Are You in Leadership Gridlock?

Another recurring theme in Chief Executive Boards International meetings is the difficulty of developing successors and subordinate leaders.


In working with mid-sized businesses over the long term, it's not uncommon to see a syndrome I call "leadership gridlock". This generally happens over a long period of either flat sales or moderate (single-digit %) growth. Symptoms include:

• You have some senior or middle managers below the CEO or owner


• They've been there a long time


• They've succeeded mostly through hard work, knowing the business, and tenacity


• They're undereducated -- they don't have the educational background you'd now require if hiring a new person


• They're doing OK


• They're pretty much "maxed out" as far as performance is concerned


• They're unpromotable -- they don't have the horsepower to take the next step up the organizational chart


• They're not developing their own subordinates as replacements for themselves
  

The toughest part of this situation is that they're actually doing OK -- they're not failing, they're not doing badly, they're just not promotable. And you don't have a good reason to do anything about them.

Or do you? Here's the gridlock part. If you ever want to step away from the day-to-day operation of the business, you're going to need a successor to manage some or most of these managers who are your direct reports (let's call them "senior managers"). Yet none of them are candidates -- you know that. You don't have a need for another Senior Manager (at least not yet), so you don't see it as practical to add a new person at that level.

And you may be in the same position with respect to their subordinates -- the managers or supervisors that report to them. That 's the second half of the syndrome. "Just OK" managers are typically consumed with keeping their own heads above water -- they have neither the time nor the talent to stretch themselves to bring someone else along.

See the "gridlock" part? You've backed yourself into a position of having zero degrees of freedom -- the "just ok" senior managers are, by their very existence on the organizational chart, blocking the promotability of junior managers or supervisors who report to them. So you can't promote anybody. You can't develop anybody. Worse yet, everyone sees that, which actually drives away people of ambition, promise and talent further down the organizational chart. They see the gridlock of non-promotables ahead of themselves and decide to go elsewhere, rather than try to bull their way up through the organization.

I've used the word "gridlock". The obvious metaphor is a large city traffic jam with cars stuck across several adjacent intersections. Nobody can move because nobody can move.

Another metaphor for this condition is that little 4 by 4 puzzle game we used to play in the back seat of the car (my age showing here). I'm sure there's an electronic version, but once upon a time it was a field of little plastic chicklets that you manipulated through the one open square in the 4x4 matrix, until you got all the 15 numbers arranged in order. The key to that game is the open square. Take that away, and the game is unplayable.

The end game of a gridlocked organization isn't pretty. You probably can't grow it, since the key players are already operating at capacity. You can't exit it, either, because you know there isn't anybody in line to succeed you. And what if you suddenly became ill or had an accident that prevented you from running it yourself? Would the business, in fact, survive that situation?

So, what can you do if you find yourself in "leadership gridlock"? First, you must redefine the problem. The problem is breaking up the gridlock, rather than running the company "as is". You have to create an open square. Probably by juggling the organizational chart to make room for someone else. Sometimes this necessitates dropping someone back a level -- perhaps putting a struggling manager back into whatever he was really good at that got him promoted in the first place.

Secondly, you'll have to bite a bullet or two. You have to either replace one of the current players or add a player, dividing up some of the current responsibilities to make a place for him. Granted, adding a manager you don't think you need will be a hit to the profit statement. Perhaps you can teach yourself to look at that as an investment, rather than an expense. And then you have to go find that person, probably engaging some help to do a thorough search for the right player. And then you have to make sure that the existing mediocre players don't convince the new player to slow down to their pace (see: Parable of the Monkeys -- The Persistence of Organizational Culture ).

You don't really have an option -- leadership gridlock is a slow, painful death by a thousand cuts. If this describes your situation, you won't like the result of inaction.

If you find yourself (or have found yourself in the past) in leadership gridlock, click on "Comment" below and let us know how you solved (or are solving) that problem.

To forward this to a friend, Click Here

Terry Weaver


CEO
Chief Executive Boards International
http://www.chiefexecutiveboards.com/
TerryWeaver@ChiefExecutiveBoards.com
864 527-5917

The #1 Planning and Organizational Troubleshooting Question

In an earlier article, I mentioned my personal favorite strategic planning question. It's also my personal favorite organizational troubleshooting question. Particularly when working on a problem that's not new -- something you've been working on for some time without meaningful progress.

The question is: "What's getting in the way?" Asked exactly that way -- verbatim -- "What's getting in the way?" It works for several reasons. First, it depersonalizes the issue. It's not somebody's fault (that would be WHO's getting in the way?"). It's just a question of symptoms.

There's a second reason it works -- it doesn't require a solution. It's not "What's the problem here?" That question requires analysis and troubleshooting -- something not many people are very good at. It's not "What do we need to do about this?", which not only requires analysis and troubleshooting, but also invention of a solution -- something even fewer people are good at. Certainly not on the fly.

Have you ever noticed, particularly in a management meeting, how something comes up -- maybe just an idle comment -- and someone else jumps in with "What you ought to do about that is .....", and then the conversation spirals off into a debate of the first proposed "solution" -- to something that may not even be a problem, and also unlikely to be a root cause? In fact, this "jump to solution" is generally a poorly-thought response to a poorly-defined problem. Or a non-problem. Curiously, this behavior is most endemic in organizations populated by problem-solvers.

By asking "What's getting in the way?", and then keeping the dialog on that plane -- asking "What else?" and then "What else?" again, you start getting the full picture of all of the symptoms. Avoid letting others (or yourself) shut down or divert the conversation by responding to or denying the asserted symptoms. Or debating solutions. Just keep the conversation going until the potential ideas of what's getting in the way are exhausted.

From that point (especially if you've had a white board handy to write down the answers), you're positioned to drill into causes -- asking for each symptom "And why do you think that is?". Again, asking for an opinion, not an analysis or a solution. Continuing along this line, you start to home in on the root cause. Problem-solving techniques such as a "fishbone diagram" are sometimes helpful in working your way from symptoms and asserted causes to root causes.

Then you have something to work on. You have a long list of symptoms, a list of suspected causes and a suspected root cause. You probably also have a decent list of what's not the problem.

Try this the next time you confront a repetitive, persistent problem. Ask "What's getting in the way?", then "What else?" and keep that dialog going. Share your experiences with this technique with others by clicking "comments" below.

For an article on a different way to look at effecting change in your business, see: Newton Was Right -- Effecting Change in Your Company

To forward this to a friend, Click Here

Terry Weaver


CEO
Chief Executive Boards International
http://www.chiefexecutiveboards.com/
TerryWeaver@ChiefExecutiveBoards.com
864 527-5917

Newton Was Right -- Effecting Change in Your Company

This is one of a series of articles on the relationships and parallels of the physical and natural sciences to the dynamics of a business organization. I hope you'll extract some good ideas from these. I hope further that you'll consider adopting some of these parables or "word pictures" in communicating with your own organization. People tend to remember things in visual and familar terms, and this physical metaphor for propelling change in your business may be useful.

Do you have things within your company that you'd like to change that have simply resisted all efforts so far? Perhaps it's a person's behavior. Perhaps it's a department's behavior or attitude. Perhaps it's a relationship with a customer. Or a change in a business process. You get the idea.

Visualize that employee, department or business process as a physical object that won't move. A physical metaphor for this situation is an object that's standing still, and hasn't moved yet despite the amount of pushing (force) we've applied. Despite our best and multiple efforts, it's still exactly where it started and not moving an inch. Let's visualize that situation as a box of rocks sitting on the floor, and the change we want (the goal) as moving the box of rocks across the floor. From, say, Point A to Point B or even beyond.

In physical terms, here's what that looks like: We've applied a given amount of force, perhaps continuously, more likely sporadically, and the box of rocks is simply sitting exactly where it started. Why is that? Because of the opposing force, friction. The force of friction between the box and the floor is simply larger than the force we've applied to the box, and it's not moving until something changes. This is an example of Newton's Third Law, commonly parapharased as: "To every action force there is an equal, but opposite, reaction force". This actually isn't a physics lesson, but if you're interested, here's a Wikipedia article you may find interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws#Newton.27s_third_law:_law_of_reciprocal_actions

What's the organizational analogy to friction in this example? We commonly call it "pushback". Someone (or group of someones) just doesn't "get it" and is actually (perhaps passively) resisting the change we want. Or a customer is pushing back against a change in a business process. The subtlety of organizational friction is something to behold. It's everywhere -- punctuality, productivity, quality, cost reduction, revenue growth, etc. In every case, there's a frictional force pushing back against our efforts to effect change (improvement).

Now, in this physical analogy what could we do differently?

The "manager" style, in most cases, reacts to this situation with what? More force. We're generally trained to "make things happen" and the most obvious way to do so in this case is to push harder.

What are the other options?

We could enlist someone else to help push -- to apply even more force -- "gang up on 'em" (Here's where this "inanimate object" model fails slightly -- when you try this in organizations, many times the pushback (or frictional force) actually increases, making forward progress even harder).

We could tie a rope to the box enlist someone to pull. How do we do that in an organization? By showing someone else how it's in his own self interest to cooperate and to assist. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, laid the entire foundation of his economic theories on the self-interest of the individual, saying: "By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it." And free-market economic systems have generally proven Smith right.
So, instead of pushing harder, the "Leader" examines the self-interests of those not actively pushing back (easiest initial targets) and puts communications and perhaps incentives in place that will align their self-interests with those of the organization. Now, we have two forces acting against friction, both push by managment and pull by employees, and the box begins to move.

Or does it? Perhaps even those two forces together still don't move the box. What then?

The only force keeping it from moving is the friction, isn't it? How would we solve that problem?

There are a few ways to physically reduce friction. In this example, one way would be to add lubrication -- to wax or grease the floor. What's the organizational analogy to that? It's a perceptive, enlightened leader who understands the idea of other people's self-interest asking the magic question "What's getting in the way?", and then eliminating or reducing the resulting pushback (friction). This is my personal favorite strategic planning question. I have seen companies who successfully answer and fix "What's getting in the way?" turn from near failure to outstanding performers.

How do you figure that out? The best known strategy -- ask. In almost every case, properly approached, someone will tell you what's getting in the way. It may be you. It may be an existing policy, put in place for a completely different reason (perhaps one long forgotten). Many times it's a broken compensation system, and/or the broken measurement system that goes with it. Or maybe the lack of a compensation system that makes it clear what we want and rewards for that. In that case, it's probably an opportunity to both reduce friction and increase pull. If the employees believe that "Something good happens to me if I stop pushing back or something even better happens to me if I start pulling", you've either reduced friction, increased pull, or both. Or, as a last alternative, "Something bad happens to me if I don't".


What it it's an external force that you can't control? A Union? A competitor? A customer? Maybe push and pull are your only options.

Or are they?

What about reducing friction by taking half the rocks out of the box? Again, we're not teaching physics here, but the force of friction is, in fact, directly proportional to the mass (weight, for our purposes here) of the box plus the rocks. So half the rocks is a reduction in friction of almost half. How does this relate to our business problem? It's like breaking the problem down into parts and attacking one part at a time. Or reducing the complexity of the intended change. Or taking things sequentially, rather than simultaneously. If moving rocks is the objective and we have only a given amount of push and pull to apply, what's wrong with moving half the rocks now and coming back later for the other half?

Now, as the box begins to move, we come to the advanced lesson -- dynamics vs. statics. Up to this point the box has been immobile. Once it begins moving, however, the game changes and the frictional force changes from "potential friction" to "kinetic friction". Kinetic friction is always lower than potential friction. Think about your own experience -- when you're pushing something across the garage floor, it's easier after it starts moving, right? Once you achieve the "breakaway force" (push plus pull) -- the force required to start the box moving, it keeps moving with less force applied, doesn't it? That's because the friction changes from potential to kinetic friction, which is less resistant to your efforts.

Now we're talking about acceleration. With a continuous amount of force applied to an object, Newton's Second Law kicks in, sometimes paraphrased as: "The rate of change of momentum of a body is proportional to the resultant force acting on the body and is in the same direction." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws#Newton.27s_second_law:_law_of_acceleration

In our metaphor, that would mean the box of rocks would start moving faster, and we'd of course have to start running to keep the same amount of push and pull applied. Examining Newton's equation, we see that the velocity of the box, with the same amount of force continuously applied, would exponentially accelerate the speed of the box, eventually reaching the speed of light! How would you like that happening to a previously "immovable object" in your company?
So, I offer the idea that Newton was, in fact, right. Not only about rocks but also about business. If you want to effect change in your company, look for "What's getting in the way?" and examine the self-interests of all concerned to see if you can get those aligned with your goals. Life's a lot easier when you stop pushing harder.

To forward this to a friend, Click Here

Terry Weaver


CEO
Chief Executive Boards International
http://www.chiefexecutiveboards.com/
TerryWeaver@ChiefExecutiveBoards.com
864 527-5917