Time for Productivity?

When I worked in the for-profit world, one of the activities we all dreaded most was using our time-tracking system to assign billable hours to clients and project.  To be fair, the system did more that track billable hours, it also helped our organization understand our own overall productivity which is critical data for forecasting, planning and performance monitoring.  At the staff level, we didn’t care; we hated spending time entering time.

I recently participated with economic development leaders from around the country in a conversation that asked the question “When is it ok to walk away from a project?”.  We each shared our amusing stories about unrealistic project scopes, outlandish incentive requests and decision dates that never come.

One of the questions I posed during the conversation was related to whether we know when we’ve invested more effort than is normal or necessary for particular projects or activities.  During this conversation, I got the sense that very few peer organizations neither assign a set number of hours nor track time investment toward specific efforts, such as marketing campaigns, business development activities, or project management tasks.

From an organizational leadership standpoint, it made me wonder how processes are improved or streamlined, achieved outcomes are measured against effort invested, as well as how future resource allocation decisions and business goals are determined in order to maximize productivity against desired outcomes.

Performance-related goals are entering the mainstream conversations among economic development leadership.  Productivity within the economic development organization must be at the forefront of those conversations.  Allocating the appropriate effort towards impactful outcomes, particularly when resource-limited, requires productivity data to indicate which opportunities and resources should be assigned.

I mean, after all, why would an organization’s leadership not desire productivity data?  Oh.

Thanks for sharing.

Count on Leading from Vulnerability

One of the great things I’ve ever heard relative to the economic development practice came last week at the IEDC Annual Conference during the “How to ‘Make It Count’: Applied Metrics for Economic Development” session which featured takeaways from the IEDC’s Economic Development Research Partners Report, Making It Count: Metrics for High Performing EDOs.   (This report, perhaps the most important report ever published by IEDC, provides a comprehensive menu of metrics and recommendations that economic development organizations can consider given their missions, functions and resources.)   

Now, conventional wisdom would probably suggest that not meeting goals is a sign of ineffectiveness, which in turn can lead to feelings of threat and vulnerability.  This “wisdom” may have led to some in the practice forgoing the opportunity to create challenging goals, but rather settling for the status quo.  However, when we do not create challenging goals nor have metrics that effectively evaluate our performance (good or bad), aren’t we as economic development organizations and practitioners challenged to communicate any true value proposition, leading to confusion or lack of confidence among our various constituencies of funders, supporters and potential customers?

During the aforementioned session, Ron Kitchens, CEO of Southwest Michigan First, was discussing the perceived difficulty that some have when sharing performance scores that aren’t meeting original expectations.  But as Ron suggests, we as economic development leaders need to establish challenging performance goals and embrace the opportunity to lead from a position of vulnerability by being open and transparent when we aren’t necessarily on track to achieve them.

When we lead from vulnerability, we are not only being transparent and real, but we are sharing in a human way that can really draw about the support we need from those with whom we are sharing.  This support can lead to the generation of new resources that can be applied to righting the ship.  In the case of Southwest Michigan First, Ron talked about how this led to growth and greater engagement by the board of directors, as well as an increase in funding that provided the resources necessary to increase staff and resources.

Stay tuned.  It seems that the economic development practice is starting to understand and even embrace some of the new realities relative to our evolving role in the generation of new wealth for the places we serve.  With that come needs for new value propositions and performance indicators…some of which we may not achieve as we go down this new path.  This makes us vulnerable.  And that, in itself, is good. Brene Brown, noted TEDx speaker and University of Houston researcher remarks that feeling the power of vulnerability is “to feel alive.”  I like that.

Thanks for sharing.

 

Leadership and Culture Drive the Relationship Business

I left last week’s Dreamforce ’14 convention with a much-needed reminder of my passion for leveraging technology in order improve systems and deliver value.  I walked away rejuvenated and excited about the positive impact that a well-built CRM could have on economic development systems, particularly those systems with multiple organizations collaborating in order to support business and economic growth.

Let’s back up.  What is a CRM?  In a nutshell, it’s a customer relationship management system built upon the premise that tracking customer interactions will create value and drive results. Benefits include such as technology-supported business processes for efficiency, a unified repository of customer data for analysis, thus ultimately and effectively creating a better relationship experience for both the customer and the company.  And after all…

“It’s a relationship business.”

How often have you heard that phrase applied to a profession?  Nearly every “non-scientific” business is a relationship business, right?  By non-scientific, I’m referring to anything that isn’t based upon formulas or laws, such as mathematics, chemistry, physics, engineering, medicine and so on (but let’s agree that the success of individuals in those scientific professions probably depends on relationships as well.)

So if it’s all a relationship business, one could reasonably argue that the most important investments any organization makes are those investments into improving its abilities to create new relationships while cultivate existing relationships so that said organization can ultimately provide its value to these relationships via a sale or service.

It’s reasonable then to suggest that in order to improve abilities to create and cultivate relationships (and serve up value through goods or services), the organization needs to be able to analyze and understand the relationships.  This understanding and analysis is available only through data (and nothing else, except maybe more data.  See where I’m going with this?)

Why do you suppose there is resistance, then, by organizations to adopting a CRM in order to create this value and drive results?

It could be resistance to change, or perhaps being uncomfortable with software or devices, or perhaps it’s a deeper concern with a reality that the relationships that exist aren’t as strong as claimed and tracking these weak relationships make us vulnerable to creating data that proves a reality that we’re not quite ready to face.  Certainly that would be a reality that we wouldn’t want to share (as opposed to data that shows strong, value-generating relationships).

Which takes us from a technology issue to an organizational culture issue…which is a leadership issue.  Sure, relationships drive business and organization success, but leadership and culture are what define that success. A CRM won’t fix culture, but it may however provide the data necessary to show that culture needs fixed. And the only thing that can fix culture and drive change is leadership.

Thanks for sharing.

More than Hope is a Good Thing

In Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne wrote “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”  Indeed, this is sound logic from a convicted murderer but hope is probably not the strategy, nor the tactic, nor the metric that a leader should adopt when attempting to create or demonstrate organizational or systemic success.

Among the generally accepted truths in capitalism and economics, we know that an abundance of a “good thing” can be great and that gaining more “good things” than the other guy is even better.  These truths really challenge the interests, abilities and efficiencies of non-profits, particularly those operating within collaborative systems.

(On a separate but related thought, isn’t it interesting that capitalism drives so much of the resources that fund non-profit collaboration, yet the two terms are about as opposite in definition as happy and sad?  But I digress…)

I often think about the various “good things” measured by economic development organizations.  I have a particular interest in measuring performance relative to controlled factors and a particular frustration with organizations that spend so much of time contemplating the “good thing” count-a-bility of others’ existing outcomes.  Put another way, rather than spending that time producing “good things” that are within the control of their own performance, some rely on the performance of others in order to demonstrate their own.

But what do underperforming organizations do when there is a shortage of “good things” to count?  They either hope things improve or they make new “good things” happen.

The making-it-happen approach is evident when the organization identifies new opportunities and structures itself in such a way that its performance will control its abilities to make these new “good things” happen.  This may include re-evaluating the definitions of “good things” to include those outcomes under its control or influence.  Put another way, this means developing performance-based metrics.

The hopeful approach is evident when an organization is underperforming yet chooses to not make any strategic, operational or resourcing changes that would otherwise enable a greater likelihood of more “good things” happening.  I liken this to Einstein’s definition of insanity.  This insane kind of hope is a good thing only if the organization has a hope metric.

Until it shows me otherwise, I would submit that an organization that isn’t embracing performance-based metrics is likely underperforming.

I wonder if the hope metric is quantitative or rather qualitative.  Is it better for one to hope often but lightly or rather for one to hope few times but more strenuously?  I’m sure somebody has this figured out.  After all, plenty are hoping.

Am I seriously pondering how to measure the performance of the hope metric?  I’m going to stop typing now.

Thanks for sharing.

The Positive Pains of Progress

For much of my childhood, I grew up in a single-parent environment with an amazing mother who was also, among her many mom responsibilities, working an administrative university job during the day while taking evening classes in an ambitious pursuit of a Masters degree.

It seems that we tend to reflect on those lessons that our parents tried to teach us only after we become parents ourselves. I’ve been reflecting a lot lately. One of the great life lessons that I learned from my mother is this: “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.”

It took many years for me to become mature enough to understand that lesson, but I would never have imagined the profound impact that those words would have on my approach to life, parenting and work…and the complex feelings of frustration, anxiety, passion, impatience and failure, that I feel when accepting anything less the the best effort for the best outcome.

Put simply: Sub-optimization pisses me off. I have little patience for anything less than the best effort towards the best possible outcome.

This became evident to me this week when I was part of a working group of peers that decided to knowingly accept that we were proposing (what I felt was) a less-than-ideal solution to a business process problem, with a rationalization that this approach may be more beneficial to longer term goals with more impactful (and positive) outcomes.

I felt as though we were teetering too close to politicking in our decision. And it just didn’t feel good and righteous. Still doesn’t.

That said, I’m continuing to use my Shawn Achor techniques of finding different “angles of reality” to the situation in order to identify the positive outcomes from the experience. Progress is not the best solution, but it’s progress. (Keep repeating, Steve.) The “pro” prefix has that positive connotation, right?

That experience led to this great question that I find myself wrestling with this weekend: Must a leader, especially one that strives for a collaborative and adaptive approach within a complex environment, have that trait of accepting sub-optimization today in order to engage a greater audience that can achieve more positively impactful, longer term gains somewhere down the road?

(I’m pretty sure the answer is yes. And I’m pretty sure that is a leadership trait that I must further cultivate within my professional development plan.)

I still believe that anything worth doing is worth doing right. I will continue to be frustrated by sub-optimization. However, I will improve my ability to understand reality’s constraints on the situations that lead to sub-optimal, but still progress-generating solutions, which should enable a greater tolerance and leadership capacity.

Here’s the thing that I didn’t realize until I reflected on this week’s experience: My frustration was just an instinctual response based on that lesson my mother taught me years ago, that being to strive for the best solution for the best possible outcome. I just hadn’t considered the importance that factoring in all of the outside forces, whether they are controlled or uncontrolled, must play in order to accept and appreciate one’s reality.

I think I do realize that importance now – especially as I recall my mom’s pursuit for a Masters degree. She first factored in the responsibilities and demands (and decisions) that went with raising two hellions. She made under-appreciated sacrifices and accepted the slow progress of her pursuit, which maybe wasn’t always the best solution for her individual goals — she must have recognized the long term benefit of the approach and the legacy it would leave by placing the priority on the progress, rather than just necessarily on the end game.

My mother did eventually earned her Masters degree, then went on to earn a PhD. Now she is a retired grandmother spending a cold winter’s month at a warm southern beach. Well-played, mom. (Perhaps another lesson I will eventually learn from her.)

Indeed, it’s important to accept slow or small progress in order achieve the larger, longer-term goal. Indeed, I continue to learn lessons from my mom. Indeed, my life priorities are absolutely in order because of her. And indeed, I still need to work on my patience.

Thanks for sharing.

Value in Collaboration as a Leadership Role

My understanding of the CEO job description is, at its fundamental level, to increase shareholder value. This is usually accomplished by projecting his or her organization as a low-risk, stable investment that will continue to have a market advantage on its competition. When an organization is perceived as risky, unstable or behind the competition (or worse, in competition with itself), then its value, leadership, board and culture may all get called into question. Confidence vanishes and shareholder value plummets. It’s the responsibility of that CEO to maintain confidence, not just in the short term for quarterly investor calls, but because it’s in the interest of the company’s long term health and success.

Collaboration should be more than just a warm and fuzzy thing. It should be a culture that drives confidence because of its value proposition. At a fundamental level, it’s communicating and working together in a more efficient and effective manner. Efficiency and effectiveness are long-term goals that stand the test of time and align very nicely with long-term shareholder value.

Silos of Reality
Collaboration is a culture that many leaders assume is happening well, but few leaders will accept when it’s not – perhaps because they aren’t exposed to the failures. Unit leaders may get too caught up in meeting their own group’s performance goals, not have the incentive or accountability to cross-function effectively, or not be operating within the organization’s real business processes to see where and how improvements can be made.

Within my own organization we did cross-functional assessments to identify those obstacles that individuals felt were preventing our team’s business and functional units from maximizing their effectiveness to the rest of the organization. The response patterns all seemed to revolve around communications and awareness (and a whole bunch of other stuff that can be tied to collaboration). This operating reality is rooted in various styles of competitive leadership, systems and processes performed within seemingly proprietary silos, but under the same organizational umbrella.

Lack of strong communications is probably the biggest disabler to any organization’s success…which is bizarre since we live and operate in the greatest Communications Age our world has ever known.

The Leadership Role
With collaboration becoming a long-term play in the corporate world (and a general recognition that culture is driven by leadership), many CEOs are considering the merits of a Chief Collaboration Officer to help drive a collaborative culture. As far as I (and Google) can tell, the CCO concept seems to be in its 5th year of popularity and is still getting mixed opinions. For some of the naysayers, declaring the need for a CCO may be an admission of a problem that they aren’t quite ready to accept (see acceptance and vulnerability).

For some, the CCO role appears to have been born out of the Information Technology advantages, as that is a cross-system function with major efficiency, effectiveness and enablement potentials. It’s not surprising, as technology is the greatest enabler of communication, which I believe to be the greatest enabler of both collaboration and success. Jason Greenawalt recently posted his thoughts, which I tend to agree with. His profile for the ideal CCO is a service-oriented problem solver with an in-depth knowledge of how technology can help an organization accomplish its goals. I could not have said it better.

A habit of some non-profits (especially those private sector-led organizations operating in economic development’s “collaborative partnerships”) is to try to parallel their thinking to emulate their for-profit, corporate brethren. How long until those of us operating within complex systems recognize the opportunity and position Chief Collaboration Officer as a key leadership role, accountable to implement these concepts within our own systems? Based on how long it’s taken other functional advancements to trickle into the nonprofit world (see marketing & communications technology, “big data”, shared services), I’ll go ahead and put the over/under at 3 years. What say you?

Thank you for sharing.