<\/p>\n
ALISON BEARD: Welcome to\u00a0HBR On Leadership. I\u2019m HBR Executive Editor Alison Beard. On this show, we share case studies and conversations with the world\u2019s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. We carefully curate this feed from across the HBR portfolio, aiming to help you unlock your next level of leadership. I hope you enjoy the episode.<\/p>\n
CURT NICKISCH: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast<\/em> from Harvard Business Review. I\u2019m Curt Nickisch.<\/p>\n Problems can be intimidating. Sure, some problems are fun to dig into. You roll up your sleeves, you just take care of them; but others, well, they\u2019re complicated. Sometimes it\u2019s hard to wrap your brain around a problem, much less fix it.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s especially true for leaders in organizations where problems are often layered and complex. They sometimes demand technical, financial, or interpersonal knowledge to fix. And whether it\u2019s avoidance on the leaders\u2019 part or just the perception that a problem is systemic or even intractable, problems find a way to endure, to keep going, to keep being a problem that everyone tries to work around or just puts up with.<\/p>\n But today\u2019s guest says that just compounds it and makes the problem harder to fix. Instead, she says, speed and momentum are key to overcoming a problem.<\/p>\n Anne Morriss is an entrepreneur, leadership coach and founder of the Leadership Consortium and with Harvard Business School Professor Francis Frei, she wrote the new book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leaders Guide to Solving Hard Problems<\/em>. Anne, welcome back to the show.<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Curt, thank you so much for having me.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: So to generate momentum at an organization, you say that you really need speed and trust. We\u2019ll get into those essential ingredients some more, but why are those two essential?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, the essential pattern that we observed was that the most effective change leaders out there were building trust and speed, and it didn\u2019t seem to be a well-known observation. We all know the phrase, \u201cMove fast and break things,\u201d but the people who were really getting it right were moving fast and fixing things, and that was really our jumping off point. So when we dug into the pattern, what we observed was they were building trust first and then speed. This foundation of trust was what allowed them to fix more things and break fewer.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: Trust sounds like a slow thing, right? If you talk about building trust, that is something that takes interactions, it takes communication, it takes experiences. Does that run counter to the speed idea?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, this issue of trust is something we\u2019ve been looking at for over a decade. One of the headlines in our research is it\u2019s actually something we\u2019re building and rebuilding and breaking all the time. And so instead of being this precious, almost farbege egg, it\u2019s this thing that is constantly in motion and this thing that we can really impact when we\u2019re deliberate about our choices and have some self-awareness around where it\u2019s breaking down and how it\u2019s breaking down.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: You said break trust in there, which is intriguing, right? That you may have to break trust to build trust. Can you explain that a little?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: \u00a0Yeah, well, I\u2019ll clarify. It\u2019s not that you have to break it in order to build it. It\u2019s just that we all do it some of the time. Most of us are trusted most of the time. Most of your listeners I imagine are trusted most of the time, but all of us have a pattern where we break trust or where we don\u2019t build as much as could be possible.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: I want to talk about speed, this other essential ingredient that\u2019s so intriguing, right? Because you think about solving hard problems as something that just takes a lot of time and thinking and coordination and planning and designing. Explain what you mean by it? And also, just \u00a0how we maybe approach problems wrong by taking them on too slowly?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Well, Curt, no one has ever said to us, \u201cI wish I had taken longer and done less.\u201d We hear the opposite all the time, by the way. So what we really set out to do was to create a playbook that anyone can use to take less time to do more of the things that are going to make your teams and organizations stronger.<\/p>\n And the way we set up the book is okay, it\u2019s really a five step process. Speed is the last step. It\u2019s the payoff for the hard work you\u2019re going to do to figure out your problem, build or rebuild trust, expand the team in thoughtful and strategic ways, and then tell a real and compelling story about the change you\u2019re leading.<\/p>\n Only then do you get to go fast, but that\u2019s an essential part of the process, and we find that either people under emphasize it or speed has gotten a bad name in this world of moving fast and breaking things. And part of our mission for sure was to rehabilitate speed\u2019s reputation because it is an essential part of the change leader\u2019s equation. It can be the difference between good intentions and getting anything done at all.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: You know, the fact that nobody ever tells you, \u201cI wish we had done less and taken more time.\u201d I think we all feel that, right? Sometimes we do something and then realize, \u201cOh, that wasn\u2019t that hard and why did it take me so long to do it? And I wish I\u2019d done this a long time ago.\u201d Is it ever possible to solve a problem too quickly?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Absolutely. And we see that all the time too. What we push people to do in those scenarios is really take a look at the underlying issue because in most cases, the solution is not to take your foot off the accelerator per se and slow down. The solution is to get into the underlying problem. So if it\u2019s burnout or a strategic disconnect between what you\u2019re building and the marketplace you\u2019re serving, what we find is the anxiety that people attach to speed or the frustration people attach to speed is often misplaced.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: What is a good timeline to think about solving a problem then? Because if we by default take too long or else jump ahead and we don\u2019t fix it right, what\u2019s a good target time to have in your mind for how long solving a problem should take?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, we\u2019re playful in the book and talking about the idea that many problems can be solved in a week. We set the book up five chapters. They\u2019re titled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and we\u2019re definitely having fun with that. And yet, if you count the hours in a week, there are a lot of them. Many of our problems, if you were to spend a focused 40 hours of effort on a problem, you\u2019re going to get pretty far.<\/p>\n But our main message is, listen, of course it\u2019s going to depend on the nature of the problem, and you\u2019re going to take weeks and maybe even some cases months to get to the other side. What we don\u2019t want you to do is take years, which tends to be our default timeline for solving hard problems.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: So you say to start with identifying the problem that\u2019s holding you back, seems kind of obvious. But where do companies go right and wrong with this first step of just identifying the problem that\u2019s holding you back?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: And our goal is that all of these are going to feel obvious in retrospect. The problem is we skip over a lot of these steps and this is why we wanted to underline them. So this one is really rooted in our observation and I think the pattern of our species that we tend to be overconfident in the quality of our thoughts, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems.<\/p>\n And so we want to invite you to start in a very humble and curious place, which tends not to be our default mode when we\u2019re showing up for work. We convince ourselves that we\u2019re being paid for our judgment. That\u2019s exactly what gets reinforced everywhere. And so we tend to counterintuitively, given what we just talked about, we tend to move too quickly through the diagnostic phase.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: \u201cI know what to do, that\u2019s why you hired me.\u201d<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Exactly. \u201cI know what to do. That\u2019s why you hired me. I\u2019ve seen this before. I have a plan. Follow me.\u201d We get rewarded for the expression of confidence and clarity. And so what we\u2019re inviting people to do here is actually pause and really lean into what are the root causes of the problem you\u2019re seeing? What are some alternative explanations? Let\u2019s get into dialogue with the people who are also impacted by the problem before we start running down the path of solving it.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: So what do you recommend for this step, for getting to the root of the problem? What are questions you should ask? What\u2019s the right thought process? What do you do on Monday of the week?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: In our experience of doing this work, people tend to undervalue the power of conversation, particularly with other people in the organization. So we will often advocate putting together a team of problem solvers, make it a temporary team, really pull in people who have a particular perspective on the problem and create the space, make it as psychologically safe as you can for people to really, as Chris Argyris so beautifully articulated, discuss the undiscussable.<\/p>\n And so the conditions for that are going to look different in every organization depending on the problem, but if you can get a space where smart people who have direct experience of a problem are in a room and talking honestly with each other, you can make an extraordinary amount of progress, certainly in a day.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: Yeah, that gets back to the trust piece.<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Definitely.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: How do you like to start that meeting, or how do you like to talk about it? I\u2019m just curious what somebody on that team might hear in that meeting, just to get the sense that it\u2019s psychologically safe, you can discuss the undiscussable and you\u2019re also focusing on the identification part. What\u2019s key to communicate there?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, we sometimes encourage people to do a little bit of data gathering before those conversations. So the power of a quick anonymous survey around whatever problem you\u2019re solving, but also be really thoughtful about the questions you\u2019re going to ask in the moment. So a little bit of preparation can go a long way and a little bit of thoughtfulness about the power dynamic. So who\u2019s going to walk in there with license to speak and who\u2019s going to hold back? So being thoughtful about the agenda, about the questions you\u2019re asking about the room, about the facilitation, and then courage is a very infectious emotion.<\/p>\n So if you can early on create the conditions for people to show up bravely in that conversation, then the chance that you\u2019re going to get good information and that you\u2019re going to walk out of that room with new insight in the problem that you didn\u2019t have when you walked in is extraordinarily high.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: Now, in those discussions, you may have people who have different perspectives on what the problem really is. They also bear different costs of addressing the problem or solving it. You talked about the power dynamic, but there\u2019s also an unfairness dynamic of who\u2019s going to actually have to do the work to take care of it, and I wonder how you create a culture in that meeting where it\u2019s the most productive?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: For sure, the burden of work is not going to be equitably distributed around the room. But I would say, Curt, the dynamic that we see most often is that people are deeply relieved that hard problems are being addressed. So it really can create, and more often than not in our experience, it does create this beautiful flywheel of action, creativity, optimism. Often when problems haven\u2019t been addressed, there is a fair amount of anxiety in the organization, frustration, stagnation. And so credible movement towards action and progress is often the best antidote. So even if the plan isn\u2019t super clear yet, if it\u2019s credible, given who\u2019s in the room and their decision rights and mandate, if there\u2019s real momentum coming out of that to make progress, then that tends to be deeply energizing to people.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: I wonder if there\u2019s an organization that you\u2019ve worked with that you could talk about how this rolled out and how this took shape?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: When we started working with Uber, that was wrestling with some very public issues of culture and trust with a range of stakeholders internally, the organization, also external, that work really started with a campaign of listening and really trying to understand where trust was breaking down from the perspective of these stakeholders?<\/p>\n So whether it was female employees or regulators or riders who had safety concerns getting into the car with a stranger. This work, it starts with an honest internal dialogue, but often the problem has threads that go external. And so bringing that same commitment to curiosity and humility and dialogue to anyone who\u2019s impacted by the problem is the fastest way to surface what\u2019s really going on.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: There\u2019s a step in this process that you lay out and that\u2019s communicating powerfully as a leader. So we\u2019ve heard about listening and trust building, but now you\u2019re talking about powerful communication. How do you do this and why is it maybe this step in the process rather than the first thing you do or the last thing you do?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: So in our process, again, it\u2019s the days of the week. On Monday you figured out the problem. Tuesday you really got into the sandbox in figuring out what a good enough plan is for building trust. Wednesday, step three, you made it better. You created an even better plan, bringing in new perspectives. Thursday, this fourth step is the day we\u2019re saying you got to go get buy-in. You got to bring other people along. And again, this is a step where we see people often underinvest in the power and payoff of really executing it well.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: How does that go wrong?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, people don\u2019t know the why. Human behavior and the change in human behavior really depends on a strong why. It\u2019s not just a selfish, \u201cWhat\u2019s in it for me?\u201d Although that\u2019s helpful, but where are we going? I may be invested in a status quo and I need to understand, okay, if you\u2019re going to ask me to change, if you\u2019re going to invite me into this uncomfortable place of doing things differently, why am I here? Help me understand it and articulate the way forward and language that not only I can understand, but also that\u2019s going to be motivating to me.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: And who on my team was part of this process and all that kind of stuff?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Oh, yeah. I may have some really important questions that may be in the way of my buy-in and commitment to this plan. So certainly creating a space where those questions can be addressed is essential. But what we found is that there is an architecture of a great change story, and it starts with honoring the past, honoring the starting place. Sometimes we\u2019re so excited about the change and animated about the change that what has happened before or what is even happening in the present tense is low on our list of priorities.<\/p>\n Or we want to label it bad, because that\u2019s the way we\u2019ve thought about the change, but really pausing and honoring what came before you and all the reasonable decisions that led up to it, I think can be really helpful to getting people emotionally where you want them to be willing to be guided by you. Going back to Uber, when Dara Khosrowshahi came in.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: This is the new CEO.<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: The new CEO.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: Replaced Travis Kalanick, the founder and first CEO, yeah.<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, and had his first all-hands meeting. One of his key messages, and this is a quote, was that he was going to retain the edge that had made Uber, \u201cA force of nature.\u201d And in that meeting, the crowd went wild because this is also a company that had been beaten up publicly for months and months and months, and it was a really powerful choice. And his predecessor, Travis was in the room, and he also honored Travis\u2019 incredible work and investment in bringing the company to the place where it was.<\/p>\n And I would use words like grace to also describe those choices, but there\u2019s also an incredible strategic value to naming the starting place for everybody in the room because in most cases, most people in that room played a role in getting to that starting place, and you\u2019re acknowledging that.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: You can call it grace. Somebody else might call it diplomatic or strategic. But yeah, I guess like it or not, it\u2019s helpful to call out and honor the complexity of the way things have been done and also the change that\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, and the value. Sometimes honoring the past is also owning what didn\u2019t work or what wasn\u2019t working for stakeholders or segments of the employee team, and we see that around culture change. Sometimes you\u2019ve got to acknowledge that it was not an equitable environment, but whatever the worker, everyone in that room is bringing that pass with them. So again, making it discussable and using it as the jumping off place is where we advise people to start.<\/p>\n Then you\u2019ve earned the right to talk about the change mandate, which we suggest using clear and compelling language about the why. \u201cThis is what happened, this is where we are, this is the good and the bad of it, and here\u2019s the case for change.\u201d<\/p>\n And then the last part, which is to describe a rigorous and optimistic way forward. It\u2019s a simple past, present, future arc, which will be familiar to human beings. We love stories as human beings. It\u2019s among the most powerful currency we have to make sense of the world.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: Yeah. Chronological is a pretty powerful order.<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Right. But again, the change leaders we see really get it right, are investing an incredible amount of time into the storytelling part of their job. Ursula Burns, the Head of Xerox is famous for the months and years she spent on the road just telling the story of Xerox\u2019s change, its pivot into services to everyone who would listen, and that was a huge part of her success.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: So Friday or your fifth step, you end with empowering teams and removing roadblocks. That seems obvious, but it\u2019s critical. Can you dig into that a little bit?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Friday is the fun day. Friday\u2019s the release of energy into the system. Again, you\u2019ve now earned the right to go fast. You have a plan, you\u2019re pretty confident it\u2019s going to work. You\u2019ve told the story of change the organization, and now you get to sprint. So this is about really executing with urgency, and it\u2019s about a lot of the tactics of speed is where we focus in the book. So the tactics of empowerment, making tough strategic trade-offs so that your priorities are clear and clearly communicated, creating mechanisms to fast-track progress. At Etsy, CEO Josh Silverman, he labeled these projects ambulances. It\u2019s an unfortunate metaphor, but it\u2019s super memorable. These are the products that get to speed out in front of the other ones because the stakes are high and the clock is sticking.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: You pull over and let it go by.<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, exactly. And so we have to agree as an organization on how to do something like that. And so we see lots of great examples both in young organizations and big complex biotech companies with lots of regulatory guardrails have still found ways to do this gracefully.<\/p>\n And I think we end with this idea of conflict debt, which is a term we really love. Leanne Davey, who\u2019s a team scholar and researcher, and anyone in a tech company will recognize the idea of tech debt, which is this weight the organization drags around until they resolve it. Conflict debt is a beautiful metaphor because it is this weight that we drag around and slows us down until we decide to clean it up and fix it. The organizations that are really getting speed right have figured out either formally or informally, how to create an environment where conflict and disagreements can be gracefully resolved.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: Well, let\u2019s talk about this speed more, right? Because I think this is one of those places that maybe people go wrong or take too long, and then you lose the awareness of the problem, you lose that urgency. And then that also just makes it less effective, right? It\u2019s not just about getting the problem solved as quickly as possible. It\u2019s also just speed in some ways helps solve the problem.<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Oh, yeah. It really is the difference between imagining the change you want to lead and really being able to bring it to life. Speed is the thing that unlocks your ability to lead change. It needs a foundation, and that\u2019s what Monday through Thursday is all about, steps one through four, but the finish line is executing with urgency, and it\u2019s that urgency that releases the system\u2019s energy, that communicates your priorities, that creates the conditions for your team to make progress.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: Moving fast is something that entrepreneurs and tech companies certainly understand, but there\u2019s also this awareness that with big companies, the bigger the organization, the harder it is to turn the aircraft carrier around, right? Is speed relative when you get at those levels, or do you think this is something that any company should be able to apply equally?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: We think this applies to any company. The culture really lives at the level of team. So we believe you can make a tremendous amount of progress even within your circle of control as a team leader. I want to bring some humility to this and careful of words like universal, but we do think there\u2019s some universal truths here around the value of speed, and then some of the byproducts like keeping fantastic people. Your best people want to solve problems, they want to execute, they want to make progress and speed, and the ability to do that is going to be a variable in their own equation of whether they stay or they go somewhere else where they can have an impact.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: Right. They want to accomplish something before they go or before they retire or finish something out. And if you\u2019re able to just bring more things on the horizon and have it not feel like it\u2019s going to be another two years to do something meaningful.<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: People \u2013 I mean, they want to make stuff happen and they want to be around the energy and the vitality of making things happen, which again, is also a super infectious phenomenon. One of the most important jobs of a leader, we believe, is to set the metabolic pace of their teams and organizations. And so what we really dig into on Friday is, well, what does that look like to speed something up? What are the tactics of that?<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: I wonder if that universal truth, that a body in motion stays in motion applies to organizations, right? If an organization in motion stays in motion, there is something to that.<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Absolutely.<\/p>\n CURT NICKISCH: Do you have a favorite client story to share, just where you saw speed just become a bit of a flywheel or just a positive reinforcement loop for more positive change at the organization?<\/p>\n ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. We work with a fair number of organizations that are on fire. We do a fair amount of firefighting, but we also less dramatically do a lot of fire prevention. So we\u2019re brought into organizations that are working well and want to get better, looking out on the horizon. That work is super gratifying, and there is always a component of, well, how do we speed this up?<\/p>\n What I love about that work is there\u2019s often already a high foundation of trust, and so it\u2019s, well, how do we maintain that foundation but move this flywheel, as you said, even faster? And it\u2019s really energizing because often there\u2019s a lot of pent-up energy that\u2026 There\u2019s a lot of loyalty to the organization, but often it\u2019s also frustration and pent-up energy. And so when that gets released, when good people get the opportunity to sprint for the first time in a little while, it\u2019s incredibly energizing, not just for us, but for the whole organization.<\/p>\n ALISON BEARD: HBR On Leadership\u00a0will be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation from Harvard Business Review.<\/p>\n This episode was produced by Mary Dooe.\u00a0On Leadership\u2019s team includes Maureen Hoch, Rob Eckhardt, Erica Truxler, and Ian Fox.<\/p>\n If this episode helped you, please share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. While you\u2019re there, consider leaving us a review.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #Speed #Trust #Critical #Solving #Hard #Problems<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ALISON BEARD: Welcome to\u00a0HBR On Leadership. I\u2019m HBR Executive Editor Alison Beard. On this show, we share case studies and conversations with the world\u2019s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. We carefully curate this feed from across the HBR portfolio, aiming to help you unlock […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n