Chapter 19
Detail
The Momentum Killer: Manage Outcomes Instead
The Cost of Detail
A big issue I see some leaders struggle with is that they are so addicted to detail that they insist that operational details be dragged up and vetted through every level of management and reviewed and inspected over and over again.
The idea that your value as a leader is only highly regarded if you understand a deep level of detail is a false one. To insist that all of your managers must also stay versed in all the detail kills organizational effectiveness, is hugely expensive, and introduces more risk than it averts. Reviewing detail at every level wastes a huge amount of time (everyone's time)—time that is then not spent on moving the business forward.
As a leader, if you think that your personally examining lots of detail is helping your organization, it isn't.
I see this a lot. Progress grinds to a halt because it takes hours and hours for everyone to review all the detail. By the time it gets to the executive, dozens of people at multiple levels have reviewed the detail, but no one has had any time to do anything about it!
One big reason for executive attention to detail is that they don't know what else to measure. So now that I've covered that in Chapter 4: Control Points, you can see that the things leaders should measure are never the details. So the even bigger problem with executives who focus too much on detail is that they are then not as focused on control points and outcomes as they should be.
Never Move Detail Up
A useful rule of thumb is that you should never move detail up in the organization: Insights move up. Detail stays down.
Every manager at each level is responsible for turning detail into useful insights and action plans—these are the things that should be moving up. That's how your organization builds value and makes progress. But some executives just won't accept that.
The more operational detail you personally process and run your staff through, the less likely you are going to scale your business. You just won't have time. You will all be reviewing so much detail that the market will move on without you, and you'll still be looking at phase review checkpoints for dozens of projects and next quarter's budget spreadsheets.
Your managers are not doing their jobs if they are bringing their level of detail up to you. You are not doing your job if you are requesting it. Everyone shouldn't need to keep tuning detailed data and presenting it to executives. They should be focused on doing the work, not creating endless reports about it. As a leader you should be finding another way to get the information you need.
Deal with Your Addiction
As an executive, if you are addicted to detail, it can be scary to let go, and this requires another level of Valor. One of the best things you can do is admit to yourself that your need for detail is for your own entertainment, not because the business needs it.
Sure you may catch someone out or add something in the detail every now and then, but what you are really doing is competing with your managers, and by doing so you are constraining the value of your whole organization. By insisting on remaining the most expert in the detail, you are ensuring that your organization can never get any smarter than you are.
The job of a leader is to build a highly capable team that can deliver, but that can also learn and evolve and get even more capable over time, as we discussed in Chapter 11: Building Capacity. If you keep everyone reviewing detail because that makes you feel comfortable, you are missing an opportunity to develop your organization.
A much better way to deal with your addiction is to allow your managers to do their jobs; question them on strategies, control points, and outcomes (not challenge them on details); and then go right to the individuals doing the work to get your personal, psychological detail fix. At least this way you are saving the time of all the levels of managers in between. You get your details, but you don't slow business progress by involving everyone in all the detail.
When you are talking to individuals, ask questions and listen. But be careful not to overtly judge them and never assign work to them directly. If you discover something you'd like to see changed, make sure the work assignment gets passed down through the management chain. Skipping levels in conversations is fine, but skipping levels in work assignments is never okay.
Never assign work if you are not the immediate manager. As soon as you assign work out of the normal chain of hierarchy, the manager feels dis-empowered and the employee feels confused and stressed, not knowing whom they should listen to and what they should prioritize.
What About Google and Microsoft?
I often get questions about Google and Microsoft, who are legendary for having top executives who remain fully versed in huge amounts of detail.
There are two important points here. These companies are unique, vivid examples and as such are not great comparisons. But if you still want to look to them as a model, it's critical to note that an additional part of their cultures is very empowering to the individuals. Although the executives can handle the detail, they don't do it in a way that keeps people below them from growing.
That's the real problem. If you want to stay in the details, make sure you do it in such a way that you get out of the way! Let your teams come to their own insights and conclusions. That can't stay your job forever for everything. Don't use Google and Microsoft as an excuse to stay addicted to detail and avoid doing your higher-level job of managing control points and building capacity in your team.
Keep Control of the Outcome, But Free Yourself Up from Inspecting the Details
Many leaders fall into a mode of thinking that if they want to delegate well, and be able to step away from tracking the detail personally, that they will need to live with the risk of it all going wrong. They believe that the leadership challenge is to learn to psychologically deal with the loss of control. Nope!
The trick to delegating effectively is to do it in a way that you still feel comfortable that the right outcome is being achieved. No extra Valor is required, because the point here is to get more comfortable with what you are tracking and learning, not less!
Create systems and processes that feed you the insights and information about how the work is going that make you feel completely comfortable, without your needing to review all the details personally. Your system should have triggers that measure and report progress, and communicate problems and risks along the way. Don't learn to live with more risk; do a better job managing it—but in a fraction of the time. You need to come up with the few key measures (control points) that impact the business growth—and track those relentlessly. You'll stay comfortable and in charge. You reduce risk. You get there. And you save loads of time. See also Chapter 22: Tracking and Consequences for ideas on how to track progress in a non-detailed, highly productive way.