Fling Media

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Putting Out Fires

Fires are an inevitable part of the modern workplace. By fires of course I mean unforeseen projects or tasks that tend to come from nowhere. Fires can sometimes be a destructive force in moral, adds to stress, overwhelming people with seemingly random assignments. But I find there is always a problem that needs solving beneath the flames. While it isn’t always obvious, its usually there. Here are a couple of tips to put out fires before they begin, control them once they are started and avoid getting burnt.

Firestarters

I have to admit, I’m a firestarter. My brain is constantly working, thinking up new ideas is a daily occurrence for me. When you add that I like to materialize my thoughts and ideas by sharing them with others, you have the makings of a Class A Firestarter.

While I view my habits as just sharing information, trying to inspire and get people excited about what is in my head, the problem comes from others taking said brain dump and not knowing exactly what to do with it. I’m sure they are asking themselves, “Is this a project? Should I drop what I’m doing and talk about this?”

As hard as it is for me to believe, I’m starting to think that the stream of thoughts that come out of my head are not viewed as a shining beacon of light, inspiring the people it bathes, but more like a blowtorch reigning a destructive path on motivation and moral. While I’ve always been like this, I wasn’t always a firestarter. What the hell happened?

Employees, or rather, being an Employeer.

While I’ve managed people most my professional life, being a middle manager is a lot different than being one of the guys at the top. I think my efforts towards collaboration or motivation can be viewed more like delegation or frivolous assignments on an already booked plate.

I know it might be preferable to dismiss fires, push them off to someone else, or half-hearted attempt to put them out, there are many times that at the heart of the fire is a real problem that needs to be solved.

So how do you determine the size of the fire? What do you do with fires once they are created? Here are some tips for all those crispy innocents on how to deal with people… well like me.

The Solutioneering Fire

I believe that most fires are started because a solution is delegated, not the problem. For example, me saying to Tom, our Design Technologist, “use AJAX on that form” sounds like a little smoker to me.

My comment can easily be misinterpreted as a desired course of action coming from his boss rather than a suggestion. Now Tom has to solve three problems, 1.) how to use AJAX on said form, 2.) how to pitch a differing solution to his boss and 3.) don’t forget he still needs to know what the problem is. All of which can be a waste of time.

Whenever you seeing these fires starting, be sure to understand the problem. Be sure to ask the firestarter what they perceive the problem to be. If they can’t express what the problem is, reflect what you think it is back to them.

Ways to put out this fire

• Respond with “I’m not exactly sure what you asking for. What exactly is it that you need?”
• Or “How will that solve the problem?”
• Implement some sort of tax on “Solutioneering.” We charge a dollar per instance.

The Fence Pitch Fire

One of the most common fires that I start is the Fence Pitch, as in “Pitching over the Fence.” It usually takes the form of an email, or worse, walking up to someone and asking someone for information or to take care of something seemingly simple. While all I’m looking for is some information to help me make a decision and fully expect it to be pitched back to me. But this is rarely the case.

The Fence Pitch has several unfortunate consequences. First of all something simple can have a cascade effect in the receivers head. What can start as a simple question can quickly evolve into something bigger. You are asking someone to solve a problem on the fly, which doesn’t often happen. Problems tend to linger in the head as you think out solution scenarios.

The best way to put out this fire is pitch it back as fast as you can. Do not dismiss it, but put it back to the person asking it in order to better understand the context and priority of the Pitch.

Ways to put out this fire

• Respond with “I don’t have an answer for you right away, but I can get one for you. When do you need this by?”
• Or “Can you email me a little more detail on what you are looking for?”
• Or “Is this a priority? Do you need me to take care of this right away?”
• Or “Can we meet about this a little later?”

The Plate Clearing Fire

Fence Pitching and Plate Clearing are very similar. Whereas the Fence Pitch typically deals with getting followup on more conceptual problems, Plate Clearing deals with followup on delegated tasks. I think this is most exemplified by asking the question “where are we at with ___?”

Say I delegate a task to Garrett, our Senior Developer, like “look into finding a good bug tracking solution.” While technically I’ve delegated the task and should trust that Garrett is on it, the task still remains a priority for me, like a few crumbs still on my plate. That one tiny crumb increasingly becomes a distraction for me until finally I try to clear it off entirely, asking Garrett, “where are we at with bug tracking?”. A simple followup can come off to Garrett like micro-management, lack of trust and can create a pretty disruptive fire.

Sometimes we just plain forget and need the followup, but there can sometimes be a disconnect between the priorities of your boss and your personal priorities. But it is hard to respond to your boss with, “um, it just wasn’t important enough for me to drop what I was doing.”

Ways to put out this fire

• Understand the priority when the task is assigned. Inform the firestarter what will be pushed if you do their task first.
• Make sure you capture the task someplace to remind yourself to do it. Use a public system so the firestarter can see your progress and where it sits in your queue.
• Make sure you provide regular status updates to the person that delegated it to you. Be sure to ask them for followup information to reduce the time it takes to complete.

The Drive-by Fire

One of my least favorite fires is what I call Drive-by Work. This is when someone passes by your desk and drops some huge task or project on your lap, ignoring the normal channels or existing process. This is most common in internal organizations when higher level management delegate to internal teams, but we see it with client work at times too.

As the receiver of a Drive-by attempt, it can be a confusing and difficult to know what to do with it. If your bosses boss tell you to do something, instincts tell you to drop everything and do it. You assume that they must know the priorities and are making a sound judgement call.

Luckily this fire is one of the easiest to put out, by fighting fire with fire.

Ways to put out this fire

• First, tell the firestarter that you will talk to your boss about this task and that one of you will get back to you right away.
• Then go tell your boss about the task. It is their problem to deal with these issues not yours.
• Then either you or your boss should send an email to the firestarter and communicate any next steps that have been worked out.

The Reactivity Fire

Probably the most dangerous blaze is reactivity, or maintaining a constant state of responding to fires, never acting proactively. While all fires tend to be created by reactively acting to tasks, reactivity lingers in the culture of any opportunity-based organization, being very difficult to put out.

This fire has been common in every start-up or sales-based organization I’ve ever worked for, constantly shifting priorities based on whatever opportunity exists that particular week. It is stressful, exhausting and tends to burn people out fast.

I’ve found that a big cause of reactivity is delegating tasks, or in some cases even discussing tasks too early with others. While the opportunity may make you excited, getting others involved too early usually serves as more of a distraction than a celebration.

The best way to reduce the effects of reactivity, is being more thoughtful and deliberate on how you communicate opportunities to others.

Ways to put out this fire

• Make sure you know the difference between a delegated task and sharing information. Ask, “Is there anything you need from me on this right now?”
• Celebrate new opportunities, but kickoff projects. Don’t confuse back patting yourself with next steps of a project. One involves beers, the other doesn’t, you decide.
• Do not celebrate too early. Reserve your excitement until the opportunity is “booked.” Celebrating too early only to get stuck right before you start is a big let down to morale. But always encourage the person pulling in the opportunity.
• Have a method or system of capturing and publishing opportunities as they happen. I’ve high level monthly status reports pretty helpful. Since its release I’ve been using 37signals Highrise to capture incremental progress on opportunities, which has worked out well.

How to prevent Fires?

A big part of knowing how to put out fires is proactive prevention. Here are a few tactics that I’ve picked on how to prevent fires before they begin.

Communicate Consequences

A great trick for stopping a fire in its tracks is communicating the consequences of putting the fire out. But this approach needs to be used carefully, no one likes a nay-sayer. Provide some insight and inform the firestarter the scenario of a sudden re-prioritization in your task list. Make sure to close with a positive ”...but, I’d be happy to look into it further if you still want me to?”

Reset Expectations

When fires get created in projects, they tend to take hold a lot faster than with an individual. Simply communicating consequences to one person just doesn’t cut it. Once a fire has started in your project, the first step should be to immediately reset expectations with stakeholders. Provide a detailed plan of how the fire will be absorbed and reset the original expectations of when and what will be delivered, before work begins. Provide stakeholders with a graceful opportunity to back out of the fire that they have tried to create.

Kick it Off

When a firestarter comes around with a new project, your next step should be to kick it off. Schedule a followup meeting, better yet have them schedule the meeting. Get together with a few key people, too many and the fire may spread, discuss next steps, roles, consequences and end with a tactical plan of attack. Focus on the problems, not the solutions. A good kick-off can usually make the difference between a creating bigger fire and a starting a project.

Following Through

Always follow up and follow through on what you say you are going to do. Communicating status of delegated tasks along the way assures that firestarters won’t be coming back to create more fires any time soon. Use a central system, like a blog or Basecamp to post status updates. Being transparent in what you do goes a long way toward preventing fires started in your camp.

The Bounce-Back

And finally I’ll share my secret for putting out fires, though it is a bit sneaky. I once had a job where I received so many email requests for new work on a daily basis that it was impossible for me to respond and schedule next steps for all of them. I couldn’t tell what was a fire and what was a project. I spent so much time putting out fires, I never felt like I got anything done.

So I developed a little trick I call the bounce-back. Once a firestarter has dropped some sort of fire on your lap, immediately email them requesting more detail about the task. I would not do anything until I heard back from them.

The people that made time for my question were people invested in the task. I knew that they had an honest problem they were looking for my help to solve and they would provide me the resources to help solve it.

No response, often meant someone had a reactive thought that popped into their head, emailed it to me, (often poorly phrased to sound like the sky was falling) and expected me to stop what I was doing, pick it up and run with it. The bounce-back helped weed out real projects from random delegation, plate-clearing, fence-pitching, you name it.

This trick comes with a word or warning though, you can’t just use the bounce-back to write off or intentionally roadblock the task. Try to focus your followup questions on getting information that will really help you kick it off right.

Wrapping up

To sum up, Remember like in nature, fires have their place. Knowing how to deal with them is the trick. The best way to deal with reactive nature is to be think and act proactively. Communicate often, ask questions and don’t allow the fire to spread beyond you.

I’m sure there are many more types of fires and many other ways to put them out. Now I’ll ask you, how do you put out fires?

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