Episode 4

Jesse Favre: Have you ever been on a team that faced perfection paralysis? If so, this episode is for you. What keeps smart teams from moving forward? Well, it's very rarely a lack of ideas. It's perfectionism, anxiety, and this feeling that your strategy has to be airtight. Before you can actually get started today, we're welcoming a very special guest, Ken Moire, a fractional strategist who helps teams make sense of the mess. After growing an agency and passing the torch, Ken now consults as a fractional strategy officer, diving into corporations, small businesses and startups, to align CX brand and tech. Today, Ken is going to get into some of the very common reasons that teams stall and how he identifies the very first domino that then unlocks forward movement towards established KPIs. Are you ready to make "Own The Mess" your workplace mantra? Let's dive in. Ken, welcome to Inside the Team. It's a pleasure to have you here. Ken Moire: Thanks for having me. Jesse Favre: Yeah. So Ken, you often have a phrase that businesses are messy because people are messy. Talk to me about what that means. Ken Moire: Human nature is messy. We all have challenges, uniqueness, strengths, weaknesses, of course, businesses are the same thing, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. You know, messes are the raw materials that you have to work with, and it's nothing to be ashamed of or sweep under the rug or put in the closet. We should bring all of the mess out into the open so that we can discuss it, put a name to it, and then solve it. Jesse Favre: So if businesses are messy, then I assume strategy is probably a little bit messy as well. What happens when people try to pretend that it's not or make it something that's airtight? Ken Moire: Good question. I think that if it's not messy, you're probably not doing it right. And I think that if it doesn't get messy, you're probably just putting on theater versus doing the strategy and doing the hard work. I think that messes are inherent in any business and value, and so you have to address it one at a time. And the idea is to make the messes okay to talk about. Jesse Favre: I know for a lot of people, they get this very visceral reaction when they think about failure. In fact, when I've worked with high performing teams, a lot of times it's actually the perfectionism that paralyzes them. They can't move forward. How do you move a team through that? Ken Moire: Yeah. You know, perfection is really the enemy of progress because I've seen the best plans that are, you know, pixel perfect. They've covered every ground. You've taken a year to do the research and put together the presentations at the executive levels. And I think that by the time you're finished with all that, the playing field has already moved on you. And the plan that you've put in place is probably nothing that you can drive on anymore because things move so rapidly now. And that's why perfection should not be the goal. Strategy is really about making something better tomorrow than it is today. And I think the goal is to create a map to know where you're going, but to create just enough fidelity so that you get there sooner, you get there quicker, and you can start showing some wins earlier. Jesse Favre: So you brought up maps as soon as you said that. I'm such a visual learner, and so in my mind I'm picturing, oh good. Okay. I'm actually really curious. Do you have visual tools that you use when you're helping teams think about strategy versus just putting down the words? Ken Moire: Absolutely, totally rely on it. You know, visuals are very important. Not only does everybody kind of learn differently, I think you need to be able to see the problem. And I think a visual map can really help all the users, business owners, stakeholders, get a mental image of what we're dealing with dealing with the scope of the problem and dealing with all the nuances of the issues. You know, if you look at a Google map or an Apple map on your phone, they don't show you every detail of the map. They show you some main avenues, they show you some landmarks, but really everything else just gets in the way. And when you draw maps, whether it's for geography or whether it's for driving, like I said, or business processes or service blueprints there's a lot of overworking that you can do that really takes away from people's coherence and understanding of what you're trying to communicate. Jesse Favre: And when I think about visual tools and showing the problem, in some cases, it is so helpful to get into the details. If you can show how many errors in rework and over-complexity are in a process that sends a signal. And I have seen teams just go, oh my gosh, we have to fix this. And then what I'm hearing is when it's the map of, okay, now where do we go from here? You've gotta be very strategic about how much you're going to zoom out from that to make sure that there's clarity in that. Ken Moire: That's a great point. Understanding what level we're having that conversation and what level we're solving the problems on is really key. And you could be taking the 30,000 foot view, where you could be getting into a specific process. And I think we're the marriage of standard operating procedures and creating those kinds of diagrams. I know we all geek out on this. They have their place and you know, we can call it double clicking into an issue too, to talk about the processes and understanding kind of what is it today so that we can all understand that. Knowing who the roles are and who the players are when you develop out that map is really, really key to understanding. But at some point you need to step back and understand at what point does that process come into the larger footprint of service within an organization or management within an organization? And so you have to understand not only the pieces, but how they all fit together and the big puzzle to give you that big picture. So I think having an upfront conversation and expectation setting with your stakeholders and saying, we are having a conversation today that focuses on this level of conversation and we're not going to get into the weeds. You know, maybe have a bell or a squeezy toy or something like that that calls people out when we're getting too far in the weeds. Jesse Favre: I love that. Ken Moire: Yeah. Just, you know, something that kind of is a little check that maybe we don't have to solve that problem today. And also let people know that there's, you know, rest assured there's going to be an opportunity to get into the details because I think also some of the anxieties that stakeholders and leaders feel is we're skipping over the important details and sure enough we're not, we're just not there yet. We're going to get to those points and drill into those later. Jesse Favre: That makes total sense. And with stakeholders, I know it's so important to get buy-in. If you don't get that buy-in, you might not get this far in actually executing the strategy. So how do you help make sure that people's voices are heard while also making sure that you're continuing to move forward? Ken Moire: People buy-in is really everything. You can have the best strategy and if less people are motivated and moved and influenced to make the change, it's kind of dead in the water. So knowing who the right people to bring into the room and have those conversations with is going to be key. I think, you know, personally I'm a fan of getting a lot of cross coverage and being as holistic as possible, going upstream a little bit even, and bringing those members and roles kind of into the discussions. It creates some interesting conversations. I think when you talk about leaders who maybe have a sense of personal failure by discussing messes, sometimes that gets sensitive, bringing maybe production people or people in operations into the mix. But I also think it could be a tremendous value when they hear directly out of their mouths, the people who are the front line, talking to customers, dealing with a broken process and really knowing where the pains exist. Jesse Favre: I think that phase of stakeholder mapping is so critical. And yet because we move so quickly in this world, that is one of the stages that I've seen a lot of people skip over and I've been guilty of that in the past, but I've learned my lesson. Ken Moire: You figured it out early. Jesse Favre: Oh yeah, I've gotten to the end of something I think is like the most airtight strategy. I give a presentation and somebody says, well, why didn't you consult with so and so? Or we have a policy, did you not see this policy? You must not have talked to this or that department. You have to go slow to go fast. Ken Moire: That's absolutely true. You cannot have things derailed in the 11th hour when you've put together a roadmap or a strategy or have partial buy-in. Jesse Favre: I learned this in the hospital sector because when I would do service line delivery, like redesign, anything around process improvement, if I didn't bring in folks, like the people who worked in the call center, they may not be in the clinic, Ken Moire: The more support people probably have. Yeah. Jesse Favre: Right. Absolutely. And when I started to realize like, oh, this is upstream, but it's very critical for how we're thinking about how we're designing these services. Yeah. It was like something really switched in the success of things that I had worked on as well. And even going out and doing observations in the call center, going to where the work is actually happening, I think could be an interesting approach too. Ken Moire: One of the challenges with leadership is you have to swim in the waters where your customers are or where your employees are dealing with things. You really have to understand what that looks like to really get a picture and a grasp of where the business needs to go. And you know, in user research we would do lengthy just observations, empathy maps. Kind of understand what they're thinking, what they're feeling in that moment. Those emotional triggers are really things that can drive success on a project. If you just make people think better or feel better about doing something, you can really make a huge impact. I think when they're emotionally invested in a positive way, you get the best out of people all the time. And that kind of energy, and when we go into stakeholder meetings and workshops, you have to bring that energy. Because if you don't bring that energy or show enthusiasm for their project, it kind of just becomes this mire in, you know, dread or exhaustion. Or why are we doing this? This is one more thing. It's going to cost money, it's going to take people's time. We're not really on board with this. When they feel that what they're doing is vital and important in the process, it lifts everybody up. Yeah. Purpose is everything. Jesse Favre: So Ken, I do have a question for you because this has come up just this week when I've worked with different teams. I have had so many people this week bring up that everything feels urgent, everything feels overwhelming. And in some cases they're being told that by leaders everything is urgent. How do you help teams identify what they actually need to do next? Ken Moire: When you're tackling big hairy problems, I think focusing on what's the smallest thing, and think of it like dominoes. Because I think once you get that momentum going and you start showing some movement and traction, I think that's where people feel a little bit better about the process because we can then say, Hey, let's get some winds under our belt. Let's go and look only at two weeks out and let's solve this one thing and see what kind of movement we can make. Jesse Favre: Do you have other tips for teams that are feeling anxiety around this idea that there's so much change that's about to happen? Ken Moire: Change can be a good force. And I think that making people comfortable with change is also very key. So we go back to kind of that mindset and expectation setting of leaning into that discomfort of change and why we're changing, and what things we're going to put in place and what that may feel like when we do change. And I think that continuing to tie it into the goals and the roadmap and those KPIs, that is where data really takes a big role, and saying, no, look, we're being successful. I know change isn't comfortable, but look at the movement we've made in maybe user engagement or click through or conversions. You know, it's working. Change can be a positive force, but it's also okay to be uncomfortable with change. And it's okay to voice that. And I think when you create a business setting, you should have people who can openly express that discomfort. I think also change is easier when you're collectively addressing those messes and solving the change. I think that when people feel that they're all in the same boat, you can kind of weather those storms a little bit easier. We don't want people to be uncomfortable with it, but I think when they can understand together what progress they're making to a problem, I think it can be a really positive motivational force. Jesse Favre: How are you helping to shift teams from opinions toward a more data focused way of looking at things? Ken Moire: I think that data is one of those things that allows us to not get so wrapped up in our own heads. You can get stuck in that way of thinking that any change from that norm that you understand is going to be a negative change. And what we really have to do is show why change can be a very positive force and the data is the thing that really backs up all of that thinking. Jesse Favre: Can you share some boss strategies for managing pushback in a way that's really caring about the people who are in the group? And so I would actually like to play a game and get a little bit deeper into how you would respond if somebody puts the brakes on things. So are you game? Ken Moire: I'm game for the game. Jesse Favre: Awesome. Let's do it. All right, Ken, I got you a gift. It is a bucket of excuses. So this is what people come to expect if they're trying to drive a change in a team. So for anybody that's done process improvement or strategy related work, they're probably all too familiar with what's in this gorgeous pink bucket. Ken Moire: You bet. They're all in there. Jesse Favre: They're all in there. All of it. Every business in the world. So what you're going to do is you're going to pull from the bucket of excuses, you'll read it out loud and then let me know how you might address that if it came up in some sort of strategy meeting. Ken Moire: Okay. I think I can do that. Jesse Favre: Okay, here you go. Good luck. Ken Moire: There's no Halloween candy in here? Jesse Favre: I make no guarantees. Ken Moire: Can you read that? Let's start with number one. Our data isn't clean enough to do anything yet. Do that early work in understanding what that data needs to be, who needs to get it, what system doesn't need to come out of, how can you make it talk nice to other systems that are going to consume that or people who are going to consume that data, and get that all sorted. We need to make sure that it all maps back to the KPI that we're trying to measure. Jesse Favre: Okay. Ready for the next one? Ken Moire: Deep in the excuses bucket number two, we've invested too much in the current system to change now. I think that sunk cost fallacy is really powerful and you know, at some point some executive had to justify the cost of doing something a certain way and they tried it and it didn't work and it didn't succeed. And to say that we need to continue doing something a certain way just because it's what we've known and what we have can be really dangerous. But I think, you know, cost is one of those things that will just keep getting higher if you keep ignoring the issue. And you don't want to look at that same problem a year later to say, Hey, the cost was only this, then if we had made the decision. If we were to address it now, it'd be 10 times higher perhaps. And so you really have to take that head on. I think it's never a bad time to reevaluate things that we've invested in. Jesse Favre: Fail fast. Ken Moire: Yeah, fail fast and move on. Yeah. This goes back to a classic one. We can't start until the plan is perfect. Perfection is really the enemy of progress. I suffer from that myself. And what you learn is nothing is ever going to be perfect and the goal is to go in and say, oh, it's okay that I don't know everything and that it won't be perfect, but it will be good enough. And it will be good enough because people will feel progress. And again, that movement and that direction and trend is the thing that makes people feel better, not perfection. You need to make sure that people who do have the perfection gene, let's call it are heard. And that you understand what points they're making. Because they may see things that others on the team don't see. And I think those are important roles to have on the team, people who think on that level. And I think you have to have a discussion that we hear you, that's a parking lot item. Let's capture that thing because that's a really good idea. We just don't need to solve that problem today. Yeah. But it can impede progress. All right, last one. We don't have the budget, time, or resources. The classic, how do you solve that? Well, I mean, budgets are tricky because we're usually planning these things out, you know, a year in advance. But I will say what is easier is it's easier to have discussions of time and budget when you feel that there's positive momentum and that you feel that change, positive change is really coming to the business. Jesse Favre: Alright, Ken, thank you so much for giving us an idea of how you would handle those different scenarios. For folks who want to keep in touch with you and follow your work, what's the best way for them to do that? Ken Moire: Yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn, Ken Moire, M-O-I-R-E, spelled a little funny. And dabbling a little bit here and there in Blue Sky as well. Jesse Favre: Alright, everybody, just remember you need to embrace the mess. Go back to your purpose and we'll catch you next time Inside the Team.