Expedient?

How much pressure are you under to get things done?

Many leaders are experiencing increasing transactional cadence. The rate that things pop into the “to-do’ list is intense. It has us asking ourselves what the most expedient way to deal with each item is. I reckon it’s the wrong question. The quickest way to a result sometimes creates second or third order consequences that consume more time, energy and resources than a little more initial effort might have.

In my front yard right now there’s a large messy hole. The team that installed soak wells and paving did a great job. It looked awesome. But through winter there’s been issues with drainage. Today they dug part of it up to find the problem. A quick compaction job to finish the original job, rather than return another day, left a hollow air space under a pipe. The pipe slumped into the hole and no longer ran freely. It will be a full day to fix, and a fair bit of mess to clean up afterwards.

Some of the leaders I work with are either doing similar, or people in their teams are.

Sending a text rather than meeting about a critical tweak got things moving immediately, but the team is now redoing a heap of work because it was misunderstood.

Assuming someone had been included in a major project briefing, rather than directly checking now has a team buried in contentious stakeholder management, because residents were not informed of a major project nearby.

A customer issue has escalated to a major complaint and standoff after a rushed approach to finding out what the real issue was.

A colleague's motivation has dropped because she wasn’t included in the celebration of a piece of work she majorly contributed too.

These are all examples of time, energy and resource waste because something was done in what appeared to be the expedient way, only to cause more consequences. Most of them could have been avoided with a bit more though before rushing to the desired end point.

Sometimes we have to slow down to go faster. It’s a lesson I find myself learning more often than I’d like. How about you? Where could you slow down to go faster?

Aiming for Unshakable Part II

Last week we looked at the least effective operating levels on the Unshakable Ladder. Did you find yourself there? Hopefully not this early into a new year. Let’s explore the top side of the ladder.

Resolute

Focussed on production and transactional success. Relies on drive rather than delight. Often impressive results. Perspectives include “mustn’t grumble, turn up, work, get paid, go home, rinse and repeat”. It looks resilient, because people bunker down and get it done. But tension is just below the surface. People find common enemies - the boss, or company, or the greenies, or the regulator. They say their team is fine. It’s ‘us and them’ Silos and bunkers galore. Cooperation, support or collaboration beyond the immediate tribe are extremely unlikely. If challenged or held to account, the blame game starts.

Cost of Resolute:

Time: Polarity. Productive in the immediate group. Wasted as people justify, defend and shift blame to others.

Happiness/engagement: Well-being and resilience are neutral. Individuals often report high engagement, but typically scores are low across the business.

Status: Results and toughness are highly valued.

Money: Isolated returns but broad waste due to lack of cohesion. 

Cohesive

Everyone heading in the same direction. Two draft horses can reputedly pull 3x the load of one. The cohesive team achieves more than the sum of their efforts. They relish working together. The strong focus on individual results, shifts to achieving results together.

Value of Cohesive:

Time: Well spent, efficient. Focussed on long term. Urgency diminishes as proactivity increases.

Happiness/engagement: High. People enjoy the team and the sense of productive purpose. Wellbeing and resilience are high.

Status: People feel a genuine part of something bigger.

Money: ROI increases due to effective and efficient focus on collective results.

Unshakable

Results become secondary. They are still important, in fact keeping score and seeking feedback have greater focus than at other levels. Teams rise above their transactions. They stand genuinely united and deeply committed to each other. Ego and fear are still present but no longer dominate. Teams actively seek to test themselves under pressure. They value growth.

Unshakable teams and people are like self-righting lifeboats. Rough seas might capsize them, but they roll back up and carry on.

Value of Unshakable:

Time: Output is high but rarely feels pressured.

Happiness/engagement: Very high. People feel highly purposeful, valuable and respected. Well-being and resilience are extremely high.

Status: Teams get widely recognised for their results and ways of working together

Money: ROI is massive. Teams are achieving beyond the sum of their efforts.

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More from Mike

Subscribe to Mike’s weekly Unshakable Newsletter here.
Download a 1-page resource on the power of gratitude in Unshakable teams here.
Join Mike's Thrive and Adapt Workshop in Perth. $50 from each ticket will go to Australian Bushfire Relief.
Buy a copy of Mike’s book “Thrive and Adapt” here, or sign in for a complimentary PDF copy

Contact Mike to discuss organisation wide Well-being and Resilience programs that create Unshakable teams:

mike@mikehouse.com.au

+61 423 193 196

Aiming for Unshakable Part I

An Unshakable team is adaptable and relishes challenges. An Unshakable organisation treats resilience and well-being as part of every result.

What’s needed to become Unshakable? The levels apply to individuals, teams, leadership, companies and sectors, and provide some guidance.

Fragile

Pressure causes a tailspin. Many people get dragged into the drama. Restoration is difficult and costly. Scars are felt for years.

I recently spoke to a HSEQ Manager. They had 2 suicides a week apart. Tragic loss of life. Unmeasurable, lifelong impact on their families, friends and peers. Camp was shut down for weeks. A supervisor took 6 months off to deal with grief and feelings of guilt and responsibility. The company was bracing for the 12-month anniversary. This time of year will never be the same for them. Aside from the unmeasurable human costs, there are significant legal and economic risks too. Suicide is a worst-case scenario, but every instance of stress leave, mental illness, loss of focus or rumination on problems has a tail and a cost. People want to get out of the fragile state, but often can’t see how.

Cost of Fragile:

Time: picking up the pieces, holding things together

Happiness/engagement: Well-being and resilience declining. Engagement may seem high as people try to ‘rescue’ each other or the situation, but stress and unhappiness are rising.

Status: People can bond over drama which creates more drama.

Money: Increased cost. Opportunities lost.

Reactive

Like‘whack-a-mole’. No plan, no strategy, trying to stay ahead of the game. Reactive is productive but easy to disrupt. Exhaustion is common - no light at the end of the tunnel. Proactive work goes out the window. Action-oriented people find the rush of ‘fixing on the fly’ addictive. In monotonous environments, reactive feels important and purposeful. Time pressure and addictive appeal can make it hard to shift.

Cost of Reactive:

Time: Wasted on immediate fixes not underlying causes.

Happiness/engagement: Well-being and resilience low. The buzz of overcoming hurdles falls away as stress, lack of progress and exhaustion kick in.

Status: Short term praise for quick fixes. Long term reputation for last minute, chaotic action.

Money: Short, focused bursts for unanticipated workload or issues can be useful. Long term, everything happens on the fly. High turnover, balls dropped, do overs, wasted time – all hurts bottom line.

Where do you and your team lie? 

Next week we’ll look at the more effective levels Resolute, Cohesive and Unshakable.

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More from Mike

Subscribe to Mike’s weekly Unshakable Newsletter here.
Download a 1-page resource on the power of gratitude in Unshakable teams here.
Join Mike's Thrive and Adapt Workshop in Perth. $50 from each ticket will go to Australian Bushfire Relief.
Buy a copy of Mike’s book “Thrive and Adapt” here, or sign in for a complimentary PDF copy

Contact Mike to discuss organisation wide Well-being and Resilience programs that create Unshakable teams:

mike@mikehouse.com.au

+61 423 193 196

Losing the Keys

Have you ever lost your keys? It used to be a regular occurrence for me, until I initiated ‘The Bowl’. The bowl sits near the door. It’s not one of those weird party ideas, just a place to store the keys. As long as I am disciplined about putting my keys there, I can always find them. If I don’t, a long search begins. I check yesterday’s pockets and bags. I scour the flat surfaces of the house for anywhere they might have come to rest. I try to recall my movements, where I went and what I did when I came inside.

Time passes. The search becomes more frantic and less effective. Eventually I stop and look properly. Sometimes the search involves my patient wife asking, “Have you checked here or there?”. It doesn’t help. If she joins the search it’s usually over fairly quickly. Maybe a bloke look really is a thing, but I don’t think that’s the full picture. Fresh eyes and perspective make all the difference.

Most of us have lost stuff which we then find incredibly difficult to locate. As we look, we are filtering information using criteria that we are barely conscious of. We look hard where we expect to find them and then glance over less likely spots. During the search, we may look directly at the object, but not see it. It’s all a product of our filters and attention.

 Rational Filtering

Rational filtering can be highly effective but can also be overridden by our emotions and intuition, so if it’s going to be any good, we have to pay attention. When we filter rationally, we switch on the amazing capability of our frontal cortex. We can think, analyse, segment, compare, invent, debate, rationalise, investigate, research and generally do astounding stuff with this part of our brain. It makes use of our skills, training and experience.

Intuitive Filtering

Intuitive filtering is often undervalued and underestimated in our current culture and community. Intuition draws on everything we know. We subconsciously tap into our whole life's worth of experience and arrive at a snap judgment that can be very accurate. It’s often difficult to explain how we came to our conclusion. That can make us question intuitive decisions. Sometimes we’ll decide there’s not enough evidence to support our call. We start to doubt it, and often discredit it. 

Intuition has its limitations. To be effective, it relies on sound experience and knowledge. An inexperienced person may still get strong gut feelings, and there’s a good chance they’ll be ineffective. A strong gut feeling can totally override our rational filters. Intuition can also lead us astray if there are real or perceived threats.

If we feel threatened we are likely to filter reactively. Both rational and intuitive filtering are overridden by Fight, Flight or Freeze (FFF).

Reactive Filtering

Reactive filters kick in when FFF is active. We physically see and hear less. As the frontal cortex shuts down we literally get more stupid. When we are filtering reactively:

• we miss more data than usual,

• jump to reactive conclusions, and

• fixate on less data.

Blind Filtering

Blind filtering is what magicians rely on when they practice their art. They direct our attention away from the real action, or just rely on the fact that we are not paying attention. Some research reckons we are not present, or not paying attention, 30-80% of the time. That gives the magician heaps of territory to play in. They exploit our lack of attention to create masterful illusions that seem impossible. It also gives us plenty of ways to torment ourselves with lost items that magically appear later.

Blind filtering happens when our attention is elsewhere. We miss information when we are focused on something else, when we are distracted, or simply not paying attention.  We miss a lot even when we are actively paying attention. Most of the time it’s not a problem, or it’s mildly frustrating - like the keys. But you can hide big and important stuff in those blind spots - stuff you really don’t want to miss.

The problem with ineffective Filtering

Misunderstanding - people draw different conclusions or misinterpret each other and the circumstances. There is confusion about the best interpretation.

Group Think - confirming what we think we know, rather than responding to the circumstances.

Wasted time and resources - many businesses I work with spend significant time and money going back over old ground. Re-hashing decisions, clarifying agreements, re-negotiating. They all cost!

Personal and collective stress.

Blindsides - missing crucial information and getting caught with our pants down. Sometimes we never become aware of what the issue was - we just get taken out of the game.

What are you missing?