Introduction
Every organization experiences issues from time to time. Some issues are simple, some are complicated, some are more complex, and some are outright chaotic. Here is a list of 9 “symptoms” you might have experienced within your organization which may mean there are some larger issues that need to be addressed.
1. Are you having to check or rework others’ work?
One of the most impactful tools in an effective leader’s toolbox is the ability to delegate appropriately. Team members should be empowered to handle their given tasks so long as the deliverables meet the expectations within the parameters of the assignor. The trouble is, a lot can go wrong when we are dealing with assignors and assignees because they are, well… people.
Human beings are not infallible. Even the highest-potential, highly-productive rockstar of an employee is bound to make mistakes from time to time. There are a million things an organization can do to reduce human-error, but in the end it is nearly impossible to eliminate altogether.
Having to check or rework others’ work is a symptom that leadership or management lacks trust in their team members’ abilities or competency. There are two simple ways to handle employees who produce sub-par deliverables, and double-checking their work is not one of them (neither is doing their work for them in the case of “rework”).
The first simple way to handle receiving sub-par deliverables is actually not on the shoulders of the team member, it rests squarely on the shoulders of the leader or manager who assigned the task. That’s right, the assignor is first responsible for clearly communicating their expectations to the assignee so they are understood and supplying them with the resources they need to be successful. There is a proper process for delegating to subordinates, and if that process isn’t followed by the superior, that’s the first thing that needs to be addressed.
The second simple way to handle receiving sub-par deliverables is to make sure the right people are in the right seats within the organization. Assuming the leader or manager is indeed following the proper delegation process and a team member is still missing the mark; it’s time to see if there’s another home for them in another position or department (or if it’s time for them to exit the organization altogether).
Bottom line: if you’re receiving bad deliverables from your team, first take a look at yourself to see if there was something you should have done better. If that passes the test and you’ve truly set the team member up for success and they continue to fail, don’t just start double-checking their work or doing it for them. Get the right person in there that you can trust to handle the tasks you need performed.
2. Do you deal with a lot of back-and-forth communication and email?
It used to be when you sent someone an email, it would take several days for them to get to it, and several more days would pass before you would get to their response. It was literally like an electronic alternative to “snail mail” and was treated as such. However, somewhere along the line the pace began to change.
These days, emails have become more akin to “instant messages” than the paper letters of old. It has become uncomfortable for us to send emails and not have an answer right away or at least within 24 hours. This desire for instant gratification has created quite a problem in the communication realm.
Most of the time, people don’t take enough time to properly draft an email that communicates everything desired the first time. There’s a tendency for people to go on an email response rampage in a desperate effort to clear out their inboxes that are usually bursting at the seams. The effort to get responses turned around quickly often results in messages of poor quality.
Here’s an idea, just sloppily draft a few sentences that don’t address all the questions or points from the thread below, slap on an emoji or two, and “reply to all”. This is meant to be sarcastic, but unfortunately this is the standard operating procedure for many. It doesn’t take a vivid imagination to envision this scenario, in fact we’ve all seen it and some of us have even engaged in these behaviors.
It takes something to overcome the sense of urgency and slow down to compose a message that will really get the point across without people coming back with more questions. With that said, that’s precisely what needs to be done. You may say, “there’s no way I can slow down, I have hundreds of emails everyday”. The reason you have hundreds of emails is in part due to the back-and-forth created by quick and incomplete messages.
The likelihood that you are communicating with a hundred different people each day is very low. Side note: if you are communicating with a hundred different people each day, you need to delegate, that’s way too many topics and relationships for one person to handle if they’re supposed to be completing goals that move toward achieving the company vision. Odds are, the hundred plus emails are spread across a dozen or so individuals and many of them are threads chalk full of back-and-forth activity. There is no benefit to spending 1 minute reading and writing an email if you have to talk about it again a half-dozen times. Take the extra few minutes to do it right and replies should start coming back saying “complete” or “done” instead of all the uncertainty, clarifying questions, and passive arguments.
3. Are people constantly too busy and missing deadlines?
There’s a lot of emphasis placed on meeting deadlines. In fact, a lot of recruiters continue to include a blurb about deadlines in the requirements section of their job posts. So if people come into a job knowing how important it is to meet deadlines, why do so many continue to blow it? There are several possibilities for what could be transpiring within an organization where people are seemingly “too busy” to meet deadlines consistently. It could be a leadership issue, a culture issue, or a capacity issue.
Some firms allow their people to wear their busy-ness like it’s a badge of honor. Oh of course, people that are constantly under-water must be super talented because they are so relied upon that their work has just piled up and just as soon as they start to get it done, more work is piled on them and it can’t be given to anyone else because they’re the only ones that can do those tasks because they’re just so great, blah blah blah! This is written jokingly, but it happens quite frequently. If this scenario is happening, leadership needs to address it because it means they’re either overloading people through improper delegation, which is terrible for morale, or people are creating that narrative in order to pass off having to take on additional work. Neither should be allowed, especially if deadlines are not being met.
Sometimes leaders are the problem. The way leaders conduct themselves trickles down through the organization. When team members see leaders overwhelmed, missing deadlines, pushing out due dates, etc. they begin to see these behaviors as acceptable. Once everyone starts modeling the behavior, it becomes the norm. It becomes the company’s culture.
Great leaders can identify when deadlines are being missed due to capacity issues. If the work is being delegated and executed properly, there aren’t any vacant positions, and the company culture and morale is strong and in-tact, there may just be too much work for the team to handle. When this is the case, it’s likely an acceptable problem because it means the organization is growing. Don’t take too long getting some new hires to meet the demand!
4. Are people making uncharacteristic and silly mistakes?
As stated earlier in this article, people are fallible and will make mistakes from time to time. But what about when people start making uncharacteristic or silly mistakes? People make silly mistakes when they are distracted, overconfident, or rushing.
When someone makes a mistake, especially one they wouldn’t normally make, it could be because they’re distracted. It could be something as simple as a disruption at work while they were in the middle of executing their task, or it could be something much deeper like a problem outside of work or at home. In the case of a problem at home, depending upon the severity of the mistakes, it may be better for the organization to give the individual some time off to recompose themselves or in some cases, grieve.
Most of us have been guilty of making a mistake due to overconfidence. We’ve all neglected the instruction booklet a time or two and ended up putting whatever it is together backwards or upside down. The same thing happens at work. People begin to get into a rhythm and go onto auto-pilot because they know exactly what they’re doing. But if they’re not careful, if they’re not paying attention, sometimes this attitude can come back to bite them.
Rushing is a sure-fire way to make some silly mistakes. When people fail to slow down, they lose attention to detail. The faster they go, the more mistakes they make. There’s a saying used by U.S. Navy SEALs which states “slow is smooth, smooth is fast”. It means that the best way to do a job fast, is to slow down and do the job right (so you don’t end up having to fix it or do it again and again).
5. Does it feel like the team is often missing the information needed?
Traditionally, businesses were only able to share information throughout the organization via in-person meetings or conference calls. These days, there are so many ways to share information. We have access to real-time information via instant messaging, email, company wiki, shareable web-based applications, and video chat. All this, available at our fingertips, all the time, through our smartphones.
With all the different channels of communication, it’s easy to see why people fail to capture what’s pertinent amongst all the “white noise”. Having to manage the ceaseless incoming information through all those channels undoubtedly affects the quality of information people are sending out as well.
Information should be housed under one roof so it’s available to whoever at the company needs to access it. This does not include private channels like HR or Finance due to the sensitive nature of that information, those can remain separate. Nevertheless, having a central hub for information will help reduce silos. There are a ton of data management tools on the market that are both easy to use and updated in real-time.
Having a data management system is not without its challenges and blind spots. For instance, some verbal communication doesn’t find its way into the system. To overcome this issue, leadership will have to set the expectations for effective communication and information capture in the company handbook and through training.
The more information people have, the better decision making will become because it will be more data-driven. Team members who have access to the information they need, when they need it, are also more productive. Not to mention, a lack of information creates missed deadlines, stress, confusion, mistakes, and kills morale.
Leadership should aim to implement some measures to monitor success of information sharing and capture throughout the organization. Employee feedback is also key for identifying causes of information gaps and breakdowns.
6. At times are you operating with the wrong assumptions?
For some reason, human beings have a tendency to accept information as truth even when there’s no evidence to support it. It could be based on trust in a secondhand source, or perhaps people are at times too lazy to investigate. Either way, assumptions can get us into trouble.
It’s not always possible to have all the information we need. In these cases, we have to choose whether we want to rely on our current assumption, or stop the train until more information is available. In business, sometimes it’s necessary to proceed based on what seems to be the best course of action at the time. However, when one is forced to proceed with assumptions, it shouldn’t stop there. In these situations, one must continually assess and reflect on the assumptions throughout the project to ensure they haven’t become invalid.
We challenge our assumptions by continuing to ask questions and seeking alternative perspectives throughout the process. Operating with the wrong assumptions without knowing is bad; but operating with the wrong assumptions while making further assumptions that your initial assumptions are correct (without questioning them), is a double whammy.
7. Is there a lack of understanding in general?
Processes are amazing and necessary components for a business to deliver quality products and services consistently. Unfortunately, processes cannot hold people accountable to proper execution of them. Leaders are responsible for holding team members accountable to proper follow-through of defined processes, but what happens when leaders don’t have adequate understanding of the processes?
When leaders don’t have understanding, confidence, or discipline in company processes it is impossible to hold others accountable to adhering to them. In this scenario, team members may be straying away from processes resulting in breakdowns and inefficiencies. If the team members' leader lacks understanding, they will not be able to bring things back into alignment. In reality, they may not even be aware there is a problem.
Lack of understanding and poor results often lead to finger pointing. Team members and leadership begin to blame each other for the failures and question the validity of the defined processes. Quality processes have been scrapped only to be replaced by inferior versions created by the very people that lack understanding.
One of the best ways to avoid these pitfalls is simplifying processes and providing training to all relevant personnel. When possible, implementing best practices and redundant function accountabilities. It is beneficial to engage in this type of cross-training, especially in smaller companies, so the understanding doesn’t leave the building along with a departing employee or two.
8. Are people stressed and under pressure?
There are many sources of stress: financial problems, personal relationships, parenting, home life, health, and of course work. Concerns about work, finances, and the economy are among the leading causes of stress. It is ingrained in our culture that work is stressful but that “a little stress is a good thing”. Stress affects people differently, depending upon the factors and how individuals cope.
When people are not able to cope with the demands of their jobs, that is not “good stress”. It doesn’t benefit the worker, the company, or the customer. People must be given the information and support they need to do their job well. Without proper understanding of their role and responsibilities, employees will live unfulfilled and stressful work lives.
Another contributing factor of stress is change. Human beings are hardwired to resist change. It takes a great deal of training and emotional maturity to overcome our instinct to resist change. Successful teams implement change only after communicating with and listening to employees.
People don’t like the inability to control the way they do their work. When they have not been empowered or they are micromanaged they can become disengaged. Poor relationships and bullying create more stress than the actual work itself. So the saying goes “people don’t quit their jobs, they quit their bosses”. Strong relationships are crucial to explain the value of change and identify the root cause or emotion creating the resistance. Poorly timed changes are the most difficult to effect.
People have plenty of stress in their lives through sources the employer cannot control. Leaders should make it their goal to decrease the stress they add to their team. This means being mindful of extra-long work hours, taking an interest in and valuing their coworkers, setting clear expectations, and giving them the support they need to be successful.
9. Is the company more “reactive” than “proactive”?
Companies that are constantly busy aren’t always outperforming their competitors. Being busy doesn’t directly equate to success or moving forward. Many organizations are running around like a chicken with their head cut off trying to “fight fires”. No one in these organizations seems to have any time in the day, and yet they’re not accomplishing any large company goals or moving the dial.
Small businesses are notorious for prioritizing urgent matters over the impactful ones. In order to focus on issues based on impact, the company must think “big picture”. Unfortunately, many small businesses do not have the capacity to devote the resources to aligning strategy with vision and implementing in-depth risk management.
If an organization is to shift from a reactive state to a proactive one, they cannot be stuck in the “here and now”. The company, not just leadership, must be looking to the future and making all their decisions based on mission and vision alignment. It is difficult to get ahead while barely keeping one’s head above water. It takes a cultural shift resulting in employees taking ownership or personal responsibility of the company’s success.
It sounds counterintuitive, but teams will actually need to slow down to achieve more. Slowing down allows planning, organization, reduction in mistakes and rework, and review/reflection which is key for continuous improvement. Over time, continuous improvement will eliminate much of the “busy work” that inundates the team, allowing even more capacity for achieving larger company goals.
Conclusion
Every organization experiences issues from time to time. Some issues are simple, some are complicated, some are more complex, and some can be chaotic. As we’ve seen in our list of 9 “symptoms”, the experience you might be having could be due to some much larger issues. It’s important to address the root causes of issues quickly if the organization is to continue to move in the right direction. Issues that remain unaddressed or solved improperly can stifle growth, create problems with stakeholders, and demoralize the team.
Not sure where to start? Contact a consultancy like Doxazo. Consultants bringing knowledge and expertise to the situation, along with objectivity. We have the luxury of looking at the issues from an outside perspective, and the odds are, we’ve dealt with issues like yours before! We can save your company time, money, and perhaps most importantly, we can save you some of the headaches by addressing the root causes of your "symptoms". If you are tired of having to fight the same issues again and again, contact Doxazo today!
Comments