Letter 013 - Executive Whiplash
Sometimes, work feels like a rollercoaster. What can we do about it?
Executive Whiplash: the phenomenon whereby an individual, team, or organization is “whipped” back and forth by constantly changing direction from their management layer. Akin to the feeling you get when being lashed back and forth on a rollercoaster.
Likely cause of many late-night working sessions.
Source: My Brain
A couple of years ago, I was on a project where we had to report to three bosses (at the same level). Each of these bosses was extremely busy… So busy that it felt miraculous to get them on one phone call at the same time.
I should’ve known from the moment my direct manager said, “oh, and we have three partners on this project” that I would be entering….
Week after week, we would spend two days working on an analysis or presentation, and get into the following, awful cycle.
Monday: A review with Boss 1, who tells us, “The plan should incorporate the 25-34 age demographic” and then
Tuesday PM: A review with Boss 2 who aggressively says, “I looked at the plan, and why have we added back in the 25-34 age demographic? I thought I told you to isolate out that slice from the plan?”
Tuesday PM: UGH!
Wednesday: And then a review with Boss 3 would say, “Ask Boss 1 and Boss 2 what they think”…. and then
Friday: It’s Friday at 3pm and we finally get them all onto one call. They talk it out, and we have a plan in place: we are going to incorporate the 25-34 age demographic after all…
Following Monday: Boss 3, who was multitasking on our Friday call, says those most-feared words: “wait….team, um: Why are we including the 25-34 age…”
Years ago, after many a week like the one I described above, I started writing out how to avoid the pain of whiplash. I wrote out a massive list that included things like:
Get all key stakeholders in the room on a regular basis, have a log of key decisions and questions and physically document the group’s decision on a slide that you will review at every meeting
Ensure the rationale for key decisions is known, and communicated in an update e-mail / message to all relevant team members
Spend time at the beginning of a project being extremely clear (in written form) about scope, questions to be answered by an analysis, outcomes to be generated by work, metrics that will help you understand if you’re making progress throughout the project itself
Give people feedback when direction is changing too much by simply saying something like, “hey, we spent a decent amount of time putting this together. I’m OK if we want to move in a different direction, but I want to be sure before we throw away this work”
Etc. etc.
But as time goes on, my mind has started to shift towards accepting whiplash as part of work. Maybe that’s a cop-out, but hear me out:
As we spend more time around a problem, we tend to learn more about it, and that increased learning might tell us that our past approach was sub-optimal
Example: On day 1 of vacation, I planned to go sit at the beach for four days straight reading books. But by day 3, sunburn started to set in, and a seagull just pooped in my rum and coke (…this actually happened to me in Mexico one time). After this shitty occurrence, I decide to pivot and go to an art gallery
Evolving your point of view is a good thing, especially when that evolution is going to help you achieve your goal
A great leader will constantly give opportunities for disagreement, and in fact try to tease it out.
On the age demographic example above, I wished one of the bosses would’ve pushed me to give reasons counter to their view. They asked if we agreed, sure, but we really knew that if we disagreed it would be met with frustration.
Very simple tactic to avoid this, leaders: simply talk out the pros and cons! “What are the pros of going in this direction? What are the cons? Can we reverse course easily if we later want to change our minds?”
If whiplash is a part of work, how can we make it feel less shitty? Here’s what I’ve learned from seeing great leaders handle it:
Constantly Reinforce the Broader Context — People like to know why they’re experiencing inconsistency or discomfort. It helps them to rationalize whatever they are experiencing.
A great example is something like, “Our competitive landscape is more packed than it has ever been and we are rapidly losing marketshare. If we hope to remain relevant or market-leading, we have to make some big pivots now.”
Manage Expectations With Your Team — Describe what the team might feel or experience throughout a journey.
Great example from one of my mentors went something like this: “Team, we know the timeline here is aggressive, and we fought hard to give us all more time, but it simply couldn’t happen this time because ____. We’re going to feel tired at times, we’re going to feel frustrated, and that’s OK because we’re a team. And we have each other’s backs. Now, let’s start laying out some ground rules for how we can make this as smooth as possible…”
Be Clear About What You Do and Do Not Know — Most of us are not the final decision maker, and most teams are not going to be in the room where choices are made. And even if you were in the room, you are unlikely to ever have the full picture about why a decision was made. It is important to be transparent about this
Example from my soccer team growing up — “Look team, we are missing two of our key players here. We haven’t practiced with some of you in the positions you’ll fill today, and we don’t know how it will work out. … But what we Do know is that we have a strong command of the fundamentals. We pass the ball well. We have more stamina than the other team, and we have more heart — DAMNIT, We Have. More. Heart!”
(OK, I made up the “we have more heart” part, because I want my childhood sports memories to be excessively dramatized, like Matt Damon moving in slow motion in the moving Invictus — was an hour of that movie in slow motion? I think so.)
Adjust Workload to Have More Wiggle Room — If you know your team is going to be overwhelmed, just get ahead of the problem and start streamlining focus… Start removing things that are not absolutely critical, bring more people on board, help make some part of their process more efficient / less time consuming…
Give Your Team A Voice — Many of us our fortunate enough to work with very very smart, capable people who have the experience and creativity to solve problems. Make sure their voices are heard, make sure they KNOW their voices are being heard… Few things are more demoralizing than feeling like your voice doesn’t matter.
Respond to feedback directly
Positively reinforce people who provide ideas or ways to improve something
Respect when someone gives a dissenting opinion + make sure you’re connecting with your team enough so as to not be totally blindsided in, say, a large meeting where social dynamics can make dissent more uncomfortable
If you work in an organization where dissent is not valued, that is likely a leadership problem… Leadership creates environment in which we all work.
Updated from Beth R. (this woman changed my life), “You forgot to add: Laugh about the whiplash when it inevitably happens’”
Sage wisdom :)
In this world where markets move faster than they ever have (meaning new entrants are constantly emerging, product development lifecycles are faster than ever), we have to expect that the new norm is rapid change at work. If this is true, then instead of lamenting the pace of change, we need to find ways to contend with and take advantage of it.
See ya next week!