculating gun orders so that when the gun is fired the projectile will intercept the target is the job of the GFCS computer. Most important, it maintains a “running solution” (i.e., it solves the fire control problem on a continuous basis). Static solutions won’t do. Everything involved is changing continuously and the solution must keep pace. Otherwise, there is no hope of hitting a moving target.

Got A Solution?

Once the solution stabilizes, the gunnery system is ready to do its job.

Bring the Guns to Bear

The gun mounts can be swung out, matched up with the orders being sent from the computer and the guns can be placed in automatic. Everything is ready.

Commence Firing

Assuming the target being tracked is still the priority and the solution to the fire control problem is being maintained, the guns are loaded and the command to commence fire is issued.

Assess the Effects

Basically, this is a matter of determining if the bullets hit the target or, in the case of projectiles with proximity fuzes, if they came close enough to the target to detonate and do enough damage to make the target no longer of interest. In any event, the effects of firing on the target must be determined.

Target Destroyed?

If it’s been destroyed, you can cease firing, look for and take under fire other targets or, if there are no more targets, you can simply cease firing altogether. But, if the target has not been destroyed or sufficiently damaged to render its threat of less consequence than other targets, you will keep firing and that entails ensuring that you still have a solution to the fire control problem. The target might have broken track and you will have to reacquire and track it, then solve the fire control problem again (and keep solving it) so as to take the target under fire again.

The Civilian Version: Solving Business Problems

Guess what? Things aren’t all that different in the civilian world. There, too, the targets of interest are often moving targets. Change permeates everything. And, as is the case with the fire control problem, the rate of change is a critical factor. As I was to learn to learn when I entered the civilian sector, the process of solving business problems has a lot in common with the process of solving the fire control problem. In the next portion of this post, we’ll look at some of those commonalities.

Click here to read Problem-Solving Lessons Learned in the Navy, Part 2.

The Urgent Should Displace the Important

Aaron Stannard — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:13:00 GMT

Layoffs and job losses in recent times have resulted in a significant – some might say punishing – increase in the workload facing many working people. Millions of people have lost their jobs but their work didn’t leave with them. People still on the payroll find themselves picking up that burden. Some people have an almost bewildering array of tasks, assignments, projects and other challenges facing them. The order in which to tackle them is a key decision. And so we ask ourselves: Do I succumb to time pressures and let the urgent rule the day or do I take that so-called "proactive" stance and tend to the important things first?

You’ve no doubt heard it said that the important gives way to the urgent, that the urgent crowds out the important, or other words to that effect. Such comments often precede an admonishment to retain your focus on the important and to not succumb to the pressures of the urgent. Well, for what it’s worth, I think that is probably well-intentioned advice but I also think it’s wide of the mark. The urgent should take priority over the important. In this post, I’ll demonstrate why.

Most discussions about urgent versus important seem to assume that urgent and important are two completely different things and thus there are trade-offs to be made between them. This is not the case. Urgency and importance are inseparable; they are two dimensions of the tasks facing you. Every task, assignment, project or challenge you face has an element of urgency and an element of importance. Consider the grid below:

The grid has two axes: urgency and importance. Both range from low to high thus yielding the four quadrants in the grid:

I - Low importance, low urgency
II - Low importance, high urgency
III - High importance, low urgency
IV - High importance, high urgency

One important question we have to ask ourselves in relation to the mix of work facing us is this: "When should I tend to this?"

There is, then, a scheduling, sequencing or timing problem. Time, of course, is a continuum and, in general terms, we can choose to do things now, soon, later or we can simply defer them to some unspecified point in the future (see the timeline below).

The grid presented earlier not only accommodates this view of time, it also suggests the general slotting of the tasks illustrated on the timeline above (see the items below):

If it's low importance and low urgency, defer it; don’t waste time on it. Here’s your chance to procrastinate and feel good about it.
If it's low importance and high urgency, schedule it for sometime soon; after all, it is urgent but it's not particularly important so you do have to get to it soon but not right away.
If it's high importance and low urgency, schedule it for sometime later; true, it is important but it is not so urgent that you don’t have some leeway in terms of when to schedule it.
If it’s high urgency and high importance, do it now! There’s no excuse to delay.

As you can see from the illustrations above, the urgent does indeed displace the important – but only in terms of scheduling – and in that context the displacement is appropriate.

If you were to prioritize on the basis of importance only, the order of the middle two items on the timeline above would be reversed; a highly urgent item would move from "Soon" to "Later" displaced by a highly important item that could in fact be scheduled for later. The result of this misplaced emphasis on importance only is that fires which should be put out will continue to burn and they might spread. In other words, the consequence of not tending to highly urgent issues that are relatively unimportant is that you wind up increasing their urgency and their importance.

Suppose the staff in a software development shop is working on a new version of its flagship software and it is also charged with fixing bugs with the existing version. Developing the new version is viewed as extremely important. Fixing the bugs in the current version is seen as much less important. However, the new release isn’t scheduled to be released for several months and the bugs need to be fixed in a prompt fashion. If they’re not, customer dissatisfaction levels might rise, perhaps jeopardizing the success of the new version.

So, the next time someone asks you if you’re letting the urgent displace the important, nod, smile and say, "That is as it should be."