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.

Your Most Important System

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“And what is your most important system to think about when you are a manager?” I asked. Wes was beginning to see just how big his job really was.

He knew the answer to this question had to be something central, something core to the role of a manager. But, he was struggling. Not because he didn’t know the answer, but he had never really thought about it.

“What is the most difficult part of being a manager?” I followed up.

“That’s easy, it’s the people,” Wes replied.

“So, what’s the most important system to think about when you are a manager?” I repeated.

“The people system?” Wes floated.

I nodded. “Think about all the elements surrounding the members of your team. It’s pretty complicated stuff. First you have to decide on the roles that need to be played, then the skills necessary, the capability (measured in time span) necessary. You have to consider how to bring new people on to the team, what training is necessary. You have to test them to determine their skill level, design increasingly complex task sequences to find their failure points. You have to determine coaching times, mentoring times, recharging times, performance standards and goals. To be effective, as a manager, you have to create a system.” -TF

Looks Spontaneous, But It’s Not

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Wes was mulling over his role as a manager. “But, my days always seem to be filled with problems, some internal, some external, you know, with customers. In fact, we pride ourselves on prompt customer response. We are in a high demand, time is of the essence business. Yet, you say that a manager’s most important tasks have time spans of months. There are times when I have to respond, as a manager, within minutes. And we’re talking critical customer stuff.”

“It appears that way,” I replied. “But if you spend all your time responding to customer emergencies within minutes, then your life, your organization will be in constant and total chaos.”

Wes nodded. “Sometimes, no, most times, it seems like that.”

“How do you take the chaos out, and still respond to emergencies within minutes? Look at an organization whose life actually is emergencies, EMS. I will guarantee that when first responders show up on a medical scene, their actions are carefully designed into consistent systems that have been repetitively trained. Those systems are not ad hoc, but were created over long periods of time (time span) and are constantly reviewed and improved.

“What happens may appear rapid and spontaneous, but it is a system. When you think of the most important role of a manager, think system.” -TF

Takes More Than a Day

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“I guess I kind of thought of them as the same job,” Wes pondered aloud.

“Even though you are one person filling both roles as supervisor and manager, their functions are quite distinct,” I replied. “At the end of the day, what is the supervisor supposed to have accomplished?”

“Well, every day has a quota. There is a certain amount of work that is supposed to get done.”

“And at the end of the day, what is the manager supposed to have accomplished?”

Wes was stuck. It was several seconds before he took a stab. “I don’t know, I guess he is just supposed to manage.”

“It’s a tough question. The reason it’s a tough question is, the most important work of a manager can’t be finished in a day. Many tasks take a month or six months with the most important tasks requiring a year or more to complete.” -TF

Too Many Directions

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“So, it’s okay to be a working manager?” Wes asked.

“In a small organization, it almost always happens that way,” I replied. “As a manager, you may have four or five supervisors reporting to you. At the same time, you may have to supervise one of the processes yourself. It could be a matter of economics, or just that you cannot find the right person to fill the role.”

“That’s exactly the way it works, now.” Wes looked relieved.

“But, there’s a problem, being a part time manager and a part time supervisor,” I warned.

The look of relief on Wes’ face was temporary. He knew it was too good to be true. I waited.

“You’re right. Being part time manager and part time supervisor, I feel like I am being pulled in too many different directions. One of my supervisors comes to me with a question and I can’t listen, because I have my own work to do.”

“And when you don’t have time to listen, are you bringing value to the thinking and work of that supervisor who has a question?” -TF

Double Duty

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“So, you are saying that’s it’s okay for one person to play more than one role in the company, since we are so small. We just don’t have enough people to cover everything you’ve outlined.” Wes was piecing this together, looking at the roles and the limited number of people he had available.

“That’s why the smallest of companies need only focus on their product or service. They keep all of their performance standards in their heads, because they are the only ones doing the work,” I replied.

“It’s like a sole practitioner, a CPA or an attorney in a company of one. They alone are doing the work, so there is no need to document processes.

“It’s only when that sole practitioner grows, adds people, that processes have to be established. Because now, other people are doing the work and those same performance standards must be maintained.

“At that point, there are really only two roles in the organization. The people who are doing the work and the (no longer sole) practitioner who makes sure the work gets done.

“At the same time the (no longer sole) practitioner is making sure the work gets done, you can almost bet he is also doing some of the work himself. The (no longer sole) practitioner is now playing two roles at the same time.” -TF

Double Duty

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As Wes studied the chart scrawled across the white board, I could see a question mark on his forehead. “It’s all well and good, to say that this layer in the company does the work, and this layer, supervisors, makes sure the work gets done, and the next layer, managers, create the systems in the company.” Wes stopped.

“But sometimes, I feel like I have to play a little bit of all of these roles. In some departments, we just can’t afford to hire separate people to fill those roles. Sometimes, we have to play double duty.”

“That’s not unusual,” I replied. “I find this chart is especially helpful for lean companies, like yours, where you can’t afford to field every position with a different player. But the roles still have to be played, even if some are played by the same person.

“Just remember, that every minute a manager plays the role of a supervisor is a minute that your systems are neglected. Young companies don’t have a choice.” -TF

Find Both a Coach and a Mentor

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

I have completed my MBA and I am now working in an office with a limited territory for our company here in India. I want to know what other things I need to do, like a course, to create better prospects for me to become a manager?

Response:

More learning, taking a course is always a plus, but not sufficient.

You need two things. First, you need to speak with your manager and ask for clear feedback on how you can improve in your current position. Whatever you are currently doing, be the best. Your manager is the best coach to give you that feedback.

Second, you need to find a mentor. Your mentor may or may not work inside your company, but should be in a position to speak with you long term about your career. This is usually not your direct manager, but one more level up. Your conversations should not be centered around your day-to-day accountabilities, but on longer one and two year goals.

Be the best where you are today and keep looking forward one to two years in the future. Congratulations on your MBA. You are now at the start of the game, a wonderful game. -TF

Discretionary Duties

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

I help supervise a young man at my company. He has a grating voice, a false sense of his own skill level, often fishes for complements on average work and tries to tell others how they should be doing their jobs. He is truly the most annoying person I’ve ever encountered. That being said, he works a shift no one else wants to work and does an o.k. job with a lot of direction from co-workers.

Response:

A false sense of his own skill level is not such a bad thing. Between you and me, let’s call it self-confidence, perhaps over-confidence. Some managers may try to adjust a person’s over-confidence by calling them out, chopping them off at the knees or otherwise belittling them. Waste of time. In fact, counterproductive.

Marcus Buckingham, in his book, The One Thing You Need to Know describes a superb managerial response. He assumes that, in some cases, over-confidence may actually be helpful in the face of a true challenge. So, rather than try to adjust this young man’s confidence level, spend time asking him to articulate the difficulties of doing a high quality job in his role with the company.

Most people underestimate the real difficulties, which contributes to over-confidence and also contributes to under-performance. Your job, as a Manager is to help the person explore those difficulties.

I once spent three successive days with a CNC operator, whose job was to cut sheet metal using a machine from the plasma cutting table manufacturers. Each day, for a half an hour, he would explain things to me. We started with his prescribed duties, cutting metal and meeting quota for the day. That was a quick discussion.

The rest of the time, we talked about his discretionary duties. It was up to his discretion how he organized his materials in front of the machine. It was his discretion to listen for funny noises coming from the machine. It was his discretion to collect and dispose of scrap coming out of the back of the machine.

Funny, it was those discretionary things that made the difference between a good operator and a great operator. What do you think? After three days, totaling ninety minutes of conversation, explaining things to me, do you think he was a better operator? -TF

Not Your Job

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“What kind of questions?” asked Ted.

“Look, in your position, as Manager, you often don’t have the technical details necessary to make a decision. As a Manager, that’s not your job. Your job is to bring value to the thinking and work of your team.” I waited for Ted to catch up.

“By asking questions?”

“Most Managers think their team will see them weak if they have difficulty making a decision, even if the Manager doesn’t have the technical details. So, sometimes Managers make a decision because they think it’s their job.

“If you have two engineers, each with a different method of solving a problem, you may not know which method is technically the best way.”

“So, how do you make the decision?”

“You don’t bring value by making a decision and telling them what to do. You bring value by asking questions.

  • What were the top three criteria on which you based your recommendation?
  • What impact will your recommendation hav on the time frame of the project?
  • What two things could go wrong with your recommendation?

“Your job, as Manager, is not telling people what to do. Your job is to bring value to their thinking and their work.” -TF

Bringing Value

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Greetings from St. Louis, MO.
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“I’m not sure I know what you mean, bring value to a person’s thinking and their work. I know what it means, I guess, I am not sure how a Manager does that,” asked Ted.

“Do you bring value by telling a person what to do?” I replied.

“Well, I could make suggestions,” Ted answered. “But you are right. Technically, these guys run circles around me. I don’t know the technology and I don’t have their experience.”

“So, even if you did make suggestions, there is a high likelihood that you would be suggesting the wrong thing?”

Ted nodded his head.

“So, if these guys can technically run circles around you and have much more experience, then how can you, as their Manager, bring value to their thinking and their work?”

Ted was stumped.

“As their Manager, Ted, you don’t bring value by telling. You bring value by asking questions.” -TF