“Doing” is about action and activity; “deliver” is about what is handed over to someone after the doing is done.  Generally the things handed over are products (things like reports, computers, invoices, software), services (like training, consulting, appointments, performance reviews), and communications (requests, promises, authorizations).  For example, one of the things I do as a professor is teach classes.  What I deliver are lectures, presentations, exams, assignments, reading lists, and grades.

My students interact with the products, services, and communications I deliver to them.  If I deliver poorly worded exam questions, they don’t care much about the work that went into writing them, only that they have a hard time trying to figure the questions out.  If my lectures are unintelligible and hard to understand, my students don’t care what I had to do to prepare them.  Ultimately my performance in the classroom is determined by what I deliver to my students, not all the things I do in preparing the class.

I have learned that what really matters to people is what gets deliver.  When what is delivered to people “works” (meets their requirements in terms of form, quality, quantity, and time), they are satisfied and more likely to see the deliverer as a credible and reliable performer.  However, when what is delivered doesn’t work, people get upset, complain, and can even retaliate by becoming less cooperative.

The primary focus of leadership research and writing seems to be dominated by a conception of leadership as associated with someone in a formal position of leadership (i.e., authority) and by a focus on the extrinsic outcomes of the characteristics or behaviors of the leader.  Accordingly, attention is given to identifying the characteristics and/or behaviors that differentiate effective leaders from ineffective leaders on the assumption that once identified, we can select or train leaders for these characteristics or behaviors, thereby improving leadership.

What I find troubling about this approach, however, is that it says nothing about the source of the behaviors leaders exhibit or how one might gain access to those behaviors.  Knowing what respect is and that effective leaders show respect does not mean that I can show respect when it is needed or that I can show it in an appropriate or acceptable way.  There is not a one-to-one correspondence between any personality characteristic, cognitive capability, affective orientation, or situational condition and any leader behavior.  What this means is that none of these factors are THE source or cause of leader behaviors and learning them will not make me a leader or necessarily more effective.

No, I think we are missing something and I think it has to do with the idea that the actions we take and the behaviors we engage in are a function of how situations and people occur to us.  In their book, The Three Laws of Performance, Zaffron and Logan point out that how people perform is not determined by the objective nature of the situation, but rather is correlated with how the situation occurs to them.  If, for example, the actions and behaviors of another occur as resistance to a change agent, the agent is likely to respond much differently than if those same actions and behaviors occur as a contribution to improving the change.

The idea that one’s actions correlate with how situations occur suggests that the access to leader behaviors, in both form and quality, is to be found in how things occur for people.  It also suggests that leaders can alter their behaviors, in both form and quality, by learning how to shift the way situations occur.  Zaffron and Logan have some ideas on how to do that that may be worth pursuing.

Most people are familiar with the cliché “out of sight, out of mind”.  One way to interpret this cliché is that if we don’t have some way of remembering things (“out of sight”), then they effectively do not exist for us – they are, for all practical purposes, gone.  You may not have noticed before now, but you can’t work on things that are “out of mind” because they don’t exist – they simply aren’t there to be worked on.

When I say it doesn’t exist, I don’t just mean you can’t remember it.  I mean you don’t even know that there is any thing to be remembered. Rather, it is gone without a trace as if it never existed in the first place.

Unfortunately, too many people rely on their memory for keeping track of things.  I say unfortunately because our short terms memories are a very poor place for storing information and once something is forgotten, we may never be able to recall it.  And, if it can’t be recalled, it can’t be used or accomplished, thereby limiting our effectiveness.  At the time it is happening, however, it is difficult to imagine (even if we allowed ourselves to) that we could possibly forget what we saw or heard.

The above policy (1) acknowledges that we can, do, and will forget things, and (2) that there is a way to keep things around so that when they do go “out of mind”, they can reliably be found again.  Writing things down keeps them in existence independent of our memory and reduces the likelihood we will fail to perform because of something we “forgot”.

Adopting this policy will require the development of three new habits.  One is reliably writing things down, even those things you are sure you won’t forget.  One reason people feel stressed is because they don’t know if they forgot something they shouldn’t have.  A second habit is reliably writing things down in the same place, like a journal or inventory of some kind.  It does little good to write things down all over the place (e.g., napkins, scrap pieces of paper, etc.) if you then can’t easily find them when you need them.  The third habit is regularly reviewing what you have recorded.  Again, a comprehensive list is of little value if you don’t look at it.

When managers have authority over resources important to subordinates (e.g., hiring and firing, pay, job assignments, vacation time, etc.), they tend to assume they do not have to persuade or convince subordinates of their assessments of a situation.  For example, if a manager believes an event, such as a work delay or a change in priorities or requirements poses a threat to the successful completion of a project, she is likely to assume that all that is needed is to communicate the threat and her subordinates will take the appropriate action.  In this regard, managers are blind to the fact that their subordinates see things from a different point of view and will not automatically accept what they are told.

According to the study in Organization Science, when a threat occurs, managers with authority engage in fewer redundant and more delayed communications than managers lacking that authority.  As a result, their initial communications regarding a threat are ineffective 72% of the time, thereby requiring subsequent and more time consuming follow up communications.  The need for these additional communications can have a negative impact on the managers’ credibility and reputation, thereby increasing the chances that future communications will also not be heeded.

Authority can help managers get things done.  However, authority is not a substitute for appropriate and complete communication.  Where managers assume there is such a substitution, their effectiveness will be reduced.

A display is a visual exhibit: posters are displays, so are pictures, drawings, and models.  One familiar display is a calendar, which displays days, dates, and in some cases, times of day.  City maps are displays of streets, buildings, and other sites.

Displays allow us to “see” the status of something, or to know where things stand in relation to something that matters to us. One familiar display of this type is the “thermometer” that is used by the United Way and other fund raising organizations. It is highly visible, easy to understand, and somebody updates it every day or two so it stays accurate.

Displays become the scoreboards or scorecards by which we can instantly determine both status and progress of a project or performance measure.  Putting the display in a place where everyone involved can see it allows them to know if things are “on track”, “ahead”, or “behind”.  And, when displays are public no one can hide from what is happening (or not happening, as the case may be).

Consider the example of Tim, President of a gas piping repair company who reports the following results from using displays:

“I run a small natural gas piping repair company – 19 employees – and we were giving customer satisfaction rewards to our service employees when their customers phoned or wrote to compliment us on the service they received. We called the reward a “Gold Wrench”. The program was fairly well received, but our service guys still were not tremendously motivated to make the extra effort to get a Gold Wrench. They viewed the relationship with customers as somewhat adversarial, and tried to get in and get their work done without much focus on customer satisfaction. They saw it as “us against them” in the job of repairing the gas pipes.

Then in our MBA class you said that a system like ours should be publicly displayed with a prominently visible measurement system leading to a high goal. In 2001 we worked a record number of jobs, and our servicemen received 75 Gold Wrenches, which we assumed was due to the large amount of business we did. Then there was a staggering downturn in service at the end of the year that was projected to continue into next year. Even so, I decided to set a seemingly unattainable goal of 100 Gold Wrenches for this year. I made a display in a “thermometer” format, posted it for everyone to see, and updated it regularly.

To get everyone interested, we also told all the employees that when we hit our goal of 100, everyone at the company, not just the service personnel, but everyone at every level, would receive a financial reward. Still, it took a while for the project to really catch on, but by the second half of the year, the servicemen were using the display to figure out how many Gold Wrenches we needed to meet our goal. The display helped keep them talking and figuring and thinking about the project to improve customer satisfaction.  Yesterday we hit our goal…and we are still going strong even with an unavoidably slow year for service!”

If there is something you really want to accomplish, create a display that shows the result to be realized and progress toward its fulfillment. Then post it for all to see and take the two actions that get the display operating in the unique culture of your workplace: (a) update it regularly so people can reliably tell what is happening, and (b) talk about it how to accomplish the intended results.

What is a “sufficient period of time”? It is the amount of time it takes to get something done given (a) the nature of the work required and (b) the productivity of the person (people) doing the work.  In general, the more complex and involved the work, the longer it will take to get done compared to work that is less complex or involved.  Similarly, the more productive the person (people) doing the work, the less time it will take than someone who is less productive.

Example

One of the jobs I perform several times each University quarter is grading exams.  How long it takes me to grade an exam depends first on the nature of the work required. Are there 50 exams to grade, or 150? Just as important, what type of exam is it? An exam that has all objective questions – multiple choice and true-false questions – is much faster to grade than an all essay question exam.

And in addition to the nature of the work, what are the factors that influence my productivity?  One is my reading speed, which is influenced by the writing quality of the student answers on essay questions. A second is my writing speed, for making comments that will give students feedback on both types of exam. And a third is my sitting tolerance – how long I can stay focused on the grading task. I find my tolerance is higher when student writing is good, and lower when it’s not.

A sufficient period of time for me to grade exams, therefore, depends on what type of exam I give and my productivity while grading. The only two ways I can reduce the time it takes to grade an exam is by (1) changing the design of the exam (more objective, less essay) and/or (2) improving my productivity.

As an example, if it takes 1.5 hours to grade one question in a short-answer essay exam for a graduate class of 25 people.  If there are four questions on the exam, I will need a total of 6 hours in order to grade the entire exam for the whole class. I can choose to break it up into four segments of 1.5 hours, or two segments of 3 hours, etc. But if I schedule less time than that, I will not complete grading the exam.

Like the Law of Gravity, we must account for the First Law of Accomplishment.  In order to accomplish something, you must have a sufficient period of time in which to get it done.  If you don’t allocate the time, it won’t get done. Of course, you can get something done in less time if you do a sloppy job. Doing incomplete work, however, damages people’s credibility and reputation.

Steps to Obeying the First Law of Accomplishment

There are four things that will help you obey the First Law of Accomplishment.

1.       Record Your Promises.  You can’t accomplish what you can’t find or can’t remember.  Keep a record of everything you have agreed to do. Write your promises and commitments down somewhere – preferably in one place, like a promise log – and then refer to it regularly until the promises are completed.

Ideally you record (a) What is due to someone, (b) Who it is to be delivered to, and (c) When it is due – plus enough particulars about the “deliverable” so you can determine how much work will be involved. Be sure to consider the different types of work that may be involved – the desk and computer work, phone and email work, research, writing, getting approvals, etc.

2.       Determine the time periods needed to complete the accomplishment.  Given the nature of the work to be done and your level of productivity, determine how much time will be required to complete the assignment.  Bear in mind that most people are overly optimistic about how long something takes to get done, and as a result they often grossly underestimate the amount of time they will need.  If something takes six hours, don’t assume you can get it done in five.

I have learned that most people do not know how long it takes to do the many jobs they have, even the ones they do on a recurring basis.  It took me several University quarters to determine how long it takes to grade different types of assignments.  And grading is only one part of my work!

Determine whether your promise for a particular “deliverable” (a promised product, service, or other result) will take four hours, or fourteen hours. And decide if it would be best to do it all at once, broken up into two or three – or more – steps, i.e., the number and size of specific “periods of time” you will require to accomplish the promised result.

3.       Determine the time available in your schedule to do the work. If you are like most people, you have far less time in which to do the work you have promised than you realize.  The reason for this is because of meetings, appointments, recurring events (including lunch and breaks), and interruptions.  When you are engaged in any of these things, you are not available for working on the other things you have promised – the “accomplishment work” that will fulfill your commitments.

In order to determine when you can work on the things you have promised, start with a blank schedule, then put in all the appointments and meetings you plan to attend, the recurring events like meals and coffee breaks, and an estimate of when you are most likely to be interrupted (and for how long). NOTE: Most of us have more control over interruptions than we think we do, and we know something about our typical patterns of timing and duration of interruptions too.

So what’s left? The time that remains after all these things are accounted for is your unscheduled time.  That is the time you have available for working on everything else – including your “accomplishment work”.  Pause a moment here to allow yourself to be shocked at how much time you are giving to appointments, meetings, recurring events, and interruptions, and how little you are giving to your “accomplishment work”.

4.       Schedule your work, then follow your schedule. Now that you know how many time periods are needed to complete the work you have promised (#2 above) and how much time you have available for doing that work (#3 above), you can schedule the work.  Put the periods of time necessary to accomplish your promises into your calendar.

One trick here is not to schedule yourself too tightly (i.e., back-to-back with no space in between), so that when unexpected events occur, you have some flexibility to deal with them.  Another trick is to use your schedule when people ask you to do things: when someone wants you to do something, pull out your calendar and look to see when you will be able to do the work required.

Remember, the First Law of Accomplishment says, “The accomplishment of anything requires a sufficient period of time in which to accomplish it.”  When your schedule is full, you will be unable to make new promises without modifying or revoking existing promises. Use your schedule as a guide to when you can say yes, and what conditions you must apply to the agreements you make.

This will put your all of your communication skills to work. You can make requests for resources and support, decline to take on something you know you cannot deliver, and make requests to change agreements on due dates for promises you have made with other people.

Conclusion

The biggest challenge to our personal performance is finding ourselves overcommitted because we have (1) failed to keep a good record of everything we have promised, (2) underestimated the amount of time a job will take, and/or (3) overestimated the amount of time available.  When we say yes to more things than we have time in which to do them, we are in an argument with the First Law of Accomplishment. This argument is stressful and unwinnable.  The integrity of your scheduling process is what produces your calendar, establishes the validity of your promises, and provides the foundation for your personal effectiveness. It’s best to make friends with the First Law of Accomplishment.

[This article is reprinted from The Great Managing Newsletter, Vol. 9, Issue 22, November 30, 2010 by permission of Jeffrey and Laurie Ford. For additional information, visit www.laurieford.com or www.professorford.com]

Signage is a critical part of an effective infrastructure that allows for “silent” (non speaking) communication.  We rely on signage every day to navigate through work.  Signage is used to guide and direct traffic, get us into and out of buildings, and tell us which restroom we should use.  Signage, in the form of uniforms, also makes it possible for us to know who we are talking to, who belongs to which group, and what people are accountable for.  We depend on signage to help us coordinate work.  Given our reliance on signage, therefore, it should not come as a surprise that failing to play attention to it can create performance breakdowns.

I work on a conference project where people are assigned to different teams.  Each team has a particular accountability and must coordinate their part of the conference with others.  One way we distinguish who is on which team is by the type of name tag they wear.  That way, when the conference is happening, we can tell instantly who is suppose to be in certain places and who isn’t – all without ever talking.

In a way, it is like the way the teams on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier distinguish themselves by the color of their uniforms.  Since the flight deck is loud, oral communication is not always possible or effective.  And, because the deck is dangerous, it is imperative that coordination get done or people die.  One way the Navy accomplishes the necessary coordination is through the use of colored uniforms.

Although the conference I work on is nothing like the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, effective coordination of it nevertheless requires being able to know who is who quickly, and in many cases, quietly.  We do that though name tags.

Recently the client we do the conference for said that a new person was going to be at the conference doing work for them.  “No problem”, we said, “what name tag will he wear?”  Rather than answer the question, they proceeded to explain what he would be doing at the conference and why it would be important and valuable.  They didn’t understand that we were asking a question about infrastructure and they answering a question about activity – they are not the same.

We didn’t want to know what he would be doing, we wanted to know how to “tag” him so that people at the conference could appropriately coordinate with him.  We explained that if he wears a conference participant nametag, he will be related to in one way, but if he wears a conference worker nametag, he will be related to in another way.  No one will ask (or even care) what activities he is engaged in other than as they relate to his name tag.

All this over a name tag????!!!!!  Yes, because that is the power of infrastructure.  It is one of the key elements we use in coordinating with the world and each other.  I suspect that there are far more breakdowns and upsets related to issues of infrastructure that many of us imagine.  In our case with the conference, the client had no idea they were violating a piece of infrastructure we rely on for coordination.  Instead, they believed we were being resistant to the person (“You don’t like him?” they asked) and what he would be doing.  Each time we would ask about the “name tag”, they would try to explain what he would be doing.  We were not communicating and both sides were upset, but for different reasons.

I am beginning to wonder how much things like “resistance to change” or “poor performance” are a function of infrastructure breakdowns rather than motivation, leadership, commitment, etc.  What do you think?

Escape hatches, however, can undermine our success. When it comes to the promises we make, it helps us keep them if we cultivate a “no alternative” attitude in which failure is not an option.  One way to do this is to root out any talk about “I’ll try”, or “I’ll do my best”, or “I’ll see”.  I have a friend Blair who has a habit of saying “No problem” in response to the requests made of him.  When I first heard Blair say that, I asked, “How can you say ‘no problem’ when you don’t know if it can be done?”  His response was “If I go into something with that point of view, I am much more open to what is required and willing to take it on because I was the one who said it wan’t going to be a problem.  This doesn’t mean it won’t take work or that there won’t be setbacks, there almost always are, it’s just that it gives me a different context in which to work than ‘I’ll try.”  For Blair, saying “no problem” was a way of burning the boats.

Another way to create a “no alternative” attitude is to make promises to people you would never consider not keeping it.  Stephanie, a manager, wanted to hire a staff person.  Her boss, however, was unwilling to commit the additional resources.  Undeterred, Stephanie promised that if the goal for which the staff person was being hired was not achieved, then her boss could not only assign the staff person to someone else, but also reduce her development budget (a big deal in this organization).  By making this promise, which her boss accepted, Stephanie was burning the boats.

If you’re serious about making and keeping a promise, take a tip from Caesar: he wasn’t interested in trying, he was interested in conquest.  As Yoda, the Jedi master in Star Wars said to Luke Skywalker “Do or do not.  There is no try.”   If you want more than half-hearted efforts from people, find a way to help them burn the boats.

Here is what Paul has to say about it:  “While I continually ask my boss for deadline and priority setting, I often receive non-committal responses or am blatantly ignored when I attempt to clarify his requests.  He has also taken to using the excuse that his boss “demands it now” and that is why he does it.”

Clearly there are times when bosses are under the gun to get something to happen immediately.  Emergencies do happen and unexpected opportunities arise with short response windows.  When these arise, bosses are completely justified in asking that things be done “now”.  But these should be rare occasions, not standard operating procedure.  The fact that bosses can demand something be done now doesn’t make it good leadership practice.  And passing the blame, as this boss does, only further undermines credibility, reduce other’s confidence, and creates victims who are not accountable.

Habitually asking for things “now” is inconsiderate, disruptive, and reduces the likelihood of getting them “now”.  It is inconsiderate because it denies people the opportunity to plan and schedule their work while increasing their levels of uncertainty and stress.  It is disruptive because these types of interruptions result in missed deadlines on other projects and assignments, lower productivity, and increase inefficiencies.  As a result, things that are wanted “now” can actually take longer to achieve than they would have if planned for in advance.

Habitually asking for things “now” contributes to a “fire fighting” culture where people become increasing resentful (resistant?), resigned, and disengaged.  You can almost hear the resentment and resignation in how Paul describes his response to when his boss demands “now”: “I just pull out my sheet, point to the deadlines, and say “We’ll keep working at it.”

Contrast this with what Paul says about his own use of deadlines:  “I have been highly successful in by cooperatively establishing timelines for projects.  Doing so has endeared me to my resources and I feel they are going the extra mile to meet the established deadlines.  I work at restraining the urges to push the “now” button so that when I do, I get a “now” response.”

There are times when, as Paul says, managers need to push the “now” button.  But it is possible to minimize its use.  One way to minimize its use is to plan. There is a popular saying that “Your failure to plan is not my emergency.”  Unfortunately, for people like Paul, the failure of a boss to plan does become their emergency.

Planning doesn’t have to be an elaborate process.  At a minimum it involves looking at the work that is due in the coming week(s) and making the appropriate requests in a timely manner.  One tool that can support managers in doing this planning is a weekly schedule in which they schedule not only meetings and appointments, but when work needs to be to them in order for them to meet their obligations.  Without some structure for reminding us of what is due and when, managers are left to their memories, which are not always reliable, and can result in suddenly remembering that something is needed “now”.

On the surface, habitually demanding things be done “now” might look like it works.  Deeper down, however, leaders and managers are contributing to the very things that undermine the productivity and performance they seek to achieve.  Leaders who are interested in building engaged, accountable, and reliable performers will reconsider this practice.

I was recently at a holiday dinner reception at the Fisher College of Business hosted by the Dean.  At my table were several other faculty members.  At some point, the conversation turned to a favorite complaint of faculty – “Why don’t students do what is needed to do well in class?”  Now, if you notice, this is a general complaint in that with a few minor substitutions, it can be applied to anyone, anywhere, at anytime.  Consider “Why don’t [fill in the person or group] do [fill in the blank] to [fill in the blank]?”

Examples:

• Why doesn’t Ed do the report according to the specifications so we can move the project forward?
• Why don’t the Democrats/Republicans put more effort into cooperation to get things done?
• Why doesn’t the faculty spend more time with students so that they will do better in class?

What each of these (any many other) complaints have in common is that someone is not doing something someone else thinks they should when and how they think it should be done.  With those at my dinner table, students were not behaving in what was considered by those at the table in a responsible way; they were not being personally accountable.

It was during this discussion that I realized something was really missing – common ground.  The faculty at the table were assuming that students saw the world much in the same way they did.  But they never tested the assumption.  They just held students accountable for not being personally accountable.

The term “common ground” has different meanings.  For many, it means a common or background understanding of something.  For example, if we both go to a professional football game, then we have a common background understanding of what such a game is like; we have a similar experience.  Or, if we both take a course on art appreciation, we have a background understanding in common. Accordingly this meaning, the way you increase common ground is by exposing people to the same or similar experiences and information.

In the case of performance and accountability, however, I don’t think this meaning of common ground is sufficient because it does not necessarily provide mutual knowledge.  Mutual knowledge is another view of common ground in which both parties know the same thing.  For example, if you like chocolate ice cream, and I know you like chocolate ice cream, and you know I know you like chocolate ice cream, and I know you know I know you like chocolate ice cream, we have mutual knowledge.  We both know you like chocolate ice cream and we both know that each other knows it.  We have that knowing in common.

There are two things that make common ground interesting to me.  One is that it seems to be necessary for good communication between parties.  The other is that it is apparently missing for most of us.  Creating common ground takes work – it takes dialogue and really getting to know people.  But rather than do that, we seem to assume that they know what we know (or they should) and then operate from there.  Or worse still, we dismiss their world as invalid.

I have just started my investigation into the role of common ground and how it impacts performance, but what I have learned so far indicates it could be a key ingredient in “misunderstandings” and “miscommunications”.