It's an epidemic spreading more quickly than the swine flu - everybody everywhere it seems has been infected with an itch to evaluate, critique, and comment on President Obama's first "100 days." And they can't stop scratching it. Is this unfair to the new president? Maybe. We all know the challenges he - and we all - face are going to take more than a few months to address. It does seem a little unfair for a bunch of armchair quarterbacks to be second guessing the guy on the field who's doing his best to keep the ball moving down the field under the worst possible circumstances.
But we hope the president himself is doing a little reflecting on these first "100 days." In fact, we hope he's taking stock of how things are going in order to readjust, recalibrate, and redirect a lot more often than every 100 days.
Leaders at their renewable best use a "4-D Cycle" for getting stuff done:
-> Discern -> Decide -> Do -> Debrief ->
Discern -> Decide -> Do -> Debrief ->
These four steps aren't linear. They're circular. What you discover as you debrief what you just did helps you discern your options for what you can do next. Open and honest debriefing - a willingness to look at what worked and at what didn't - is critical to the life, health, and vitality of an organization.
Of course, open and honest debriefing can only happen in an organization where perfection isn't the standard. If people aren't allowed to make mistakes and mess things up, they're not going to be honest and open, are they?! The design firm IDEO says "fail often to succeed early." We love that! You can't learn from your mistakes if you aren't allowed to admit they happened!
Do you encourage people in your organization to experiment? Do you make it ok for them to fail often? Do you reward people for honest reflection on the messes they make? Are YOU honest about the mistakes you make? Do you allow and encourage people to critique YOU? Are you modeling the 4-D cycle in your own work? Are you creating a culture where debriefing is a regular and important part of your life and work together? If not, honest conversation about where you've been and how you've done can't happen. And if you don't debrief what you did, you can't really figure out what to do next.
100 days is way to long to go without debriefing how it's going. Make debriefing a normal part of everything you do.
Comments