Reflect and respond week 4

Read the passage below first and then answer the four questions below.

1. How does our present culture and society make practicing “trade-offs” difficult?

2. What are the values of practicing “trade-offs”?

3. What enables us to choose wisely when faced with a trade-off involving two good options? Is this easy or difficult for you?

4. Leaders get in trouble when they abandon values in decisions because they feel the end justifies the means. This causes healthy cultures to become fuzzy. Have you seen this happen? When?

APA Format

Due Wednesday June 5, 2019

300 words

Trade-Offs

EVERY DECISION IS A TRADE-OFF. DOING ONE THING MEANS YOU CAN’T DO ANOTHER. LEADERS CAN DO ANYTHING, BUT THEY CAN’T DO EVERYTHING. IN DECIDING WHAT YOU’LL DO, YOU CHOOSE WHAT NOT TO DO.

My friend Dick Wynn told me about a leadership summit he attended with the famous Peter Drucker. During his career, Mr. Drucker was considered the top management guru in America. Dick told me that day was unforgettable. After a full day of providing leadership insights, Peter told the attendees to put their pens down. He reminded them that they had about ten more minutes together before the day would be over. Then, he asked them to take out a fresh piece of paper and begin writing down all the ideas they planned to implement as a result of their time together. At that point, he set them in motion. Dick told me everyone began frantically making a list of all the things they planned to apply from their wonderful training time.

With five minutes to spare, however, Peter Drucker told everyone to stop. Then he shocked them. He instructed the attendees to turn their paper over and begin making a list of all the items they would stop doing to make room for the new ideas they were going to start doing. Oops. Ouch. Dick told me he looked around and no one was writing anything down at first. Why? We just don’t do this in today’s world. We never stop doing things—we just keep adding to our “to do” list. And our lives become crazier and crazier.

The fact is, the most effective leaders have found a way to simplify their lives and their mission, and consequently their culture. They understand that all cultures must decide what’s important enough to keep and what isn’t. Leaders don’t allow the culture to be so cluttered with every priority that people are fuzzy as to what’s most important. Cultures become distinct and effective when their top leaders choose to say no to many things in order to keep the main thing, the main thing. They know that leaders can do anything, but they can’t do everything. When they choose the “main thing” and create a culture around it, it’s possible to maintain that culture more easily.

The problem is—some leaders have a hard time saying no. I know. I am one of them. When Growing Leaders first started, I was involved in training leaders on a number of levels: corporate leaders, international leaders, non-profit and church leaders, in addition to students. While the common thread was leadership development, I was spread too thin. I realized I couldn’t do it all. Growing Leaders had to have a sweet spot that we intentionally pursued. We finally decided we would invest our prime time in young leaders, ages twelve to twenty-four. Certainly, we have partners who use our resources outside of that window, but we pursue only the small window of the “emerging generation.”

A Hard Lesson to Learn

What we’ve found is that shooting for a single, small target has made us bigger and increased our influence, without even trying. Saying no caused us to grow. This is the benefit of “trade-offs.” It’s a risk, and it’s counterintuitive at times. Logic says to do it all so your organization can reach more people or make more money. But a refusal to make the “trade-off” can have negative effects. For instance, PillowTex Corporation was the largest pillow manufacturer in the U.S. Everyone knew them as the “pillow experts.” However, they just couldn’t refuse the idea of expanding into towels, sheets and rugs. Soon, both team members and customers became confused as to who PillowTex really was and what their expertise was. Their internal culture began to fade. Sales dropped. In 2003, they shut down. 1  Why? By refusing to make a “trade-off,” they lost their identity and diluted their brand.

Sadly, this is a common American story: Corporations lusting after growth don’t see the need for a trade-off, and consequently no one—even team members—recognize who they are. They lose the culture they’ve worked so hard to create. Even today, Sears is refocusing with a vengeance, trying to recover from a plan to grow at any cost. Eastman Kodak sold Sterling Winthrop (Bayer aspirin) to focus on core film operations. Quaker Oats is folding its in-house promotions, design and media services to “better focus resources on building key brands.” 2 All of these stories are stories of organizations being forced to make a “trade-off” in order to resuscitate a brand or a culture.

Wikipedia defines “trade-off” saying it “usually refers to losing one quality or aspect of something in return for gaining another quality or aspect. It implies making a decision with full comprehension of both the upside and the downside of that choice.” The leader believes what he or she gives up is worth the price of what he or she gains. We do this every day without thinking. Board games almost always involve trade-offs. For instance, in chess, do you trade a bishop for a position you want? In Monopoly, do you trade in some money for a hotel on Park Place? In Clue, do you risk guessing who the murderer is before you have all the facts, because you sense your opponent may win it all on their next turn? Good questions.

When you think about it, most of life is a bunch of trade-offs. Every purchase you make in a store is a trade-off: money for products. What makes the decision hard is that we really want both! In fact, “trade-offs” become difficult because…

1. WE DON’T WANT TO GIVE UP ANYTHING. WE WANT IT ALL.

2. WE’RE UNCERTAIN IF GIVING SOMETHING UP WILL REALLY GET US WHAT WE WANT.

3. WE WORRY ABOUT MAKING A DAMAGING DECISION THAT WE CANNOT REVERSE.

4. WE FEEL LIKE WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION TO MAKE A GOOD CHOICE OR WISE RISK.

5. WE FEAR THE FACTS WE HAVE WILL CHANGE IN THE FUTURE AND OUR TRADE-OFF WILL GO SOUTH.

Making a Good Trade-Off

Remember, almost every decision is a trade-off. Leaders understand these decisions must not only reflect their mission, but also their culture. They must ask: Will this decision enhance our culture or dilute it? In his best-selling book Good to Great, Jim Collins suggests how to make good choices about culture, mission and revenue, by introducing the Hedgehog Concept. He says leaders must ask three questions before making organizational decisions. I have added a fourth one on culture:

1. PASSION: What are you deeply passionate about?

2. ABILITY: What can you be the best in the world at doing?

3. REVENUE: What drives your economic engine?

4. CULTURE: What is congruent with the culture you’re trying to build?

The story of the Golden Gate Bridge is a beautiful tale about a trade-off. As the bridge was being built, the chief contractor grew angry when the builders fell behind schedule. It was taking his crew far too long to complete each section of the bridge, and each day the deadlines seemed more unrealistic. Despite his motivation, the chief soon recognized he couldn’t move them any faster. Then, it all came to a climax when the workers requested they stop and construct a net underneath to protect them if they fell. While safety was important to everyone, the last thing the chief wanted to do was take more time away from making progress on construction. They were already behind, and suspending a net would postpone them even further. A trade-off stared him in the face. His choice? The chief chose to trade deadlines for safety; he felt it was worth the delay. The results were shocking. He discovered the net actually sped up construction.