Are you a Green Shirt or a Red Shirt?
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There was an awkward pause. Our visionary, the client organization’s CEO, was uncomfortable. I could tell by the way she drew up her shoulders and tried to steer the conversation in a different direction as quickly as possible.
We were working through an exercise we often do with clients who are embarking on a new mission, and she had come up against her personal pet peeve: the person with the “I just worry that…” statements.
The visionary fit the classic CEO prototype: lots of energy, no fear, huge vision, the bigger the better, no limits in sight. Exactly the kind of person it takes to chart a new path forward, whether for a startup or an established organization. The kind of person who can inspire teams and boards. The kind of person who says “The moon? Why can’t we go to Mars?” Our kind of leader.
This CEO is what we call a Green Shirt. Clear skies all the way, no reason to introduce doubt. The Green Shirt lives in the world of the possible, and it’s their ability to dream up ambitious projects that others might shy away from that drives the organization forward. Their preferred state is in the midst of nurturing a revolution.
But the Green Shirt’s plight is fraught with speed bumps along the way (though they often refuse to acknowledge them until they reach a boiling point). They are surrounded by teammates they care for and respect and know are crucial to the outcome – who also have a habit of introducing slowdowns and obstacles to the process. It grates on the Green Shirt. These are the operational warriors charged with implementing pieces of the Green Shirt’s ambitious visions. The data scientists, the operational department leaders, the security and compliance folks.
Each is an expert in their respective domain. They guard the interests of the organization and keep it safe. They take immense pride in executing well and thoroughly. They are directly responsible for the success of their piece of the pie day in and day out. And when they first hear of the Big New Ambitious Vision, their immediate reaction tends to be exactly what that Green Shirt CEO was encountering: “I just worry that….” (said with a quick apologetic glance toward the Green Shirt they don’t want to disappoint). This person is what we call a Red Shirt.
They see the practicalities, the risks. They’ve cleaned up the mess of past mistakes and tough situations and have developed a playbook that works. They want to stick to this playbook, not because they lack courage, but because they take seriously their responsibility to protect the organization and the people in it. Their preferred state is with all of the kinks worked out, everything running smoothly. That’s when they feel accomplished. And once they get there, they’d rather not slip back into that uncomfortable world where new problems are cropping up that they have to deal with.
I could feel the frustration of this Green Shirt CEO building as Red Shirt after Red Shirt shared one practical consideration after another. I could tell she felt the dream was slipping away. And it was our job to help her and her team get through this moment so they could get to the other side of it. Because the truth is, as uncomfortable as it is, working through this inevitable tension is what leads to success.
Green Shirts could not succeed without Red Shirts, and they know it. They know that these team members are vitally important. And they are grateful that the Red Shirts safeguard the aspects of the organization that they themselves don’t have the patience to tend to. But oh, does it grate on them when the hurdles so accurately voiced by the Red Shirts start to pile up in their path.
The Red Shirts of course, need the Green Shirts too. They know that it’s important to set a new course and take on new challenges and risks, and that’s just not where their natural inclination lies. They appreciate being inspired by the Green Shirts and their big ambitious visions. They just, you know, have some thoughts.
What can happen in the extremes of an unskilled process is one of two things: either the Green Shirts steamroll the Red Shirts, forcing everyone to launch without dealing with valid problems (inevitably leading to failure) or the Red Shirts stymie the Green Shirts, diluting the vision and slowing things down to the point of failure due to weakness. Both of these outcomes are a waste of resources and more importantly, momentum, and should be avoided.
Even if the outcome isn’t so extreme as immediate failure, it’s often a slow death march for the project. There are two ways this can happen. If the Green Shirt dominates too much, they will simply ignore valid objections, creating chaos internally that eventually spills into view. This is often the story of the tragic safety issue with a consumer product or a fraud claim against a publicly traded company. A Green Shirt couldn’t handle hearing “not yet”, and pushed things past the point of recoverability. It’s not the outcome they wanted or foresaw, but a natural and unfortunate extension of the process not being mature enough to account for the push/pull between Green and Red.
In some cases, the organizational safeguards are powerful enough, or the Green Shirt hasn’t established their influence enough, and the Red Shirts dominate too much. In this case you’ll see a project languish for triple or quadruple the time it was supposed to take, and finally launch as a watered down, barely recognizable version of the original vision. This is a much more common scenario - the project launches, eventually, but never reaches the heights it could. And the Green Shirt is again frustrated and wonders what went wrong.
Perhaps you’ve embarked on something and have had one of these feelings: either you’re the Green Shirt, wondering why people can’t just get on board and make it happen, why they’re always trying to slow you down, or you’re the Red Shirt, wondering why the visionary keeps pushing these impossible goals and deadlines at you. And of course there are shades in between these extremes, and people in the middle who don the Red Shirt when working up the chain of command, and the Green Shirt when working down. They are the balancers who help the Red and Green shirts to work their stuff out. But they cannot do it through personality alone.
So how do we free our fearless Green Shirts? How do we protect the concerns of our diligent Red Shirts?
The first step is to recognize what’s happening, and that the opposing forces are necessary to have a successful project. You don’t have to enjoy every moment of it, but it’s less uncomfortable if you realize it has a purpose.
The next step, and this is crucial, is to tailor the process to account for it.
To the Green Shirt, the months of meetings on security and operations and compliance and marketing review feel like torture. It feels like the dream is slowly being chipped away (it is, but that’s okay, we can save it). Those things have to happen, so instead of the Green Shirt’s inclination which is to rush through it because they fear the consequences of letting the Red Shirts fully into the process and losing the kernel of magic, we need to specifically plan for it. Build a realistic place into the process for each Red Shirt interest to be accounted for. This helps the Red Shirts know when and how to best engage, and reassures them that their valid concerns won’t be swept under the rug. The Green Shirt must accept that some details they hold dear will be cut or diluted in this process. Hang on, it gets better.
The way to do this so that you don’t lose the impact is to begin and end with the Green Shirt visioning. Here’s how: start with the vision. Make it big and impactful and revolutionary. Let it alarm people a little. Then bring in the process and organizational safeguards, and the operational concerns. All of it. Have a schedule, air them out and deal with them. If you’re a Green Shirt, you’ll feel a little dismayed as you watch the obstacles pile up but don’t worry, it’ll come back. If you’re a Red Shirt, this part will feel a little validating as it becomes clear that you were right, it’s not that easy. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. So soldier on, stick to your schedule, and resolve these issues one by one (if you’re a Green Shirt, it is probably best for you to find someone else to lead the process of resolving this because it’s not your zone of genius).
Then, and this is the key most organizations miss, bring back the Green Shirt mentality. You started with a vision. That vision’s been knocked around and beat up a little. It’s become lumpy and misshapen. If you launched the way it is, it wouldn’t be great. Go back to that original kernel that fired you up, and challenge the team to adapt to fulfill that now that you know all of the practical considerations. It won’t take as long as you think - maybe another 10-15% of effort. But this is what will allow you to launch the way you want to.
A quick word of caution to the Green Shirts: resist the urge in this final sprint to let your drive to make it matter tell you that you have to cram in a bunch more features. That’s not the path to success. I’ll write more about this another day, but go back to that original kernel of magic that inspired you. Why did it matter? What was meaningful about it? How could it change things for those you serve? Focus on that impact (which is usually more about the feeling), and give the feature list a rest…until the next round.
Onward and upward.