Creativity and Process

“Don’t just do something, stand there.”

An acting quote made famous by Ronald Reagan, reminds us of our option to do nothing. A false dichotomy is one where we force a choice between two outcomes.

Many business leaders find it difficult doing nothing. In turn, they judge their teams’ activity, assuming it’s a leading indicator of success.

But without a clear idea of what produces results, monitoring activity wastes time and money.

The work-from-home revolution created an explosion of productivity tools to measure workers. Most stifle creativity.

Good and Bad Process

Both Reed Hastings of Netflix and Jeff Bezos of Amazon distinguish between good and bad process.

Hastings says good process is a weekly context meeting, while bad is a checklist that slows people down.

He excuses airlines and medicine, where lives are at risk. But creative businesses must not copy practices that constrain dynamism.

This is contentious, but Netflix has a secret weapon to make it work.

One-time Netflix product lead, Gibson Biddle, tells a story. Soon after joining, he noted testing of go-to-market strategies was waiting weeks for approval.

Hastings was shocked to discover he was the roadblock. He assumed people would get on with things. In reality, they needed permission to think and act for themselves.

Skin in the Game

Without a map for the business journey, people make their own. They fall back on doing what they did at former employers, or call meetings to seek permission.

When calendars are full of internal meetings a company is dysfunctional. People are making decisions about work that they don’t do. Skin in the game is important and if it’s not part of a person’s goals, they shouldn’t have a say.

Some meetings “keep people in the loop”. The frequency of these spawned the meme “This meeting could have been an email”. Everyone feels undervalued because their time is being wasted.

How do you unpick this mess when you’re already in it?

Biddle marched into Hastings’ office to effect change. Netflix’s secret weapon is a belief in the power of dissent. It’s disloyal to disagree in silence. Most companies are the opposite.

Here are three ways to create agency and allow people to do their best work.

1. Goal Setting

As far as possible set people’s goals around outcomes. Allow them a say in targets and how they will achieve them. Creating goals is the first step to owning them.

2. Annual Reviews

Best practice is to review people throughout the year. A traffic light system is an easy way to monitor if projects are on track. Traffic lights enable managers to spot problems early.

Do not over-rely on year-end reviews, especially from non-managers. It’s tempting to ask if someone is “a good fit”. Trust managers to know this rather than creating intractable processes for 360 degree reviews.

3. Team Meetings

Set a purpose for every meeting. An agenda is important but must contain the outcome the organiser expects. Keep catch-ups to one-on-ones.

Most importantly, stop meeting surfing. The people who are always on calls are box-ticking and reflect a poor corporate culture.

People must be trusted to decide in your absence, otherwise they don’t have agency. Without this they will underperform or leave.

As a leader, insist that no more than half of people’s time is in internal meetings. Once achieved, cut back to 30%.

Get out of the Sales Process

Avoid wasting sales people’s time. They are paid to sell and will quit or be fired if they don’t. The more time they spend in internal meetings, the more likely they will fail.

Leaders must understand the sales process. Monitoring can be done through real-time tools and weekly reports. Good sales people resent catching up to repeat their progress. Particularly when participants didn’t bother reading reports.

The purposeful sales meeting is training. For example, sharing what works and what doesn’t with fellow sales people. The best know they can always be better.

If you are not responsible for sales or service then don’t go to sales meetings. Too often clients are crowded by teams of people who want to be seen. If your pay doesn’t directly depend on a successful sales process, you don’t attend client meetings.

The sales process means serving, selling and closing clients. Service is important for referrals and renewals and hence is sales. The goals and rewards of the people providing service must reflect this.

Good and Bad Processes

A good process delivers outcomes without intervention. A bad process slows down delivery of results. Most often this is due to meddling by those who have no place in the process. This includes leaders.

I'm Simon Maughan and I write The Profit Elevator as a guide for B2B firms seeking faster growth. “Teamwork makes the Vision Work” is covered in The Clear Communication Code in my P.R.O.F.I.T. Through Process Planner.

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