Unisys Case Study
1. Case Study: Avoiding the Executive Feeding Frenzy!
The CEO of one of the major computer mainframe manufacturers called a meeting of his eight direct reports and their 31 direct reports for a one day session to focus on what they had identified as their three major barriers to growth. Three work teams had been commissioned in advance of the session to analyze the barriers and come up with specific recommendations which would be presented to the executive team. Our role was to facilitate the executive team in this discussion. Prior to the session we were given to constraints. First, all the executives had to stay together as one team the entire day – no breakout groups. Second, the only initiatives that would be taken forward would be those that the entire executive team agreed to – 100 percent consensus was required. These were challenging constraints and would likely make it more difficult to maintain the executives’ attention throughout the entire day (no small groups). It was also going to make it difficult to avoid going in depth on a sub-topic for long periods of time in order to gain one person's consent. However, during our preparation work in which we interviewed a half-dozen of the executives, we determined that there was a much bigger issue. As one executive described in, “Our executive team members are like lions. Anytime a recommendation is made, it becomes a feeding frenzy as we tear apart the recommendation by identifying all the reasons why it can work. We tend to waste a lot of time in these types of sessions."
Based on the information from the preparation, we created a special ground rule for this work. In the session, we described the ground rule this way: “Today we will be hearing recommendations from three work teams. After the first work team, we could identify seven different reasons why the recommendation won't work. We then would go on to hear from the second work team and spend a lot of time describing why the various proposals were unacceptable and could not work. Likewise with the third team. And then we would be at the end of the day. And we would be no closer to a solution then we were when the day started because we would have spent all of our time discussing what would not work. In essence discussing what won't work at this point is a waste of our time. So let's agree not to waste our time. We call “talking about what doesn't work” as looking down because it can keep us from looking up and moving forward. So we created a ground rule called “Always looked up.” What this means is, anytime a recommendation is made, we can only say two things: what we like about it, and how to make it better. That's it, because talking about why it won't work would be a waste of our time. Let's instead figure out how to fix it or what we should do differently." The executive accepted the ground rule.
At the end of the first presentation, we went around the room to talk about what we like about it or how to make it better. We got to Darryl, who I had learned often in the past served as the ring leader for the feeding frenzy. He started with comment "Let me tell you why this won't work…” I interrupted and reminded him, “Darryl, remember our ground rule: always look up. What do you like about it or how do we make it better?" He indicated we should come back to him. After finishing around the room, I came back, “Darryl any additional common on this one?” He said, “No, my concerns were basically addressed.” Perhaps someone else’s improvement suggested had taken care of his concern.. We went on to the next team. When we got to Darryl, he indicated what he liked about it. Halfway around the room, Darryl raised his hand and ask, “When do I get to tell you what I don't like about it?" I could feel the tension in the room rising. My response was, "Now that would be a waste of time wouldn’t it? Darryl responded, "Yes, I guess that’s right." The session was very productive. In fact, the CEO later said, it was the best executive session in years."
It's a little scary to think about what may have happened if we had not done our preparation work, learned of the issue, and created a ground rule to address it.
