Leverage Weekly #71 - Reporting to superiors
tl;dr - Open up lines of communication with good reporting practices
Many of the essays in this series have focused on the design and management of organizations. Even designers and executives have bosses, however. In some cases, these bosses or superiors are part of the organization. In other cases, they exist outside of it. As one approaches the border of an organization, the metaphor of organizations as machines made of people can break down and the metaphor of organizations as embedded pieces of software becomes more apt.
In a non-profit organization, the chief executive reports to the board of directors. The board may be composed of people employed or not employed by the organization; either way, each person on the board acts in their capacity as a member of the public. The board, in turn, reports to the public, at least within the context of a democratic society such as our own. This line of reporting, far from being pro forma, can be thought of as connecting the software of the organization to the deeper program of society as a whole.
Many people’s experience with reporting is negative. They imagine, or actually have, superiors who will judge them unfairly. Alternatively, they may have superiors who will judge them fairly but believe that that will go badly for them. Certainly, it is possible to have dysfunctional reporting relationships. Done properly, however, reporting to superiors is a way to receive guidance and needed correction, while helping one’s superiors do their job properly.
Whether one is approaching reporting in a functional and pro-social way or in a way designed to evade responsibility, the key concept to focus on is filtering. One’s superiors never have access to all of the information one has. In making a report, it is necessary to pick and choose which pieces of information to communicate. One is, therefore, managing a filter. Good reporting to superiors involves managing this filter in a way that delivers relevant information, good and bad, at the right time, whether one is reporting to one’s manager, the board, the public at large, or some other group.
How, then, should one choose what to report? Companies may have different practices, and certainly the reporting practices in a company should be tuned to that organization’s situation. However, there are some baseline desiderata it makes sense to take into account, even if one ultimately ends up with a customized reporting system. The most basic desiderata are: (1) reporting problems, (2) reporting successes, and (3) reporting unknowns. Let’s consider each of these in turn.
People often hesitate to report problems. The thought is that they will be blamed for the problems and suffer some sort of negative consequence. That can certainly happen, but also, problems need to be reported. The solution is to report problems early, even before they became full-fledged problems. Report concerns, worries, and the beginnings of problems. Let one’s superior decide whether the early signs should be followed up on. By reporting early and often, responsibility for managing the problem becomes shared between the person reporting and the person they’re reporting to.
People also don’t always report successes. Routine successes can become unremarkable. Talking about unusual successes might seem like bragging. Plus, it can be hard to know whether one has actually succeeded, which can make the appearance of bragging worse. One solution is for superiors to make reporting on successes mandatory. Bragging is bad, but failing to report something required is worse. Requiring and normalizing the discussion of success is an important task, and here, managers and bosses can help.
Even more difficult than reporting on successes or failures, however, is reporting on unknowns. Sometimes, one is palpably surprised or something clearly unexpected happens. Those cases are easy enough. But often times, unknown things are hard to recognize, simply because they are unanticipated. The solution is to give reports time to think, feel, and put into words whether anything out of the ordinary has happened. If everyone in a reporting chain does this, an organization can become able to respond to the unknown. It’s difficult for a group to do this, but it is certainly possible.
Open up lines of communication with good reporting practices.
The Leverage spent much of the week preparing its Q2 report for the board. Reporting has become a routine and, believe it or not, enjoyable activity, where the team has the opportunity to review everything that happened over the last three months and take stock. This period of review, which results in the board report, then sets up a fruitful discussion with the board and the next quarter, which will begin with the quarterly retreat.
The quarterly report makes it clear that Leverage has been focusing on some things and not others. Partnerships have received special focus, both the present partnership with the Quantum Biology Institute and a prospective partnership with the LENR team at MIT. Effort has also gone into other aspects of the Bottlenecks program, including analyzing the general causes of stagnation in science. Less effort has gone into history of science research and communicating about the institute’s introspection research. As a result, those areas are behind schedule — which was naturally reported to the board.
Work with QBI continued as usual. Geoff prepared and gave a presentation on facing challenges. Oliver made all of the Leverage presentations to date available to the QBI team. Melinda was off for most of the week but had a chance to contribute knowledge on the topic of laptop purchasing policy before heading out. Anna wrapped up her Leverage contract and did an exit interview; we were very happy with her performance. Of course, the challenge of fundraising for QBI is not complete, but we believe Anna has laid out an excellent strategy.
Other progress is being made. Geoff completed feedback for Dan on the current draft of the Gray case study. Cliff has continued to make progress exploring various areas in magnetobiology and quantum biology; soon up is investigating the radical pair mechanism, which Geoff and Oliver are looking forward to.
Note: This Leverage Weekly covers the week of June 16-20.