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.

Psychological Loss

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Why is your bank so adamant about pushing online banking?

Converted customers like it because it saves time, automatically keeps its own transaction record and at the end of the month, makes bank reconciliation a breeze.

On the surface, for the bank, it creates a lower incremental transaction cost.

  • The customer replaces the data entry clerk at the bank.
  • It moves the transaction from a historical posting to a real-time capture.
  • With real time capture, it eliminates manual reconciliation procedures associated with manual (historical) posting.
  • Scalability (growth) is no longer dependent on employee head count, it is now dependent only on computer and system capacity.

But, here is the real payback, and it has nothing to do with lowering transaction costs.

  • It creates a tighter tangible bond between they customer and the bank.
  • The technical setup of the account (the hassle of passwords & security) makes it more difficult to switch to another bank.
  • If a customer defects, they have to start over and will lose their online history (of course they can print it to paper), but online users quickly adapt to a paperless identity. Online history will be gone.
  • To break this tangible tie will require abandonment, and will create a strong sense of psychological loss.

What is your company doing to create strong emotional ties with your customer? -TF

Free Beer

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I was in conversation with a manager about questionable ethics.

I was quiet for a minute and then told this story, “A friend of mine owned a bar and occasionally, late at night, he would walk around to the customer’s side and order a beer. As the glass was poured, he would reach in his pocket and pull out some money to pay for the beer. I asked him once, that since it was his bar, why wasn’t his beer free? He told me that every moment, he was teaching his team about the right way to run a business.”

Every moment, as a manager, you model behavior, for better or worse. Your actions are so loud, your team cannot hear what you are saying. -TF

Showing Up

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Curtis shook his head as he paced around his office. He wasn’t angry, just awestruck. “Five contracts,” he said, “We lost five contracts to those bozos, in the past two months.”

“What do they do, that you don’t do?” I asked.

“Nothing, that’s what gets me. We run circles around them with what we can do. We spent a $100,000 on a machine last year that does all kinds of stuff they can’t do.”

“What did the last client say?”

“I don’t understand it, the last client said that it was nothing special, that they just deliver a plain vanilla product. When they need it, it’s there.”

“And what’s the backlog on your delivery?” I prompted.

“Well, we are a few days out on our delivery, but look at our quality, it’s so much better,” replied Curtis.

Execution trumps a promise every time. Execution of a plain vanilla product on-time trumps late-delivery of a special product, every time.

Often, you don’t have to be special; you just have to show up. Didn’t Woody Allen say that? -TF

Job Profiles

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Question:
Is there one biggest hiring mistake that we all seem to make?

Response:
Actually, there’s more than one, but let’s start with the creation of a job profile. It is not so much that companies make a mistake with the job profile, they just never put one together.

Think about the last time you were in a meeting when someone leaned across and said, “Oh, by the way, we have two candidates coming in to talk to us about the opening down in manufacturing. Can you squeeze some time to talk to them?”

And you want to be helpful, so you say, “yes,” when you should say, “I would love to help. First let me see the job profile so I can get a clear idea of the person we are looking for.”

My guess, you would get a blank stare or an evasive glance, because most companies don’t stop long enough to prepare the profile.

Hiring without a job profile is not the biggest mistake, just the first one. -TF

What to Tell the Team

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We had just spent two days hashing out the strategic plan. Everyone was picking up their notes, collecting their stuff and packing for a quick exit.

“Whoa, Nellie,” I said. “I know it seems like we have done a lot of work, but there is one more important task. How are we going to tell the troops?”

Most planning meetings lay out the strategy and action calendar, but often, there is no communication plan to tell the rest of the company.

Add one last item on your agenda. Figure out who is going to tell the team, what to tell them, when to tell them and how to tell them.

It’s relatively difficult for team members to execute your brilliant strategic plan when they don’t know the details. -TF

Rebecca’s Request

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Rebecca did a very smart thing. During the delegation meeting with Todd, she asked him to take the notes. As Rebecca described various elements of the delegation, Todd wrote things down. Before the meeting was over, she had Todd read back the notes.

It is simple, subtle and very effective. I meet many managers who are stressed beyond belief, thinking they have to do all the “work” in their meetings.

What dynamic changes when this responsibility is shifted to the team member? What can the manager now focus on?

It all started with Rebecca’s request, “Todd, I need to see you in fifteen minutes to go over the progress on the ABC project, and please bring a notepad. I want you to take some notes to document our meeting.” -TF

Delegation Risk

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Aaron was in the middle of a dilemma. He was a firm believer that, as a manager, delegation was his most powerful development tool, but he was uncomfortable a possible outcome. If this delegation failed, it could be disastrous. His dilemma was “who?” Who should he pick to head this project?

His top gun was reliable, but always overloaded with work. Aaron wanted to spread the responsibility to a young, up and comer, but this would be a stretch, with the distinct possibility of failure. That’s when I got the call. Who to pick?

Selecting the right team member is the absolute toughest step in delegation. The manager can do everything else correctly, but if the wrong person is chosen, success may be fleeting.

Selecting the right person is a process of risk management. If the purpose of delegation is people development, and understanding that people learn the most from their mistakes, risk management becomes the rule of thumb to determine who gets the nod.

If you work in a nuclear power plant, you have to pick your top gun every time. If you run an ice cream shop, you can afford the occasional misstep. Gauge the risk, then pick the person. -TF

How Well, By When?

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“My mother taught me that if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself,” proclaimed Judith, repeating the sage advice she had learned in her youth.

“Interesting,” I replied. We had been discussing her reluctance to delegate. “Why do you think your mother said that?”

“Well, people just never do things the way we expect them to be done.” I wholeheartedly agreed. But, what causes this underperformance?

Most often, the goal of the delegation is never communicated to the team member in terms of a performance standard. They receive some vague request, “Can you take care of this task or that task?” but the exact expectation is seldom spelled out. They are told what to do, but not how well or by when.

So, spell it out. It is the responsibility of the manager to describe the specific performance standard. With a clear picture, there is a higher probability of it being done right, and the possibility that your mother was wrong. -TF

Delegation Time

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Kyle wheeled around into the sun, cupping his hand over his eyes to see who was calling his name. It was Barry, his manager. Friday afternoon at 5:00, and it was Barry, again. Kyle already knew what was coming.

“Hey, Kyle,” said Barry as he stepped up his pace. “Listen, I was just wondering if you could do me a favor on Monday. I have this project that I have been trying to wrap-up and I am just jammed. I know it would be extra work for you, but I really need your help. It has to be finished by noon on Monday and I just can’t get it done.”

And Barry wondered why Kyle was never excited about things he tried to delegate.

There are two purposes for delegation, one is time management, the other is people development. Delegating for time management is okay, but short sighted. The longer term purpose for delegation is people development.

So, if the true purpose for delegation is development, it is important enough to schedule a real meeting, with committed time in an appropriate room over a conference table. Plan ahead.

If you haven’t planned ahead, and it’s Friday at 5:00pm, you already blew it. Just go home. Have a beer. Come back next week with a better plan. -TF

Time or Development?

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James stared at the project on his desk. It was a tidy project that he could delegate, probably free up four hours of his time this week.

This is where most managers start. For the manager, delegation is your most powerful time management tool.

I asked James to make a list of the benefits of that delegation to his team member. The list was quick. The team member would:

  • Learn a new skill.
  • See their contribution as valuable.
  • Have a better sense of the big picture.
  • Experience more job satisfaction.

I asked James if the list had anything to do with time management. As he studied each item, it became clear that, from the manager’s perspective, we were talking about time management, but from the team member’s perspective, we were talking about learning and development. Delegation may be a powerful time management tool, but it is also your most powerful people development tool. -TF