Category Archives: Accountability

Can a Non-Engineer Manage an Engineer?

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
We are having a discussion about one of our engineers and who he should report to?  The engineering manager says that all engineers should report to him, that a non-engineer doesn’t know how to manage an engineer.  Our plant manager says he needs the engineer on his team full time without going through the engineering manager to get things done.

Response:
First, let’s shift the question to get to the answer.  Every employee reports to lots of people.  Team members work on a project, contribute to a report, complete a routine task and then, work on another project.  In all of these activities, they report to many different people.  That’s normal.

But each employee can only have one manager.

The first question for every new hire into the company is, “who should this person report to?”  Wrong question.  This new employee will report to lots of people.  But each employee can only have one manager.

The central question is, “which manager will be accountable for this team member’s output?”  By definition, a manager is that person in the organization accountable for the output of other people.  Which manager will be accountable for this team member’s output?

Back to the engineer.  Which manager should be accountable for this engineer’s output?  Let’s ask some questions about the plant manager.

  • In the plant,does the plant manager know what tasks need to be completed, which will require engineering technical knowledge and skill?
  • For those tasks, does the plant manager know the reasonable amount of time it should take to complete those tasks?
  • In the plant, is the plant manager accountable for those delegated tasks being complete within the time frame?
  • Does the plant manager have enough engineering work to require a full time engineering role on his team?

If the answer is yes, then the plant manager should be held accountable for the output of this engineering resource.  And yes, non-engineers can be held accountable for the output of engineers.

Why Do People Bring Their Personal Lives to Work?

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“Why do people bring their personal lives to work?” Denise complained.  “I’m losing productivity.  Eight people on my team, one is out with a sick child, and one was late because his car broke down.  As the manager, I am held accountable for today’s lack of productivity, but it’s not my fault.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes, and you are partly to blame.  You say the manager is accountable for the output of the team.  You assume that each person on my team is doing their best and, as the manager, I am accountable.  Well, I feel like my feet are being held to the fire for the lack of productivity, but it’s not my fault that somebody’s kid got sick.”

“I agree.  It’s not your fault that somebody’s kid got sick.  You are not held accountable because someone was late.  You are, however, held accountable for today’s production.  You are the manager, THINK.”

“I think I am being blamed for something that is not my fault,” Denise pushed back.

“Looking at the production schedule, there are ten orders that have to be completed and pushed out the door.  You are the manager.  What are you going to do about that?” I insisted.

Denise took a big breath.  She wanted sympathy, but was getting no warm and fuzzies.  Finally she spoke.  “There are two people on another crew that I could probably borrow for two hours.  They are cross-trained.  That will catch us up most of the way.  But there is one order that won’t make it today.  I know the customer and I know the project.  I can call and see if we can delay delivery for one day.”

“You are the manager.  Do you have the authority to make those decisions?”

“Yes.  I do,” Denise clarified.

“So stop feeling sorry for yourself.  You are not accountable for someone getting sick, but you are accountable for today’s production.”

The Problem with Matrix Management

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
Our company has a Matrix management structure within a functional structure.  Each department is struggling with execution and achieving target results partially due to resource alignment challenges associated with the functional and matrix organization structure. 

Response:
Matrix structures were created, with the best of intention, to resolve priority conflicts.  A team member who is temporarily assigned or part time assigned to a project team has a new built-in conflict.  “Who is my manager?”

Do I take direction from my manager or my project leader?  And when there is conflict between those directions, who wins?

And that is how matrix management was born.  Unfortunately, the end result simply codifies the existence of the team member’s (now) two managers without identifying who the real manager is.  Further, it does little to bring clarity to the project leader’s authority when there are conflicts.  The team member is simply stuck.

Again, the intention to invent Matrix was pure, to identify managerial authority and project leader authority related to the same team member.  Mixed results emerged.  Luckily, projects have limited duration and so the undecided conflicts eventually go away.  Some declared that Matrix was effective and then made the fatal mistake.  The fatal mistake was thinking that Matrix should then be applied to the entire enterprise.

Matrix operates under the false assumption that a team member can have two (or more) managers.  Matrix does little to identify the managerial authorities or the limited cross functional authorities required by a project leader.

This perspective was clearly identified by Elliott Jaques in his research on time-span. The prescription is to dismantle Matrix, establish clear accountability in your managerial relationships and structure cross-functional working relationships for the following roles –

  • Project leader
  • Auditor
  • Monitor
  • Coordinating relationship
  • Service getting relationship
  • Collateral relationship
  • Advisory relationship

These cross functional working relationships accurately identify the limited accountability and limited authority required to successfully move work horizontally through the organization.

If you would like a pdf about cross-functional working relationships, titled “Get Rid of Your Dotted Lines,” just Ask Tom.

 

Changing Others, Changing Ourselves

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Emily nodded. “I think I am ready.” We were talking about her dissatisfaction with the way things were going for her as a manager. Not that they were going badly.

“Sometimes, I think I have to force things,” she said. “And forcing things doesn’t last long. I want to know how I can get people to perform, to perform at a higher level.”

“You want to know how you can cause people to change?”

“Yes, that’s it. Exactly. How can I get people to perform better, to stay focused, to pay attention, heck, just to show up on time would be nice.”

“So, Emily, when you look at yourself, how easy is it for you to make changes about your own life, your own work?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she replied. “Things are pretty well with me. For the most part, things are under control.”

“Interesting,” I said. “We think we have the ability to cause change in other people when we have great difficulty seeing the need for change within ourselves.”

Hanging Out the Target

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“So, if morale suddenly improved as the speed of the line improved, what do you think changed? What changed inside their heads?” I asked. Emily and I were talking about her production line’s sudden improvement in both speed and attitude. She mulled the question over.

“Remember, before, we were talking about competence and incompetence,” she was thinking out loud. “I didn’t believe you when you said the problem was incompetence. But now, I see such an improvement, I think you were right.”

“So, what changed inside their heads?” I asked again.

“Before, they didn’t know the daily target number. That single number became a tool for them to get better. They became more competent.”

“They are on their way to mastery,” I said. That word mastery hung out there like a full moon. Inescapable.

“I never thought of it that way.”

“Put the two together.”

“Competence and mastery,” she said.

“Why do people perform at a high level?” I asked.

“Because they can,” she replied. “Give them the tools to become competent and you will see progress.” Emily smiled. It was beginning to sink in.

“At least, that is half the story,” I announced.

“There’s more?” Emily asked.

Wishing for More Productivity

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“They just don’t get it,” protested Kyle. “Why are they so stupid?”

“Why are they so stupid? Or why are you so stupid for expecting them to understand?” I asked.

Kyle did not expect my response and I could see him stiffen in the chair. He didn’t know how to react to the challenge, so he countered with a question.

“What do you mean?” he said, stalling for time. I was quiet. The seconds ticked by. Kyle finally broke the silence. “Okay, they are not stupid. I just wish they could be more productive, and solve problems better, work smarter.”

“You have exactly the kind of team you have designed,” I said. Kyle’s face lightened a bit.

“You know, you are probably right,” he replied. “So, how do I make it better? How can I improve the design?”

I waited. “It’s not a matter of improving the design. It’s a matter of improving the designer.”

The Meaning of Micro-Management

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“Move over, let me take the console. Why don’t you just watch me?” Charlie insisted.

This was the ultimate in micro-managing.

Charlie, the supervisor, observing a mistake, simply took the project back under wing and proceeded to do the work himself.

Of course, for the past twelve minutes, Charlie had berated the team member for not being fast enough, taking things out of sequence and ultimately falling back to the old way of doing things.

As a supervisor, Charlie had been working to get his team of telephone operators to record data in real time on the computer, rather than using paper in a two-step delayed process. In fact, Charlie got the job as supervisor of this team because he had used this real-time process at another company. He was the best telephone operator on their crew. When he came here, he picked out the software, but had been unsuccessful in getting the operators to use it. Eight months later, they were still writing paper tickets and entering the data later, if they remembered.

Charlie’s behavior, as a supervisor, demonstrated the subtle difference in dealing with mistakes by a micro-manager and a coach. As a micro-manager, Charlie focused on the task and the method (mistakes). The more he focused on the task and the mistakes, the more he drove the operators back to the paper system they were comfortable with.

I let Charlie be a telephone operator for another eight minutes (he was really very good) before I pulled him aside. Do I praise him for being a great telephone operator or admonish him for micro-management?

How to Look at the Size of the Role

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“So, as you see me struggle with my new role as a manager, what do you see as my biggest challenge?” asked Joel.

“The biggest mistake most companies make is underestimating the level of work required for success in a role. The biggest mistake most managers make is underestimating the level of work required in a task,” I replied.

“And level of work can be measured by looking at the Time Span of the task?”

“And don’t be fooled.  For a manager, the task starts earlier and the completion time is much later than for a supervisor.  A supervisor makes sure the production gets done.  A manager creates the system in which production is done.  It’s a much bigger job, a higher level of work.”

How to Detail a Task to Discover its Time Span

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I could see that Joel was stressed. This was a big job. Joel had been a successful supervisor, but this assignment as a new manager was different for him.

“It was all about improvisation,” he proclaimed. “Life was exciting. Things were always moving.

“But you asked me to make a list of the most important tasks in my new role, as a manager. I started with my role description. The insight came when I tried to peg the time span associated with each task.

“Here is one,” he continued. “The role description says that I am responsible for making sure we have enough direct labor to meet the production needs for all the cycles during the year.

“At first, I thought it just meant that I should post job vacancies and do some interviews. But when you asked me to attach time span to the task, my head started to spin.

“It was only then, that I realized I needed to research our historical workloads during the three cycles of our year. I had to take a look at our maximum production capacity along with the marketing and sales forecast. I spent the time to lay out all this data for the whole year. I used a line graph to help me visualize it. Then I had to figure out what resources we needed to produce the numbers related to the forecast. The forecast is helpful, but it is often wrong by as much as ten percent.

“All in all, when I looked at my new job, I really have to be planning out 12 months or more, in advance. This is a lot bigger than I thought.”

I smiled at Joel. He was new to the job, but he was beginning to understand the time span related to this new level of work, the time span necessary to be successful as a manager.

How to Calibrate the Time Span of a Task

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Joel laid the list on the table. “It’s weird,” he started, “there were some obvious things, but there were some other things that were more interesting.”

I had asked Joel to make a list of tasks that he had performed as a supervisor and to identify the time span of each task.

“For example,” he continued, “I ran a rolling production schedule out for six weeks. So at any one time, I was working six weeks into the future. But there were some other tasks that were longer than I thought.

“I was in charge of raw materials. We would get in shipments of plastic parts that had to be inspected. There was a time when a whole boatload of parts was defective. In the short term, I had to really move around the production schedule to keep things moving. But in the long term, I had to work with the vendor on getting replacement parts. I had to figure out what we needed to keep in production, then to build back our raw goods inventory.

“Finally, I had to spend time figuring out what the problem was with the parts, working with the vendor to solve the problem. Turns out, there was a bad batch of resin from another supplier. Because of the problem, the resin supplier actually went out of business and our vendor had to find a new source. I know it was his problem, but I had to work with him, trying out and finally certifying a new resin supplier so our parts would hold up. That whole process took five months and my manager expected me to handle it without a lot of direction from her.”

“So the time span for that project was about five months?” I asked.

“Yes, you could call it five months.  Most of the time it is easy, averages out to be fairly short in time frame.  But, when it’s hard, I have to look out further.  Even when it’s hard, it’s still part of my job.”

“So, now in your new job, as a manager, what are some of the tasks that you will be responsible for and what is the time span? Take a look at your job description and meet me back here tomorrow.”