Archer Dynamics

Ever had that experience when you see something you don’t like and your first reaction is: ” I literally explained to them how to fix it last week, so why is it happening again?” Deja vu. We’ve all lived it.

It’s not your people.
It’s not laziness.
It’s not incompetence.
It is process ambiguity.

The real problem isn’t what you think

Most repeat mistakes originate from one common root cause: Nobody is actually working from the same definition of “how things should be done.”
You may think you explained it clearly. Your team thinks they understood it clearly. But in actual reality, everyone is running their own mental version of the process at hand. People live in their own frames of mind and when we communicate the biggest mistake we all make is we assume that they are in our frame of mind. No, it’s the opposite. We are in their frame of mind and they control it. This incongruence of thinking (it’s a misunderstanding, really) creates a gap of understanding. In psychology you may hear it as a term Assumed Similarity Bias where we literally project our own mental model onto someone else and assume that they just “get it”.

And what follows?

• Rework
• Customer complaints
• Delays
• Inconsistent results
• Friction and Burnout

Try this one-sentence exercise

Before you try to go and fix anything (yet again), why don’t you try and define the problem like this:

“We are failing X because Y keeps happening when we do Z.”

If you aren’t able to fill-in X, Y and Z without hesitation right on the spot, the problem isn’t your people – it’s the lack of a shared definition of what you all do in Z, or what X actually means.

Why?
Because once you write out the above sentence, there will be several things you and your team will instantly see:

• What’s unclear
• What’s assumed (here comes the assumed similarity bias)
• What’s missing (this is a big one)
• What needs to be standardized

This is the moment where chaos starts turning into proper order and the real kicker is that it may have been a single sentence away. You just never asked it.

Why does this matter?

When you skip the above definition and do not ask the X, Y, Z question at all and go on an assumption that everyone is on the same page, you:

• Solve the wrong problem (highly likely)
• Waste time, i.e. waste money
• Frustrate your team (and yourself)
• Repeat the same mistakes (heard of the definition of insanity?)
• Create new problems on top of old ones (and make things worse)

Now, if any of this sounds familiar to you and you feel like you and your team are in a state of constant firefighting, there is a very high chance that what you are doing is you all are treating the symptoms and not addressing the actual causes.

The fix starts here

Define the process.
Define the goal.
Define the problem.
In that order….
From that point onward, everything becomes easier. Everything.
And quite honestly: it’s never a bad time to say NO to suffering!

Want help?

If you need support streamlining your processes or solving tricky business problems? I offer one-on-one consultations to get you unstuck fast.
Book a free consultation with me today at goarcherdynamics.com.

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