“What’s the first thing we do to help clients find money?” That was the question Wendi and I set out to answer when we had a forehead-thumping déjà vu. Although we didn’t phrase it quite that way, we did answer that question here about two years ago. The answer still seems pretty timely, so we’re running it again, minus a couple of typos:

Accomplishing More with Less, Instead of Doing More with Less

We know more than a few people who are bitter about being asked to “do more with less.” We understand. If you are asked to keep doing the same stuff, but with less money and manpower, it feels like your only options are to work faster or longer, which after a point is ridiculous. One reader of Government Executive magazine reacted to President Obama’s April 2011 call for leaner government by commenting, “[Doing] ‘more with less’ just makes those who are left to do the work overburdened, underappreciated, and ready to call it quits!” That sentiment isn’t confined to the public sector.

Another sentiment we’ve seen in spades expresses the intention to do less with less: “You cut my budget by twenty percent? Fine. I’ll cut my output by twenty percent. What d’ya expect?! You poke me in the eye, I’ll poke you back.” Unfortunately, doing less with less isn’t effective in the today’s world. Whether we work in iPhones or airlines, we all have to up our game to stay in the game.

Most people who try to up their game do so by aiming for greater efficiency. It seems like the obvious place to start. But, granting that most organizations are ripe for streamlining, we’d suggest that anyone facing a belt-tightening first consider answering these three pointed questions:

Question #1: “What’s the point?” An admiral we know once remarked, “Before doing anything else, leaders have to ask the existential question: ‘Why does my organization exist?’” He’s right. What is the purpose or objective of your team, your organization, your project, or your process?

Another leader recently commented, “My people think the point of their job is to do safety inspections. It isn’t. The point of their job is to help ensure safety.” If he can help his employees to understand that, the work they do will become richer, more interesting, and more meaningful. Once people really know what business they’re in, some of their busy-ness can drop away.

Asking “what’s the point?” takes us a conceptual level higher than the old “effectiveness-before-efficiency” dictum. A thoughtful answer to that question provides extraordinary leverage for anyone who wants to achieve impact. If military strategist Clausewitz was right when he said that the essence of strategy is to concentrate one’s forces on the “decisive point,” then one sort of decisive point worth knowing is the point of one’s organization.

Question #2: “How will I know when I’ve achieved ‘the point’?” Pondering this question is the first step toward stating your point so clearly that you and everybody else involved will know exactly what a home run looks like. If you can do that, you will achieve what social scientists “high inter-rater reliability.” In other words, you and your team will be able to agree whether something is happening rather than just hope you will know it when you see it.

For example, if a helpdesk department were to define their point as maximizing the productivity of their users, then they would be aimed in a good direction. At least they would know that their job is ultimately about users rather than technology. However, without a more specific goal, quite a lot of time and money could be ill spent in the service of “maximizing productivity.” A more specific statement might be, “Users will experience at least 99% uptime for their computers and smartphones” or “None of our users will report that their work was delayed due to technological breakdowns or outages.” Such clarifications are important because these two specific goals might drive different behavior – and spending decisions – even though they are both based on “maximizing productivity.”

Question #3: “What should we stop doing because it doesn’t achieve the point?” The people who whine loudest about being asked to do more with less paradoxically seem to be the ones who have the hardest time letting go of work. By “letting go,” we do not mean cutting back on existing effort; we mean completely stopping entire categories of activity that are not necessary or useful for reaching the primary goal. If activities don’t help achieve “the point,” then they are pointless.

The Prize: Answering these three pointed questions nets this reward: It frees people to focus on what they need to accomplish. It makes their doing more meaningful because it concentrates their attention on what actually matters. And with that kind of focus, it’s amazing how creative, resourceful, and energized people can be. Yes, people can even accomplish more with less, if only they understand the point of their efforts.

When we held a “Results Roundtable” for one senior leader and his team, he cautioned us in advance that it would be a short discussion because everybody already knew what they were there to do. To his surprise, it was not a short discussion, and it was not at all clear that his team understood as well as he did what they were supposed to accomplish. Afterward, he said it was the best such session he could recall. When we asked why, he said, “Because now we’re all focused on the right things and can stop doing the things that don’t matter.” Exactly.

Yikes! It’s the end of the year, and we’re all supposed to have a bunch of stuff done by now – like writing our strategic plans.

But the deadly temptation with strategic plans is just to “git-er-done” so we can “git-er-out-the-door!”

You see, simply getting it done and out the door doesn’t mean much if the plans never actually materialize. If the plan isn’t executed, then we’ve only checked a meaningless box, and we would have been far better off spending our time at a John Belushi film festival (not a bad idea, anyway).

In our business, we see the things that strangle strategic plans, the things that keep clever ideas from turning into results. Here are five questions that will help you to know if this year’s plan is dead on arrival. If you answer “No” to any of these questions, you might want to get out the gurney.

1.      Did the senior team do the heavy lifting?

“Run along and write our strategic plan.” Planning staffs get orders like that all the time. Unfortunately, much like asking your travel agent to tell you where you’re going, asking your planning staff to write your strategic plan is an absurd request. If you’re lucky enough to have a planning staff, use them to facilitate the planning process, not to do it for you. Don’t try to delegate strategic thinking or personal involvement.

2.      Are your strategic goals excruciatingly clear?

Fuzzy goals are easy to agree on but hard to complete. Fuzzy goals can look pretty on paper, but they suck up time and resources because interpretations of goal achievement can vary so widely.

We gave away our secret sauce for clear goals in “Are Goals Dangerous?” so we won’t repeat ourselves here.

3.      Have you assigned strategic goals to individuals?

You know the old saying, “If we’re all accountable, then no one is.” This is true. Like clarifying goals, clarifying accountability can generate a few moments of discomfort, but that beats the heck out of simply hoping someone will pick up the gauntlet.

4.      Did you state meaningful strategic assumptions?

All plans are based on pivotal assumptions about the future, but many plans fail to spell out those assumptions. Instead, they either state obvious but non-pivotal assumptions (e.g., “The economy will be uncertain”), offer plans masquerading as assumptions (e.g., “We assume we will need to invest more in training”), or simply don’t address the topic at all.

Agility is the prize for plans that show clear relationship between assumptions and their resulting strategies. If you’ve done that right, then you can change your plans when an assumption doesn’t pan out. That beats waiting until a strategy doesn’t pan out. It’s your early warning system.

See “Strategic Assumptions – A Prerequisite to Great Strategies: 10 Tips” for more on this topic.

5.      Are regular execution review meetings on your leadership team’s 2013 calendars?

Eisenhower famously said, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” We wouldn’t agree that plans are worthless, but his point about planning is right. In fact, planning is so important that the leadership team must not stop doing it just because the plan has been published. Execution-focused leaders continue to meet regularly with the plan in front of them to address questions such as:

• How well is each of us meeting the commitments we agreed to in the plan?
• Who among us needs help, and how can we help them?
• Are our assumptions still correct?
• What unforeseen opportunities or problems should we reflect in our plans?
• Are we smarter about our strategies today than when we first wrote the plan? If so, how should we update our direction?

Monthly execution review meetings work best for leadership teams that want rapid change. Bi-monthly or quarterly meetings work well for everybody else. But when leaders revisit their plans and performance less often than that, those leaders become disconnected from their plans, and their plans become disconnected from reality.

If you didn’t like your answer to any of these questions, just know that most of these problems can be fixed. Doing so just requires focusing not only on your plan’s publication, but also on its execution.

Self-promotional note: Want strong execution management going into 2013? The ELG team can help. Inquire at info@elg.net 

“Goals are dangerous!” That’s what a current spate of management literature would have you believe, stating that goals cause narrow and short-term focus, inept performance, and harmful side effects such as unethical behavior.

Say it isn’t so!

Okay, we will. Goals are not dangerous. Not if they have a bit of strategic thinking behind them.

However un-strategic thinking – when spelling out strategic goals – can be disastrous. But first, the beef against goals.

The Indictment of Goals

Why the paranoia? People who claim goals are dangerous like to bring up anecdotes that, at first glance, seem to support their case. For example,

• The Enron debacle. Nefarious executives with stiff revenue goals and whopping rewards for meeting them. Hey, didn’t goals push them to cook the books and drive the company into the ground?
• The Ford Pinto tragedy. CEO Lee Iacocca demanded from his engineers a car that would be “under 2,000 pounds and under $2,000,” and they delivered a car that met those exact specs … and was incredibly unsafe. In that case, didn’t a goal actually kill people?

Generally, the grudge against goals can be lumped into three categories:

1. 1. Goals trigger sins of commission, such as imprudent risk-taking or side effects that harm bystanders now or in the future. This includes gaming the system.

2. 2. Goals trigger sins of omission, such as neglected opportunities to achieve different and better outcomes, or the chance to help teammates and thereby create a bigger win.

3. 3. Goals hurt the goal-seeker. First, they can de-motivate people who fall short of goal achievement. Second, they can undermine learning, because goals can distract goal-seekers from actually learning how to achieve a goal and instead encourage people to over-focus on performance (actually worsening performance).

Following this logic, should the X Prize Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency stop offering prizes for technological breakthroughs? Should venture philanthropies such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation stop helping charitable foundations set and achieve charitable goals? Maybe Thomas Edison should never have set a goal to create the electric light bulb. Obviously, there is a mountain of evidence that goals are powerful, effective, and a boon to humankind.

Instead of debating whether or not goals are dangerous, perhaps we need to ask, “When are goals dangerous?” Or, more helpfully, “How can we make goals safe and good?”

Content Precedes Form

Goal content matters. Loads of literature prescribes good goal form (e.g., “start with a verb”), but not nearly enough prescribes the strategic thinking that must occur before worrying about form. Just as a poem can have good rhythm and rhyme, but make no sense, a goal can be well constructed, but ill considered.

As Peter Drucker remarked on the goal-based system, “management by objectives,” “[It] works if you first think through your objectives. Ninety percent of the time, you haven’t.” So, perhaps there is such a thing as a DUMB goal – no acronym intended.

Here are four principles of strategic thinking that drive good – and safe – goal content.

1. Good Goals are About Results, Not Efforts

Many efforts fail because there was no definition of an end state, outcome, or result. In fact, many declared “successes” are based wholly on how much time, effort, or money was spent, without even a mention of results.

IBM – a truly great company – once learned this lesson the hard way by setting goals and rewards based on how many lines of code its programmers wrote; the result was loads of code and not much functionality. Now, they specify what the code needs to accomplish, and they let the programmers exercise their ingenuity toward those ends.

All of us have thought, “I wish my boss would just tell me what to do, and then get out of my way.” But most of us weren’t pleading for a detailed to-do list. We were looking for a description of what needs to be accomplished, and then a little autonomy to work toward that end. Corrosion of self-esteem and creativity comes from telling knowledgeable people how to do something that they’re better off figuring out on their own.

2. Good Goals Aim For The Right Results

If you don’t pause to think deeply about what you are really trying to achieve, it is easy to reach for the obvious (usually short-term) outcome instead of one that considers the bigger picture. Insightful or clever results usually stem from that broader context.

A classic case of short-term thinking is to aim at symptoms rather than causes. “Helping” a son get A’s on his homework, instead of helping him to understand the subject, for instance. Canadian management expert, Michael C. Anderson points out, “It takes hard work to drill down to root cause before developing correct action. But, as physicians know, prescription without adequate diagnosis is malpractice.”

The bigger, broader context goal often gives employees’ work more meaning, and is therefore a more powerful motivator. “We’re here to help make sure people don’t get hurt,” builds a lot more fire in the belly than “we’re here to do safety inspections.” People want to be part of something greater than themselves, and often they are. The right goal can help them see that, but the wrong goal can trivialize even the noblest efforts.

Had those Enron execs had a profitability goal, instead of a revenue goal, they would have been closer to aiming at a “right result.” (And, no, sales from one subsidiary to another, and back again, don’t count toward profit.)

One example is a mental health clinic that went from a ho-hum bromide, something along the lines of “Our role is to help mentally-ill patients” to “Our role is to enable our clients to live in the community.” Big shift, and it had a huge impact on how everyone in the hospital approached their work. More on them in a moment.

Sometimes the “right result” is not better performance of some sort; it’s learning how to achieve better performance. In our line of work, we are often asked to come in and do a project that will fix some kind of organizational issue. Every one of those projects is really at least two projects: (1) Figuring out what’s causing the problem, and then (2) solving the problem based on what we’ve learned.

It is impossible to know the content of the second project until the first one is completed. This approach is common for outside consultants, and most of our clients know it. But people inside organizations are often simply given a goal to improve something without first having a goal to figure out what the heck is going on.

Academics call this sort of goal a “learning goal.” And if you’re ultimately looking for good performance on an unknown task, research shows that “learning goals” need to precede “performance goals.”

3. The Results Are Indisputable

The targeted outcome needs to be empirically verifiable; in other words, everybody involved needs to be able to gauge whether a home run has occurred. The ambiguity (and associated risk of misinterpretation) of “I’ll know it when I see it” breeds frustration and waste. Especially when others’ time, money or even lives are being spent, responsible leaders must be precise about what they are aiming for. How they achieve it (i.e., strategies and tactics) might need to change as they go, but the desired outcome probably won’t change if it’s well considered at the start.

A couple of years ago, we were hired to help improve the alignment and focus of a senior leadership team. On the front end of the engagement, we surveyed each team member on his or her interpretation of the organization’s top-level “goals.” On a senior team of 9 people, there were between 3 and 7 radically different interpretations of each goal. In fact, in the case of one goal we discovered that three different departments had launched large initiatives “in support of” the goal – each going in different directions.

Of course, the advantage of such fuzzy goals is that they are politically attractive: like Rorschach inkblots, we all get to see in them whatever we want, so agreement comes easily. Unfortunately, the arguments and rancor that were so deftly dodged by vague language on the front end are the inevitable comeuppance on the tail end, after all the time and money is squandered, and hope and trust depleted.

On a happier note, the mental health hospital we mentioned earlier made their “right result” into one that was also indisputable. They established a crystal clear goal to “increase the number of days between patient discharge and re-admission by at least 50%,” a target they hit.

So, the point is not only to target a “right result,” but also to make it so clear that it passes the simple “bar bet” test we described in an earlier post: absolute clarity to all about what is meant, and what success or failure will look like.

Incidentally, there’s quite a lot written these days about the role of failure in innovation: frequent, low-risk failure that nets learning and propels you forward. We’ve written elsewhere about success and failure factors in this approach. But one thing is clear: unless your targeted result is indisputable, then no failure (or success) can actually happen. If I kick a football into a field with no particularly clear target, then no particular instance is a success or a failure, and it will be hard to learn anything about what works or doesn’t. This is not experimenting; it’s only dabbling, and it begets little innovation. And that’s fine, if it’s your own time and money.

4. Good Goals Have Guardrails

Almost any time there’s a clear goal and someone motivated to achieve it, you have the possibility of unintended negative consequences. Of course, some side effects can’t be predicted. That’s reality. But many, many of them are easy to list in advance – and with descriptions that are (again) indisputable – so that they can be prevented or at least controlled.

Iacocca’s goal for the Pinto (2,000 pounds and $2,000) has rhetorical oomph, but he could have achieved a historic success instead of an infamous failure with the simple addition of: “AND at least as good a record of safety and reliability as our existing line.”

And the mental health hospital? What were their guardrails? Easy: “Increase the number of days between patient discharge and re-admission by at least 50%, with this restriction: no change in admission or discharge standards.” You see, an overzealous psychologist could have gamed the system by slowing or stopping the process of patient admission, or by discharging only the very few, least risky patients. So, omitting that obvious and pivotal restriction would have been, well, crazy.

A Holistic Approach: Whole Goals

Over the years of helping clients aim and align their organizations, we’ve developed a process for moving from strategic thinking to daily execution. We call this the Whole Goal Process® and, as you might imagine, the four strategic thinking steps we’ve just described are important elements.

We use a Whole Goal template (yes, a “format”) that helps channel the strategic thinking into a clear and cogent statement. Unfortunately, as with any template, it’s possible to fill in the blanks “correctly,” but without the necessary strategic thinking. But done correctly, it gives you strategic thinking in a box, and indeed drives what some of our clients call “organizational wholeness.” So, with that caveat, here’s a potential way to corral your good thinking into a clear goal. A few examples.

Whole Goal of an Operations Manager:

Whole Goal of a Military Base Commander Operating Off-Shore:

Here’s your crib sheet. Note that each of the four italicized words below represents one of the four strategic thinking steps we described above.

 Time, Money, and a Free Template

Of course, schedule and budget must also be clear, and we haven’t discussed those critical factors. But time and money are the things consumed, not the thing produced. They usually require less deep thought than what you actually want to achieve (and prevent). There is room for all those things, and a few other critical elements on the slightly more detailed template we use with clients. If you’d like a copy, click here.

Parting Shot

So, are goals dangerous? Sure, kind of like fire, electricity, mighty rivers, teenage daughters, and many other forces of nature. But there are known rules for harnessing these forces (except maybe teenage daughters). The trick is to think strategically about the content of the goal – and who you’re giving it to – before being satisfied that “our goal is in place.”

Have you got an example of what we’re talking about? Or, have we missed something? Please let us know in the “comments” section.

Additional Resources

Incidentally, if you want to read some of the criticisms of goals, take a look at this summary of one severe academic critique. For a rejoinder, see this response, which we find more compelling in its logic. Or, for a better use of your time, here is smart, sober summary of the scientific research by two giants in the field, Edwin A. Locke & Gary P. Latham.

Also, fantastic innovations are being launched (pun intended, if you know about the X-Prize) with clear goals and cash awards. See this excellent piece from McKinsey & Company on Capturing the Promise of Philanthropic prizes.

For a pdf of this article click here.

Big organizations breed cross-functional initiatives like overripe bananas breed fruit flies. And that’s a good thing because when these initiatives work, they propel an organization forward. That’s because they draw from different parts of the organization, with different expertise, and different interests at stake, and then focus on solving a single, important problem.

But they don’t always work. In fact, a cross-functional initiative can easily become a dysfunctional one, propelling the organization nowhere. Or worse.

Here are four common types of dysfunctional initiatives, plus their antidotes.

Zombies

By definition, “initiatives” have a beginning and an end. They may last a few months or even a few years. Then they’re over. But some initiatives become un-dead: lifeless, aimless, and endless, sucking morale and money but giving nothing back, ever.

Antidote: Forgetting to define a home run up front will zombie-ize any initiative. If no one has answered the question, “What’s the point?” then the initiative is pointless – and endless. In one study we conducted, we found unclear goals to be the single biggest contributor to initiative failure.

So, before you begin planning, staffing, stakeholdering, or anything else, ask yourself, “How, exactly, will things be different if we succeed?” And, don’t cheat by referencing the initiative itself. For example, the point of an ERP initiative is not to install ERP software. That’s circular. It will be something else. But if you can’t describe success at the end, there will be neither success nor an end.

Antidote: Only after you have clear goals can you have clear roles, which is the other cure for zombie-ism. People need to know what’s expected of them: What are their deliverables? With whom will they work, and on what? When do they need to kick into gear, and when should they wait on someone else?

Otherwise, everyone wanders around, confused, having the same meetings over and over again, and bumping into each other . . . like zombies.

Unguided missiles

Unlike zombies, unguided missiles do actually hit a target. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong target. Here’s what happens.

The senior executive launching the initiative chats with the initiative’s team leader. They talk in broad, “strategic” (i.e., sketchy) terms, and then they go their separate ways. Afterward, the executive and the team leader don’t talk much – perhaps only enough to agree that “everything is green.”

Boy, are they in for a shock.

Throughout the work, the executive reflects on the initiative, staying in touch with shifting priorities or other context. He may discuss it with peers. He does all this naturally, and it naturally refines his thinking.

Even hard-won insights soon seem plain and obvious.

Meanwhile, down in initiative-land, the team leader and his gang sink into their work – and form their ideas of what the initiative is all about, clarifying goals, roles, and tactics, which may shift as they adapt to the reality of the work.

In this scenario, mis-targeted missiles are inevitable. At the end of the initiative, the only thing shared by the executive and the team is exasperation.

Antidote: The sponsoring executive and the team leader need to talk specifics. They need to agree on the verifiable point of the project (as we suggested a moment ago), and then they need to keep talking throughout the life of the initiative. Here’s the surprising thing: they don’t actually need to spend much time in conversation; they just need to do it often.

We like the way one savvy US Navy admiral says it: Communication early and often “ensures we don’t build the perfect ladder that’s leaning against the wrong wall.”

Cesspools

Many cross-functional initiatives aim to execute strategy, or otherwise accomplish things that matter to the organization. So it’s always odd when managers place these weighty initiatives in the hands of lightweight team members, people who won’t be missed back at their desks. What should be a talent pool isn’t one. It’s a cesspool of benchwarmers and neophytes.

Antidote: Obviously, the antidote here is to put the right people on the initiative. Why don’t people do that? Often the problem here can be traced back to the problem we described earlier: When the “return” part of ROI is undefined, then the “investment” part is hard to swallow, especially when you’re investing precious talent. First, define “the win” (sound familiar?); then it’s much easier to select the best people and invest their time.

Boneless Chickens

Cartoonist Gary Larson once drew a picture of a boneless chicken ranch, with chickens draped like wet rags all over the scene. Now, reimagine those chickens as members of cross-functional initiatives – good-looking chickens, all, but without a leg of authority to stand on.

See, a cross-functional initiative is an actual organization. Just like a department or a division. The fact that it is only temporary does not lessen the participants’ need for ordinary authorities. In fact, it heightens the need. Lack of authority will leave them all flopping around, but getting nowhere.

Antidote: If the lead is accountable for the outcome of the initiative (she is, right?), then she needs managerial authorities commensurate with her accountability, just as though she were running a department. (We’ve spelled out those authorities in an earlier post.)

Likewise, initiative team members need to be able to speak on behalf of their departments – if that’s what’s required of their contributions. They must not be relegated to note-taking and permission-asking.

The executive launching the initiative should openly spell out who has what authorities. People cannot self-anoint. When a peer claims, “Trust me, I’m in charge,” it never works.

The Über Antidote is Project Management

You can’t buy many books on “initiative management.” But, that isn’t what this topic is really called. It’s called “project management,” and there is material and education aplenty on that topic – some of which you can find here (books) and here (training). Okay, that was blatant self-promotion.

But the point is, all this stuff has been figured out. People get degrees in it. People get certified in it.

Here’s what’s funny, though. Organizations that have lots of good project managers (as they do in construction, technology, and many other fields) often forget that cross-functional initiatives are just projects. And so, their cross-functional initiatives fizzle out as often as everybody else’s.

Our advice? If you’re already using project management to solve certain kinds of problems, you might think about where else you can use it (such as cross-functional initiatives). “Re-use the code!” as programmers like to say.

If you haven’t introduced this discipline into your organization, you should. It might be one of the more strategic investments you ever make.

Click here to download a pdf version of this article.

Related reading:

Can a person really have two managers?

I grew up around airplanes and even flew a bit myself. The business of flying is rife with life lessons and especially leadership lessons. So when colleague and fellow blogger Andrew Wargo offered to do a guest column on leadership and piloting, we were quick to seize the offer. We hope you enjoy his work as much as we do. – Wendi

 By Guest Writer: Andrew Wargo

Like flying an airplane, leading an organization can be exhilarating, terrifying, and rewarding all at the same time. And many of the lessons for successful piloting well apply to leadership. Doing so won’t guarantee success, but it certainly helps. Here are fifteen of those lessons, and in some cases the analogous leadership application. However, in most cases, I intentionally leave the connection open to creative interpretation, so you can apply the lesson to your unique situation.

• Understand the tools at your disposal. From the flight planning and the pre-flight weather check, to unerring familiarity with the plane and the airports you will fly between, you must understand the purpose, strengths, and weaknesses of each. Misunderstand them, or use them incorrectly, and disaster can occur.
• Know the prevailing environmental conditions. What’s the weather like where you’re departing, arriving, and in between? Is it likely to change? Are you qualified to fly in all of those conditions? Are you competent enough to say you shouldn’t fly in that type of weather? Know your operating environment and the capabilities of your plane, as well as yourself. And make sound decisions that will increase the likelihood of success.
• File a flight plan. Like setting goals, a flight plan tells people what you plan to do, and when to worry if things go awry. It also helps prevent conflict with other related flight plans. The stakeholders in your organization – employees, shareholders, and clients – will appreciate knowing where you plan to go and how you intend to get there.
• Use a pre-flight checklist. Really. If a successful arrival really matters, you don’t need to go anywhere in such a hurry that you skip the pre-flight check. And the routine of a checklist will ensure you don’t forget something critical if you do end up distracted by other events. Planning for strategic initiatives, critical presentations, or important meetings is like planning to fly. They will benefit from the calming, centering routine of a pre-flight check. And you’ll lessen the likelihood of missing something important.
• Declare your intentions to the air traffic controller and other aircraft. Don’t taxi your aircraft to an active runway without declaring your intentions, and requesting clearance, if appropriate. When you’re piloting what is basically a flying fuel tank, it’s life threatening not to coordinate with other pilots and airport officials. Likewise, in your organization, synchronizing your efforts with your peers and superiors can be critical to success. Don’t head off on your own without knowing where the traffic around you is headed and where you are in relation to it.
• Steer with the right controls. Determination alone will not turn an aircraft (or a boat, or an organization, for that matter). You have to make sure you’re using the right controls and at the right time. For example, if you’re taxying an aircraft without a steerable nose wheel, you can’t just use the obvious “steering wheel” in front of your chest – you’ll also need to use the rudder pedals in careful coordination. Learn what actions make things happen in the right way and practice until it’s second nature.
• Ensure clear airspace. You’re responsible for ensuring your actions don’t endanger other aircraft and your own. And you’re responsible for warning others about dangers they may be unaware of.
• Take off using full throttle. Attempting a takeoff at taxi speed will result in you driving off the end of the runway. And attempting a takeoff at 80% of maximum takeoff power will result in you running off the end of the runway even faster. Full throttle is required to ensure sufficient speed to generate lift at the right time. If you’re going to commit to launching an aircraft, a project, or a product, have the vision to apply the required resources.
• Abort the takeoff when necessary. Ending a takeoff rather than proceeding at undue risk is not a failure. It is a prudent safety decision based on instinct, training, and observation that often prevents disaster. I’m reminded of a time when, after commencing a full-power takeoff roll and nearing takeoff speed, my flight instructor told me to abort the takeoff due to wildlife running near the runway. Rather than debate whether my trusted instructor was being overly cautious, I immediately reduced engine power and taxied the aircraft off of the active runway. Could I have taken off safely? Perhaps. But the wildlife did veer directly onto my original takeoff path. My flight instructor and I had a productive discussion about why we each made the choices we did, and then we re-entered the takeoff queue to spend some very nice time in the air. A good leader knows when to abort an effort because the risks are too high. By avoiding a potentially fatal crash, you have the opportunity to try again.
• Select, and maintain focus on, your frame of reference. You cannot safely taxi, navigate in flight, or land an aircraft by looking at a spot just in front of the cockpit window. You will get lost at best, and most likely crash. You can’t make leadership decisions by focusing solely on what’s under your nose. Look in front of you and to the sides. Maintain awareness of what’s behind you. Always remain aware of the frame of reference you’ve chosen. And periodically reevaluate whether it’s the right one.
• Respect the approved traffic pattern. There is a prescribed traffic pattern at every airport. There is no “default” pattern that applies to all. Be sure you know what applies where you plan to fly. Everyone else will expect planes to take off, land, enter, and exit the pattern according to its rules. Failure to know this information will result in confusion for you and other pilots at best, and a collision at worst. There’s a traffic pattern in organizations, too. There’s room for different styles, just as there are allowances for different types of aircraft and their flight priorities. But when you enter, if you ignore the standing protocol – such as the way decisions are made, your ability to maneuver later or land safely might be very limited.
• Learn to manage multiple tasks. You cannot fly an aircraft without multi-tasking – from constantly scanning your instruments to responding to changing conditions. There can be a lot going on at any point in time. Similarly, you cannot be a successful leader if you can’t deal with issues as they crop up. You don’t have the luxury of finishing the task you’re working on before addressing urgent problems. At the very least, you need to quickly assign a priority level and immediate actions.
• Be prepared for the unexpected. It happens all the time. Things rarely go as planned. In fact, the unexpected should be expected. By planning ahead, however, you can avoid being stunned into paralysis. You certainly can’t envision every unexpected condition, but many can be anticipated, and many others can be effectively addressed if plans are made – and practiced – in advance to address deviation from expected performance.
• Know how to get where you’re going. This, too, should go without saying. But, plenty of inexperienced or harried pilots have lost their way when their navigational landmarks looked different due to weather or obscuring conditions, or when navigation equipment failed. Regardless of the flight plan, or your project, knowing the landmarks that indicate successful progress will enable you to proceed in your intended direction, while enabling course corrections along the way. Additionally, planning an alternate route to your destination can often save what would otherwise be a terminated trip.
• Learn how to land smoothly. A beautiful takeoff and gorgeous day flying can easily be ruined – or can feel that way – due to an awkward, rough, or botched landing. A really bad landing can damage the landing gear and other critical parts of the plane, as well as the pilot’s authorization to fly. And, despite a beautiful flight, the landing will be what passengers and observers remember most. Likewise, a difficult flight can be eclipsed by a great landing. Bringing a plane back to the ground safely requires planning and sensitivity to the operating environment, advance knowledge of airplane’s capabilities, thorough awareness of what can go wrong, and a great deal of practice. Regardless of what you’re working on, effective leaders must know how to wind down a project, a difficult conversation, or any other delicate endeavor with skill and grace. Take the time to learn to “land” your leadership endeavors gracefully.

Great pilots are trained in specific skills, procedure, and knowledge. And they must be aware of changing conditions, monitor their instruments, creatively solve problems, and make spur of the moment decisions. As a leader, you can apply these flight-training lessons to ensure you reach your destination with success.

Andrew Wargo writes at 360 Minutes, where he shares his best advice on becoming more productive and effective, so you can gain the time to do the things that you love. Get his RSS feed directly, and take a look at his Getting Started page for ways to get your head above water at work.

Henry Ford said that failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.

But many of us begin again with no increase in intelligence. Or, we don’t get smarter because we won’t risk failure in the first place.

We covered how organizations fail at failure in our last post. Here, we will look at how leaders create organizations that fail productively – a necessary step on the path to innovation.

Innovator’s Sweet Spot

Relative to “smart failure,” there are two dimensions for innovators to optimize: (1) rate of non-fatal failure (experimentation that does not kill the organization) and (2) amount learned from any given failure.

1) Increase the rate of non-fatal failure with small, fast steps. As you may know, Bloomberg L.P. is a vast business media empire, founded by Michael Bloomberg, now mayor of New York. In his pre-political days, he once was asked how his corporation managed to complete such large information technology projects. He replied that they were successful precisely because they did not undertake large projects; they undertook lots of little projects.

At a time when huge IT projects were all the rage, this insight was piercing. The many-small-projects approach bestows powerful benefits, central to which are that failures are small and learning is frequent. Brilliant investor that he is, Bloomberg had found a way to minimize risk while maximizing outcomes.

In our own work assisting clients with strategy planning and execution we’ve learned that grand and perfect strategic plans are a waste. To paraphrase a military adage, no strategic plan survives contact with reality. It’s better to get your grand plans 60% right and then start an execution cycle of rapid, small steps that makes you smarter, fast – adjusting and refining the plan as you get smarter. As long as you’re going to be wrong (most often you are), you might as well be wrong sooner, with lots of instructive failures in the short-term instead of a few terminal ones in the long-term.

2) Increase the amount learned from failure. When an employee takes an educated whack at a problem, and the problem remains unsolved, that employee and her boss are at a crossroads. One path is to deflect responsibility, such as claiming that she had no choice. Or that it didn’t happen. Or that it was someone else’s fault.

The other, better path is to pick the bone clean, with the employee learning every possible lesson from the tuition paid. Better yet, the lesson gets spread and learning is celebrated so that everyone in the team, department, or organization goes to school on one person’s tuition.

Innovation How-To for Leaders

Leaders can improve their organizations’ performance on both dimensions – frequency of productive failure and amount learned per failure – with some reasonably simple straightforward techniques. Here are a few to consider.

• Nix any project that does not sharply define its intended outcome. Your team will never learn what works and what doesn’t unless they have spelled out in advance the result they’re aiming for. It may be impossible, in advance, to specify exactly how something will be done (especially if innovators are improvising!) but it’s generally quite possible to spell out the result you are after. Without a crystal clear target, too much after-the-fact rationalization creeps in and then everything is an alleged success and nobody learns anything.

So, for example, next time someone wants to re-organize a department, ask him exactly what outcomes he’d like to produce, what side-effects he’d like to avoid, and how he’ll know if he’s been successful. Press hard for precision (blog regulars will be familiar with the Bar Bet as a litmus test of clarity).

• Make learning – rather than performing – the first task. When entering new territory, assume that you and your people are smart enough to learn, but not smart enough already to know exactly what you’re learning (otherwise, it wouldn’t be “new territory”). Define the task as one of learning before you define it as performing.

Goal researchers have found that performance improves on difficult tasks if your initial aim is simply to learn how to perform the task. In other words, there’s a time when perfect performance isn’t the key; at first, the key is learning how to perform well, which is different from performing well.

Good management consultants always enter uncharted waters with a “discovery phase” of the project before the “performance phase.” In the beginning, only the discovery phase can be clearly spelled out. How could it be otherwise? You have to learn what you need to do before you try to do it.

• Watch your language. Call innovation projects “experiments,” or “learning pilots.” Make it clear from the onset that the point is to figure out what works; or at the very least, figure out what doesn’t work. You can’t just give people “permission to fail and learn.” That permission has to permeate your language.
• Limit Your Losses. Target initial efforts that won’t kill you if they fail; don’t bet the farm until you’ve bet a few acres. For example, if you have a theory that putting a design team and an engineering team under one boss will produce more marketable products, then try one project that does just that; don’t change the whole organization until you’ve lowered your risks by upping your knowledge. Likewise, break your big, slow, risky projects down into lots of fast, little ones. Take a clue from Bloomberg and decrease the impact of failures while increasing the speed of learning. In theory, this approach should take longer, but in reality it doesn’t; but how many mega-projects do you know that came in on time? On budget? How many weren’t disasters? Think: “fast, small, and low risk.”
• Banish happy talk. Demonstrate that you are looking for truth, not Prozac. And then don’t punish the truth-tellers. When Alan Mulally took over as Ford’s president and CEO in 2006 he apparently got fed up with the deflected lessons that dodged both learning and accountability. As Economist tells the story: “He asked managers to color-code their progress reports – ranging from green for good to red for troubled. At one early meeting he expressed astonishment at being confronted by a sea of green, even though the company had lost several billion dollars in the previous year. Ford’s recovery began only when he got his managers to admit that things weren’t entirely green.”

Incidentally, we have to wonder if part of the problem was that “green” had not been defined.

• Make “Aha!” and “Doh!” part of every progress brief. While you look to your subordinates for results, also look to them for learning. When people brief the boss (that’s you), they need to know that part of the way to get an “A” is to share discoveries. If all you get is happy talk, then prod them: “Surely not everything has gone well; what have you learned from the glitches?” Assume glitches and applaud learning.

Everyone wants to look good in front of the boss. Just change the rules a little so that looking good includes excavating negative experiences for lessons. Just like at school, make learning something to talk about and evaluate – in addition to results.

• Feed forward lessons learned. Don’t just capture lessons learned. Require that plans for new initiatives demonstrate how they are incorporating past learning. One of us (Wendi) did that with project managers whose “lessons learned” exercise had become a useless bureaucratic exercise. By requiring new projects to demonstrate use of lessons learned, the learned lessons became applied lessons, leading to consistently smarter, more innovative projects.
• Embrace DISproof before you embrace proof. The point of experimentation is to get smarter, not to be right. So rather than tasking your team to prove that an idea works, task them to disprove it instead. For example, if a vendor you love has a new “solution,” find where it fails instead of looking for evidence that it works. Scientific philosopher Karl Popper taught us that we get much smarter by trying to disconfirm our theories than by looking for cases where we are right. This is a big deal.

Rapid, ongoing innovation demands that leaders treat intellectual capital like any other capital: accumulate it, nurture it, and use it. Requisite to that game is the organizational capability for frequent, productive failure. And that kind of smart failure requires smart leadership.

NOTE: Okay, we’ve emphasized here one type of innovation, the type in which a specific problem needs to be solved. We obviously aren’t touching on serendipity-based innovation, in which prepared minds get lucky, as when Columbus found America, or Fleming found penicillin. There’s a lot to be said for noodling around with your eyes open. But that’s a different topic. Or perhaps it isn’t? What do you think?

The great experimenter Thomas Edison is famous for comments such as, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” The design firm IDEO keeps up that spirit with their now-famous phrase, “Fail often in order to succeed earlier.”

Successful Failures

But let’s distinguish between two different kinds of failure: instructive failure and terminal failure. Apple’s Newton (PDA) and Lisa computer were of the instructive variety: they were failures to grow on, not failures to stop on. Circuit City was a electronics store chain that failed terminally because they didn’t have enough instructive failures. Failure is inevitable, but you can choose whether it’s instructive or terminal.

Early on, Hewlett Packard exploited the power of instructive failure. According to Peter Sims, “Hewlett Packard cofounder Bill Hewlett said HP needed to make 100 small bets on products to identify six that could be breakthroughs. So, little bets are for learning about problems and opportunities while big bets are for capitalizing upon them once they’ve been identified.” Sims’ “small bets” are what we’d call experiments: exposure to non-fatal failure that can teach you something.

The entrepreneur’s challenge can almost entirely be summed up as ensuring that the learn rate exceeds the burn rate: those who don’t learn fast enough go under.

Deliberate, inquisitive exposure to failure is an experiment. And a clever experiment is like a clever investment: your downside (risk) is manageable, and your upside (lesson) is spectacular. Of course, there is a time to bet the farm, but that’s after you’ve learned which farm to bet on.

Failing at Failure

Some people fail at failing: they fail without gaining anything. What’s the difference between failure that’s experimentation and failure that just failure? Maybe this: if you make a non-fatal mistake and learn from it, then it was “experimentation.” But if you make a mistake and deflect any lessons, then it was simply a failure. Lessons learned lead to innovation; lessons flunked, as in school, tend to be repeated.

Here are some ways to flunk at failing:

• Finger pointing. When the question is, “Who screwed up?” instead of “What did we learn?” then the only thing that’s learned is how to keep your head down.
• Reasons, stories, and excuses. When an organization’s lousy results allegedly stem from “the poor economy,” or “difficulty finding talent,” or “tough competition,” then nothing is learned or even speculated about what the organization can do better. Part of Warren Buffet’s initial fame stemmed from his annual reports in which he gave blunt assessments of what he and Berkshire Hathaway could have done better. It showed shareholders that lessons were not wasted on him.
• Unclear success. Like a scientist with an untestable hypothesis, a leader with an unclear goal can spend a lot of time and money without learning much. For example, when any given organization consolidates two departments to “capture synergies,” what does “synergies” mean? Lower costs? Faster product development? Quicker response? What? Without some sense of the measurable goal, it will be impossible to get the Edison advantage of learning ways that won’t work. (And we’ve nixed the trick of defining success after the fact in an earlier post.)
• Activity-based success. Of course, you can be clear about your success, but define it as an activity rather than as a result. In which case, failure and learning are equally unlikely. Again, no hypothesis is tested. For example, government officials often declare success after they’ve added programs or increased spending. That’s it! Nothing about goals set, goals met, or lessons learned. Costs go up, but learning stays flat.

All these problems function as organizational learning disabilities: dysfunctions that block learning and therefore block innovation. In the next post we’ll suggest some cures.

Meanwhile, what have you done that works? How have you overcome your own organization’s learning disabilities? How can you create a failure friendly environment, where team members feel comfortable with experimenting and learning from their failures? 

Addendum: We commend your attention to this excellent TEDx talk by Brian Goldman, MD, in which he contends that physicians would make fewer mistakes if only they could admit to their mistakes. Powerful stuff.

John Paul Jones (painting by Charles J. Andres)

Deep wisdom directed at today’s leaders isn’t what you’d expect from a guy who’s been dead since 1792. But Captain John Paul Jones, having been successfully channeled by Rear Admiral Rob Wray, has stern advice for today’s officers of the American Navy.

Do you agree with him? And, does his advice apply to other leaders? Leave us a comment and tell us what you think.

MEMORANDUM

From: John Paul Jones, Captain

To: Officers of the American Navy

Subject: Standards of Virtue and Honor

Date: July 4, 2011

Officers and Commanders of Navy units!

Two hundred and thirty-five years ago, when I was in uniform, the Continental Congress established in Navy Regulations their expectations for American naval officers. They wrote (as I remember), “the commanders and officers of American ships and vessels are strictly required to show themselves a good example of honor and virtue to their crew…”

At the wardroom table, my officers asked me what I believed to be the standard of honor and virtue. What did I expect from my officers, specifically? I believed then, and believe now, that being honorable and virtuous requires two things: the intellectual understanding of the specific actions and attitudes that comprise honor and virtue, and the moral resolve to display those actions and attitudes. So I wrote for my officers the following definition:

“It is by no means enough that an officer of the navy should be a capable mariner. He must be that, of course, but also a great deal more. He should be as well a gentleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor…. He should be the soul of tact, patience, justice, firmness, and charity. No meritorious act of a subordinate should escape his attention or be left to pass without its reward, even if the reward is only a word of approval. Conversely, he should not be blind to a single fault in any subordinate, though, at the same time, he should be quick and unfailing to distinguish error from malice, thoughtlessness from incompetency, and well-meant shortcoming from heedless or stupid blunder.

In one word, every commander should keep constantly before him the great truth, that to be well obeyed, he must be perfectly esteemed.”

Much time has passed, and my days serving our flag in uniform are long gone. Ships and weapons have changed in ways I never thought possible. But the requirement for virtue and honor has not. No leader can lead without the esteem and respect of those led. As a result, I have been asked to come back to write to you, today, to pass on what I view as a modern definition of virtuous and honorable behavior.*

First, my expectations for all officers:

Officers must be, above all, scrupulously honest. They must always tell the truth, regardless of the personal or professional consequences. Honesty cannot be turned on or off. Once sacrificed, it can never be regained. The smallest of white lies cannot be tolerated, for any reason, because the mind, over years, can learn to justify larger and larger transgressions. The slippery slope applies; stay away from the edge. If I ever detect any hint of dishonesty in any of my officers, they are escorted off the ship at the next port; it is the only inviolate rule. Dishonesty can include sins of commission (telling a lie), and sins of omission (failing to disclose important information, usually to protect oneself). Both are lies. Do not lie to yourself in pitiable rationalizations about why you are not being forthright.

Officers must, in all cases, set the example. They must look smart and professional; they should be well- groomed. They must be in good physical condition, not only to perform their duties, but to set the example. A portly officer cannot urge his men to be fit to do their duties, because his men will smell the stink of hypocrisy.  They should have clean, sharp uniforms; they should stand upright and erect; they should not slouch with hands in pockets; they should set the example of that the crew wants an officer to be. All followers want to look up to their leaders; leaders should take care not to disappoint.

Officers should be courteous, to each other, and to those outside the ship. They should speak softly, clearly, without the need for profanity or volume to make themselves heard. They should be able to sit at a table with royalty, and not embarrass the service through poor manners, speaking with mouths full, inability to use silverware, and the like. They should not speak disparagingly of others. They should not gossip. Coarse, slovenly, unkempt, flatulent, ungainly, inconsiderate, inappropriate, discourteous—these terms should never be used to describe any officer with whom I would associate.

Officers must genuinely, sincerely, care for the crew. Officers should eat last. They should ensure that the crew is safe and warm and fed and are given the opportunity to sleep and be well. They should seek to the development of their people, prior to their own. They should know their people—their names, their needs, their families, their problems, their hopes and aspirations. This is not fraternization with the crew; this is caring about them. You must care about your men, because, as I wrote many years ago, the “men mean more than guns in the rating of a ship.” Caring for your men is caring for your ship, which is caring for your service and your country. Caring for your people means learning their names, and pronouncing them correctly, no matter how difficult.

On the other hand, officers must keep their distance. The Naval Service is not a normal clerk’s shop, in which all can gossip and remain equals. Officers must earn the respect of their crew, because that respect is essential to the running of a ship; without that respect and trust, all else fails. And true respect requires a level of distance. Officers ashore may enjoy a drink with their sailors they meet in a bar, but they should never plan a night out with their sailors. They may join their sailors on the ship’s sports team, but should not recreate with their sailors outside a ship-sponsored event. Officers should be friendly with their sailors, but not friends with them. Friendship with one’s sailors, sad to say, for the officer can make difficult decisions more difficult; for the sailor it can make result in the loss of trust which is so essential to the successful running of the ship.

Officers must be brave, not only physically, but morally. In a career you may have only a few days in which you must display physical courage. But every day, you must show moral courage. Telling the truth; facing consequences; making the hard decisions; placing ship and crew above else. Moral courage. I once heard it said of an officer: “He would gladly sacrifice his life for his service and country, but is not willing to sacrifice his career for the same.” A sad statement, reflecting a lack of moral courage. If forced to choose between your career and what is right, what would you choose?

Officers today face complex social situations I never faced—mixed gender crews. Good officers do not disparage members of the opposite sex; they treat their fellow officers and sailors without regard to gender; they do not engage in gender-related banter, or romantic relationships, or physical touching. Their behavior is above reproach. Even if single, when in uniform or on the ship, they behave around the opposite sex with the level of probity and correctness that they would display if they were married and their spouse were watching. That is the standard.

Officers will value their honor and their virtue more than money. They will never take more from the service in expense reimbursement than is their due. They will never, in any way, seek to “work the system” for extra benefits. They will never engage in any activity which profits them at the expense of other Navy sailors.

Good officers are calm. They are steady, unflappable. They minimize their displays of emotion, both good and bad. They rarely raise their voice, and do so with all forethought for its effects. They are rock-solid, dependable. They are not hysterical or depressed, or, worse, mercurial, so that their subordinates never know how they may react. They provide a predictable steadiness on which their people can rely. They must be trustworthy, because placing trust in someone, or something, requires predictability.

A good officer will never drink to excess, and will never drink a drop while in a status which requires a clear head. A drunk officer, or an officer who drinks to the point of being visibly affected in front of his or her sailors, is a pitiful creature, and not respected. The officer who searches for popularity with the crew through parties is a fool; the officer should search for respect, not popularity. And deep respect from the crew leads to admiration. Drunk officers are not admired.

Good officers will not speak ill of the service, and especially will not degrade the Navy in front of their men. If the Navy determines that a certain requirement will be made of the ship—from a training drill to an unexpected voyage—the good officer may be disappointed or bitter in private, but will not share that with her sailors. Instead, she will explain to them the Navy’s need for that requirement, and the reasons why it is important for the ship to comply. The crew needs assurance from their officers that their toil and their sacrifices are worthwhile; disparaging those requirements takes away that worth, which takes away their satisfaction. Ultimately, if a sailor believes that his life is being employed in a worthy cause, he will be happy; disparaging requirements steals that happiness.

Officers must know their trade. They must be, first, capable mariners. They must know their equipment, their procedures, their planned actions, better than anyone on the ship. They must be experts—enough so to be recognized as such. Their reputation, and the lives of their sailors, depends on it. Too many officers, I have found, minimize the importance of sheer, raw, unadulterated, professional competence.

Competence generates confidence in the men, which leads to respect.

A good officer knows his people by their name, and looks them in the eye, and puts his or her hand on their shoulder, and asks them about their welfare. He does this every day, so that over time, each member of the crew knows he is valued.

Good officers must persevere! They must push through impediment, overcome obstacles, thwart enemies and opposition. They must exude willpower and tenacity to their crew and ship. When my crippled Bonhomme Richard fought HMS Serapis, all we had left was our determination! It was enough.

Finally, a good officer will study his trade—will study leadership and ethics and seamanship and tactics. A good officer reads a book a month to help her be a better officer. Virtue and honor are both innate and learned. Books can provide the learning.

Officers! As I said before, to be virtuous, you must know what virtue means, but, more important, you must make the mental and moral decision to be virtuous. Too many officers, I find, feel that theirs is but a job, an occupation. They see no reason to try to be a better person. Your goal should be to emulate every great officer you know, to try to become a great officer yourself. Your goal is to be the man or woman that every sailor will look up to—that every sailor will want to emulate—that every American family will want their sailor son, daughter, mother, father, sister, brother to work for. That requires a decision on your part. It requires resolve. It requires willpower. It requires dedication and determination. To be a good officer, to serve your American nation, you MUST resolve to be better, smarter, more honest, harder working, than your peers not in uniform. If you do not make that decision, early in your career, you will first be doing yourself a disservice, because your career will be eclipsed by those who do so resolve, but, more important, you will be doing your shipmates a disservice, and your country a disservice.

Second, my expectations for Commanding Officers:

As a fathom is to a foot, so must your standards of behavior be many times higher than the already high standards of an officer. As Commander, you are now not only an example for your crew; you are an example to your officers. A Commander who drinks too much, swears too much, doesn’t know his or her profession, who doesn’t place the welfare of his people far above his own – that Commander will create officers who behave that way, for lack of proper example.

A good Commander will, immediately upon taking command, publish in writing to his command his expectations, his desires, his standards.

A good Commander will write himself a private letter, describing the Commander he resolves to be. He will set standards for himself. He will re-read that letter at least monthly during his time in command.

A good Commander will sit with his senior officers and instruct them: “Help me to be better. Help me to avoid temptation. Help me to avoid breaking any rules, however slight, either through ignorance or neglect or lack of attention.” A good Commander knows he is human, and seeks the counsel of his support team to keep him on the straight and true.

A good Commander will have read all the guidance provided by the service concerning the ethics and behavior required of commanders. He will keep those papers in a packet at his desk, for frequent reference. As even the godly among us go to church often, and re-read from the Bible often, so too must even the virtuous Commander frequently review, and re-read, the guidance on ethics and behavior. Actions form habits, which in turn form character, which leads to destiny.

A good Commander is transparent; he does not hide facts; he provides knowledge. He imbues his crew with confidence, because they know where the ship is, they know where it is going, and why. They know their mission, and that they have a good Commander to lead them there.

A good Commander teaches. She understands that her ship is only as strong as the skills of her officers and crew, and that she must teach, daily, the ethics, the professionalism, the dedication, on which our service relies. And she understands that the greatest teacher is simply in her setting the example.

A good Commander shows up at social events on time, and leaves early, leaving the crew time to socialize without his presence.

A good Commander never, ever, has more than two drinks at a time, or has a drop of alcohol in his veins when in a duty status.

A good Commander never profits by a single penny from any involvement with his ship or service.

A good Commander leads a clean life, both on the ship, and off. Even when unobserved, he behaves in virtuous ways that, if observed, would cast credit upon him and the service.

A good Commander takes care that his personal staff does only what is allowed and required by naval traditions and regulations. Staff members are not considered vassals or servants; they are not butlers or maids; they are used only for official business as prescribed by service rules.

A good Commander never demands loyalty from his subordinates. Loyalty is earned, not demanded. It is unasked for. I have found that Commanders who demand “loyalty” from their officers generally want the officers to choose the commander over the service. They want “loyalty” to cover up, or forgive, some shortcoming on the part of the commander. Loyalty to the country is first—then loyalty to the service— then loyalty to the ship. “Loyalty” to a transgressing commander is disloyalty to country and service. A good Commander would never ask his subordinates for that.

Finally, a good Commander puts his crew first. If the ship is sinking, he is the last to step off. If a space is on fire, he is the first to step in. He leads through subordination– subordinating his personal welfare to that of his unit and his crew.

How to acquire virtuous values:

Some may say that my views of officers and Commanders are outdated. I assure you– while ships and weapons and circumstances may change, the concepts of honor and virtue are timeless. What was important and valued three hundred years before my service was valued when I was in uniform, is valued now, and will be valued three hundred years after your day.

I said before: virtue and honor requires two things. The understanding of what virtue and honor is, and the moral conviction to be virtuous. Of the two, the latter is most important, because with that conviction, you can attain understanding. But understanding without conviction is worthless.

That conviction is not in-borne; it is acquired. If you do not feel it, it can be grown within. How? By absorbing into your heart and soul the messages from the past. By talking to those who have served before you, and who embodied honor and virtue. And by reading. I assure you: if you read books, you will know. Read, and through those words, listen to the lives of Navy leaders like Preble, Decatur, Farragut, Dewey, Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance, O’Kane, Peary, Rickover, Stockdale, and Michael Murphy. Those lives, those stories, will paint for you the picture of Navy honor and virtue. If you don’t feel it after reading those stories, you never will.

You are an American naval officer. You have a terrible responsibility and a wonderful opportunity. We need you to be up to the task, in all respects. You must be above reproach. You must fulfill your duties. You must carry on the torch that I once held, and now pass to you. Our job never ends. What my friend Thomas Paine once wrote in 1776, still stands today, in many different ways:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”

I pray that you will resolve to take on this task, and to carry my torch – America’s torch. I wish you good luck, fair winds, and God speed. May He bless you, and our American Navy!

JPJ

*Because I am unable to operate the computer by which modern officers seem to communicate, I was assisted in transcription by Rear Admiral Robert Wray.

(Reprinted with permission.)

We believe that if we ask what “accountability” really means, when it’s present, when it’s missing, and why, then the answers will lead to a prescription. In conversations and seminars with leaders over many years we have come up with an operational definition of accountability that actually leads to a cure.

Accountability exists when these three elements exist:

1. Clear request from an authorized manager
2. Commitment from the subordinate to complete the assignment
3. Consequences for performance

Sounds simple enough, but each of the three elements can be difficult to deliver, which is why accountability can be elusive. So, a little more on each:

1. Clear request from an authorized manager

Often, we mistake our own redundancy for glistening lucidity. Or we mistake our audience’s apparent agreement (or fawning) for their genuine understanding.

One tech company’s CEO confided to us that he wanted to fire seven of his eight vice-presidents. He was serious. “They just don’t get it,” he complained, explaining that he couldn’t get them all pointed in the same direction.

But he had been talking in broad strokes – his request was not crystal clear. So we spent time with each VP, clarifying expected outcomes well enough to pass the bar-bet test.  Their performance increased dramatically, and the CEO whittled his “firing list” down to one particular VP  (probably a good pick).

Sometimes leaders give unclear direction because they have thought about something so much that, after a while, it seems intuitively obvious. It’s like when someone uses an acronym on you that you couldn’t possibly know, but that they use frequently. Or when a clerk is flummoxed that you don’t know a bureaucratic rule that she lives with daily.

And sometimes leaders give unclear direction because they are still unclear about what the destination will actually look like. The reasoning seems to be, “Let me think the big thoughts and you run along and figure out the details.” But there’s a difference between tactical details and precise direction; leaders shouldn’t have to figure out all the details of execution, but they should be able to spell out precisely the outcome they’re seeking.

Clarity rarely arises from dictate, but it can arise from dialog, which brings us to the next point.

2. Commitment from the subordinate to complete the assignment

A subordinate doesn’t need to agree with the brilliance of an assignment, but they do need to commit to do it. Two elements are critical to commitment: an opportunity for dialog and an answer to the question of why the assignment is important.

Except in rare instances such as military operations or medical emergencies, leaders can create the opportunity for dialog, even if it’s only a closing line to an email: “Please contact me directly if you have any questions or suggestions concerning this assignment.”

Through dialog comes understanding – for both parties. Sometimes the authorized manager gets smarter about what she’s requesting, or ought to be requesting, after talking with someone who actually does the work. And this opportunity to ask questions, clarify expectations, and offer ideas also implies mutual respect.

Dialog often leads to conveying why something is being requested, which is the second requisite for commitment. Knowing why gives people context for thinking about how best to approach their assignments and, perhaps more important, it gives their tasks meaning. “Do it because I told you,” works no better for grown-ups than for kids because it provides no context. In fact, we believe that it’s a leader’s moral duty to continually help his people see how their work fits into a bigger picture.

Part of meaningful context is that work should be a matter of consequence, both for the organization and for the individual. That takes us to the next point.

3. Consequences for performance

If you have ever sat in a meeting, made a clear request of one of the participants, received sincere commitment . . . and then NOTHING happened, the problem might have been an absence of performance consequences.

Your work likely fell into a queue behind other work on that person’s plate and, guess what? Your work (of no consequence) was continually displaced by other work (of consequence), until your work dropped off the plate. Work without consequences tends to be regarded as inconsequential.

This is one reason our first component of accountability specifies that the clear request must come from an authorized manager. (We inserted this critical word years ago at the suggestion of now-deceased management theorist Elliott Jaques). Managers who have been duly authorized can deliver performance consequences; for others, it’s harder.

Now, we hope that you don’t equate the word consequence with punishment, like one of our friends who thought it sounded like we wanted to take non-performers out back and shoot them. We don’t … at least, most of the time.

The word can have a positive connotation, too, as in rewards (Plus, it starts with a C.) Performance consequences can range from a private, “Thanks! That was good work,” to public praise, bonuses, promotions, and opportunities to do preferred work. But they can also include reprimands, negative performance appraisals, and firings. Research has shown that a 4:1 ratio of specific compliments to corrections maintains an optimal work environment. (We’re pretty sure there’s no research on taking non-performers out back and shooting them.)

Interestingly enough, performance consequences need not happen every time to be effective; only the possibility need happen every time to create accountability.

So, there you have it, our 3 C’s: Clarity, Commitment and Consequences. We believe that if you remember — and apply — them, you will find a cure to your organization’s accountability problems.

Any serious strategist must ask, “How will we know when we’ve succeeded?” Strategies have intended outcomes – goals – and it’s terribly helpful if those outcomes are clear enough that success or failure will be indisputable.

So, we’re offering an alternative to the usual questions such as: “Do we have metrics?” (Or worse, “Do we have enough metrics?”) Instead, lead with, “Is our success stated so clearly that we could place a bet on it?”

The Bar Bet

At some point most of us have been in good-natured arguments with friends that amounted to not much more than redundant bickering. Such as:

You (beer in hand): “Yeah, I’ve seen that guy play. He’s a natural-born athlete. He’s going to have a great first year.”

Friend: “I doubt it. He might have natural talent, but he hasn’t developed it yet. I predict a ragged first year for that guy.”

You: “No way! He’s going to surprise everyone. That guy is good.”

Friend: “You’re crazy.”

. . . and then something magical happens, something wonderful, something that halts the bickering and then transforms conversation . . .

One of you says, “I’ll bet you twenty dollars that you’re wrong.”

This is the kind of comment that, as some academics would say, provokes an “epistemological shift.” Now, you both must work together to agree on objective and verifiable proof of success – a definition of “a great first year.”

If you have ever been through this kind of bar chatter, then you know exactly how to have “the right metrics.” It’s all about crafting a description of success that is so clear, you and a friendly skeptic could bet on it. It’s that simple.

Non-bet-able vs. Bet-able

Some typically vague (non-bet-able) strategic goals, and some bet-able alternatives:

Go Ahead and Argue

Notice that you might not agree with all our bet-able alternatives. That’s a good thing. It means the proposed definition of success is so clear that we can argue over it before we start spending time and money to achieve it!

Next time you make a grand declaration of direction (say, “We’re going to be an employer of choice!” or, “We’re going to provide humanitarian assistance,” or “I’m going to start being a better parent,”) ask yourself how you would define success if someone bet twenty dollars against you. If your declaration passes the “bar bet” test, then you’re good to go. The people paying for the result will know what they’re getting; the people doing the work will have clear direction; and you will have the satisfaction of knowing – without question – whether you’re successful.

Learning “What Works”

Related point. There are many ways to learn “what works.” (A favorite of ours is “be a Borg, like Genghis Kahn.”) Economist Tim Harford’s recent TED talk touts the importance of getting at “what works” through humility, trial, and error (or “trial and correction,” as one friend calls it). The only thing left out of Harford’s powerful talk is the importance of defining “what works.” The bar bet helps you do exactly that.