(A few years ago, I wrote a post in another blog about an incident at my workplace, when I was still working for the US government. Something I saw recently in the news reminded me of it, and I thought I would share it here.)

“OK,” he said, “here we go.”

It was Tuesday morning, and my supervisor had just arrived, breathless, at my cubicle. He is the head of strategic planning for our organization, which consists of about a thousand people scattered around the globe, with activities in nine countries. Because of some new laws that will soon be passed, our operation is going to expand by 150% in the next 5 years.

“The Big Boss just told me,” he said, “that we are going to hold a planning conference, and soon, to figure out a way ahead.”

Now, this might not sound like much, but to a strategic planner like me, it was great news. Why? Because for three years I have been writing about the changes occurring in our operating environment, trying to encourage our leadership to both shape that environment and adapt to those things we cannot affect, and predicting what will happen if we fail to do so. Now, after I have been largely ignored for those three years, we are being forced by new legislation to change our practices, and do so in a way that is going to sharply increase our workload. Finally, I am going to have a chance to lead some positive changes, even though we are being forced to rather than doing it by choice.

“So,” said my boss, “I’ have Alex looking for a conference room we can use.”

And it hit me: with all we have to think about, with all the research and analysis we need to turn out before this can happen, with all the possibilities open to us for doing some really good work in the future…my boss’ first thought is about finding a conference room.

Obviously, the logistics of a one-day meeting to be held in two months are important. Equally obvious is the fact that they are not the MOST important thing. The fact that my immediate supervisor goes directly to that, first thing, is my first indication that he does not really have a clue what we are going to talk about at this thing.

That becomes clearer as we talk. He is setting dates and wondering about coffee and donuts; I am asking him what product the Big Boss is expecting to come out of this, and he says he does not know. He is wondering if we can push it back to after New Year’s, but looks confused when I ask if we are just planning for the next five years, or farther.

I understand why he is focused on these details: it’s easy. Figuring out how to arrange the seats around the table is a lot simpler than figuring out what everyone should be discussing at that table. Unfortunately, my supervisor’s inability to focus on the work that really needs to be done during these last three years has left him unprepared for the task we have just been handed. He is afraid to focus on the important things, because he knows he is not able to talk about them intelligently, so he instead addresses the minor details that are easy to mark off a checklist.

Your employees deserve better. When something important comes along you need to focus on the value-adding aspects of it rather than worrying about the simple things. If you employ a short-term focus, looking only at the easy details and ignoring the important — and often harder-to-do — stuff, you send a message to your employees that that’s what they should be focusing on too, and as a result the really important stuff gets thrown together at the last minute, if at all. Trust me, your requirements for a conference room will become clearer once you know what it is you’re trying to accomplish.

As it turns out, I have (with my supervisor’s approval) started bypassing him and going directly to the Big Boss to get a better picture of what he wants to accomplish. Unfortunately, he is not too sure yet, but that’s ok — at least that is the conversation that he and I are having, rather than worrying about where to get donuts.

(So, what made me think about this? Well, I read in the news that the organization I used to work for did not meet the goals that Congress set, and so they were completely reorganized, and some people at the top lost their jobs. What do you know, there ARE consequences to not leading well.)