Here are the top ten leader and org dev challenges, as shared with Tilt 365 and I by our clients and our expert community of Tilt 365 certified coaches and consultants:
1. Lack of execution
2. Lack of innovation
3. Lack of autonomy
4. Lack of internal communication and collaboration
5. Lack of work-life balance
6. Lack of retention
7. Lack of accountability
8. Lack of user and client insights
9. Lack of creativity
10. Lack of organizational learning
There are dozens of great productivity tricks, leadership tools, performance metrics, cool apps, etc., that are intended to address these challenges: OKRs, red teaming, ROWE, developing great product managers, mandatory vacations, MTP, OKRs (again), field research, participatory design, and micro-training, to name one method or idea for resolving each of these 10 issues. Happy to help you and your organization with any of these…just message me.
But I want to explore these issues a little more deeply.
As an example, let’s use the 5 why’s method to explore “silos / islands”. Silos are isolated pillars of a hierarchical organization; islands are similarly isolated areas within a matrixed organization. (The 5 Why’s method comes from Toyota.)
Challenge: We don’t communicate well across functions; for example, engineering and sales don’t share information effectively.
Why (1)? We don’t have a process or simple way to connect.
Why (2)? We don’t need to talk.
Why (3)? We speak different languages. Engineering always says ‘no’ while sales always says ‘more, faster’ and promises the customer faster, better, and cheaper.
Why (4)? They don’t understand what we’re doing and how hard it is.
Why (5)? We don’t talk.
Let’s look at another challenge.
Challenge: The voice of the customer is not well-represented in our business.
Why (1)? Only salespeople and marketing talk to customers; internally, he or she who codes, wins.
Why (2)? Putting technical people in front of customers make us nervous.
Why (3)? Engineers don’t understand how to talk to customers and have better things to do.
Why (4)? Engineers don’t care about customers, they care about solving technical challenges.
Why (5)? It’s always been this way.
I quickly conducted a 5 why’s analysis on each of these ten challenges and 5 themes consistently emerged:
1. Agility - How quickly an organization can adapt and shift to context. Too much creates a lack of execution; too little, a lack of innovation.
2. Feedback - How well an organization communicates information. Too much limits autonomy; too little creates silos and islands internally.
3. Purpose - How well an organization defines its purpose. Too many purposes creates burnout and confusion; a lack of and/or weak purpose creates retention issues.
4. Empathy - How much an organization appreciates its stakeholders. Too much empathy eliminates accountability; too little empathy means people don’t care about user and client issues (not to mention colleagues, especially from other functions).
5. Awareness - How well an organization knows itself. Too much awareness stifles creativity by defining one’s role and mission too narrowly; organizational learning and development is limited when there’s not enough awareness.
Many of the challenges had numerous root causes. For example, let’s revisit organizational silos and islands. Surely there’s more to this challenge…with email, mobile phones, chat, texting, wikis, smart watches, etc., there are no technological limits to communication.
Why (1)? We don’t have a process or simple way to connect. (No agility.)
Why (2)? We don’t need to talk. (No feedback.)
Why (3)? Engineering always says ‘no’ while sales always says ‘more, faster’ and promises the customer faster, better, and cheaper. (Too many purposes; no perceived connection between purposes.)
Why (4)? They don’t understand what we’re doing and how hard it is. (Not enough awareness or empathy.)
Why (5)? We don’t talk. (Too much awareness maintaining ‘traditional roles’ in an organization. Not enough awareness of why sales and engineering would be valuable to each other.)
Here are the top ten organizational challenges again with primary root causes. Again, numerous root causes typically contribute to each organizational challenge. In typical Tilt 365 fashion, each root cause is triggered by the overuse or under-use of something that is extremely valuable when used optimally.
Agility
Lack of execution: Too much agility
Lack of innovation: Not enough agility
Feedback
Lack of autonomy: Too much feedback
Lack of internal communication and collaboration: Too little feedback
Purpose
Lack of work-life balance: Too many purposes
Lack of retention: Not enough purpose
Empathy
Lack of accountability: Too much empathy
Lack of user and client insights: Too little empathy
Awareness
Lack of creativity: Too much awareness
Lack of organizational learning: Too little awareness
Implementing cool tools like Trello and WorkLife, ingenious methods like public OKRs and ROWE, and uploading eLearning modules for having critical conversations without an appropriate amount of agility, feedback, purpose, empathy, and awareness compounds organizational challenges rather than solving them.
As CEO of Tilt 365, people are always asking me what makes Tilt 365 valuable and different. Here’s the short answer: our software, training, services, and empirically-validated model address the root causes of significant organizational and leadership challenges: agility, feedback, purpose, empathy, and awareness. Our tools are valuable not only on their own, but also as a catalyst for other tools and methods (like those above).
We also accelerate leader and org dev for high-performing organizations by increasing positive influence and facilitating the creation and development of innovative cultures.
We’re different because our software is simple, scalable, connected, conversational, and positive. We focus on what’s best about you and your colleagues, your natural strengths. Then we allow you to quickly gather feedback at a pace you’re comfortable with, again focusing on your strengths and creating awareness, balance, and agility. This enables agile shifts based on context, candid feedback that matters, inspired conversations about purpose, empathy across your stakeholder network, and self-awareness throughout your organization