How to Manage Leaders Who Change Their Minds Frequently
Is your leadership constantly changing goals and priorities or chasing shiny new objects? Find the Why behind the asks rather than triaging individually.
(“Posing for Treats” Mt Diablo, Bay Area, California)
Client: My leadership team is often chasing the newest idea, customer request, or competitor feature. The goals keep changing. They keep adding projects to my team’s plate. What do I do?
Imagine this: The CEO or founder of your company sees a press release from a competitor for a new feature. He thinks it’s a good one and sends a quick note to you to get it into the roadmap.
What do you do? What if it’s the third note like this in two weeks? Do you delegate and immediately pass it to your most relevant team members? Do you ignore it? As a leader, part of your job is to ensure that your teams are shielded from churn, allowing them to be as productive as possible. But then, how much of your work week are you spending triaging these requests and avoiding churn, rather than working on actual projects?
Why Surfacing Trade-offs Isn’t Sufficient
Most leaders first try to deflect the ask by surfacing tradeoffs. They know that executives are somewhat disconnected from the day-to-day work. This means that when they ask for a new feature or to fulfill a customer request, they’re not aware of all the implications and consequences of the ask. Therefore, they focus on surfacing implications and trade-offs: Here is what we have on our plate now. In order to add X, then we need to drop Y.
While this approach is a practical one, it fails to consider the underlying problem behind the ask that the executive is trying to solve. As such, the deflection either doesn’t land (the executive asks again) or the effect is temporary, and a similar ask comes back around in a few weeks, frustrating both parties.
Dig for the Problem Behind the Ask
Another approach is to focus more on understanding what spawned the ask and the emotions associated with it. What has changed? What context am I missing? How is the executive feeling now about our plans compared with before?
Here are four scenarios to consider:
How are we trending against current goals? When a core metric is behind goal or revenue isn’t growing as expected, executives go into “problem-solving mode”. They often falsely assume the current plan is not working and something needs to be changed. The primary emotion here is fear, with anger being a common secondary emotion. The executive is in fire-fighting mode and wants to see short-term change.
What new information has the executive received? When executives attend customer meetings, partner summits, or read certain competitor updates, it may inspire an idea of a new project or direction the company could pursue. The primary emotion here is excitement. The executive feels ambitious and inspired by this new idea.
Is there a new leader in the company? Whether newly hired or through a recent promotion, new leaders bring new questions and ideas. Every newly minted leader believes they are brought in because change is needed and they need to prove themselves. The primary emotion here is an interesting mix of confidence and desire to establish their credibility.
Do we have a clear strategy for this area that everyone is aligned on? Sometimes, an ask will surface a misalignment or lack of clarity in the direction of the product or company. Perhaps no one has owned or thought through this area in the recent past. Perhaps it’s a new area unexplored. The primary emotion here is confusion. Everyone may have a different take on what is needed and its priority.
As you can see, these are often strong emotions like fear and confusion. If you don’t account for them in your plan, they’ll find another place to surface, now or later.
Solve for the “Goal behind the Goal”
Once you understand the context and emotions prompting the specific asks, then you can focus on solving for those, rather than reacting directly to the asks. This gets you back in control of the work of the team. It also helps the executive feel understood and increases their trust in you as a leader.
If the company is indeed behind on its business goals, then it’s worthwhile to quickly regroup and understand what changes are needed across teams, where specific ideas or asks might fit in, and develop and communicate a new plan. When you rally the team to look at the entire picture, it builds a consistent narrative for change across the teams, a more effective way to handle trade-offs with existing work, and allows you to tackle multiple potential asks concurrently (often from different leaders).
If there is a lack of clear strategy in an area, then up-leveling the conversation to a strategic one is important. This is the way to create a shared context and framework across the team for deciding on specific asks. Without a clear strategy, decisions on one-off asks will likely not stick, creating further disruption and confusion.
If it’s a new leader who may need more context or wants to find a way to create impact, your approach may be more individual —reaching out for a 1:1 conversation, sharing what you know, and partnering with them on the next steps.
If the underlying emotion is excitement, then your goal is to find a way for the executive to channel that energy effectively. Sometimes, there is a project or strategy in the works that the new idea supports. In that case, ask them to give praise or encouragement to the team working on it. Sometimes, it helps to focus on the underlying sentiment — that the business is in high demand, the customers are excited — rather than the specific ask. Ask the executive to up-level their feedback and use the excitement to motivate the team.
A combination of underlying problems and emotions will require a more nuanced plan. And sometimes, it can be too much for one person to tackle. In these cases, it’s helpful to seek a partner or ally who may be similarly motivated to get past the disruptive asks. Partners can also help with increasing your awareness or adding to your ability to influence stakeholders. Remember, when the road is long, it’s better to go at it with a friend.