I recently had a slightly humorous, but nonetheless, very forceful reminder of the power of repetition when communicating with your team.
In the world of EOS®, we subscribe to the premise that you have to say something seven times to be truly heard.
A few years ago, I traveled to Green Bay, WI to see the Bears play the Packers on a Monday night.
My son and I made the trip with my wife’s brother and his son, who live in the LA area but somehow are huge Packers fans. When we arrived at the stadium on Sunday afternoon for a tour, my nephew said, “Look at the clock.” I said, “Okay, it’s 1:15.” Then he said, “Look at your watch.” I saw it was 1:00 and remembered about “Lombardi Time.”
Recently, one of our client teams found themselves facing a difficult decision.
They realized that two functions they’d always kept separate really belonged under one leader. Keeping them separate created unnecessary complexity, causing extensive debates about overlapping resources, workflow and priorities. Combining them would eliminate confusion, increase speed and quality, and make the company more responsive to its customers. That part was easy.
The hard part?
My son didn’t like what he heard from me, so he went to his mom and got the answer he wanted. We call this “the end-run,” — it also happens in business.
For example, have you ever experienced dissension in your organization where employees sided with one leader over the other? It’s like a reality show where alliances are created to overtake the other party.
I often remind my clients that an issue is just that… an issue.
In other words, there is nothing they can’t solve. It’s simply that some issues are bigger and more emotionally charged than others.
People issues usually top the list as the toughest to take on. Many leaders delay addressing these problems because they fear they will be painful and result in unpleasant outcomes. Good problem solving is like reaching the eye of a hurricane.
In the past several years, I have been regularly impressed by leadership teams that have achieved “big” things.
At the front end looking forward, it was logical for each team, based upon their history, to conclude, “There’s no way we’ll do this.”
So what made the difference? How did these teams of ordinary people succeed?
