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.

Jaques and Necessity

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
Let’s say I buy into Elliott Jaques model of Requisite Organization. But I have a small company. As you describe the layers in the organization, it is clear that I am missing some key roles. But in this recession, I have to stick to a personnel budget. I cannot afford to hire the people necessary to fill all the roles.

Response:
If you were thinking about purchasing a machine, a major expensive machine, for your operations, and you were concerned about budget, how would you make that decision?

Actually, it doesn’t matter whether you are concerned about budget, the answer is still the same. You would purchase the machine only if it were necessary for the operation. I don’t know of a single business owner or manager who would put something in place unless it was necessary.

I use necessity as a driver for many decisions. Is that machine necessary? Is that role necessary? If your business model requires a role, yet your budget will not allow the hire, then you have to modify your business model.

Rather than questioning the validity of organizational roles and layers, let Elliott’s model help you understand what is missing and what modifications you might have to make until your company gets back in the zone of profitability and growth. You will get there faster.

Straight and Sensitive

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We had a comment posted yesterday that I thought was particularly insightful.

Michael Cardus, of Create Learning wrote:

This is a game we all play games within our workplace, we are programmed to play these work games.

“We cannot promise future employment” creates a counter-play. The organization plays the same game with employees, “things are not good, layoffs are happening all around you and the executives have had secret meeting at expensive resorts, and we cannot guarantee you will have a job tomorrow. BUT we still want you to work hard and get the job done.”

What is one supposed to do?

Response:
The reality is tough. It’s tough because of the uncertainty. And because of the uncertainty, we try to cope as best we can. Game playing is a coping mechanism that we think is helping, protecting and delaying. In reality, it just creates a bigger game.

What is one supposed to do?

Pat Murray talks about being straight and sensitive. I don’t see any other way.

Vicious Cycle

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“What’s the game?” I asked.

“It’s not a game,” Marcus assured. “We can’t promise anything about future employment, and we have to make sure all the work gets done. I can’t have someone on my team cornering all the work, looking busy, while the rest of the team sits idle.”

“What’s the game?” I repeated.

Marcus took in a deep breath. “Hiding all the work, so you look busy, while others sit idle. Meantime, project are getting behind because only one person is working.”

“But, it’s not a game?” I confirmed.

“Okay, okay, it IS a game,” Marcus relented. “But, it shouldn’t be a game. I just don’t know how to stop the vicious cycle.”

Looking Busy

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“What have you told them about future layoffs?” I asked.

“You know we can’t make any promises. We let two more people go last month, even though we thought we were through with reductions,” Marcus replied.

“So, they may ignore what you say and watch only what you do?”

Marcus grimaced. “Okay, I get that. Everyone is still concerned for their job. But, at the same time, we need to spread the work out to make sure it all gets done. I can’t have one or two people cornering all the projects, or hiding work that needs to be done, just to make sure they can look busy.”

“What has to change to make that happen?”

Old Habits Die Hard

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“I don’t understand,” complained Marcus. “I got this new guy on the team. We have been running pretty lean for the past eight months and I knew we needed some more help, so we got some more help. But he’s not helping. As a matter of fact, people are complaining about him.”

“What’s the story?” I asked.

“We cut our admin staff last February, assigned all the tasks around to make sure we could still get all the work out. Our volume is picking up a little (at last), and I am afraid if we don’t get another person cross trained, we are going to start getting behind.”

“Maybe they are just taking their time warming up to the new person,” I suggested.

Marcus moved his head from side to side. “No, it’s like they are hording the work. No one will let anything go. Old habits die hard. The level of trust is pretty low. Even though we added a person, my team still thinks they could get laid off.”
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We still have a couple of scholarships to Working Leadership Online, Time Span and Accountability. If you would like to participate, please respond to Ask Tom.

Time Span and Accountability

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Just exactly what is a manager accountable for?

This is not a production job, there is no direct output. Production is only accomplished through other people. So, what are the four managerial authorities? And what are the four managerial accountabilities?

On Monday, Working Leadership Online, kicks off its next series.

  • Sep 14 – Managerial Authorities – Time Span and Accountability
  • Oct 5 – Managerial Authorities – Time Span and Hiring Talent
  • Oct 26 – Time Span and the Performance Effectiveness Appraisal

If you would like a free login to this series, we are opening (10) scholarships. If you would like to participate, please respond to Ask Tom.

Not a Question of Balance

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
I am trying to balance between when to fire someone and when to keep them on, because they know so much and it would take awhile to train someone new. It seems easier to keep them than to pray the new person will pick up what they need to know to do the position. Or if I know I am going to fire that person, how do I get them to impart the knowledge they have, into system write ups, without them thinking I am going to fire them? I hope this makes sense.

Response:
It makes perfect sense. The perfect sense is that you have a low trust environment and there are a lot of games going on.

First. When did you allow your methods and processes to be developed and not documented? Standard operating procedures are created for the reason you describe. Don’t wait until you have a problem. Start now. Involve your team in the process. You might see changes in behavior when you focus them on “best practices.”

Second. When did you decide that new team members should just “pick up” what they need to know? What happened to your orientation and training program?

This is not a question of balance. This is a question of appropriate managerial leadership practices. The good news is that you can start today, to make the necessary changes.

Next Monday is the Labor Day holiday in the US. See you all next Tuesday. -TF

Size of the Can

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I turned to the flipchart, this morning, and drew a picture of a can.

“How big is the can?” I asked. “And how big is the person filling the can?”

There were several guesses from the group here in Cincinnati.

“And, how do you measure the size of the can? How do you measure the person filling the can?” I continued.

Everyone knew exactly what I was talking about. The size of the can is the size of the role. The size of the person describes the capability of the person filling the role.

Leslie Pratch just posted an article about this in the Huffington Post. She provides two specific examples and then describes how to measure the size of the can.

Your thoughts?

Applied Capability

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
How do you develop longer Time Span in an individual?

Response:
Elliott Jaques, in his research on Time Span (Requisite Organization), believed that each person has an innate ability to deal with a certain amount of complexity in the world. The complexity can be objectively measured as Time Span and is different for each person.

With that understanding, there is nothing that can be trained, learned, coerced or manipulated to change a person’s maximum capability. It is what it is.

Within that range, up to a person’s maximum capability, we can influence a person’s applied capability. Applied capability creates evidence, observable behavior, goals that are achieved.

We can impact applied capability through education, training, providing opportunity in areas of interest or opportunity where the work has value to the team member. All of these elements will stimulate (without a motivational speaker) a person to bring their highest game to the table.

Losing Sight of the Goal

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I got this question a couple of weeks ago from Michelle Malay Carter at Mission Minded Management. She accurately describes a challenge in applying the research of Elliott Jaques, specifically Time Span to role descriptions.

Question:
What I see is managers are able to look at a description of the nature of each work level and state what level they believe a role falls within, and their description sounds legitimate to me. However, when we try to align that with time span by asking them to articulate a longest task (a what by when), the length of the time span does not align with the described level of work. (Time span plots the role in a lower work level.)

Response:
When managers first create role descriptions, they get all wound up trying to determine what level (Stratum) the role is in. When prompted to describe the longest task assignment in the role, the task often falls short.

Elliott’s experience is that managers often fail to recognize what is really required for success in the role. Their descriptions fall to the observable mechanics of the task and fail to recognize the one element that drives Time Span. The “what by when” refers to the goal. Whenever I have difficulty determining the Time Span of a task, I always go back to the goal. The goal will lead you to a more accurate assessment of the Time Span required.

Example. What is the Time Span of the task in hiring a person to work our customer service counter? The observable mechanics dictate that I create a job description, job posting, conduct interviews and make a selection. The Time Span might be described as four weeks. That would be wrong.

Describing the observable mechanics ignores the “what by when,” it ignores the goal. The goal is to do all of the observable things, then have that new recruit complete orientation, training, shadowing, to the point they can work the customer service desk, solo, without assistance. That’s the goal. And that goal will take four months.

Whenever I am lost in the search for Time Span, the goal will lead me to the right place. Most companies underestimate the Time Span required for success in the role. Because they lost sight of the goal.