Recently, I reviewed one of my company's key metrics - the amount of time it takes a client's website to go live from the day he signed up with us. Once again, our average is too long. Breaking down the numbers reveals a common distribution - rather Fibonacci in nature - with about 50 per cent on track, 30 per cent over target but not terribly, and 20 per cent over target by huge margins. This last 20 per cent is causing us to miss our target, and we need to fix it. Right?
So, my cursory review indicated some rather intractable issues, both internal and external. It would take time to dig in and get to the root causes of the delays - and time and energy are rare commodities. As I pondered how to dredge up the resources to "fix" this problem, a memory crept into my mind's periphery - reviews I've read of "Switch: Don't Solve Problems - Copy Success", by Dan and Chip Heath. It's on my Kindle ready to read, but the gist of it is that as managers our natural tendency is to be problem solvers. That's what we get paid to do. But that needs to change.
For instance, often I'd explain to my Pronto team or my previous Microsoft Thailand team that my job is to be a problem solver. Bring me your worst problems, but in your successes just keep doing what you're doing and don't let me get in the way.
But reflecting on the Heaths' observations, I realise that I'd had my focus in entirely the wrong place. Successes got a well-deserved high-five, and problems got my attention. Many of those problems were intractable, involving difficult people, bureaucracy and worst of all, embarking on missions destined for failure. And that's when the Fibonacci curve spirals off somewhere out past Pluto…
Six Sigma training taught us how to identify defects and ask Why? Why? Why? until we got to the root cause - but what about using this method for a success, and getting to its root cause? I never understood success like I understood failure. Success was somehow manna from heaven, to be graciously accepted, and failure was to be rooted out and decimated as the evil it is.
I've now given myself permission to forget about the outliers and focus on the successes - the 20 per cent that beat the goal. What makes those instances successful? Are they different by nature, and if so how, and how do we get more like them? Or were we somehow better, and if so how and why? How can we replicate success? Is there a habit to be learned?
Some of the best ideas to fix problems with our worst performing projects were in fact punitive to the top performing ones. I'm sure these ideas would have had the effect of improving the bottom 20 per cent, but at the expense of at a minimum the satisfaction of the top 50 per cent and perhaps their very acquisition rate - we could have optimised our sales funnel for difficult performers! That was a real eye-opener when I stopped solving problems and started studying successes.
This concept is just as applicable in the personal realm, and got me thinking about the Strengths work of Buckingham and Clifton at the Gallop Poll. Their premise was the same - focus on enhancing your strengths rather than eliminating your weaknesses.
In other words, don't try to fix your problems. You're beyond hope and help there. Just find what you love and do well - and do more of that.
Inscribed in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi over 2,000 years ago was the wisdom, "Know thyself". That's good personal and business wisdom. Within us and within our organisations are great strengths and, sadly, weaknesses.
Our mission includes the introspection required to know the difference, and to balance wisely the investments we make on either side of the ledger.
Derek Brown is the managing director of Pronto Marketing, and former marketing director of Microsoft (Thailand). Follow his articles in the Hi! Managers column every second Monday of the month.