Launch: Short-term energy, big time results
The Opportunity Filter, Part 5 [What Leadership Looks Like]
Links to The Opportunity Filter, a “What Leadership Looks Like” series by David Drury:
This is the final installment of The Opportunity Filter. We have talked about what it means to dodge, bless, and warn so far. Click here for the introduction to start at the beginning. Now, let's talk about launching...
To launch something is to put short-term energy into an opportunity to help someone else start, without a long-term commitment. Rather than taking ownership of a new opportunity, you can just assist in its launch. This can be incredibly empowering, because they may not want you to take it over in the first place. Others may come to you hoping you'd do it because they do not feel ready, but after you give them the help they begin to embrace their calling to it.
High impact leaders spend ample energy helping others launch, but don’t take ownership of the launch long-term.
What does it look like to launch an opportunity? Well, launching has some unique nuances, so here are a few of those when you choose to launch instead of own:
Resource Investment
The key component of launching is a decision to go beyond just blessing a new thing, but also just short of owning it yourself long-term. In the process, you invest resources you would not invest in merely blessing something. Launching means you put time into it. Sometimes you put more time into launching something than you would into something you own long-term. You also put financial investment into it. Launching can involve a big pile of start-up funds. A new business, a new NGO, or a new church often requires sizeable start-up funds for launching, and you can choose to invest in a launching level of funding.
Unexpected Leverage
You can invest time and money into a launch--but there are other resources that you might find to have an unexpected impact that you can also leverage. Your energy is one of them. The amount of intensity you lend to a launch can help all those in your circle of influence understand its importance. You can also platform someone else's launch by communicating about it to your digital mailing list, giving them props on social media, or of course giving them time to speak on your actual platform (stage) in your organization. Your credibility investment can also show some unexpected impact when others see how deeply you are engaging in this with your reputation on the line. Some launches require this.
Time Constraint
Perhaps the most unexamined nuance between launching and owning is the time commitment. By nature, to launch is a season, not just of your investment, but in the life-cycle of something new in the first place. The most common mistake leaders make in launching is to begin to own too much long-term. This is true not only for the founders but also for those who help something get going. Invariably the launch is energizing and exciting and sometimes we get lured into helping forever. Then we end up owning too much. It is helpful to put a specific time constraint on the time and money involved in launching (examples: "our funding stops at 18 months," or "I will no longer be in these meetings six months from now"). And overall, it is helpful in your mind to have a time constraint in mind where the launch is over.
I functioned for many years in one of my positions where I had a nine-month rule for anything I launched--it helped me to establish that I was never going to be still giving launch energy to something after nine months. I still informally work on that rule because it helps things truly launch, and not just meander about during the launch phase. At the end of the launch, it can be helpful to do a "hotwash" style debrief meeting to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the launch (and opportunities and threats at the moment), and then who might be responsible for what improvements are recommended, with timelines to implement. This can help us formally hand over launching responsibilities with clarity. Otherwise, we risk abandoning the new thing too early. To avoid feeling abandonment, we choose to own things long-term. But a hotwash meeting can empower others to take it to the next level, and that is better for everyone.
360 Dynamics:
Bosses
Your boss needs to know the things you should own and the things you should launch. Clarify their expectations, or help them process which is which on each new assignment. Ask things like, "Is this something you want me to own long term, or "Do you want me to launch this in the short-term and get others to lead it ongoing?" Sometimes a new thing is suggested as something to own by them, and you don't have time to do it forever, or it is outside of your long-term focus. Spend time thinking how you might launch it instead. The opposite can be true as well. Sometimes a thing is presented as a launch, but you really should own it, then you can determine how to launch out something else you do to make time for it.
Peers
Your peers can benefit immensely from your launch energy. If they are starting something new, they often don't have the resources mentioned above to launch it alone. Lend your effort and resources to helping them launch something, even if for a few months. Everyone will expect them to be excited about their new thing, but when they hear your excitement or see your investment, more will take notice and get involved. Of course, those you invest in this way will do the same for you later on and help immensely.
Employees
Your direct reports need help clarifying their opportunities. Help them identify when something coming their way should be blessed, launched, or owned. Put The Opportunity Filter on the desk, or the screen, or draw it on the whiteboard and help sort it out. If they are overwhelmed, empower them with this tool. At times you will need to make the decision for them to back them up when others ask. Launching, in particular, takes significant time and energy, so help them clarify how to invest that, and be super-attentive about when they should extricate themselves from the launch, and who they are handing off things to--so they do not get embroiled forever.
Those are some of the nuances of the final launch section of The Opportunity Filter. Beyond dodge, bless, warn, and launch you will find all the things you own. You already know what it is like to own things, so you don't need my coaching on that. In reality, if you do the other parts of the opportunity filter with clarity, owning things becomes much more effective because you have adequately said various kinds of "no" to other things.
What are you doing to make sure you own things well? Let’s discuss that and other thoughts you have about The Opportunity Filter and what leadership looks like here:
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