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.

The Tour Begins on Saturday

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He will not be there.

There comes a time when every team loses its star player. On your teams, it happens. In your company it happens.

I know the lump in the throat when, from across your desk, your star player tells you she is leaving. Moving to Iowa. Retiring. Changing careers.

We cannot stop her, in fact, we wish her well. But, our hearts tell us life will never be the same.

Still, life goes on. Veteran managers know the clouds will go away, the birds will sing and the sun will shine again. Life goes on.

Long time readers of Management Skills Blog know of my keen interest in cycling. Each year, July turns its attention to the lessons learned in the Tour De France. Some readers may find a new appreciation for the sport. Even without Lance Armstrong.

There will be new names, just like new names in your own company when a star player leaves. Of course, they are not really new, just faces you never paid attention to before.

There will be favorites this year. On the stage with Lance in 2005 were Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich. But there are a host of other players you will meet over the next few weeks.

My interest in this sport is the quiet teamwork required to post a win. It is not entirely visible. You might think the winner would emerge only from individual effort and the tactic would be to just “go fast.” Not the case.

My fascination is in the management lessons. Coaching, teamwork, tactics, communication, support, fitness, self-talk, discipline. We’ll have some fun over the next few weeks. The Prologue starts on Saturday, July 1. -TF

Delegation When the Risk is High

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Janet was not convinced. “But, if I know they will make a mistake, what if I can’t afford the screw-up? Perhaps, I forgot to tell you that we work in a nuclear facility and this delegation has to do with moving a dollop of plutonium from one reactor to the next.”

I smiled, knowing the most hazardous waste in the place was some scrap stainless steel. “You are correct,” I acknowledged. “Picking the right person for a delegation does have everything to do with risk management. If the stakes are too high, then you may have to forego a learning experience to get the job done. But if this dollop of plutonium turns out to be a dollop of vanilla ice cream, then the risk is low. The lower the risk, the more I can allow for mistakes and learning.”

“So, picking the person depends on managing the risk. That makes more sense,” Janet surmised.

“Think about how we allow people to learn to fly commercial aircraft. They have to make mistakes to learn, yet the risk is very high. We can’t have people crashing multi-million dollar aircraft.”

Janet smiled. “Enter the simulator?”

“Exactly. People learn best from their mistakes.” -TF

Learning from Mistakes

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“I was surprised,” said Janet. “Barry is my best guy. I just assigned him a task and he said he was too busy, told me to go find someone else. He always does such a great job. I thought he would be the perfect person.”

“Who else could you delegate to?” I asked.

“Well, there is Simon and Rachel. But what if they screw it up?” Janet scrunched her nose. She didn’t like the idea.

“Janet, what is the purpose for your delegation? Are you looking to save yourself some time or are you looking to develop some of your team members?”

Janet knew it was a loaded question. “Okay, so I am trying to develop some of my team members. I know it’s a learning process.” It was the kind of unenthusiastic, politically correct response I knew I would get.

“Good answer. You must have attended the seminar,” I chided. “Look, Janet, of course they are going to screw it up. Tell me. Do people learn more from doing something perfectly or making a mistake?”

Janet wasn’t sure where I was going with this. “I suppose people learn more from making a mistake.”

“Exactly. If delegation is your most powerful people development tool, then part of delegation is people making mistakes. Count on it. Plan for it. Budget your time for it. But remember that it’s still worth it. That’s what learning is all about.” -TF

The Delegation Trap

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Crystal looked across the table with a grimace on her face. She had a project to delegate and just returned from a circle of the office looking for a candidate.

“As I walked around, everyone looked so busy,” she said.

I smiled. “And you let that fool you?”

“What?”

“The fact that everyone looked so busy was a trap you set for yourself.”

“A trap?” Crystal was curious, but she wasn’t sure she would like the answer.

“As you walked around looking to hand this project out, what was your purpose?”

“Well, it’s a project I have been doing over and over for the past two years. It would save me a couple of hours a week if I could find someone to do it for me,” she replied.

“So, your primary motivation was to save yourself some time?” I didn’t wait for the answer. “So, tell me, what’s the major benefit for the person you would delegate this to?”

Crystal hadn’t thought about this, but she responded quickly. “Well, they would gain a new skill.”

“And what else?” Over the next few minutes, Crystal made a list of 12 benefits to the team member. The list included:

  • A sense of accomplishment.
  • Feeling a greater part of the team.
  • Feeling more valuable to the team.
  • A sense of contribution.

“Crystal, do any of these things have to do with saving you time?” I asked.

“No. Most of these things have to do with challenge and development.”

“So, get out of your time trap. I want you to make the circle again, but this time, think about the person who would see this as a positive step in their professional development.”

Crystal didn’t move. “You know, I don’t have to make the circle. I already know who needs this project. You’re right, she is busy, but this would be important to her.”

Time Span and Complexity

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“I’m not sure that I understand time span,” Morgan said. “It’s not that I am resisting the idea, I’m just not sure how it works.”

“Let’s say I have a task that I want to delegate,” I explained, rolling up my sleeves. “I call you in and we discuss it. I lay out the delegation, talk about the performance standards. You have questions, we create an action plan. The meeting is over.

“From that moment, you begin to work ahead without my direction. You use your own independent discretionary judgment and finally complete the task.

“You arrive back in my office and say, ‘Okay, I’m all done!’ You clap your hands together and say, ‘What’s next?’

“You have just established the time span for that task and now need my direction on what to do next. Perhaps it was three days, maybe a week, whatever it took.

“Morgan, whenever I look at a position in the company, I always look at the time span for the various tasks that have to be completed. Time span indicates the complexity of the task. The longer the time span, the more complex is the task.

“Most companies underestimate the complexity of most roles in the organization and then are surprised when people fail to perform. By using time span as the measuring stick, we can be much more precise about the level of complexity.” -TF

A Supervisor’s Time Horizon

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Morgan was complaining. “You have been talking about checklists and schedules as the core tools for Project Managers and Supervisors. It just doesn’t seem that hard. Why don’t my PMs get it?”

“Morgan, it’s not just a matter of training. Supervising and Project Management are clearly Strata II roles. The role is different and the people are different.” I could see Morgan was struggling with this.

“But, if I take my lead technician, why can’t he seem to put a schedule together?” Morgan was pushing back.

“Morgan, I want you to think of these two roles in terms of time span. The time span required for a technician may be as short as one day. A person doing the work may only have to think about the work that needs to be done today.

“But the time span required for a supervisor is longer. And the story doesn’t end with just scheduling. Scheduling responsibilities may only require a two or three week time horizon, but there’s more. Supervisors must also think about building bench strength, recruiting technicians, training technicians, testing technical competence, cross-training. For a supervisor to be successful, I usually look for a minimum three month time horizon. The supervisor needs to be able to work into the future, without direction, using their own discretionary judgment, on tasks that may take as long as three months to complete.” -TF

Core Skills of Project Management

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

What do you consider the three most important parts of Project Management?

Response:

Project Management is a classic Strata II role. From a macro level, it involves the coordination of people, materials, equipment and project sequence. The three core management skills drive the project forward.

1. Project Planning (creating a comprehensive project plan including milestones and accountabilities).

2. Creating and monitoring a schedule (prioritizing and sequencing time frames associated with changing elements of a project).

3. Creating and monitoring a checklist (documenting and tracking all the details for completion and quality).

The value adds for Project Management are project control, accuracy to project specifications, timliness and completeness. -TF

One Simple Discipline

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“Purpose?”

“Purpose. The first step to having important meetings is to be crystal clear on the purpose for the meeting.” Phillip and I had been talking about meetings. Phillip was concerned that his Project Managers were having difficulty in what seemed basic stuff to him.

“We tell Project Managers that they need to have meetings, and then we wonder why their meetings fall apart. Bottom line is that most companies don’t train their supervisors and managers on how to conduct an effective meeting. They just expect it to happen, like magic.”

“So we need to start with purpose?” asked Phillip.

“Everything starts with purpose. Meetings run amuck when there is no purpose, or where people attending have different purposes. Until we get those purposes out on the table, our meeting is going to meander aimlessly.”

“How do we do that? Send an email out before the meeting?” pondered Phillip.

“Yes, it’s as simple as that. But think about it. How many meetings did you attend during the past month where there was no stated purpose and no agenda?”

Phillip didn’t have to think long. “You know, I don’t think I went to a single meeting last month where there was an agenda, much less, a stated purpose.”

“Now, I know some things managed to get done in those meetings, but they could have been much more effective. Do that one simple thing, and teach your PMs to do the same and you will see an improvement.” -TF

A Skill No One Teaches

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“So, in addition to creating schedules and checklists, we should train our supervisors on how to run meetings?” Phillip was becoming a believer.

“Not just how to run a meeting, but how to run an effective meeting,” I responded. Phillip shook his head. He didn’t have to be briefed on the difference between meetings that were important and meetings that were a waste of time.

At the same time, he was uncomfortable. “You know, we do a pretty good job of training people on the technical stuff that we do, how we make things and how we deliver our services, but we don’t even come close when you talk about training on how to run meetings.”

“I know. Interesting, isn’t it? One of the most important things that a supervisor does and your company doesn’t spend any time teaching the management skill of how to run an effective meeting.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What do we need to do first?” asked Phillip.

“Tell you what. Meet me here tomorrow morning, same time. There are several different kinds of meetings. We will talk about the ones most important to you.” -TF

Running the Job

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“There is more?” Phillip asked. He was gaining a new appreciation for the role of the Project Manager. “This is more complex than I thought.”

“Phillip, one of the biggest mistakes a company makes when it hires people, is underestimating the Time Horizon required for the person to be effective in the position. The role of a Project Manager requires a brand new skill set, a skill set that most companies never train.”

“We talked about schedules and checklists, but you said there was another tool.”

I nodded. “Perhaps the most important tool. Meetings. Most PMs know they need to have meetings, but they just gut their way through. Nobody likes their meetings. They skip them if they can. Participation by team members hardly exists.

“Yet, if you think about it, running an effective meeting is an important management skill. It makes communication consistent because everyone hears the same thing. It provides the opportunity for interactive participation and questions. It encourages participation and promotes buy-in. It can be used as an accountability tool.

“But that rarely happens, because most managers don’t know how to hold an effective meeting.” Phillip was listening intently. It was beginning to sink in. Running the job is completely different than doing the job. -TF