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.

Everything Slows Down

“You wanted to see my training plan, so here it is,” Riley said, pushing the packet over to me.

“Looks good, I like it. You put some thought into each team member. They all need something different,” I replied. “Except you forgot about one person.”

Riley tilted her head. “No, I got everybody on my team.”

“Except you,” I smiled.

She smirked. “Yeah, well, our industry doesn’t have training for people at my level.”

I nodded in agreement. “I believe that, but ask yourself if there is something you need to learn that would make you more effective. In fact, think of it this way. Your team is not going to grow much better than you. If you, as the leader, are not growing, at some point, everything slows down. Or stops. If you want your organization to be best in class, the first person to start with is you.”

Leadership Trivia

Have you ever noticed there is no game called Leadership Trivia. Oh, there might be a version with the question, “Which company featured in the Jim Collin’s book Good to Great eventually went on to file for bankruptcy,” but, that would be more of a historical question.

In issues related to leadership, there are no answers that can be posted on a card, placed in a card deck, and pulled at random to delight its players around the table. There is often no right answer to the question.

What Has Changed?

What has changed? It’s a useful exercise. What has changed in your industry? What has changed about your customer? What has changed about your company, its products and services? What has changed about your team? What has changed about yourself?

Those positive habits you nurtured so carefully may have to be considered. Those habits may be keeping you from responding to the changes around you. It’s a constant reassessment.

What has changed?

Contain the Steam

Aspirations are good, but not the best measure of potential success. It’s not the aspiration of a developed skill, but the reality of the lowest capability on the team. You stand for what you tolerate.

When times are good, things are smooth, the flywheel turns over predictably well. We can tolerate a bit of underperformance, even cover it over, make excuses for it and little difference is noticed. It’s when the pressure cranks up, deadlines get tight, specifications to three decimal places, that underperformance emerges with its full impact.

Your team’s ability for success does not depend on your aspirations, but depends on the capability of the weakest, the newbie, the slowest, the person not paying attention.

Do not sing songs of inclusion. Select well, induct, train and test. For one day, the cork will seal the pressure cooker and everything will depend on the weakest seal to contain the steam.

The External Push

“I am fairly confident,” Marissa supplied. “I know what I want. I have a cause, rather a cause that has me, that I care deeply about. I think I have what it takes.”

“All necessary, but not sufficient,” I replied.

“What am I missing?” she asked.

“You think that, to be successful in your endeavor, all that is required is an internal drive, perhaps a singular focus toward that goal. But, success is more complicated than that. There is not a singular reason, but a multitude of complex elements and events that will determine the outcome. And, you will likely have to respond to most of them in one way or another. You think you have the internal fortitude to meet the challenge. But you will wake up one morning, and not be in the mood. Some one thing will look too difficult. You will go inside and come up empty. All may look lost. In addition to your internal toughness, you must surround yourself with people who will support your journey, who will listen to your story, encourage your spirit and not allow you to falter. This is your inner circle, who you go to for counsel and guidance when what is inside you, is not enough. They will not let you off the hook for the sake of a lame excuse, a bit of trouble or something unforeseen. Look around you. Who are you holding hands with?  You will need them.”

Breakfast for Your Head

You and I can talk. But, the success of your organization will not depend on our discussion. It will depend on you. It will depend on your thoughts, the way you think and how you think, perhaps fueled by a cup of Natural Mushroom Coffee to enhance clarity and focus.

You can wake up in the morning and feed your brain (breakfast for your head) a buffet of morning news shows curated to lead your thoughts in a well defined prescribed manner, including persuasion to take a drug to lose weight. Or you could spend a few minutes in silent meditation, connecting to those things closest to your own intentions.

You could brace yourself for the onslaught of inquiries, emails, chatter in the coffee room. Or you could think about your next small steps to those things most important to what you want to accomplish.

You could attend a mindless meeting whose agenda was long ago discarded in favor of the update. Or you could sketch out the purpose for that meeting and what you wish to accomplish, before sitting down. When you sit down, you either give permission to others to spend your time for you, or you proceed with your sketched out intentions, your agenda.

How do you start your morning? It depends on the way you think.

Your Contribution

The competent individual has a firm sense of the capability they possess and capability beyond. Periods of doubt creep in, but that leaves room for growth and maturity. Periods of doubt are painful, as the individual moves from an ordered world to one where there is doubt.

In this chasm, most of the problems we face are self-inflicted. Looking at any problem we encounter, there are the following characteristics. The problem. The problem’s impact. The cause of the problem. The context. And, then, there is you.

You (and we, because I have the same problems as you) are part of the problem. You have made contribution to the problem and its impact. You may be the cause of the problem. If you don’t face your contribution, any solution will leave lingering conditions for the problem to resurface, perhaps uglier than before.

It is always easier to deal with an external problem out there, than an internal problem closer to your heart.

Constructive Discontent

Too much chaos and we breed internal anxiety. Too much order and we breed boredom. We do not have to tear the world asunder to make improvements. Some improvements will be incremental, hardly noticeable. Some improvements may lead to leaps of understanding requiring a brain scramble.

The aim of lean, six sigma, theory of constraints is continuous improvement. How we think about improvement requires a state of constructive discontent. I describe this as a mental state, it’s a framework that is constant. It’s a feeling in the pit of your stomach. It is discontent, but not anxiety, because it is constructive.

Yes, we achieved the goal, now what?

Competence Distorted

How we fool ourselves. It’s not a question, it’s an observation. Each of us has a sense of our own competence. And, we have a version we keep tucked inside and a version we portray to the world. Woe to the person whose versions get too far apart.

Others can listen to your version of competence and in short order observe the difference in your story and reality. They may accept a slight space of difference, chalk it up to braggadocios. Or are willing to keep quiet about the distortion as a quid pro quo to their own sense of exaggerated competence.

The competent individual knows exactly what they are capable of and where they underperform or fail. The competent individual needs no distortion because their underperformance is not permanent. Each day, they make moves toward mastery, inch by inch, with a firm grasp of capability in hand, a fixed vision of the goal and the willingness to proceed in the face of failure. The competent individual, most importantly, possesses the competence of learning.

The competent organization, most importantly, possesses the competence of a learning organization.

Dimensions of Organizational Competence

We watch sports on television to give us meaning. It’s an odd statement. Why do the Olympics attract such a large audience? We do not gather around our screens to witness mediocre performance. We can do that at our local park, where there are no throngs of spectators. Without competence, life is half-hearted. Competence is the spark that drives full throated experience.

Individual competence is a delight to watch. It is about repetition, training, discipline. Team performance brings new dimensions of coordination, sacrifice, humility, selflessness, celebration. Those are the elements of team competence, the competent organization.