Status Checks and Flashlights
Your team is burnt out. They are not getting anything done. Work is "low quality". You can see and feel those things. But what you are seeing is an output of something—the downstream effects of other things happening.
In some companies this is a black box:
They don’t have visibility into what’s happening. But it is not that simple (of course). The outputs are inputs into the black box. And the outputs input into the inputs.
Say the team reactively addresses quality issues. This creates more “work” (the output inputs into the input), but it also leaves the team more burnt out and they make less-good decisions on whatever is going on in the box.
An executive walks in and says “we need visibility of what is going on in the box, give me a status check on everything!"
This doesn’t tell you what’s really going on in the box though—it doesn’t explain the traffic light indicators. You still can’t see what is happening.
In fact, it creates more inputs (more “work”), and stresses the people out working in the box…which becomes another input to what’s in the box.
But now another person gets involved, they say “we should shine a light on what is in the box!” This takes some explaining, because the executive had their red, green, and orange. They had managers giving them status updates. But the flashlight idea sounds reasonable…
So they shine the light! And…
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Shit gets real.
First, this is another input into the box (which isn’t a black box anymore), and that adds stress. When people see what is inside the box, they find it incredibly overwhelming. Seeing the mess causes high cognitive load, which creates yet another input into the box.
The people in the box have been saying this for 18 months, and no one ever really listened!
So in comes the flashlight shiner, they shine the light, and all it does is bubble up all that accumulated resentment. What happens next?
Guess?
The bring in a new manager with low context.
The manager comes to the conclusion that better planning (packing even more work, and relying even more on estimates) will solve the problem.
And our Andon cord puller leaves.
And we go back to our black box—with a bit more process added.
This is addressable (by getting more alignment on the effort to shine the light into the box), but sometimes it is nice to chronicle the problem.
Product-led GTM | Fractional CMO | Empowering leadership teams to accelerate revenue growth
1 年Is the post suggesting a specific answer that actually helps? ??♂?
Software Developer, Geographic Technologies Group
2 年I feel like the end of this blog, is not the end of the cycle. Individuals who have been frustrated for 18 months, see change, hope it helps, but spend 6 months understanding a new persons communication expectations putting it 24 months down the road, and while some things might get addressed easily at first, the longer term communication issues will continue, because someone with more seniority up the chain wonders why the swap of managers didn't just fix everything, didn't we agree at a management team meeting that this would do it, which starts the cycle again. At some point ICs in the unit realize that they are stuck in analysis paralysis, too much time on problem identification not enough time spent acknowledging and surfacing solutions for the needs, and then you see ICs start to leave. New ICs enter, find a mess with even less context or history, some solutions get tried, yet again, and the cycle begins all over again. Man sounds like the plot of a horror novel doesn't it?
I would replace input/output with intent/outcome, that reignites effort with purpose. Want to go crazy, jump to meaningful intent/outcome.
Product manager, IT Management et transformation digitale
2 年I remind me about https://www.la-rache.com/ :D
Senior Product Manager at SRS Acquiom
2 年Ahh yes, I've seen this movie more than a few times. . In my experience it takes a deep commitment to unraveling layer after layer of knots in the system (and the layers of knots below those). The black box thrives when the communication lines break down (just like dead zones on a cell network). In those scenarios, I've found re-establishing trust with the team is a critical step towards becoming a high-functioning unit once again. Team retrospectives can do a lot of the heavy lifting if you can get everyone on the team to double down and tackle one or two problems "for good" every cycle. Some things that can help along the way: 1) Don't try and do too much at once - tackle a short list of specific problems each cycle but beat those problems ruthlessly and into extinction 2) Even if the progress is barely noticeable at first, celebrate small wins at every possible turn to accumulate positive momentum 3) Use every win as jet fuel to power the team into the next problem on the list It takes time, but eventually a day comes and you realize you're a long way from where you started.