Bob is the owner of a 20-person IT solution provider who is moving into managed services.  He is responsible for sales and has two service managers, one for the break-fix business and one for the managed services.

Bob works hard, often investing time daily in the business resulting in regular 60-70 hour workweeks.  His schedule is full.  His workload... well, he never catches up.  He is constantly pushing his people to move faster, but here is the problem: They struggle to move faster because every month, and often it seems to be daily, Bob comes up with something new for them to do.

Today it is a new product.  Yesterday it was a new service.  The week before it was three new marketing ideas.

The problem: Bob is always looking up and chasing a new rainbow.

He could be always looking down and getting analysis paralysis like some of his technical team, but that would be equally ineffective.

Fast is not always better.

Getting work done fast often means you miss the details.  When speed is our top priority it is difficult to fully consider all options and risks. Bob needs to step off the roller coaster to gain perspective.  He needs to look forward, with occasional glances up or down.  He needs to develop new habits that focus his time on critical objectives and building systems for sustained growth rather than the "Idea of the Week Club" which is distracting him and his team from being their best.

MEETING IDEAS

RAINBOW LEADERS is about balancing your desire to move quickly with the wisdom to consider all options so you maintain your focus on your most critical objectives.

Here are some ideas on how to discuss this with your team:

1.  What are the three ideas that distracted us the most during the past 30 days?

2.  How many of these ideas did we follow-through to completion?

3.  What process can we agree upon that will postpone consideration of new ideas until our current objectives are complete?

4.  What work have we rushed during the past 30 days?

5.  How much did we spend to correct mistakes in that rushed work?

6.  What process can we agree upon to avoid rushing work in the future - either prior to beginning the project (having a more realistic timeframe or doing better project scoping), during the project or during testing?.