Category Archives: Accountability

On the Hook or Off the Hook?

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Phyllis was not stunned, but the approach with Ben surprised her.

“You want me to ask his advice on how to deal with the mess that he created?” she asked, wanting to make sure she heard correctly.

“Absolutely,” I replied. “You know you will be very involved in the cleanup, but Ben needs to know this is his responsibility. Most managers would immediately jump in and take over the cycle counts themselves until everything was straight.”

“That’s exactly what I was about to do,” said Phyllis.

“And if you take over the cycle counts, what message does that send to Ben?”

Phyllis had to think for a moment, but she was smart. The consequences slowly washed over her face. “If I jump in, the message to Ben is that I will straighten out any problem he has. If I jump in, it lets him off the hook for these cycle counts.”

Phyllis was quiet for another moment.

“Okay,” she said. “Now, I am ready to talk to him.”

Ask Ben

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I could tell Phyllis was tense. The color in her face was grim, her posture perfect.

“Hey, Phyllis, what’s up?” I asked. She took a deep breath. I sat down across the table from her. She stared straight ahead.

“I have to talk to Ben. I know what I need to communicate, but I don’t know what to say. I just found all the inventory reports for the cycle counts in a desk drawer in his cubicle. They’re all blank. It looks like we haven’t had a count for two months. Ben has been telling us that everything was fine and in line with our book inventory.

“Our controller called me in this morning. Something is off on our cost of raw materials and a couple of spot checks showed the inventory isn’t even close. It’s a mess.” Phyllis slumped a little now that she had explained it to me.

“It sounds to me like you know what to say.” I replied.

“Yes, but Ben has a tendency to go off on people. He gets defensive really easy. I am going to need his help, not his anger to get to the bottom of this. The first couple of sentences will be the most difficult and I don’t want to set him off.”

“So, why don’t you ask Ben?”

“What?” Phyllis looked almost startled.

“Sure, ask Ben. Call him into your office. It sounds like this.

Ben, I just found out we have a problem with our cycle counts on our inventory. This is your responsibility, so I thought it would be best if you would tell me how we might go about figuring out what happened.

“Now, Phyllis, you and I both know things will come unraveled at that point, but the responsibility will be in his court to help fix it.” -TF

Time Span and Responsibility

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

My boss feels I am very good at my work, but that I don’t take responsibility. I tried to ask him what he means by that. He said that I have to be told every time what I must do. So, I tried to do things on my own initiative, but then he questions me “who told you to do this?” Most of the time when I ask about something I think I should do, he says “no” and asks me to do something else. How do I impress my boss that I am a person who takes responsibility or is at least willing to take responsibility?

Response:

Your attitude and willingness are in the right place, so let’s make one small change. I want you to ask your boss to meet with you to plan out your work for an entire day. I want you to create a checklist on paper and then work the checklist. The problem is not responsibility. You appear to be a responsible person.

The problem is time span. You appear to work on a single task at a time and then return to your boss for more direction. I want you to lengthen the time span by creating a checklist with a sequence of tasks for the entire day.

At the end of the day, you will be able to show him the checklist and what items you have completed. That will be evidence that you are, indeed, a responsible person.

The key is time span.

Over Promising

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“It was strange and yet so simple,” said Karyn. We were debriefing a conversation she had, to patch up a shouting match the previous Saturday.

“I just asked her questions,” she continued. “At first, all I got was silence, but it finally came down to this. The reason she was leaving early on Saturday was that her babysitter couldn’t watch her kid all the way to 5:00 o’clock. When she was told to come to work on Saturday, she was afraid to tell the weekday supervisor, and she just hoped no one noticed. Rather than say, no, she planned to just sneak out early.

“So, how did you solve her problem?” I baited.

“You know, I know better than that. I can’t solve her problem. I just asked her questions.

“I asked how many days in advance she needed to know when she had to work a Saturday. She said one week.

“I asked her how she was going to communicate that to her weekday supervisor. She said she would work up the courage and tell her. (I did offer to set up a meeting with her supervisor so she couldn’t back out.)

“I asked her what would happen if her supervisor asked her to work Saturday with less than one week’s notice. She said she would have to muster up the courage to say -no- unless she could make arrangements.

“You know, it’s funny. She suffers from the same thing I do. She over promises. Then gets in trouble when she can’t deliver. We both promised each other that we stop over promising.”

“Sounds like quite an agreement. Keep me updated on how this works out.” -TF

Shut Up and Listen

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Karyn was in the conference room when I arrived. We only had ten minutes so, right to the point.

“What have you decided that you would say?” I asked. Last Saturday, there was a shouting match that ended poorly. Karyn did not want a repeat performance. At the same time, she wanted the team member to live up to her schedule and complete the work assigned. I had suggested that Karyn prepare a conversation that was both sensitive and straight.

“First, the conversation will be early in the shift. I will ask to see her in the conference room, because it is both private and neutral. I am going to start with a twenty second speech and then I plan to listen and ask questions.” Karyn stopped.

“So, what does it sound like?” I prompted.

“First I will apologize.

I am sorry the conversation got out of hand last Saturday. We are both adults and I know better. When I got angry, I should have just called a time-out so we could talk with clearer heads.

It’s obvious to me that something is going on outside of work that is very important to you. It is important enough for you to break the schedule even if your work is not completed. If we could talk about this priority, perhaps we could arrive at some solution. I might be able to help if you could talk me through it.

“Then, I plan to shut up and listen,” Karyn explained.

“So, after you listen, are you going to solve her problem?” I was curious.

“Absolutely not, if there is one thing I have learned, is that I can listen, but she will have to solve her own problem. In fact, she will have to do the hard work of thinking it through. All I can do is give her a platform to solve the problem rather than fight it.”

“Good. I will be most anxious to hear of your progress. Keep me updated.” -TF

Sensitive and Straight

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“I didn’t mean to raise my voice, but I guess things just escalated.” Karyn was describing this latest blowup with one of her team members. “I am only her supervisor on the weekend, so I feel a little helpless. Her weekday supervisor lets her get away with leaving early. I talked to Rick about it. He just doesn’t want to confront her.”

“And when you stopped her from leaving early, the conversation turned grisly and she left anyway?”

Karyn nodded her head slowly. “And next Saturday, I don’t know what to do or say. I can’t just pretend nothing happened?”

“Oh, you could. Hope is a strategy. You could hope she doesn’t blow up again. You could hope she doesn’t leave early again. You could hope she gets all of her work done. But if hope doesn’t work, what are you going to say and when are you going to say it?”

Karyn scrunched her face, “I don’t want to wait until she tries to walk out the door again. Then it will be Groundhog Day all over again.”

“So, when would be a better time to talk to her?”

“I think early in the day, perhaps at the very beginning.”

“Good, then there won’t be the drama of her trying to leave at that moment. Now, what are you going to say?” Karyn struggled with this question. No response.

“Karyn, I want you think about this. You cannot stumble into this conversation. You have to be prepared. Think about this and we will talk again. Think along these lines. I want you to be both sensitive and straight. What will you say?” -TF

Saving Face and Time-Out

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Thank you all for your helpful comments on the post from Monday. If you receive the email version of Management Skills Blog, you can follow this link to the website to read all of the posts.

From Monday’s post:

I’m new to the middle management game. I supervise on the weekend. I’ve got a great team with one exception. She leaves early, complains when she has to work late, and runs to upper management every time she feels slighted. I’ve listened when she cries. I’ve tried being the tough supervisor. Nothing seems to work. Today (Saturday) she left early without completing her regularly scheduled work. The conversation deteriorated into a shouting match and she left.

Response:

Shouting matches create a tough spot. Once the volume escalates, there is more at stake than the original problem. There are now face-saving issues on the table. How can you back down as the supervisor? How can she back down as the victim of her tyrant (weekend) supervisor?

There is no easy path back to high performance for either of you. Whenever conversations become angry, you can be guaranteed to solution is near. Immediately call a time-out.
Negotiators use it, heck even basketball coaches use it. Time-out disturbs the flow, so especially if that flow is headed downhill, interrupt it.

Janice, I’m sorry. This conversation is getting heated and if we continue on this track, I am afraid we might get derailed. I want to stop and take a break. When we come back, I know I will have calmed down and I will be able to listen better. I am going to go down the hall, buy a soda from the vending machine and I will meet you back here in five minutes.

Time-out can be very helpful for regrouping, re-thinking, calming nerves, gaining perspective.
Tomorrow, let’s look at two more areas surrounding this person. -TF

A Shouting Match

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

I’m new to the middle management game. I supervise on the weekend. I’ve got a great team with one exception, a young woman whose attitude will surely get in the way of her career. But, she doesn’t seem to care. She leaves early, complains when she has to work late, and runs to upper management every time she feels slighted. I’ve tried reducing her workload to get her out of the office on time. I’ve listened when she cries. I’ve tried being the tough supervisor. Nothing seems to work. Today (Saturday) she was called in early, but then left early without completing her regularly scheduled work. She said if I had a problem with it I should call upper management. The conversation deteriorated into a shouting match and she left.

I don’t want to run to management with this. I want to solve it myself. I just don’t know how. Any advice?

Response:

You are in a tough place. As the weekend supervisor, you have no authority to hire and fire and she is under the wing of a protective manager who doesn’t have to put up with her negative behavior on the floor. I have a few specific recommendations, but I would like to throw this out for general discussion.

Here is the discussion question. As a weekend supervisor, with only limited contact, how would you change this dynamic? Let me stipulate two rules. You cannot fire her and you cannot send her to a Dale Carnegie course. Please post a comment. -TF

Shift the Responsibility

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Erwin wasn’t leaving until I told him. We had been talking about managers and accountability. We had talked about fear and the manager avoiding the accountability conversation. “We have to overcome this fear,” I said. “If we don’t overcome this fear, the manager will stay put, frozen, and nothing will change. The team member will continue to underperform and the manager will remain miserable.

“Look, Erwin, most managers don’t understand the purpose for this accountability conversation. Most managers believe they have to perform some psychological magic on the team member, put them in a trance and return them to work as a perfect performer. By the way, that never happens.

“While the manager has the authority to put the team member into a trance (by virtue of being the boss) they have no power to do so. The manager has no magic. The only person who can make the change is the team member.

“You asked how my accountability model works. That’s how it works. It transfers the responsibility for change from the manager to the team member. As soon as the manager understands there is no magic and understands the weight of this conversation is on the shoulders of the team member, the fear begins to go away.” -TF

It’s Something Invisible

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“This accountability model is more than just a way for the manager to talk about performance.” I was talking with Erwin about managers and accountability. I was talking about step two in this four part model.

  • Making the connection.
  • Creating the model.
  • Practicing the model.
  • Coaching the model.

“On the face of it, the model is just a sequence of steps, but it has to accomplish something invisible.” I stopped. Erwin furrowed his brow.

“Look, Erwin. Why don’t managers hold their team members accountable? It’s not because they don’t know how. It’s for a whole bunch of other reasons. Mostly, it’s fear; fear of confrontation; fear that the team member will quit; fear that the team member will respond negatively; fear that the team member may stir up trouble. The fear is invisible.

“But, the model has to face this fear. The model has to be stronger than the fear. If it’s not, at the first sign of stress, the manager will retreat into avoiding the accountability conversation.”

“And your model does that?” asked Erwin.

“Yes, it does. Do you want to know how?” Erwin grinned, his eyes grew wide and he leaned forward in his chair. -TF

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There are six spaces left in our management program that begins next Monday, July 24 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. For more information, please follow the link to www.workingmanagement.com.

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Tour de France Update

Even with a day of rest, the Alps took their toll. The finish staging area looked more like triage than jubilance. Floyd Landis (USA-PHO) regained the yellow jersey, but at what price. His consolation is that his muscle exhaustion is no different than the others.

This is the start of week three. At this point, the riders split. Some break down, the kilometers ravage the body that wants to quit. Others get stronger. The rigor hardens the muscles and disciplines the body to tap its reserves.

Today saw a breakaway of 25 riders early on. As they assaulted the steep climbs, the escapees were picked apart, one by one with Landis in control. He held back from the stage win, focused on gaining time against Denis Menchov (RUS-RAB), Andreas Kloden (GER-TMO) and Cadel Evans (AUS-DVL). It is likely to be one of those four in yellow on Sunday. The picture becomes clearer.

But there are two more days in the Alps. Everyone is tired. Some will be strong. Some will break.

Overall Standings after Stage 15

1-LANDIS, Floyd -USA-PHO -69hrs 5sec

2-PEREIRO SIO, Oscar -ESP-CEI –+10sec

3-DESSEL, Cyril -FRA-A2R –+2min 2sec

4-MENCHOV, Denis -RUS-RAB –+2min 12sec

5-SASTRE, Carlos -ESP-CSC –+2min 17sec

6-KLÖDEN, Andréas -GER-TMO –+2min 29sec

7-EVANS, Cadel -AUS-DVL –+2min 59sec

8-ROGERS, Michael -AUS-TMO –+5min 1sec

9-LEIPHEIMER, Levi -USA-GST –+6min 18sec

10-ZUBELDIA, Haimar -ESP-EUS –+6min 20sec

11-MOREAU, Christophe -FRA-A2R –+6min 22sec

12-SCHLECK, Frank -LUX-CSC –+7min 7sec

13-POPOVYCH, Yaroslav -UKR-DSC –+7min 36sec

14-MERCADO, Juan Miguel -ESP-AGR –+7min 39sec

15-FOTHEN, Marcus -GER-GST –+8min 23sec

16-BOOGERD, Michael -NED-RAB –+9min 15sec

17-CHAVANEL, Sylvain -FRA-COF –+9min 56sec

18-MERCKX, Axel -BEL-PHO –+10min 25sec

19-PARRA, Ivan Ramiro -COL-COF –+10min 43sec

20-TOTSCHNIG, Georg -AUT-GST –+10min 53sec