Tag: outcomes

Blog 700! Trade-offs and Rethinking Outcomes

This is blog number 700!  Thanks so much to all of you for reading throughout the years.  You comments and compliments always make my heart smile.  If you ever want to look at old blogs, they are all here Striking Matches – Igniting new ideas and expanding the way we think about things.  With all that said, this week is about trade-offs and broadening how we think about outcomes.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to create content for a breakout room during our Marketing Summit (shout out to Todd and Sam for a great job).  I had a trade-off to make, because I could have approached this in a couple of ways.  Option A, I could have let it be the typical presentation.  It would have worked, but it would have been relatively boring and unengaging.  Option B, I could turn it into an experience, but I would have to invest more time and energy. 

I chose Option B.  I invested a significantamount of my time designing and partnering to build an experience focused on driving decisions with AI.  I wove a movie theme throughout everything, creating movie posters, scene briefings, scripts, intentionally choosing props, and so many other things to pull this altogether.  Most importantly, I found people to work the stations who absolutely KILLED IT with their stories of driving decisions with AI.  (The Lilly Market Research crew is pretty special in case you didn’t already know)

Let’s make a few connections.  We live in a world where we often think of trade-offs solely focused on the easily measured things like efficiency or ROI.  I’m not saying those things are wrong.  I’m saying that at times they can be incomplete.  At times, overly focusing only on the easily measurable things will cause you to miss out on greater opportunities.

If you only focus on outcomes that can easily be measured, then nothing I did makes sense.  Option A would have cost me less time and less resources.  Option A would have freed up more time so I could do other things.  However, if you broaden your views on what a positive outcome is, then it becomes a different story.  Option B and the experience we built created more energy and engagement than Option A could have dreamed of.  Additionally, all this time I invested in Option B filled my bucket.  It brought joy and unlocked more creativity that is spilling into everything else I touch.  Option B took a lot of my energy, but is still one of the best trade-offs I’ve made in a long time.

The challenge: How will you broaden your view on outcomes as you make trade-off decisions?

Bonus- If you want to get meta with this, if you only focus on easily quantifiable outcomes, then it doesn’t make sense for me to write blogs.  I can’t quantify if the blogs save time or do anything for the bottom line.  I’d like to think that they give people a smile, motivation, and a pick me up when they need it. I like to think they give folks new ways of looking of things.  I also know that the writing makes my heart happy, and that counts for something.  Combined, those reasons are more than enough to make the corresponding trade-offs to keep writing.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Legos, Change Management, and Knowing What You are Building (4-15-26)

This week we are going to kick off a series focused on Legos and change management.  By the end of this, we will build concepts that you can leverage to lead change management efforts.  The first entry in this series will be about the importance of knowing what you are building.

Imagine for a minute that I dump a bunch of Legos in front of you and ask you to build something that is faster.  I then tell you that it’s important you get this right.  If you miss there will be negative consequences.  From here, I don’t give you any additional clarity.  How would you feel?  What kind of a thing would you build? 

Now, assume I go back to you and I show you this picture of a rocket house, and say this is what we are trying to create.  Would you have naturally built something like this?  How much rework would you need to do to create something like this rocket house?

Let’s make some connections.  If you were in our Lego situation above, I bet you would have felt frustrated.  You also likely would have wasted a lot of effort creating something that looks nothing like the rocket house.  At the end of the day, one of the most important steps in change management is being able to articulate where you’re going.  If we are unclear on where we are going, we can’t build something to get us there.

Think about your experiences at work.  How often has there been an organizational effort that was unable to paint a clear picture of where the company is trying to go?  The company might use all the right buzzwords.  They might say, “We are transforming.  We are trying to move faster.  We are trying to deliver better experiences.  We are becoming more agile.”  The buzzwords are not the same as clear direction.  As leaders, we need to be able to articulate a clear vision if we want to lead people to new destination.

The challenge- How will you paint a clear picture of where we are trying to go?

Bonus thought

  1. For the record, I’m not claiming I’m perfect at change management.  The reflections from this series are reminders for me as much as they are for anyone else.  This stuff is hard and requires intentionality to do it well.
  2. If you recognized the rocket house as Emmet’s dream house from The Lego Movies, then you get 579 bonus points.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry