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.

Who the Hell was Elliott Jaques?

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“Who was Elliott Jaques, and what was his research all about?” There were six of us seated around the table and the question floated like a pass from Drew Brees.

My usual response to that question takes 3 hours, but it was late and I had to be up early. I struggle with that question, because any response is the first step in a long and important journey for any manager. But still, it was late and I had to be up early.

“Elliott Jaques was the most profound management scientist on the planet,” I began. “His study of organizations spanned more than 50 years, generated 23 books and left a legacy for every manager to follow. Elliott observed that each person has, within themselves, an innate ability to deal with a certain level of complexity in the world. Some people are quite comfortable working on projects that will not be completed for one year or more; some cannot manage to get beyond next week.

“Each of us is different. And that difference is measurable.

“As managers, we look at the individuals on our team, and we make running intuitive judgments about what tasks we can assign to which person. It is that judgment — about who can do what, by when? — that was the focus of Elliott’s research.

“How big is the role, and how big is the person filling that role? This is not about personality or a skill set. This judgment is about capability.”

But it was late and I had to be up early.

Like Herding Cats

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“So, how long could they keep that up?” I repeated. “As long as nothing changed, how long could your team simply repeat what they did the day before?”

“Well, forever,” Nathan exclaimed. “But things do change.”

“Bingo!” I said. “Things do change and that is what management is all about. Customers change, technology changes, raw materials change, processes change, even our people change. Management is all about change. Change is your guarantee of a never-ending employment opportunity as a manager.”

I smiled, but Nathan didn’t appreciate my jovial attitude.

“I think I am tuned in with that. So, why am I having so much trouble with my team. They don’t listen to anything I have to say.” Nathan’s head swirled as if his thoughts were making him dizzy and he was trying to stabilize.

“Here is the problem,” I replied, waiting until Nathan’s eyes were settled. “Everyone talks about managing change, as if it is the prime directive. We manage this and we manage that. Here is the clue. People don’t want to be managed. People want to be led. Oh, there is still plenty to manage, processes, systems and technology. But try to manage people and it will be a bit like herding cats.”

The Shadow of Constant Scrutiny

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

I manage a department of 12 people and have been quite successful over the past 5 or 6 years in improving the quality of the work and the morale of my team.

I have a team member with good skills but, he takes forever to get anything done. In my effort over the years to make him more productive I’ve afforded him the opportunity to become skilled at many different tasks, each time hoping that this would be the one that “clicked”. His production level, however, never improves even after the “learning curve” of any new skill is overcome.

I’m finally facing the fact, that this guy will never make the shift from being a thinker to a doer. Letting him go is difficult for me though, since I’ve acted all this time as his “enabler”. I probably should have realized his limitations a lot sooner and avoided the situation I’m in now.

What’s your take on this?

Response:

Some people master a skill quickly; others may complete a task only after some hard work (which takes time). Your response (training him in many skills) to the amount of time for task completion may have been misguided, making matters worse, even slowing his production time.

1. Determine what you need this team member to do. This should be based on what the company needs from him. What is his role? Write this down. Instead of training him on many different tasks, focus on the essentials of his deliverables. Don’t create a role around him. Determine the role and determine his capability to fill that role.

2. Baseline evaluation of the “candidate.” This is a very serious conversation. You have had these conversations before, this one is different. Your prior conversations have been searching for something he might be good at. This conversation will focus on what the company needs from him in his role. This will be a focusing conversation. The next conversation will be your evaluation, after one day, of his baseline performance in that role.

3. Improvement metrics. Rather than looking to train him on many different skills, the focus should be on throughput speed in the essential deliverables the company needs from the role. Examine each step in the process that speeds him up or slows him down. We don’t need him to learn a whole bunch of other skills, we simply need to get him faster at the essential skills.

4. Evaluate his long term contribution. After a period of three weeks, as a manager, you will know whether his behavior is becoming more effective or staying the same. As his manager, it will be time for you to make a judgment. It will be time for you to make a decision. Is the candidate becoming more effective in the essential role that we have for him? This is a yes or no question.

5. If the answer is yes, then you have a contributing member. If the answer is no, inform your manager that you are de-selecting this person from your team. If your manager has another role which might be suitable, turn this person over to your manager for placement. If your manager has no other role, it is time to release this person to industry.

Every part of this should be explained to the candidate. There should be no secrets. The candidate should understand the consequences of underperformance. At the same time, underperformance does not make him a bad person. It is likely that he will be relieved that he can look for a position more appropriate to his speed level, rather than live in the shadow of underperformance and constant scrutiny.

The Reward for Hard Work

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“I know I need to delegate more often,” Sharon explained. “But, it just takes that little bit of extra time that I never seem to have. It’s just easier to do it myself.”

“How many hours do you put in each day?” I asked.

“Well, ever since I became a manager, probably ten or eleven. It seems the harder I work, the more work there is to get done.”

“Sharon, do you know the reward for long hours of hard work?” I could see she was going over the obvious answers, dismissing them one at a time. In the end, she had no answer.

“You’re right,” she said, “at this point in my career, I don’t need another plaque to put on the wall. I don’t need to be Employee of the Month, again.”

I smiled. “The just reward for long hours of hard work is more long hours of hard work.” I stopped. “Is that why you are working so hard?”

Sharon stared, first at me, then the wall behind me, then I think her stare began to burrow into her brain.

“Unless your intention is to work even harder and for longer hours, you have to begin to work differently.”

Treating People Like Machines?

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It had taken six months to make the decision to spend $65,000 on a new machine. It was replacing another older machine that was finally being retired. There had been a committee conducting research about the new on-board technology. Another team of two had been shopping between leasing arrangements and term equipment loans. The transition team was hard at work to determine how work-in-process would be diverted during the installation and burn-in period. The training department was coordinating a technician training program with the manufacturer. This equipment purchase was going to be a real game breaker.

What I was most interested in was the Project Manager hired into the company two weeks ago. The salary was about the same, $65,000. Three people were involved in the interview process, but when I looked at the documentation from those interviews, it was mostly subjective nonsense:

  • I think he has a good personality and will fit in well with our culture.
  • In the next five years, he wants to excel in project management. That’s what we need him for.
  • Demonstrated a great attitude the during the interview.

The job description was a photocopy of a similar position with some notes scratched on the bottom. The training program consisted of shadowing another project manager for two days.

Perhaps we should create a process that takes recruiting as serious as buying a piece of equipment. We would do well to treat our people as well as we do our machines.

Common Purpose Trumps an Orientation

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It was a late weekend morning. I was headed south on A-1-A, returning from a solo bike run to Boynton inlet. The headwind was light, but enough to knock the speed to an even 19mph. Three hours into the ride, I was in no position to hammer the wind, yet impatient to keep the speed up.

“On your left,” was a friendly heads-up as an unknown rider with fresh legs slipped in front. I downshifted and picked up the reps to catch his wheel. I settled into the quiet space of his draft at 21mph. Seconds later, I sensed a third rider on my tail. Now we were three.

For thirty minutes, we snaked down the road, changing leads, holding 21, taking turns on the nose. I was struck with the purity of teamwork between three people who had never met before, with only three words between them.

A team will never gain traction without a common purpose.

This was a team with nothing, except a common purpose, executing skillful maneuvers, supporting each other, communicating precisely with each other. There was no orientation, no “get to know you session,” just a purity of purpose.

When your team works together, how clear is the purpose? What is the commitment level of each team member to that purpose?

The Machines Stood Silent

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What a year. Running hard, just like you.

This has been a year of transition. The world changes. Blessed are the flexible for they shall not get bent out of shape. I know everyone is hoping that 2011 will be better than 2010. And it will.

But this next year is not about coping. This next year is about growing. Even in those most difficult market segments like non-residential construction.

Some of what we know will no longer be valid. Some old solutions will no longer fit new problems. It will require our brightest mind and sharpest execution. And it will always come down to this.

  • Find a market need big enough.
  • Build a product or service to meet it.
  • Then produce it faster, better and cheaper than your competitor.

But, now it is time to rest and enjoy the holidays with family and friends. Management Skills Blog will return on January 3, 2011. And now this story, first published here in 2005.
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As Matthew looked across the manufacturing floor, the machines stood silent, the shipping dock was clear. Outside, the service vans were neatly parked in a row. Though he was the solitary figure, Matthew shouted across the empty space.

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night.”

He reached for the switch and the mercury vapors went dark. He slid out the door and locked it behind.

Who Is Accountable?

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Adelle emerged from the conference room after two long hours of debate. She shook her head from side to side, a genuine look of despair. “I tried,” she shrugged, “but we didn’t make a whole lot of progress. What we ended up with was mostly crap.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Oh, we have been trying to figure out the best way to solve this problem and there are a bunch of ideas, but we just can’t reach a consensus on which way to proceed. I am afraid to get started until I know for sure that everyone is on board. But every time we make a compromise, other people drop off and want something different.”

“What happens to the quality of the solution every time you compromise?”

“That’s the real problem. It’s the compromising that kills it. After listening to all the input, I know what we should do and the little compromises just water it down. We might as well junk the whole project because, in this state, it will not do what the customer wants it to do.”

“Whose meeting did you just walked out of?” I asked.

It was Adelle’s turn to ask, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, was it the team’s meeting, or was it your meeting? Let me put it a different way. Who is your boss going to hold accountable for this decision?”

“Oh, I tried that once, blaming a decision on the team. I got the message. My boss is going to hold me accountable for the decision.”

“Then, it wasn’t a team meeting. It was YOUR meeting that the team got invited to. It is your responsibility to listen to the input, and it is also your responsibility to make the decision. And you don’t need agreement, you just need support.”

Adelle had to sit down to think about this one.

Why I Hold the Manager Accountable

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“I have to change. Me?” Vicki asked, not sure if she could believe her ears.

“I am going to hold you accountable for the results of your team,” I said. “What do you have to change?”

Vicki was not pleased. “Well, if you are going to hold me accountable for the results,” she stopped. “I have to pay attention.”

“Yes, you do. As a Manager, what do you have to pay attention to?”

“I may have to be more hands on,” Vicki replied.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“I mean if someone is out sick and you are still going to hold me accountable for the results of the team, then I might have to fill in.”

“Only in an emergency. You are a Manager. I expect you to drive a forklift only in an emergency. Come on. You deal with statistical fluctuations of many elements all the time. What are you going to do?”

“Okay, so we are talking about cross training, maybe borrowing a member of another team, considering overtime. You know, 30 is really an arbitrary number. If we were short one day, we can likely make that up over the next couple of days, as long as there were no late ships.”

“I want you to think carefully. Are any of those decisions, cross-training, borrowing a member of another team or using overtime, within the scope of your team members?”

“No.” Vicki shook her head slowly.

“And yet, those are the decisions that produce the results. That’s why I hold you, as the Manager, accountable. What else has to change?”

What Has to Change?

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“It’s not your fault that your most valuable team member is out sick, but I will still hold you accountable for the results from your team. What has to change?” I repeated.

Vicki was still stumped.

“Vicki, let’s look at all the variables that could have an impact on production. You are focusing on the team’s manual assembly. Do they work at different rates on different days?”

“Well, yes, sometimes, they work better when there is loud music playing, awful loud music,” she replied.

“So, some days are up and some days are down. I call that a statistical fluctuation. What other elements could cause a statistical fluctuation?”

“Oh, well, there are a number of things. Sometimes our tooling or tools get worn and they just can’t do the job at the same rate, until we change them out. Sometimes our raw materials aren’t quite the same and we have to stop and make small adjustments to accommodate. Heck, sometimes, too much humidity can affect the setup time.”

“So, all of those things, including the manual assembly can create statistical fluctuations in production?” I noted, making a small list on a sheet of paper.

Vicki nodded her head. A smile crept across her face. “You are right. Those are the things that create havoc in my day.”

“And who is responsible for solving those problems and making decisions, making adjustments to build 30 units a day?” I was looking straight at Vicki. “What has to change?”