Be a Helicopter Contributor

Sure, you understand the 30,000 foot view of your organization’s offerings and challenges but are you on the ground when key decisions need to be made about technology and design that align with the overall business strategy? Working out loud gives you the opportunity to opine and steer the direction across several work streams efficiently.

Let’s be honest, it can take weeks to get the right decision makers together to help solve a particular challenge at a large organization. Once we do have that “stakeholder meeting,” does the meeting provide the necessary direction to move forward in alignment with each members and the organization?

People say and write different things. They may want to like the smartest person in the room or just want to bring up a controversial topic that will eat up the meeting because they need to get home for personal reasons. Humans have so many variable tendencies that can lead to indecisive and unproductive.

Writing in an open forum, on the other hand, forces people to be held accountable for their contributions. Spewing buzzword corporate jargon might fit in well during a meeting but makes little sense when you actually write it down. Having the tough conversations out loud allows for precise discussions to solve the problem efficiently.

Are you as careful with what say as you are with what you write? Personally, when I want to make a contribution a lot of backspacing is involved. The first thing that comes to mind often doesn’t line up with the overall goal.

One could argue that this is the case for email. However the transparency of having this dialogue ensures the right people are involved and the rest of the organization can understand why a decision was made. Accountability and quality of contributions are increased on the right side of The Control Scale.

When you have all problems being discussed out loud, all colleagues should have that helicopter mentality of being able to understand the high level direction but also be able to get involved on the ground level in many different regions efficiently and on their own schedule.