Category Archives: Accountability

What’s a Manager For?

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“Here is one thing we do know,” Peter chimed in. “We think everyone comes to work, at Outbound, every day, intending to do their best. We can watch a technician doing their best, yet, sometimes the output falls short. Maybe they couldn’t finish an installation on time, or they have four maintenance items to do and the second item turns into a bag of worms, so they only finish three during their shift. Sometimes, in spite of doing their best, the expected output just doesn’t get done. So, the technician gets called out and humiliated in front of the team, when the truth is, they were doing their best.”

“But, isn’t the technician accountable for all four items?” Jim asked.

“Of course,” Peter continued. “But, here’s the thing. Let’s say the technician couldn’t finish a project because the shop runs out of materials. Or a specialized piece of equipment isn’t available, or it takes two people and no one else is around to help. There is someone in charge of all those things, but it’s not the technician, it’s his manager. We are wondering, if the technician is accountable for doing his best, is it the manager who is accountable for the output of the technician? It’s the manager who controls all the variables around the technician – supplies, equipment, tools and other personnel. Should it be the manager who is accountable for the output of the technician?”

Excerpt from Outbound Air, Levels of Work in Organizational Structure, by Tom Foster, soon to be released in softcover and for Kindle.

Outbound Air

Cross Functional Working Relationship – Advisor

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Advisor

“And this advisor relationship?” Catherine asked.

Javier stopped, looked first at Catherine and then at Jim. “That’s easy,” he concluded. “Jim is your advisor. He doesn’t make task assignments. He doesn’t audit or monitor, but when asked, he gives you his best judgment, advice and counsel.”

Cross Functional Working Relationships

Excerpt from Outbound Air, Levels of Work in Organizational Structure, soon to be released in softcover and for Kindle.

Cross Functional Working Relationship – Collateral

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Collateral

“And, what is this collateral relationship?” Catherine asked.

Javier nodded. “It’s like a coordinating relationship, but typically between project team members. They are required to cooperate, support and help each other. Where they have a priority conflict, they have to decide how their manager would handle the priority. If they can’t figure it out, they have to ask their manager. In some cases, the manager has to step in, but if the team members can make the appropriate judgment, it speeds things along.”

Cross Functional Working Relationships

Excerpt from Outbound Air, Levels of Work in Organizational Structure, soon to be released in softcover and for Kindle.

Cross Functional Working Relationship – Coordinating

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Coordinating

“And what’s this between marketing and operations?” Catherine asked.

“The timing is tricky,” Javier explained. “We need to close a gate and shut down operations, but we also need to maintain confidence from our customer base. We need to communicate that we know what we are doing, and that we stand behind our commitments. At the end of the day, each ticket we issue is a contract for carriage, and we have to make that commitment good. Flight operations can decide what to do, but we have to coordinate with marketing to make sure we explain things accurately and timely to the public.” Javier stopped to make sure his explanation was understood.

“So, I got my flight operations manager and my marketing manager together to explain their accountability,” Javier nodded. “Funny, they both complained that they could not be accountable because they had to depend on the other manager to execute. I agreed that, yes, they had to depend on each other to effectively execute. If either called a coordinating meeting, the other person was required to attend and actively participate. Neither was each other’s manager, but, both required to be responsive to each other.”

Cross Functional Working Relationships

Excerpt from Outbound Air, Levels of Work in Organizational Structure, soon to be released in softcover and for Kindle.

Cross Functional Working Relationship – Monitor

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Monitor

“And for some cases, I don’t think we need a full blown auditor,” Javier explained, “but we may need someone to monitor the way we do something. The monitor and the auditor are looking for the same things, but the monitor does not have the authority to delay or stop the activity, only the accountability to report to someone who does have that authority. With this distinction, I can specifically assign the authority that is appropriate. Everyone understands, so no one gets bent out of shape.”

Cross Functional Working Relationships

Excerpt from Outbound Air, Levels of Work in Organizational Structure, soon to be released in softcover and for Kindle.

Authority of a Project Leader

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Prescribing (Cross Functional Working Relationship)

“And what will your relationship be with each person working on your project team?” Catherine asked.

“First, I am not the manager for the people on my project team,” Javier was clear. “But, I do have authority to directly make task assignments within the scope of the project and within the parameters I negotiated with their manager. If there is a priority conflict between my task assignments and their manager’s task assignments, the project team member just raises their hand. It’s up to me and their manager to work it out between the two of us. We understand the context of their regular assignments and the context of the project work. The team member does not have to be schizophrenic, or play favorites, they just have to raise their hand.”

“Okay, and what else?” Catherine asked.

Authority Inside a Project Team

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Service Getting (Giving)

“How did you explain it to the team?” Catherine asked.

“As I approached each department manager, I told them I was working on a project, Project X, where I needed specialized resources from other departments. I explained what I needed, how much I needed and asked for their recommendation.

“For the project accounting, I asked our CFO for a controller level person with ten hours a week to track the direct and indirect costs for the project. The CFO suggested this would be a subsidiary ledger inside our accounting system anyway, and she assigned someone to the project.

“That’s the way it went with the other five departments working on the project.” Javier stopped because he knew that Catherine would have a question.

How to Explain Levels of Work to Your Team

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
I finished your Time Span 101 program and now I understand levels of work. But, I hesitate to talk to my team about it. How do you explain Time Span to a team whose roles are at S-I level of work. I am afraid they won’t understand or will react negatively to their role at S-I.

Response:
You don’t have to introduce the concept of level of work to your S-I team. They already know it. Ask yourself a couple of questions.

  • Do your team members in roles at S-I understand they have a supervisor that gives them task assignments?
  • Do your team members in roles at S-I understand that their supervisor likely receives more in compensation?
  • Do your team members in roles at S-I believe the work they do is different from the work their supervisor does?
  • Do your team members in roles at S-I understand they have some decisions they can make and that their supervisor has the authority to make other decisions?

Your team members intuitively already understand levels of work. When I talk to teams in roles at S-I or S-II, we talk about goals and objectives, decisions to make and problems to solve. We talk about accountability. We talk about who makes the decision at what level of work. We talk about who solves the problem at what level of work. We talk about contribution and how roles fit together.

Your teams already understand levels of work. These are normal managerial conversations to have with your team. These are required conversations.

Is it a Full Time Managerial Relationship or Part Time Cross Functional?

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Thumbnail from last Tuesday’s post Which Manager is Accountable?

There are three roles in play.

  • Product Manager
  • Marketing Manager

and

  • Marketing Services

The question is, which, of the two managers listed, should be the manager of the Marketing Services role? There are four questions that must be answered before making this decision. So far, we’ve looked at three questions.

Today, the last question.

  • Is the work assigned to the Marketing Services role by the Product Manager full time or part time, and is the duration of that work forever, or in defined projects that start and stop?

If the work is only part time or the work is in defined projects that start and stop, then the relationship between the Product Manager and the Marketing Services role is a classic cross-functional (service getting) relationship.

If the work assigned by the Product Manager to the Marketing Services role is full time, then it might be more appropriate for the relationship to be a managerial relationship. The Marketing Manager would then likely be in a cross-functional (advisor) relationship to the Product Manager.

So, the question posed last Tuesday sounded simple, but there are a number of questions to consider when designing the managerial and cross-functional relationships in your company.

Which Manager is Accountable for the Output?

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Thumbnail from Tuesday’s post Which Manager is Accountable?

There are three roles in play.

  • Product Manager
  • Marketing Manager

and

  • Marketing Services

The question is, which, of the two managers listed, should be the manager of the Marketing Services role? There are four questions that must be answered before making this decision. So far, we’ve looked at two questions.

Today, the next question.

  • Which manager is accountable for the output (quantity, quality, within timeframe, using allocated resources) of the Marketing Services role?

Make no mistake, in the relationship between the Product Manager and the Marketing Services role, the Product Manager will, appropriately, be making task assignments to the Marketing Services role. But the question is, which manager is accountable for the output?
When the Product Manager appropriately makes task assignments to the Marketing Services role, we have to examine the four pieces of the task assignment – QQTR

  • What is the quantity of the output?
  • What is the quality standard of the output?
  • What is the time span (deadline, evaluation period) of the output?
  • What are the allocated resources related to the output?

The specific answers to these questions will help us determine whether the relationship between the Product Manager and the Marketing Services role will be a managerial relationship or a cross-functional relationship.

Here is the critical question? If there is underperformance on the part of the Marketing Services role, does the Product Manager correct and coach, or does the Product Manager ask the Marketing Manager for a different Marketing Services person?

If the Product Manager is expected to coach, then the relationship is more like a managerial relationship. If the Product Manager asks the Marketing Manager to send someone different, then the relationship is more like a cross-functional (service getting) relationship.

Monday, we will look at the last question.

  • Is the work assigned to the Marketing Services role by the Product Manager full time or part time, and is the duration of that work forever, or in defined projects that start and stop?