Can something as simple as a High-Five get your actions back on track?

In the last post (Getting Stuff Done is not Rocket Science), we discussed the 5 areas needed for successful definition, management and conclusion of complex actions.

What, Who, How, When and Why.

These are simple concepts, but to aid reinforcement in our day to day management of actions we have devised a simple mnemonic based on the ‘High Five’.

You might challenge this say and ask why do we need to bureaucratise or systemise something that is entirely intuitive? I think that is part of the problem in many teams, the art of managing actions is very simple, so why do we need to learn it?I would agree if you’re in an organisation or team that already delivers reliably, but my guess is that if you have read this far you might also agree that you need something else to help the team.

The ‘Action Manager’s High Five’ is simply:

What? - I strongly recommend that you move from simple one-line descriptions of the issue to adding a paragraph or two of detail. This needs to be enough so that when the problem is revisited in the future (1 month, 6 months, 2 years...) that the issue is still clear. It should provide context and clarity. The best way to achieve this is to have the owner of the action replay back his or her interpretation of what was discussed to ensure that everyone understands the issue.

Who? - The answer to ‘who’ should consider two issues - i) who has the necessary capability and authority to see the action through to resolution and ii) if the issue lies elsewhere, does your organisation have the ability to ensure the action continues to be tracked through to completion?In “RACI” terms, the ‘who’ should be the person accountable for finalising the action. It may get delegated to various other ‘responsible’ people along the way, but should always return to the original ‘accountable’ owner.

How? - Depending on the scope of the action, how it is to be resolved may or may not be known at inception, but what should be documented is what are the first steps, as these will give a better idea as to a realistic timeframe for their completion. The ‘How’ step is rarely done in organisations but its inclusion will ensure that everyone on the team understands the issue and what to expect as the outcome. Again the best person to do this is the owner of the action, there will be pushback that this is too bureaucraticbut the amount of time to do this is fairly small. Identifying ‘How’, or at least the first steps in ‘How’, will help you to ensure the you have chosen the right owner for the action.

When? - “We need this done now!” Demanding the unreasonable might feel the best way to drive action, but it might not be the demand that gets you the best result. “I need to tell the customer now exactly when this will be fixed!” This might seem a more reasonable demand and might be achieved if the fix is known, but what if the fix is unclear at this stage, does a response like this just set you up for more failure? In an action oriented culture, “when” is best answered after “how” is known, or at least known to a reasonable degree of confidence. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing for executives to take their foot off the pedal, far from it. It is important to keep applying reasonable pressure to get things done in a timely fashion. What I am arguing for is the application of that pressure onto areas where the steps to get there are clear. “I need your answer to what is the root cause by Wednesday together with a plan of action as to how to fix it” is better than “make sure it is fixed by the end of the week.”

Why? - In Action Management the ‘why’ question has two dimensions:

• Firstly it allows and encourages the team to challenge - “why is that the best way to address the problem?”, “why is this the best person to own it?” etc. With the ‘High Five’ mnemonic you can use why on the thumb to systematically challenge the answer to each of the other 4 questions. This might be a bit frustrating at first, but it can be surprising to see how many alternative approaches can come out of a simple challenge. This is not quite the same as the 5 Y’s of root cause analysis (another post) but the outcome is similar - to gain better understanding and solutions.
• The second and most important dimension of ‘Why’ is in helping to identify priority. Take a step back for a moment and think of your own team or organisation. Is it coping with all the things it needs to do or does it feel continuously snowed under with things that need to be fixed? How much time are you able to spend thinking and planning (that’s what you are paid for) rather than chasing actions that should be done by others? Do you and your team spend a disproportionate amount of time reporting on stuff rather than actually doing the stuff? These are all indicators that you have not set the correct priorities and as a result, that your teams are not synchronised in their delivery.

Without priority and focus, too many actions can cause start-stop activities. Individuals need time to stop one activity and get productive on the next. Poor prioritisation can result in having to wait on output from third parties whose priorities are different. Poor prioritisation is a recipe for inefficiency and frustration.

So the question ‘Why?’ is the first question in helping to identify priority, that in-turn helps to identify focus.