“The harder we worked, the behinder we got,” I smiled.

Sheila politely laughed, but I could tell she didn’t see the humor. “You would think, as soon as it looked like we might miss a milestone, someone would speak up.”

“Why do you think your team was silent? Were they aware the project was getting behind?” I asked.

Sheila nodded. “I talked to them and got a funny response. Everyone knew the project was behind. One person said they got nervous when they inspected some of the production and found it was defective. They knew there would be hell to pay, so they worked overtime, doing rework, used up the raw material that was reserved for the next day. You can see where this was going. The next day, the whole crew stood around, not able to work and we were further behind.”

“And they didn’t tell you what was going on?”

“No, not right away.”

“Why didn’t they tell you?” I pressed.

Sheila looked to the side, then to the ceiling. “I don’t know.”

“But we had the meeting,” Sheila complained. “I delegated the tasks, each, to the most appropriate team member. I spent a lot of time trying to build consensus for the direction we were heading with the project. I ended the meeting very firm, that the team would be held accountable for the results.”

“And what happened?” I asked.

“Everyone was very clear about their part. Lots of things had to be coordinated. I was looking for some high levels of cooperation,” she replied.

“And?”

“A couple of things got behind, and I didn’t find out about them. One part of the team was waiting on some things and couldn’t move forward until some other parts were finished. At first it didn’t seem like such a big deal, but it’s that snowball effect. The longer the project went on, the harder everyone worked, the more we got behind.”

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Follow-up:
Thanks, I appreciate your validation on the accountability for goals. The corrective measures I indicated include coaching sessions with the manager and a redistribution of tasks in order to accomplish those daily and weekly goals. Your recent blog on control measures hit home with this particular situation as well. The measures were set up to catch mistakes instead of preventing mistakes.

Response:
This shift in “who is accountable for the goal?” is huge and immediately changes the way the manager relates to the team. While the team may be doing the production work, it is the supervisor or manager who allocates resources, schedules resources, sets priorities, authorizes overtime, pulls a team member from one project to another.

The most important decisions for the manager are:

• The Time Span estimate for the task to be assigned and
• The volume of workload (number of tasks) assigned to an individual team member.

Yet, the accountability for the goal (completion) remains with the manager.

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
I have a manager whose gifts are with task management. Unfortunately, her task lists are quite extensive. I find the tasks assigned are time appropriate, there are just too many of them. I believe this is an underlying cause of increased disciplinary actions toward our employees and am taking measures to correct. Have you seen this situation before?

Response:
Are you asking if, sometimes, we give people too many tasks to do and then beat up on them when they fail to bring everything in on time?

Just because a supervisor can put (40) one-hour tasks on a list does not mean a great week’s schedule has been created.

Your question is really one of accountability for the goal. In your crazy disciplinary action scenario, you appear to be overlooking the real culprit and going for the scapegoat.

Whose goal is it? that is being assigned? We miss this all the time. The goals (tasks) being assigned by your supervisor are the supervisor’s goals. If the goal is not achieved, it is the supervisor that I go looking for.

I just completed the curriculum for the next Subject Area in Working Leadership Online. Planning – Creating the Future.

I am always struck by what planning helps us do and what excuses we have for not planning more often.

• We don’t have time to plan.
• Our plan never works anyway.
• We don’t have enough information to plan.
• We could create a plan, but the boss will veto it.
• I was responsible for the last plan and it didn’t work. I caught hell for it. No more planning for me.
• If we put a plan together, someone will try to hold us accountable for it.

That last one is my favorite.
Planning – Creating the Future kicks off March 16. Working Leadership Online. Register now.

“But everyone understood that we had to land the project for the team to get their bonus,” Lindsey protested.

“No, you understood that. The team understood something different. If they gave it their best and worked really hard, the team would get the bonus. So, they worked really hard and gave it their best. The only person who was in position to make decisions was the manager. The team didn’t get their bonus because of their manager.”

Lindsey was quiet. “So, we set up a system that, in the end, created a divide between the manager and the team.”

Working Leadership Online Update
Our next subject area – Decision Making – Facts and Intuition begins Monday. For registration, visit www.workingleadership.com

Lindsey had a puzzled look on her face. “I don’t understand. The team missed the deadline. We lost the project. If not the team, who do we hold accountable for the result? And believe me, this was a big deal. There was a big team bonus riding on this project.”

I started, slowly. “Who knew about the project first? Who had knowledge about the context of the project among all the other projects in the company? Who had the ability to allocate additional personnel to the project team to meet the deadline? Who had the authority to bump other project schedules to meet this deadline? Who was in a position to authorize overtime for this project?”

“Well, the Memphis team Manager,” she replied.

Working Leadership Online Update
Our next subject area – Decision Making – Facts and Intuition begins Monday. For registration, visit www.workingleadership.com

“I don’t see it,” Lindsey grimaced. “As a company, it is certainly not our intention to pit management against team members.”

“Yet, you feel a growing divide, and you are blaming the economy,” I replied.

“Well, yes, if it weren’t for the economy, I don’t think this would happen.”

“Let’s take a look at managerial accountability. Who do you hold accountable for the output of any of your teams? They have a goal, the goal is not reached. Who do you hold accountable?”

“You’re right. Just last week, our Memphis project team missed a deadline that cost us the opportunity to land a project. It wasn’t my team, but anyone could see from a couple of weeks before, that they weren’t going to meet the time constraints.”

“Who did you hold accountable for missing the deadline?” I asked.

“Well, it was the Memphis project team.”

“Wrong, it’s not the team we should hold accountable for the result.” -TF

From our Working Leadership Online program:

Question:
I need help with my field work. I met with my manager to discuss my goals. I can list several specific goals that are interrelated but my issue is that they are mostly on-going. It is difficult to nail down the Time Span.

For example, my biggest goal is to manage the backlog so that we maintain 100% Due Date Performance. This goal, like most of mine, will never be complete. My goals are measured daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually. However, they are dynamic and I am struggling to put them in QQTR (Quantity, Quality, Time, Resources) terms.

Response:
In many environments, your work may not be project oriented with specific due dates. In some cases, the Time Span connection has more to do with evaluation periods. In your case, you describe daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual Time Spans.

I am most interested in the longest Time Span goals, or those goals which are judged in longer Time Spans. I am certain you look at metrics on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to capture data so you can make adjustments. Those short term metrics measure production performance. And production performance is important.

But, for you, as a Manager, I am looking for those longer Time Span goals, not measuring Production units, but measuring your system that drives Production. I am looking for metrics about your system and the way it manages efficiency, throughput, scrap, waste, safety, slowdown and acceleration to meet order flow.

Let me take a stab in my imagination.

Prior to the end of each year (Time Span), the Due Date Performance of our backlog will be measured for the previous 12 month period. During that time, the average on-time delivery will deviate no more than 5% from the specified Due Dates.

As time goes by, that 5% goal might be reduced to 4%, then 3%, then 2%, then 1%, then 0%.

Or, if due dates are always consistent and more accurately described as lead times, your goal for a twelve month period might be to reduce the lead time delivery for every order from 40(?) days to 30(?) days. or even shorter.

In your position, as manager, I am not looking for production goals with one or two day Time Spans, but performance measured in longer Time Spans that would indicate production systems maintenance, or production systems improvement.

Let me know if this helps. By the way, thinking about goals, in this way, is different than you may have ever thought about. But, then, that’s the point. To think about your role in a new way. -TF