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.

Next Agenda

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Curtis looks over my shoulder, glancing at my notes. “Can I get a copy of that, when the meeting breaks up?” I worked my way through college selling copies of my lecture notes to other classmates. In most meetings today, I could make beer money doing the same thing.

My notes are not to help remember what happened today, but notes to help create the future. My notes are my Next Agenda.

As the discussion unfurls, decisions occur and assignments are made. My Next Agenda records the assignment and the person responsible. I use my Next Agenda as a real-time delegation tool. Here is the leverage point. The most important decision on my Next Agenda is NOT “how” the assignment will be completed, but “who” is going to complete the assignment.

Managers continually get wrapped around the axle trying to figure out “how” to get things done. The most important role of the Manager is to decide “who.” Take a look at the notes from your last meeting. Do they meet the Next Agenda “who” criteria? -TF

Discover Executive Management Online. Next course opens in 19 days.

Sharon’s Funk

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Sharon was finally proud of somebody else. It had taken three years since her promotion to let go. Tonight, her lead technician walked across the stage to accept the honor that Sharon had coveted for so long, and it was okay.

The VIP Project had been awarded to Sharon’s department two and a half years ago. Everyone realized this would be a landmark project for company. But there were problems.

Six months in, the difficulties began to bottleneck, the discrepancy reports began to pile up on Sharon’s desk. Working twelve hour days, she could not solve all the problems that rose to the surface. With timeline charts turning from green to red, Sharon was called on the carpet at more than one project-oversight meeting.

It was late on a Friday, somewhat depressed, Sharon came to a realization that changed everything. She had placed herself as the pivot point in the project. She had wanted hands-on control of every aspect, all spokes led to her. Nothing occurred without her approval and involvement. Why?

Sharon wanted the credit. Sharon wanted to walk across the stage. Sharon wanted to be the hero. Sharon was the problem. It was only when she thought about spreading responsibilities to her team that she emerged from her funk. It was only when she imagined that one of her team would walk across the stage instead of her that she became truly effective as a manager.

Tonight was the night. -TF

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Dogs Are Never Late

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Goals are a curiously human phenomenon. Did you ever notice that dogs are never late? Dogs never miss a deadline. Goals create the second dimension of time, the dimension of intention.

I spend time with runners, people who casually run and people who seem particularly driven to run. Something curious occurs when a runner decides to enter a race. Most of the field knows they will NOT be among the place finishers, yet there is a definite change in behavior. Casual morning runs become certain distances. Times are recorded in training logs. The runs are counted, the days until race day are counted. The goal drives behavior.

How do you keep your goals visible? Often, I suggest something visual, a compelling description, a drawing or a photograph. With computer scanners and printers, you can make multiple copies and post them in several places, your bathroom mirror, your refrigerator, on your desk, the dashboard of your car. You can imagine that I have a photograph of a bicycle on my desk with a yellow sticky note that says “Buy now.”

Goals drive behavior, can you see yours? -TF

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Control Systems to Feedback Loops

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Overheard at the water cooler: “I am sick and tired of Al coming in every morning and chewing our butts out for something we did yesterday. Where was he yesterday? Now, when he finds a problem, we have take unit out of the staging area and move it back into production. That stops everything. And there is never enough room because we have units doubling up waiting for the rework to be done. Starting tomorrow, we are going to pile up the units in the staging area so he can’t do the inspections. That way he won’t find the problems and we won’t have to pull the defective units back into production. That will fix him.”

Scary, eh?

Here’s the thing. Al was making his inspections based on a checklist. We simply made a change by giving a copy of that checklist to the floor supervisor who inspects the unit before it moves to the staging area. We went one step further and distributed sections of the checklist to each work station so inspection can be completed before each piece is moved to the next workstation.

Now, Al still comes out and inspects in the staging area, but he has found zero defects in the past three weeks. The quality program has changed from a delayed control system (done one day after production) to a real-time feedback loop where corrections can be made immediately. -TF

Discover Executive Management Online. Next course opens in 24 days.

Discipline of Time Management

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Question: I am interested in your opinion of the most effective Time Management techniques.

Response: There are only a handful of Time Management strategies. You have heard of them all, nothing new. Here is a quick list:

  • Awareness of how time is spent – keeping a diary
  • Prioritizing – keeping an ABC priority list
  • Independent production – finding uninterrupted time to complete top priorities
  • Goal setting – creating goals to keep the mind focused

The power of Time Management strategy is NOT in the technique itself, but in the discipline of execution.

A priority list is easy to understand, but the leverage comes from creating and reviewing the list on a routine basis. Independent production, or uninterrupted time is often overlooked by Managers. Some Managers even feel guilty about closing their door. In my mind, what good does it do to know your top priority task if you do not schedule uninterrupted time to complete it. Again, the leverage comes from the discipline of execution.

Bottom-line, discipline creates habits, habits create consistent action. Success is seldom built on occasional good luck, but more often on consistent profitable action. -TF

Discover Executive Management Online. Next course opens in 25 days.

What’s a Blob?

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That’s Blog, with a “g,” not Blob. I chuckle, then explain. Blog is short for Weblog, it’s like a daily journal, kept on the web for all to read. This innocuous writing form earned its journalistic stature in 2002 when Trent Lott was slated to become Senate Majority leader in January 2003. Most recently, bloggers were credited with the debunking of a Dan Rather report on 60 Minutes II about a letter related to the military service of President Bush. More on the origin of blogs.

So, what is ManagementBlog?

I spend most of my days with managers and owners in this great free enterprise system. We talk about the frustration, consternation and downright pig-headedness they experience as managers. We talk about business lives and personal lives. We talk about goals and objectives, measuring performance, in short, trying to get groups of people to work together as teams.

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. ManagementBlog is that part of the conversation I can share. Often, I change the names to protect the guilty, but this is real life inside of real companies. -TF

Discover Executive Management Online. Next Orientation opens in 12 days. Session One opens in 26 days.

New Management Technology

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Joan was beside herself. She had taken over the business when her husband died two years ago. While she had a vested interest in the success of the company, she depended on her management team to provide direction, initiate action and measure results. They had just decided that the monthly management team meeting was boring, lacking substance and should be suspended to every other month. Of the eight people in management, only three truly participated, everyone else just watched, trying not to get in the way.

Instinctively, Joan knew the market was changing fast and they had a fierce competitor that decided to relocate not two miles away. Something had to be done to re-energize the group. It’s as if they had all gone brain-dead. Waiting sixty days to review progress and make strategic adjustments was out of the question.

Joan’s company had all the substance necessary, and the market turmoil surrounding them was far from boring. It was the meeting. A specific dynamic in the meeting had to change.

A recent development in management technology was about to transform everything. It is called the 3×5 card, and I suggested Joan use them in the following way. At the beginning of the meeting, Joan distributed the cards and asked each person to write down their one goal for the meeting. No talking allowed, just think and write, 60 seconds.

One minute later, Joan went around the table and asked each person to share what they had written. Instantly, the team went from three ringleaders and five pacifists to eight people with agendas. This is not a subtle difference. Joan was not satisfied with the first round, so she repeated the exercise. Now there were sixteen initiatives on the table. This was only the beginning for Joan and her team. -TF

Discover Executive Management Online. Next Orientation opens in 15 days. Session One opens in 29 days.

No One Gets to Coast

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There are three kinds of people who attend my classes, and I bet you find the same people on your team.

The first type always shows up early, helps set the meeting room and every time I ask a question, has their hand flailing in the air about to bust a gut. This is the person I call, the Eager Beaver.

The second type shows up on time, seldom late. This is the Vacationer. They are happy to be in the meeting, because they don’t have to be at their desk working. When asked to participate, sometimes they contribute, sometimes they don’t. It doesn’t matter to them, after all, they are on vacation.

The third type would not dare be late, not wanting to attract attention. They slide into a chair in the back of the room. They know they were told to attend this meeting, but they have no clue why. This is the Hostage, sitting arms folded, avoiding eye contact, with a look on their face that says, “Don’t even try to teach me anything.”

So, your team is trying to solve an issue. Which one of the three types will have the idea that saves the day? Think about it. Who can you count on? Who has the creative spark that solves the problem?

As a Manager, you don’t know. You can’t possible know. That is why you need the active participation of each member of the team. Nobody gets to coast, nobody sleeps through, everyone engaged. As a Manager, it is up to you to create that environment. Would you like to know how? -TF

Discover Executive Management Online. Orientation opens in 16 days. Session One opens in 30 days.

Real Time

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Three months had passed, each seeming to rocket toward the deadline looming next Friday. Olga was frantic. What seemed like a lifetime to complete the project was now drawing to a fleeting few days. Meetings had occurred, but to her dismay, she could not remember where she seemed to lose control. Promises had been made, questions asked that needed research, but the project was careening south like a Canadian goose in September. In the heat of the meetings, Olga had scratched some sparse notes, but now, they made little sense, showing more disorganization than authoritative clarity.

And that’s why God made laptop computers. Try this for your next project meetings. Invite either a clerical person or an outsider who has no vested agenda in the project, but enough familiarity to spell the names. Hand them a laptop with an e-mail client (like Outlook). Preload the e-mail addresses of all the participants into a blank e-mail and instruct that notes be taken in the body of an e-mail, or at least as an e-mail attachment.

Those notes should include general summaries of items discussed, commitments made, by whom and deadlines. As soon as the meeting adjourns, press the “send” button. In my class, students always ask, “How soon after the meeting should the minutes be published?”

My answer is always: in Real Time. Everyone gets a copy immediately. -TF

Discover Executive Management Online. Orientation opens in 17 days. Session One opens in 31 days.

Saving Face

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The tension in the air was growing. The silence lasted longer than Troy’s patience. “Okay, you screwed up. Not the end of the world. And you need to make it up to the team.” But how? How could Henry face his peers? Firewatch had been his responsibility and he took a shortcut. The resulting accident had been scary, there was some property damage but no one was hurt. Three people had been in danger and the re-work would put the team a week behind, still with a hard deadline.

As the Manager, Troy could not afford to have the team blow up. He would need all-hands-on-deck, even Henry’s. Henry had to be humble, not defensive. Henry needed to apologize. Henry needed to demonstrate a new attitude of responsibility. Not just a promise, but a demonstration. For this to work, Henry had to save face. Anything less and the team would find itself short-handed, perhaps at odds against itself.

How do you save face when you are wrong? Admit it immediately and emphatically. Take responsibility, don’t blame circumstances. Don’t blame lack of sleep, fatigue, the fate of an accident. Be strong. You are responsible. -TF

Discover Executive Management Online. Next Orientation opens in 18 days. Session One opens in 32 days.