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.

Pairing Behavior

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“Can you believe that jerk took credit for the idea that our team came up with? And can you believe the big cheese boss bought it, hook, line and sinker? Won’t they be surprised when they run into the fatal flaw? That will fix their wagon.”

I often hang out at the water cooler, especially with new clients. The official issues facing most companies are often smoke-screens for the unofficial issues I hear about at the water cooler. And for my money, the unofficial issues are much more dangerous and tougher to deal with than the official issues.

In psychological lingo, this water cooler talk is known as “pairing” behavior, where a pair of people leave a group to advance (gossip about) an underground agenda. These conversations carry more insight to the real roadblocks facing most organizations.

Unfortunately, most managers ignore these real problems, hoping to deal with the smoke-screen official problems. And then, wonder why no real progress is being made in the organization.

Spend some time at the water cooler. That’s what I do. -TF

Two Weeks Later, Nothing Changed

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So you attended that tactical planning meeting. Everything was high fives, energy in the room. Man, you were going to tackle the world and solve the most dramatic problems your company faces. There were enough ideas to paper the wall. The facilitator ran out of high priced ink in his Marks-a-Lot.

But now, you are two weeks down the road and nothing has changed. Not one iota. What the hell happened?

I see companies get so involved with brainstorming that they fail to become judgmental enough to come up with the ONE BEST IDEA that will solve the problem. All the ideas seem so creative, the team cannot say no. Rather than adopt one strategy, rejecting all the others, and following through, the team languishes in the Jacuzzi of ideas.

Brainstorming, to be effective, requires the team to suspend judgment and accept all ideas. That’s perfect for brainstorming. But, sooner or later, a real strategy must develop that requires analysis, judgmental thinking, rejection of marginal ideas, combining strengths of related ideas and surgically carving away the ineffective positions.

Identifying the ONE BEST IDEA is a separate step from brainstorming, and absolutely necessary for effective action. -TF

Talking Underperformance

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“I told him he needed to pay more attention to the quality of his work.” Henry was describing a conversation from the day before. “He actually started yelling back at me, right there in front of everyone. We weren’t toe to toe, but we were close.”

At some time, with some people, it doesn’t take much to make that person feel like they have their back against the wall. Here is the bad news. When someone feels that way, they have only three choices, none of which are positive. Fight, flight or paralysis.

As a manager, you still have to provide corrective feedback, but you have to find a different way. Here is one. Talk about your own mistakes first. At some time, in your work experience, you made a similar mistake or created a similar quality problem. Talking about your own mistake first, allows you to explore the details of how and why. This approach should open the other person to talk more about what may be causing their own underperformance. This underlying cause is the issue that has to be resolved for the work quality to improve.

Talk about your own mistakes first. -TF

First Days of a New Manager

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Justin was leery about his new manager. This was the second time in three months that he had filled this position. “I don’t know what got in to the last guy. He had the experience, but by the second week on the job, he had managed to get on the bad side of most all his team members. By the third week, the team was silently plotting his overthrow. With his new processes and control systems, he created more mutiny than efficiency.”

I was curious, “In his first few weeks, what kind of orientation program did you run him through? What were his assignments?”

“Well, we went over his job description. He seemed eager to get to work, said he had some changes he wanted to get started on right away. Of course, it took him a week just find out where the men’s room was.”

The first days on the job are different at the manager level. With technical roles, the point is to get new hires productive quickly. With managers, orientation, getting to know team members and learning existing processes are critical first steps. In the first week, a new manager should be required to report short biographical thumbnails of all team members and create fundamental work flow charts documenting existing systems. To do this, the new manager will have to meet people, ask questions and listen. The reporting assignment will require analysis and thought. The new manager should NOT think they have something smarter to introduce without a thorough understanding of both the work and the people that run the work. So give them the assignment. -TF

Hiring Team Strategy

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Question:
Our company could like to try a team approach to interviewing. Do you think this is a good idea?

Response:
There is great upside to team interviewing. I don’t advocate three-on-one or four-on-one because it generates too much pressure on the candidate. Rather, I prefer team interviews to be a series of independent interviews.

The muck of the team interview process is getting everyone trained on how to conduct an interview. On a hiring team of three, if even one manager makes inaccurate assumptions or a misinterpretation, 33% of your input could be flawed. The bad news is that most companies don’t have a clue on how to conduct an effective interview.

Interview training for each member of the hiring team is essential for their collective effort to be of benefit. With the right training, the use of a team enhances the quality of the hiring decision big time. -TF

Losing Talent

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Marty was at a loss to explain why he was losing his most talented people. His office was upscale, roomy cubicles, good benefit package, competitive wages and reasonable bonuses. I asked about his managers. Aside from the CFO and the HR person, there were two project managers running thirty technicians in the field.

“So, Marty, tell me, you have managers running the projects, but who is running the technicians?”

“Well, the Project Managers tell the technicians what they need and the technicians do the work.”

“Marty, the Project Managers run the projects, but who is running the technicians?”

Many companies pull out a layer of management without understanding the roles that managers play. Project Managers run projects. We weren’t losing projects, we were losing technicians. The most important element related to employee retention is the relationship between the manager and the team member. This is a difficult relationship to cultivate if you do not have a manager in the equation.

Examine your organization, where are your managers and how have you defined their roles? -TF

Bringing Personal Lives to Work

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Adrian was almost beside himself. I say, almost, because he was trying to be so logical about it. “Why is it that people always seem to bring their personal lives to work?”

“Adrian, I have found that people bring their personal lives to work, because they have personal lives.”

This notion that we can separate our business and personal lives is somewhat absurd. There is nothing that impacts someone’s professional life as an issue occurring in their personal life. As managers, we always seek high levels of performance, yet often attempt to remain ignorant about those circumstances that influence performance the most. A manager unaware of a health issue, a marital circumstance or a drug problem will likely be befuddled and unable to anticipate or compensate when performance drops off. Effective managers know their team members, the whole person, the whole person who comes to work everyday. -TF

Where Are You Going With That Question?

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“You don’t like the interview question?” asked Christopher, shifting in his chair. He had created a list of questions in preparation for a candidate interview later in the afternoon. At the top of the list, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

“Chris, every question you ask has to have a purpose in the interview,” I replied. “What specific piece of data are you trying to collect with that question?”

“I think it is important to find out where they are headed in life.”

“Chris, tell me again, what’s the job position?”

“Project Manager.”

“How long are your typical projects?”

“Four to six weeks.”

“Chris, tell me how someone’s fictitious image of a five-year-future snapshot will predict success as a Project Manager, working on projects that last four to six weeks?” The silence hung heavy. “Let’s change two things about your approach to questions. Instead of the future, ask about the past. Instead of a hypothetical, ask about a fact.” The quality of the responses to those questions will increase dramatically. -TF

Value of a Task

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The organization chart was getting messy. Ted had just drawn a new circle next to himself. “I think we need to hire another department manager. I just cannot get everything done.”

“Ted, tell me, how much do you get paid, on an hourly basis?”

“I don’t know, I would have to break down my salary, but let’s say I make $30 per hour, plus, plus.”

“Fine, close enough. Ted, if you look at all of the elements in your role as a manager, how many of the tasks that you do, are $30-per-hour tasks, and how many are $12-per-hour tasks? Let’s do some quick analysis, just on yesterday.”

As Ted detailed his tasks from the prior day (and you can bet I pinned him down for all the detail) he discovered that 50% of his time was engaged in preparing paperwork, printing reports, doing data entry and reconciling inventory counts. Ted didn’t need another department manager; he needed a good strong clerical support person.

As a Manager in your organization, how much $12 per hour work are you doing? -TF

System Dependent?

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“Yes, but we can’t afford to fire this person, right now. If we did, we would lose everything they know about our system. I know their performance is unacceptable, but we would be lost without the things they know about our processes, our machines, the tolerances, the setups.”

“So, where does that leave you,” I asked.

“Between a rock and a hard place. We can’t even let this person find out that we are recruiting for his replacement. He might quit.”

In the beginning, most companies organize themselves around people and their abilities. As the company grows, an inevitable transition must take place. Ask yourself the following question, “Is your organization people dependent, or system dependent?”

If you think your organization is people dependent, what steps would it take to transform into a system dependent organization? It starts with the simple documentation of processes and roles. That’s the first step to prevent becoming hostage to an underperformer. -TF