I have been trying to read more, so I have “Read a new book” on my monthly to-do list.
August’s book was a struggle — the topic was of at least a little interest to me, but I couldn’t find a way to care about the narrator and the writer’s too-clever observations were annoying. Every night I struggled to pick it up, but I wanted to cross off “Read a new book,” so I persisted.
I’m one of those people who hates leaving things unfinished, and that applies to books – even those I don’t like. I am famous in my family for having hate-read my way through Moby Dick, venting to my husband over every insanely-detailed yet unimportant paragraph. To this day I remember there are 10,800 barrels of ale on a well-apportioned Dutch whaling ship, and yet I don’t remember what happened to the characters in the end.
Last night I’d had it with my August book and tossed it to the floor. “I’m done,” I announced. And this morning I look at my to-do list and faced a conundrum: “Read a new book” is still there.
It struck me that this is an example of an unintended consequence in performance measurement, a plan without an off-ramp. If a staff member or a team is working a plan and begins to realize the plan is a bad one, do they have an off-ramp or does the measurement system enforce completing the plan? Do they think their organization will only reward them for “doing the thing,” or do they feel they have permission to go to higher-ups and say “This is not working”?
Think about your strategic plan process, your new program implementation, your efforts to incorporate AI in the work, whatever your organization is rolling out. Do you regularly check in with the folks responsible for running the plan? Are you actively seeking out negative feedback, problems, barriers? Have you shown (not told) the team that your organization rewards a change of course as much as a completed scope of work? Or do they think you only want to hear forward motion and good news?
Stephen Covey said being efficient on the wrong plan is like climbing a ladder quickly, only to find out the ladder is leaning on the wrong wall. Make sure your folks know they can put down the book, move the ladder, change the plan – and that these count just as much as checking off the boxes.
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