The Swing Route

My wife and I watched the new Netflix movie Lonely Planet, starring Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth the other night.  Dern plays a novelist, Katherine, who is struggling to write her next book, so she travels overseas to Morocco to a writer's retreat to "get away" and move past her writer's block.  Hemsworth's character, Owen, happens to be attending with his girlfriend, who is an up and coming novelist in her own right.  Katherine and Owen end up spending a day together on a sightseeing tour, and they end up falling in love.  As my father-in-law used to say, "It's a classic love story.  Boy meets girl.  Boy and girl fall in love.  Boy and girl break up.  Boy and girl fall back in love."

Katherine ends up with a new book and a new partner.  She names her book after something that Owen had related to her from his high school football days, which essentially describes their relationship.  He mentions the swing route in a conversation at the beach, stating that it is a route that football teams use when things aren't going their way.  He goes on to say that the play depends heavily upon the quarterback's ability to trust his instincts, make a quick decision, and follow through.  As Owen puts it, the swing route is all about "finding hope in a big mess" (which again, describes what the two have been going through in their personal lives).

Of course my wife noticed that I was looking up "swing route" on the Internet during the movie.  She asked, "Is this going to find it's way into an upcoming blog post?"  Yes it will and yes it has!  As luck would have it, someone else beat me to the punch (see Aval Sethi's LinkedIn post, "The swing route in football and leadership: Trusting your instincts amid chaos").

If you aren't familiar with it, the swing route is exactly as the character Owen described it in the movie.  It's one of the most effective ways to turn a broken play with a potential loss of yardage into a big gain.  During the swing route, the running back moves out of the backfield and toward the sideline, catches a short pass, and quickly turns upfield (check out a video describing the swing route here).  It's a great option for the quarterback when all the other potential receivers aren't open.

The swing route is a perfect analogy to describe the kind of leadership that is required to thrive in today's VUCA environment.  The leadership "swing route" is necessary when things aren't progressing according to plan, or even worse the carefully laid-out plan is falling apart.  Leaders can and should use the "swing route" when they need to pivot and re-establish momentum.  Going back to the football analogy, leaders use the "swing route" to make something out of nothing or generate small wins (i.e., turn a loss into a gain).  And just as in football, there are a couple of keys to achieving success with the "swing route".  First, leaders need to learn to trust their instinct and make quick decisions, even with imperfect information.  Second, leaders need to trust their teams (the football equivalent of trusting that the running back will be in the flat to catch the ball when it's thrown).  Third, and perhaps most importantly, the "swing route" requires flexibility, adaptability, and a little creativity.

No risk, no leadership

I read a great article by Darren Walker, who is soon to be the retired President of the Ford Foundation, in The New York Times, "There is no leadership without risk".  His opening statement is profound in both its truth and its implication: "There has never been a more difficult time to lead anything..."  As I have stated in a number of recent posts, we live in a world characterized by the acronym VUCA, i.e. one that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.  Walker suggests that at a time when leadership is needed the most, individuals are asking legitimate questions such as "Why would I even want to be a leader?"  He calls it a "gathering crisis of leadership" and further suggests that the societal and cultural norms today often "discourage the courage that is essential to effective leadership."

Walker further states that "courageous, moral leadership...challenges us to recognize that bringing light is often worth enduring the heat, especially in moments of profound challenge" like what exists today in our VUCA world.  We need leaders who are not afraid to embrace complexity, leaders who are not afraid to take risks.  Leadership in our VUCA world requires courage, and as Walker ends his article, "No courage? No leadership.  We cannot move forward, however unevenly, without courageous visionaries blazing new paths that illuminate the way for all of us to follow."

"It is not necessary to change..."

I have stated over and over again in this blog that leading and managing change is perhaps one of the most difficult, but also the important jobs for leaders.  To this end, W. Edwards Deming said that "It is not necessary to change.  Survival is not mandatory."  Winston Churchill said, "To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often."  Unfortunately, most organization-wide change initiatives fail.  Countless numbers of books, articles, white papers, and blogs have been written on how to effectively lead and manage change.  Perhaps the volume of literature on change management is a reflection of the fact that nobody really knows how to do it effectively and successfully.

The management consulting firm Bain & Company surveyed transformation initiatives of 300 large companies worldwide in 2013 and 2023.  They defined "failure" as achieving less than half of what the leaders of the transformation initiative were targeting.  While just over 1/3 (38%) of all transformation initiatives failed in 2013, the percentage of organizational transformation initiatives that failed in 2023 improved to thirteen percent.  While this is certainly an improvement, Bain & Company also noted that the percentage of transformation initiatives with only marginal outcomes (defined as achieving more than 50% but less than 100% of the results that were targeted) increased from 50% in 2013 to 75% in 2023.  As Michael Mankins and Patrick Litre write in their Harvard Business Review article "Transformations That Work", "Instead of pushing their organizations to deliver more, many senior leaders seem to settle for improved but still unexceptional performance."  

Mediocre results tend to signal to employees that the latest organizational change initiative is just the "flavor of the month" and that if they just wait long enough, the status quo will be restored.  Bain & Company found that only 12% of change initiatives produce lasting results!  And, settling for less only breeds the kind of cynicism that will undermine future efforts at organizational transformation.

So how can organizations do better?  What is the "secret sauce" for successful organizational transformation initiatives?  Bain & Company found six practices that are common to organizations that seemed to have figured this all out:

1. Treating transformation as a continuous process.  While most transformation initiatives are structured as a discrete project with a defined beginning and end, the successful organizations are in a constant state of transformation.  Rather than the "flavor of the month", these organizations focus on continuous improvement and perpetual change!  These organizations are in it for the long haul.

2. Building transformation into the company's operating rhythm.  Building on the first practice, the most successful organizations recognize that transformational change is an important part of everyone's normal workflow.  Improvement is embedded in the daily work.  

3. Explicitly managing organizational energy.  The leaders of successful transformation initiatives recognize that organization-wide change tends to fizzle out when it consumes more energy than it creates.  They identify which group(s) of stakeholders will be most impacted by the change and sequence the change so that no one group is expected to alter multiple routines or workflows at the same time.  These leaders also use rewards and recognition to help build energy and enthusiasm for the transformation initiative along the way.

4. Using aspirations, not just targets, to stretch management's thinking.  As Mankins and Litre write, "Relying on benchmarks tends to confine the art of the possible to what others have already achieved, effectively setting the bar too low.  True transformation calls for breakthrough thinking and pushing beyond current practices."  

5. Driving change from the middle out.  Most transformation initiatives are top-down.  The most successful ones utilize a "middle out" approach emphasizing leadership by the mid-level leaders.

6. Accessing substantial external capital from the start.  Transforming an organization can be expensive, and unfortunately in the Bain & Company study, nearly all of the failed transformations were underfunded and under-resourced.  While most health care organizations won't have access to capital markets, it's important that they provide adequate funding and resources to the transformation efforts.  Relying upon the potential cost savings from the transformation to fund itself is neither realistic nor likely to be successful.  

While this article was likely written for large, multinational, for profit corporations, I do think that the six key practices to success may be applied to all organizations.  We've learned a lot about transformation initiatives in the last 10 years, and it will be interesting to see where we are 10 years from now.  

The memory of a goldfish

It's commonly believed that goldfish have a memory that lasts only three seconds, even though recent research suggests that may not be true.  For example, laboratory studies have shown that goldfish can recognize human faces and even drive a miniaturized robotic car.  Perhaps Albert Einstein said it best when he suggested, "Everybody is a genius.  But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

Building on what is perhaps admittedly an urban myth, I love the quote from the television show Ted Lasso.  Ted was talking to one of his players who had just made a mistake and said, "You know what the happiest animal in the world is?  It's a goldfish.  It's got a 10 second memory.  Be a goldfish."  In other words, learn from your mistake.  Put the past behind you.  Move on.

It's actually great advice.  Just consider what happened on Sunday Night Football on NBC this past weekend.  The Detroit Lions were losing to the Houston Texans 23-7 at the start of the second half.  By the start of the fourth and final quarter, the Lions were still losing 23-13 and their quarterback, Jared Goff had already thrown five interceptions (he had only thrown four interceptions in the entire NFL season up to that point).  Rather than giving up what by that point had been a horrible outing, Goff would lead his team to score 13 points and win the game 26-23.  

It was an ugly performance, but the Lions, who were the NFL's hottest team up to that point, still found a way to win.  In the post-game press conference, Goff said, "Honestly I didn't feel like I was playing all that bad, and I was seeing things well and I was throwing it well...I had some unfortunate things happen early, but I've been through a whole lot worse in that I've been to the bottom mentally.  Some unlucky plays aren't going to throw me off my game."

Talk about a goldfish memory!  If you make a mistake (or commit whatever version of throwing five interceptions at your place of work), learn from it.  Put the past behind you.  Trust what got you to this point.  Move on. 

Just as important is a team or organizational culture that embraces psychological safety, what Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson defines as "the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking."  Goff knew that his coaches and teammates had his back.  He knew that they trusted him and had faith in him, which ultimately allowed him to persevere and stay resilient despite what had been an ugly performance up to the fourth quarter.  If you are a leader in an organization, it's important that the members of your team know and understand that it's okay to make a mistake or to take risks.  Without a culture of psychological safety, there is just no way that the Lions win that game.  The same can be said for organizations...

Happy Veterans Day 2024

Today is Veterans Day, when those of us in the United States of America celebrate all the men and women who have served in the United States Navy, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Space Force. 

Veterans Day was originally known as Armistice Day to mark the end of World War I (remember being taught that World War I ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month?). President Woodrow Wilson issued a message to the people of the United States on that very first Armistice Day, in which he expressed what he felt the day meant to Americans:

“To us in America the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service, and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the council of nations.”

Congress passed a law on May 13, 1938 which officially made November 11th a legal holiday, “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as ‘Armistice Day’.”

Unfortunately, World War I wasn’t the “war to end all wars” as everyone had believed. World War II veteran Raymond Weeks had the idea to celebrate all veterans on Armistice Day, not just those who died in World War I. Weeks led the first celebration in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, a tradition that he continued until his death in 1985. It was President Dwight Eisenhower who signed a bill on May 26, 1954 to recognize November 11th as Veterans Day, a national holiday. President Ronald Reagan awarded Weeks the Presidential Citizenship Medal in 1982 as the driving force for the national holiday.

Importantly, while the holiday is commonly printed as “Veteran’s Day” (with an apostrophe before the letter ‘s’), the official spelling is “Veterans Day” (without the apostrophe), as the holiday is not a day that belongs to veterans, but rather a day to honor all veterans. Also, the term “veteran” is defined as “a person who served in the active military, naval, or air service and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable.” In other words, even if you only served in peace time and never war time, you are still a veteran.

For those of you who’ve followed my posts in the past, you know that I like quotes.  I looked for a few that I thought were particularly relevant for this year's Veterans Day.  General Douglas MacArthur said, "The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war."  The tennis player Arthur Ashe said, "True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic.  It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost."  The writer Tom Clancy said, "The U.S. military is us.  There is no truer representation of a country than the people that it sends into the field to fight for it.  The people who wear our uniform and carry our rifles into combat are our kids, and our job is to support them, because they're protecting us."

Lastly, I want to end today's post with a poem by the English poet Alfred Noyes.  It's one of his most famous poems, and the words are hauntingly poignant for a day to celebrate veterans.  The poem was written either during or shortly after World War I.  The narrator is a survivor of that war, and he is visiting a battlefield littered with the dead from both sides.  It's called "On the Western Front" and its message is important:

I found a dreadful acre of the dead,

  Marked with the only sign on earth that saves.

The wings of death were hurrying overhead,

  The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves;

For the deep gun-pits, with quick stabs of flame,

  Made their own thunders of the sunlit air;

Yet, as I read the crosses, name by name,

  Rank after rank, it seemed that peace was there;

Sunlight and peace, a peace too deep for thought,

  The peace of tides that underlie our strife,

The peace with which the moving heavens are fraught,

  The peace that is our everlasting life.

The loose earth shook. The very hills were stirred.

The silence of the dead was all I heard.

We, who lie here, have nothing more to pray.

  To all your praises we are deaf and blind.

We may not ever know if you betray

  Our hope, to make earth better for mankind.

Only our silence, in the night, shall grow

  More silent, as the stars grow in the sky;

And, while you deck our graves, you shall not know

  How many scornful legions pass you by.

For we have heard you say (when we were living)

  That some small dream of good would “cost too much.”

But when the foe struck, we have watched you giving,

  And seen you move the mountains with one touch.

What can be done, we know. But, have no fear!

If you fail now, we shall not see or hear.

In honor of all those who have served, the living and the dead, we owe them our gratitude.  We owe them our praise.  We owe them our love.  But most of all, we owe it to them not to fail in the task to which they gave up their lives.  We owe it to them to keep pushing for a better world.  We owe it to them to keep pushing for peace.

Happy Veterans Day to all!

Bad Systems Beat Good People

W. Edwards Deming said, "A bad system will beat a good person every time."  He was right.  Three executive leaders from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) (Kedar Mate, Josh Clark, and Jeff Salvon-Harman) recently wrote a digital article for the Harvard Business Review ("To Improve Health Care, Focus on Fixing Systems - Not People") that emphasizes this exact point.  While a number of health care organizations have adopted management strategies such as the Toyota Production System, Lean/Six Sigma, and High Reliability Organization principles, most of these efforts have unfortunately met with either limited or temporary success.  Mate, Clark, and Salvon-Harman studied a number of industries outside of health care, including not only the prototypical High Reliability Organizations in the nuclear power industry, commercial aviation, and U.S. Navy, but also highly performing organizations such as Amazon, Ritz Carlton, and the Cheesecake Factory.  They found that all of these organizations have "focused less on trying to get more from their workforce and more on trying to maximize what they can get from the system."  Importantly, improvement work is considered part of everyone's daily work.  

Maureen Bisognano, a senior fellow at IHI said, "Everyone in health care has two jobs: the job that they were hired to do and the job of making it better."  Mate, Clark, and Salvon-Harman argue that these are the same job as part of a culture of continuous learning and improvement.  A critical component of this kind of culture, however, is having leaders within the organization working to eliminate roadblocks and overcoming organizational inertia.

Leaders in these highly performing organizations spend time on the front lines seeking feedback on how they can redesign daily operations to make their workers' jobs easier and more efficient, which invariably also leads to improved output from the system.  While leaders within these organizations have customized what Mate, Clark, and Salvon-Harman refer to as the operating system to the needs of their customers and workforce, all of these organizations share a few key features.  First, they deeply value both the commitment and passion of their workforce to achieving the mission of the organization.  Second, they understand that organizations can be highly complex and that complex organizations require a system that supports its workforce.  Third, they recognize that efforts to improve culture are meaningless unless there are strong systems that enable the kind of culture that they are trying to build.  As Mate, Clark, and Salvon-Harman suggest, "Seeking a transformed culture without building the systems that enable it is like trying to create music without instruments."  Fourth, and this is particularly important in my mind, they recognize that a "silo mentality" is not conducive to a highly performing organization.  For health care organizations in particular (which were the focus of the article), safety, quality, equity, efficiency, and experience are viewed as important components of a single, integrated, and highly coordinated operating system.  Lastly, the leaders of these organizations believe in true transparency, reporting their outcomes not only internally but also externally as well. 

Soon

I've been a fan of the progressive rock group Yes since my early days in high school.  The band was originally formed in 1968 and has undergone a number of line-up changes throughout its history (they are still playing).  The band is known for its complex musical arrangements and lyrics, with some of their songs lasting up to 20 minutes (far too long for radio).  One of the band's most beautiful songs is actually a part of another, much longer song called "The Gates of Delirium" from their seventh studio album, Relayer.  "The Gates of Delirium" is almost 22 minutes in length, and its lyrics are loosely based upon Leo Tolstoy's classic novel War and Peace.  The final section of the song is called "Soon", which was actually released on radio as a separate single in the United Kingdom and was played live in concert by itself.   The lyrics carry a message of hope and transformation for a better future, where darkness is replaced by light.  The song was released in 1974, which was a difficult time in America and the world.    

Regardless of what you think about the recent U.S. election, I think it's fair to say that we are again going through a difficult time in our nation's history.  I still believe in America.  I still believe that there is a bright future ahead, and I can't think of a better moment to send out a message of peace and hope:

Soon oh soon the light

Pass within and soothe the endless night

And wait here for you

Our reason to be here

Soon oh soon the time

All we move to gain will reach and calm

Our heart is open

Our reason to be here

Long ago, set into rhyme

Soon oh soon the light

Ours to shape for all time, ours the right

The sun will lead us

Our reason to be here

The sun will lead us

Our reason to be here

Check out a version of "Soon" from the band's 1975 World Tour here.