Myth #3: Average team players are good enough and consensus is key to progress.
Each challenge transitioning to a state-based marketplace can be broken down into eight steps for effective decision making.
- Define the issue that needs to be addressed
- Describe the objective or criteria on how you’ll make that decision
- Identify the names and roles of each person involved in making the decision
- Explore alternatives
- Explain the final decision and what that means to stakeholders
- Construct the implementation plan and timeline
- Recognize those who participated
- Gather feedback on what worked and what did not work for next time.
Let us assume you have a B player, and they are assessing the issue and they define the issue and they define the issue wrong. As a result for the next day, week or month your team is solving the ‘wrong problem.’ Time has been sucked from real problems while they solve a symptom of the root problem. From the start it’s critical to have leadership that has applicable experience. This doesn’t mean ‘worked in state government’ or ‘have led large programs’ it means experience that is specifically applicable and relevant.
It’s not good enough to have players that ‘mostly’ understand the issue or who can generally or vaguely define the problem statement, of which there will be many, the team must solve. There is not enough time.
There is not enough time for B players and there is not enough time for consensus. Nothing great was ever build by consensus, transiting your exchange from a partnership or federal model to a state-based marketplace will not be any different.
Normally, I hire for attitude and train for skill. This model hasn’t failed me yet. However, when developing your state-based leadership team and establishing your core technology leaders – that is not enough. You must hire for attitude AND skill. It’s not good enough to have average players making average decisions, your customers are more valuable than that and they deserve better.
Engage leaders who bring with them experience that is directly applicable and immediately relevant.