The Overthinking Paradox

I was sitting with a senior executive the other day who has been quite opposed to the implementation of a strategy execution system, when I suddenly realized why she has been so reluctant.

First, let me explain that she's incredibly brilliant, very experienced, and tempered by the realities of her industry. So, when we sat down to start brainstorming potential measures for their top-level scorecard, she became very twisted in mental conundrums and frustrated when asked to identify possible customer-focused measurements.

Here are the issues she was struggling with:

1. We should be defining the actual outcomes to which their organization contributes. But they only play a contributing role to the outcomes -- so why measure them? Most will remain unachieved, making them meaningless.
2. We should be defining key outputs. But, again, many needed outputs were not capable of being measured due to external forces resisting such measurement (think of this organization as an internal support/staff division with a line division that won't cooperate).
3. The top-level strategic goals are illogical and thus impossible to align to. They produce products and services that individually impact all of the strategic goals, so artificially categorizing them is only for external political/public consumption and not helpful to her.
4. Management 'knows' how things are going, so why waste time counting things when that time could be spent on producing products.

It's almost a defeatist argument, but I'll call it the 'overthinking paradox.'  If you think too much about why you can't, then you'll fulfill your own prophecy.

So, my message is this: should you encounter an executive in your own organization like this, here are the counterpoints:

1. Select your outcomes based on what you believe you can control. That may make those outcomes very short term or almost 'output-like.'  But you've got to start somewhere.
2. Management generally only perceives that it knows what is going on. (I know, you can't actually say this out loud.) Data and trends reveal the real truth. Research in the quality realm indicates that gut-feel is right only about 20% of the time.
3. Don't waste time measuring things that don't matter. Find out what does matter and go with that.

Sometimes these counterpoints still won't influence an "overthinker," so you may need to move on without him/her. This is why having a 'guiding coalition' is so important for strategy execution implementations. Proof found in someone else's pudding often breaks through these kinds of stonewalls.