Is it working? Cultivated Management Newsletter
Hi,
Hope you are having a nice weekend. Sorry the newsletter is late (normally Friday) but I had a dramatic week from a personal perspective. I'll fill you in on that once I'm through the other side and I can do a full 360 understanding of it.
Improving the system is a managers job
Managers are responsible for improving the system people work within. I reckon a manager should be spending about 70% of their time improving the work, the environment, the processes and cultural improvements.
One way to ensure you're working on a system in the right way is to keep asking the question "Is it working?" for every process, strategy, plan and initiative under way.
When you ask the question you'll need some reference point to come back, something to compare it to. For this you need to use the purpose (with associated measures and metrics).
Is this strategy working? What was the purpose and are we meeting it?
Is this approach to development working? What was the purpose and are we meeting it?
Is this marketing strategy working? What was the purpose and are we meeting it?
This question is powerful enough, but there is also a level below this. A level that relies on studying what is actually happen. A level that can be hard to measure. A level that very few managers or execs ever dig deep on.
And to get to this level there are two further questions I recommend asking - "Is it working?"
How is it working?
At what cost?
These questions will help you work out whether your purpose is being met in a sustainable, humane, consistent pattern and how expensive this is.
Let's use an example.
Let's say your company is embarking on building a new team in a near-shore country. The primary driver is cost, certainly from the leadership perspective. This may typically be measured by cost per employee including office service costs.
A year later costs look good. Hiring has gone well. Costs per head are cheaper in your new near-shore environment. It is also working in the terms of delivery and output - important measures too of course. More for less is the mantra here. Same or more output for less costs/people.
"Is it working?" - YES!
Whoot. Let's party.
But when you ask the other questions you may see a different story.
"How is it working?"
Hmm - not very well really. Knowledge gaps are huge, morale is low, fights between head office and the near-shore team are visible and unhelpful, it's only really working because of the good will of two or three people who are working extra hours and going above and beyond to make it happen - this good will is sliding away. It's mostly by luck that it's come together, but either way - we'll take it as a win - for now
"At what cost is it working?"
Hmm - we've had to fly more people back and forth than expected (different budget - not obvious that it's related to this project), people are bored, morale is low, the people really holding it together are suffering in personal and family life, one of them is ill but keeps persevering (bonus and job on the line), there is a ton of friction, systems are not working well, confusion reigns, failure demand is epic (having to do rework or new work due to failures somewhere else) and if one of the three walks away - we lose this capability. These costs are high. Some of this cost cannot be measured with financial numbers (not yet anyway). The cost reduction strategy morphs into a cost in human capital.
Is it really working?
This is common. Different budgets mask the actual cost of these programs. People burn out. Friction reigns. Purposes are met, measures look good, but underneath complexity is growing and people are burning out.
There are many good reasons to near-shore (I've done it very successfully by following this three question approach). This is just an example. You will notice many more in your world. They are all over the place. Every team, project, initiative and result can be put through this test.
Good intentions, a focus on cost and a lack of realisation that people will always do more than asked leads to people burning out, confusion, friction and the real costs being masked.
So the three questions to ensure you're improving the "system" and not just achieving a single purpose:
Is it working? (compared to the original purpose with measures)
How is it working? (studying what actually happens)
At what cost? (budget, productivity, human)
If you ask these three questions, do the studying and understand what's really happening, then improvements you make will have an amazing effect. And of course, if it fails the first question "Is it working?", you can still use the other two to work out what is happening and how much it's costing you and the company.
Hope this was helpful.
Until next time
Rob..