Mooly's Corner: Thoughts on ARs

Author
Eden, Mooly

July 13,
2009 at 04:03 PM

Lately I attended several meetings where ARs were “sprinkled” in all directions. Not one AR, Not two ARs, but many. I had the feeling people were not thinking twice before they assigned the ARs. They forgot someone will eventually have to fulfill them…at the expense of something else.

Let me stop here for a few seconds and share with you a few memories (not the greatest ones).

In army training (no, I don’t want to impress you, I was in the navy…a “fisherman” as the infantry used to call us, but I still had to go through the drill), we had to sometimes cross fields with soldiers walking side by side rather than one behind another (sometimes to pick up trash and sometimes more noble purposes).

To change directions, the officer who walked in the center of the formation would simply lift his arms and turn his body to the new direction expecting the rest of the line to reorient immediately. For the soldiers next to the officer it meant skipping or adding a step or two, but at each end of the line the soldiers might be 300 meters from the officer, meaning a 45 degree rotation of the officer translated to more than 200 meter sprints for them!

I see similarity in our workplace. Sometimes I hear managers say, “My job in the meeting is to give ARs.” “No,” I wanted to scream, “Your job is to listen to your subordinates, to encourage debates and open environment. Your job is to make decisions and to remove roadblocks so that your subordinates will be able to execute. Your job is not to give ARs!”

When you give an AR, or many ARs, it’s a short sentence from you (the manager, the officer), but your subordinates (the poor soldiers at the end of the line) will start running to “align," to fulfill the ARs. A small effort for you, a huge effort for the rest of the organization. You should think twice before you change direction, you should think twice before you give ARs as it’s a small effort for you, but a big effort to the rest of the organization.

Well, I can see a small grin on your face. “No doubt Mooly is speaking about my manager! He/she gives many ARs, most of them are redundant. I will forward to him/her this article so he/she would learn.” No, I’m not speaking about your manager, I’m speaking about you! And if you don’t believe me, ask your subordinates or peers. If each one of us will think twice before assigning ARs, and it’s you, your manager, and your peers, we will have more efficient use of our time. We will do less ARs and more thinking. OK. As always, I exaggerated. (Explain = Exaggerate & Simplify).  In every complex hierarchical organization we do need to give ARs in order to make data-driven decisions, but we need to think before we give them and request the absolute minimum. 

Here are three examples of wrongful “AR giving” that none of us should do, but we all do at times:

• Recreation ARs: giving ARs that will not change decisions or execution, or where decision not wanting to be made and sent off to bring even more data.
• Redundant ARs: giving same/similar ARs to multiple people.
• Roaming ARs: giving ARs to who is present instead of the proper owner.

Each time you give an AR or hear an AR given, challenge the AR if it violates any of these (these definitions are the courtesy of one of my “frustrated” subordinates whom I asked to proofread my corner, definitely he couldn’t resist the temptation to volunteer his opinion on my own AR allocation style).

I would go on and describe some more cases, but I have a few more ARs I have to catch up with, so I will stop here.

As always your feedback is welcome. 

-   Mooly