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.

State of Confusion

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“I just don’t understand,” said Chris. “Our productivity is on a downhill slide and when I walk the shop floor, not a single person seems to know what is going on. They all seem confused.”

“And who is responsible for the confusion?” I asked.

Chris stopped. He was hoping the answer had someone else’s name on it.

“Chris, high productivity does not come from a state of confusion. One of the most important activities of a manager is to create crystal clear expectations. Ambiguity kills productivity. So, what are you going to do?” I asked.

Chris’ mind began to churn. “I guess I am going to start by having a meeting to make sure everyone knows what is expected.” -TF

Repeated Patterns of Behavior

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Jeremy was trying to figure out what went wrong in the interview process. This was beginning to look like a bad hire. “We finally got it out of him. After fifteen minutes of probing in the interview, we discovered his experience that we needed to fill the job requirement. But this guy has been on the job for three weeks, now, and he doesn’t seem to have a clue.”

“In the interview process,” I replied, “if the behavior is frequent, examples should come from the candidate easily. If you have to really probe and dig, it is likely the behavior is not frequent; in fact, the pattern of behavior may be only occasional, even rare. If this is a critical behavior for the position, you may have the wrong guy.

“So, if you are the interviewer, ask for an example. If it comes easily, ask for another example. If it comes easily, ask for another example. These examples will likely establish a pattern of behavior. In the interview we are looking for repeated patterns of behavior.” -TF

Still Have to Have the Conversation

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“I just don’t understand,” said Harry, “Four weeks ago, we introduced an incentive program for efficiency on the shop floor, and so far, I haven’t seen any improvement at all. What are we doing wrong?”

“In the past four weeks, since you introduced this incentive program, how many meetings have you held to talk about efficiency?” I asked.

“Meetings? That is why we started the incentive program, so we wouldn’t have to have meetings, so we wouldn’t have to spend time talking about it. With the money we put out there, they should be able to figure some things out, shouldn’t they?”

“Just because you have put up some money to achieve a specific result, doesn’t mean that you don’t have to talk about it. Some behaviors will help efficiency, some behaviors may not, some behaviors may even work against efficiencies. You have an incentive program, but you still have to have the conversation.

“I want you to think about this. Even if you did not have an incentive program, wouldn’t the conversation still be critical? Wouldn’t it be valuable to talk about positive behaviors that work for us and other behaviors that work against us?” -TF

Fatal Mistake

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From the “Ask Tom” mailbag.

Question – CC writes, “What are the analytic skills needed for decision making that will help a manager in problem solving?”

Response – The most frequent fatal mistake made by a manager is jumping to a solution without considering alternatives. There are several tools that can help you make better decisions. My favorite tool is a simple set of three questions.

1. What is the problem?
2. What are the possible solutions to the problem?
3. Which is the best solution?

This is a simple process that can be used alone by the manager or in a brain-storm session with the help of a team. This process can be used quickly for problems that require an immediate solution or can be used over an extended period of time for complicated issues. It is also simple to teach to supervisors so they can use it with their teams.

The power of this process is that it prevents the frequent fatal mistake, jumping to a solution without considering other alternatives. The discipline of using this simple three step process will have a positive impact on the quality of decisions made by a manager.

What would happen in your organization, if every time a decision had to be made, people stopped long enough to ask these three questions? -TF

If you have a question about management, just use the link to the right. Thanks to CC for this question.

Connect Today to Tomorrow

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“I don’t know, I just give them something to do. If they do it, maybe I will give them something else. They usually don’t step up to the plate, so I am often disappointed.” Randy shook his head.

We had been talking about emerging managers. If we can identify who they might be, then what do we do with them. How do we move them, how do we stretch them, challenge them?

Randy continued, “You would think that if they were really supervisor material, they would just pick things up and get them done. But they don’t.”

My eyes narrowed a bit. “In my experience, people don’t often think about the longer term. They think about today and that’s about it. As their manager, you often have to stretch their interest to the future. If you want them to step up to the plate, you have to ask them what their picture of the future looks like. Getting a person to step up to the plate requires a conversation. It is a conversation that connects today to tomorrow and the week after. It doesn’t start with an expectation on your part. It starts with a conversation.” -TF

Yesterday, I asked for your observations about Emerging Managers. Thanks to all those who posted their insights. I am sending a book to Linda Hedges for her contribution.

Emerging Managers

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“How do you identify emerging managers in your organization? As you look around your team, what do you observe, what catches your eye?” I asked everyone to take a minute and write their ideas on a 3×5 card.

Wendy spoke first, “I watch for them in meetings. I look to see, when they speak, do other people listen? It’s funny; I am not listening for something brilliant to come out of their mouth. I observe others’ response to them. For a person to be a leader, someone has to follow.”

Marion was next, “I look for someone who asks questions. It’s easy for a person to just spout off how much they know about this or that. But if someone is asking questions about purpose, why we do things, what is the impact of a process? Not dumb questions, good questions.”

Jeremy raised his hand, “I look for someone who is thinking ahead. We may be working on something right now, but this person is two or three steps ahead, laying out material, staging equipment for the next setup, even if the next setup is tomorrow.”

I am curious. How do you identify emerging managers in your organization? As you look around your team, what do you observe, what catches your eye? Post a comment here. I have a special book on my desk for the best comment.

If you would like to view comments that have already been posted, just click on one of the links at the top of this email. It will take you to the website where you can read them. -TF

Big Fat Secret

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“I admit it. I am struggling. I feel like I am trying to ride two horses at the same time. My boss wants me to take on more responsibility, but I still have all this other work to do. He says I need to let go, but I don’t know who to get to help me.” Rachel was moving up, but needed to identify someone on her staff as an emerging manager to fill in behind.

“Rachel, you say you want this new responsibility?” I waited, though I knew her head would say yes. “Here is a big fat secret. You will never be able to move up in this organization until you have found someone to take over what you do.

“Everyone thinks you cannot move up until you have learned a new skill, but the real constraint is below. You cannot move up until you have identified a person to take over your current responsibilities. And once you find them, you have to train them and test them.

“One of your biggest responsibilities, as a manager, is to find and build a person as your replacement. And it doesn’t happen in a week. You have to be thinking two or three years to the future.” -TF

What’s His List?

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“No, I gotta tell you, the only thing that means anything to these guys is money. If I want them to do something, I have to create a spiff, a little kicker. But you know what, even that’s not working anymore.” Roger was just trying to get one of his guys to pick up the pace, take some responsibility that might be a step up from his current responsibility.

“Have you tried lecturing?” I asked

“I don’t get it, I don’t lecture my guys. Sometimes I have to tell them what to do.” Roger was a bit defensive on this one. I knew I struck a nerve.

“So, this guy says he wants to be a supervisor?” Roger nodded, so I continued. “Have you asked him what being a supervisor means, what he thinks a supervisor should do?”

“No, but I have told him what I think. He just doesn’t listen.”

“Roger, I want you to take a different tack. Go back and talk to him again. The starting point is asking him if he wants to be supervisor. Then, ask him what the major responsibilities might be. You will be surprised at the list. It might be the same as yours.” -TF

Spread the Burden

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“I am ready to throw up my hands. I have come up with eight ways to Sunday for our route technicians to do a better job on their service calls. I am ready to do a Flutie drop kick and just let them deal with it.” Russell was commiserating, hoping I would be sympathetic.

“Well, I think it’s a good idea,” I said.

“What do you mean?” replied Russell, still looking for sympathy.

“I mean, I think you should call your technicians together and let them deal with it. Look, the problem isn’t that your ideas are bad; the problem is they are your ideas. If you want your technicians to do a better job on service calls, the ideas have to come from them.

“One of the biggest mistakes young managers make is thinking that you have to solve all the problems of the world. You don’t. Spread the burden. You will be surprised at how your technicians will step up to the plate.” -TF

Gitter Done

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“What was the major benefit of this exercise?” I asked. For the past two weeks, we had been planning intensive. Every meeting with every company was about their plan for the year. It was over. The confetti was on the floor and all the marching bands had gone home.

For the past three days, I had met with three different groups, each group member presenting their plan that they had worked so hard to create. The groups had ripped them apart and put them back together.

I was packing my flipchart. Emily was hanging around. I stopped packing and asked her again, “What was the major benefit of this exercise?”

“You know, at first, I thought I was preparing this plan to show my group how smart I was, how I had everything together. Everything was geared toward this meeting, but now that it’s over, I realize, all this work wasn’t for them.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I confirmed.

“It was for me. It was for me to get my head straight for the year.” Emily smiled and tucked her plan under her arm. “Gotta, go. Gotta go, gitter done.” -TF