Episode 80: The Dangers of Horizon Conflict

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Dr. Melissa Smith 0:00
Have you heard of horizon conflict? What is it? And is it a problem? Well join me today as we explore why horizon conflict is always at play on your leadership teams. And you know, whether it’s a problem or not.

Dr. Melissa Smith 0:20
Welcome to the Pursue What Matters podcast where we focus on what it takes to thrive in love work. So have you heard of horizon conflict? Well, if you haven’t, you’re definitely not alone. So this is a term that comes to us compliments of Dr. Brene Brown, in her groundbreaking book Dare to Lead. So this book compiles her research on leadership. And horizon conflict is a term that she uses to describe rumbling. And it is considered a rumbling tool. So what is a rumble? You say? So Brene uses the term rumble to describe having a difficult or challenging conversation. So when there is a challenge or a conflict within a team, so whether it’s a leadership team, a project management team, or you know, similar, where you know, something’s not quite going, right, and horizon conflict may be at play. And so today, we are going to talk all about horizon conflict. And lucky for you, I have a really excellent resource associated with this podcast, all about horizon conflict. Because it you know, horizon conflict is something that we see a lot on leadership teams. And, you know, if we’re not aware of horizon conflict, it can be a real problem. And so, you know, with this free resource, it’s going to teach you all about horizon conflict, and four major dangers of horizon conflict that you need to watch out for. And so, at the end of the podcast, I will give you the link, where you can get your hands on this great resource. So, you know, make sure you hang on till the end, and I will give you all the great details for that resource.

Dr. Melissa Smith 2:36
So, you know, with the podcast every week, my goal is to, you know, for sure help you pursue what matters and to help you develop and strengthen your confidence to lead. And I try to do that in one of three primary areas. So leading with clarity, leading with curiosity, and leading a community. And so the main area where I want to help you strengthen your confidence to lead this week, is leading a community, because horizon conflict is all about your work with your community. With teams. It’s all about how we communicate, and how we work together, perspectives, and misperceptions and misalignment. And so that’s really what we’re going to focus on. And horizon conflict is a really powerful tool that will make you a better leader, it will make you a better communicator, it will make your teams and your organization more effective. So let’s jump in and understand and learn more about horizon conflict so that you can be more effective and strengthen your confidence to lead. So first of all, you know, when we think about horizon conflict, as I mentioned, it comes to us from Dr. Brene Brown, she talks about it in her book, Dare to Lead, I will link to that book. Of course, I’m a certified Dare to Lead facilitator. So I love teaching about horizon conflict. And I do take this work to organizations and leadership teams all over the place. I’m doing a lot of that virtually, although, a few weeks ago, I was able to do some face to face training with a small group. And it was really fun to be in the room with a leadership team, but I’m doing a lot of virtual trainings as well. And so it’s still really powerful. And so you know, if you’re interested in that, you can also I’ll include a link to that if you want to learn more about that.

Dr. Melissa Smith 4:46
But horizon conflict is a communication tool for addressing concerns conflict and accountability. And I don’t know about you, but you know, those things come up occasionally for leaders teams like, you know, maybe all the time. And what I would say is, if you are on a leadership team, or a project management team, right, you know, think about your working teams. At work, if you don’t have concerns conflict and accountability, that’s a major red flag, I would be very, very concerned about your team. Because what I would say is, there’s a ton of avoidance happening. And so the first thing to make sense of is any, any effective team at work is going to have concerns conflict, and accountability. And so when we think about that, we need to have some communication tools to help us address those concerns, conflicts and accountability. And so, horizon conflict is just one tool that can be super helpful for us in that, in that regard. And so, um, you know, if you think about a leadership team, your role within the organization really dictates where you should set your sights in terms of the organizational horizon. Right, so think about your organizational horizon. And I just want I’ll just give you some examples of this.

Dr. Melissa Smith 6:24
So for example, right, the CEO, the CEO, has the most horizons to pay attention to. And that, you know, that’s actually one of the challenges that the CEO has. So first of all, the CEO must carry the long term horizon for the organization, right, because the CEO has got to keep the organization afloat for the long term. The CEO also must shift between, say, a five to 10 year horizon, and the current state of affairs. So the CEO is constantly shifting between the long term course, for the for the organization, and what’s happening today, what’s happening this week, what’s happening this month. And so the CEO is always adjusting her sights, according to what she or he is paying attention to. And so you know, as an example, this is why weekly priority accountability and alignment among the leadership team is so mission critical, because the CEO is moving across several fields of vision at any one time. And as you can imagine, it’s a lot to keep track of, and the larger the organization, the more challenging it is to keep track of all the fields of vision. Right.

Dr. Melissa Smith 8:06
So for example, if we think about, you know, maybe sales is doing a realignment, and they have a three to six month horizon, maybe we have content creation has a one to two month horizon, maybe there’s a new sales funnel, and they have a three year horizon, right. And as a CEO, it’s really important to keep an eye on all of these strategic priorities, but they all have different horizons. And so you know, one of the things I’m going to be talking about with the new year, so this will be coming up in a podcast as we move closer to 2021 is, you know, as a leadership team, you have to have, you know, you have to have alignment on your vision, you have to have alignment on your mission, and you have to have alignment on strategic priorities. And then you have to have weekly accountability and alignment. And for some of the roles on the leadership team that might feel less needed because maybe your horizon stays pretty static. But it is mission critical to the CEO. I actually think it’s the the weekly accountability alignment is just as essential for the other roles, but for the CEO who’s filled a vision is constantly shifting, and it is absolutely critical. So there that’s how horizon that’s how the the CEO has several different horizons at any one time.

Dr. Melissa Smith 9:59
So now let’s talk about some of the other potential leaders on a leadership team and how they have responsibility for different horizons. So for instance, we have a chief marketing officer. So, you know, this individual he may have, let’s think about, maybe he has an upcoming launch. And there’s a six month horizon for that project that he’s paying attention to. And maybe he’s also going to be hiring a new marketing Rep. And that has a one to three month horizon that he’s paying attention to, of course, he’s working with HR on that, but you know, he’s got a really active role in that process. And then maybe he’s also managing the rollout of a new lead magnet, and that has, say, a two week horizon. So you know, the chief, the chief marketing officer may have three very different horizons. And that’s just for three different projects. So we’ve got a six month Horizon, a one to three month horizon, and a two week horizon. And then let’s say we have the the Chief of Operations. And an example of some of her projects. And her horizons would be maybe day to day task management. And those are hourly horizons. And maybe one of her tasks is an internal organizational dashboard. And that’s a daily horizon that might even be a twice daily horizon. And maybe another example, would be a process framework rollout. And that is a six week horizon. So right for her, those horizons are very different, an hourly Horizon, a twice daily horizon, and a six week horizon. So we can see huge differences here, between a five to 10 year horizon, three to six month Horizon, a three year horizon, six month horizon, two week horizon, hourly horizon, and a six week horizon.

Dr. Melissa Smith 12:39
And so the point here with horizon conflict is that in order to lead effectively each member of the leadership team, or a project management team, right, because this can just as effectively be applied to any sort of project management team, or other sort of working team needs to take responsibility for respecting and leveraging the different views and staying curious about how the views can often conflict, because here’s the thing, they will, they totally will conflict. And that’s not necessarily a problem, but not having awareness about how they might conflict can become problematic. And so we want to take responsibility for respecting and leveraging the different views. And so that’s why horizon conflict is an important communication tool, because we, we start to carry some awareness and responsibility for the ways horizon conflict may be showing up for us. So when there’s a conflict, disagreement or concern, we really want to check on horizon issues. And so, right, when, when something like when we come up against something, we want to ask, Hey, is horizon conflict at play here? Right, because I’m thinking six months down the road, and you seem really anxious about this? Well, it’s because I got to get something done in the next week. And I can’t help you on this project, because I got it, like, I’ve got a higher priority. And so you just need to wait on that, right. I mean, like, those sorts of things come up all the time. And if we don’t check out the horizon issues, you know, we can, we might just get upset, we might just settle into conflict, we might just feel resentful. And so, you know, of course, you don’t all share the same level of knowledge about every detail of the organization.

Dr. Melissa Smith 14:46
But here is what Brene Brown recommends, you do all need to have a shared reality of the current state of the organization. And so this is why you need to check in and ask For the perspective of one another, when these horizon issues come up, and so this is why I’m, I’m so adamant about having the accountability and alignment, as part of the leadership team, where you have quarterly goals, you have a monthly focus, and you have a weekly focus for each member of that leadership team. So everyone is aware of what people are focused on. And accountability and alignment are really, really important, because that actually becomes part of this communication tool. And again, I will be talking about that in more depth as we move into 2021. But, you know, here’s the thing, horizon conflict doesn’t give you permission to lose focus on the organization as a whole. But you know, as Brene Brown teaches, it’s a reminder, that by virtue of your role in the organization, you just aren’t seeing everything, you know, there’s no way to do that, there’s no way that you can really appreciate what other people might be working on, and the other presses that they have on their time. And, you know, on their workload. And so, you know, having a communication tool, and I would say having a process, that for that, that, that allows this communication to quickly and easily happen. Just eases the process for everyone. And so, you know, what I would encourage you to do, and this is what I will have, as part of the horizon conflict resource for you, is, I want you to consider a recent project that maybe your team worked on, and can you identify, you know, maybe three different horizons and how they conflicted, because it happens all the time, and how communicating about those horizon issues can really make a big difference where you can actually collaborate, and, you know, get get to the heart of the problem and get to more effective work rather than just knocking heads around the issue.

Dr. Melissa Smith 17:31
So now I want to talk about four dangers of horizon conflict, and of course, what you can do about them. And so these four dangers of horizon conflict, this does not come from the work of Brene Brown, these dangers, these four dangers come from my experience, working with leadership teams, and executives. So I have seen these issues come up time and time again. And, and so these are the result of my experience, both as a leader as a leadership coach, working with teams, and executives, and this is the reality horizon conflict can be really challenging. But it’s also important to remember that horizon conflict is not necessarily a problem, it is to the benefit of an organization, that team members have different horizons and different roles. I mean, if everyone had the same horizon, that would be a real problem for your organization. You need different horizons, you need different strategic priorities. And obviously, you need different roles you need, you know, you need different people focusing on different strategic priorities. And so because of this, there is bound to be horizon conflict. And that is not necessarily a problem, that is not necessarily a problem. This is what we want to pay attention to. What we do in response to the horizon conflict, is where we potentially run into danger. Okay, so this is where we’ll turn our attention to now. So that you can use horizon conflict for the benefit of your organization, because you should have different horizons, that’s, that’s very useful, that’s very healthy for your organization. But we really want to pay attention to how we respond to horizon conflict. And so that’s why I want to make sure we’re aware of these four dangers, so that you don’t fall into these dangers. And so that we can actually use horizon conflict for the benefit and the growth of your organization. Okay, so danger one, assuming that one horizon is more important than Another who this one happens all the time. So this especially happens when you fail to appreciate the other horizons at play, you know, you just don’t take the time to look at the perspectives of the other individuals in the room, the other departments, the other divisions. And, you know, often this happens, because you’re just not communicating. You know, it’s not, you know, like, I think a more cynical view is you, you know, like, you’re, you believe your perspective is more important, or your project is more important. And I certainly hope that’s not true.

Dr. Melissa Smith 20:42
But, you know, you just don’t take the time to appreciate the other horizons at play. And so when it comes to this danger, we just, we really want you to be curious about the other perspectives in the room, acknowledging that you cannot see and understand everything that’s happening within the organization, it’s just not possible. And, you know, so for me, and, and my organization, it’s a really small organization, but there’s no way that I can fully appreciate everything that’s happening. And the minute I think I can, I know I’m in trouble. And so for members of that leadership team, be humble. You know, respect what you don’t know, and be curious and seek understanding, seek understanding first. So some of the questions that you can ask is, what horizons Are you paying attention to? So that’s what you would ask other people in the room. So what horizons Are you paying attention to? You could also ask, if we move forward with this plan? What does that do to your timeline on project a, and so be willing to have conversations about this?

Dr. Melissa Smith 22:09
So you know, I have one of the projects that we have, it’s a, it’s a monthly project, right? That recurs every single month. And for a while there, we were always just pushing it to the last minute. And there were, you know, a few factors that combined with that. But I found myself getting really frustrated with that. And, you know, if if I wasn’t careful, you know, it would be easy to blame, or to feel critical or resentful about that. But what I recognized as I kind of noticed, like, Oh, I’m kind of getting blamey and resentful, which, you know, those are red flags for me, because, you know, I don’t, I don’t like feeling those feelings towards other people. And generally, like, those aren’t feelings that I typically have, they’re certainly not feelings that are consistent with my values. And so, you know, I first got curious about those feelings, like, okay, that’s kind of a red flag. And as I got curious about that, about those feelings, what I recognize is I had an assumption that the other folks on the project knew everything I knew about the other horizons for the organization, not even the other horizons on the project, which they totally knew the other horizons for the project, but they didn’t, like I assumed that they knew the other horizons for the organization. And if they did, that, they, you know, would have been more timely. And that was such a huge assumption on my part, and how on earth could they have known those things? They would never have known those things. And so it was very unfair, and very unreasonable for me to have expected them to know. And so, you know, that was that was a really important moment for me to you know, have a big dose of humility that, you know, first of all, I was being very unreasonable and potentially very unfair. And, and thankfully, that stayed within my own head like I, you know, I wasn’t I don’t think I was disrespectful or anything like that to anyone.

Dr. Melissa Smith 24:47
But the lesson for me on that was, you know, okay, we have these conversations in our head all the time. But are we actually having conversations with other people in the room about horizons. And so, you know, getting curious about the other perspectives in the room and having conversations about, okay, what, you know, what other horizons Are you paying attention to? So that we all know what we need to pay attention too as we move forward on this project. And what I would say is, like, I’ve done a much better job of having those conversations so that there is more clarity. And, you know, if, you know, for me as the CEO, recognizing like, okay, you know, these are the other horizons that we need to pay attention to, that that can actually help the the other individuals in the room know, okay, which, which strategic priority Do we need to focus on right now. Because, you know, you might decide to prioritize one strategy over another, because it makes sense within the overall mission and vision of your organization. But you do so after taking all horizons into consideration, you know, and that will happen sometimes with my project manager, where, you know, we’ll talk about a whole list of things that need to be done. And she’ll say, Okay, so what do we need to prioritize, and I so appreciate those questions from her and from the rest of the integration team. Because it’s very easy for me, as, as a leader to say, these are all really important, or to make an assumption about what’s most important and assume that they can read my mind, which they’re pretty good, they’re really pretty good at reading my mind. But you know, obviously, that’s not a very effective way to lead. And so I really appreciate that check and balance from them to say, we can’t, we can’t do all of these. And we need to understand the horizons, so that we know what we need to prioritize. And that’s been very helpful. And it is an accountability and an alignment check. And so, you know, the reality is, you cannot afford to neglect any horizon. But you can’t do everything, you can’t do everything right now. And the other thing that I’ve realized is when I fail to prioritize, because I think like, Oh, we need to do it all. And we all need to do it all. Now, I burn out my team. And that’s not very nice. Because then they they begin to resent me.

Dr. Melissa Smith 27:41
So the first danger is assuming that one horizon is more important than another. And so we don’t want to do that. The way that we overcome that is by getting curious about the other perspectives in the room, acknowledging that you can’t understand everything happening, asking, what horizons Are you paying attention to? If we move forward with thisplan? What is it do to your timeline on you know, this project? And so making those decisions together?

Dr. Melissa Smith 28:15
Okay, so now let’s take a look at danger, two. And this is avoiding discussions of horizon conflict all together. So this is where we put our head in the sand. And we’re just like, we’re not talking about it. So this is not uncommon after there has maybe been high conflict on the team. You know, and I think, first of all, it’s kind of understandable. If your team is battle weary, you know, there can just be this sentiment of, can we just get along, like, I’m just tired of the conflict. But you know, there are no free passes. So if you’ve got horizon conflict happening, you really do need to talk about it. And so we need to, we need to make sure that we’re not avoiding those discussions. And so what can happen sometimes, and the way that it can show up is that teams focus on conflict resolution instead of conflict transformation. And so sometimes, like on the surface, we think about conflict resolution as a good thing. But I’m here to tell you conflict resolution actually, is not that great. So one of the things that we see with conflict resolution is that you know, and this is sometimes when people are weary of conflict, or they are caught, they’re just conflict avoidant, and that certainly happens for lots of people. And women tend to be more conflict avoidant than men so just pay attention to that ladies. But what happens with conflict resolution That individuals tend to avoid understanding the points of conflict, which prevents the team from getting to viable solutions. And that’s really not helpful. Because the team short circuits, good decision making, due to the conflict avoidance, so they never actually truly get to understanding but issues related to decision making. And so the decisions are hard, worse decisions, right? Like they make poor decisions, because they don’t truly understand that issues, because they’re just trying to resolve the conflict, rather than actually getting to understanding the issues beneath the conflict. And so it’s, you know, conflict resolution is really focused on consensus seeking, over understanding. And so I’m not a fan of conflict resolution, the research is not great when it comes to conflict resolution. So let’s not aim for conflict resolution, instead, we want to be focused on conflict transformation. And so when we think about conflict transformation, that’s when we have curiosity about disagreement, you’ve got to be able to tolerate some conflict. So there’s a willingness to listen and understand the other viewpoints in the room. And so this is, this is where I really want you to pay attention. So the goal is not to get to an agreed upon resolution. And you might not agree at the end of the conversation, but it is to get to understanding, so I understand where you’re coming from. But I still might not agree with you. And you know, the way that I talk about this is, you know, I’ve been married many years, and there are some issues in my marriage, where I completely understand my spouse’s viewpoint. But I absolutely disagree with him. And, you know, I’m sure there are issues where he feels the same way. And so there’s understanding, and I can appreciate where he’s coming from, but I totally don’t agree

Dr. Melissa Smith 32:28
with him. And so there’s clarity, and we can make decisions, but we don’t agree on all things. And that’s okay. And so how this shows up in teams, and the value that conflict transformation has on teams, is that when you can get to understanding and actually really dig in and understand the viewpoints. First of all, you get to a deeper understanding. And then you will make better decisions, you will make better, well informed decisions. So I might not agree with you, but I can see where you are coming from. Of course, this requires a lot of trust, and a lot of psychological safety. And of course, as a team, once you decide this is the decision we’re moving forward with, right? So if you’re the one that you know, you don’t agree with the decision, after you have gone through that conflict transformation process, and you understand, right, like you, you do need to stand by that decision. Right. And you you’ve had your concerns lodged, right, you’ve had them, and you’ve you’ve had them heard, and now it is, it’s time to it’s time to abide the decision. You don’t have to like it, though you don’t have to agree with it. And that’s really the difference between conflict resolution and conflict transformation. And so, with danger to where we avoid discussions of the horizon conflict all together, the solution is to aim for conflict transformation, which is where we are seeking understanding and getting to better decisions and then danger three.

Dr. Melissa Smith 34:30
So the third danger of horizon conflict is when we willed power to make decisions and this one is real problem. So instead of grappling with the horizon conflict and balancing competing demands, and values, which will often be a play, right, like when you when you have different strategic priorities and different horizons and that you are working with you’ll often have competing values and competing demands, it is just the nature of the beast. But instead of grappling with the horizon conflict, and balancing those demands and values, and what happens is a team member wields power to make decisions. So they’ll just kind of throw their weight around and say, Well, this is what we’re going to do. And that will, first of all that erodes trust in a team, and that can really have disastrous results, long term for culture. So that’s really very deadly, very insidious. So using power as a blunt instrument, rather than doing the hard work of prioritizing strategies, is a dangerous game. It is such a dangerous game. And so teams who fail to connect to vision, mission and purpose and as a result, fail to prioritize their strategic goals are in danger of falling back on this danger three. And so you’ve you really, and you really have to connect to your vision, mission and purpose. And when you when you lose sight of that you are in danger of wielding power to make decisions. So right, you really need to forge a path forward. That makes sense and right, this can really be a slugfest, where you’ve got to bring in all the perspectives in the room. And this is where you really have to call out the power plays. This is not how we operate, this is not who we are, it is an appeal to values, it is an appeal to purpose, it is an appeal to mission. So the third danger is wielding power to make decisions, right. And so the priority with the most backing in the room gets done, regardless of whether it’s the best decision for the organization. And the solution is, as a team, you’ve got to connect to your vision, your mission and your purpose, and do the hard work of prioritizing strategies and forging a path forward. That makes sense. And this is really where you call out the power plays and appeal to values. And this is not who we are, we do not do power plays. And you recognize that this erodes culture, okay.

Dr. Melissa Smith 37:46
And then the fourth danger is kicking decisions down the road. Okay, so this one, and danger for kicking decisions down the road. Now this one is not the same as danger two, which is if you remember, danger, two is avoiding discussions of the horizon conflict altogether. But this is basically avoiding making the decision. And so this, this is different, because, you know, people are right, they may talk about this a lot. So it’s not, it’s not that they’re avoiding talking about it. But because of the horizon conflict, team members are failing to make decisions. So right, they may be talking ad nauseum about the horizon conflict, but they’re failing to take action. And danger. Four is a failure of leadership and accountability. And of course, we know that inaction is a decision in and of itself. So you’ve got to pay attention to this. And so a classic way that this shows up is, you know, let’s study this out some more. We need to gather more research, we need to get more stakeholders in the room, we need to the dreaded one, we need to schedule another meeting. And is this what is needed? Or are you kicking the decision down the road, right? So like kicking the can down the road. And now there’s a place to be gathering more information. But you’ve got to pay attention to whether you are avoiding making a decision whether you’re avoiding taking action because this happens all the time. So I recall, this was at a time when I was part of a leadership team and we were working with a decision that we had been working with for a while it had been quite a while We had all the stakeholders in the room. And, and it was that it was at the end of a two hour meeting, we had rehashed it. And we had been working on it before that meeting. And we had come to a decision. We had all agreed. So it was unanimous. We felt good about the decision, we felt good about the path forward. And then one of the leaders said it, we all agreed, okay, this is what we’re gonna do this is we’re all we’re all on board. And then one of the leaders, one of the most powerful leaders in the room, said, Okay, well, why don’t we set a meeting for next week? And we’ll review this, and I almost let my hair on fire. I turned to this individual. And I said, You have got to be kidding me. I said, we have spent untold hours addressing this issue. We have every single stakeholder in this room, we have just made a decision. What more do we have to talk about? Like I am not spending another minute talking about this issue, we have got to we have got to close this now. And I think this leader was pretty surprised that I had such a forceful and reaction but at that point, it just felt disrespectful of our time. And I think it really was just discomfort with the vulnerability of the decision. Because sometimes these decisions are hard to make, they’re vulnerable, they’re painful, we have uncertainty, and when it comes to leading, and when it comes to making decisions, there will always be vulnerability, there will always be risk, there will always be uncertainty, and you still have to act. And so I basically, I basically drew a line and I said, I’m not, I will not be part of any other meeting, like I’m just done and, and other people in the room agreed. They said, We have everything we we need to know, to make this decision. And so ultimately, we did make the decision at that point. And, and it was fine. But you cannot kick decisions down the road. You’ve got to be willing, you’ve got to be willing to move forward on your path, right? You’ve you’ve got you’ve got you got to reach your horizon you’ve got right and of course, we never really reach our horizon. But you’ve got to be willing to make progress.

Dr. Melissa Smith 42:54
And so be willing to ask why your team is not taking action on decisions, be willing to ask, do we have the information we need to take action? What is holding us back? So with the resource with this podcast, I have a lot of really good prompt questions that can help you and your team to really assess if you as a team may be kicking a decision down the road. And I think these are really good reflective questions to kind of help you with that process. And so, yeah, we really do want to pay attention to that. And so, you know, you want to challenge the timeline of decision making, you want to challenge the process of decision making. You want to challenge the necessity of meetings. And I would say challenge the length of meetings too. And so often, this kicking decisions down the road, the way it can show up is just getting stuck in a rut in your leadership teams, and in the decision making process. And so we just want to kind of start challenging that. And so let’s just, let’s just pay attention to that. And, and thinking about thinking about what your decision making process looks like on your leadership teams. So this reminds me of a story that I read from Walter Isaacson’s excellent biography on Steve Jobs, and he talked about when Jobs was getting ready to they were building the Mac. And of course, you know, Jobs was so insanely focused on simplicity and design. And, you know, he made things insanely great, right? That’s that’s one of the quotes that they talk about with him. But one of the problems that happened, and well, first of all right, like jobs is really hard to work with. Everyone has talked about that. But he was so obsessed with design, and so obsessed with getting it right. And, you know, obviously, like many of us really appreciate that, right? Like, I’m recording this podcast on a Mac right now. I really appreciate his obsessiveness with design and simplicity, like I live and breathe on Apple products every day, probably don’t breathe, but like, I love Apple products. And they’re all I use. And so like, I can fully appreciate that. But one of the problems that jobs and his team ran into was major horizon conflict, because they had all of these orders for the Mac. And because Jobs was so, so insanely focused on getting the design, right, he was failing to ship the Macs. And what ended up happening, I mean, like, his, his production team, were freaking out. And they were like, hey, like, we we had to get these Mac’s out, like, you can’t keep fiddling with this, like you keep, like, we have got orders. And what ended up happening is that the Mac would not ship for another 16 months, it was incredibly behind schedule. And so you know, you’ve got to be balancing horizon conflict. Now, when it shipped, like it was amazing, and people loved it. And, you know, what we have found is that people have been incredibly forgiving of Steve Jobs. And I don’t think many people will be as forgiving of us as they aren’t be Steve Jobs. But, you know, I think that is a good example of horizon conflict, like, you got to ship your products, like you can’t be 16 months late, on getting your product out. And so we’ve, we’ve got to be paying attention to the other priorities in the room, the other horizons in the room, it matters, it makes a big difference.

Dr. Melissa Smith 47:23
So hopefully, this is helpful for you, as you think about horizon conflict, it’s really important that we have different horizons that we’re paying attention to different horizons. And we’ve got to be aware of these four dangers. And I really hope you will consider checking out my free resource that goes along with this podcast, I think it can be really helpful for you and for your teams, so that you can really pay attention to when horizon conflict may be at play for you and your teams. Because, again, it’s always there. And it’s not necessarily a problem, but we want to steer clear of these dangers, so that you can move forward on your most important priorities. And so you can find that resource by heading over to my website, both for the show notes and then also for this great resource at www.drmelissasmith.com/episode-80 more time that’s www.drmelissasmith.com/episode-80. I’m Dr. Melissa Smith. Remember love and work, work and love. That’s all there is. Until next time, take good care.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai