Wacky Wednesday

Because my last post was about meetings, I thought this would be a good one to share. I think that most of you have seen this before, but... oh well.

 
Pulled from Life After Coffee 

Perhaps you should print it out for your desk?

Agendas and Action Items

Meetings are nearly always useless! I cannot count the number of meetings I attend with only a subject line attached to it. No agenda, no goals, only a nebulous statement of purpose. Then, the meeting goes on for at least 1.25 times as long as scheduled, and nothing gets done. Why?

The answer is fairly obvious. Without an agenda, and a meeting lead who can stick to it, most meetings degenerate into circular conversation with no decisions made. It is truly scary to see how quickly this can happen. As a project manager, I use to let the attendees set the pace for the meeting (mostly, because they were "smarter" than me in the subject matter). All this taught me was how much people like proving how smart they are (and potentially, how "dumb" you are).

Now, when I call a meeting, at a minimum I include a list of points of discussion. Whether those points are sensor feeds for a monitoring system that need to be clarified, the topic of how to fill the volunteer roles for our next meeting, or a discussion of how to raise more funds, I always include a list of points (if not a flushed out agenda with a timeline for each section, useful if you need to go from brainstorming to final decision).

But that is only half the battle. The other side of it is Action Items. A meeting is a waste of time without decisions, even if it is the decision to do more research. When the decision is made, there is ALWAYS actions to perform. That means these actions should be assigned to people who will be held responsible for them, and given a timeline for execution.

Why is that important? Because if there are no action items, no follow-up, then the meeting will repeat itself, because nobody will have moved the ball forward between the meetings. That is a scary waste of time.

Now, I will admit a weakness. I HATE taking minutes of meeting. I know they are REQUIRED (and yes I capitalized that word, because they are); but I have a hard time wanting to retype what people said just so everyone can have a record. However, I learned the hard way several times that a person's memory can be selective. Without minutes of meeting, well, they can "remember" a different outcome that is less troublesome than the one decided upon (someday I will share the story of why I record some of my meetings).

So, why share this advice today? Last week I had several meetings, one where there was no agenda, and no action items; one with an agenda, but no action items; and a third with no real agenda, but we got some action items down and reached some decisions. In all cases, we missed the mark, but at least in the last one, we moved the ball forward and left with a direction.

Why is this mark so hard to hit? Because it takes planning, work, and follow-through. So often we as leaders are comfortable with "work". The other two people tend to think take care of themselves...

This week, I am issuing a challenge to myself. I will submit an agenda for each meeting I attend (even if I am not the organizer, if one isn't provided), and at the end of the meeting, I will circulate minutes of meeting with action items. Hopefully, I can make this a stronger habit and cause some growth. Anyone care to join me?

Colin Powell's Lessons in Leadership - 6

 

You don't know what you can get away with until you try.

I LOVE this one. I ran into it a lot in the Army.

I see this in a lot of different leaders. Some people use permission as a shield to hide behind, or are trained to execute only what they are told to do (like on Monday's entry). Others will decide upon a course of action and execute because they know it is needed, then will deal with the consequences.

It reminds me of a Quinten Tarantino movie called Inglorious Bastards. There is a scene at the end of the movie (spoiler alert) where 2 German soldiers were brought back across Allied lines. Brad Pitts' character pulls his side-arm and shoots one of them in the head. When the other German soldier screams "You'll be shot for this!" Brad's response is "Nah, I don't think so, more like chewed out. I've been chewed out before." Found here.

Okay, probably not the most PC example, and I would never condone the shooting of a prisoner of war (or for that matter, any other illegal activity). Those aren't the rules to play by. However, in this EXTREME example, you see a leader who is willing to do what he thinks is necessary, then ask forgiveness for his actions.

So, how do you treat your team in this regard? You can foster independence and innovation, or you can foster aggravation and a need to hunker down and "do what your told."  The choice is how you react when somebody comes to you for forgiveness (or permission).

Wacky Wednesday - Let he who is without sin...

Okay, again, I try to avoid religious and political overtones in my blog. However, with the upcoming Colin Powell Lesson this week (10 points if you can figure out what the lesson is), I had to share this "Demotivational" poster.

 

from motifake.com

The reason I share this one is because we are all human, we all make mistakes, and as leaders we cannot expect our people to be perfect. Sometimes being a leader is about remembering your mistakes and forgiving others theirs.

A Tale of Two Companies...

Bravo Company was led by 3 ROTC sourced officers (regular college education) and 2 Mustang sourced officers (former enlisted).   Charlie Company was led by 1 Mustang and 3 West Pointers (Military Academy, if you don't understand, PLEASE Google it). Each company would alternate the mission of protecting specific checkpoints along convoy routes while deployed to Iraq. 

One company would set-up on the checkpoint; highly visible, and nothing ever happened while they were at the checkpoint; but occasionally, after the tanks left, a roadside bomb was placed at the checkpoint and hit a passing convoy. These guys followed the exact interpretation of the mission (protect checkpoint 13 for 4 hours).

The other company would set-up in an "over-watch" position. This meant they would sit back away from the checkpoint but maintain a clear field of fire. If anything happened at the checkpoint, they would engage. For a while a lot happened at that checkpoint while the tanks were on over-watch, but eventually it slowed to a stop and convoys weren't hit the next day after that company's tanks had the missions. This company understood that the mission was to prevent roadside bombs, and sometimes it is better to not be obvious.

The end result, the "bad guys" learned to watch the checkpoints too. If they saw a tank sitting at the location and then left, they would know it was clear for the rest of the night. They would then approach to set-up the bomb. If no tank was visible that night, they left the checkpoint alone because they didn't know what was out there waiting. 

A side note (and another blog to share, perhaps) is never assume your opposition is stupid.

Why share this? Because the difference is a result of training. One company was trained in the "If I haven't explicitly been told 'no,' I can." The other company was from the "If I haven't explicitly been told 'yes,' I can't." 

I want to ask you as leaders to think about how your people are trained. Which camp does your leadership and training style fall under? Do you punish severely when someone takes initiative, or perhaps follows the spirit rather than the letter of your intent? Or do you reward for achieving something, for executing in such a way that the implied task (hey that was a previous blog entry, found here) was accomplished and not just the letter of the mission?

And for your benefit. Bravo Company was the one that set-up the over-watch positions. If you look at my background, I think you can figure out which company I was in.

Colin Powell's Lessons in Leadership - 5

You can find links to the first four below:

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Lesson 3
Lesson 4

There is a lot of material on this one...

Never neglect the details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant. 

There is a lot here. A leader cannot stay up in the clouds, otherwise he/she will miss something. That person will miss the fork in the road, the pothole, or in a military example, the small tacticle unit that is there to nudge you in a specific direction. But it is a delicate balance. Analysis paralysis happens when you dig too deep into the details. If you are looking too close, or you look to long, everything freezes. Then, as mentioned in the previous lesson, the life opportunity flashes by.

Of significant interest to me though is the last line, where he mentions that people need to challenge the process. If people are answering with "well, that's always the way we did it" then you have a process you need to look at.  The world moves quickly, what works today may not work tomorrow, and definitely won't be the best process after enough tomorrows. 

If you think about this ties closely to Lesson 4, and Lesson 3, and they all tie back to Lesson 1. Experts are great; but are they up-to-date, continuing to grow? They may know what they are doing in that small field, but don't let their opinion be the end all/be all because they aren't the ones responsible for the decision, and may not know enough of all the parts to influence the decisions.  Look at the details, but don't get bogged down, make a decision, and be aware that people will not always be happy about it (especially if the change is to a process that "was always done" a specific way). Remember that sometimes you need to piss people off, because people get comfortable.

Wacky Wednesday

Okay, Okay, one more Dilbert, and that's because of last week's Colin Powell Lesson.

 

This is exactly what Colin Powell was talking about in Lesson 4. Please take it under advisement. The world is changing at a rate unprecedented by any time in our previous history. We can either move with it, or stand still and let it pass us by...