Unmute. Part 3.
To earn my first CIO job, I quickly learned I needed to obsessively master two specific “soft” skills:
Persuasion. Building buy-in without politician breath.
Conflict. Managing up with my peers & boss.
But here’s the challenge I faced: in the pursuit of tech skills, I could easily forget and ignore my people skills. Then, during crucial conversations, I would be on mute. I was unable to use my voice to create change.
This is WHY I leap out of bed every day now. I want to help you accelerate your career and influence by helping you unmute!
Today is the final part in a mini-series called Unmute. In part 1, I covered a model for persuasion. In part 2, I covered a specific accelerator for persuasion—creating clarity.
This week, I’m covering the messy and complicated world of conflict. Our tendency is to avoid it. When we do, it can lead to painful consequences that include:
Not getting the resources we need to succeed.
Having misalignment and confusion with our team.
Dealing with uncooperative end-users.
Of course, these are just a few of the consequences.
When an IT leader tells me they have more projects than staff or conflicting priorities from the business, I map it as symptoms of a bigger problem—lack of productive conflict.
So, I want to share a 3-step formula that helps you have crucial conversations with your peers and boss. This should take some of the suckiness and uncertainty out of future conflict.
Before using this formula though, be sure to check your mindset. You should not frame conflict as going into battle. Rather, good conflict is about truth seeking and problem solving.
Today’s example explores a top problem in organizations—capacity limitations.
Your team has too many projects to handle. You believe it’s because of misaligned executives who are mandating competing priorities. It’s time to share this news with your boss. In this example, her name is Sarah.
I’ll share the formula first, and then I’ll provide the specific example.
Step 1—Observations. It’s very important to share objective, provable facts first. Don’t label those facts. Using words like risk, concern, and issue remove agency from your boss.
What does that mean? It means your boss is an adult. They don’t want you to tell them what’s good or bad. They need you to share what’s happening so they can determine whether they think it’s good or bad.
Step 2—How it’s affecting the team or business. During this step, never make it personal or how it affects you. Talking about the team or the business is a much better look for you with your boss.
Be specific about the impacts. Lost time, rework, turnover, missed sales, or higher expenses are all good examples.
Notice that morale or culture wasn’t on my list. These are the means—not the end. When we have good morale or strong culture, we are more productive and produce better results.
Unfortunately, many execs roll their eyes at the mere mention of morale. It’s too squishy and subjective for them. Use this knowledge and focus on measurable outcomes instead.
Step 3—Propose two options for a solution. Even though I think it’s a terrible copout for execs to say, “I don’t like when people just bring me problems,” execs do think it sometimes. So we have to short circuit their reflex and get ahead of it.
You don’t need fully baked project plans for the two options. Rather, keep it brief. Show the exec that you’ve thoughtfully considered the situation by providing two meaningful solutions.
So, let’s look at this in action:
Sarah, thank you for the gift of time. I want to share some feedback with you, and I’m interested in your point of view.
[Observations]
For the last 6 months, my team has consistently missed deadlines on important projects. As an example, our eCommerce project is already 2 months behind.
I sat down with my team and asked them to share what their primary roadblocks were and how I could help. Their answers primarily trunked back to competing priorities.
This year, a few exec leaders have prioritized eCommerce. However, a few other leaders have told the team that eCommerce should take a backseat to CRM. And yet other leaders asked for acceleration on AI integration.
[Impacts]
As a result, our team is juggling these three projects. Based on our numbers, here’s how this is affecting the company.
For every month our team is late with the eCommerce site, it will cost the company $200k in incremental revenue. CRM can also produce $200k a month but those benefits don’t take shape until year 2. AI benefits have not yet been defined.
[Solutions]
I think there are two simple options to solve this problem. Option 1 would be to host a stack ranking session with our stakeholders so they can help us prioritize. This should get everyone on the same page. Option 2 is to perhaps add more headcount to the team.
What are your thoughts?
When is this formula not appropriate? Do not use this approach for people who report to you. In those situations, you want to provide feedback and not solutions. This formula is designed to be used with your peers or boss.
Next week, I’m going to kickoff another 3-week series called, Overcommitted. The goal is to leverage persuasion and conflict to solve capacity issues in your organization.
We’ll unpack this case study with Sarah and her team and look at tools & solutions to overcome the dysfunction.
Make it a great day!
