Why Don't People Buy Into Your Vision?

Source:  pxhere

Andrew Carton and Brian Lucas recently published an Adminstrative Science Quarterly paper titled, “How Can Leaders Overcome the Blurry Vision Bias? Identifying an antidote to the Paradox of Vision Communication.”   They explore how leaders often craft vision statements poorly, resulting in a lack of understanding and buy-in on the part of their followers.   Carton recently summarized the key point of their research in an interview with Knowledge@Wharton.  He describes what they call the "blurry vision bias" that afflicts many leaders:    

The blurry vision bias is the tendency for most people — including leaders — to think abstractly rather than concretely about the distant future. Leaders might invoke vagaries such as “we aim to impact the world” rather than vivid images like “bring smiles to customers’ faces.” Therefore, most visions are, ironically, not very visionary. 

Why does this bias exist? First off, we don’t have direct experience with the future for a pretty self-evident reason: It hasn’t happened yet! So, we tend to speculate about it in very broad, general terms. Although it is useful to think about the future in general terms because it allows for flexibility, the problem is that when we communicate this generality and vagueness to other people, it often has some unfortunate consequences: It is not very motivating because it is not emotionally appealing, and it stifles coordination because different employees have a different understanding of what we aspire to achieve in the future.

I've definitely witnessed blurry visions in many organizations, and they definitely result in strategy execution problems.  One thing that I often remind leaders is that they have to test for understanding and alignment in multiple ways at multiple levels of the organization.   They must try to do so informally.  They have to go out into the organization and see how people have interpreted and understood what they have tried to communicate.  To do so, leaders can't ask leading questions or pose inquiries that are not likely to elicit honest responses.  In other words, they can't ask: "Does our vision statement make sense to you?  Do you agree with our vision statement?"  Instead, leaders need to ask open-ended questions that simply ask people to reflect on what they have come to perceive and understand about the direction of the organization.   In so doing, leaders can discover if a lack of alignment, buy-in, and shared understanding exists.  

Do Corporate Skunk Works Need to Die?

Successful entrepreneur, Stanford faculty member, and lean startup guru Steve Blank has written an intriguing blog post titled, "Why Corporate Skunk Works Need to Die."  Blank argues, "But as successful as skunks works were to the companies that executed them well, innovation and execution couldn’t co-exist in the same corporate structure. Skunk works were emblematic of corporate structures that focused on execution and devalued innovation."  He argues that companies today must master the art of continuous innovation.  Innovation and execution must be enacted together in organizations.   He explains, "To start it requires board support and CEO and executive staff agreement. And recognition that cultural, process and procedure changes are needed to embrace learning and experimentation alongside the existing culture of execution."  I would agree with Blank that companies must stimulate learning and experimentation.  I do wonder whether that can be done by those who have their heads down focused on daily execution.  It's easier said than done, in my experience.  Blank promises future blog posts with more details on how innovation and execution can co-exist side-by-side in large organizations. I'll be looking forward to those writings. 

Playing Catch Up Can Be Very Problematic

You have worked for months on the planning of a new initiative or project.  You have been meticulous.  You have identified the key phases in the implementation process, built a budget and schedule, and marked milestones that need to be achieved at each stage.  You have assembled a terrific team with talented individuals who possess complementary skill sets.  Unfortunately, as you begin to execute the plan, unexpected obstacles arise.  You begin to fall behind schedule, and the results do not match expectations.  As you approach the first major milestone meeting, you realize that you also have exceeded your budget to date.  

What do many managers do?  They try to get back on plan.  They work harder.  They implore their team members to work harder.   They throw more resources at the project.  They try to catch up.  That strategy can be very problematic though. Doing more of what got you into trouble in the first place does not constitute an effective strategy.   Yet, that is the initial tactic often chosen when execution does not match our plan.  Even worse, playing catch up can burn our people out and expend precious organizational resources.   To be effective, we have to be willing to modify that original plan, or perhaps move to Plan B.  However, managers often become overly committed to their original plans.  They don't want to be accused of having put together a "bad plan" for the project.  Instead, though, they may find themselves conducting a very "bad implementation" in part because they are trying to save face. 

Beware of Shiny Objects!

Adam Bryant interviewed Sandra Kurtzig, CEO of software management firm Kenandy, in a recent Corner Office column for the New York Times.  Kenandy offers some great advice for leaders regarding the need to stay focused despite some dazzling and attractive distractions that sometimes appear.   Here's an excerpt:

I don’t run after “shiny objects.” That’s a mistake that a lot of people make in running a company, especially in starting one. They tend to get a lot of opportunities from people who want to partner with them. And these are just shiny objects, because there are very few partners that end up being right for your company. So I’m much more selective. If I hear something, I’m very quick to think, ‘Hey, that’s a shiny object; let’s get back to work.’ I think that’s what’s so distracting to a lot of companies — they see a big customer or some other distraction, and they spend too much time on it and they lose their way. 

I agree wholeheartedly.  Leaders get approached all the time with interesting proposals both from potential external partners as well as from internal folks.   They see opportunities for new investments and initiatives emerging all the time.  Opportunities abound in many cases.  The question is how to screen those opportunities and put scarce resources to work on a few key priorities.  The scarcest resource often is not financial capital; it's management time and attention.   Top leaders simply can't focus on a laundry list of new initiatives.  Leaders also can't forget that execution on current initiatives will likely suffer if they turn their attention to new pastures too quickly.   Strong execution requires discipline not just from the troops, but from top leaders as well.