4: Clarity - Stealing Underpants Isn't Enough
The author refers to the "gnomes" episode of South Park, in which a tribe of gnomes had a three step plan: the first step was to steal everyone's underpants and the third was to receive a big profit. They couldn't quite figure out what the second step was, but that didn't keep them from working hard at the first. Preposterous as it may seem, it's the way that many firms are managed.
Compelling Vision or Vague Concept?
Many workers go about their business, but don't understand why they are doing what they do. The problem is that no matter how hard or efficiently the employees work, they are unlikely to move the organization forward if they do not have a clear understanding of how their work leads to the achievement of the organization's goals.
The first questions she asks as a consultant visiting a struggling firm is whether each employee knows what the goals of the company are - and if so, does he have a clear understanding of how his work contributes to their achievement. This is absolutely essential.
Clarity is crucial in vision and communication. It can sometimes be a matter of omission - the things you fail to tell people because you assume they already know. Clarity is essential to leading: in order to follow your direction, the direction itself must be clear to them.
Being clear is sometimes hard because it requires us to do some serious thinking about what we wish to achieve, then to be able to articulate it to another person, and finally to be sure that the other person understood.
IMPORTANT: The real meaning of your message is what the other person understood - not what you meant or intended to say by your own interpretation of the message. Making sure you are understood is your responsibility as a speaker, not theirs as a listener.
She describes three facets of clarity:
- Clarity of Words - Getting across what you truly mean
- Clarity of Vision - Conveying a sense of where we are, where we need to go, and how we will get there
- Clarity of Intentions - Modeling the outcomes we want for our team.
Each will be explored in more detail.
Clarity of Words
Clarity of words requires us to communicate explicitly and decrease implicit expectations. Explicit communication is overt and provides sufficient detail to understand exactly what is expected. Implicit expectations are those in which we expect the other party to figure out what we mean.
For example, "please send me a report of our top customers and the details of each" seems like a direct statement. How is this report to be formatted - spreadsheet or text, digital or printed? What qualifies an account as a "top customer"? What details should this report contain? When do you expect to receive it?
The functional problem with such a request is that it provides insufficient information to be accurately fulfilled. The person does not know what you expect, must risk the consequences of getting it wrong, and will likely have to do it over a few times to provide what you really want. The emotional problem is that it creates frustration and fear.
She mentioned using inquiry as a means of overcoming uncertainty, and in this situation, there's a very effective question that the person asked to provide a report should ask: "What, specifically, do you mean by that?" it can be rephrased a number of ways to gather missing details. Also, try this question even when you think you know the answer - and you will be surprised by how often your assumptions are inaccurate.
Clarity of Vision
Clarity of vision means that others understand where you are now, where you want to be, and how you intend to get there. Without a clear mission and vision, a team or a company does not know what goal to work toward. Without a statement of values, they do not know what methods are acceptable or unacceptable.
Merely "to make profit" is insufficient. You must have a specific goal, a timeline, and a plan that is sufficiently granular to give people a specific direction. (EN: One reservation is that the level of granularity can be overdone, to the point where people are following orders that are too specific and give them no opportunity to apply expertise or discover solutions.)
There are two qualities that are necessary to having a useful mission and vision:
- Functional - If the plan is followed, it will achieve the desired results
- Inspirational - It must generate enthusiasm to engage those whose effort is required
To be effective, we must have the ability to create the results we want - but not merely in the short term. We must be effective in the long term, and with sustainability. But prerequisite to this is having a clear sense of purpose. If the mission is unclear, we will be unable to assess whether our performance has been effective, thus unable to assess in advance whether any particular action will be useful.
Mission
Mission is not merely a large-scale goal, but a justification of the existence of an organization. What is it meant to accomplish, on an ongoing basis. And why is it important to accomplish that particular thing? Consider the preamble to the Constitution of the United States - the goals of the nation are the same today as they were over two hundred years ago. In a similar way, an organization's mission should stand for centuries.
People have a personal mission as well, and should consider whether it aligns with the mission of their organization. When the two are in agreement, your career helps you accomplish your purpose in life; when they are in disagreement, you are simply working for a paycheck.
Money is too often mentioned in mission statements. However, money is merely a means to accomplish things - it is used to purchase something - or it is a reward for the things you have accomplished. For that reason, an organization's mission should not be simply to make a profit and a person's goal in life should not simply be to make a lot of money. Money comes and goes, whereas your mission is permanent.
Vision
A vision is a picture of what you want, at a specific point in the future. It is generally longer than a single quarter or a single year, and many vision statements project a desired "to be" state that is three to five years into the future, though it can be even longer. It must be far enough to give greater context to the decisions that you are making for the current fiscal year. Unlike the mission, which has a quality of permanence, the vision can be revised. It will at some point be achieved, or a different vision may be discovered that is more supportive of the mission.
When crafting your vision, two questions are essential:
- What do you want your world to be like in five years?
- What are you willing to give up to achieve it?
Failure to ask the second question is hat makes many visions unachievable, and an unachievable vision is not motivational, and can instead be highly discouraging. To desire something without being willing to invest anything in getting it is not a vision: it is a wish and a dream.
A vision is also scoped appropriately. An organizational vision is something that everyone in the organization can get behind, and can effectively accomplish with the resources they are able to devote to its fulfillment. A department or team's vision must be accomplished in the same way, though it may seek assistance and support from outside. An individual's vision must be something he can accomplish on his own steam, or by collaborating with others.
A few questions to ask on the organizational level:
- What do we want to become as an organization?
- What will be known for to the community? (EN: likely "the community" needs to be better defined, as different groups will regard a firm differently)
- What will we be proud of having accomplished?
A company is an ongoing operation that is involved in the constant achievement of its mission - but the vision represents a snapshot of what the organization will look like at a specific time.
Values
Values describe the character of the organization, and the code of values it will follow without compromise. Maintaining your values should not prevent you from achieving your vision and mission - but they may sometimes require you to take a longer and more difficult path in order to preserve your character.
Values may seem cliche, but are necessary to provide guidance for action. They should be more than just impressive-sounding words. Aligning actions to values helps to keep a company focused on tactics that have long-term viability and will avoid complications that arise from corporate misconduct.
Some values are taken for granted. It is expected that people will be honest as a matter of course. But unless this value is expressly stated, it may be set aside in a crisis situation, or when it's easier to get something you want by being dishonest. Our character and our culture which rest upon our values, is defined by how we act in these moments. It is therefore important to be explicit, as a reminder that values are not optional.
Certain values are more critical to success than others, end should be emphasized: these are the values necessary to drive the firm forward, and that must be practiced consistently to have the culture you desire. Not every firm needs to be innovative - but for some, it is critical.
Examples
That author reads the mission, vision, and values statements of several firms that she feels to be good examples. (EN: I'm not transcribing - they are illustrative but offer no new insight.)
Clarity of Intentions
Clarity of words, as just discussed, ensures that your message is understood by the receiver - but it is possible for a message to be understood, yet the receiver does not know how to react. In effect, you have clearly communicated a message that is not meaningful - and most often, this is because you have not stated your intent.
Communicating your intentions is important for two reasons. First, it enables others to support you in achieving your intended goal - which is critical for those who would support a company or a leader. Second, provided that your actions match your stated intent, it builds trust and credibility. People trust those who do what they say they will do - but the first step in being trusted is to state your intentions.
The author identifies five types of communication: information sharing, requests, promises, self-expression and debating. Only two of these drive results in collaborating with others: requests and promises.
If you're not getting satisfactory results in working with others, the first question to ask is: "Am I making clear requests?" In some instances, you may not be making requests at all, but counting on others to make assumptions about what you want - but you cannot count on people to understand that a statement is an implicit request. In other instances, your requests may not be well-articulated, such that you have asked for something, but were not sufficiently detailed and specific for them to provide it.
Lack of clarity in requests sends people into their animal state, as they are aware that the leader wants something, expect that there will be negative repercussions if his need is not satisfied, but do not have a clear idea of what he needs.
This is a particular problem for meetings where there is no documented agenda - a free-form conversation strays from topic to topic, generating a cloud of information with no clear direction. There's lots of information sharing, self-expression, and debating - but very few requests and promises, which are the two things that drive action.
Information sharing can be highly effective in providing the context and conditions for the successful fulfillment of a request. However, it should be minimized in meetings. In many instances the information can be communicated by other channels (email, reports, etc.) so that participants can review it and arrive at the meeting prepared. Ideally, the information shared will be limited to that which is necessary to support the request - and not buried in pages of irrelevant details. Debating is also effective, if you can keep your ego out of the room. Debating is necessary to negotiate facts or outcomes when here are multiple opinions.
Effective meetings are short. They have a clear agenda, and a clear purpose. Everyone knows what must be discussed before they enter, they arrive prepared, they know what they need to accomplish, meet only as long as it takes to accomplish those goals, and everyone leaves with a sense of clarity and purpose.