Tag Archives: organizational assessment

Keeping it Simple

Simple Instructions, simple tasks

Do you ever feel like you sound like a broken record? I know that I do. I often cringe listening to myself rhyme off reminders: “Brush your teeth.” “Don’t forget your homework.” “Take the garbage out.” Yet, the fabric of our routine and the hum of our household co-exist within these simple tasks.

I am tend to repeat idioms. Chances are you can read one on my fridge on any given day. “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” “What goes around comes around.” “Practice makes perfect.” These phrases so often encapsulate the core message I am trying to share that I admit I may sound a bit trite at times.

Ultimately, however, I have learned that my success, both as a parent and as a consultant, depends on how closely I follow the KISS principle. “KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID.” Time and again I find myself falling back on this concept. It helps guide my decision making; it helps me correct course when things aren’t working out. It seems that following KISS often leads to “things falling into place”!

Mired in the Weeds

I recently got mired in the weeds writing a phone contract for my son. Before undertaking this project I read lots of other contracts. I borrowed the best of each, and wrote up what I thought was an airtight set of rules for managing his phone. This original contract was long on substance but short on enforceability. It was far too prescriptive and, as a result, in the real world of crazy family living, elements were broken without consequence. It was too complicated to enforce consistently, so was not effective when needed.

His new contract boils down to FIVE principles. The heart of which is that it is my phone and that I can do what I want with it, when I want, except he is responsible for paying for any repairs. I don’t think it could be simpler. Simple but effective. I can bring any transgression back to the contract and he can’t really argue with me.

The best thing about the new contract is how uncomfortable it makes my son. He can see how easy it is to enforce and that I mean business. He was much more comfortable stewing down in the weeds than exposed out of them!

Simple Does not Mean Easy

Consulting tools and solutions need to follow this same principle. In my experience, any time a project or report is getting too complicated it is probably time to step back and simplify it. Now believe me, this is harder than it sounds. Gathering information and over-analyzing it is often a lot easier than distilling its core message.

The irony of this is that smart clients often try to pull consultants down into the weeds. Just like my overly complicated phone contract, it is sometimes more comfortable arguing about picky details than identifying and solving REAL problems.

Until you distill your core – SIMPLE – message, it is usually difficult to figure out how to solve a problem. Make your clients and kids uncomfortable: fall back on simple, and see how much easier it is to manage results and realize desired outcomes.

The Art of Rising Above

Pick, Pick, Pick

My brothers and I are each six and a half years apart. In many ways this makes us operate more like only children than like normal siblings. We certainly had our issues growing up, but we generally didn’t battle it out on a regular basis the way many siblings do.

Conversely, I had three kids in four years. Yikes. What was I thinking? On a good day I’ll tell you how lucky they are to have built-in playmates. On a bad day all I hear is bicker, bicker, bicker. Pick, pick, pick. I never knew three people who could manufacture such petty arguments in such a short time.

What my children haven’t figured out yet is that the crux of their grievances with each other often gets lost in the midst of their bickering. I generally react either to their incessant noise or because someone starts to cry. While peace may be temporarily restored, the source of the problem remains, just waiting to erupt again.

Workshop Anyone?

As a consultant, my natural tendency is to problem solve. When I listen in on their arguments it is hard for me to resist the temptation to build a straw-man model and run a mini-workshop. Surely if we talk it out we can find a workable solution!

The problem with this approach is that often what my children see as urgent is such a low-hanging fruit in terms of family issues that it hardly bears acknowledging. Do we really need to waste an hour discussing why it is IMPOSSIBLE to share a music stand? Believe me we could, and I could develop some thoughtful recommendations for moving forward……

The real issue in the case is sharing, and solving this, from my experience, will take patience and persistence. It is not an easy, quick fix.

The Heart of the Matter

What strikes me is the symmetry between picky sibling problems and making sound recommendations. When undertaking any kind of organizational assessment it is easy, and indeed tempting, to focus on the obvious, picky problems. Stakeholders often try to keep a conversation mired in the weeds to avoid talking about what really matters.

The challenge is acknowledging these kinds of issues without focusing on them. The best recommendations tend to contain an AHA element, tempered with a realization that their implementation will take some work. It is only by rising above and taking an objective view of the whole picture that it is possible to determine what is really going on.

Facing our Fears

Putting Myself Out There

I recently stood for an election. For what is not important. Anyone who knows me knows how completely against my nature this was. Why I agreed I am still not quite sure. Yet, during the process and its aftermath, I was reminded that things often have a funny way of working out.

Before going further I need to come clean and admit that I lost. I have no idea by how much or for that matter how close I came to winning. Yet, it was in losing that I was forced to face my fears about the process and reflect about why it was a good idea to put myself forward despite knowing this loss was a real possibility.

An Inverted Perspective

By some quirky fate of the calendar, the same day I learned that I had lost I attended an intense yoga inversion workshop. At the time I was simply looking forward to losing myself in my practice; I had no idea how cathartic the workshop would prove to be.

Let me be frank. I am pretty good at yoga but I am terrified of headstands. Staying inverted without the support of the wall has been a personal challenge for me for a long time. I have the strength, I have the form but I lack the confidence.

Spending a concentrated period of time working on staying up in a headstand helped me understand the competing pressures at work. On the one hand, there is a lot of ego involved. Why is it so important to me that I master the pose? On the other, is vulnerability. Am I really capable of staying up?

Competing Pressures

During the workshop I was struck by the realization that these same competing pressures (ego and vulnerability) were also at the heart of my losing the election. By agreeing to stand, my ego wanted a win; knowing it was a long shot made me vulnerable. I wonder if part of what pushed me to stand was a realization that I needed to face my fear of losing. I needed to stare down my vulnerability and move past it. Funny how a bruised ego can make one feel less, not more, vulnerable….

Contemplating my personal struggle between ego and vulnerability led me to watch Brene Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability. I had been “meaning” to watch this for ages. I just never got around to it. Listening to Ms. Brown talk about her own vulnerability issues struck a chord with me. It seems that by leaning into our vulnerability and putting ego aside we become more at peace and centered.

Into the Boardroom

This is a struggle that most leadership teams wrestle with. Leaders have egos. Big egos. Undertaking an organizational assessment of any kind involves putting your ego aside and opening yourself up to vulnerability.

Anytime an individual or team engages a consultant to investigate a problem there is inevitably a degree of fear involved. What will the process uncover? Do I really want to know? Do I need to know? Agreeing to learn what is actually going on forces a leader to become vulnerable while laying some ego aside.

The beauty of this process, however, is that despite being hard and uncomfortable, it can also yield surprisingly beneficial results. If knowledge is power, then being willing to open yourself up to what is actually going on may be one of the most effective ways to move forward. It may not yield the results you want or expect, but it just may lead you down a different, ultimately better, path.

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