Prioritising the Big Small Things for S.C.A.L.E.

STRATEGY

The most important step in prioritisation is to clarify the organisation’s strategy and to activate it in the work done, from the top all the way to the ground. In our consultancy work, we have heard varying degrees of clarity across different levels when officers are asked about their organisation’s focus. We often see organisations spending extensive effort in crafting strategic plans, but less effort in communicating and translating strategies into day-to-day work.

In an engagement session designed for 76 senior and middle management leaders of an agency, participants discussed how their teams contributed to the strategic pillars of their agency’s transformation. The senior management team had earlier developed the agency’s transformation vision and corresponding strategies. They wanted to take time to share with middle managers, so as to sharpen and translate the strategies for the work on the ground. Energy levels rose as different participants articulated a shared desired impact for their stakeholders and end users. Gathering the leaders for half a day was a big small thing—a small investment of effort that led to significant value in alignment. At the end of the session, participants echoed that the time was well spent, particularly with the middle managers articulating greater resonance with organisational strategies in planning and prioritising their work.

When leaders take time to help others understand the core work and unique value created by their organisation, teams and officers will have more clarity in prioritising time and energy for work that matters.

CULTURE

What gets rewarded gets done. An organisation’s culture is built and reinforced day by day through actual work behaviours and norms. Ask any newcomer to observe and share candidly what gets rewarded or frowned upon at the workplace. Their fresh perspectives—free from legacy experiences—offer an outside-in view of current work interactions.

This runs contrary to the call for prioritisation and reducing workload because we have been conditioned for success through adding and not subtracting.

In ILOD’s interactions with agencies, we have seen some leaders find ways to combat such learned behaviours to do more. One leader articulated clear expectations of what was needed for a work deliverable and told officers what ‘done’ work would look like, to reduce unnecessary rework. Another leader clarified with subordinates what good staffing looked like, to prevent overzealous preparations. One leader made the effort to email the entire division, openly lauding an officer who had put up a request to drop work that was no longer relevant.

A few words or a short email can make implicit expectations explicit. These big small things not only have a big impact on officers’ workload and priorities, but can also clarify and encourage the work behaviours and norms we want more of.

ALIGNMENT OF PROCESSES

Work processes can accumulate over time and be hard to get rid of. With the hybrid/flexible work arrangements of the pandemic years, processes may even have multiplied. At the same time, the constraints imposed by the pandemic have also taught us that we can in fact do quite well with less. For example, we learnt that virtual meetings can save on commuting time while not compromising work outcomes.

One big small thing we can do is to give ourselves an intentional jolt to see if our work processes are indeed adding value. During a leadership team conversation to address high workload, an agency head related his shock of discovering that over 20 iterations had been made to a set of meeting notes that the meeting chairperson did not even see. It could not be clearly determined if each layer added value. The high number of iterations prompted the leaders to discuss how they might have unknowingly contributed to similar inefficiencies. They decided to update the clearance process from a sequential flow to using a shared platform for concurrent clearance by the required parties.

Such a change was a relatively small step for them. But it was a big small thing that led to a shift in mindsets and expectations, prompting a broader relook and optimisation of how they had been working.

LEADERSHIP

Leaders these days have little time to think. In a poll with over 300 responses at ILOD’s sharing session on prioritisation, a top-ranked challenge was the scarcity of time and not being able to step back to think. Having to juggle ‘business-as-usual’ activities and new initiatives driven by various stakeholders was another key challenge.

Among the leaders we interacted with were a number of ‘positive deviants’—those who seemed to be able to cope and even thrive in this context. Their trade secret was common knowledge but not common practice: the importance of having white space to think and plan, while also taking time to get ground data to assess and adjust how well plans are working.

In a leadership team planning discussion to chart plans for the agency’s strategy, one division head revealed that he asked his staff to set aside time every week as ‘free time’ to pause and think. He related how he blocked off two hours every week to reflect on the past week. This helped him sharpen his priorities. He finished his sharing with an apologetic look at the agency head because he had self-declared the ‘free time’ for his staff without prior permission. To his credit, the agency head nodded his approval as the room of leaders cheered at the encouraging confession.

Pausing to ‘go slow to go fast’ illustrates how a big small thing can enable leaders to prioritise better.

EMPOWERMENT

Involvement leads to commitment. This is a principle we often emphasise in our change consultancy work. Recall the ‘Ikea effect’, where you will likely assign a higher value to something you have assembled, even if the nails do not line up straight or the final product looks imperfect. When people are involved in making decisions or have a say in the eventual plans, they are more motivated to see things through to achieve the agreed outcomes.

This also means that leaders have the latitude to delegate formal authority, change informal norms and decision-making, and energise those in the levels below. This can be liberating for top leaders—freeing up time to keep track of what’s going on and prioritising well especially as the operating environment becomes increasingly complex. In other words, they can go slow to go fast.

In our consultancy work, we found that this empowerment can also go further to creating shared understanding. We have brought people together to share ‘what your world is like’ in various engagement sessions. In one cross-level discussion between senior leaders and middle managers, we created the space for them to share their respective conditions and challenges. At the start, the atmosphere in the room was tentative. Gradually, it became more uplifting as everyone took a small figurative step into one another’s worlds. By the end, there was a shared understanding of the different worlds of experiences in the group. All it took was a big small thing to come together to create shared understanding.

ILOD’s Transformation Team can help your agency realise its strategy, sustain performance, and build a healthier organisation. It offers consultancy support for:

• Organisation transformation and change management
• Organisation development and employee engagement
• Leadership team alignment and development
• Hybrid work design

To find out more, connect with Eileen at: eileen_wong@cscollege.gov.sg