Know When and How to Compromise

Quality as a profession is often put into the position of being the cop or gatekeeper. There are a set of regulations and standards that must be met, and it can be easy, especially early in one’s career and without proper mentoring, to start to see absolutes.

It is important to always have a vision of what good and great look like. But the road to that will be filled with compromise, so get good at it.

Compromise is not a weakness in a quality professional, it is a strength.

There are times when, instead of ramping up your argment fill fore to make a case, it is better to step back and think about where you can comprise and still convince the organization to implement most, if not all, of your ideas.

This is where the change accelerators come in. Articulate the vision, and then utilize compromise the build and evolve the guiding coalition and turn that into an army of the willing.

Pilot programs, soft launches, workshops. These tools will help you find your allies and facilitate a solution.

Part of comprise is knowing what you can and will settle for. These questions can help:

What is the first thing I am willing to cede? It may be the timeline or a small adoption of your solution, such as a pilot project.
What is my backup plan? If the stakeholders don’t adopt my plan but offer a counterproposal, what am I willing to accept and jump on board with?
What is fueling the stakeholders’ reluctance? Ask questions, engage in “yes…but…and” practice.
Can I rework my argument? Is there an opportunity to come back with a revised pitch? Can you simplify or emphasize specific parts of your argument? Can you break it down into smaller parts – such as building blocks – first gaining support for the concept, ten gaining support for the first step to test its success, and then building support for the next step or phase?

Compromise is negotiation, and it requires all your emotional intelligence skills – patience, active listening, respect for the stakeholders’ position.

Have a vision, a plan, can really help. You will never get to 100% of meeting a requirement but being able to articulate what great looks like and then showing a plan that builds at a good clip, that allows compromise, will allow you to make continued progress and adjust as you go. Your systems will be stronger as a result.

Hierarchy is not inevitable

I’m on the record in believing that Quality as a process is an inherently progressive one and that when we stray from those progressive roots we become exactly what we strive to avoid. One only has to look at the history of Six Sigma, TQM, and even Lean to see that.

I’m a big proponent of Humanocracy for that very reason.

One cannot read much of business writing without coming across the great leader (or even worse great man) hypothesis, which serves to naturalize power and existing forms of authority. One cannot even escape the continued hagiography of Jack Welch, even though he’s been discredited in many ways for his toxic legacy.

We cannot drive out fear unless we unmask power by revealing its contradictions, hypocrisies, and reliance on violence and coercion. The way we work is a result of human decisions, and thus capable of being remade.

We all have a long way to go here. I, for example, catch myself all the time speaking of leadership in hierarchical ways. One of the current things I am working on is exorcising the term ‘leadership team’ from my vocabulary. It doesn’t serve any real purpose and it fundamentally puts the idea of leadership as a hierarchical entity.

Another thing I am working on is to tackle the thorn of positional authority, the idea that the higher the rank in the organization the more decision-making authority you have. Which is absurd. In every organization, I’ve been in people have positions of authority that cover areas they do not have the education, experience, and training to make decisions in. This is why we need to have clear decision matrixes, establish empowered process owners and drive democratic leadership throughout the organization.

ASQ Webinar August 4, 2021

I am speaking with the ASQ’s Human Developlement and Leadership Division on August 4th at 3 pm eastern on “Trust & Adaptability: Servant Leadership Lessons from Joining an Organization During a Pandemic” exploring from what Steven M. R. Covey wrote in Ken Blanchard and Renee’s Broadwell’s book Servant Leadership in Action that the key outcome for a servant leader is trust. Trust and servant leadership are both built on intent. The Trust built will allow your organization to be more adaptable. Adaptability builds resilience and allows innovation and transformation.

This talk will mostly focus on my continual learnings as I’ve worked, and usually struggled, to build trust during this pandemic in an environment where I’ve never met most of my co-workers.

Registration Link is https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5744331842761271563

Reintroductions

When I first joined my current company I spent a lot of time introducing myself. I’ve been here now a year, and there are new folks, new relationships and most important we are getting ready to change our way of working by introducing hybrid work.

As a leader it’s important to be honest in who you are and how you work. The best technique I’ve seen for this is a user manual, a quick way to express what works and what does not work for interacting with me.

Mine looks like this:

I’ll be updating this as part of my team establishing a new team governance charter.

Change Strategies for Accelerating Changes

The five change strategies that leaders can utilize:

Directive strategy – the manager uses his authority and imposes change with little or no involvement of other people.
Expert strategy – usually involves expertise to manage and solve technical problems that result from the change.
Negotiating strategy – manager shows willingness to negotiate and bargain in order to effect change with timely adjustments and concessions.
Educative strategy – when the manager plans to change peoples’ values and beliefs.
Participative strategy – when the manager stresses the full involvement of all of those involved and affected by the anticipated changes.

These are not mutually exclusive. It is not uncommon to use 2 or 3 or even all five on larger, more complicated changes.