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.

Effective at Hiring Talent

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
If the first managerial authority (according to Elliott Jaques) is Team Member Selection, and we are evaluating a manager’s effectiveness in this area, how will we know?

Response:
Indeed. Can you spot positive managerial behavior? Negative managerial behavior? What’s the difference when it comes to hiring talent?

I believe hiring a person for a role is much like purchasing a piece of capital equipment. Most often, we do a better job of buying the machine, than we do hiring the person. Could we at least pay as much attention when we are hiring?

If we were going to spend $50,000 on a piece of equipment, what kinds of things would we do?

  • Complete current flow chart of production system.
  • Modified flow chart of production system including new piece of equipment.
  • Create a purchase committee to assist in the elements of the capital purchase.
  • Complete needs analysis for new machine in the production system (specifications, capacity, throughput).
  • Investigation of possible vendors for the new machine.
  • Comparison of machine candidates.
  • Research in user experience using machines of this type.
  • Creation of specific selection criteria.
  • Ranking of selection criteria, absolute criteria, desirable criteria.
  • Ranking of machines against selection criteria.
  • Reference checking with former and current machine users.
  • Machine and vendor selection.
  • Negotiation with vendor for purchase price and terms of delivery, installation and warranty.

Do we spend more time and care? Are we more effective at buying a machine than we are at hiring talent?

Working Leadership Online
Our next Subject Area, Time Span and Hiring Talent will be released on Monday, Oct 5. We have ten slots available for scholarships. Participants will gain access to a powerful diagnostic interview to gauge Time Span. There is a short Field Work assignment and then a feedback session. If you would like to participate, please reply to Ask Tom.

Positive Managerial Behaviors?

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
Outstanding blog! I have been associated with Results Based Performance and was not at all impressed. How would one know their true capacity? Additionally, how would you evaluate a manager’s effectiveness or performance?

Response:
If a team member was a goose and the intended result was a golden egg, we often focus on the number of golden eggs and ignore the goose.

In my manager workshops, I ask, “Who can walk onto the plant floor, or into the field and spot positive behavior?” Always a show of hands. “And how many can spot negative behavior?” Again, a show of hands. “And long does it take to tell the difference.” Managers are observers of behavior. Behavior that moves toward the goal and behavior that moves away from the goal.

So, how do we take that one or two layers up the food chain? How do we evaluate effectiveness on the part of the manager? What are positive managerial behaviors? What are negative managerial behaviors? How do we tell the difference?

Elliott Jaques described four managerial authorities that help us answer that question.

  1. Team Member Selection
  2. Team Member De-Selection
  3. Task Assignments
  4. Evaluation of Effectiveness

Our next Working Leadership Online focuses on Team Member Selection, the first of those four managerial authorities. We have ten scholarships available. If you would like to participate, please reply to Ask Tom.

  • Oct 5 – Managerial Authorities – Time Span and Hiring Talent
  • Oct 26 – Time Span and the Personal Effectiveness Appraisal
  • Nov 23 – Break (Thanksgiving – USA)
  • Nov 30 – Bringing Out the Best in People
  • Dec 21 – Jan 10, 2010 – Winter Break

Golden Eggs

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Some of you missed yesterday’s busted link to Michelle Malay Carter’s post on Who is Accountable? Should work this time.

So, who is accountable? Managers have been taught to play all kinds of games with this. My favorite is Results Based Performance. When I ask a group how many subscribe to that philosophy, the hands shoot up with enthusiasm.

But Results Based Performance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In most cases, it is a manager abdicating their managerial responsibilities. If a team member was a goose and the intended result was a golden egg, it’s as if the manager said, “I don’t know how to manage, I don’t how to encourage, support, train, or any of those other managerial things, so I will only count your golden eggs. And that is how I will judge how you are doing.”

The number of golden eggs seldom tells the story about performance. The number of golden eggs says more about the managerial system than it does the goose.

Who Is Accountable?

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Given a management problem, we often take the (high/low, you pick) road looking for the pesky employee scoundrel who screwed things up. We look for things like personality conflicts or breakdowns in communication. As managers, we seldom look at the systems we have created, which point to the real culprit.

Michelle Malay Carter has a post which describes the monkey we put on the backs of our team members, when the real monkey-wrench is in our systems. Read more on Who Is Accountable?

Everything Else Must Go

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
How does one shrink their company and know what services or actions or processes to drop? If we’ve been doing things a certain way for a few years and now, cannot continue, yet our accounts/clients/customers are used to things a certain way – how do wean them off those things?

Response:
Your customers may be used to things a certain way, and they will soon become used to things in a new way. They are going through the same market strains, no surprises.

But how do you make those decisions. Finished cutting the fat, we now cut the muscle. What are those goods and services that will no longer be provided? What are those goods and services that must be retained?

What are those goods and services that create the profit that allows your company to survive this period. One of my clients could not imagine how to cut overhead lower than $700,000 per month. Today, that overhead is $70,000 per month. What has remained is ONLY those goods and services that customers are willing to pay for, in sufficient volume to create a profitable business. Everything else that is not necessary, must go.

There Isn’t Time in the Day

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
I agree that if you have a Stratum III manager covering a role for a missing Stratum II supervisor, it will only be a temporary fix, but what if we are truly in for a long dig out of this recession and the situation won’t change for a while?

Response:
Shades of the “new normal?”

Every minute the manager is being a supervisor is a minute spent away from systems work. The good news is, with lower volume, there will be lower pressure on your systems. Even still, you face the dilemma of a manager with less challenge.

So, take advantage of the situation on two fronts. Time Span can help break down Stratum II supervisory tasks into Stratum I contributions. This will be an opportunity to find your Stratum I team leaders who have the capability to grow into Stratum II supervisors over the next few years.

The other front is true Stratum III systems work. During this period, with less pressure on your systems, your manager, even while covering supervisory tasks, should take advantage of this time to find system efficiencies. Lean initiatives, identifying constraints, reviewing sequence, eliminating unnecessary elements.

But, there isn’t time in the day?

I remember something my father told me as a student in college. “Son, if you can’t handle a full course-load and a part time job, then maybe you don’t deserve to go to college.”

Temporary Discipline

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
Using Elliott Jaques, Requisite Organization, I can see that we let go two important supervisors earlier this summer. We didn’t have a choice. Our business volume is down and it was necessary to lay them off. The managers in those departments now have daily and weekly responsibilities for production output. They now have to work directly with the production teams. As I look at things now, to me, this looks like the “new normal.” I don’t know if I will ever go back. In fact, we are looking at a couple of other supervisor positions if things don’t turn up.

Response:
Having a manager cover a supervisor role on a temporary basis may be necessary. Requisite Organization helps us understand the difference between the two roles and it helps us understand why this can only be a temporary solution.

We can all accommodate situations for a short period of time and in these times, it is necessary. Long term, however, your manager will become bored with those supervisor responsibilities, attention to detail will slip and you will have some dysfunction on your hands. And that will occur even at a lower volume level.

Your current situation may appear like the “new normal,” but things will change again. You need to discuss the temporary nature of these role assignments, and acknowledge the short Time Span nature of the goals. Also talk about the temporary discipline that will be necessary during this time, to monitor checklists, create schedules and conduct production meetings. That’s what supervisors do.

Also understand, that while your manager is playing the role of the supervisor, your systems are being neglected. If your systems are strong, you will survive this, but you still need to have periodic “system checks” to make sure they are still working.

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.”