CHAPTER 1

It All Starts with You

Organizations form when someone has a good idea, experiences early success, andthen needs help in order to deliver on the promise. Somewhere between a goodidea and market success, most businesses run into the challenge of setting up asystem that helps move things forward more efficiently.

As the organization grows, a dilemma appears. Sooner or later we all discoverthe need for reliable, repeatable processes or systems lest the wheel becomesthe constant reinvention. Systems and processes, however, can become overlyengineered and eventually create more headaches than they solve, resulting inextra layers of approval and sign-off, thus delaying progress.

Employees often resist processes for reasons ranging from not wanting to becramped in their style to fears of repeating the kind of bureaucratic nightmaresthey have experienced in past jobs.

Recently, I was working with two different companies, one in the technologysecurity business and another in health care information automation. Both weresuccessful, with a history of innovation and rapid growth, and yet both werefrustrated by the lack of efficiency that had crept into their businesses.

The technology security CEO put it this way: "We're a billion dollar companywith a 50-million-dollar infrastructure." This company manages by consensus.Pretty much everyone needs to be on board. When consensus is lacking, just aboutany project, market plan, or customer service initiative can easily be derailed.Even routine matters require meetings, study, revisions, more study, and thententative exploration of the possibility.

Unless, of course, the CEO sees another "bright, shiny object," and off peoplego again down a track that will drastically redirect company energy andresources. The "bright, shiny object" phenomenon prevents them from thinkingstrategically beyond the latest and greatest idea, while also leaving a numberof groups in the dust when directions change and they didn't get the memo.

The health care information company CEO had a markedly different take on things:"We hire the best and brightest, but still they lack common sense." In thisculture, decisions of any consequence run through the CEO's office, because theCEO does not trust that even senior managers will make the right decisions. Onthe one hand, it's hard to argue with success—while not the largest in thefield, the company is number one in its category and has been growing likecrazy. On the other hand, it is now confronting the consequences of its rapidgrowth and success. Too much going on, too many people involved, and too manyopportunities on the horizon—no one CEO can put that many fingers intothat many pies.

How do these companies adopt processes that can be trusted and implementedwithout overwhelming the cultures they have built? Both CEOs recognized the needto improve the way they operate their companies, for reasons that includeincreasing efficiency as well as improving their ability to compete in broadermarkets. However, as we plumbed the issues and possible solutions, both becameparalyzed with the fear of implementing new processes that would result in anoverbureaucratization of their "fast, flexible, and nimble organizations."

In actuality, though, neither company is quite as fast, flexible, or nimble asit once was. The fact is that they now tend to stumble over what used to besimple things. Coordination among groups has become somewhere between difficultand nonexistent. Approvals either take forever or are granted swiftly only to beoverturned a short time later.

Employees are beginning to express frustration with the roadblocks to gettingthings done. Middle managers are becoming increasingly fearful that theirdecisions will be second-guessed. The combination of frustration and fear leadspeople to slow things down even more in a multitude of ways. Some are foreverlooking for "buy-in" before moving; some simply dig in and focus on dozens ofsmall tasks, enabling them to demonstrate productivity in terms of the number ofthings accomplished—not necessarily the important things, just ones thatcan be counted; some are taking their own initiative, finding ways to get thingsdone despite the organization roadblocks.

This book will look at some of the sources of organizational roadblocks andoffer suggestions that you can employ to get things moving, to overcome internalresistance, and to make a difference. Again, as you find yourself bumping intowhat appear to be roadblocks or resistance, it will be important to keep in mindthat just about every hurdle initially showed up for an apparently good reason.

It's not as if a senior team of roadblock specialists convenes weekly to figureout what else it can do to make things more difficult. For example, lengthydecision processes often come into existence for reasons such as lowering riskor engaging multiple stakeholders. It's hard to argue with lowering risk orengaging employees, yet it's also hard to find the value in delays whensomething critical shows up.

Some workaround suggestions will be fairly low risk; others may require you totake a deep breath, make sure your résumé is in good shape, and forge aheadknowing that the outcome may not be what you hoped for. The larger, perhapsriskier suggestions involve big ideas, concepts, and philosophies, oftencentering on the roles of leadership and management. Some of these will bestrategic in nature, addressing what you are doing and why you are doing it. Thesmaller, lower-risk suggestions will be mostly tactical, emphasizing how you goabout getting things done, meeting milestones, or complying with internalprocess standards.

Some of the actions we will discuss will be individual in form, things that youcan do on your own or that involve just you and one other person. Some mayinvolve you and your team members, and others may involve coordination acrossmultiple teams. I will address a range of issues, many of which will reflect thefollowing paradox: nothing in this book works, and yet everything in the bookcan work. The real...