Persistency is Leadership
How to get in a persistency mindset
You've had a setback in your work, what are some ways to overcome this? You feel that you need to persistently push on your mission and you have exhausted all ideas to keep going. Even when things look bleak, there are a few more things to try.
Persistency Tactic: Spaghetti on the wall
Take time to think about the most outlandish responses to the situation. Then fling the responses back to see what sticks. This is like throwing a handful of spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.
An example of this tactic: your product is not doing well and management is about to reduce investment significantly. You believe it is a mistake to reduce investment. You prepare a presentation on the value of the product for customers and your company. You prepare fresh points of view and show a positive future. Then see what sticks. Then amplify your efforts on what sticks.
Suppose one of your ideas is a large, named customer is interested and you notice the leadership team wants to keep that customer happy. You can work with the account team to develop the sales opportunity.
Persistency Tactic: In case…
You realize you need to be persistent to reach your goals but you are worried that an escalation will end up making someone angry. This is a situation to use the "in case " clause.
An example of this tactic: your new product concept is on hold awaiting the leadership team to decide priorities after a major reorganization. No one wants to take a risk on the new product idea until there is consensus on the strategy. You figure out there are two people who are going to decide if the product concept is to be a priority or not.
Instead of relentlessly asking them for status of their decision, you provide a summary of the product concept including the benefits of the program to them. You listen for any timing related clues. You then respond: in case you have questions on the concept, I will contact you next week. You follow through to see if they have questions. Each time you check back for questions, you close with "in case you have questions, I will contact you…". Eventually you will get a response.
Persistency Tactic: Take the worst case
Estimating the worst case of a setback helps you and others see if there is a dire impact. You might find there is minimal impact to the big picture.
For example, your engineering lead has reported that a new competitive equalizing feature can't be delivered for several sprints. You take a look at the business forecast to see if there is an impact. You find that the forecast has no dependencies on the competitive feature. Next you contact account teams to check if there is an impact and you learn one customer is depending on the feature soon. The account team finds a creative way to resolve the customer issue.
Many times investigating the worst case turns out to be something you can resolve on your own.
Persistency Tactic: Compel a change
In some cases you can't find a resolution to a problem. When it looks like nothing else can be done, finding a change can sometimes lead to a solution.
For example, your product has a very serious problem in the field that can't be reproduced in your development environment. Customers are angry and a fix is needed to prevent customer churn. Looking at patterns of the problem, you notice the issue only happens on certain configurations. You let engineering know about the configuration and they change the development environment. This change helps engineering reproduce the issue and get a fix out to customers.
Conclusion
The main point of these tactics is to put you in a persistency mind set. Often the obstacles to your goals start inside your head. These tactics provide new ways to be persistent in hitting ambitious goals.