If you've worked at Microsoft a day or a decade, you know what Fire Drills do your productivity, sanity and management fealty.
Like death and taxes, there is a certain amount of generally accepted pain that comes with the territory around fire drills. It is as if everyone involved knows that it could have been avoided if a decision had been made earlier, or if the ramifications were truly considered or if an ego had been checked.
I, and many of my colleagues, recognize that the business world is a messy place and true fire drills are unavoidable. That's just life. But while Microsoft moves at the speed of thought, many managers just aren't being very thoughtful when it comes to understanding how their decisions ripple down through the organization.
For those on the outside looking in, the Microsoft Fire Drill goes something like this.
Manager X decides that: (Pick one)
A) It is time to change strategy on a product, project or campaign
B) Since budget shifted, the group has to drop some work and take on other duties
C) The product, project or campaign currently under executive review prior to launch needs "minor changes"
D) All of the above
And then all the IC's and some layers of management scramble around to turn the battleship, screw another team and help someone feel like they contributed, while everything else they are supposed to be doing gets put on the back burner. This has the devilish effect of sometimes making those items on the back burner generate their own fire drills due to boiling over from neglect.
Would it be any surprise that one of the management training classes at Microsoft is presentation skills, with a particular emphasis on making outstanding PowerPoint presentations.
(Truth in HRWeb advertising would instead title the class, "PowerPoint for Pointy Heads.")
Would it be a further surprise that most of the PowerPoint decks that float through my inbox are so terrible in aspect that I reflexively clutch my lingam so that my soul is not sucked out through my eyeballs when I view them? Would it stretch credulity to the breaking point to point out that many Fire Drills have their very own PowerPoint accompaniment?
If only we had an effective evacuation plan!
My third request of management and leadership is to snuff out fire drills by learning some Management 101 skills:
Good managers don't create fires, but do put them out.
Good managers don't make decisions that cause other groups to go into fire drill mode. They make decisions that cause the competition to do so.
Good managers don't micromanage but do keep their pulse on things in order to avoid last-minute changes.
And put a bloody pox on using PowerPoint decks for internal communications!
I agree. The worst is that at the end you usually go through the fire drill and create the 8 point font slide deck in four quadrants, which rolls up to an exec who asks 0 to 1 question or worse rat holes on some totally unimportant topic and that's it. You go back to your office and say, "I want the last 24 hours of my life back", because these exercises usually do NOTHING but save the skin of piss poor management who probably didn't listen to the ICs and avoid the fire.
ReplyDelete"Good managers don't make decisions that cause other groups to go into fire drill mode. They make decisions that cause the competition to do so."
ReplyDeleteWith comparative evaluation (Stack ranking), the managers of the other groups ARE the competition.
Well, Domain,
ReplyDeleteI hope you have not abandoned ship. I have noted comments about your blog all over the net. Good comments.
Just remember, the solution will never present itself so boldly or clearly, as the enemy always has a vote. The solution will sneak up on you, and if you are not ready, will fly through your mind without recognition.