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.

Would They Sit Around and Play Cards?

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“I work because I have to work,” Vicki finally stammered.

“I will accept that,” I replied, “but not for the reasons you think.” A few seconds passed. “Are you happy with your work?”

“Well, yes. I mean, there are days when it’s frustrating, but mostly, I like the work.”

“And your team, do they like the work?”

Vicki winced. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s okay, I guess, but it’s hard work and if it were me, I don’t think I would like it.”

“Then why do they come to work every day?”

“Because they have to.”

“So, your team doesn’t like the work and the only reason they show up is because they have to? And do you think, if you left them alone all day, that instead of working, your team would sit around, play cards and take naps?”

Translating “Doing Your Best” to Real Life Results

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From the Ask Tom mailbag: Kurt writes,

Question:
I think we all agree that employees should do their very best all day. But how do we measure/align this according towards our company’s deliverables? How do we translate doing your best towards real life results?

Response:
I can do my best and due to circumstances, the desired result may still not be achieved. I can also do less than my best, and due to circumstances, the desired result may nevertheless occur.

Real life results come from the decisions of the manager. It is the manager who decides appropriate resources and adjusts those resources according to circumstances. It is the manager who decides which tasks will be completed and given priority. If a team member’s best performance fails to net the result, it is the manager who should be held accountable for mis-estimating the effort required for success.

It has been my experience that most team members will always give their best.

When a team member fails to give it their best, due to a personal situation affecting the working behavior, I hold the manager accountable. Every manager should know every team member. They should know every team member’s spouse, and whether they play softball or go fishing on the weekends.

When a team member fails to give it their best, due to a poor working environment, I hold the manager accountable for the systems that created that environment.

When a team member fails to give it their best, because they are attempting to take advantage of the organization, violating their contract to do their best, I hold the manager accountable for identifying that behavior and taking steps to either correct it or remove the person from the team.

Interviewing for Something Beyond Skills

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“There must be more,” Alicia repeated. “If it is NOT Joe’s role to motivate his team members, then how is he supposed to make sure production gets done? I understand it is Joe that will be held accountable for the results of his team. It has to be more than who he picks to be on his team?”

“Yes, there’s more, but would you agree that it matters who Joe selects?”

Alicia nodded, “Yes.”

“And as Joe selects his team, with your help, as Joe’s manager, what are the criteria that he must select for?”

“First, he has to look at their skill set.”

“And can we train those skills that are necessary?” I asked.

“It depends, for some things we want general experience, but we would certainly train on our specific methods,” she replied.

“And what else? Remember, if it is NOT Joe’s job to motivate, what must he interview for?”

“Well, then, they have to be interested. I mean, interested in the kind of work that has to be done.”

“Okay,” my turn to nod. “And tell me, Alicia. If Joe is successful in finding a candidate with a high level of interest in the work we do here, how much time will Joe have to spend motivating his team?”

First Authority of the Hiring Manager

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“So, it’s not me, but, Joe, who is supposed to motivate his team?” Alicia asked.

“No, that is not Joe’s role, as a supervisor,” I replied.

“Okay, so if he is NOT supposed to motivate his team, how IS Joe supposed to get the work done?”

“Alicia, when you hired Joe to be the supervisor, how did he put his team together?”

“Well, Joe had never really hired anyone before, so I helped him screen candidates and I made recommendations.”

“And what if Joe didn’t like your recommendation?”

“Well, Joe is an adult, and he had the final say. If there was someone he didn’t want on his team, I didn’t force him,” she explained.

“So, that’s the first answer to your question of how Joe is supposed to get the work done. While you (as the Manager Once Removed) may help and qualify candidates for his team, he has the authority to veto any appointment?”

“Yes,” Alicia nodded.

“And if, in his judgment, as a Supervisor, he feels that a team member is either not doing their best or that their best is not good enough to complete assignments, does Joe have the authority to deselect that person from his team?”

“Well, yes, I mean he can’t just fire someone, we have a process for that and it requires some approvals from HR and such.”

“But Joe has the authority to deselect someone from his team?”

Alicia continued to nod. “Okay, but there has to be more,” she coaxed.

How to Get a Different Result

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Alicia was trying to make complicated sense out of this. “Each day, Joe’s team is required to show up for work and do their best,” she muttered. “I don’t get it. It’s too simple. What if we are not getting the results we want?”

“If Joe’s team shows up every day and does their best, what could they do to get a different result?” I asked.

“Well, Joe could have them do something different, reassign a route, load the trucks differently to make fewer trips, double check the load for missing items.”

“Exactly, but who is responsible for making those decisions and assigning those tasks?” I continued.

“Well, Joe is,” she replied.

“So, the team shows up and does their best. It is Joe who we hold accountable for the results of the team.”

It’s More About You, As a Manager

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“Of course, we have a clue,” Ethan was getting defensive. “I’ll know it, when I see it. I always get a good feeling in the first few minutes of the interview.”

“So, you make your decision about a candidate in the first few minutes of the interview?” I asked.

“Well, no, I don’t make my decision, but you can tell pretty quick.”

“What can you tell pretty quick, if you haven’t written the role description?” I pressed.

Ethan knew he was getting backed into a corner. “The ad we place, on Craig’s List, it’s pretty detailed. It’s really close to the job description. I really do have a good idea what I am looking for in the candidate.”

“Okay, let’s say I buy your job posting as a role description. And where the posting is ambiguous, you plan to make that up in the interview. So, let me see your list of prepared questions, that you have going in to the interview?”

Ethan was getting edgy. “Look,” he started, “I don’t even have an interview scheduled, yet. I will make up some questions before I get in the room.”

“Ethan, we started this conversation when you said that it was hard to find good people these days. If you can’t find good people, it’s more about you, as a manager, than the quality of your talent pool. It’s a matter of focus.”

No Clue What’s Required in the Role

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“What do you mean, I haven’t focused on it,” Ethan protested. “I spend a lot of time in between projects, thinking about hiring for this position. I have two ads running right now. Believe it, or not, we have had more than 400 responses.”

“Congratulations, on getting responses to your ad,” I replied. “Almost like you are getting email spam?”

“You got that right!”

“Look, it’s easy to get resumes. But focus on hiring talent takes more than a bunch of resumes. Let me see the role description.”

“We haven’t written that, yet,” Ethan squirmed. “We wrote the ad, and we will write the job description before we actually hire the person. We just want to make sure we have a good fit, before we commit too much in writing.”

“Oh, really?”

“Of course. I mean, you never know who we are going to extend the offer to, and who, in the end, will accept the position. If it’s somebody good, we may want to upgrade the job description.”

“So, you have no clue, who you really need in the role, related to skill set, or Time Span capability?”

Tough to Find Good People

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“It’s really tough to find good people these days,” Ethan said, exasperated. “You would think, with unemployment as high as it is, that the talent pool would be full.”

“What are you finding in the talent pool?” I asked.

“People who don’t really want to work in the first place, but their unemployment benefits ran out.”

“Oh, really,” I smiled. “You have been watching way too much television.”

“Yes,” Ethan replied, “But still, I need a really good supervisor, not just a mediocre somebody to fill a slot. We have a lot of shifting priorities and I need someone who can run a complicated schedule.”

“You know, I hear your complaint a lot, good times and bad times,” I chided. “If you are having trouble finding good people, it’s because you are not really focused on it.”

“What do you mean?” Ethan defended.

“You spend a lot of time on a bunch of different things, managing this, managing that. And you have not really focused on what it takes to successfully onboard talent.”

Create Benchstrength in Your Candidate Pool

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“You need to terminate five out of seventeen on your sales team?” I asked.

Roger took a deep breath. “Yes. And it doesn’t make them bad people. If anything, it makes me a bad manager. Intuitively, I knew they were not the right people for the role, but I allowed my judgment to become clouded, made up my own excuses for them.”

“How soon will you be making this change?”

“First, I have to find some people to cover the territory. No. I need to find some people capable of creating the kinds of relationships that generate sales.”

“What’s the biggest lesson from all this?” I prompted.

“I need to constantly be recruiting. I did not make the moves I knew I should have made, because I didn’t have a back-up to go to. Because I did not create the bench strength in my own candidate pool.”

The Clarity in Visual Banding

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“Yes,” Roger nodded. “Grading my sales team into these six bands of effectiveness helps me see what to do next.”

“How so?” I prompted.

“The temptation is to keep all the people in the top half of the banding and terminate the people in the bottom half. But now I have more judgments to make, as a manager.”

“There’s more?” I pressed.

“Yes. I have one sales person, in the top of the top half, that needs leadership training. In another year, I want to move that salesperson into a more complicated product line, with a longer sales cycle.”

“And?”

“And,” Roger stopped. “And I need to terminate five out of the seventeen people I have on my team.”

“How did you reach that conclusion?” I asked.

“Again, it wasn’t difficult. I have been making excuses for their poor performance, sent them to training, tried to motivate them, offered a bonus. Once I did the analysis, it became very clear.”