Why Are Your Initiatives Getting Stuck?
I've written about why so often I can’t get things done. It was hard enough to say it once so I’ll just link that post.
Do you feel you that’s the way things are in your organization as whole?
I have been working with and for several organizations over the years. And with all of them I have seen some great meetings lead to some important next steps. And so often (more often than not?) these next steps get stuck in the mud. Or quick-dry cement. Quicksand? The point is they get stuck.
I have been working with one organization. They've purchased/subscribed to a great CRM product for what they do, one that will interface with their accounting solution and allow them to coordinate efforts and analyze their success. We had two great meetings about setting up their sales process, agreeing altogether on one single process and aligning that process with the CRM. Everyone came out of the meetings energized, understanding the process, feeling like a team and ready to go.
They’re still not fully utilizing the system.
We set up an entire system for a great content marketing strategy. We onboarded a number of great contributors, educated important team members on content marketing and its value, created a process to create, share and broadcast content, set up a timetable (thanks to Hubspot’s free template) and set up a collaboration space.
Nothing yet.
Why?
Yes, one possibility is that I just suck. I’ve wondered that too. Now let’s move on.
So many blog posts are supposed to be informative. Sometimes they can be know-it-all preachy. Oftentimes they’re right and helpful. Either way that’s not the point of this post. My only point is to raise this question and, at most, give some of my thoughts. I do not have the definitive answer and I invite anyone to share his/her thoughts.
Too Much Routine
What I do know is that there is too much of the present, too much of doing our routine. That cuts into teamwork and especially into finishing cross-team projects. I haven’t completed it just yet, but this is covered really well in The Lean Startup. I think there is a lot of team members just doing their job, and doing it well, but without looking at a bigger picture and working to finish company projects, seeing their success more in the completion of those company projects versus their finishing their tasks.
People feel incredibly energized about next steps coming out of a meeting, but they go right back to plugging into their routine tasks. I don’t think that it’s because they only prefer to do their routine, though that can be the case with some. I believe it’s just easier to see their job success in this light (another concept I’m borrowing from Lean Startup).
There’s an inertia and comfort level that have to be broken through at times. How do we do that?
Communication
When I talked to separate members in that same organization, the whys and hows of the lag differed. It wasn’t even a question of placing blame or any sort of he-said she-said scenario. People merely contradicted each other because their views and understanding were simply different.
It’s almost cliche how often problems within an organization (and families) are labeled as communication problems. So let’s just be cliche. There is no doubt there is a lack of communication going on in almost every instance where important initiatives and next steps are not getting done. Is there a difference on the amount of importance? Is there a lack of clear goals? Do the various team members have hurdles or pain points that they have not expressed to other members? Are they afraid to raise certain problems or issues?
Being mindful and not associating any deeper personal reasons to why this happens, I absolutely believe that in 90% of these cases improved communication is necessary.
Evangelist / Champion
I’ve been throwing out some great cliche buzzwords with this post so why stop now.
I honestly believe that at least half of the initiatives I’ve seen get stuck would get unstuck much, much faster had there been an internal evangelist or champion for the initiative. I’m going to stick with champion here just because I like how it sounds more (too much sports and comic books I guess).
Many initiatives need champions. Not just a leader or coordinator or someone who believes it important. A champion. Someone who will do what it takes to ensure success.
We all can believe something to be important. However that importance to us means different things. How we value the importance and weigh it along with all the other important things we’re doing can drive the energy we devote to the things we do. A champion pushes us (correctly and well) to see her vision of an initiative’s importance. When we see how important it is to others we cannot help adding weight to it ourselves.
A champion can push us to give more energy to her cause. She can challenge us to question routine versus new. She can make sure we are not only setting out time for the new, but really incorporating it into what we are doing.
A champion will work with team members and jump those hurdles, relieve the pain, blow up the roadblocks and use all powerful cliches in her arsenal to keep things going. She moves external pressures. She can ensure smooth communication. She’s a champion. This is her cause and she will do what it takes (correctly and well) to get everyone to believe, adopt and complete the initiative.
Does every new initiative need a champion? I don’t know. But I know every initiative should have at least one in the wings, ready to pick up the cause when things are getting stuck. Why don’t we have more champions? I know why I have wanted to be that champion and held back (and you do to if you’ve read that post). How about you?
