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.

What’s the Rush?

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Sam was in a hurry.

“What’s the rush?” I asked.

“I gotta get this job description to HR. We agreed to get the job posted by this afternoon. Short and sweet,” Sam replied.

“Short and sweet?” My eyebrows lit up.

“Yeah, I have been really busy on a couple of field projects. So, I wrote a couple of things down, then added a sentence about – any other duties that may be assigned. It’s not great, but all I have time to get done today. I can explain the rest of the job during the interview. Not enough time today.” Sam stood there, waiting for my response. A wink, or a shrug. Anything that would get him off the hook.

“Not enough time today, or it just wasn’t a high enough priority?” I pressed.

“No, no, no. It’s a high priority, just not enough time today,” Sam hoped I would smile, or nod. Any acknowledgement on my part would be taken as acceptance that the crappy job he did, writing the role description, was okay.
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Mark your calendars. Hiring Talent Summer Camp is coming. Orientation starts July 6, pre-registration open now.

Every Manager’s Dilemma

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“So, how do I get my team of supervisors to spend more time, or at least do a better job of qualifying candidates for those open production roles?” Wendy asked.

“You’re not,” I dropped my chin, coupled with a knowing glare. I waited.

“What do you mean? There must be a way. They have to take this recruiting stuff more seriously,” she protested.

“They won’t. Your team of supervisors is focused on production, they are not focused on building a team. Sure they know they are down a person on their crew, but their primary focus is on production.” I let Wendy squirm a bit.

_________ Manager
______ Supervisor
___ Technician

“But you said that my most important function, as a new manager, is to focus on the team, to focus on who is on the team. How can I do that if my team of supervisors is focused on production and they don’t take recruiting seriously?”

“Indeed. That is your dilemma. That is every manager’s dilemma. The reason your team of supervisors don’t focus on building their team has to do with time span. It is their role to field a team for today’s production, this week’s production, or for the night shift, but the time span of that task, for them, is short.”

“Why do I get the feeling that this is going to end up in my lap?” Wendy looked, then smiled.

“Because, if you have open roles in production, your team of supervisors are the hiring managers, and YOU are the manager-once-removed. As the manager-once-removed, you have specific accountabilities in the recruiting process, and those issues are longer term. While your team of supervisors is responsible for today’s production, you, as the manager-once-removed are accountable for overall production capacity, efficiency in training programs, employee retention. As the manager-once-removed, I expect you to quarterback this recruiting effort. As the quarterback, you don’t have to run the ball, but you have to call the plays. You have to make sure that role descriptions are written, and clearly understood. You have to make sure that written questions are generated specifically related to the production work that we do here. You have to make sure that we have identified the critical role requirements and that our questions to candidates collect real data about the work. If one of the supervisors on your team makes a poor hiring decision, I hold you accountable for the quality of that decision. It’s all a matter of time span.”
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Mark your calendars. Hiring Talent Summer Camp is coming. Orientation starts July 6, pre-registration open now.

Why the Turnover?

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“So, think about who?” I prompted. Wendy was a new manager, grappling with her first days on the job.

“Well, right now, I am the manager of a team of four supervisors. They each have more than two years with the company, a total of twelve years between them. I worked alongside them as a supervisor. I have respect for each of their talents. I think I am all set,” Wendy replied.

“You are all set with your immediate team of supervisors. What about each of their production teams? Are there any holes in those teams?”

“Oh, yes, there is always some turnover, and I know there are some openings that need to be filled right now. Hopefully, they will spend some time each day trying to fill those positions,” she explained.

“I promise you, they won’t. In fact, it’s not even on their radar.”

“What do you mean? If they have an opening, I am sure they will try to fill it,” Wendy pushed.

“Fill it with whom?” I pushed back. “In the role of supervisor, the primary responsibility is production, make sure production gets done. They have a hole on their production team. Find somebody to fill it, please, and fast, because they have production to get out the door. Their focus is production, not hiring.”

“But, it’s their team, they are the hiring manager. As a supervisor, they get to pick their team members.”

“But, their focus is production. When you watch your supervisors, in the hiring process, what do you see?”

Wendy stopped pushing back. Her eyes went to the ceiling for a nanosecond. “You are right. They talk to a couple of candidates for about ten minutes and then pick somebody. They don’t really spend a lot of time. Maybe that’s why those production roles turn over more than we would like.”
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Mark your calendars. Hiring Talent Summer Camp is coming. Orientation starts July 6, pre-registration open now.

The Question is Not a “What?”

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Mark your calendars. Hiring Talent Summer Camp is coming. Orientation starts July 6, pre-registration open now.
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“Poof, I am a new manager,” Wendy explained.  “I was a supervisor for three years, now I am a manager.”

“And?” I asked.

“For three years, I have been concerned with making sure production got done.  Now, I am the manager for a team of four supervisors.  From now on, they make sure production gets done.  They are in charge of scheduling, buying materials, staging.”

“And, where does that leave you?” I continued.

“That’s the dilemma.  They promoted me to manager, but without a lot of direction.  One of the vice-presidents, my new manager, told me he would give me a couple of weeks to figure it out.  He could have been more helpful.”

“In your new role, what is the one most important area of focus?” I pressed.

Wendy stopped to think.  “I am accountable for the output of my team.  My most important area of focus is the team.”

“Specifically, what? about your team?”

There was another pause.  “It’s not a what,” she realized.  “It’s a who.  The most important thing to focus on, is who is on the team.  If I do that well, my life, as a manager will be wonderful.  If I do that poorly, my life will be miserable, and for a very long time.”

Hot Spots

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“So, I am the one to fix this problem with my silos,” Regina slowly realized. “And I can’t just leave my managers in the room to figure it out. Where do I start?”

“Putting your managers in the room is not a bad idea, but they will not be able to figure it out without you. Your role is the integrator,” I said.

“So, I get them in the room, then what?”

“Your managers are competent at work flow charting. Get them to step back and draw, not a system flow chart, but a functional flow chart.”

“Not sure I understand,” Regina quizzed.

“Your managers can flow chart the steps in a system. This exercise would be to flow chart all the systems in your business model sequence. Take this list, put a box around each element and flow them sideways on the white board.

  • Marketing
  • Business Development
  • Sales
  • Contracting
  • Engineering
  • Project Management
  • Operations
  • QA/QC
  • Warranty

In this exercise, we are not looking for the problems inside each function, we are looking for the problems that exist as one function hands off work to the next. We are looking for transition issues, capacity issues, clarity, timing, dead space, delay, undiscovered defects, inspection points.”

“How will we find those?” Regina asked.

“This is a hot spot exercise, just look for the pain. Your managers may not be able to fix the issues, but they know exactly where they are.”

Dotted Lines Create Ambiguity

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“Each department manager turned toward internal efficiency because you told them to. No waste, no scrap, predictable output,” I said. “But now you have multiple departments, multiple systems and subsystems. You have silos. Silos that compete. Silos that compete on budget. They compete for resources. They compete for your managerial attention. Most companies stay stuck here. It’s your move.”

Regina was thinking. Her eyes looked down, her vision went inside. “I am the problem,” she observed. “I told them to be this way?”

“You are the problem,” I agreed. “And you are the solution. Your departments are perfectly capable of creating those internal efficiencies, but those internal efficiencies have to be optimized. Work goes sideways through the organization. It starts with marketing, then goes to sales, then to contracting, then to operations, then to warranty, looping into R&D. Work gets handed off from one department to another.”

“So, I can’t just put all the managers in a room and tell them to figure it out?” she guessed.

“Your role is one of integration,” I nodded.

“Like all the dotted lines on the org chart?” Regina offered.

“Your dotted lines on the org chart have your best intentions. Intuitively you understand the horizontal cross-functional working relationships, that’s why you drew the dotted lines. But dotted lines create ambiguity. No one understands the specific accountability and the limited authority that goes with those dotted lines. So people make stuff up. And that’s where the trouble begins.”

The Problem is Normal

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“Each department manager turned toward internal efficiency because you told them to,” I repeated.

Regina was stunned. She had difficulty seeing the root of the problem as her management directive.

“All crumbs lead to the top,” I said. “And, don’t think it’s because you are a bad manager. Every company has to become system focused at some point. It’s normal. But the solution to become efficient creates the next step of organizational friction. All these internally focused departments, these silos, have to work together.”

Regina’s look of surprise began to calm.

I continued. “If the problem comes from an internal focus by each department, where do you think we will find the solution?”

Regina turned her head. “With an external focus?” she floated.

I nodded, “Yes, and that’s where you come in. This is a higher level of work.”

You Told Them To

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“It’s killing us,” Regina complained. “Our silos are killing us.”

“How so?” I asked.

“It’s like there is a little internal competition out there. It started with the blame game. Departmental managers in a meeting, pointing fingers at a problem. Not my fault, everyone said. Then it became CYA behavior. Departments began to build steps into each process to actually shift responsibility for problems to other functions.”

“Why do you think that happened?” I pressed.

“I don’t know,” Regina replied. “There was a time when I thought a little competition was appropriate. It seemed to help everyone perform at a higher level.”

“So what is happening, now that there is a little competition?”

“Our production department cranks up output, while our warehouse department tries to figure out what to do with all the finished goods. The sales department promises delivery with no visibility to purchasing, so we run out of raw materials. Production gets choked off and we run overtime while guys stand around with nothing to do. It’s a mess.”

“Why do you think it happened?” I repeated.

“I don’t know. It was like we just grew up into the problem.”

“You did. You just grew up into the problem. You told everyone to be efficient, no waste, no scrap. You wanted high utilization of precious resources. Each department went internal to re-sequence for that efficiency. It was a noble move and required at the time. Each department manager did it, because you told them to.”

Silos are a Normal Phenomenon

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
How do you overcome the obstacles of silos when the silos are the organizational culture and come from the top?

Response:
I originally posted this last week and then left you hanging as I went underground, buried in travel.

Silos, in an organization, occur as a normal phenomenon. It is counter-productive to growth and profitability, but it is perfectly normal and predictable. It happens.

Silos emerge as a natural by-product of stage three growth. To reduce the noise in Go-Go, there begins an internal focus to create systems. Systems are good. Systems create internal efficiency, internal predictability and a focus on profitability (profitable action).

_________Adolescence – internal focus on system creation
______Go-Go – define and document methods and processes
___Infancy – focus on sales, production, find a (any) customer

The problem is the internal nature of the focus. In adolescence, it is a required focus, but, as a solution to the problems of go-go, it creates internally focused silos that emerge as the next organizational challenge. Silos are normal, but will grind an organization to a halt, cap its growth and make everyone miserable.

To continue its normal growth, a process of integration must occur.
____________Prime – multiple systems/sub-systems create friction, integration required

This is no easy task, and requires capability at S-IV level of work. The saga continues. Tomorrow, I promise.
______

This model is adapted from a comparative study of two models, Corporate Lifecycles, Ichak Adizes and Requisite Organization, Dr. Elliott Jaques.

Temper Tantrums Don’t Work

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
How do you overcome the obstacles of silos when the silos are the organizational culture and come from the top?

Response:
Whenever I look at organizational underperformance, total throughput, all crumbs lead to the top. The culture an organization has, is the culture the organization deserves. And, all crumbs still lead to the top.

But your question is “What to do?”

Temper tantrums don’t work. Parents know that. Most management consultants who think they have the answer are behaviorists who have no children.

Visually, we can draw pictures of it. Interruptions in workflow, rough hand-offs from one function to another, undiscovered defects blamed on another department. Some CEOs believe a little internal competition keeps everyone sharp, when the product of that strategy may be counter-productive.

But it works in sports? Yes, but sports are not organized to accomplish work. Sports are organized for entertainment.

Indeed, what to do? Comments?