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.

Into the Conversation

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“So, Julia, you are in this conversation, looking for common ground. What if the team member isn’t giving you anything to work with?”

“Impossible,” Julia responded. “Unless, they are stiff arming me.”

Julia was a new manager on a team with nine men and two women. I was anticipating some pushback from some of the vets. This was not going to be easy.

“What do you mean, stiff arming?” I asked

“Sometimes, egos come in to play. They think they have to act tough in front of their co-workers, be uncooperative with the new boss. Maybe if they stiff arm me long enough, I will get fired. But it’s only a pretense. It’s just a game. I have to draw them out of the game and into the conversation.”

“What does that sound like?” I pushed.

“I usually start with fact-based questions. I stay away from opinions and judgments in the beginning. In these fact-based questions, I am looking to build up the tiniest bit of trust. It’s pretty simple, really. I ask a question. They respond. Nothing bad happens. I ask another question. They respond. Nothing bad happens. And the questions are easy

Tell me about your job? What do you do? Where do you get the materials? What machines do you use? On a good day, how many units do you produce?

“After a few minutes, the pretense goes away,” Julia continued. “I have drawn them into the conversation by asking them fact-based questions. It may not be a deep conversation, but at least they are out of the ego game.”

Magic of Common Ground

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“Like I said, I will ask them about the way they see themselves in their role on the team,” responded Julia. We had been talking about her new management position.

“And what if you don’t like what you hear?” I asked.

That was a hard question. Julia started her sentence twice before completing it. “I just have to keep digging. Somewhere in there is a small starting point. Somewhere in there is a small place where we can agree.”

“Is that the point of intersection we were talking about?”

“Yes.” Julia was on a roll. “And I have to find it before we can go on. Sometimes you have to go slow before you can go fast. Until I make that connection, until I find that point of intersection, we are not going anywhere in the conversation.”

“And what do you think happens between the two of you when you find that point of intersection?”

“It’s like a little piece of magic. We get something we can build on and move forward with. Until we find that common ground, all we have are differences. You cannot build on differences.”

Point of Intersection

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Julia was accurate in describing her situation. She was a woman in a male dominated work environment, and now, she was the manager. Her team wasn’t downright hostile, but she would have to earn their respect quickly. There were changes that needed to be made and her boss was expecting results in short order.

“How will you bring value as the new manager on the block?” I asked.

“I think it is important for each team member to understand what I expect from their role on the team.”

“And, how will you do that?”

Julia thought briefly, struggling between what she really thought and what she figured I wanted to hear. “I am going to schedule an individual meeting with each person.” She stopped to check my reaction before going on.

“Okay. What is that meeting going to sound like?” I prodded.

“Questions, I am going to ask questions and listen. I am going to ask questions about what they think their job is, what they think their role is.”

“And why is that an important question?”

Julia knew it was important, but she had never thought about why. Suddenly, she knew. “Before I tell them my expectations, I need to find out where they stand. I need to know how far apart we are. It’s a guarantee we will start from different places. I need to gauge the distance of the journey to find that point where we have common ground.”

I smiled. “The point of intersection, that’s a good place to start. How do you get there?” -TF

Bringing Management Value

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From the Ask Tom mailbag.

Question:

I’m going to be promoted in July as a manager and I will have to manage 5 people who are older and more experienced than me. I have been working with 2 of them for a year and 2 of them are new to the company, the last person has no experience. My boss knows that is going to be a real challenge for me, he is promoting me because I have the technical ability to do the job. I need to work on my soft skills. I have developed strong analytical skills which are not always an asset to manage a team effectively. Do you have any advice?

Response:

Age and maturity is always a problem for a younger manager working with older team members. You will have to earn their respect and you will not be given much room for error.

Here is the principle I follow.

Every member of an organization, in their pursuit of doing a good job, will always seek out the person who brings value to their thinking and their work.

Wouldn’t it be great if that person was the manager? Often, it’s not, and that is where the trouble begins. My advice to any manager who wants to be successful is very simple.

Bring value to the thinking and the work of your team members.

That’s it. I will let you think about that for a day, while I open this up for comments from the rest of you. What is that you can do, as a manager, to bring value to the thinking and work of your team members? -TF

One Powerful Lever

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“You said you would tell me how to bring this all together?” Marie asked. “You said there was one last thing I needed to know to bring my time management system together.”

“You are right, there is one more discipline that is critical to the success of this system,” I responded. “I was taught this several years ago by a firm who truly understood its power.

“Each Monday, every Monday, without fail, even if some members of the team were absent, there was a special meeting to review the action plans for the week. Daily was too often, monthly was too long, weekly was just right.

“To that meeting, attendees would bring all the tidbits, scraps of paper, file notes, phone slips, due date reports along with the schedules of every person in the firm. The purpose was to review every possible action step in the time frame of that week, to make sure every person and every thing was fully scheduled.

“Around the table sat approximately $3000 per hour of billable personnel. The meeting lasted two hours so double that number. That is the value that company placed on that meeting.

“The value of a full-on action-step-review on a weekly basis has been proven time and again. If you work alone, you need to meet with yourself to schedule your personal weekly calendar. If you work with other people, a mutual meeting can accomplish both personal calendars and cooperative calendars. The meeting can happen face to face or through some technical hookup when necessary.

“I always look for leverage. This is one powerful lever.” -TF

Ran Out of Time

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“You are actually suggesting that I don’t prioritize?” Marie was having trouble with this. I nodded slowly.

“I know it sounds like heresy, but think about this. What is the biggest difference between an A priority and a C priority?”

Marie hesitated. “Well, it’s either more important or it has to get done first.”

“Good guess, but tell me, have you ever approached a deadline on a C priority and had to complete it before an A priority?”

“Sure, it happens all the time.”

“Then what does that say about your priority system? And bottom line, it all has to get done sometime, just schedule it. If it doesn’t have to get done, it shouldn’t be on your list in the first place.”

Marie was still trying to protest. “But, if I work hard all day and if something doesn’t get done, at least it was the C priority.”

“You are a manager. If there is something you can’t get done, it should be assigned to someone else. At the end of the day, don’t tell me something didn’t get done because you ran out of time. It did not get done because you did not manage it correctly.” -TF

Prioritization Trap

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“So, Marie, what do you do with the rest of your to-do list?” I asked. We had been talking about her to-do list and her project lists.

“I guess, just work on them. I know I should probably prioritize them,” she responded.

“Well, you have known all along about prioritization. How come you haven’t been doing that?”

“I don’t know. I guess I never get around to it. I just look at the list, and really, I just start working on whatever I think is easiest to get done right then.”

“The reason you don’t prioritize, is that prioritization doesn’t really work for anybody. It’s a time management trap that makes you feel good, but doesn’t get anything done,” I said. I could see Marie give me that mental pushback.

She stared at me. “Everybody says you have to prioritize, but you know, you’re right. I never do it.”

“Let’s do something much more effective. As you review the list, including all your project next-steps, you do one of three things.

Do it right now.

Schedule it on your calendar.

Give it to someone else and schedule a follow-up time.

“Bottom line, if it is on your list, it doesn’t matter what the priority is, it all has to get done sometime.” I knew that was enough for today. “Think about it. I will see you tomorrow. There is still more to this system.” -TF

Secrets of a Project List

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Marie greeted me in the hallway. “Good news,” she said. “I’ve finished listing the steps for the Phoenix Redesign Project. I was amazed. Seven steps, and I bet I didn’t work for more than one minute. I made more progress in that one minute than I have in the past two months.”

“So, what is the difference between your to-do list and your project list?” I asked.

She looked to the side, as if the answer was written somewhere on the wall. “It’s sort of like going through time, one thing after another, very horizontal. Then, I hit this project. The project list is more vertical. It drills down into the project.”

“You seem more relaxed today than you did yesterday.” I observed.

“I do. I have a better sense of control. I know exactly what needs to be done.”

“And what is the next-step?” I asked.

“That’s easy,” Marie explained. “I just have to pull the budget from a similar project we did 18 months ago. I remember, it contains a narrative description we can modify and all the budget elements are listed with our assumptions. I put this next-step on my schedule this afternoon. With the project list, I can actually work things into my calendar instead of having this dark cloud lurking out there.”

“So, just to summarize what you have learned?” I prodded.

“If you have a project, quickly list out the steps and identify the next-step.”

Robust Next Step

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“Let me see your list?” I asked.

“Okay, but I haven’t really looked at it for a couple of days,” Marie mildly protested. We had been talking about time management. “I mean, I added a couple of things to it this week, but” Her voice trailed off as if she had another reason, but it just wasn’t worth the effort.

“Looking at your list, I see a couple of things. You have some easy single tasks that look like you could just knock off in a few minutes, but you also have some things that look like projects, like this budget you need to do for the Phoenix Redesign.”

Marie looked over my shoulder. “Oh, yeah, in fact, items 3, 6 and 7 are already done, I just didn’t scratch them off. And the Phoenix Redesign, I just can’t seem to get around to it.”

“When is the Phoenix budget due?”

“Well, three days ago, but nobody has asked me for it, so I probably have a couple of more days.” Marie winced as she was telling me.

“Why such a hard time getting started on it?”

“It’s a pretty complicated project. There are probably six or seven steps to it and I need some other people to help me on parts of it.”

“How long has it been on your to-do list?” I asked.

Marie winced again. “At least a couple of months.”

“Okay, I want to change the way we handle your to-do list. We are going to create a project list, called the Phoenix Redesign Project List.

“Your difficulty is not seeing the details of the project, specifically, you don’t know what the next step is. There are six or seven, but you haven’t listed them out and you don’t know what the next one is. That’s why the whole project has moved on your list, undisturbed from week to week for the past two months.

“Here is your assignment. Take the Phoenix Project, list out the six or seven steps and mark the Robust Next Step. Tomorrow, we will see how this works back into your overall to-do list.” -TF

Typical Time Horizons

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I am going to pick on the accounting department. For the past couple of days, we have talked about time span related to roles in the organization. Following are typical time spans for roles inside the accounting department.

Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable roles typically have time spans around one month. As they work through their daily routine, A/P and A/R must look forward to check or billing runs with a monthly reconciliation. All during the month, these roles must look forward to things which will impact that monthly reconciliation.

Payroll may require a slightly longer time span. I usually look for a time span of three months, which coincides with quarterly payroll reporting and reconciliations. There are also annual responsibilities related to W-2 filings and reconciliations, but I often expect the payroll clerk has additional support from a full-charge bookkeeper, an outsourced payroll service or even just a great piece of computer software.

Full-charge bookkeepers are responsible for the production of in-house monthly financial statements but also must look forward to the end of year. The annual task of organizing the records for the firm’s CPA (tax returns and audits) stretches the time span of a full-charge bookkeeper to 13 months.

A controller’s responsibilities go beyond the compilation of financial statements to controlling all financial and management control systems. This would extend to the selection of computer accounting software to the design of all administrative systems that surround that software. Companies requiring departmental financial reporting or job costing also come under the purview of the controller stretching the time span from 12 months to 24 months.

CFO responsibilities extend out beyond 24 months. From my CFO, I expect trend analysis, capacity utilization, return on capital assets, indexing to economic indicators. I expect my CFO to look at the coming recession of 2009 and tell me when we need to renegotiate our lines of credit, when we need to be stockpiling cash (in case we want to buy a troubled competitor) looking at our leases and our owned properties. Time span associated with these responsibilities goes from 24 months to 48 months.

When you begin to measure the task in relation to time span, you become extremely precise about the level of person you need to fill that role. Next week, we will take a look at how to make that judgment about members of your team and prospective candidates in your hiring process. -TF

BTW. I have a white paper I would be happy to send you listing typical time horizons for a number of disciplines. Just drop me an email, be happy to send it to you.