Scope creep.
Few phrases create more anxiety for product developers – and anger for CFO’s – than those two deceptively benign words.
We’ve all experienced it.
With clients, colleagues – and even our own children – where the edges of a project, the specs of a new product, or the exact number of scoops of ice-cream after dinner get a little blurry and open to individual re-evaluation.
“Surely adding just that one small, tiny feature shouldn’t cause my overall price to change?”
“Getting this shipped 5 days/2 weeks/1 month early shouldn’t be that hard. After all we’re almost done the QA on it”
“Adding training modules in another language shouldn’t hold up delivery, would it? Can’t you use Google Translate to transcribe the existing copy?”
In case you’re wondering, YES, I’ve been asked all those questions before. Or some variation thereof.
The thing is, whether you’re the one making the request or the one receiving it, all parties are blatantly aware of what’s going on in that precise moment.
The rules of the game have changed. The goalposts have been moved. And someone, typically the person making the request, is getting more than they originally asked for and likely more than they’ve paid for too. If you’re on the “winning” side of the scope creep the sentiment is typically, “I’m alright mate, my parachute is open.”
And, if you’ve ever been on the receiving end, it seldom fills you with a sense of personal joy or accomplishment. Particularly when your CFO wanders down the hall and asks you to explain why exactly you allowed that to happen. Yet again.
At its worst, scope creep is a pseudo-innocent, insidious, irritating pantomime where someone wins, someone loses, and somewhere, a relationship becomes just a little less trusting, a little less open, a little more frayed and a whole lot less collaborative.
The same insidious pantomime is likely playing out in your organization somewhere today.
It’s called culture creep
And it has the same dire consequences and outcomes.
The senior (male) executive repeatedly talking over their female colleagues or being curt and dismissive of questions from a curious junior colleague.
The conference call that has no agenda, that starts 10 minutes late or goes 15 minutes long because the host was on another more important call with more interesting participants.
Or the multitude of daily faux pas around race, gender, age, appearance, and orientation that may appear innocent but are actually toxic micro-aggressions.
Individually it can be convenient to brush these behaviours off as irritating and irksome. But, collectively, over time, they will fray your internal relationships as effectively – and as painfully – as sandpaper.
And it’s the slow inexorable creep of those unaddressed actions and behaviours that turn a thriving organizational culture into one where engagement, participation, commitment, and collaboration are noticeably absent.
This remains the truest definition I’ve ever heard about organizational culture.
Your culture is defined by the worst behaviour tolerated by management.
Here’s the great thing about culture creep.
It doesn’t have to be negative, debilitating, and toxic. Consider the positive impact of these actions, if implemented purposefully and consistently, across your firm. Actions that are equally small but don’t leave one of the parties feeling that the rules of the game have been changed against them.
Become a feedback machine. One of the behaviours Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, credits for the success of their organization is being relentlessly committed at all levels, from all levels, with feedback. This cheat sheet is a brilliant example of positive culture creep.
Make active listening a priority. Most organizations, and people, place a premium on the sheer volume of communication they create, not the amount that’s absorbed and understood by their recipient. As pithy as your kindergarten teacher’s missive “you have one mouth and two ears, use them proportionately” was, active listening is known to increase trust, rapport, engagement, and appreciation. Amazingly, all the things that negative culture creep erodes.
Show flexibility, build autonomy. The current debate (or vitriol) regarding the Future of Work recurringly comes back to employees heightened expectation that the flexibility and autonomy unlocked by WFH and Covid isn’t eradicated as offices open. Negative culture creep is synonymous with micro-managing and rigidly inflexible schedules, processes, and routines. Consider the alternative of treating your staff as adults and letting them get on with the tasks you hired them for. Shocking how few organizations manage to clear that basic hurdle.
Lastly, don’t compromise on your Values. Nothing accelerates positive culture creep faster than doing before saying. And nothing accelerates negative culture creep as fast as the inverse! The well-justified cynicism employees have toward your corporate values that festoon the walls and coffee mugs of your offices is that, when push comes to shove, the behaviours exhibited do not match those illustrious words.
Scope creep is an exercise in compromise. Far too often it results in winners and losers. The positively advantaged and those taken advantage of.
So too is negative culture creep if you’re not prepared to be diligent and purposeful about weeding it out. To ensure that advantage is created for all, not just some. That the term “win-win” is more than just a catchphrase.
Do that consistently and your culture won’t just creep, it will positively gallop.
Thank you Scott Adam for consistently articulating office realities so eloquently.
Two excellent sources to consider if you’re looking for pragmatic and powerful tools to build positive culture creep. The UGR (or Unwritten Ground Rules) work by Stef du Plessis and Steve Simpson in Australia is definitely worth reviewing. Equally the work by South African Niven Postma on the unavoidable realities of office politics is also worth taking to heart.