Thanks to Larry Stamper for his response to yesterday’s post about Melanie’s dilemma.
__

“Who is responsible for the team?” I asked again. “Who is responsible for the performance of the team, and all the things that affect performance?”

Melanie started looking around her office, as if someone was going to appear.

I continued. “If it’s not you, as the department manager, if it’s not you, then who?”

Melanie’s eyes stopped skirting the room. There was no hero that appeared. One last time, she floated her excuse, “But how am I responsible for one of my supervisors quitting?”

“That’s a very good question. How are you, as the manager, responsible for one of your supervisors quitting?”

“What, am I supposed to be clairvoyant?” Melanie snapped.

“That would be helpful,” I nodded. “But let’s say you don’t have supernatural powers. How could you, as the manager, know enough about your supervisors, to have predicted this departure?” -TF

Ring in the new year. Our next Leadership class in Fort Lauderdale begins January 9, 2008. Registration is open at www.workingleadership.com.
__

“I feel let down,” Melanie lamented. “I don’t know how I am going to explain this to the CEO. He has a short temper for this kind of thing. The worst part is, I’m just the messenger, but likely to get the brunt of it.”

Kyle, one of Melanie’s direct reports had just quit, leaving the rest of her team with more work and a tight deadline.

“Why do you feel you are just the messenger?” I asked.

Melanie moved her head back, almost startled. “I am not sure what you mean,” she said. “I’m not the one who quit. I am just the one who has to report it upstairs.”

“You’re Kyle’s manager?” I confirmed.

“Well, yes, but Kyle is the one who quit.”

“I understand Kyle is the one who quit and I am also curious to know who is responsible for the team that is now missing a member with a backlog that is going to crunch an important deadline?”

“But, Kyle is the one who quit,” Melanie protested. “You can’t hold me accountable for the pickle we’re in. I know I am the manager, but what am I supposed to do?”

“What do you mean, I avoid making judgments about team members who report to me?” asked Derrick. “We have a very sophisticated performance appraisal system. It is based on something called Management by Objectives. And we have bonus compensation tied to it. The employee always knows where they stand based on the measurements.”

“What is it that you measure?” I replied.

“Well, it’s based on a number of things, for example, if they are able to meet production quota each month, that counts.”

“And what are the variables that influence production to quota?”

“It’s pretty cut and dried, they either make it or they don’t.”

I stopped for a moment to let Derrick catch his breath. “So, you are telling me, that your raw materials always meet spec and go right onto the line?”

Derrick turned his head slightly, looked at the floor, then back at me. “Well, no, sometimes we have to reject some of the material and that slows things down.”

“And what about the production machine, the one you were going to replace last year, but didn’t. You know, the bottleneck in your system, where all the materials stack up in front, waiting to go through?”

Derrick laughed, “You’re right on that one. That machine comes down about twice a week. We really should have replaced it. Maybe next summer. That’s why it’s important that everyone works extra hard to make sure they get their bonus.”

“So, let me understand this,” I responded. “Two system variables, raw material spec and machine down-time can have dramatic impact on production to quota, and you think you are managing employee performance based on that number?” -TF

“Oh, man, they did it again!” exclaimed Ralph, covering his face.

“And how did you help them screw up?” I asked.

Ralph peeked between his fingers. “What do you mean? I didn’t have any part in this.”

“I know, I know,” I agreed. “But if you did contribute to the problem, what was it?”

Ralph started to chuckle, hands now propped on his hips. “Well, if I did have a hand in this, it was picking this group of knuckleheads in the first place. And I probably didn’t explain what needed to happen very well.”

“Indeed. As a manager, before we jump to blame the team, it is always important to ask the question.

“How did I contribute to the problem?

“The Manager is usually at the core of what went wrong.” -TF

“When you talked to Taylor, what did you tell him?” I asked. Dana had just completed her first accountability conversation. It had not gone so well.

“I told him that I really liked the work that he was doing, but that he needed to come to work on time. And that I really appreciated the effort he was making,” Dana replied.

“I can see why he thought he might be in line for a raise. Dana, the first part of his behavior that you want him to change is coming to work on time. What impact does it have on the rest of the team when he shows up late?”

Dana stuttered for a second, then organized her thoughts. “Well, no one else can get started on their work, until Taylor is there. It’s not just him. In the fifteen minutes that he is late, he costs the team about 90 minutes of production.”

“And what are the consequences to Taylor if he doesn’t start coming to work on time?”

Again, Dana had some trouble. She had not thought this through to the next step. “Well, I guess he could get fired,” she finally realized.

“You guess? Dana, you are the manager. What are the consequences?”

“You’re right,” she concluded. “If I have to speak to him twice about coming in late, I have to write him up. Three written warnings are grounds for termination. So, yes, he could lose his job.”

“And, when do you want this behavior corrected?”

“Well, tomorrow would be nice.”

“Dana, if you want this behavior changed by tomorrow, you need to call Taylor back in here and have another go at this accountability conversation. What two things do you need to cover?”

“I need to talk about the impact he is having and the consequences.”

Dana was almost trembling when I showed up. The color was gone from her face. “Water,” she said, “I need some water.”

There was a chilled bottle on the corner of her desk, still full. I slid it over to her, waiting for her to continue.

“I don’t think I did that right,” she finally spoke.

“Step me through it,” I asked.

“I had to talk to Taylor. He has been coming late, dawdling on the work he is supposed to get done, and he is being really snippy with everybody around him, like he has a chip on his shoulder.”

“So, what happened?”

Dana shook her head from side to side. “Well, I tried to be positive first, then the negative part, then finish it off with another positive. But I don’t think I got my point across. He thinks he is going to get a raise.”

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

We had a deliverable and the engineers on the project came in 3 days late. We want to acknowledge their success and we also want to understand why they didn’t deliver on time. Extra hours were not put in near the end of the project to meet the delivery date. We struggle with acknowledging success when they are simply just doing what they were hired to do.

Response:

It really doesn’t matter what you, as the manager, think. The only thing that matters is what your engineers think. Based on your description, time sensitivity, or sense of urgency was not top of mind.

Project effectiveness, in this case is mixed. While the technical side may have been solidly constructed, the client may have lost several thousand dollars per day because of the delay. Many construction contracts contain liquidated damages for failure to meet deadlines. Most construction litigation is based around damages due to delay-claims.

So, time is important, in many cases, critical.

At the conclusion of every major project, I always insist on a post postmortem meeting to review the following questions:

• What did we expect?
• What did we do well?
• What went wrong?
• What can we do next time to prevent this from going wrong?

These questions would allow your engineers to pat themselves on the back for things done well and give them the opportunity to address real issues of underperformance.

On an extended project, I use these same questions at interim checkpoints.

• What do we expect?
• What are we doing well?
• What is going wrong, what is beginning to slip?
• What corrective action do we need to take, now, to get back on course?

Expecting engineers to call their own meeting to ask these questions will never happen. That is your responsibility, as the manager. Remember, what you think doesn’t matter. What matters is what your engineers think. -TF