What To Do When The Music Stops

Part 3 - one set of things people might consider doing.

Sorry this is late – the news has been kind of engrossing.

I’ve painted a picture of a world where economic changes have shaken the table in a lot of industries – and particularly hard in the ‘process improvement using lean and agile principles’ industry. I’ve added that some of the directions the industry is taking – toward employee empowerment that goes far beyond the ‘how’ of work, and toward a focus on the workplace as a nurturing environment sometimes to the exclusion of being a productive one – places agile in conflict with the managers who face the economic pressures of the new era, and who coincidentally decide the direction for change and transformation and who will assist them in doing it.

I think my perception is accurate, but welcome folks who want to poke at it – the only way to sharpen your thinking is in collaboration with other folks.

Where does that leave each of us?

Great question! Glad you asked. I have some ideas.

I want to break this into three parts – one is broad and general, and I think applies to pretty much any employee in the workplace today – I’d argue almost independent of your level or role. One is targeted to folks who have had “agile careers” and are past the entry-level stage. And one is targeting entry-level folks and folks who have been in the market for a while.

Here's the broad one.

First – if you get paid by an organization it’s good to recall that you’re being asked to spend your time and attention to support the health of the organization. You’re not being paid to show up, and if you believe that you are it’s likely that the people who work with you and who you work for see it. A long time ago, I genuinely lost my temper at someone who clearly didn’t think their job was to do more than show up, smile, and do the minimum. They were a very expensive technical consultant, and they lied about something they should have done which meant that our customer took material losses when what they did failed and couldn’t easily be corrected. After that, I realized that (one) of my material weaknesses is that I assume people are highly motivated, and that I’m personally not awesome at figuring out how to engage folks who aren’t.

So ask yourself, honestly, if you’re showing up acting like you give a damn. And if not, ask what it would take for you to.

This applies significantly more to people further up the ladder, because – and I’m not the first to say it – at that level, for what you’re paid, you need to bring game.

Psychologically, this can be incredibly hard – I’ve been burned out at work before, I get it. I’m interested in how other folks have gotten through it.

Second – ask if the work you’re doing is directly aligned with value. What’s value? I had a really smart and tough client tell me once: “If what you want to do doesn’t a) increase revenue; b) reduce cost; c) reduce risk; or d) improve compliance – don’t come and ask me for it.” Those are a really good start.

Do you understand how what you do does one of these things? How you’re contributing to value?

There’s an interesting collision here. Most of us in the workplace report to someone. And it’s is more than possible – maybe even likely – that what we perceive as adding to value may or may not align well with what the person who supervises you wants you to do.

How do we navigate that?

My basic philosophy is to do it transparently.

Me: “Hey, boss. Got a sec?’

Boss: “Sure, but has to be quick.”

Me: “I really want to make sure that I’m adding value here – I want us to succeed and I want to be a part of it. And I know that [A] is really important to you. I want to accomplish [A] and really make sure that you and everyone sees me delivering value.”

Some bosses won’t take this well – particularly if you present it as a challenge to [A] being valuable. I walked out of my initial PMP class because the instructor opened by saying that PM’s should only work on valuable work.

I asked what he thought they should do when they didn’t see the value in it, and he responded “don’t work on it.” I noted that at that moment, I have 5 PM’s working for me, and if one of them did that the next stop would be HR.

So don’t refuse to work on [A] – just ask your boss to help you understand the value of it if you don’t.

i.e. “Be curious, not judgmental,” as someone once famously said.

And here’s what comes next.

Every week, just for yourself, make a note of how you think you added value to [A] and through [A] to the organization.

For the first month or so, they will be awful. Unclear, hard to understand. But use them to sharpen your understanding of how you’re delivering value.
And at some point you’ll be able to use that to help drive your prioritization and decision-making. And about that point you can ask your boss if it’s OK that you send them a little blurb email every week, and suddenly that becomes the center of your bosses and your feedback loop.

If you’re a manager, you similarly need to understand the value you and your team are creating. Encourage your team to start doing this and do it yourself.

These are actually OKR seeds…as you keep doing them and get better, you can start morphing them into actual OKR’s. But now what you’ve done is frame the work you’re doing away from ‘activity’ and toward value.

You’re both improving the work you do by making it more valuable, and you’re visibly leaving cookie crumbs about the value you’re delivering.

And I’m pretty confident that the people who are stickiest in an organization are the ones who are visibly and clearly delivering value.

Third – be ruthlessly honest with yourself about yourself.

I wrote a lot about the book ‘Deep Survival’ because I think the framework it places on people as they make crucial decisions is simple and useful.

The people in life-threatening situations who acted like Candide die, because eventually their optimism gets crushed. The people who act like Eeyore and think everything is too terrible for words die, because they give up.

The people who are clear-eyed about their situation, practical in understanding what they can do about it right now and keep doing what they can when they can do better.

Are you clear-eyed about how you’re doing at work? Or are you Candide ‘this is the best of all possible worlds’ or Eeyore ‘If it is a good morning – which I doubt’? Do you understand the difficulties you face and your own deficits and have a plan for what you can actually do about each today?