X's and O's versus Storytelling

Usually these are treated as mutually exclusive.

Technical presentations, with exceptions, typically fall in the first category. Details are provided to showcase knowledge and the audience is left to bridge the gap to how the problem will be solved. This also happens when a business case is presented by Subject Matter Experts seeking funding and approval.

Presentations by CEO's and politicians fall in the latter category. These are meant to have 'feel good' outcomes. They are short on specifics but spectacular on entertainment value.

Why not have both? After all, when we are in the audience, we are the 'customer', and we want to 'have it all'.

If we are delivering the message, what do we need to do to both entertain and inform the audience?

Dealing with conflict arising from insecurities

What is more difficult?

1. Dealing with our own insecurities or
2. Dealing with other people as they deal with their insecurities?
   

How do we tell the difference?

Getting to the bottom of this is critical. Solving it is moving towards getting your message understood and accepted and away from getting embroiled in an arguments and misunderstandings.

Use your insecurities to discover your role in creating the problem, suspend judgment as others deal with their insecurities, be part of the solution.

Getting it done

If you want to get it done, there are a few options available:

• Do it yourself: You will feel in control. It will keep you in practice and in touch with the methods and techniques. If done inappropriately, you will alienate others and lose coaching opportunities.
• Delegate: Hire others to do it for you. Has to be done carefully, 'trust' after you have a basis for doing so. 'Trust' is not an emotional word in this context.
• Lead: Influence others to do it. There is often little to offer in return except the perception that the follower is getting something out of following. Don't worry, they will, otherwise they would be foolish to continue following you.

When faced by ambiguous or insurmountable obstacles, pick a path and get started. Mix and match, moving from one to the other as the situation demands. Its annoying to have to change paths, not to mention sometimes it is difficult; requires a change in mind set and an upgrade in skills. But it can be fun when you accept it as reality.

Above all, do not accept or allow others to accept ambiguity or difficulty as reason for inaction or defensive behavior. In executing your strategy, its an amazing experience stare down the fog and watch it lift to reveal wonderful opportunities.

Consultants versus Employees

Some key differences:

• Consultants get paid more per hour.
• Consultants can be let go without a lot of justification and paperwork.
• Employees get benefits, consultants have to get their own.
• Consultants get to (legally) work for multiple organizations.
• Employees have to worry about dealing with organization politics for furthering their career.
• Consultants are expected to be specialized and be very, very good at what they do. Not every employee needs to be best in class in what they do, they need to demonstrate general management skills and depend on collaboration/teamwork.
• Employees can be rewarded in ways consultants can't: stock options, bonuses, recognition, paid vacations etc.
  

Otherwise, they seem to be very similar:

• Both have to worry about contract/employment renewals and finding their next gig. Apart from some exceptions, those days of doing the same job lifelong are gone.
• Both have to continuously provide value: immediate and long term.
• Both have to continuously develop skills to stay current with their chosen areas of interest.
• Both have to show entrepreneurial behavior to make a difference and to move to the next level.

At some level, this could be a pedantic argument. The point here is, employees have a lot to gain by learning from what consultants do to be successful. For certain tasks, the lines between them blur and are irrelevant.

Ability versus Willingness

Once alignment and agreement has been gained on the plan to meet customer outcomes, it is time for the organization to manage performance as it executes on the plan. Since plans are executed by people, there are two factors to consider in aligning incentives to get them to perform: ability and willingness.

'Ability' is a measure of capability to solve problems. It can be and is developed by education, training and experience. In a dynamic world, abilities get obsolete fast and need to evolve rapidly and adapt to new situations. Sometimes abilities take time to identify, formalize and pass on to others. This requires pioneers to excel in adapting to new situations. If abilities are low, provide incentives to develop abilities. Then provide incentives for meeting or exceeding performance targets.

'Willingness' is a measure of determination in the face of adversity. It is a psychological response shaped by many factors like self-confidence and self-esteem. It can be developed by conditioning the body and mind. Low willingness can drag down people with superior abilities (the race goes not to the strongest or the swiftest...). High willingness can overcome deficiencies in abilities (fake it till you have it...). If willingness is low, find out why. Paying someone to be willing is not scalable. Achieving superior performance requires them to be motivated by and enjoy the process of problem solving required to execute strategy.

If you are seeking to improve performance, be sure to first identify which is deficient, ability or willingness. Applying the wrong solution may make the problem worse.

End-to-end

When someone says your solution is not 'end-to-end', are they saying your solution is:

• Deficient in some way?
• They need the solution scope to be expanded?

Sometimes its hard to tell when someone is pointing out a genuine improvement opportunity versus scoring points.

One way to prevent arguments and debates is to define what 'end-to-end' means for the audience. First define the value chain needed to meet a customer outcome. Then pick a starting and ending point for your solution and explain why that is chosen.

After defining scope you can turn your attention to 'how' the end-to-end solution will be build. Some pieces of the solution may be outsourced and others may be built in house. Some pieces may be available off the shelf, others need to be custom built. Sometimes putting together a solution requires new business models and joint ventures.

Use visuals to help the audience see what is 'in' and what is 'out'. Scope may be altered based on capabilities, so the 'what' and the 'how' have to interact iteratively to get the end-to-end picture.

Learn from butlers

To many, the word 'butler' is synonymous with 'servant'. However, butlers are also knows to be very influential over their 'masters'. What makes them successful?

1. They have an uncanny grasp over the issues central to the problem.
2. They have connected the dots and can defend their reasoning and conclusion.
3. They communicate it in a very respectful manner, without grovelling.
4. Their body language makes it very clear that they know what they are talking about while communicating respect. In fact, their displeasure is hard to bear, forcing the 'master' to look at things from their point of view.
   
5. They let the 'master' make the call and even make it seem like it is the 'master's' idea.
6. They are right enough times to gain leverage in the relationship.
7. If overruled, they are ready with a backup solution, without a 'I told you so' attitude.

Solutions are no good if not sponsored and adopted. You will not always be the top dog and get to use command and control. (We will debate elsewhere whether that is a good strategy to begin with)

Learn effective communication from butlers, make your point forcefully without being obsequious or domineering.

Teaching an old dog new tricks

In dealing with a diverse audience, be prepared to work with those who are very set in their ways or who have very strongly held need to be 'in charge' or 'in control'.

The following options would be dysfunctional and are not scalable:

• Open confrontation. If you win, now you have to watch your back all the time. Not to mention, others are also watching and know how you deal with conflict.
• Sabotage and subterfuge. This is same as the previous point, except you are keeping quiet about it. Frankly, this will lower trust even more.
• Retreat or flight. Getting a different job takes time. Besides, what will you do if a similar situation occurs again?

Your specific strategies and tactics will vary. Even if you 'lose' the argument or are forced to comply with a different idea, you can still come out ahead and develop your assets in many ways:

• Be remembered for how you handled the situation.
• Be fair.
• Suspend judgment.
• Offer to help and remove obstacles in the 'opposing' idea.

The old adage, 'if you can't fight 'em (and win), join 'em', is still valid. Do it in a positive manner, instead of becoming a martyr. Displaying integrity, honesty and being a role model is a long term approach and requires sacrifice of short term wins.

Look ahead to see what conflicts could arise 'beyond the horizon' and prepare well. You can out-maneuver your opponents and win them over by offering value and making them successful. Conflicts and misunderstandings arise because your value proposition is not clear or you are not communicating it clearly.

Tasseography

Tasseography is a the practice of fortune-telling by interpreting patterns in tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine sediments.

This sounds crazy, unless

• You believe it and/or
• It has worked for you.

Some examples of complex problem solving which seem mystical:

• Medical doctors diagnosing an illness
• Coaches evaluating an athlete's potential
• An analysis of what it takes to turn around a failing company
• Bringing social change by working to eliminate deeply rooted and dysfunctional beliefs (e.g. smoking is cool)

If you are facing any of these (or similar) situations, you may turn to experts to help. These experts will charge a premium price and not be able to provide any guarantees anyway. (We can debate on whether the expectation of a guarantee is reasonable in the first place, but that would be digressing).

Most problem solving in real life is like tasseography, until the realization sets in that predictable problem solving is a matter of understanding patterns and the cause-effect relationships. Each class of problems have unique characteristics that sometimes requires years of effort to acquire. This means you can acquire expertise in some areas but not all.

At a minimum, you need to spend time to understand the underlying principles behind problem solving in a particular domain. Yes, experts are still needed. But if you don't take an interest in the underlying principles, you cannot make an informed decision and take charge of your own destiny. It may be cheaper to read tea leaves, since the end result is the same as not making an effort to get educated.

Finding the right frog to kiss

In the fairy tale, the princess kisses the frog and it turns into a handsome prince. They get married and live happily ever after.

Strategy execution is not as simple or smooth, here are some obstacles:

• Finding the right frog. How do you know it is the right frog?
  
• Sometimes the only way to know is to kiss the frog. Not all frogs turn into a prince.
• Perseverance and resilience is needed to keep kissing frogs till the right one shows up.

The analogy is not perfect, but its close enough to make the following points:

• If the outcome is to get a handsome prince, is kissing a frog the only way? That is the point of defining outcomes: to discover alternate ways to get it.
• Sometimes you have to take a risk, not everything works out the first time you try it.
  
• The less you know about frogs, the more mistakes you will make. Improve your 'frog spotting' skills.