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.

Spinning Wheels

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
In your Time Span workshop, you describe the friction between various departments, Ops-Sales-Customer Service-Accounting. You suggest this is a structural issue. In my company, we absolutely see this friction, but to me, it looks more like a personality conflict.

Response:
Most managerial issues look like a symptom, that’s why they are so difficult to resolve. The two most often cited problems (symptoms) are communication breakdowns and personality conflicts. You can have all the communication seminars you can afford, you can give everyone a personality test, the problems will remain.

The friction you describe between your departments is structural. Each department works from an internally focused agenda, with little consideration for other agendas in other departments. The exterior looks like a breakdown in communication. Not so.

Why is the agenda in each department internally focused? Simple. We, executive management, told them they had to be internally focused. We told each department they had to be efficient, profitable, no waste, no scrap, high utilization rates of internal resources, we told them they had to be internally focused.

In the heady days of growth, as these departments were emerging and developing, this internal focus was necessary, to gain those efficiencies, to make the output predictable. Absolutely normal. But now, that internal focus works against us. For the organization to move to the next level, those departments have to work together, support each other, cooperate, trade inside information, share planning, cross-train personnel.

You can spin your wheels with personality tests, but the fix is Integration. We have to integrate our systems and sub-systems together into a Whole System.

Just Published

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I just got word that it’s published. I mentioned this book to a few groups recently and now it’s available from Amazon. Last summer, I was asked to publish a chapter about managerial and cross functional relationships.

Management Development Handbook

Management Development Handbook

The lead chapter is written by Meg Wheatley on Complexity and Perserverence. My chapter is in section III of the book The Goal – Teams Who Do Their Best Work Together. My chapter is Get Rid of the Dotted Lines.

You can read more about the book in this post by Lisa Haneberg, the book’s editor – Management Development Handbook

If you would like a digitial version of my chapter, just Ask Tom.

How Long Have You Been Working This Late?

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It was 6:30p when I stopped by Miguel’s office. “What’s up?” I asked.

Miguel picked his eyes up off the paper, holding his place on the schedule with a ballpoint pen. “Just going over tomorrow. It’s going to be another big day. Three special orders to get out the door.”

“Where is everyone, why are you still here?”

“Oh, we shut down at 4:30p. My crew is up with the chickens, tomorrow we start at 6:30a. I run a staggered shift. The first guys get the day started, then we’re full strength by 7:30a. The first wave is off by 3:30p, while the second wave picks up the pieces for the day.”

“Why are you still here?” I repeated.

“Well, there is just a bunch of little things that have to be done each day. Sort of out of control, huh? This won’t last forever. My schedule is getting better.”

“How long have you been working this late?”

“Gosh, ever since I became the supervisor, I guess. But it’s going to get better, soon.” Miguel looked optimistic.

I didn’t believe him.

Things Fall Apart

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“I don’t think you have an attitude problem. I don’t think you have clearly defined the accountability and the authority that goes along with that dotted line. That’s why dotted lines are so dangerous,” I said.

“So, what should I do? This Key Result Area is not a high priority, but the work still has to get done,” Megan explained.

“You are shooting yourself in the foot when you describe -it’s not a high priority-. If the work in this area is not done, what happens to its priority?” I asked.

Megan thought. “You’re right, the tasks will take about five hours a week, but if they are not completed, all hell breaks loose, other things begin to fall apart.”

“So, what should you do with that dotted line?” I pressed.

“Get rid of it, change its color, make it bold,” Megan retreated. “I guess I have to specifically define what I want, how much time it should take and what the result should be.”

“You guess?”

It’s Just a Dotted Line on the Org Chart

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It’s been a whirlwind of a week. I would like to welcome our new subscribers from workshops in Minneapolis, Des Moines and Austin.
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“What do you mean, she doesn’t know she is accountable? It’s very clear to me,” Megan complained. “She has a very clear dotted line to that area of responsibility. I know it’s not her highest priority, but still, she is responsible.”

“So, there is a conflict in her priorities?” I asked.

“Not a conflict, really, she has to get it all done. Just because it’s a dotted line doesn’t mean she can ignore it. Besides, at the bottom of her job description, it says, -and all other duties assigned.- That should cover it.”

“As her manager, what do you observe about the way she handles the conflict in her priorities?” I pressed.

Megan thought. “I think it’s an attitude problem. It’s almost as if she doesn’t care about one part of her job.”

“I thought it was just a dotted line?” I smiled.

Megan stopped cold. “You think the problem is the dotted line?”

“Dotted lines create ambiguity. Ambiguity kills accountability. What do you think?”

Calibrate the Level of Work

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
Your workshop on Time Span makes perfect sense. I see things in my company that I now understand. It was all there, but now I understand why? How much of this do you share with the organization. My executive team immediately got it, but how far down in my management team do I go?

Response:
You assume that Time Span, as a concept, is complicated. It’s not. Time Span is simply the “by when” of a goal. Do you talk about goals with your management teams? Do you talk about tasks and activities associated with those goals? Do you establish time lines associated with those goals?

These are normal, and necessary, managerial conversations required all the way to the supervisor level.

The question behind your question, where most get into trouble, thinking about Time Span, is the notion that we should be calibrating our team members. Let me shift your focus.

The necessary calibration is in identifying the Level of Work, not the person. Judging the effectiveness of a team member must always be done related to the work. And that judgment is a required part of every manager’s role.

Full Speed Off the Cliff

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
I just joined the HR team here, working on a project to identify the complexity of mental processing of our team members. I just wanted to know, is there any effective tool/test available to identify the 4 types of mental processes. Can you please suggest other techniques apart from interviews to identify the 4 processes. I would be required to use this for recruiting and to assess the (CMP) of current employees.

Response:
STOP! You are headed in the wrong direction off a cliff.

I know you think you want to get inside the heads of your employees and have some support for a number (1-4) that you think will be helpful in selecting talent. DON’T PLAY AMATEUR PSYCHOLOGIST! You didn’t take courses in psychology, you don’t have a degree, much less an advanced degree in psychology, you are not certified by your state to practice psychoanalysis. Don’t play amateur psychologist.

Play to your strengths as a manager.

The four states of mental processing (Declarative, Cumulative, Serial, Parallel) can easily be used to determine the Level of Work. That focus will put you on solid ground. What’s the Level of Work? Look at your Role Description. In each Key Result Area (KRA), what’s the Level of Work? What are the decisions to be made in the role? What are the problems to be solved in the role? What are the accountabilities in each KRA? Write those elements into your Role Description.

With the Role Description in hand, create a bank of written interview questions, ten questions for each KRA that will reveal the candidates real experience making those decisions and solving those problems. I know this looks like work, it is. This is managerial work. Don’t play amateur psychologist, play to your strengths, as a manager. It’s all about the work. It’s all about the Levels of Work.

Flowcharting the System

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“So, what does it take to create a system like that?” I asked. “To create a system that would notify for rejected parts along with lead times for replacement parts and alternate suppliers?”

Valerie was shaking her head. “I know our computer software pretty well and to program that functionality would be pretty expensive.”

I reached in my bag and pulled out a handful of 3×5 index cards. “Suppose I said that you were not allowed to modify your software and the only tool you could use were these 3×5 cards? Now build a system. Let’s start with how frequently it happens.”

“You’re right,” Valerie started. “It doesn’t happen that often. Our QC guy who certifies incoming parts, could send a card with the details to our purchasing person. Our purchasing person has access to lead times and alternate vendors. Purchasing gets their order quantities from sales orders, so they could run a reverse report to find out what orders would be impacted, that’s easy.”

“What else do we need to know to effectively respond?”

“We would need to get our sales people involved to find out what wiggle room we have on those orders. Since we are three weeks ahead of the game, there are all kinds of adjustments that can be made with ample notification.”

“If I asked to draw a picture of this on a piece of paper using circles, arrows and labels, could you do that?”

“You mean, like a flow chart?” Valerie asked.

“Like a flow chart.”

What a System Delivers

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“Well, I thought our team did pretty well, given the circumstances,” Valerie continued to protest.

“Yes, they did,” I replied. “And those circumstances should never have existed. To come down to the wire and find you are missing 500 critical parts on an order should never have happened.”

Valerie shifted in her chair. “But stuff happens.”

“Yes, stuff happens all the time and that’s why your system should detect these conditions. When did you find out that your supplier had shipped 500 defective parts?”

Valerie looked to the left. “Three weeks ago.”

“What difference would it have made if your system had delivered a report three weeks ago that showed 500 rejected parts along with replacement lead time, a list of alternate parts vendors and their lead times, along with all orders pending that required that part?”

Valerie’s head was nodding. “We would have had three weeks to work on the problem instead of three days.”

System Detection

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“But, we got the parts in and shipped the units. I thought we handled that quite well,” protested Valerie.

“You are right, your supervisor did a good job. That’s what supervisors do. But your work, as a manager, was not done,” I replied. “The job of the manager is to create the system. When you discovered you would be short of parts, it was your supervisors job to go find the parts, but it was your job to ask

  • Why didn’t our system anticipate this shortage?
  • Why didn’t our system detect this shortage as soon as the order was placed into our system?
  • Why didn’t our system spot our supplier’s inventory and indicate a shortfall in those parts?
  • Why didn’t our system have alternate vendors for those critical parts?
  • Why didn’t our system continually track alternate supplier inventories to find odd lots at aggressive pricing?

“The job of the manager is to create the systems, monitor the systems, improve the systems. It’s great that we have a supervisor who knows how to scramble. But I prefer a system that responds to our constantly changing circumstances. The role of the manager is to create those systems.”