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.

Unproductive Nonsense

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The third Big Mistake managers make in the hiring process.

  • Manager allows bias and stereotypes to influence the process.

Why?

It’s not that bias and stereotypes are bad. Bias and stereotypes are normal. We all have them. The problem, in the hiring process, is that we make selection decisions based on this bias.

Look, we can’t help having those impressions. They exist. And in the mind of the interviewer, they are formed and connected within seconds of the candidate entering the room. But that’s not the problem either.

The problem is that we allow those bias to make our decisions for us.

The problem, for most managers, is they arrive in the interview without preparation, perhaps 3-4 written questions to ask the candidate. From there, the interview crumbles into unproductive nonsense. Silly hypothetical questions are followed by a plant tour. In the end, the manager has insufficient data to make a decision, so the only criteria left are those impressions formed in the first few seconds of the interview. Back to bias and stereotypes.

Solid preparation is the antidote.

Hiring Threat

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Some of you may have missed this comment posted last week by Michael Cardus on the five Big Mistakes in hiring.

Comment
One area that is not mentioned is the manager allowing fear and concern for their own position to sneak in. I was talking with a friend of mine who is a program director. She said “I am interviewing people for entry level positions who are more qualified than me.”

Listening to her say this, I could hear the concern for her own job. The thought of hiring someone smarter, I may lose my job to the person I hired, or worse, that person, I hired, may get a promotion and become MY BOSS! YIKES.

As the job market is pushing over-qualified people to find work at a rate that they would not have accepted 3 years ago, managers have to work on their self-esteem to learn how to get their egos out of the way.

Response
This is a solid fear that runs through the mind of the manager. It creates a bias in the mind of the manager and there is no escaping it. Working on self-esteem doesn’t help and it is impossible to get your ego out of the way. This is self-preservation and skews the hiring decision.

Elliott Jaques observed this in his research with organizations. Those organizations that handled this, created a role for the Manager Once Removed (the Hiring Manager’s Manager). He describes this role specifically, as a member of the hiring team, to bring perspective and to qualify the candidate pool. Because of this fear, the Hiring Manager might hire too low in capability. The role of the Manager Once Removed (MOR) is to make sure all considered candidates have the Time Span capability for what is required in the role.

This is the current subject area in our Working Leadership series. We have closed our scholarships, but you can still register for this single session – Time Span and Hiring Talent.

Misintrepreting Responses

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Second on the list of the top five mistakes managers make in the hiring process:

  • Manager misinterprets responses in the interview.

Why does this happen? One simple reason. Managers misinterpret responses because they try to interpret responses. Stop trying and you will improve your batting average.

In our Time Span Workshops, I ask how many have taken a psychology course. Lots of hands get raised. Then I ask who has degrees in psychology, very few hands go up. Advanced degrees? No hands go up.

“So, no one in this room is certified by the state to practice psychotherapy or psychoanalysis?” All eyes avoid the question.

Managers misinterpret responses during the selection interview, because they try to play amateur psychologist. Don’t play amateur psychologist. You will improve your decisions in hiring talent.

Manager Misses Important Information

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Yesterday, we talked about the scrutiny, vetting and due diligence we give to a capital budget item like an expensive machine, yet the approach to hiring is less formal, often missing pieces of due diligence. This casual approach is the beginning of a process that spells mismatch, underperformance, compromise and grief.

In a comment yesterday from Michael Cardus, he ends with this statement. “As people we can pass judgment on a machines value, a dis-comfort comes from judging a persons value.”

And yet that is the task in the hiring process, to render a managerial judgment about a person’s potential value to the organization. Why is this so uncomfortable?

Here are the top five mistakes managers make in the hiring process.

  • Manager misses important information during the interview.
  • Manager misinterprets responses.
  • Manager allows bias and stereotypes to influence the process.
  • Manager makes the decision too quickly.
  • Manager loses control of the interview.

Time Span and Hiring Talent is the next Subject Area in Working Leadership Online. We have a couple of scholarships left for that series (starts next Monday, Oct 4), but we are going to close those out today. If you would like one, please reply to Ask Tom.

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.”