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.

Team Problem Solving – Ten Reasons Why?

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Ten reasons to use a team to solve a problem.

  1. To generate fifteen alternative solutions instead of three.
  2. To get more ideas on the way a project could go wrong. Think BP oil spill.
  3. To gain technical insights that the manager doesn’t have. Managers think they know everything. They don’t.
  4. To get Time Span perspectives on solutions from long-term impact to short-term execution.
  5. To gain willing cooperation from the same team that identifies AND executes the solution. If the team does not believe in the solution, their execution will be poor.
  6. To shift the energy from the manager to the team. Without this energy, the solution might not work. If all the energy comes from the manager, you will have a very tired, burnt out manager.
  7. To increase engagement, team spirit, to build cooperation. If you want to build a team, give them a problem to solve.
  8. To keep watchful eyes on the project, engaged watchful eyes, when the manager has to leave for a meeting.
  9. To solve the same problem faster, the next time, even if the manager is not around.
  10. It’s not that I am lazy, but my stress level, as a manager, goes down when I can share the work.

The next topic in our Working Leadership Online program is all about Team Problem Solving. It kicks off on Monday, July 5 (I know some of you will still be celebrating July 4). As is our custom, we are opening (50) Introductory Memberships to the program. If you would like to get on the list, follow this link to FREE Introductory Membership.

Your Introductory Membership makes you a full participant in this highly interactive learning program. Here’s what people say about it.

There’s a lot of valuable information in this course that isn’t easily available elsewhere, and the coaching from Tom in addition to accountability for actually carrying out the assignments makes for a solid learning experience. Keep up the good work. The online format makes the course accessible, and makes it easy to put into practice directly in a work environment. -Erik LaBianca

The option of learning online at my convenience is a great benefit. This program is excellent – I learned many things that I can apply as a manager. -Arlene Breitkreuz

I want to institutionalize this online training as a mandatory part of every manager’s experience in my company. -Derek Bullen

Why not take a minute, now, and sign up here? Working Leadership Introductory Membership

It’s the Manager’s Fault

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Gretchen’s face displayed confusion. “What do managers do to their teams that systematically, over time, disables them from being able to solve even the simplest of problems?” I repeated.

“You’re not thinking this is my fault, are you?” she finally spoke.

I turned my head to the side, still staring at her.

“No way,” she protested.

“Every time a manager provides the solution to a problem, it robs the team of its ability to engage the problem. Over time, the team’s ability to solve problems begins to atrophy. Before long, even the simplest of problems will be brought to the manager for solution finding.

“The team begins to enjoy this new arrangement. With the responsibility for the decision now firmly resting on the manager, so goes the responsibility for the outcome. If the outcome is poor, it’s the manager’s fault. If the outcome creates more problems, it’s the manager’s fault. Your team likes this arrangement.”

Disabling the Team

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“You know, you are right,” I told Gretchen. “Your team, over time, has systematically become incapable of solving problems.”

Gretchen didn’t speak, but began to slowly nod her head.

“How did they get that way? What happened to them?” I asked.

“What do you mean, what happened to them?” Gretchen’s nodding stopped.

“When the people on your team started working here, they were full of questions. They were curious. They experimented. They made mistakes. They learned.”

Gretchen began to nod again.

“But, now, you tell me they act more like zombies. So what happened to them?” I was looking directly at Gretchen, not blinking. Her nod stopped again, so I continued.

“Gretchen, what do managers do to their teams that systematically, over time, disables them from being able to solve even the simplest of problems?”

Dolts and Zombies

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“I know you think your solution is better than anything your team might come up,” I agreed. “Do you think that is really the point?”

Gretchen was resisting. “But, I don’t have time to have a meeting, and besides, I don’t think my team wants to be creative. Sometimes they act like dolts.”

“They act like dolts when you solve a problem like this for them?”

“Well, yeah. I can solve problems like this pretty easy. I have been in the business for six years. I have the experience. But when I tell them what to do, they’re like zombies from the Night of the Living Dead. Some of them walk around like they still don’t know what to do, even though I gave them the solution.”

“Why do you think that is?” I asked.

“Like I said, I just don’t think they care,” Gretchen insisted.

“You are right. They don’t care about your solution.”

This caught Gretchen off-guard. She didn’t expect me to agree so easily. “They don’t care about your solution,” I repeated. “So, who’s solution do they care about?”

“Well, I’m the only one who can solve the problem,” Gretchen tersely replied.

“Indeed?” -TF

Opportunistic Predator

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From the Ask Tom mailbag.

Question:
Ever since the recession, our company has been scrambling. There was a time when things were calmer, predictable. Now, our management meetings seem disorganized, we are all over the place, decisions are haphazard. We have an agenda, we follow the agenda, but our direction seems muddled.

Response:
You are clearly in the deep stages of Go-Go. You describe a normal organization, out of the start-up phase, yet still struggling out of its cocoon. And many companies were put here by the recession.

During the recession, our focus shifted from operating systems toward survival and sales. Get some sales, nothing else mattered. Get sales and get profitable.

To survive, we chased rabbits, abandoned our core, taking any opportunity that created a sale. We are now entrenched in opportunity seeking, reactive in our behavior.

We did this because we had to. We had no choice. We had to survive.

The counter-intuitive move is to slow down and think. Our markets have moved, they are different, now. Things are improving (slowly). There are patterns of viability forming and we have to pay attention. Market analysis is the next step. We have to move from being an opportunistic predator to an intentional sleuth. As our markets return, we have to understand their new patterns and adapt our internal systems carefully.

Logistically, this means drawing new pictures and flow charts, identifying market needs, not one-off opportunities. As we draw this picture, our market will become clearer and our decisions will make more sense.

When the Team Gets Ahead

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“And what if your team gets ahead of the production schedule during the day? Should that be part of the agreement you have with them?” I asked.

“Oh, they never get ahead,” Gail disagreed.

“Sure they do. When you post the production schedule, you allow for line changeovers, material inspection, and machine slowdowns. There are days when everything goes right, the stars line up. When they get ahead, what should your team do?”

Gail had never considered this. “I guess, it would be the same deal. If they get behind, or if they get ahead, they should come and find me.”

“Because, what decisions would you make, as a manager, if your team is ahead of schedule?”

“I could throw a pizza party,” Gail laughed. “Seriously, I could pull a couple of people over to another project, to machine maintenance, there are always secondary priorities.”

“And your team doesn’t know about these secondary priorities?”

“It’s not that I am hiding things from them, but we always have some design prototype we are working on. Short term, my team needs to get the daily production out, but if I can put a couple of people on a prototype for a half-hour, we might have a brand new product for our sales team. We have a management briefing every week from our R and D department where I find out about special projects.”

“And who decides these priorities on the floor?”

“I do,” Gail nodded. “It’s a critical part of my role, to coordinate both daily production and special projects. I have to use my best judgment.”

My Overtime Budget is Precious

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“That’s funny,” Gail laughed. “Usually, when I have the production meeting and I find out the team is behind, I yell at them. But if they find me, whenever we are five units behind, we can do something about it, in real time, this is different.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, I can fire up another workstation, bring in one more line person, or I can look at my overtime budget, maybe we can work a little more that day, or I can even look at the customer order. Some customers, we have an arrangement where we can short-ship.”

“So, you, as the manager, can make a decision, solve the problem?”

Gail was nodding. “Yes.”

“And just to be clear. Your team cannot make those decisions.”

“No. They are not in a position to know the priority of work through the floor. That is sometimes fluid depending on direction we get from the sales department. And my overtime budget is precious. I have to consider several factors before I touch that budget. And to make a decision to short-ship a customer is delicate. It has to be the right customer and the right circumstance. No, those are my decisions, as the manager.”

Production Thresholds

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“It’s a contract,” I explained. “When your team gets behind, it is up to them to pick up the pace. That is why your feedback loop has to let them know how many units produced versus the target.”

“So, if they are only a couple of units behind, they can probably make that up. You see, usually, I don’t find out they are behind until it’s too late,” Gail described.

“Of course not. They don’t want to get yelled at. But you don’t have time to monitor the production rate, so when you find out, that’s why it’s too late. Your team, on the other hand, is always monitoring production rate. They are in the best position to know when they are behind, or ahead.”

“So, I strike a deal with them. Every time they get a certain number of units behind, and five units is the right number, that’s when things get out of hand. Every time they get five units behind, they have to find me.”

“That’s the contract. Now, what are you going to do when they find and tell you they are five units behind?” I asked.

Discretionary Judgment of the Team

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I could tell Gail was uncomfortable.

“Do you trust your team?” I asked.

“Of course, I do,” Gail snapped without blinking.

“Then why don’t you turn your control system into a feedback loop so your team can see the production pace through the day?”

“But what if they really get behind and I don’t know about it,” she pushed back. “There will be hell to pay with my boss if something goes wrong and I don’t know about it.”

“Do you trust your team?” I asked again.

Gail was slower to respond this time. “Well, yes,” she nodded.

“Then strike an agreement with your team,” I replied. “You figure out the threshold of the pace, so if they get ten units behind or five units behind, whatever you are comfortable with, that your team is required to pull you in to make a decision.”

“And so if they are only four units behind?”

“Then, it is within the discretionary judgment of the team, to adjust their own pace to make up the four units. But if it slips to five units, they call you.”

The color was coming back into Gail’s face.

Immediate Corrective Action

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“I am in the best position to judge the pace and quality from our production team,” Gail explained. “My control system collects the data and I get that report.”

“And when you get that report, if the pace is behind, what can you do about it?” I asked.

“I can call a production meeting and stress how important it is that we stay on track.” Gail stopped. “It seems I have those meetings every couple of days.”

“Why don’t you stop? Stop the meetings?”

“I can’t do that,” she gasped. “All hell would break loose and the team would never know how behind they are.”

“I thought you said you had a control system that monitored production output? Why don’t you let your team monitor the control system, and not every couple of days, let them monitor it in real time?”

Gail was almost trembling. In her mind, she was losing control.

“Gail, who is in the best position to take immediate corrective action if we are behind schedule? The only thing you can do is call a meeting.”