Stop and Go Driving

Few things frustrate me more than gross inefficiency. One place where I am continuously amazed at the level of inefficiency we humans can achieve is in the area of driving. (Can I get an AMEN!) The other morning I was in traffic so congested that the road was like a parking lot for two miles. There were six or so stoplights along this stretch of road and traffic was such that you could barely cross the intersection of one light before running into the end of the line at the next. No, there was not a wreck or construction or weather or anything other than human inadequacy to blame it on.

I had two options. The first was to rail against the people who create our roadways and train our drivers. The second was to step back and look at the process of driving in strop and go conditions and see how it might apply to an organization.

After a few minutes of raging I felt better and my head was clear enough to bring processing. I remembered that every goes through seasons. Some are seasons of growth, others of consolidation. In effect, organizations are going to experience stop and go movement. Nothing is in “go” mode all the time.

This is a big point, because I think it is sometimes easy to look at extremely successful organizations and assume that they never experience a slow down, or even backwards movement. That is untrue. Every organization faces stop and go seasons. The key then is not in how to avoid the slow seasons but how best to use them to prepare for the go seasons.

Successful organizations are those that make the most of their Go seasons. The primary method they use to accomplish this is vision alignment.

Back to my driving experience, as I began observing what was happening I noticed a few things. First, green doesn’t mean Go. Green should mean go, but it does not happen like that for most drivers. That is because they are not as focused on the light as they are on the car in front of them. So, instead of experiencing instant movement when the light turns green you get to watch as one-by-one each car slowly begins moving. Someone might say, “What do you expect, all of the cars to begin moving at once?!?” Yes!

A simple understanding of math and physics reveals that two objects moving in the same direction at the same speed will not collide. That means that as soon as the light turns green everyone should be able to move forward at the same time, even at significant speed. Instead what you generally get is a situation in which the first few cars move off quickly with each successive care releasing more slowly. At one light this was so bad that a light went from red to green to yellow and back to red and I never moved.

This experience can be frustrating when driving. It can be devastating when leading an organization. Whereas cars are independent of each other, parts of an organization are not (or should not be). So, when some members race ahead in the Go times and leave others in Stop mode, serious consequences occur. You either have leaders racing ahead of their followers, leaving them lost, confused, and frustrated. Or you have leaders who are constantly racing off and backing up to pick up the stragglers.

This is what I see taking place in many organizations. During the stop season they do a good thing, get the lead team focused and ready to move. What they often miss is the crucial step of getting the rest of the organization ready to move. So, when the light turns green the leadership takes off, only to look back and see people creeping through the intersection behind them, or even worse, getting stuck behind the light as it turns red again. So, the leaders are left to either run off, disconnected from the organization, or stop and wait for the next light. Meanwhile those organizations that managed to move as one go racing by.

Some leaders try to fix this with clear lines of communication that travel from the top of the organization to the bottom. That helps. It is similar to what happens if everyone in a line is focused on the car in front of them (rather than those delightful people who just stare off into outer space, seemingly forgetting that the light is going to change at some point). In this model, however, you still get movement that is progressively slower the further you are from the top.

The answer lies not just in helping people focus on those in front of them, but in helping them all focus on the stoplight at the front of the line. If everyone is focused on the light then when it turns green they will all be ready to move forward together. Imagine that, a line of cars all moving forward as soon as the light turns green, going from 0-60 in mere seconds. It would revolutionize our traffic system. It does revolutionize organizations.

You see that organization that started their journey after you did and yet is miles down the road from you? It is likely not because they have had less stop lights, but because then the light turns green they are ready to move, together, at a high speed.

So, let me assume that you are following the analogy and perhaps even agree with my assessment. What now? How do we change our current reality and get our people to wake up and focus on the light? How do we make use of this Stop season, knowing that a Go season is just around the corner? Here are a few suggestions:

1) Make a clear focus. The vision has to be clear and clearly visible. If people don’t know where they should look or what they are looking for then do not get angry when they sit still. If you drive up to a busy intersection with no light and no signs, the only intelligent choice is to stop. Your people know the pain of running off and getting emotionally involved in something only to have it disappear or come crashing down. Don’t expect them to just “jump in” and invest their time, talent, and treasure without a clear picture of what they are doing and why.

2) Take advantage of the Stop seasons. Rick Warren refers to these seasons as the times where the roots grow. Use them to answer questions like “Who are we? What are we about? How do we plan to accomplish this? Why are we doing this in the first place?” Train existing leaders and recruit new ones even though you don’t “need” them right now. In a word, prepare for when the light turns.

3) Know when the light is going to turn before it does. This may sound strange, but as a leader it is your responsibility to know when the light is about to turn green and communicate that to your people. The people in the front of a traffic line are in a unique place to be able to see the cross lights. They can see when those lights turn yellow and know that their light will soon be green. As a leader it is your responsibility to be so in tune with your market and environment that you see the signs that a Go season is coming.

Imagine a perfect world where stoplights had the ability to transmit to the radio in our car. You might hear something like, “Your attention please, in 20 seconds the light will turn green. Please place your attention on the light. Prepare to move forward in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Go!” (I would seriously LOVE something like this!)

In organizational life this type of preparation is possible when Go seasons repeat themselves. For example many churches experience the most numerical growth in the Fall, just after the New year, and perhaps around Easter. If you know that, then there is no reason your church should not be ready move at those times of year. Smart retail business make sure they are ready for the Christmas season. They know that missing it means waiting a year to catch up… if they are still around.

Successful leaders are constantly looking for signs that the next Go season is just around the corner. Experience is one of your best tools in this search, both personal experience and that of others in your industry or market.

Questions for further diagnosis:

1) Looking at the next six months can you foresee any Go seasons on the horizon? If so list them. If not where could you look for help to identify some?

2) What would synchronized movement look like in your next Go season? If everyone was ready to move and followed your lead perfectly where would you be when it is time to slow down again? This is where questions about vision, measurement, and evaluation come into the picture. Where are we going? How far is it? How will we know when we get there? Are there any special instructions we (your followers) need? Are there any known obstacles we need to know about?

[Note that the longer your Go season is the more detailed you need to be in your vision and directions. If we are simply traveling three blocks to the next stop light then it should be easy enough to stay together. If we are taking a 200 mile trip then the chances some of the organization is going to get lost or distracted are high. Thinking along those lines we can see some of the benefits of the Stop season.]

3) Think back to your last Go season. Did your leadership move out and leave the rest of the organization behind? Look at the organization and see if you can identify the exact levels, departments, or people where the slow down occurred. Just as it only takes 1 car in a line of hundreds to slow everyone down behind them, it could be that a single area is causing your entire organization to slow down as well.

Knowing that, once you have identified the key areas, how can you focus on them during the next Stop season? What could be done to refocus each division in your organization not just on the one in “front” of it but also on the green light?