The executive loop | Jade Rubick - Engineering Leadership
The job of an executive follows a very simple algorithm:
1. Figure out _what_ needs to happen. 2. Figure out _how_ to make it happen. 3. Make it happen.
!Image 1: hands shaping a future pottery piece
This is simple, but it’s not easy. In fact, it’s so simple it seems dumb to lay it out. But it’s surprisingly … well, not something people take to automatically.
Figure out _what_ needs to happen
When an executive enters a new situation, they have to situate themselves.
I ask myself:
- “What does the situation _require_?”
- “What _needs to happen_?”
- “What am I _here to do_?”
Sometimes it’s obvious. Everyone knows what needs to be done, but for some reason it’s not happening. That’s surprisingly common! Other times, you may be given a direction. Sometimes you’ll even be given a direction which is inappropriate or wrong somehow. But whatever the situation you’re in, you need to understand what the future needs to look like.
When it’s ambiguous, here’s what I often do:
1. Stuff my calendar with conversations. Interview people. This is a skill. 2. Learn as quickly as I can about the situation. 3. Formulate some theories of what’s important. Previous experience gives me little tripwires that guide my attention. I use this to guide further investigation. 4. I then test and refine my understanding.
How is this different from the usual stuff you do when you start a new role?
1. You’re usually looking at it from as **high a level as possible**. What does the _company_ need? What is needed in the _market_. It may extend to where the _industry_ is going, or what _competitors_ are doing. Sometimes it is just your organization, but stretch it as far as you can go. 2. It’s **brutally grounded in reality**. (This sometimes requires getting to the source of the information, so sometimes this requires operating at multiple levels at the same time). 3. Determining what needs to happen is **often a creative act**. You’re not evolving from the current situation. You’re inventing how it should be.
Learning this skill
1. This is _leadership_. People moving to exec roles are usually good at making stuff happen. But often they don’t know how to decide what should happen. 2. This is a skill, and you can build it. (It may look hard, but it just takes work and ideally a coach or mentor). I’ve coached many people on this, and it just takes time. Contact me if you’re interested. 3. I outline some ways I learned to get better at this in a separate blog post: leaders make their own problems.
Inventing the future is about seeing what is possible. It is about having a well developed sense of taste. You’ll often find that you don’t know what “better” looks like. When that happens, you can’t really say where things should go. Your vision is inadequate, and you will need to rely on others. You then have you to rely on your sense of what others are telling you. This isn’t ideal. A signal that you don’t know what good looks like is a sign you’re not an expert in this area, so you have to choose your experts carefully.
Figure out _how_ to make it happen
- The first step is figuring out the destination.
- The second step is to figure out the route.
Sometimes, you’ll find a situation where everyone knows what to do, but for some reason, it isn’t happening. Figuring out the route to get there is different than knowing where you need to be.
The route is as important as the destination. And they’re often connected to each other. You may find that as you think through how something will happen, your understanding of what needs to happen can change.
For example, you might decide that what needs to happen is for your company to be acquired. But as you consider how to make that happen, you may realize that what needs to happen is different than what you expected. This is natural. **“What” and “how” are tightly coupled**.
Usually there is a complex web of trade-offs, constraints, and roadblocks. Your job is to think deeply about each of these and become really clear on what the route should look like.
In this phase, you first want to **expand your vision**, **and then you want to contract it**.
For the expansion phase, you are living in **possibility**:
- What are all the ways this could be accomplished?
- What are you not considering? What would other people suggest?
- How does this system work, and how are the problems related to each other?
Then contract, simplify. Select the best option or two.
For the contraction phase:
- Why are we not doing this already?
- What are the tradeoffs of each approach?
- Be pessimistic, ask what is likely to go wrong.
- Look for people you have confidence in, or people you can test for critical roles.
- Look for mechanisms that make progress guaranteed.
- Look for structural changes that change up the whole way you would approach it. Experience helps a lot here.
- Look for leverage points that make the problem easier to solve.
Finally evaluate you plan
1. Does this plan make sense? 2. Is it my best work? 3. Can I think of any improvement to it? 4. Would I stake my reputation on it?
Making the plan perfect can delay it unnecessarily. So weigh the perfection versus the schedule. But make it great.
Make it happen
Then, you do whatever it takes to make the world bend to your will. You employ all of your intelligence. You look at the uncooperative, inertia-filled world and make your future happen.
This is firmly grounded in your understanding of what needs to happen. Having that certainty gives you immense power. Why? You’re grounded in the reality of the situation. How can details stop you when you know how the world needs to be?
You’ve learned so many skills. This is where you employ them.
The way you accomplish it varies, of course. It may just be to prioritize it. For more complex plans:
- You work with the people around you to improve on the plan (this also gets them on board with it).
- You communicate the plan, and get people to feel in their bones why it is valuable and important. You make the future clear, and the steps towards that future make sense.
- You don’t just communicate it or change-manage it, you make people want that future.
And you manage it. You delegate, you track, you monitor, you problem solve. You adapt. You learn, you teach, you deal with all the fucking chaos it takes to make things happen.
And then it’s done. And you made it happen.
And if you did your job well, everyone who worked on it feels like _they_ made it happen. And it feels great.
Thank you
I first internally formed my thoughts about the executive loop talking with a mentor of mine, Bjorn Freeman-Benson over coffee. He described in plain terms the steps he took as he joined a new company. And it just clicked with my own experiences, and other people I had observed. Thanks for all the mentorship, Bjorn!
Image by Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay