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.

But, We Solved It This Way Before

“We thought we had run into this problem a hundred times,” Robin explained. “It is something we determined about a year ago, a recurrent problem. It took us awhile to figure it out, but we did.”

“And?” I prompted.

“And, now we have a new problem. We looked at it every which way from Sunday, we understand the problem, how it occurred, and thought we had the solution, but the solution doesn’t work.”

“The fatal flaw,” I said. “You understand the problem? You only think you understand the problem. But you understand the problem in the terms of a solution you have already developed. Your solution doesn’t work because you misunderstand the problem.”

The Solution Creates the Next Problem

“I thought I was so smart,” Bianca said. “We had a problem with an ingenious solution. But, when we executed the solution, we created another problem.”

“As always,” I smiled. “The solutions we employ will always create the next set of problems. Indeed, I can always tell a team that is stuck. They are still working on the same problem from the last time I saw them. I can tell when a team is making progress, because they are always trading up one set of problems for another set.”

The Same Problems Follow the Same People

“As I look at my team,” Logan began, “the problems I see and the problems individual team members see are sometimes different.”

“When that difference exists, it clearly demonstrates the difference in your aim, your goal, and the goals of the individual team members. The goals you have will dictate the problems you have.”

“You know I have always wondered. There was someone who, during the job interview constantly complained about their former boss. At some point, they came very close to calling him an asshole. I didn’t hire that person. For some reason, I was certain that I would be the next asshole in that person’s life.”

What To Do?

“I have to name the problem?” Logan asked, knowing the answer to his own question.

“Yes,” I replied. “Your aim will cause you to notice the problem. Those without your aim, your goal, will not see the problem. What catches your attention, your focus, will depend on your aim. Then name it. The problem you solve will be the problem you name. And, the name you give to the problem will determine what you do about it.”

The Problem You Name

“I create my own problems?” Logan asked.

“Not so much create, as notice. What catches your attention? What do you focus on? It’s not so much that you create your problems, but you identify them, based on your intention, your goal.”

“So, I have to identify the problem?” he said in the form of a question.

“Yes,” I nodded. “The problem will present itself in the midst of the circumstance, as part of your intention, your aim. You will notice the problem, as it is something in the way, something that must be dealt with, addressed. But, before you pay attention to the problem, you must reexamine your aim. Your goal must be based on something of value.  Is this a problem worth having?  Others, who don’t maintain that value, may not see the problem at all.”

“I see the problem,” Logan nodded. “I can clearly identify it.”

“Then name it. The problem you solve is the problem you name.”

The Source of Trouble

“Why the long face?” I asked.

Logan’s face tightened. “I’m struggling with a problem,” he finally said.

“Something not going your way?” I wanted to know.

“I’m not as selfish as that,” he replied. “It’s just not going the way I thought it should go.”

“There’s a gap between where you are and where you would like to end up?” I smiled. “And, that’s a problem?”

“Yes,” he nodded, pensively.

“Please understand, Logan, the way you think things ought to be, your goal, will determine the problems you have. And, you will define your problems and struggles in the same way. So, it is really important to examine your goals, the way you think things ought to be. For the way you think will determine the troubles you have.”

Progress

“Does it ever end?” Conrad shook his head.

“How so?” I asked.

“First, I was dealing with Joe. Joe was weird. It took me a while to figure Joe out. And, finally, when I did, Fred came on the team. Not only did I have to figure out Fred, but now I had Joe AND Fred to deal with and how they work together. I finally get Joe and Fred in hand, then Sally came along. I have three individuals and six working relationships if you don’t count me.”

“That’s it?”

“No, that’s not it,” Conrad replied. “I now have eight people on the team. We finally figured out the best sequence, created a system in which to do the work. I thought I had it all figured out.”

“So, what happened?”

“We had the system working well, when we determined there was more than one system, lined up side by side. We have a marketing system, a sales system, a project management system, purchasing system, an operations system, quality control system. And, these systems no longer worked independently, they impacted each other with work handoffs and capacity mis-matches.”

“What have you learned, so far?” I wanted to know.

Conrad smiled. “As time goes by, you get to trade in one level of problems for another level of problems.”

“And, that, my friend, is progress.”

Internal Necessity

“I don’t get it,” Landon lamented. “Three of the team did it the way they were trained, two of them did it another way. In the meeting, they all agreed, described the method they were going to use. I wish I could figure out a way to understand why they say one thing and do another?”

“Let’s look at the facts,” I replied. “What is the difference between the three team members who followed the training, completed the task and the two team members who failed?”

“I don’t know,” Landon shook his head.

“For the three team members who followed the training, it was necessary,” I said. “For the other two team members, it wasn’t necessary.”

“What do you mean, necessary?” he asked. “I can’t chop off their fingers, though I could promise to yell at them.”

“As if yelling at someone, lecturing someone, writing up someone makes it necessary?” I observed. “Those are things on the outside. What makes for internal necessity? Tell me, Landon, what is something you do every day, that you aren’t particularly enthused about, but you do it anyway?”

Landon thought. “I brush my teeth. Not something I enjoy or pursue, but something I do every day.”

“Simple enough,” I agreed. “Why? Why do you do it every day. Why do you find it necessary to do every day?”

“Because I don’t want my teeth to rot out, obviously.”

“So every day, you imagine being 90 years old sporting a set of pearly white teeth?” I wanted to know.

Landon chuckled. “No, maybe that’s what my dentist tells me, but I do it, just because I do it.”

“Landon, you do it because it is necessary. It has become necessary, as a habit, you just do it. Habits are internal necessities that we repeat over and over. You would not think of skipping, because it has become necessary. When you look at your team, where do you see necessity? What is different about the three who did from the two who did not?”

Practice Makes Perfect

“That was a tough one,” Cooper breathed a sigh of relief.

“How so?” I asked.

“The team was struggling with this nasty defect in a critical area of production,” he started. “It took them a while just to collect the data on what was going on, where the failure point was. Then, what to do? That’s when they pulled me in.”

“And?”

“And, I figured it out. Some of their data was defective, which threw them off the trail. Then, I had the insight that solved the dilemma.”

“So, what did you just train them to do?” I was curious.

“I showed them how to solve the problem,” Cooper said.

“No, you showed them that whenever they have a hard problem, they should collect some data, even defective data and then bring the problem to you. That somehow, you will have a brilliant insight that saves the day, and they are off the hook. Not only have you crippled the team from solving their own problems, you have taught them to practice bringing problems to you.”

Incentives

“I’m stumped,” Sarah explained. “I am trying to get my team to do things, to do them my way, and they seem to just go off and do something else. Somehow, some way, I need to focus on motivation. I need to figure out what I can put out there, as some sort of an incentive to get them to perform better.”

“Do you want to be a psychologist, or do you want to be a leader?” I asked.

“I don’t get it,” she replied.

“Psychologists are always convinced they can figure out a way to motivate people. Don’t get me wrong, they didn’t start with people, they started with rats. First they starved them, then put them in a maze and were astounded when the rats desperately searched and found the food. Amazing, isn’t it, that starving rats would go in search of food.”

“What’s that got to do with people?” Sarah wanted to know.

“That’s a good question for the psychologists,” I replied. “They took their findings of rats and generalized them to people. Except people are more complicated than starving rats. Even the rats, once they found and ate the food, stopped searching. Motivation is elusive. We can find short term external motivators that give us the illusion that we are in control, but that’s not the way people work. External motivation is really manipulation, and only works for a short time and usually only when the manager is around. The only motivation that works long term is something inside the person that causes them to behave in a certain way. You have difficulty causing yourself to work in a different way. Why do you think you have the power to cause someone else to work differently?”