Monthly Archives: March 2013

Who Has the D? Hint-think “RAPID”

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One of the areas that the Shelton Leadership Center focuses upon is teaching effective decision making.  We’re making a significant investment in trying to help individuals and teams learn and apply principles of critical thinking and decision making.  As one board member noted, “One key of high performing organizations is making good decisions and making them quickly.

I ran across Decide and Deliver, written by Marcia Blenko, Michael Mankins, and Paul Rogers.  They also wrote an earlier article  (Jan 2006) in HBR entitled,  “Who has the D?” In their work, they note there can be three bottlenecks to quick and effective decisions even in high performing organizations:

1. Global vs Local decision making: Who has the authority to make the decisions and tailored to local conditions? Is this a local decision (made by those closest to the front lines and facing the customer)or one that has to be made at a centralized level for consistency across the organization (who sees the big picture, sets broad goals, and overall strategic goals)?

2.  Crossfunctional vs Functional decision making:  What roles should different elements within cross functional teams play in the decision making?

3. Internal vs External Partnerships: This occurs most frequently with strategic partnerships and joint ventures.  Which decisions must be made by members internal to the organization and which decisions should be owned by the external partner?

Rogers and Blenko offer a decision making primer to think through who should make which decisions using the acronym “RAPID”, although they caution the thinking does not need to happen in this order:

R-Recommend: Who is responsible for recommending or proposing a course of action or alternatives.

A: Agree: Who has to agree with and sign off on or veto the recommendation? (They suggest only a few people have this veto power).

P: Perform: who is responsible for executing or implementing the recommendation

I: Input: Who has input or are consulted on the decision. These are usually those who are typically involved in implementing the decision.

D: Decide: Who is the formal decision maker who is ultimately responsible for the decision and has the authority to resolve any impasses in the decision making process and commit the organization to action.

What are some keys you use or teach your team with effective decision making?

 

How do experts shape culture? 6 key insights from Jon Katzenbach.

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One of the giant thinkers on organizational culture is Jon Katzenbach. I’ve set up a Google alert for any of his work on organizational culture.  Periodically, I go back and review some of his insights on organizations and organizational culture. I’ve summarized 6 insights from an article he wrote on organizational culture and change

1. The existing culture can be a powerful source of energy and influence for behavior change. Culture is rarely “all bad”.

2. If you don’t have to overhaul or replace a culture, don’t! A deeply embedded culture does not change very much, very fast. Moreover, a major culture replacement requires extensive programs and structural redesign.

3. Start with changing behaviors, not mindsets. It is much easier to “act your way into new thinking” than to “think your way into new actions.”

4. Focus on changing only the few critical behaviors at different levels within key populations. This is less disruptive than attempting wholesale change — and certainly more manageable and sustainable over time.

5. Use viral (i.e., cross-organizational) methods to motivate behavior change, not just formal top-down programmatic methods. Storytelling social media, and informal tools enable and accelerate formal change methods.

6. Mobilize both rational and emotional forces to reinforce the new behavior patterns and achieve lasting change. Both the rational and the emotional elements need to “jump together” to yield sustainable change.

To what extent do you agree with his perspectives on culture and change?

Five Tactics to Jumpstart Innovative Ideas

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Last month, I was struck by a comment I heard from a senior leader, who noted that in many cases, your effectiveness is tied to the way you ask questions.  She also said that in many cases, you have to practice “muzzle spasm”, that is, ask your question, then be quiet and listen for the answers, rather than answering your own question or issuing your opinion before getting the ideas from your team. Later, I found this article online at Chief Executive magazine.    The authors (Gregersen, Dyer, & Christensen) assert that the way you ask questions of your team can have a big influence on your team’s performance and innovative solutions.   Here are five tactics for disruptive innovative ideas they suggest can help your team’s performance:

  1. Ask “what is” questions: What are we trying to achieve? Where is the real problem? What’s most important?, and What is the real pain point here?
  2. Ask “what caused” questions: This question helps you gain insight into the way things are.  “What caused you to develop this scenario?”, What was the underlying assumptions you used to develop this course of action?,
  3. Ask “Why?” and “Why Not? “ questions:  These types of questions help you discover “what might be”.  “Why don’t they do it this other way? Why aren’t XXX taking advantage of YYY?
  4. Ask  “What if” questions
  5. Track your question to statement ration (Q/A ratio). The authors found that innovative leaders ask far more questions than issue statements.

What kinds of questions do you ask to jumpstart innovative ideas or to promote critical thinking and problem solving?

 

5 tips to effectively leading your team.

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Back in 2008, the Wall Street Journal published an article that shared five tips for effectively leading your team, irregardless of whether your team members were boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, or those just coming out of college (some call Gen Flex). These five tips include:

  1. Avoid surprises, especially when it comes to performance coaching,
  2. Be clear about what you want and expect. If you’re not clear about what you want, you can’t expect others to read your mind.
  3. Listen to what they are saying, verbally and nonverbally.
  4. Keep it loose. Try to keep it informal, rather than a formal performance review.
  5. Be prepared-keep notes on what was shared and what you agreed to do, along with what your colleague agreed to do.
Hite also found some interesting differences among the generations:

What lessons have you found that work especially well in effectively leading your teams?