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.

Tour Notes – Stage One

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Lance saw the rider ahead and became fixed on the target. Jan Ullrich had started :60 seconds ahead in the individual time trial, a race against the clock. As Lance approached, Jan might as well have been standing still. It was an awesome display of fitness. There is much ballyhoo about whose bike weighs the least, or the most precise aerodynamic position, but this race was about fitness.

Back at the office.
As managers, we look at our team members in several dimensions, product knowledge, technical skill, technique and attitude. Yet, often, success is determined by fitness, both physical and mental fitness. Team members pull ahead in their performance because they can. Others drop away or drag across the finish line.

Serious as a heart attack.
Do you have conversations with your team members about their physical health, nutrition, work-out routines and mental focus? One dimension of performance depends on fitness. As a manager, what do you demand from your team? What kind of example do you set? -TF

Saturday’s Prologue

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This Saturday begins the prologue to the 2005 Tour de France. Since I grew up in Austin, I have more than a passing interest in Lance Armstrong’s attempt at a seventh Tour win. Four riders in history have won five Tours, only Lance has won six. If he brings home a seventh, the earliest a newcomer could best that record would be year 2013.

While there is enormous respect for Lance, there is no shortage of riders committed to bring his streak to a screeching halt. Toppling Lance Armstrong would be an emotional maelstrom.

But who, and how?

What appears to be a mass of tires, spokes, and expensive carbon fiber all charging headlong to the finish is more precisely an intricate team sport, playing games with physics, wind resistance and muscle fatigue. Should Lance be beaten, it will NOT be by a single racer, but by a tight cohesive team, working together better than Team Discovery.

From July 2 through July 24, we will watch the drama. If you are a Manager in your organization, you will find principles of leadership, coordination, cooperation and challenge on the faces of world class athletes. There will be lessons for any team willing to learn. -TF

P.S. To watch live and same day coverage, tune to cable channel OLN. Listings can be found at olntv.com.

P.P.S. To read past posts about teamwork and cycling, follow the link to Managementblog’s homepage, scroll down the Category list and follow the link to Henrik’s Wheel.

Working the Design

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Chase left our conversation abruptly. Across the plant floor, he had spotted a problem and rushed to make a correction. He was apologetic on his return. “Sorry, but that is why I called you today. I feel like a two armed octopus. There are eight things that need to happen, but I can only work on two problems at a time. Things get out of control about fifteen minutes into the day. And they never stop. At the end of the day, I look at my boss’ list of projects and the important things never seem to get worked on. There is always a crisis.”

“Not really,” I said. “To me, your system is working exactly the way it was designed to work.”

Chase was puzzled. “What do you mean? It’s not working at all.”

“No, it is working exactly the way it is designed to work. The design of your day’s work is to drink coffee for the first fifteen minutes, then run around the floor solving urgent problems. At the end of each day, you check the list to make sure you didn’t do anything important.”

I paused. “Not a bad design. How’s that working for you?” Chase didn’t like what he was hearing.

“If you want to change your day, you have to change your design for the day. I see about four major design changes you might want to consider, but let’s start with just one. Don’t let anyone work during the first fifteen minutes of the day. Instead have a huddle meeting around the boss’ list of important projects. That one design change will be a good start.”

How is your day designed? -TF

No Top of Head Thinking

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I was sitting at the back, observing the meeting. Edward was struggling to get participation and when he got it, the response was ill formed, almost off topic.

I pulled Edward aside during the first break. “I can see you are a little frustrated. You ask a question and no one raises their hand. After a few seconds, you can’t stand the silence, so you answer your own question. And when someone does answer, they are talking off the top of their head.”

“Yep, that’s the way it usually goes. Kind of a dull group, don’t you think?” Edward replied.

“Not at all,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “This will take some courage and some patience, but your group will brighten immediately. Never let them talk off the top of their head. Every time you ask a question to the group, ask them to write down their response. Just one sentence or a phrase, but they have to write their response first. Now that means you will have to endure a little silence, but not more than you are enduring now, only this time it is planned silence. Ask each team member to write their response, then put down their pen, so you will know they have an idea. Then, wait.”

Edward went back into the meeting and he posed the next question to the group. He asked them to write down their response. Then he waited. Twenty seconds later, seven people were ready to participate, and their ideas were good because they were no longer talking off the top of their heads. -TF

Crabs in a Basket

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“Have you ever been crabbing?” I asked. We were discussing the negativity of Chet’s team. Every meeting, they seemed successful at shooting down everything that Chet wanted to do.

“Crabbing, you know, where you trap crabs, pull them out of the water and throw them into a basket?”

Chet looked at me a little strangely. “What’s that got to do with my team?”

“Here’s the thing, Chet. If you only have one crab in the basket, you have to really watch him, because he will crawl out of that basket lickety split. The trick is to catch some more crabs quickly. It’s amazing. With a bunch of crabs, when one starts to crawl out, all the other crabs attach to his legs and pull him back into the basket. You would think they would all try to crawl out, but that’s not what happens. Sometimes, teams are the same way.

“Here is the way I set things up. Before I describe a possible solution, I go around and have each team member describe the major benefits if we are successful at solving the problem. If I can get them to focus on the benefits, they are less likely to focus on the crab trying to crawl out of the basket.” -TF

Business Intelligence

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“It’s really tough to find out what our competition is doing. They will roll a program out that I know takes, maybe, a year to develop. And, hell, it’s been out on the street for three months before I even hear about it. How can I do a better job of keeping up?” Bud shook his head. He still had plenty of spunk, but he was temporarily demoralized.

“Bud, first of all, if you try to do it alone, you will not only fail, but you will drive yourself crazy. As the business expert Jimmy John Shark says, one set of eyes and ears cannot keep track of everything that is going on in your market. You have to recruit your other team members, perhaps some vendors, maybe even a customer or two.”

“But, I already ask around. Nobody ever seems to know anything,” Bud was getting defensive.

“Look, Bud. Is this important to you, your company, to remain competitive?” I knew the answer, so I kept going. “Create a Business Intelligence meeting. All you need to know is out there, in the media, on the radio, in rumor mills and in formal conversation. Make some assignments. Have Joe read the Wall St. Journal. Have Fred read BusinessWeek. Have Joan report on your two key vendors supplying you with raw material. Then have that meeting every two weeks for half an hour. Get everyone to summarize what they have learned in an email and send it to a central person for compilation so you can read it looking for patterns. A Business Intelligence Briefing, just like the President.” -TF

Measure the Second Day

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“So, what do you think?” asked Lenny. “How are we doing?”

“How do you measure how you are doing?” I replied.

“That’s the thing. We aren’t sure what to measure against. We got some studies of companies that are sort of like us, but the benchmarks they use seem so different. They just don’t make sense.”

“Two things,” I said. “Pick what you think is important and start measuring now.”

“What do we measure against? How do we know if we are doing okay or not?”

“Measure against yourself. So many companies chase each other’s tail around and end up back where they started. Figure out what is important to your customer and measure that. That’s all your customer cares about. What else matters?

“You, getting better, is all that matters. Measure the second day against the first day. Measure the third day against the second day. Pretty soon, you will see a trend. Before you know it, you will have one year’s worth of data. Start measuring now.” -TF

Training Magic

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Irene was so proud. She pulled me toward her office, anxious to show me the new training manual she was using out in the service bay.

Busting tires, rather, mounting tires on heavy equipment is hot, sweaty, dirty, thankless work. Done wrong, a number of things can happen and all of them are bad. Irene worked in the training department, hardly a hands-on position, yet, she was expected to create an effective training program.

Her solution. Buy six disposable cameras and have the crew shoot their own pictures of how things should be done and how they should not be done. In all, they shot close to 150 pictures and selected 80 for their training “manual.” The crew gathered around a large table and put the photos in sequence, scrawled captions on 3×5 cards and mounted everything on stiff paper. Irene had the whole collection bound into a 3-ring binder and painted the crew’s name across the cover.

I borrowed the book, with Irene’s permission, and headed for the service bay. As soon as I came through the door, a team member spotted the “manual” under my arm. I motioned an invitation and four of the crew came over. For the next ten minutes, they explained how they had put the book together, which parts were the best and which pictures they had taken.

When was the last time your team got that excited over a training manual? Total cost $160. -TF

Downward Descent

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Rafael shrugged, “Thought we were below the radar. Thought nobody was watching us, much less targeting our customers.” Things had tightened up in Rafael’s market. Indeed, they were a small player with giant competitors.

“What is your estimated market share?” I asked.

“You don’t understand, we are a niche player, probably less than one percent of the market,” retorted Rafael.

I had to be straight. Rafael was not a niche player, he was a small player. His one percent market share was feeding off the falling crumbs from larger competitors. That was fine when times were good. Answer the following question: What happens to your one percent market share, when the market shrinks three percent?

Understand this. The twelve month rate of change in US industrial production has peaked and is currently beginning a downward descent. The US economy is slowing. Is your market shrinking? Are you prepared? -TF

Treating Team Members in Color

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Simon moved quickly down the hallway. Morale was down. “I just don’t understand,” he said, “Our hotel managed a five star rating last year. I would think the staff would be proud of what they accomplished.”

“Show me around,” I insisted. “Let me look. I will tell you what I see.”

As we walked, I noticed the posh lobby and beautiful appointments of the hotel. It was truly wonderful. But then, I asked to see the work areas behind the forbidden doors that say Employees Only. That is where it hit me. The contrast was amazing; like we had been transported to a different place on earth. It was clean, but stark. Away from the warm glow in the guest areas, team members were bustling around bare cinder block walls lit by harsh fluorescents. The air was still and clammy. Team members, each, had their name scrawled on a piece of tape slapped on a gray metal locker.

It struck me that we treat our customers in color while we treat our team members in black and white.

Do the surroundings in your workplace have an impact on your productivity? Does beauty in the workplace have a positive impact? Look around your workplace. Are you treating your team members in color or black and white? -TF