WHO is actually going to do the work?
"The dream is free but the hustle is sold separately." George Koufalis
Great question, isn't it? I've seen it left unanswered many times. Admittedly I've left it unanswered myself a few times. I learned from it though, and I'm now more conscious of it. This important question goes unanswered in meetings where senior leaders gather and toss ideas back and forth, imagining a future or visioning. Creating vision - discussing an imagined future for a team is important work. Indeed, it starts with that - looking deep into the future picturing a gathering of people doing what is imagined to the best of their ability then codifying it in an inspiring statement - a vision statement. Then the hard work begins.
Who? Responsible leaders ask and answer this question. They invest the time thinking about what people and or systems will carry out the idea put forth. In my small business, I developed a CRM or customer relationship management process for us to manage customers from initial contact through conversion to a paying customer. The CRM gathers information and interactions from numerous sources. It describes interactions and tasks people to engage with our customers as they receive information and make decisions. Indeed, I started by building the process agnostic of people. I was visioning.
I sketched out the flow of a customer through a funnel. Then I searched for an automated tool to create efficiency and record transactions. While doing so, I always had my radar on for ‘who.’ I started big. I got the system right. Then I asked the pivotal question. “Ok, who will manage this?” I was thinking in the singular. Indeed, I own the business and I am its leader and all successes and failures rest with me. However, I like to “pin the rose,” on a single person – a proverbial belly button I can push to get an answer on how the system is running – a person in charge of the effort. This person may be resourced with other people or systems, but they are my single entry point for information and for my guidance to drive the effort.
Leaders should consider gathering people from the rank and file to help them understand the ‘work’ required to drive an effort and ‘who’ might do it. In the Army noncommissioned officers or NCOs were spectacular in this capacity. Nothing gets done in the Army – nothing, without a sergeant and they could give us a big dose of reality on what it took – manpower -- to accomplish our imagined future and how it might be done. Sometimes we learned that we were asking for too much – that the work required to meet our vision was simply too much or that ‘who’ didn’t exist or was beyond our means to obtain such a person. In my CRM example, ‘who’ might have been ‘me’ – symbolic of a small business. Fortunately, I had a person who could manage this process effectively part-time.
Do your job imagining a future for your team. Create and champion an inspiring vision, for it is this inspiration which will foster employee (teammate) engagement and motivation. But don’t forget – someone must do the work.
Make it Personal!
Rob
Rob Campbell