Developing your people or developing organizational processes?

As leaders, we have to make the most use out of our finite time available. At some point we are faced with a decision of whether to prioritize investing that limited time in developing our people versus investing it in developing processes for our organization. This article will shed insight into these two approaches and help you determine which one will work best to improve your organization.

Developing a Fool-proof system

As a battalion operations officer, I remember investing a lot of time and energy into developing and implementing a training management process to improve our organization. I worked closely with my team to nail down a fool-proof system. It only took one week to create, gain approval for, and communicate the process. It took eight weeks to implement and gain organizational alignment with the new process before it became second nature.

Once we had the process going though, we noticed an improvement in our planning, communication, and execution of training events. Things were going great for a few months. My two assistant operations officers had a smooth transition between current and future operations. The process would surely help us through an upcoming period of transition in which both of my assistant operations officers and I would change jobs. All of us would stay in the same battalion, but would move to different positions. I would stay in the battalion headquarters as the Executive Officer, but would be gone for a few weeks to undergo physical rehabilitation following a near-fatal parachuting accident I had a few months earlier. My two assistant operations officers would assume command of two of our companies (subordinate units).

When I returned to the office in my new role, both of the assistant operations officers that implemented the training management process had already moved to new positions. While the three of us were still in the battalion, our new positions took our focus into different areas.  I soon noticed that in just under a month the process we had built was already starting to unravel.

Developing the Team

After seeing how fragile and temporary processes can be, I decided to change focus to developing our people. While we still developed processes, we focused less on the structure of the process and focused more on developing our people who could in turn develop processes for their organizations.

I started holding weekly leader development sessions for my counterparts at our subordinate units (Company Executive Officers). After a few short weeks, I noticed a significant improvement in the company executive officers’ ability to get their units moving in the same direction. I also noticed that amount the influence they had in their companies was increasing as well.

Wanting to further capitalize on progress made with the company executive officers, I also started weekly professional development sessions with the staff. Just as with the executive officers, I noticed that in a short time, the staff started to mature in their roles.  They needed less guidance and solved problems on their own without my assistance.

We improved our performance in key areas and fixed some systemic flaws. This time, though, the change lasted much longer. The lasted not only through my tenure as the Battalion Executive Officer, but remained beyond my time in the unit. Six months after I had left the organization, one of the company commanders approached me to let me know that the unit was continuing to improve and many of the processes were still in place.

Different Approaches Garner Different Results

Why did one approach (focus on developing processes) only last a few weeks, while the other approach (focus on developing people) last much longer? The impact from developing processes are temporary, while developing people leads to long-term results. The reasons below outline why and can potentially help you and your organization make lasting and impactful change.

• Processes have a temporary shelf life. Processes require people to make them work. If your people don’t have buy-in or aren’t educated on the system, the system will go by the way side. When the people leave, the process is at risk of dying.

• Conversely, investing time and energy into your people can last a lifetime. People will take lessons learned and carry them for the remainder of their career.

• Developing your people enables and empowers them to be the ones to create processes for their current or future organization. Educating people improves their knowledge, which in turn improves their confidence. Increased knowledge confidence combined with the right culture leads to ownership.

• Ownership. The training management process we put in place was more my plan than it was the team’s plan. If I had given autonomy to my subordinates to create and implement a plan, it would’ve had a better chance at surviving in the long term. Dan Pink’s book Drive speaks to this idea.

• The development sessions allowed us to spend more meaningful time together. This not only built trust within the group, but also allowed us to get to know each other at a deeper level. Spending time with your team allows you to understand your team better. You learn their strengths and weaknesses and gain better perspective in how to guide them through challenges.

Conclusion

While it is important to spend time in both, developing your people and developing organizational processes, you will likely find that you will get more return on your investment in developing your team. Developing your people increases trust, builds their confidence, and empowers your team to reach the next level. The results can last beyond your tenure and may last a lifetime.

You’re opinion is wanted. Please comment on the following question below.

Question for readers:

• Which approach have you found to be more effective?