Category Archives: Accountability

Necessity Requires?

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“If I want to make high performance necessary, I have to be clear,” Mariana repeated. “And, I have to make that clarity understood. Not what I understand, but what my team understands.”

I smiled. “And there is more.”

“More?”

“More. You can make the performance standard clear, but the team may not have the competence to make it happen. Necessity requires competence. A team without competence, in spite of necessity, will never perform at standard. Necessity requires both clarity and competence.”

Mariana nodded. “And, if they are not competent?”

“You are the manager,” I replied. “If the team members are not competent, why did you pick them?”

“At the time, I didn’t know if they were competent. They looked competent, sounded competent. I thought they had potential, that’s why I picked them.”

“Competence starts with potential. You assembled the team. Then, what did you do?”

“Well, we started with training,” she explained.

“You described, you demonstrated, they tried, you coached, they tried again, they practiced, you tested, they practiced more. You put them through drills, pace and quality. Pace and quality, until you, as the manager were satisfied at their level of competence. Necessity requires both clarity and competence.”

Mariana sighed acceptance.

“And, there’s more.”

More Powerful Than Yelling

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“We missed our target,” Mariana complained. “Again, we missed our target.”

“How so?” I asked.

“There are just so many hours in the day, so many minutes in the hour. I just can’t get the results we hoped for,” she explained.

“You are not getting the performance you want because you have not made it necessary,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Mariana wanted to know.

“Raise your hand,” I continued. “Raise your hand as high as you can.”

Mariana was puzzled but complied.

“Now, raise it higher,” I smiled.

Her head dropped, but she raised her hand higher.

“So, why didn’t you raise your hand as high as you could, when I first asked?”

“I don’t know,” Mariana replied, still puzzled.

“You didn’t do it, because it was not necessary. I did not make it necessary for you to perform at that higher level.”

“So, to make performance necessary, high performance necessary, as a manager, what do I do? Yell at the team?”

“Yelling only works in the short term and is only practiced by parents who have no children. Parents who have children know that yelling does not work. Yelling does not create necessity. Necessity is much more powerful than yelling.” I nodded.

“So, how?” Mariana was curious. “If necessity is so powerful, how do we create necessity?”

“There are many ways,” I continued to nod. “Let me ask again. When I first asked you to raise your hand as high as possible, you thought you did, but you didn’t. Why not?”

“Well,” Mariana thought harder, “I thought you just wanted me to raise my hand high. I didn’t know you wanted me to stretch.”

“Part of necessity is clarity. Not clarity in my mind, but clarity in your mind. Clarity in the mind of the team. We cannot make something necessary unless the standards of performance are clearly perceived by the team.”

Perfectly in Flow

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“My team struggled with this problem all last week,” Regina was almost giddy. “I took one look at it and knew exactly what to do. Like a pop up fly right into my glove. It’s really satisfying to solve a problem, almost by instinct.”

“You seem pleased,” I responded.

“Perfectly in flow,” she replied. “Athletes get like that sometimes, where the world slows down, they are one with the motion that perfectly connects.”

“And, your team? What of your team?”

“They were relieved. It was a really hard problem. They discovered the cause, and generated some alternative solutions. It was actually staring them in the face, but the real solution, the one that saved the day was the first part of one alternative connected with the back end of another. Honestly, I don’t know why they didn’t see it.”

“And, you, in flow, took their discovery away?”

Regina’s delight turned cold. “It’s not like I took candy from a baby,” she defended. “I solved a problem for them.”

“So, the next time your team struggles with a problem, what are they going to do? Who are they going to call on?”

Best Practices

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“That was a terrific conference,” Pauline happily reported. “I met a bunch of interesting people and came away with a ton of best practices.”

“Tell me more,” I replied.

“I created this chart from the conference,” she continued. “One side is the problem we see, in the other column is the best practice solution. Neat.”

“Great. So, now you have a solution for all the problems that you see over and over, again and again. Neat.”

Pauline stared at me, no longer happy.

Do What Is Expected

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Gillian had a smile on her face. “I think I finally have the right team. Everything is working smoothly. And every team member has the competence to do what it is expected. What more could I want?”

“Dangerous to ask me an open-ended question,” I replied. “Do you feel prepared? Do they have the skills? Not to do what is expected, but to grapple with the unexpected?”

Increasing Customer Service

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Regina was proud, “We just got an increase to my annual budget for my customer service team.”

“Oh, really?” I replied.

“Yes. Two years ago, we had a small team and our customer service scores were 1-2 on a 5 point scale. Not good.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“I spent a lot of time working on how we respond to the various glitches in our product and warranty claims. Turns out, there were five problems we had to deal with most often, so we trained hard on those.”

“And?” I nodded.

“And, our scores improved. I got the green light to hire ten percent more to the team. Last year, we actually won a customer service award, averaging 4.8 on our scores.” Regina was bursting with pride. “And, this year, I got the go-ahead to really ramp up the head count on my team.”

“Regina, did you ever have a conversation with your operations team to talk about the five things that created so much customer service traffic?”

Screwed Up Again

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“They screwed it up again,” Charmagne protested. “Luckily, I managed the risk, so it wasn’t a devastating mistake.”

“Perfect,” I said.

“What do you mean, perfect? You mean perfectly wrong?” she stated flatly.

“I find competent people always in learning mode,” I responded. “To build the competence of the team, you have to keep them in learning mode. Do people learn more by accidentally getting it right? Or inevitably making a mistake? As the manager, this is your perfect opportunity to get your team in learning mode.”

A Position of Power

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“Where do you think your power comes from, as a manager?” I asked.

Angelina thought. “Part of it comes from my position. I get respect from my team, because they know I am their boss. That what I say, is the way things go.”

I nodded, and watched.

She continued, “But, frankly, that’s not the way it happens. Just because I am the boss, sometimes doesn’t mean anything at all. I feel like my mother saying – Because I said so.”

“Why do you think you were promoted to manager? So you could have power over your team?” I pressed.

After a moment, she replied. “I don’t feel like I have that power.”

“But, you do have power. For an incompetent person, that power comes from the outside. That power comes from position. For a competent person, that power comes from the inside. It is an internal discipline that everyone sees.”

Just a Parade

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“Why do they constantly make the wrong decision?” Deidra asked. “We have problems where the solution is counterintuitive. If the team follows the popular trend, they come up with a response that creates more damage than the original problem.”

“Why do you think that is?” I wanted to know.

“I don’t know. Instead of thinking through the problem, they wait and follow behind whoever has status in the group. And, of course, once that person has made a move, contributed the first idea, no one else is willing to question or challenge. Or add alternative solutions, or judge one idea more effective than another. After a while, that popular team member becomes a person of influence. One or two problems down the road and the team becomes incapable of wrestling with the root cause. And, I become the street sweeper in the elephant parade.”

“And?” I glanced sideways.

“And, what?” Deidra was frustrated. “You are looking at me like I’m the problem.”

“I just wanted to know what else?” I smiled. “Who taught them to follow someone else’s lead, instead of thinking for themselves? Who taught them to bring the problem to the street sweeper?”

Shoelaces Untied

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“It’s time for my monthly coaching session,” Manuel explained. “I have some things I need to point out to some of my team.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Negative feedback is necessary. If my shoes are untied, I need to know so I don’t fall on my face. But tying my shoes do not make me a high performer.”

Manuel looked down at his shoes, to make sure he was not the focus.  I continued, “What kind of feedback do you need?”

“Not a lot,” he said. “I have a pretty good idea when I perform well and when I fail.”

“Most competent people do,” I nodded. “You have a good sense when you are in struggle and when you are in flow. You have internal feedback sensitivities. When you are in flow, your body generates endorphins. When you struggle, your stomach doesn’t feel right.”

Manuel smiled. “That’s me. What about my team?”

“Reality always wins,” I replied. “You biggest job is to get in touch with it.** You are about to enter a coaching session with one of your team members. Giving advice, negative feedback, corrective action may get some shoelaces tied, but your biggest impact is getting your team member in touch with their reality. And, your description doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is their perception, their perception of circumstances, their perception of intention, their perception of performance and their perception of outcome. You only have a marginal impact with advice. You have a larger impact with questions. The best managers are not those who tell people what to do, but those who ask the best questions.”
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**Shades of Pat Murray