Sharing articles and trends constantly via an instant communications tool is not leadership. It’s the opposite and quite frankly it's lazy.
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Some CEOs and Supervisors feel like everyone must have the same information at the same time. “Wow, I just read this article, my team must read this immediately and incorporate the thoughts into their workflow.” It’s ok to do this once in a while, but a constant barrage of "read this!," "Lot's of great stuff in here," "Let's discuss!" leads to confusion and frustration among the team.
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"Should we continue with the plan we all discussed last week or does this article override everything we're doing? My manager sent this to me and some of this contradicts what I'm doing, should I stop?"
I’ve worked in situations where the supervisor and creative team spends hours, sometimes an entire day on an idea and formulates a plan of action. The team starts to execute that plan and the very next day…
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"Oh wait, THESE articles say everybody else is doing something different, we should totally scrap that other idea. Let’s all independently figure out what to do and then do that!”
What the hell? Didn’t we just come up with a good plan? Now we’re going to throw it all away just because you read three other articles this morning? It sounds hard to believe, but this has actually happened to me on multiple occasions.
If your team can’t execute any plan to its completion, you’re going to be stuck in an endless loop of halfhearted projects. You’ll never know if your ideas can create an impact because they’re never allowed to run past the initial start.
This also leads to a ‘creative drain.’ Your team is less likely to come forward with new ideas because they know everything is just going to change in less than two weeks. So you’re getting halfhearted work just to get through the day. Why put forth a lot of effort on something when there’s a good chance you’ll never get to finish it?
Whether actual creative and marketing or other business functions, your team will work by rote just waiting for your next decree of the ‘new shiny object.’
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“Wooooooo, look at this trend, let’s develop and start marketing THIS!”
The other side of “Shiny Object Syndrome” is the “neverending innovator.” Always forward-looking to the ‘next product’ the ‘next big thing’ while never doing a proper evaluation of the time and resources required to deliver that new product. This is also known as ‘getting the house in order.’
Taking the time to ensure that what you are delivering TODAY is of the best quality, you’re operating at maximum efficiency, you’re making a profit and you’re paying all your bills.
If you never get your house in order and you just keep innovating the ‘next big thing’ you run a very real risk of running your business into the ground financially. Your team can't produce existing products efficiently or at profit, you're throwing more products for them to produce and you create a cycle where the team gets further behind trying to do more and more with less and less.
Not only is this a financial drain, but it leads to a loss of quality people. Good people want to work for good people. Disarray and lack of planning to create a high-quality workplace that operates efficiently leads to frustration. Lack of interest by leadership to address the workplace in favor of ‘innovation’ can lead to the loss of good people.
Innovation is absolutely necessary to stay afloat in an ever-changing market. But too much innovation without a sound financial and resource infrastructure and you’re setting up your company to hurt a lot of people.
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True Leaders evaluate a constantly shifting marketplace, weighing new information against your present goals and plans.
Does this new information add value to the team?
Do these trends affect our current plan of execution and warrant a possible change in strategy?
Is this new product really worth pursuing right now?
Or are these things simply a 'shiny object' distraction?
If the information offers value, a true leader gathers up their team to discuss it together, not via instant messaging. Input is necessary from the team to not only evaluate the information but how it will affect the resources of the team and the company as a whole. In other words, making sure the ‘house is in order’ and can handle the change of direction if necessary.
A successful business plays a long game and executes a well-planned strategy, making changes only after a good evaluation of the new data. Don't sacrifice your long term goals with a barrage of short term shiny object distractions.