FireFly Facilitation

If you’re at all familiar with the world of Winnie the Pooh, then you recognize Eeyore. He’s the dull, gray donkey who drains the life out of everyone around him with his negativity. He shuffles along slowly and lethargically, usually with his head down. Eeyore is such a stubborn pessimist that nothing seems to excite him or to make him smile. Quite literally, he’s a jackass.

Unfortunately, Eeyore-like behavior isn’t uncommon in the office. Joseph Folkman and Jack Zenger list “lack energy and enthusiasm” at the top of their list of Ten Fatal Flaws That Derail Leaders¹. Their list doesn’t come from speculation, either. Folkman and Zenger reached their conclusions after methodically researching the 360° feedback of thousands of underperforming leaders.

Bringing Back the Fun

Other than sleeping more and upping caffeine intake, what can be done to enliven a listless leader? I’d like to suggest that, done well, the strategic planning process has potential to infuse life into a wearied leader or team. By forcing everyone to consider what is and is not important, strategic planning focuses energy and enthusiasm on those aspects of business that make the greatest difference and drive the business results.

We move from stress to distress when we can’t connect our activity to meaning. We’re easily overwhelmed by the tasks in front of us when there’s not clear strategy to help us prioritize our work or identify success. Strategic planning cuts through the clutter, and attunes us to the reason we go to work every day. By giving us a sense of purpose, strategic planning helps us to find fulfillment (and even fun!) in the workplace.

¹Folkman, Joseph and Zenger, Jack. “Ten Fatal Flaws That Derail Leaders.” Harvard Business Review. June 2009.

At some point, most of us have embarked on a road trip. We have piled into a car with friends or family and driven miles upon miles across the countryside. Singing along to the radio to pass the time, we have cruised long stretches of America’s highways and byways.

For me, there’s no joy in sitting in a vehicle for hours just for the fun of it. I live in Atlanta, and the idea of being cooped up in a car conjures up dreadful flashbacks of being stuck in traffic. However, if I know we’re driving to the Grand Canyon or the Rocky Mountains, then I can endure several hours on the road. Envisioning the endpoint of the road trip creates a shared excitement that makes the drive fun and worthwhile.

Casting an Attractive Vision

Unfortunately, too many employees feel like they’re stuck in a traffic jam rather than journeying to an exciting destination. That’s because their leaders have not given them a compelling vision. As a consequence, instead of going somewhere special, many people feel like they’re just spinning tires and wasting gas.

People want a destination; they don’t just want to be on the road. As a leader, it’s your job to rally excitement around a vision. Within the next month, pose this question to your team:

What excites you about your job?

Examine the answers closely.

Do your teammates articulate enthusiasm about a common vision?

Do they seem authentically passionate about what they do?

The answers will be revealing and will help you to measure how well you’ve been able to articulate a persuasive vision to your team. Regardless of what the responses indicate, it’s a healthy exercise to revisit your vision and to make sure it’s a powerful impetus to motivate your people.

When archers draw a bow, they’re far more accurate when they zero in on the bull’s-eye than when they broadly aim to hit the target.

 The same applies in golf. When players concentrate on landing the ball at a specific spot near the pin, their shots are more precise than when they target the green in general.

What’s true for archery and golf translates to strategic planning as well. The sharper your focus is, then the smaller your margin for error will be when you execute. Put simply, “Aim small; miss small.”

What can you do practically to shrink the scope of your goals so that you’re laser focused?

If everything is important…then nothing is. Identify the three strategic priorities for you team. Don’t get bogged down on specific verbiage, but make sure everyone agrees with and can articulate your strategic priorities.

Knowing what not to do can be just as important as knowing where you’re going. What distractions will tempt you to veer from your strategic priorities? Dialog about them, and list them. Instill in your team that these activities are taboo.

Decide upon metrics. What is unmeasured goes undone. Set your criteria for success. Don’t feel constrained by numbers—qualitative goals have every bit as much merit as quantitative ones. However, make sure your metrics are simple and concrete.

Track performance together. Evaluating results as a team provides instant accountability—no one wants to look bad in front of peers. Also, talking through results helps you to decipher problems or opportunities buried beneath the facts and figures.