I love trivia. I often say I have a brain full of cocktail party chatter.
This week at trivia one of the questions was about a show from the 1980’s called, “The A-Team.” The leader, John “Hannibal” Smith (played by the incomparable George Peppard), had his line for when they succeeded with the mission they had undertaken to help someone in need … “I love it when a plan comes together.”
Mind you, that was after everything went sideways and they had to improvise like crazy yet, ultimately, they achieved their mission and “the plan came together.” It wasn’t the plan they started with - it was the one that worked, the one created on the fly as things went wrong, and the plan they ended up with that got them successfully to their destination.
THAT is the summation of implementation of a strategic, or any, plan.
This week, I am starting an in-depth discussion of each point of the Detrick Compass™ framework. Notice I said “point” not “step” because the Compass framework is not a step-by-step process. It is moved through and then revisited, not always in the same order, but always in the order that is needed. This week, we Orient.
Many years ago, I was spending a lot of time driving all over northeastern Wisconsin meeting and greeting community people and stakeholders. As I was, I was listening to Good to Great by Jim Collins on Audible. During this time I was also coming face-to-face with things about the organization I had not known when I accepted the role - things the board had not known either.
One of his concepts landed at exactly the right moment for me: “confront the brutal facts of your current reality.” My initial reaction was, “well, that sounds harsh.” However, it was completely appropriate to the situation I was learning existed. Over time, I morphed his great phrase into one I frequently use, “to make any decision, you first have to face the brutal truth of the reality in front of you.”
“Brutal" does not mean cruel. It does not mean tearing down people or organizations. It means being willing to look squarely at what is actually true. The good, the bad, the ugly and indifferent, before deciding where you need to go next. Before you can figure out where you're going, you have to know where you are.
That realization, first heard on some country road in rural Northern Wisconsin became Orient.
The reality is, though, truth does not usually arrive all at once. Now, sometimes it is a lightning bolt out of the sky. Typically though, it is a drip of information at a time that eventually coalesces into a picture. The orienting point requires enough humility to say, "This is what we know now. This is what we didn't know before. And there are probably still things we don't know."
Truth can emerge. The leader's job is not to walk into the room omniscient. It is to make sure reality gets onto the table.
One of the difficult things about getting the reality onto the table is getting the truth to the room. Not merely "speaking truth to power,” but speaking the truth to the room. Whoever is sitting at the table.
To deliver that truth and then move on from it, that table has to be an emotionally and mentally safe space. To achieve that, I love the creation of a “holding environment.” It is a concept I learned during my time at the Center for Exceptional Leadership.
The meeting leader/champion/facilitator asks the question: what does each person individually need in this environment so everyone at the table can be their best selves?
The group identifies the conditions together. Examples: honesty, confidentiality (what is said in this room stays in this room), curiosity, questions are expected, mutual respect, humor is fine - making fun of someone is not.
Using those giant Post-it sheets, people simply call out what they need and those get written down. At the end of the process, once everyone has their needs listed, each person comes up and signs the sheet, thus turning into the rules of the room - the agreement between the parties. It is important to note though, even a great holding environment does not make hard conversations comfortable, it makes them possible. Psychological safety is a prerequisite to fully Orient because there will be lots of reactions to any truth put on the table. Embarrassment, anger, guilt, fear, and finally: "Oh my God. Now what do we do?"
A leader’s response is not to minimize any of those emotions but to recognize they exist. Get in the boat with the team: “I know this is a lot. It's a lot for me too. This is news to all of us. But now we know and because we know, we can do something about it. How do we make sure this doesn't happen again on our watch?”
It is critical to make a distinction while at that table: do not let people collapse into blame but do not let them escape accountability either. No one gets shamed for not knowing yesterday. The responsibility today is for what you do once you know.
Remember, “safe” does not mean comfortable. A room can be deeply uncomfortable and still be safe.
Orient also requires understanding what is happening across the enterprise and around it. Inside the organization you need to look at what has happened, what is happening now, and what is coming that you already know about.
Not only problems, you also need to surface the good things that change reality: a major new contract; significant new funding; a new client; sudden growth; a strong new staff member; or an opportunity that changes what is possible. Sometimes transformation begins with: “Holy Hannah, we got it. Now what do we do?!” Success changes the terrain too.
As you Orient it is critical to discover what path got us to today. Ask: Is there anything that keeps getting us back to this same place? One of my favorite questions, "What is the really obvious thing, not merely obvious, but so obvious we have almost dismissed it? Because once the obvious things get onto the table, people will often start offering the less obvious ones: "This may not connect, but it feels related…” Follow those too.
Keep in mind that emotion is information. Sometimes people get angry, upset, defensive, or just emotional. The instinct is often to rush past it to keep that awkwardness from “derailing the process.” Don’t. During any point in the Compass Framework, but especially during Orient, you need to sit with it and ask: What is this bringing up? Why is the reaction this strong?
Yes, you want people to begin with today and move forward, but you can’t simply tell them: "Well, it's different now because we want it to be.” Their previous experience is part of the current reality. You have to orient to that too.
After all of that hard, wonderful, emotional work, you next have to look outside the walls because no organization ever exists in a vacuum. Orient means understanding the ecosystem around it.
External realities may include: a competitor entering, leaving or scaling back; regulatory or tech changes; or workforce conditions.
Sometimes the external environment creates a threat; sometimes it creates an opening nobody had yesterday.
Always test assumptions. Especially the ones everybody “knows” and we've always done it this way (ugh, that one drives me bonkers) or standard in our industry.
Orient asks: Is that actually true? Even if true, is it valid in the future we are now looking toward?
A note here, technology belongs in Orient, not as an afterthought. Are you protecting something because it works — or because it is familiar?
Orient also looks at what is loved and accepted. Sacred cows. Some need to be sacrificed, some really are sacred. Before deciding about killing the sacred cow though, ask: Why does this matter? Have you spent ten years building it? What are you afraid we will lose with it?
Sometimes the program, product, event, or system is not actually sacred, the meaning underneath it is. Honoring the meaning does not necessarily require preserving the mechanism.
You do have to find the true non-negotiables though, because some things really are non-negotiable. Maybe: Safety, “yes, this takes longer, but this is the safe way and our people need to be safe”; how staff are treated; or providing quality health coverage because employees and their families matter enough that the organization will sacrifice other things to protect them.
You can believe you know your values when there is no cost attached. The real test comes when: If we do X, Y has to stop. We cannot have both. Which one are we willing to give up? Again though, do not confuse the value with the mechanism. The value can remain non-negotiable while the mechanism changes.
Let’s use health insurance as an example: the value is not "we will always purchase this exact form of employer-sponsored insurance." The value is our people and their families will have meaningful access to quality health care. If an external system changes and a better mechanism exists, use it.
Ask, “Are we defending this because it still serves the mission/goal, or because it feels like ours?” But, if you change even for an excellent reason, it will be painful.
As you are going through this process, don’t kid yourself. As you begin your plan implementation, there will be change. And, some change is going to suck.
Make the transition. Acknowledge that it is going to suck for a while, but the alternative will suck more and longer.
Keep in mind, people frequently suspect leaders of doing “change for the sake of change.” Do not give them the glossy version.
Say: This will be disruptive and it will be frustrating. We do not have every answer. Here is what happens if we do not change. Here is the pain we are choosing. Here is why we believe it is preferable to the alternative.
“Yep, this is scary. We're doing it anyway because the alternative is scarier.” That is honest and it is vulnerable. Let’s face it, you are excited because you see where the change will take your business; but, you are scared too.
There is another scary fact about transformational change you need to be real about during the Orient phase. Not everyone will finish the journey with you. It is sad, it is frightening, it is also true. If you acknowledge it up front it won’t bite you later on and it won’t catch you off-guard.
This brings up another key point. When in the Orient phase, you must evaluate your enterprise for change readiness and you need to try to get as much honest input from your team as you can. But, you cannot declare psychological safety on someone else's behalf in order to get it.
You can create safe conditions. You can protect dissent to get input. People still may not believe they can risk it. Not because they think you are lying, but because they have families to feed or they have had different experiences elsewhere. Safety lives in the experience of the person being asked to take the risk.
People who strongly disagree may eventually stop talking. Maybe they are processing. Maybe they are heading for the door. Maybe they are quietly collecting ammunition for “I told you so.”
The reality is sometimes you have runway and sometimes you are building the plane while flying it. If there is no ironclad reason to start immediately, sometimes Orient tells you the organization is not ready. Build a little runway. Strengthen leadership relationships. Listen. Prepare people.
Sometimes though, you do not have that luxury. In that case the reality is: we aren't as ready as we'd like to be, and we still have to move because we can’t stay where we are. In that case, be upfront. “Here is what we know. Here is what has to happen now. Here we go.”
All of that unknown is exactly why you need a compass and not a map. Conditions change and a map assumes enough of the terrain will remain recognizable for the route to hold. A compass allows you to re-orient when it does not.
What keeps you tethered when you don’t have a map? Your non-negotiables. Your organization’s core values and, knowing that through it all, the destination is the right one.
Doing the hard work of Orient protects an organization from two opposite failures: Impulsive Change: careening helter-skelter down some path toward a destination that makes no sense for the enterprise; and Stubborn Persistence: continuing toward a destination simply because you have already invested too much to admit it is wrong.
Orient gives you something to return to when the journey gets hard. Orient does not happen only once. You must orient, move, learn, and re-orient. Rinse and repeat.
Sometimes you reach a point where you have gone far enough down the path that going back is no longer possible - - - and now the destination feels wrong.
When you feel that fear, ask: what has actually changed? Which assumptions are still valid? Are our non-negotiables intact?
The vast majority of the time, the conclusion is: yes. The destination is still right and yes, it is still hard. Nothing magical has happened to make the next stretch easier.
So now? We do the next hard thing.
If the answer is no, you have to face the brutal truth of the reality in front of you: the destination no longer fits your current reality and you have to orient from here and find a new destination. Then? Do the next hard thing.
Really, isn’t that the definition of leadership? Do the next hard thing?
Orient does not promise certainty. It gives you enough clarity to know the difference between hard and wrong; plus enough bearing to do the next hard thing when the direction still holds. Or even when it doesn’t.
You re-orient and do the next hard thing and the next until you reach your destination. The ultimate pay-off, when the plan comes together and the mission succeeds. Your True North.
Next, I will unpack the next point in the Detrick Compass™ - Envision - where we clarify the destination and what meaningful progress would look like. Because once leaders are oriented and understand the terrain, they can define the future they are trying to create.
In the meantime, have a thought, question, or perspective this raised for you? I’d love to hear it.