Leading the Natural Organization

A Survival Guide

Topics of InterestUGAA

• Budget Cuts• Becoming strategic advisors• Replacing retirees • Leadership without position or authority• Effective and efficient measures• Facilitating difficult meetings• Resistance to audit finding• Complete management buy-in

Experience With State Government

• State employees are talented• Most want to make a difference, Mission

Driven• Measurement challenge: metrics are us• Worst that can happen drives odd behavior• Silos create impenetrable walls• Who is the customer?

What is a Natural Organization?

• Human nature in organizations• Culture, without leadership• Unchallenged paradigms • Cynicism or empowerment• Politics• Resistance• Breakthroughs

Patterns

• Silos• CYA driven by Worst that can Happen• Risk averse• Surprise, cynicism• Reactive, resistant• Value added?

You Know You’re a Bureaucrat If

• This cartoon makes sense• You follow silly rules and it no

longer bothers you• Your favorite expression is, “We

tried that once and it didn’t work” or, “That’s not my job”

• You don’t care how much it costs or how long it takes

• You think accountability is only for criminals

• Your boss has only 3 other subordinates

• You have an emotional connection to a form

Bureaucracy = Complexity

• Rules• Hierarchy• Silos• Self preservation• No output measures• Weak customer

accountability• Weak performance

demands• Solution: Add staff

Implications

• Entropy increase• Doubling down• Outside intervention• Audit as police• Rules and work arounds• Proliferation of measures• Less value add

Cynicism vs. Choice

• Tragedy retirement• Connecting to early vision• Clarify and inform choices• Real risk?

Strategies

• Budget cuts• Resistance• Management buy in• Measures

Key Success Strategies

• Getting real about who is customer• Getting real about value added• Getting real about waste• Getting real about tipping points• Use process improvement to develop

capabilities

Leadership

• Risk paradox• Connect to higher commitment• Compassion for the inert and fearful• Right bus, right drivers• Tough minded: waste• Compliance with a twist• Partnership vs. Gotcha?

Types of Waste• Too many reports, reviews, approvals. Doing more than is needed.• Waiting for meetings to start. Waiting for information, paperwork, approvals.• Paper-based data transfer. Routing for unnecessary approvals / processing. • Unnecessary steps. Too many handoffs. Lack of standard procedures. Unclear

expectations.• Excessive backlog of work to be processed. • Work not meeting requirements. Missing information. Rework, lost time,

mistakes.• Manual paperwork and data collection systems. Overly-complex computer

systems.• Underutilized people, equipment and facilities.• Customers waiting in queues or holding on the phone. Providing the same

information repeatedly.

Breakthroughs

• Unexpected, beyond predictable• Often viewed as impossible• Moving something important that is stuck

The Top Things That Leaders Are Looking for in Strategic Counselors

• Advice on the spot — Management is a real-time activity. It happens now, so leaving a meeting and offering recommendations later in the day isn’t valuable to them.

• Say things that matter from the boss’s perspective … not your perspective — Put yourself in your boss’s shoes. When you offer advice and talk in meetings, you have to ask yourself — Is this really important? Is this what we’re here to talk about?

• Provide focus — In meetings you may need to pull leaders back and get them centered on what’s important and relevant in the problem/issue you are discussing right now.

• Leaders want help with things they don’t already know — Pointing out the obvious isn’t valuable. What can you bring to the table that is lacking?

• They want options to consider — If you only offer one option they will likely question it to death, so give them other ideas that can work.

• Bosses want help with what to do next — They already know what has happened. Give them ideas on what the organization should do and offer insight about what will happen because of it.

Why Bother?

• Career Stages• Legacy• Retirement Planning• Next generation• Stewardship

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.Maya Angelou, as quoted in The Truth in Words (2005) by Neal Zero

Cynicism isn't smarter, it's only safer. There's nothing fluffy about optimism.

Jewel Kitcher