Workarounds That Work: How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work

Accountability is simply a way of owning the outcome, recognizing what’s in front of you, and then taking the next best step you can.

If individual leaders lose sight of the larger purpose and vision, they will tend to become a bit myopic in their focus on unit performance. In extreme cases, unit performance can outstrip the larger goals of the organization. Oddly enough, the more myopic or narrowing of focus, the more the number of priorities is likely to grow.

Let’s back up a couple of steps and revisit the notion of control, influence, and respond, which was introduced in the first chapter. Sometimes the biggest improvement opportunities start right at your own desk. On many occasions, I have seen apparently large organizational stumbling blocks virtually dissolve as a result of the exercise of asking t

If an organization is going to efficiently change directions, adopt new strategies, or simply set new goals, a worthwhile exercise would be to ask three basic pruning questions: • Based on the new direction, strategy, or goal, what should we start doing? • Based on the new direction, strategy, or goal, what should we stop doing? • Based on the new

Managing an Overwhelming Workload 1. Challenge each item on your list: • Why is this on my list? • What goal, objective, or management process does this support? • Does it still matter? • What would be lost if I stopped doing it? 2. Review your list of tasks that are no longer relevant with your boss for agreement. 3. Make a new, shorter list of on

the inevitable conflicts that arise between vision and the structures that emerge to institutionalize it.

whenever you encounter a roadblock of any kind, look to yourself first. I suggest that in just about any situation, your ability to respond (response-ability) will be a function of your ability to control what you can, to influence what you can, and to simply respond to the rest.

From there, he is said to have issued a dictum that if you were producing something for which you saw no apparent reason or value, you had permission to stop producing it and engage in a conversation about purpose, value, form, and substance.

A particular paradox and challenge will appear over and over again: what works for you and what works for me may be different, even if the same basic concept is in play for both of us.