Plan to Be Wrong, But Still Plan
Plan to be wrong, but still plan
“What if we’re wrong?” That was the question a senior leader asked his CEO as they were discussing business strategies and plans. “We probably are,” she replied, “but let’s move forward nonetheless.”
This conversation was recounted by the CEO of an $18 billion company recently. Like every organization, they were making major corporate investment decisions based on assumptions seeded by the best available information. These were long-term strategies developed to align with forecasts of customer needs and technological innovation, based on trends and predictions, and presuming an appropriate measure of volatility. In other words, they were making an educated guess. Some people freeze, waffle or delay in the face of such massive decisions, but leaders must ultimately take a position and move forward, frequently knowing that they’ll be wrong, or they have only a partial solution. But failing to prepare for the future isn’t an option. (more…)
Jake was elated. His COO had just called him into his office to give him the good news. The executive committee approved his promotion to VP of Client Services. This was the promotion he had been working towards for the past five years. It had even come a bit sooner than expected as his predecessor resigned several weeks ago to take a position with another company. He wanted to call his wife immediately to share the good news, but she was on an airplane returning from a west coast business trip. Instead he had to rush to pick up his two sons and take them to their after-school sports activities. He was scheduled to be on vacation over the next two days and looked forward to the long weekend to get his mind in gear and prepare to step into the new role. It would be effective one week from today and the announcement would go out on Monday. 
How many times have you had a medical issue you considered to be minor, and instead of going to the doctor, you googled the topic, asked friends or family for advice and visited the drug or grocery store for solutions to address it. All of this only to realize after a period of weeks that you really needed expert help. Even if you had health insurance, you didn’t want to take the time to visit the doctor’s office, get a prescription, go through a medical procedure, or worse, hear news you didn’t want to hear. This “bad news” might range from a firm directive to change your eating or health habits, or worse, a condition left untreated has reached a serious state. It now requires greater intervention, greater disruption of your “normal” routine, and significant stress to manage through it all. You took a risk and now you’re dealing with the consequences.
Supporter relationships are evidenced by business interactions that are more transactional. Supporters focus more on what they are getting, rather than what they are giving. Supporters emphasize the importance of clients’ understanding and valuing their expertise. They tend to receive more crisis calls as a reactionary response from the businesses because something hasn’t turned out as expected.
Capital One has a frequently aired commercial with the tag line “What’s in your wallet?” It conveys the message that if you possess their credit card, you will have greater spending power and ability to acquire the things you want and need. But if it stays in your wallet, and you don’t use it, you won’t activate the power it holds. You need to not only have it, you need to use it.
A key requirement of good leadership is to ensure that the organization and its initiatives are sustainable, both during and beyond the leader’s tenure there. This means that the company’s values, beliefs, goals and objectives cannot be dependent upon a single or few people as the glue holding it together. Situations will inevitably occur where such individuals are no longer a part of the organization, and thus the glue fails.
Leaders spend a great deal of time focusing on building strong teams, selecting the right people with critical skill sets, managing diversity of thought and matching complementary strengths. They structure their organizations based on the capabilities needed to accomplish organizational objectives and optimize opportunities to control as many variables as possible to ensure a cohesive team.
Imagine that you’ve just joined a new organization or department or been appointed to lead a significant new project. You’re excited about your new role and have been given a charge by your new leader regarding specific outcomes and metrics to achieve. You took some time to evaluate the challenge ahead and get to know the team, and you’re ready to make some “quick wins.” There are obvious areas for improvement that will impact organizational metrics favorably. As you meet with your colleagues and team members to introduce your plans, their responses are muted. They don’t seem to appreciate the value of these initiatives. You continue to meet with key people one-on-one to gain their support and probe for issues, but you keep hitting a wall filled with excuses, pushback and noncommitment. What’s wrong? You’ve entered a “no wake zone.” 
A CEO recently expressed concern that there was an environment of fear among his employees in the workplace. He was trying to understand the underlying issues driving this, to determine how to address it. His sincerity was commendable, and it provided an opportunity to identify drivers of fear by starting at the top of the organization.