In this blog I want to talk a little about the relationship between being fast or Agile and how you manage information at work.  If you extrapolate the Agile orientation to business process, it comes up looking like businesses who are focused, effectively using feedback and very small teams and anchor their step-by-step process with concrete deliverables, and ultimately are Fast . 

 

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With respect to information and time, you can certainly go fast by ignoring or not bothering to update information (use what’s worked before, personal preference, etc.).  This looks very quickly like the Fire – Ready – Aim process, and ultimately the results aren’t so good, and give this mode of being fast a bad name.

On the other hand, if information is overemphasized, if you demand a really complete discovery of information, it usually means you can’t go fast.  It’s easy to ask for more information than is readily available or even produceable based upon what’s known and what’s being measured.  Asking for a comprehensive information review may be necessary, but it always slows the process down, particularly at the front end. 

Ultimately, going Fast is directly impacted by the process of managing information.  In this blog I’ll be covering a few observations I have gathered over the years about how being Fast and Information work with each other, specifically a brief look at three factors that drive speed:  a) the Actionable quality, b) Focus and c) Timing.

1. Actionable: To support speed, information is only as good as is its ability to be converted into action.  Information that informs without translating into action doesn’t help speed.  In order to rapidly integrate and respond to information, you need to break information down to actionable chunks; otherwise you slow the process down.  Most people don’t read a paragraph after 4 sentences, and we struggle even more with retaining our focus and integrating it into actions after reading 40 pages.   Keep the thought short, succinct, accurate, but in 25-50 words or less.   Note: Having many items in a “long list”, gives a certain comfort level because of its “completeness”, but actually forces the user to slow down when trying to actionalize it.  “OK, so what do I focus on today, where do I start, what do I do next?” 

2. Focus: Actionable chunks are directly tied to focus.  Information that you can act on, is information that you can keep in focus.  It looks like clusters of 1 to 3 to 6 pieces of data.  If you remember the movie, City Slickers, there’s the famous line where the philosophy of the movie is captured with Curly tells Billy Crystal he just needs to know what the number 1 thing is, and presumably go after that.  Just having one thing to do, is very actionable.  You can retain up to 3 things to do pretty easily.  As you get up to 6, it gets harder to keep it all in perspective and moving ahead.  You start slowing down.

3. Timing: Information helps you go fast when it comes at the right time.  Searching for information when you need it directly slows you down.  Information given too far ahead of time or after the fact, both rely on the assumption it will speed up the process some time in the future.  That may be true, it may not.   But information in real time, at your finger tips, the sort of information that provides immediate feedback is the type that helps you not only go fast but also be fast.

Bottom Line: Speed and managing information are intimately inter-twined at both a cognitive level, and also at a technology level.  The information and speed relationship is part of the reason I rely upon ManagePro everyday, I need the ability to translate plans into actions, maintain focus and get immediate feedback.  Here’s to your success at being effectively fast and informed. 

People adopt software for different, but not dissimilar reasons.  Geoffrey Moore, in his book Crossing the Chasm, suggests that there are 4 groups that represent the most common differences in motivation and behavior as applied to technology adoption.

1. Early adopters represent a small segment of any organization and they adopt the software if they like the technology, if it combines power with innovation.
2. A 2^nd larger group adopt based upon pragmatisn and power – adoption occurs if it represents a state of the art solution and other leading organizations are also using it… don’t want to get left out.
3.  A 3^rd large group adopts technology because it’s required to complete a function.  Adopting technology isn’t actually very accurate, because they are intent on completing a task, and the technology, is just part of the process, no more or less than the technology of creating round pencil leads is noteworthy for people who use pencils with lead replacements.  They adopt technology when it’s mostly invisible.
4. The final group doesn’t adopt technology, they fight it, get someone else to do it for them or just ignore the requirement to use it until confronted and/or forced to use it or leave.

Yes, people have different reasons for what drives the adoption process, but underneath it there’s a required fundamental shift from old to new, from familiar to unfamiliar that Moore doesn’t talk about.

No one adopts new technology effectively when or as long as they are attached to old processes or old technology if you will.  Jesus commented on the process in a famous parable in the Gospel of Luke, where he stated, “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins (the older they are, the more rigid and inflexible they get), the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins”… he goes on to add “”And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better’ “.

When faced with new technology, it is easier to justify staying with the familiar.  It’s comfortable even if it isn’t the best solution.  The longer you’re satisfied with what you’ve been using, the more likely you are to frame it as a better option than anything new coming down the pike.  Inflexibility seems to accompany a history of some successes.  You might even be willing to get in a fight over it.

Here’s the thing.  New software solutions, and I’m not talking about an upgrade to an existing tool, represent fundamantal shifts.  Users don’t make shifts forward while still hanging on to the past.  E.g. before someone can adopt a new software solution, they have to change their mind.  They have to make a decision to let go of the past solution to make room for the new one.  You have to open your hand to have a hand shake.

It’s easy to spot users who haven’t changed their mind before being enrolled in an adoption process.  They make the old cowboy statement, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink” come to life.  They show up for training, but they don’t use what they learn.  They show up and are not engaged… and sometimes they don’t even show up.

There’s a leadership challenge that occurs at this type of adoption crisis that Friedman addresses in his book, A Failure of Nerve.  What do you do as a leader, with employees who haven’t changed their mind to allow them to adopt and successfully use new technology?  It’s a tipping point, a point of impasse.

It’s a big mistake to ignore the impasse.  To dance around it, to cover it up with more training… thinking maybe they’ll get it this time.  That doesn’t work.  On the other hand, if the staff resisting making the shift are important to the company, it can sure make the feet feel like dancing!

The lack of mind shift actually represents a fundamental break in engagement and alignment.  Something which many leaders, not just technology oriented ones, are discomforted in addressing.  But let’s write that up in the next blog, because it’s something that is very valuable to address. 

To summarize:  People approach software adoption in 1 of 4 patterns.  Underscoring all four patterns is the requirement of a change of mind, a shift from the old to the new.  If no shift takes place, predictably poor adoption success will occur.  Shifts are fundamentally tied to a deeper issue, alignment and engagement.  You want to address it all when you’re leading software adoption.

In the previous blog on tipping points, we covered the idea that when introducing any new system you reach an adoption tipping point.  That is, a point of question or controversy, that if navigated correctly looks like a clear cut-over from one system to another.  If there is not a clear cut-over from old system to new system, no tipping point is reached and in fact the adoption of the new software or system is compromised.  Navigating successfully requires replacing the old with the new.  There is no such thing as “peaceful co-existence.”

Let me summarize with some recurring observations:

·         The tipping point is predictable, it happens every time you’re introducing a new software system to replace an existing or legacy process,

·         Given the inherent conflict between new and old systems, there’s inevitable tension and affiliation controversy around the tipping point,

·         Many people in management are discomforted by the conflict and seek to avoid it (placate, not address, make allowances, go around the issue), and miss the tipping point, and ultimately securing the value of a successful adoption of a new system.

Having outlined that, let me move on to something that you need to know when introducing project (task) or performance management software.   You could say it this way, “There are tipping points and then there are tipping points.”  Yes you could have a tipping point over moving everyone in the organization from one phone system to another; or reports done in a wide array of formats, to one specific template in Excel.  I would consider those small tipping points.  They represent changes, but may not generate dramatic, much less measurable, improvement.  They probably represent processes you don’t measure currently anyway, e.g. if moving to a new phone system, it’s probably for improved convenience and new features, but there’s often not a pre and post measurement of dropped calls or some other metric that’s driving the change.

Let me put this more simply.  Any introduction of project or performance management system will have impact on two core business systems: specifically how email is managed and how meetings are conducted.  Those are major tipping points in every organization.  If in fact the introduction of those systems does not directly impact email and meetings as they touch those areas, you’ve missed the tipping point and have compromised the value of the new system.

Let me give you an example.  Let’s say you introduce a new project and task management system.  Everyone’s supposed to enter and update their tasks in the new software for improved organization and visibility… but

a) In meetings you don’t use this system for tracking tasks; it’s all done verbally, by memory and memorandum

 b) People still assign tasks through email correspondence, of which only a fraction get into your project and task management system.

Guess what happens to the value of the new system?  It’s reduced, it’s compromised… it’s not good.  Some information is in the new system, some is managed in the legacy systems.  The potential for details slipping through the cracks, duplication of effort, lack of coordinated work effort is all heightened.

Fundamentally, if you really intend to drive performance, you need to address the systems and tipping points that are core to two areas:

1. How you manage information around the processes that are key to generating business value and

2. How you manage information in the process of managing the business.

If you introduce new software to manage projects, tasks or performance, there will be a tipping point, or stated another way, there will be a conflict that is essential to win, in one or both of these two areas.  And you must win it (e.g. consistently enforce a cut-over) to win the battle of improved results. To your success in winning the battle.

Do you ever wonder about the basic components or building blocks that characterize when people are improving performance versus when they are not?  I’m trying to describe the way we think and behave when we are making a change to our performance level… or not.  I’m struck from a simple counting perspective, at how often the number three (3) comes up. 

Here’s an example: from a cognitive or “way of thinking/perceiving” framework, identifying your top 3 objectives or goals, seems to be a grouping that works for people.  It’s enough initiatives to make an impact.  The number 3 is also a small enough group that it solicits some important priority work behind the scenes… “Hm, now what are my top 3 goals?”… something that creating a list doesn’t do.

Here’s an example from the behavioral side: “What are the next 3 things you need to do to be successful?”  Again the number three seems to represent a good working number.  Enough content to get something going.  Not over-whelming.  For larger projects, that have hundreds of sub-tasks, we often double the number 3 to get to 6, and ask for an entire project or goal to be broken into only 6 buckets.  This serves us well in helping people both plan and layout that plan in ManagePro, our project and performance management software.

Here’s another look at performance improvement and the number 3 that I’ve had a lot of fun with, but it has to do with sequencing, as opposed to grouping.

Let me preface it with this observation:

Performance improvement happens when you work 3 steps in the correct sequence.

            And this one

Lack of performance improvement is the same 3 steps, it’s just that #2 is reversed with #1, and #3 is mostly bypassed.  Let me explain.

I repeatedly see an important 1 – 2 – 3 step sequence to “improved” performance, maybe to life as well. And this sequence applies to all sorts of areas, but the steps must be applied in the correct sequence.

Here’s an example of the 3 step sequence around which we build ManagPro:

Step 1. Prioritize/Plan your work, Step 2. Work the plan/your priorities, Step 3. Track/document your results

From a time and effort standpoint it looks sort of like a bell curve.  That’s probably only interesting to me, but here’s roughly the same sequence in a way I know you’ve heard before.

Step 1. Ready, Step 2. Aim,  Step 3. Fire. 

Here’s the interesting thing.  Not improving performance, staying with the past, staying stuck, however you wish to phrase it, also works off of the same sequence, but in a consistently different order. 

When you’re not improving performance, you do step #2 first, then do step #1 if you have time, and step #3 usually under deadline or a requirement of some sort.  If performance is really bad, you will see people start with #3, and work backwards one level at a time, usually under duress and with protest.  That means they put together a report (#3) if they have to, actually get a list together of what they are doing (#2)  if they really have to, and actually create a plan (#1) less frequently then their annual physical check-up

Here are some examples of step 1,  step  2 sequences that work best when done in sequence, not reversed. Note that when you start with #2 and say “I’ll get to #1 when I get a chance”, you rarely get back to #1 in a quality way before you run out of time for the day.

Performance Step #1                   Performance Step #2                             Step #3
1. Goal or outcome,                    2. Task/to-do                                        3.  (Finish – as defined by tracking,

1. Commitment, values               2. Go with the opportunity                       measure, document, follow-up)

1. Planning                                 2. Action

1. Plan your day,                        2. Open your email/voicemail

1. Gather the facts,                     2. Make a Decision

1. Better.                                    2. Easier

Food for thought.  What if there’s no mystery about about performance management?  What if it is a dance, a 3-step dance you just need to practice and be good at?

This blog covers both software adoption and any march towards a process improvement. I’m attaching it to the process improvement topic, because next to the “wall” of being able to consistently work a project or goal for 6 weeks, the “dead wall” is just as common of a wall or obstacle, and emerges in tandem with the consistent follow-through wall.

The statement comes from a couple of different Gospel accounts, where a person who is invited to join the group with Jesus, wants to take a rain check on getting involved, while he takes care of his father – until presumably his father passes away. It provides an interesting perspective as applied to the leading process improvement and software adoption experience.

Said another way, it might be represented like this in the business arena: “I can’t engage fully because I’m avoiding (taking care of) someone who actively or passively is not joining the process… who in some way I need to cover for me.” You can substitute a number of other applicable phrases there, e.g. “I can’t… actively support the process, make the needed changes, require accountability or follow-through…” In the end, it all looks pretty similar. When you’re stuck at this wall, you can’t go fully forward, because it would involve a confrontation with someone who is holding you back.  A confrontation with someone who also provides needed resources and services.

This is a common wall that can give executives a dry mouth and weak knees. It typically emerges during the first phase of change and is most commonly represented as someone who is passively or actively challenging the change process. They either don’t participate, or don’t meet minimum requirements, or they verbally challenge the effort or the people driving/sponsoring the improvement process.

AND the people who hold others back are someone who contributes a certain level of value, who wouldn’t be easy to replace. They are often another executive or perceived as a key contributor in some financial or creative way. They don’t comply. What are you going to do?  You feel like you’re being held hostage.

If you’re leading the change effort or the software adoption process and you have an executive sponsor who is struggling with this wall, they will in one way or another lean on you with such people to make “nice-nice”, look the other way, accommodate, turn the resistant person around, make it all better, just don’t make them “let the dead bury the dead.”

“Let the dead bury the dead” emerges in my mind as a quote on this wall. It says, “Either change (improve, adopt, up your game) or leave, because we’re going forward.” People that don’t make it over this wall can’t find it in themselves to make and stand by this statement to the dead. On one or more levels they feel it would cost them too much, create too much risk. They feel their position, their future is too fragile.

Oh, when you’re stuck at this wall, you’ll admit that people are acting like “dead-wood.” You’ll complain that they are acting like anchors and holding the process back… but you don’t want to have to read the quote on the wall to them. When you’re stuck at the wall, because of whatever is holding you, you get busy finding reasons why you can’t read the script to people, instead of standing by it and realizing how important it is and how much it can help you.

Change efforts to improve performance seem to bring the dead out of the woodwork. It seems that if you’ve got some dysfunction going, or something to hide, there’s never such a good opportunity to go into either the passive-aggressive or full attack mode as when there’s a process implemented in which you’re supposed to “improve” your game. Let’s face it; the dead don’t like having to improve.

One of the funny things about letting the “dead bury the dead,” which I’ll interpret for the moment as insisting they change or letting them go away and work somewhere else, is that it usually makes things much better, not worse. In fact if they leave, not only does the world not fall apart, but all sorts of information surfaces about things not getting done, deadlines missed, cover-ups, etc, that were all being managed while the “dead” and their impact upon the improvement process was being tolerated.

Aspirations to improve, to raise performance, whether personally or through others, inevitably lead to two very consistent gateways or walls. These challenges must be overcome if the performance improvement process is to be successful. Let’s go over them briefly so they don’t lurk in the weeds as a surprise to you.

Wall #1 – From Aspiration to Action
Different people run into the first wall at different lengths of time from the onsite of the improvement campaign. The wall looks the same to everyone, regardless of when it arrives. It is the requirement of follow-though in the absence of declining interest. Up until this wall, a variety of motivators can be pushing the improvement process along, but at wall #1, commitment shows up as a very important component of the follow-through required to continue the improvement process.

At this point improvement doesn’t feel like fun or something of interest, it is definitely work. At wall #1, no commitment means no follow-through, no wall scaled, and the improvement initiative is in trouble.

Let me give you an example. If you work out at a club, you’ll know what I mean by the Valentine Day’s effect. Every year the workout area gets really crowded in January with all the people who signed up coming off of New Year’s resolutions.  They’ve all signed up for some type of improvement initiative. By Valentine’s Day the work-out floor is no longer crowded, because putting together 6 weeks of continued work-out commitment represents a bigger wall than most people successfully climb. The work-outs aren’t any harder in February, it’s just that interest has run out as a strong enough driver for the new behavior. It succombed.

I don’t know what the stats are, but it must be at least 80% or more don’t make it beyond the 6 week or Valentine Day’s wall. The blush is certainly off the rose by six weeks and there’s a full acknowledgement that it is work to change. The effort requirement has exceeded the interest level and people are turning back instead of scaling wall #1.

Wall #2 – You and Your Enduring Patterns
Whatever is setup as the first big milestone, discloses two very important pieces of data… about you. The first piece of data is predictive. If you don’t make it over the first milestone and instead have to accommodate, lower expectations, etc; that’s a good predictor of things to come.

Behavior that is displayed in addressing the first milestone is typically not only an accurate predictor of behavior to come, but in addition it often represents the highest level of results. That means that if you only hit 60% of your target in achieving the first objective, 60% probably represents the most you will achieve on successive milestones without a significant change of course – read habit.

The second piece of data is the surfacing of personal habits that function as obstacles to achieving the desired objective. Most people report that these obstacles weren’t recognized or given much weight when the improvement initiative was launched. These obstacles must get resolved, otherwise they function like increasingly heavy anchors, dragging the initiative down to a stand-still or stand-off over time.

These obstacles don’t go away, even in the face of success, they typically require a sustained confrontational push to get over, not a slide by and “we’ll deal with it later” approach.

These type of obstacles, the ones that emerge on the way up and over the first wall include things like: not allocating enough time, or setting an overly optimistic time expectation so now the effort appears to be taking more time “than expected”; not allocating enough resouces; not anticipating that one would have to say No to other priorities; not planning for resistance from others, even attacks on the improvement initiative.

You get the idea. I describe them as patterns, because if you look backwards you realize the emergence of this obstacle isn’t a new thing, it’s something that has been around for awhile and just hasn’t yet been dealt with successfully. Internal patterns often represent the biggest wall to address, despite what was originally planned.

Bottom Line: Every performance improvement effort goes through multiple “qualifying” walls or phases. To not realize or address this reality, means you end up counting too heavily on initial interest, and its ability to predict future wall scaling. It also means you get disappointed. I think the reality is that there is no aspiration at the front end that doesn’t get re-evaluated, re-thought, and importantly re-invested or committed to as people go through the “putting it into action phases”. It makes it less secure for the person leading or assisting the change effort, but also lays out the rules of the game better, so you’re not dealing with false expectations and hopes.

Why doesn’t performance improve sometimes, even when we (or someone else) say that’s the goal? It has to do with us and the obstacle.  Maybe it’s like having a splinter buried in your finger.  You keep fooling with it, but since it isn’t easy to see or pull out, you put off the painful process of really digging it out.   See if the following makes sense.

When performance is not happening, and you’re in charge of the outcome, one suggestion is that there is a significant obstacle in the middle of the road.  An obstacle that is bigger than your resources, the current approach, and the collective intent.

Time to stop and consider two options:
1. It’s time to stop and inspect.  Instead of continuing with whatever you’re doing; instead of proceeding with your world view on what the facts are… STOP.  At this point you and I don’t have enough data, not hard data, on the obstacle, such that we can improve the negative impact it’s having on performance.  We undoubtedly believe we have the facts, but in reality we need to go get data.  Some one, some thing is not responding. 

You need to inspect the obstacle; talk to the people; learn more – enough so that you understand the process, not just what people are telling you.  You need to dig under the surface.  If you don’t, you will continue being frustrated, continue doing what’s familiar (with all the comfort that familiarity brings)… doesn’t sound good, does it?  But we are not through yet, let’s go to step 2.

2.  Part of what keeps obstacles so firmly planted in the path of performance improvement is that we have already decided.  Maybe we’ve already decided that this is the correct approach, or maybe it’s that we’ve decided what “should be enough.”  We decide in our brain, “This should be enough resources, time, dollars, etc. to fix that problem. “  The trouble is, the painful part is, we’re wrong.

But it’s not just that we are wrong, but that we have decided on an approach or level of resources that by definition isn’t enough to remove the obstacle – but is in one or more ways justified in our brain.  We’re no longer in the performance improvement process; we’re stuck, repeating stuff, getting frustrated, but often hanging on very tightly.  Maybe you could say we’re in the performance justification or search for a scapegoat process.  We’ve unknowingly become linked to the obstacle, not the performance improvement.

So what’s the bottom line?  Here’s something to think about.  Lack of performance improvement is an indicator that:

1.  We haven’t researched the obstacle enough; we have hearsay, and assumptions instead of hard data.  We don’t know as much as we think, and it takes time and effort to know more… but we need to go dig.

2.  We’ve under-resourced solving the obstacle problem.  The current level of resourcing reflects not what it will take to improve performance, but what sounds fair in our brain, what seems justified, what feels familiar.  We need to get after it with what its going to take to fix the problem, the obstacle, even if that is 5, 10, 100 times more than we think it should.

Boy it can be messy, but it sure feels good to get that splinter out…

It’s easy to for people leading performance improvement change efforts to get passionate about needed change, talk it up, feel like others have bought in, see the vision, will go the distance, etc. It’s also dangerous. Let me suggest why. It is a dangerous… mistake, because I don’t think vision or a compelling business case or whatever might sound like a higher aspiration actually drives change. I think it focuses a change effort, but it doesn’t drive it, and a dangerous mistake to think or believe that performance improvement efforts are “self funding.” Instead, I’m suggesting that discomfort and what’s identified as the cause of discomfort is the engine that drives change. Nothing else. Without discomfort, things don’t move. Even drivers like the need for high achievement, power, competition, or affiliation on some level get activated to drive behavior by tying into discomfort or anxiety. Anxiety about not being good enough, making enough, ahead enough, having it taken away, losing the opportunity, being under-recognized, not being in control… and the list goes on. So, if we reduced that to something real simple, it might sound like this:1. Discomfort is the engine to drive change and activate behavior, and 2. Other emotional needs or cognitive patterns, such as the need for power or achievement or vision, give it focus or a direction, but are not the engine that drives the process. So where’s the danger? The danger comes in two parts. First in the excitement of the passionate, change agents can forget or overlook this important rule – “Whoever is in power will want to get rid of the biggest discomfort first depending upon the level of induced pain required to remove the discomfort.” Note that I didn’t say they would get rid of discomforts in order of the impact on holding the company back. It’s much more personal than that. People in power, who can authorize spending resources on change, want to get rid of discomforts if the solution or change process doesn’t cause them too much pain in the process. It’s a personal trade-off. It is for all of us. And I’m also suggesting that there’s some type of rating or selection process to compare relative discomfort levels of both problems and solutions ascribed to current outcomes, activities, people, etc.

Here comes the second rule, and more to the point about danger. “The identified source of discomfort can change very rapidly. It can feel like a game of pin the tail on the donkey.” In this game of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” change agents, because of the predeliction to wanting to tell the truth, are by definition a source of both relief and DISCOMFORT. I probably didn’t need to put that in caps, but I did just to make sure you got it. Ok, so the danger is that as a change agent, 1. You’ll tell too many discomforting truths to the people in power, such that you’ll look like a bigger personal discomfort than the problem you intend to fix. When that happens you get sidelined or removed, or 2. You’ll get the high level discomfort abated while in the process of working on larger systemic issues, and suddenly the biggest discomfort is you, your fee, your truth telling. You made the mistake of fixing too much or creating personal comfort up front. Now you stick out like the biggest discomfort. Ah, you’re the new person with a donkey tail on your back. Very likely, someone in power is having to defend you, your idea, the process, the cost, because it is now the biggest identified discomfort, not the performance you are focused on resolving. Now the very effort to reduce discomfort is identified as the biggest discomfort, and guess what? Change process is over… can you hear the relief? Quick take-away, as I’ve taken longer than I wanted to write this entry.

If you’re driving change, remember your fundamental job is to manage discomfort, keep your idea on it, and how it is labeled or focused. Make sure you aren’t identified as the biggest source of discomfort… because you or the process you are driving is likely a relatively painless discomfort to remove.

Initially using a tool like ManagePro exposes more than it changes.
This is a big surprise for some, and a good one to avoid tripping over. By-the-way, the same thing happens when people buy accounting software, ERP software, etc., anything that promises a better outcome for existing processes. You and I buy software like this too, to effect a change. And, the surprise comes from the misconception that sounds something like this: “If I install and operate this software, I will (or they will) be better, we will be changed.” Well not exactly – you’ll actually be exposed! Relax, it is a normal part of the change process. Here’s some examples of what it looks like:

n If you don’t normally operate in an organized manner, using our tools and setting up a database will exposes how unorganized some of your projects are, how they don’t tie together and the absence of linking with a direct strategy. It may expose how little patience you have for the effort to do the work to get organized.

n If you are primarily an ideas person, wishing you could get people to execute better, using our tools will probably expose how much you don’t finish, follow-up and/or close out your documentation. Your database will look like lists of titles with no content in the details field. We call them “naked” goals.

n If you are used to using lists, not plans, to get things done, your database will look like it and expose that it will require a shift to break the habit of organizing by jotting down to-dos, instead of organizing yours and other’s work around desired outcomes and the plan or steps to get there.

Bottom Line: Exposure is a given when pursuing software for performance improvement, the choice is whether you fight it, or use it as an opportunity in support of the goal to improve. It can be a tremendous asset if you use it.

When I think or ready about performance improvement, it always seems to start with setting goals, or a planning process that is heavily weighted on outlining the top goals, objectives or initiatives. When I’m sitting in on such an experience, pretty soon in the back of my head I’m hearing Tattoo in Fantasy Island yelling not “The Plane, The Plane,” but “The Plan, The Plan.” About then I’m starting to get antsy and a bit bored with the process. Why?

You see I think goal setting is another version of Fantasy Island for most of us (including leaders), unless we have a good plan, have enough discipline to work the plan, and are willing to pay the inevitable price that will be required to reach the improvement objective.

When you look at people’s goals, do you see a clear, strong plan to reach them? Do you see a plan that addresses the top obstacles?

What if goals without a plan were called fantasies? Imagine seeing a report of the Strategic plan with the heading of “Corporate Strategic Fantasies” – it might make more sense.

What are you working this month, goals or fantasies, reality or Fantasy Island? Goals are critical, but they sure seem over-rated in terms of performance improvement unless they are supported by a people and a plan.