Resource Management Innovations
Better Precedes Bigger
There is a characteristic of our culture that I have come to find quite unattractive. Since the sixties when a post World War II economy took on a frantic almost obsessive pitch, there has been a preoccupation with bigger. In our own personal lives we may have convinced ourselves there were checks & balances with respect to quality … but as a North American culture … I think the whole ‘Super Size Me’ message has become something close to endemic.
I understand the natural inclination toward success … but I struggle with the agenda of bigger, faster and its influence on us. If my income is ‘larger’ than yours … we draw some implicit messages from that. If my company is ‘bigger’ … whatever the measure of that might be … we draw success related conclusions from that. It isn’t a phenomenon exclusive to business either. If you get a room full of ministry leaders together … pastor to pastor, the conversation (very) quickly turns to “how big is your congregation, what’s the seating capacity of your sanctuary, how big is your budget?” As an observation … we refer to that as the ‘traditional’ ABC’s of ministry'. Success is defined as a measure of attendance, buildings & cash. We know by observation that the conversation is a myopic one … but it is pretty much universal. If my ABC’s are bigger … I must be better. If anybody was concerned about quality control … wouldn’t it be refreshing if it came from the church? (Regrettably, there is a lot of work to do with these guys).
The point to be made is that (we know that we know …) bigger is not necessarily better, and an inclination toward bigger (lets say growth?) is not in itself a bad thing. Almost exclusively in a business domain is the principle of … ‘if we get better, our customers will demand we get bigger’. If the end game is growth … then quality must precede quantity. Here are some thoughts that have made their way to the RMI files that my clients find instructive:
Making my way into work every day … wherever that may be (office, factory, school, hospital, retail, restaurant, church or a car dealership) my focus has to be on quality. You’ve heard the commercials … “Quality is Job #1.” As a leader, I need to affirm that our product or service can and should be better … and my job is to see that this happens. In a perfect world I think the C-Suite would have a Chief Quality Officer (CQO). But how would that be accomplished? In RMI terms … “what would done look like?” Here is a process to get you started:
1. Clarification (What) and
2. Evaluation (How).
Clarification defines the ‘Win’ for us. In objective and measurable terms … what would it look like? After all, we have to be able to recognize it when we see it. If I leave it to a personal assessment as to what ‘better’ might mean … then next staff meeting I should reasonably expect to have 10 different versions of ‘it’. So Clarification would be a huge time & materials saver … if we all understood what the win was. Consensus around ‘done’ is critical. OK so far?
Here is a quality control for quality control … it’s more than a goal. It’s a ‘win’. We reach goals … but we experience wins! That isn’t something to be lost in a corporate culture … and we wouldn’t want it lost simply because we couldn’t clarify what it was. Because we can. Maybe we haven’t in the past … but in the context of Sunday afternoon football … everybody in the club, in the stands and at home watching on TV understands what a win is … and isn’t. That brings us to item #2.
Evaluation will only be as effective as the clarification. We have to narrow our focus, and be as clear and concise as we can possible be. We all want our organizations to grow, be prosperous and experience a win … so evaluation is the process by which we get incrementally closer to the win.
Even organizations that have a mature performance management system will struggle with this ... because the lynch pin in the whole experiential process is … (wait for it) … communication. If we miss expectations, isn’t it typically because a message (the win) wasn’t understood or committed to by both parties? That’s what the good folks at the Better Business Bureau (BBB) will tell you. The message is usually one of “I didn’t get what was promised (explicit or implicit) to me.”
To be sure … this is a leadership role and responsibility. As a mentor of mine would say, “Everything rises and falls on leadership”.
• Where are we going,
• How will we get there,
• Have I defined the (next) Win, and
• Do we have a process in place to evaluate and adjust our course as we go?
It’s our work to do. Don’t blame a market, the education system or cultural ethics … as a leader it is our job to ensure that everyone on the team has the opportunity to experience the win.
Cheers;
Rick @ RMI
Posted By: Rick Kneeshaw 2010/09/18
Categories: Leadership and Management