Know when to quit...

I've just read a very interesting Wired article about the death of Duke Nuke Forever. A video game project that lasted an incredible 12 years when most games take 3 to 4 years to complete. The end results were that 3D Reals went bankrupt and the game was never released. This is a cautionary tale about keeping objectives real and not letting "the latest thing" drive your project. Other lessons that I would add are:

1. Strategy - you have to have one (and stick to it)
   
2. Know what success looks like.
   
3. If your team can't talk to you, you are doing something wrong.
4. You should know when to pull the plug on a project.
5. See the evolution of your industry and adapt to it - but follow your strategy.

On a personal leadership level I have to ask: Where were Broussard's advisors? What about other stakeholders voices (other employees, mentors, partners)? Do you have anybody that can tell you that you are off track? Would you listen?

Communicating your strategy for best results

You have spent a year formulating your strategy. It is firmly and clearly stated in a Powerpoint. You are done, right? Not by a long shot. Let's ignore for a moment the effort required to implement, and let's focus on the communication effort. You need to clearly communicate to ALL stakeholders the new strategy and how it affects them. The companies that don't know how to do this send out an email (with the powerpoint and a nice introduction) and then forget about it.  Then they wonder why their efforts didn't pan out and nothing really changed.

Two things you have to remember:

1. You and your management team know more than everybody else.
2. The rest of your stakeholders can not read your mind to see what's in it - but they will try.

To maximize results tell your coworkers, subordinates, providers, partners and clients what they should expect from the new strategy and the benefits they will receive. You have to craft the message according to the audience (communications 101) and make sure the message is visible and repeated (that is why advertising works). If required, you should form a transformation and communications office to make sure that happens.

More on the how in a latter post...

Don’t let your organization leaderless unless you want to be jobless

For whatever reason you are distracted from your day to day duties (a merger, an acquisition, a family emergency) and you haven’t been in a position to attend to those duties. This is fine if it is a short hiatus (less than 3 weeks), but anything longer than that you need to make sure that somebody is tending shop. You have to groom your team to work without you for a while or designate one or more people to fill in your role. If you provide no leadership you are creating a vacuum where people are making decisions and launching projects because they sound good.


Let’s be clear, your team has to be able to function without you for short periods – and they should be able to provide their own direction (after all, their resumes do state that they are entrepreneurial, self-starters and self motivated). But the longer your absence, the more decisions start to pile up and change the direction; suddenly you have a new and emerging strategy that you are still accountable for.