Bursa Snipers
Push Projects To ‘Done’
BursaSnipers
Publish date: Sun, 06 Oct 2019, 04:29 PM
Push Projects To ‘Done’
5 It’s vital to follow through to see a project to its end. Otherwise, you’ll jump from one initiative to another without making much progress, falling prey to what Milwaukee-based organizational consultant Jim Bohn calls “organizational attention deficit disorder.”
Here’s how to keep at it to make sure projects get done.
Stay With It
Leaders need to follow through on what they want to see completed. Bohn said the top people often kick off a major initiative with a big event. But later they figure they can pass it off to middle managers.
“Executives get bored,” said Bohn, who wrote the soon-to-bereleased book, “What if Your Water Cooler Could Talk?” “I’ve seen projects where senior VPs checked in regularly and they got done. But on others they move on because they read a new book in the airport, and the project falls by the wayside.”
Show you mean it. Your people can tell whether you’re going to persist on finishing a project or if you’re just paying it lip service. It’s vital to follow through and hold others responsible for getting it done.
“Really smart people are watching and will know if you’re serious about it,” Bohn said. “You have to set consequences if they don’t follow through. The notion of accountability and calling someone on the carpet is a great skill every leader should have.”
Bounce Back
It starts with the leader spreading the attitude of persisting through roadblocks, says Ryan Hamlin, CEO and co-founder of Kirkland, Wash.-based payments and point-of-sale software provider Posabit. The way you communicate and the way you act says it all. When his firm has a failure such as losing an account, Hamlin gathers the people involved to talk about it.
“Let’s acknowledge it, talk about why it happened and how not to have it happen again,” Hamlin said. “A lot of leaders have blinders on and pretend it didn’t happen. It’s best to come clean.”
The key is to be open, follow through and not jump down someone’s throat when talking about the failure, he says.
Follow Through Amid Failure
Hamlin knows mistakes are inevitable, but he makes the most of them.
“For me, every day you learn something new, and every day you fail and learn,” Hamlin said.
That outlook paid off when he worked at MicrosoftMSFT , where he spent 16 years and was a general manager responsible for a team of 1,500. Years ago when junk email threatened to render email unworkable, Microsoft decided to attack the problem. Hamlin worked with Microsoft engineers on the issue. But as fast as it blocked problem emails, the people sending them out would adjust.
“We’d put up a first defense and they would counter,” Hamlin said. “Then we would adjust and they would react to us. It was like a chess game. Persistence was key.”
Microsoft founder Bill Gates once proclaimed at the Davos, Switzerland, summit that Microsoft was taking spam seriously and it would be gone in two years.
“He made a very bold statement, but he was confident in his people and I would argue we did eliminate it,” Hamlin said. “To me, the statement was we would try things and persevere.”
Ultimately, Microsoft’s leadership helped make spam a minor annoyance rather than a threat to the existence of email.
Hamlin left Microsoft in 2010 to start his own company. It hit roadblocks, but he later helped start Posabit four years ago.
“I tell people in this business, don’t be surprised if the first one fails,” Hamlin said. “It’s the second, third or fourth where you’re going to kill it.”
Give Incentives
If you want people to persist through tough times, reward them when they follow through. It doesn’t need to be expensive. A dinner or pizza lunch to reward those who overcame hurdles will go a long way.
“It’s important to blend accountability with recognition,” Bohn said. “When people do get recognition, they’ll work even harder.”
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