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.

Wrong Person in a Managerial Role

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From the Ask Tom Mailbag –

Question:
Hey Tom, I want your opinion on something…Why do the wrong people end up in management/leadership positions? What are the first three reasons that come to mind?

Response:
While it’s fun to poke at dysfunction, especially in managerial positions (just read Dilbert, my favorite), there are shining examples of high performing managers in most organizations. But there are a few stinky ones out there.

Next-in-line – Most teams will eventually lose their manager, either to a promotion, to another company or to trout fishing in Montana. In many cases, that team will end up with the next-in-line. This person may have been a competent assistant, been on the team the longest or simply showed up for work early on the wrong day. Poof – you’re a manager.

Mis-selection – Companies recruiting from the outside often make a poor hiring decision. For the most part, they have no clue about what it takes to be an effective manager. Clueless, they fumble through a stack of resumes, ask the wrong questions during interviews and end up with an empty suit. Poof – you’re a manager.

Skill-set – Many people are perfectly capable to be effective in a managerial role, but have never been trained in specific skills. Being a manager has a great deal to do with “who” you are, yet there are several leadership skills (yes, trainable skills) that must be learned and practiced. Most companies don’t have internal capabilities to teach or coach those skills. Poof – you’re a manager. Good luck.

Judging Effectiveness

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“Is this person working as effectively as someone in the top half of the role or the bottom half of the role?” I asked.

“Sometimes they struggle, so I will have to place them in the bottom half,” Anna replied.

“And in that top half, are they working as effectively as someone in the top, middle or bottom third?” I pressed.

“Yes, top third, no question,” Anna was sure.

How could Anna make this assessment so quickly?

Every manager always maintains a running intuitive assessment of the effectiveness of each team member. Anna had been making this assessment ever since she became a manager. But until we broke it down, she had no way to express it.

Today kicks off our next Subject Area in Working Leadership Online – Time Span and the Personal Effectiveness Appraisal. Let me know if you would like a Free Introductory Membership.

Ask This Question About Your System

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“Yes, but sometimes, profit erosion occurs by some unforeseen circumstance, some outside force, that’s not part of your system. Profit erosion is not always caused by a broken system,” Jacob explained.

“You’re absolutely right,” I agreed. “That’s why I want to see WHO is in charge of your system. The role, at Stratum III, is not only to create your system, but to monitor your system. And when one of those outside forces, or unforeseen circumstance occurs, I want that Stratum III manager to ask this question, ‘Why didn’t our system anticipate this outside force, or at least mitigate the damage from this unforeseen circumstance?’

“The role at Stratum III is to create the system, monitor the system and constantly improve the system. The role is to adapt our systems to prevent new problems from occurring a second time.”

Preventing Profit Erosion

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“And I know, the profit margin you designed into your price list, or your estimating system, is the same percent profit you report on your tax return at the end of the year,” I smiled.

Minor chuckling erupted.

“You know, some of you call me up. And tell me you are experiencing profit erosion, either gross profit, or net profit, and ask if I can help. So, I ask to see your organization chart.

“You protest. ‘It’s not our organization chart. It’s a pricing problem, or cost containment, waste or scrap.’

“No, I really do understand. If you experience profit erosion, something that your system was designed to prevent, then something is out of kilter with your system. Something in your system is broken. And one of the things I have discovered when I look for the cause of the problem, I try to figure out WHAT’S the problem. Turns out, the problem is seldom a WHAT. It’s almost always a WHO.”

Avoid This Power Struggle

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Monday, spent the day with a brilliant group in San Francisco, hosted by Lance Gimbal of Gimbal’s Fine Candies (Gourmet Jelly Beans). We spent the day talking about the research of Elliott Jaques and sipping cappuccino (pumpkin) in the conference room at Torani headquarters.

Question:
You talked about the role of the Manager Once Removed (MOR) in the recruiting process, that the MOR should play an active role in assembling a qualified candidate pool for the Hiring Manager to choose from. But what if the Hiring Manager doesn’t like any of the candidates assembled by the MOR, instead, insists on hiring a candidate that failed to pass muster by the MOR. Now aren’t we back to a spitting contest? How does the MOR press the Hiring Manager without escalating a power struggle?

Response:
It takes two people to have a power struggle. It is not the role of the MOR to overpower the Hiring Manager by virtue of pecking order. Rather it is the responsibility of the MOR to bring value to the decisions of the Hiring Manager. Working a candidate pool is not a casual conversation. It is not, “here, I talked to a bunch of people, pick one from these five candidates.”

The conversation between the MOR and Hiring Manager starts much earlier as, together, they draft the role description, discuss the hiring criteria, develop intelligent interview questions and create a decision grid.

This is not a power conversation, but the MOR guiding the Hiring Manager, bringing value to the decision process.

On to Seattle. Working with Tom Leonard’s Vistage groups Tuesday and Wednesday.

Traction, Get a Grip

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Stalled out in Denver due to weather in San Francisco. First flight-leg reading, Traction by Gino Wickman. You know, I don’t often do book reviews, but this one caught my eye. Not that it breaks any new ground, but it is a well-organized reminder of the mechanics in building an organization.

It begins with a quick organizational diagnostic (20 questions) which tells you where the book is going. Each section has some sort of checklist, tool, core questions that would be valuable to any organization trying to define this stuff. My favorite was the section on Vision and his Vision/Tracker Organizer (TM), which contains a two-page template that distills the best thinking you can muster about your organization. But then, I must admit I’m a sucker for models and templates.

The real estate on each of the two pages dictates the amount of documentation required to complete, but don’t fool yourself. The most difficult pieces of thinking will be required where the word limit is the lowest.

Here’s why I think this is important. During this recession, in many places, all hell broke loose. We stopped thinking like this while we were down in the storm cellar. It’s time to get out of the cellar and start to rebuild.

Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business

I Sound Like My Mother

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“I tell them what to do and all they do is argue,” complained Cheryl.

“How does that sound?” I asked. “Pretend I am running the line. What mistake could I make that needs correction?”

“They always forget to inspect incoming materials for quality. They just dump the parts in the bin. This company hired me to prevent quality errors. It starts by inspecting the incoming plastic parts,” Cheryl explained.

“So, I take a box of incoming plastic parts and I dump them into the bin for assembly, but I don’t check them for quality, first?”

“Exactly,” said Cheryl. “You can’t do that. I personally inspected all the incoming parts from yesterday and now you have them all mixed up. What were you thinking? You will have to pull all the parts out of the bin and re-inspect every one. We have a 20 percent failure rate on finished goods and it’s all your fault.”

“What kind of response do you get?” I queried.

“Oh, they say they never had to inspect parts before I came along, or that they didn’t make the damn parts so it’s not their fault. I can’t seem to get them to take responsibility. They sound like little kids. -I didn’t do it, not my fault.-”

“So, if they sound like little kids, what do you sound like?”

“What do you mean?” Cheryl became quietly curious.

“If they sound like children, do you sound like a parent?”

Cheryl stopped cold. She was ticking the conversation back in her head. “My goodness, I sound like my mother.”

“And when you sound like a critical parent, what kind of response do you invite?” I asked.

“When I sound like a critical parent, I invite them to argue with me?” Cheryl’s question sounded more like an answer.

“So, we have to figure out a way to correct the behavior without inviting an argument.”

An Inventive Way to Solve a Problem

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My coffee was piping hot, hazelnut with a little cream. Cheryl’s meeting was to start in a few minutes. She was determined to turn things around with her team. She was hired as a troubleshooter in Quality Control, but finding the problem and fixing the problem are two different things.

“So today, you said you were going to listen?” I asked.

Cheryl nodded “Yes.”

“What position will you be listening from?”

The question caught Cheryl off-guard. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“The way we see the world is often influenced by our position. In fact, you have listened to your team before, but you were listening from a position of judgment, so you didn’t hear what they had to say.” I stopped to let that sink in. “What position will you be listening from today?” I repeated.

“I guess I will be trying to understand their point of view.”

“Not bad, but not aggressive enough to be effective. What position do you want to be listening from?”

Cheryl was stumped. “Curiosity?” she finally blurted out.

I nodded. “So, when you sit in your meeting today, you will be listening from the position of a curious child?”

Cheryl smiled.

“And curious children always have a lot more fun than stuffy old Quality Control managers,” I said. “And curious children often invent interesting ways to solve problems.”

Third Egg Strategy

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I have to share with you, a new blog posted by my favorite guru of Customer Service, Howard Hyden. I have been a fan of his ideas for more than a decade. Good stuff. This is his first post.

The Third Egg Strategy
I met a client for breakfast at a coffee shop close to his company where we were greeted with a long line. He indicated that this place was always packed in the morning and a typical wait would be 15 to 20 minutes. He also indicated that there was another coffee shop not far down the street that was always half-empty. Read More.

Government Jobs Incentives

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Overheard in an interview from a reporter related to the government’s job stimulus efforts.

Reporter – “Will the recent government hiring and job placement incentives cause you to hire more employees?”

Response – “You don’t understand, no employer creates a job in response to a government program or incentive. Employers ONLY create jobs when a role becomes necessary for them to meet market demand.”

Posted from Tucson AZ. Working with Gary Hirsch and his Vistage group on the research of Elliott Jaques.