Rules of Engagement - Part 1

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Building off my last entry on Zen and the Art of Project Management, I got to thinking about meeting dynamics. Specifically - creative meetings. When I say creative meetings, I don’t just mean brainstorming sessions with the marketing department on the new ad campaign. I’m also talking about the kind of meetings where we evaluate the company’s past performance, latest progress, and forge a new business initiative. (You are doing that, right?) Some might wonder how this could be a “creative meeting.” It’s an analytical meeting where we evaluate hard metrics of past performance to spell out the future of the company. That is 100% true. However, if it’s a purely analytical venture, we end up simply repeating what we have done in the past to a greater or lesser degree. The conversation tends to stay in the realm of ‘sales were down last quarter, so we need to look at scaling back production for the short term and increasing sales initiatives in these key markets.’ This is not a bad thing. It makes good business sense. But it never innovates. If you include some creative types in the room, they tend to look at the data (in far less detail mind you) and come up with much bolder company moves. It was the creative thinkers in the conference room at Apple that brought that company back from the brink of bankruptcy. Why would a computer manufacturer make a high tech Walkman®?

“That’s not our core business.”

“We don’t do small consumer electronics.”

“It’ll dilute our brand.”

Now we have the iPod®. The best selling consumer electronic device on the planet.

It takes the creatives to think outside the normal business model and test the waters of the unknown. It takes the support of the analyticals to quickly and efficiently ground the creatives, so they aren’t expending a lot of time and money down an ill fated road. The analyticals also keep the core business moving ahead at a safe and steady pace. This allows the creatives to run ahead and try new things.

I was talking to a friend who works for Toyota corporate. He was saying the biggest difference between Toyota and Nissan is that Nissan is always trying to push the envelop. Nissan’s sales figures show that as well. It’s up and down like the Rocky mountains. Nissan has too many creatives in the room. Toyota on the other hand tended to have too many analyticals in the room. Their sales were always steady and growing, but very few people would say they bought a Toyota because it was a “cool car.” The Camry doesn’t really stand out in the crowd.

However, it appears that Toyota got a couple more creatives in the room with the advent of hybrid cars and the Scion line especially. Toyota got wise to the balance and executed it perfectly. They saw an untapped market of young new car owners who wanted inexpensive, cool cars. So Scion was born. It doesn’t say Scion, a Toyota subsidiary. They were smarter than that. Toyota let their creatives develop a new brand, with a small lineup to test the waters and try something that was historically not Toyota. They created a brand of cool, hip cars that are customizable and stand out from the crowd.

Bottom line, if you team up analytical thinkers with creative folks, you end up with a winning combination. But they have to balance each other out. Swinging too far in either direction can make the whole thing crumble.

You’ve got to let each group “do their thing.” The kicker is that these two groups tend to go in seemingly opposite directions and have a tendency to trip each other up as they go. Here’s where the Rules of Engagement come into play. Each group MUST respect the other and have trust in the other. If you set ground rules from the beginning and give each group just enough understanding of the other that there is some level of mutual respect, things go very nicely. You don’t have to “like” how the other does things, or agree with the way they go about it. You just need to know that they are doing their job and more importantly, IT”S NOT YOUR JOB. You stay focused on your portion and they’ll stay focused on theirs. When they overlap, it needs to be clearly defined whose opinion carries more weight. The Rules of Engagement, at their core, are a clear code of conduct. That way, poor personal behavior (which truly affects company growth) is pulled out of the realm of inter-office politics and into the realm of the bottom line.

The funny part about the Rules of Engagement is that even if you don’t believe what you are saying, simply obiding by the Rules of Engagement works. Everyone may know that you are not saying what you really think, but it doesn’t matter. It keeps the peace and your point was made; Maybe not to the degree that you wanted, but it was still made and you didn’t grind the meeting to a halt over your personal point. I’m not suggesting anyone lie. I’m just saying there is a big difference between “Sue, that’s a horrible idea” and “Sue, I see a lot of challenges that we would need to overcome to make that work, but we’ll look into it. Even if we can’t do what you are suggesting to it’s fullest, I can see some aspects that would be of benefit to the company now.” It may be something you feel really strongly about. Sue’s idea may sink the company in two days if it’s implemented. If it’s that bad, there are ways to express that, without pointing it at Sue. Focus on the issue, not the person.

Rules of engagement:

1) Leave your personal feelings at the door. Be objective. Don’t take criticism personally. On the flip side, be aware that you are talking to and potentially critiquing a person. Be constructive, be objective, but NEVER make it personal. Leave baggage, history, and excuses at the door. We’re here to fix the problem and improve the organization, not point fingers about why it didn’t work in the past. If you make it personal, you will single handedly kill that initiative before it starts. You’ll suck all the energy out of the room and the whole meeting will be wasted. Someone will try to salvage the meeting and try to move on. It won’t work. You might as well stop now and try again in two weeks...and it’ll be awkward then too. You’ll also strain relationships outside the conference room. This is the single fastest way to become the office jerk and be the person who kept the company from expanding. DON’T GO THERE.

More to come.