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.

Steps to Necessity

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“My question still stands,” Erica was insistent. “How do I get my team to the point where they believe performance is necessary?”

“It starts with competence,” I replied. “We cannot perform at a level where we are not competent. If we are not competent, then, not only will it NOT happen, it cannot be believed to be necessary. So, the first step in believing in the necessity of performance is to build the competence required.”

Erica was a good student. “And, competence is a combination of capability, skill and practiced performance?”

“Moreover,” I responded, “if we have the capability, possess the required skill and practice to the point of habit, then necessity follows. The habit of pace, at quality spec, produces the necessity of performance.”

Broccoli and Power

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“So how do I get my team to the point where they believe in what is necessary? How do I make them believe?” Erica was stumped.

“Indeed,” I said. “If your team doesn’t believe it is necessary, you cannot make them believe. Sure, you can trick them with a bonus or maybe a plaque, but it is still a trick.”

“Like your broccoli story,” Erica remembered, “I have the authority as a parent to command broccoli, but my child has the power to determine if broccoli will be eaten?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “If you feel the need to compel behavior, does that say anything about the power others have over you?”

Nature of Necessity

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“How does necessity work?” Erica wanted to know.

“Think of something in your life that is necessary, nothing complicated, but something you do that is necessary,” I replied.

“Okay, I brush my teeth, not because my mother told me, though that is how I started, but because I believe it is necessary.”

“So, in the beginning, your mother told you, and you followed, not because it was necessary, but because you knew you she would continue to remind you until you complied.”

“And, now,” Erica picked up, “I do it because I believe it is necessary.”

“Now, think about your team. You want them to do something, perform at a pace, and in a way that meets a quality spec, because you believe it is necessary?”

“Yes,” Erica nodded.

“But is your team doing it because you believe it is necessary or because they believe it is necessary?” I prompted.

Erica shrugged. “No, they are only doing it because I told them to do it.”

“And, they will continue to do it as long as you are around to remind them to pick up the pace and pay attention to quality. But, the instant you are gone, they will only do what they believe is necessary. Necessity is not what you believe, it’s what they believe.”

Do You Feel Lucky?

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More than 30 years ago, I was interviewed for a job and one of the interview questions was, “Tell me about a time when you were lucky?”

Since then, I have determined there are many things that occur outside of our control. Working with CEOs, there are many things that occur, which have direct impact on the outcome, yet, are outside the control of the CEO. “So, do you feel lucky?” said Inspector Callahan in the movie Dirty Harry.

Many decisions are made based on data, and many decisions are made based on intuition. The best decisions are made somewhere in the middle. Based on the data in front of me, what I know, do I feel lucky?

How do we take advantage of luck? Two things – preparation and mental fitness.

We do not know what will happen in the future, so we have to be prepared, not just for what we think will happen, but for all the possibilities of what could happen. Gideon Malherbe speaks directly about this preparation in his talk on Scenario Planning.

But, being prepared is only part of being lucky. Just because we might know what to do, does not mean we have the capability to do it. Do we have the mental fitness to see, analyze, adjust and execute. More importantly, have we practiced seeing, analyzing, adjusting and executing. What would happen if your volume suddenly doubled (being lucky)? Do you have the mental fitness to pick up the pace, reorganize your sequence, focus on strategic constraints?

Tell me about a time when you were lucky?

Time Management

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“Jerome, by that look on your face, you seem a bit overwhelmed,” I observed.

“Is it that obvious?” he said, then looked around. “I guess you can see by the stacks of stuff on my desk that I am a bit unorganized.”

“That, and the scared look on your face,” I replied.

“I just, I just don’t seem to have enough time to get everything done,” he stammered apologetically. “I guess I need a course in time management.”

“Jerome, time cannot be managed. We can only manage ourselves in relation to time. So, you don’t need a course in time management, you need a course in self management. Look around your desk, at all the stacks, where is your focus, where is your attention?”

“I guess it’s all over the place,” Jerome surmised.

“Don’t guess, be deliberate. You see, you don’t have enough time, because you are all over the place. If you could determine your focus, the best place to focus your attention, you would have all the time to plan, to organize and determine next steps. If you are focused on the right thing, the right purpose, you will know in a nanosecond what needs to be done and what needs to be discarded. If you don’t have a focus, if everything has your attention, then you will probably have to carry around an organizer.”

Attention and Focus

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“What’s got your attention,” I asked.

“I don’t know. Lots of stuff,” Vincent replied.

“I want you to stop, look around, take stock of what is going through your head,” I nodded.

“Well, there is a quality problem out on the floor in one of the work cells. No one can seem to pinpoint the trouble.”

“And, if you are able to solve that, is that the highest return on your attention?”

“Oh, heavens no,” Vincent smiled. “The biggest return is on a new product rollout. We already have advance orders that exceed our capacity to produce.”

“Okay, then where should you be spending your time?”

“But, you asked me what has my attention, not where I should be spending my time,” he protested.

“Yes,” I nodded. “What has your attention will draw your focus. You never ever get what you want, you will only get what you focus on. Be careful what has your attention.”

Of Competence

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“Where do I start?” Melanie asked. “I have things that I will ask my team to do. Each thing has a performance standard that is necessary. If you say the only measure of performance is performance, where do I start?”

“Before you put performance to the test, you must assess, take an inventory of your team. What are the things we examine when we look at performance?” I asked.

“First is competence,” Melanie replied. “If the team, and its members, are not competent, they will fall short.”

“And what is competence?” I pressed.

“Competence is a combination of capability and skill,” she nodded. “Capability is the cognitive ability to see the goal at some time in the future, organize the activity to get there and accommodate all the obstacles that may or not get in the way.”

“And skill?” I said.

“Skill is made of two things,” Melanie thought out loud. “There is always some technical knowledge that must be accounted for, but then practiced performance, over and over until the action is smooth, without friction.”

“So, competence is where you must start,” my turn to nod. “Is your team competent to accomplish the goal you have in mind, as the manager?”

The Measure of Performance

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“I don’t know what happened,” Bella said out loud. “We met, we planned, everyone had their role, we all committed with the best of intentions.”

“And?” I asked.

“And, the project failed,” she replied. “I mean, I have to give the team an A for effort, but at the end of the day, the project fell short, the customer was disappointed and we lost the rest of the contract.”

“So, you learned a valuable lesson,” I nodded.

“Yeah, what’s that?” Bella pushed back.

“That, of all the things we do, all of our planning, all of our training, all of our meetings, the only thing that matters is performance,” I said. “The best measure of performance is not a spectacular plan, or lofty intentions. The only measure of performance is performance.”

Trouble

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“One, right after another,” Charlotte flatly stated.

“I’ll give, what?” I asked.

“We solve one problem, three more pop up. We solve one of those and three more pop up. It’s no wonder our department is so far behind goal, we’ll never catch up,” she said. “Trouble always seem to find us.”

“Trouble is mostly a mental state,” I replied. “If you are a victim of trouble, you are correct. It will always find you. Trouble either grabs you by the throat, or you grab trouble by the throat. It’s all in the way you see it.”

The Pain Inside the Problem

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“What do you mean?” Felipe wanted to know. “What do you mean, what is the problem trying to teach me?”

“Look, this is a problem that is difficult to solve. It is difficult, because what you are trying to do is difficult. You chose a difficult goal, you chose to aim high.”

“But, it is something that has to be done,” Felipe was firm.

“Yes, you determined this aim was necessary, something that must be accomplished. So, now there is a problem. If you had not set such a lofty aim, you would not have encountered such a difficult problem. People with small problems do not aim very high. Small problems are easy to solve, can even be dismissed without affecting the quest, because the quest is of little importance. But if your aim is high, and your quest is necessary, the problem will be extraordinary. The problem will come with pain.”

Felipe nodded. “Yes,” he said. “It’s painful.”

“What is the problem trying to teach you? You may not unlock the solution until you become a different person. What is the pain trying to teach you?”