I was thinking about what I wanted to write next and it occurred to me that rather than diving into the list of characteristics that I need to explain more around the statement I made about the Why
Never lose sight on Why you are doing something, it is important
So what does Why gives us and how does it relate to leadership?
In my view Why we are doing something explains to us the rationale for what we are doing, it explains the goals of what we want to achieve and gives us the guide rails.
It speaks to the motivations, aspirations and outcomes we are trying to reach. If we look at the other three words often used we see that:
“What” tells us what we have done or will do, it is more about the target rather than the journey.
“How” tells us the mechanics of what we did or will do, it about the process and procedures we will follow.
“When” is simply a measure of time, or schedules and allocations to achieve the goals.
Leadership is found in the Why, the ability to articulate Why the organisation, team or individual is doing something, the rationale behind it, the value of it being delivered and the outcomes that are desired to be achieved. It is the inspiration and guide rails, the framework at the strategy and vision level. It is the alignment back to the organisational goals and aspirations, its vision of the future.
It also gives the ability to come back and continuously measure our progress, to understand how we are progressing and if we are on track. It lets us determine if we need to adjust or adapt or let go of what we are trying to achieve.
That last point is interesting as well, letting go. Too often I have seen projects, programs and even organisations lose sight of Why they are trying to achieve something and get caught up in What they are delivering. The What becomes compromised, detached from the Why, and inevitably this leads to partial or failed delivery. How is endlessly refined to hit time and cost targets, people churn ramps up and blame casting becomes rife. The true picture is seldom seen outside the increasingly defensive management layer. Oh, and suddenly there is a spreadsheet to explain everything and all decisions become based on “the spreadsheet said so”. At that point, leadership has left the building…
I can honestly say, from personal experience, that I saw a program where the project managers, of whom I was one, were reporting red and amber. The program office collated these reports but as it would reflect badly the reds became amber, the ambers green. They knew they could fix it and bring it back on track.
The project board received these ambers and greens, and again seeing this as unacceptable and sure they could fix it, changed everything to green and reported to the board. Also, important people had bonuses tied to these milestones…
Each layer forbade the layers below to talk directly to the layer above them. We PM’s sat there watching the lack of action and several us predicted what was happening. We tried to raise the issue but no-one wanted to hear, the allure of green and success was too great.
Six months later it all fell apart, there was nothing to go live with at the first stage-gate, and it became very obvious at that point that it was all lies.
When the board saw the actual reports that we PM’s had been filing (we were the first scapegoats offered up as we were all contractors) they fired the entire PMO and several senior managers but it was too late, the damage was done, several million dollars had been wasted.
As you can see, in my career I have been caught up in or observed projects and programs become so focused on internal milestones, cost and time that they lose all sight of what they were trying to achieve. In over thirty years in IT, I have never seen a program that lost focus on Why ever deliver a successful outcome, no matter how many ways it is painted as a success by senior management with a vested interest in its appearance of success. Sadly the business (or client) ate the ones who suffer from this.
So, how does the above relate to leadership and Why, easy, if the leaders had focused on the Why and were true leaders they would have either re-focused the program or project or had the courage to halt the project or program altogether.
Leadership is about having the courage and commitment to admit to and accept failure and the ability to learn from the mistakes made. It is always about truth and transparency.