Author Archives: Tom Foster

About Tom Foster

Tom Foster spends most of his time talking with managers and business owners. The conversations are about business lives and personal lives, goals, objectives and measuring performance. In short, transforming groups of people into teams working together. Sometimes we make great strides understanding this management stuff, other times it’s measured in very short inches. But in all of this conversation, there are things that we learn. This blog is that part of the conversation I can share. Often, the names are changed to protect the guilty, but this is real life inside of real companies.

Controlling the Future

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“We have the forecast,” Samuel said. “All on a spreadsheet. We know what we need to sell by the end of this quarter.”

I looked up, smiled. “Do you mean, you know what you hope for? Do you mean, based on your explanation for the shortfall last quarter? Or is this just a guess?”

“Well, none of those. It’s just what we believe the CEO would be happy with,” Samuel explained.

“It’s nice to have an agreed upon target,” I surmised, “but do you think it will just happen from the number on the sheet or are you going to make it happen? Do you think you have the power to intervene on what will happen?”

“We are going to try,” Samuel looked determined.

“What will happen, will happen,” I replied. “Are you prepared to intervene in what will happen?”

“I told you, we will put in our best effort.”

“And, what if your current best effort isn’t good enough? Are you prepared? Look, your forecast is a target, not a predictor. We don’t know what is going to happen, nor do we control it. We don’t control what customers do. We don’t control what our competitors do. We don’t control how our supply chain performs. The only thing we can do is to prepare for whatever may happen. So, when it does, and it will, we are prepared. What does that preparation look like?”

You Are Part of the Problem

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“You make it sound like the project failed, because it was our fault,” Roland pressed back. “The customer was being unreasonable.”

I held up my hand. “Stop,” I said. “Your customer came to you with a project. Projects are full of problems. They came to you for solutions. The first rule in being part of the solution is not to be part of the problem. Your explanation sounds eloquent, even reasonable, but your customer did not come to you for an explanation. Your explanation tells me more about you than it does about the project.”

Roland’s face turned glum. “So, we learned about the difficulty of the project, the time pressure of the deadlines, the negative demeanor of the customer. You said we missed something in our post-mortem.”

“What you missed,” I continued, “was your own contribution to the problem. You knew the complexity in the project, but mis-estimated your team’s capability to deal with the complexity. You knew the time pressure, but did not know your team would mis-fire in the face of that pressure. You knew the customer was prone to anger, but did not prepare to manage expectations. These are the lessons your mistakes were trying to teach you. Until you face those lessons, your next project will see a similar outcome.”

Learning From Mistakes

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“We got it,” Roland said. “This was very painful, to examine the sequence of events that caused our last project to fail. It cost us a lot of money, wasted energy and almost got us sued. But, I think we know how it happened. Expensive lesson.”

“So, you are trying to learn from your mistakes?” I replied with a question.

Roland nodded in agreement. “I think it is important, part of our debrief, a post-mortem.”

“It’s valuable to look at your mistakes,” my nod matched Roland’s nod. “What did you miss?”

“It’s a very tough client. They had an unreasonable timeline, very demanding, put us under a lot of pressure,” he replied, as if his team had been tortured.

“I assume you knew this client?” I stared. “I assume you looked at the project schedule, and agreed to it. You knew what the stakes were. These are NOT things you missed. What did you miss?”

“I was just trying to tell you why it was such a difficult project for us,” Roland pushed back. “Final analysis, I don’t think we missed anything.”

“People always tell me they learn from their mistakes. Mistakes are rarely that instructive. The reason we don’t learn from our mistakes is that we fail to examine our own contribution to the problem. You are going to have difficult customers, with unreasonable demands inside a high pressure project with tight deadlines. All of that was known before you signed the contract. What you missed, your failure in the project was not due to the project. The failure was your assessment of your internal capability, or lack of capability. Your contribution was that you ran out of talent.”

The Rhumb Line

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In sailing, the rhumb line refers to the navigation direction, the line between two points, getting from here to there. Before we can get there, we have to figure out where there is, or what there is, or who there is. Without the destination, we have no rhumb line to guide us.

We spend a lot of time figuring out how we are going to get there, without thinking about where it is we want to go.  And, taking a team along with us.  Will it be fruitful to travel there? What lies at the destination? Will arriving be worth the trouble along the way? And, there is always trouble along the way. So, when you pick your destination, aim high.

The Value of Advice

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“So, I have to know where I want to go, before I get advice?” Sebastian clarified.

“You are going to get advice all the time from everyone around you,” I said. “Whose advice do you listen to? You have to make a judgement about the guidance you receive, whether that guidance will create the outcomes in line with your pursuit.”

Sebastian was silent. Not stony, but reflective.

“Is what people tell you important to your pursuits, or their pursuits?” I continued.  “Is their guidance based on an objective reality, or their interpretation of reality? Hint, objective reality is hard to come by. It is important to inquire of other interpretations, but ultimately, you have to decide your own interpretation. It is only you with a precise understanding of your journey and its destination.”

Who You Hang With

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“You have collected the data, what you know, from people around you?” I asked a rhetorical question.

Sebastian pursed his lips, “That’s where I get my data from,” he replied.

“So, what you know, is what people have told you?” Same question, different words. “And, not just the data you collect from your team, but what people tell you about other things. What you want, your strategy, guidance and ideas. As you look at the people around you, it makes a lot of difference who they are. You cannot pick your parents, often cannot pick your school teacher, but as we go through life, we do select the people around us and who we depend upon to share their view of the world. It’s the reverse of the old adage – if you lay down with dogs, you’re going to get up with fleas. Take care who you hang out with. Do these people have your best interests at heart? Do they want to help you get where you want to go? Do they even know, or care to find out where you want to go?”

Compared to What?

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“We finally nailed down all the details. I think we understand our situation. We understand the players and all the pieces,” Sebastian declared.

“Compared to what?” I asked.

“What do you mean, compared to what?” he wanted to know.

“Just because you have a collection of assembled facts doesn’t tell you much, except what may be behind you in time. How does this collection of data help you get where you want to go? How does your understanding of the current situation prepare you for the destination? Who are the players now and who are the players that will be with you when you arrive? What gifts and contributions exist in your players relative to the obstacles you will encounter? And, all the pieces? You never know all the pieces.”

Accountability and Authority

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“I am so frustrated,” Julie stammered. “We have a project with a tight deadline. There is one way to get it done on time and a dozen other ways to get it done late. I don’t know why the team doesn’t see it my way.”

“This is a cross-functional team?” I asked. “You are not the manager of the other people on the team?”

“No, that’s the problem,” she said. “If it was my team, I could just tell them what to do. This team is temporary just for this project. I can’t dictate anything. We have to discuss, agree, then execute.”

“Who is ultimately accountable for the project?” I wanted to know.

“Well, there is a project leader,” Julie responded. “She has the authority to decide how the project will go.”

“And, your accountability?”

“I’m just a member of the team,” she rattled off.

“But, don’t you still have accountability, to show up to the meetings, think about your best strategy, be persuasive in your point of view, debate the alternatives?”

“Yes, that is true,” Julie nodded.

“So, each of you has accountability, you to actively participate with your best thinking, and the project leader accountable for the output of the project. But, the authority to ultimately determine the methods and construction of the project rests with the project leader. Once you get clear on the accountability and the authority in the project, most of your frustration should disappear.”

Certainty or Readiness

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“But, I want my plan to be realistic,” Tyler protested. “I want to think about the most likely scenario, and set in place the steps to meet our objectives.”

“Yes, but the most likely scenario rarely happens,” I replied. “Planning is all about readiness. Your realistic plan may be wrong, and the steps you set in place may lead you down a path of futility.”

“But I still have to have a plan, don’t I?”

“Yes, a plan that considers a number of scenarios, with contingencies and alternate paths to the goal. A plan is less about certainty and more about readiness.”

Plan for Certainty or Flexibility?

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“I think I have it all down,” Tyler reported. “I’ve studied the trends, defined our customer, studied our price points. It took a lot of thinking, but I am satisfied with all the data that supports our plan.”

“Been doing a lot of thinking, have you?” I asked.

“It was a lot of stuff to pull together, took a bit of time, but, yes,” he nodded.

“What you have described is a collection of known elements from your past, that you are betting will stay the same,” I replied. “That’s all well and good, might make you feel better, but the tough thinking is about your imagination. You have researched all the answers, but have you gathered all the questions? It is wonderful to nail things down so your plan feels rock solid, but life rarely happens that way. Your plan may give you guidance, but it may also distract you from seeing something in your periphery that changes the world around you.”