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Project Management Articles -
Activity Minus Focus Equals Randomness
Excerpted from Humor Minus Credibility Equals Doofus: 12 Back to Basics Leadership Principles Anyone Can Follow (Leading on the Edge International, 2005)
Leadership Lesson 4: Activity – Focus = Randomness
In September, Jane was elected PTA president for her daughter’s elementary school. Her first few meetings with her PTA board went very well. There were a lot of great ideas generated for how to raise funds for the school and the board members all seemed very excited about the upcoming activities.
Jane and the board decided to hold an auction in April to raise money for the school, selling auction items made by the students or donated by local businesses. Jane had hoped to raise $30,000 from the auction and personally took on the task of managing the auction. In her eagerness, Jane started assigning tasks to board members. Although many of the members were unsure of Jane’s overall plan, they still maintained some trust that she knew what she was doing.
Subsequent meetings became a replay of the last meeting: Jane assigned tasks to board members without a clear connection to an overall plan. The board members reluctantly took on the various tasks. Finally, at the March meeting one of the board members, Ellen, asked Jane to define the remaining tasks to be done in order for the auction to be a success in April. As Jane and the board began defining the remaining work, they discovered to their dismay that the earliest they could hold the auction would be July. In looking at the work that had already been completed by the board members, many of the tasks appeared to have little relation to the auction. The board ultimately decided not to have the auction. Jane’s exuberance and desire for activity without focus created randomness among the team.
Learning the Lesson:
Leading a team means setting a meaningful objective, understanding how to achieve the objective, inspiring the team to complete the objective, and leading them down the field to victory. With each of these steps, the leader is expected to maintain a razor-sharp focus on what needs to be done. Think about a pro football (American football to my non-U.S. friends!) quarterback. His job is clear; to move the ball down the field until the ball (attached to a player) crosses over the goal line. The successful quarterback maintains focus and keeps the ball moving through a variety of passing and running plays. If he loses that focus, there is greater likelihood for fumbles or turnovers which keep the quarterback from achieving his objective. It’s no different when leading a team. Define the objective, plan out the work to achieve the objective, inspire the team, and execute.
What are some of the barriers to keeping strong focus and driving the team to results? Try these on for size:
- The objective isn’t clear – Maybe the objective is too nebulous, i.e., “To achieve complete customer satisfaction,” improbable, “To solve world hunger by next month,” or random, “To solve all of our management problems.” A poorly articulated objective sets a weak foundation for the team which then results in random performance.
- The plan isn’t clear – Even with well-articulated objectives, if the plan to achieve the objective doesn’t make sense, then the team will flail around wondering what they are supposed to do to meet the objective. In absence of a good plan, the team will either start making up the plan on the fly or will ultimately stagnate while waiting for the leader to provide clear direction.
- The leader keeps getting distracted – So there’s a great objective defined, and a good plan is laid out. Then the leader gets an acute case of “shiny object syndrome.” After every meeting, phone call, or hallway discussion, the leader diverts from the plan and starts swimming towards a new shiny object. The team now is unsure of direction because there frankly isn’t any. It is “direction du jour” played out in real life for all to see.
- The team doesn’t believe in the objective – Even if the objective and plan are clearly articulated and the leader makes his best effort to keep the team to focus, the team can still cause loss of focus if they don’t believe the objective is the right thing to do. Now, rather than having a well-oiled, results-oriented team, the team operates in fits and starts with periodic statements of “Why are we doing this again?”
Before we get too deep, I want to put forth a caution on focus. Focus taken to an extreme can morph into stubbornness. Recently I was watching an episode of “ER” (a television show here in the U.S.) where a young doctor was doggedly trying to revive a patient whose heart had stopped beating. The doctor kept giving CPR to the patient for over 30 minutes in hopes of reviving the patient. Everyone else knew that the patient had died, but the young doctor persisted. Finally, a more senior doctor had to tell the young doctor to stop because nothing more could be done. Leaders and teams can also be focused to the point of stubbornness where continuing on the current path is no longer the right thing to do. The leader needs to ensure that focus is balanced with common sense and periodically checks himself to verify that the team is moving in the right direction toward an achievable objective.
Adding it up:
Securing and maintaining focus and avoiding the randomness beast isn’t all that difficult; it just means creating some discipline:
- Get clear with the objective – Define a concise, believable objective which articulates what needs to be done, when it needs to be done by, and what measure you will use to determine if the objective is met. A statement such as “We want to raise $30,000 through a PTA auction by April 15” defines the what (PTA Auction), when (April 15), and what measure ($30,000).
- Define a simple plan which everyone understands – Design a simple plan or task list which clearly articulates for each task what needs to be done, who needs to do it, and when it needs to be done by. A good rule of thumb is to keep task length to one week or less, and ensure that one team member can be assigned to the task. If the task is longer than one week or if multiple people are needed to complete the task, then break the task into smaller amounts until both rules of thumb are met.
- Decide upon the scope of your objective – Think about a fútbol field (that is soccer for my U.S. friends!). The field has boundary lines which define play as being “in-bounds” or “out-of-bounds.” When defining your objective, you need to consciously determine what will be “in-bounds” (things you will focus on as part of your work) and “out-of-bounds” (things you will not focus on). Getting clarity on the scope will help you with shiny object syndrome. Speaking of which….
- Beware of “shiny objects” – Look, issues will crop up while executing your plan. Don’t stick your head in the sand and ignore the issues, but don’t get distracted with issues that don’t need to be addressed by you or the team. Sure, you can argue that the issue is important and needs to be addressed, but if it falls outside of the scope of what you are doing then set it aside.
Graduating with honors:
Creating and maintaining focus while moving your team towards a stated objective is crucial to getting things done on time. When you have a clearly stated objective and scope, an easy-to-understand plan, and protect the team from shiny objects, you significantly increase your likelihood of success. Ignore these tips and you’ll brand yourself as random which means quite frankly, no one will want to follow you. Move with focus and get work done.
Project Management Article Abstract
Leading a team means setting a meaningful objective, understanding how to achieve the objective, inspiring the team to complete the objective, and leading them down the field to victory. With each of these steps, the leader is expected to maintain a razor-sharp focus on what needs to be done. Think about a pro football (American football to my non-U.S. friends!) quarterback. His job is clear; to move the ball down the field until the ball (attached to a player) crosses over the goal line. The successful quarterback maintains focus and keeps the ball moving through a variety of passing and running plays. If he loses that focus, there is greater likelihood for fumbles or turnovers which keep the quarterback from achieving his objective. It’s no different when leading a team. Define the objective, plan out the work to achieve the objective, inspire the team, and execute.
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