Nine Ways to Create Organisational Momentum

It wasn’t until the last few years that I was able to place together a few final pieces that I needed to create impactful changes in organisations. Although I had moved quickly and got a lot of work done, I often struggled to get the commitment and buy-in necessary to make substantial changes and/or got “out-hustled” by others.

My online searches provided me with little help. Generic taglines like “effective communication” and “set clear expectations” didn’t help me in the day-to-day execution of being impactful.

So in order to save you years of pain and frustration, here are nine actionable methods I now employ in every engagement.

1| Have an opinion

You have to believe that are the expert (at least on this) and you are responsible for making this happen. Trust your opinion about the direction and the way that things can go. It forms a strong starting point that you and the team around you can start from. Without it, things tend to take a very long time to get mobilized and results tend to be diuted.

2| Create a Straw Man

A straw man is a working hypothesis created for the purpose of eliciting feedback and debate versus purporting to be a final, legitimate solution. Straw men are useful for a couple of reasons:

1. People don't realise what they like or especially dislike as vividly as they do when they are presented with something that could affect their reality. So put something in front of them ASAP.

2. The creation of a straw man will quickly flesh out your own thinking about the viability of various ideas and fast track thinking about what is needed to implement them - what information, which decisions, deliverables and resources would be needed to make a straw man a reality.

I recommend that you start by working backwards. Start by designing possible solutions that could meet the outcome(s) you are commissioned to achieve and use them to think deeply about the various impacts that each would introduce, their relative degrees of viability, risks, and implementation pathways.

3| Focus on the decisions more than the deliverables

Deliverables are of course essential in creating outcomes, but they are not the thing you most need to focus on for two reasons:

1. Deliverables are generally much easier to define and obtain than decisions;

2. Many of your deliverables will become evident as you understand the input and output of decision making.

4| Limit group brainstorming

Brainstorming can be useful but my strong opinion is that it is most effective when it is focused on a very specific aspect with clear boundaries about the scope of the exercise. There are a few reasons:

1. Ideas and options are infinite. Brainstorming can go wildly off course losing focus on the challenge at hand;

2. It is susceptible to the ill effects of groupthink;

3. You will undoubtedly spend a lot of time afterwards trying to figure out how to use what did come out of the session in a way that moves you forward.

Be selective about who you are asking people to provide input and into what. They are busy and so are you. Trust me - when people see a straw man they are going to give you their very honest opinions ;)

5| Offer the default choice

People will invest more deeply if you tell them "this is what you get if you don't decide." I always start with a clear outcome and pathway that I will simply implement unless key decisions are made along the way. I then highlight those decision points at the start to inform people about where their input is needed. Worst case, if they don't do something, things still get implemented without any risk of tyranny.

6| Focus on the decision points

In the creation of alternatives, I very quickly identify various decision points that will have significant impact on the structure of the final solution. I then invest attention into defining the alternative outcomes that could emerge depending on which direction was chosen.

Here is a practical but very simple example. One of clients was considering the timing of their strategic planning cycles. There was some solid rationale for starting in March and alternatively, for starting in April.

Decision Point: Do we maintain the status quo (start in March) or move the start date to April?

Alternative 1: Maintain Status Quo

+ Avoid holiday gap

+ No change needed

Alternative 2: Delay start by 1 month

+ Simplifies reporting for trimester 1

+ Leverage time already invested in annual planning

- Will need to extend /shorten Trimester 3

etc...

These decision points then form the basis of very focused workshops where we collectively debate the viability of the alternatives and challenge the legitimacy of the pros and cons and even the consequences of various pathways. These are much stronger and productive discussions than if we came into meetings with generic questions like "Should we change the timing of our annual strategy planning?"

To be clear, it is my job to identify and illustrate the potential tradeoffs of various scenarios and also to know very clearly which I would recommend under which range of preferences (risk tolerance, budget constraints, competitive threat, etc). I almost never show up ambivalent.

People are busy and will appreciate your preparation, expertise, and drive.

7| Test your thinking narrowly before deploying it broadly

One of the mistakes I have made is not running things past a trusted team mate or colleague before stepping into larger groups or approaching senior executives with thinking. This is the general approach I now always take:

1. Develop the thinking independently in the form of a Straw Man

2. Circulate that with a team mate to gather preliminary feedback

3. Revise the Straw Man

4. Approach those most critical to the decision 1:1 with the Straw Man revising as needed following each meeting

5. Present the final product to the broader collective as a formality that the group collectively agrees to the outcome. Never jump directly from Step 1 to Step 5.

It is of course normal and expected that in the final presentation / workshop there will. and should be some debate but now you will know what to expect and be able to limit the discussion to the scope of the things that are most important.

8| Get it in the calendar ... ASAP

A productivity hack that has really helped me move quickly is to get deadlines into my calendar immediately... within hours if not minutes of realising deadlines and deliverables. The calendar entries may come in the form of meetings with others but is more often than not they are work periods and deadlines for me to hit in the achievement of those outcomes.

Not only does it keep you focused on hitting your deliverables but it also reduces the amount of time you are available for meetings and activities that are not part of your core accountabilities.

The other benefit of this approach is that when working with senior leaders whose calendars are typically booked weeks if not months in advance, you will reduce your own timelines by getting their first available slots scheduled now rather than delaying the scheduling until you feel that you have finally arrived at the perfect solution.

9| Move faster than everyone else.

Finally, right or wrong, the person who moves the fastest wins. Of course you don’t want to win "the race to the bottom,” but the longer you take to mobilise, the more likely you are to run into the following problems:

• Conditions change thereby negating your thinking and work

• Newer topics become more shiny so attention and resources start to shift there

• People begin to lose faith in your ability to get things done

If you want to create impact, you need to keep up the pace. Humans respond to what causes them the most pain, not to what is necessarily the most important. So you must remain relevant and be present. Get in front of people quickly and stay in their ear.

Off you go

Those are some of my thoughts but curious what you think. What has helped you move mountains?