Category Archives: Accountability

Time Span Appropriate

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Ruben was stumped. “You are right. Just because we give Edmund a new title, doesn’t mean he is going to change his ways.”

“Edmund will always be Edmund, and we have to redefine his role. It’s not a matter of giving him new rules not to do this or not to do that. You have already tried that in his role as supervisor. As Lead Technician, what will be his new goals? How will you re-direct him?”

“It sounds obvious,” Ruben replied. “It starts with his job description.”

I nodded affirmative. “This is critical fundamental stuff. It’s the stuff you ignore because it sounds so simple. It’s the stuff you ignore that gets you in trouble. Stuff like setting goals, performance standards and holding people accountable for performance.”

“I think I have a job description around here that might work,” Ruben hoped.

“Why don’t you start from scratch. As the manager, you have time span goals of approximately one year. Your annual plan has stuff in it that you are held accountable to deliver this year, and next year. If you had a supervisor, which Edmund isn’t, you would drive some of those goals down to that level, in time span appropriate chunks. For the time being, you are going to have to step into that role, review those supervisor outputs and determine the time span appropriate goals for your new Lead Technician.”

Ruben was quiet.

“Look, do you want to lose Edmund?” I asked.

“No way,” Ruben replied. “He’s a great technician.”

“Then you have some management work to do.”

Just Because He Has a New Title?

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“Our system creates predictability,” Ruben explained. “It creates predictability without stress. It allows us to do our maintenance at the best times, allows us to properly inspect our raw materials, test our setups accurately. Everything runs.”

“What are you going to do with Edmund?” I asked.

“He should never have been promoted to supervisor. He is a great technician, a great operator, our go-to guy. We don’t want to lose Edmund, but he cannot continue as supervisor.”

“What are you going to do with Edmund?” I repeated.

“I am going to assign him to a new role called Lead Technician. He won’t like it, but right now, he won’t quit. The job market is too thin.”

“How are you going to keep him from screwing things up, just because he has a new title?”

Not a Hero

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“So, in your mind, Edmund is not a hero?” I prodded.

Ruben shook his head. “No, and what’s maddening is that Edmund, as a supervisor, keeps describing his behavior as results oriented. It’s all about the results, he says. So, maybe he delivers, but there are body bags all over the place.”

“So, notwithstanding the results, how would you describe his effectiveness, as a supervisor? Thumbs up? Or thumbs down?”

Ruben laughed. “You know, that’s it. Effectiveness. If I can judge his effectiveness, it’s thumbs down. A supervisor is not effective when he ignores the metrics, skips steps in the process, then works overtime to save the day when the system breaks down.”

Proud of the Chaos

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“How do you involve Edmund in the decision making about solving the problem?” I asked.

“As soon as we have the project specs,” Ruben explained, “when we know the outputs and the deadlines, we call a meeting. Edmund is the supervisor, so once we get into production, he is the one to call the shots. So, he is there, at the meeting. He sees all the elements we see, he just cannot connect them together.”

“And?”

“We have developed a very thorough system that identifies the constraints and keeps them productive. The metrics are easy to follow and the system makes our throughput very predictable. But Edmund fights the system, ignores the system and almost weekly causes a production snafu that could have been prevented.”

“How does he explain the snafu?”

“Usually he manages to jump in and pull the project out of the fire, but not without some overtime and not without putting the project in jeopardy. It’s almost like he is proud of the chaos and being the hero.”

Resistant

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“He resists everything,” Ruben explained. “We cover the same solutions to the same problems. At the time, Edmund finally agrees, but I sense, he agrees only because he can’t argue the logic. He goes along with the solution, but two weeks later, the same problem pops up and we start all over again.”

“So, you have to step in and it takes up your time?” I asked.

“Worse than that. It’s almost underhanded. Behind the scenes, it’s like he wants the solution to fail. He doesn’t openly sabotage the new method, and I haven’t caught him bad-mouthing the process. Sometimes, it’s just the way he rolls his eyes in the meeting.”

Organized for Indecision

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
I was recently hired as a supervisor in a volunteer outreach center. There are many funding sources (board members) for the center, with one paid Executive Director.

When I was hired I thought I would be accountable to the Executive Director, but once I started, I learned that no one person controls any of the activities of the center. Most volunteers are “hired” by board members, and I am to supervise and give direction. However, there are no clear lines of authority, accountability or communication. Even though these people know I am their supervisor, they run to the person who “hired” them for their direction. While the board members mean well, they are not on the day to day scene. No one recognizes me as their supervisor and I don’t know how to create a team atmosphere when each volunteer runs to their board member for direction.

I have taken this to the director and he says these people are large contributors to the company and we can’t afford to offend them. I am not wanting to offend. I want to work as a team.

Response:
You are looking at your organization, as if it was a business. Elliott Jaques describes this business structure as a Management Accountability Hierarchy. The purpose of an MAH is to achieve goals. This involves conscious work, cooperation and accountability.

At the same time, there are many other types of organizations:
Academic organizations
Religious organizations
Charitable organzations

They are organized around different principles of authority and accountability for their own purposes.

Here’s the rub. Whenever an organization decides to actually “do” something, engage in work to achieve a goal, they often find they are not organized to do so. They flounder with indecision, unclear accountabilities and an absence of managerial leadership practices. The result is half-baked ideas, poor execution, waste of resources, money and time.

The most effective volunteer or charitable groups are those that run like a business, meaning with the structure of a Management Accountability Hierarchy. Changing to that structure requires a clear vision and mandate from the top, from your Executive Director. Without that, you will be subjected to the predictable floundering that you describe. -TF

Start Time to Due Date

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Comment from Kevin to yesterday’s post Mine to Keep.

Comment:
I am interested in how you made the connection between due date and time span. Just because a deliverable is required later in the process, does not necessarily mean that it has a longer time span or involves more strategic thinking.

For example, when building a machine or facility, the design (site layout, engineering drawings etc.) are needed first while the finishes (paint, tile etc) could be required last. Yet it may take years of coordinating stakeholders, engineers and architects to develop the design vs. a few months of focus groups etc for the finishes. In this scenario, I would rather handle the design and delegate the finishes.

Therefore, it would seem as though the “what by when” might be a bit simplified and that we should rather focus on “what and how long” in order to differentiate between the due date and the time span.

Response:
Thanks for the distinction. Time Span is measured from the starting time for the task and indicates the time during which discretionary decisions are made to achieve the goal. Your example of the construction project is correct. Due date, as the measurement for Time Span, only works when the start time for everything is NOW. You are correct in measuring the Time Span from when the tasks are actually assigned, though the due date may be late in the overall construction process.

Mine to Keep

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“When you sort your goals by length of Time Span, the “by when” part, what do you see?” I asked.

Colleen was actually re-sorting her list using arrows. “I am going to clean this up and put it in Outlook, but I can already see the short Time Span goals are those I can delegate. And some of the longer Time Span goals need to be split into some shorter Time Span goals, and I can delegate those as well.

“And some of the longest Time Span goals,” she continued, “well, those are mine to keep. Those will require a different kind of thinking. I cannot delegate that.”

Which Ones to Keep

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“Convert my notes into a list of what by whens? That’s easy enough, but how is that going to help?” Colleen challenged.

“When you list out your what by whens, you will have a simple list of goals. Embedded in those goals will be the magic to help you organize.”

“So, then I could sort the list out by the things that are most important?” Colleen asked.

“No,” I replied. “The magic is in the by when. The by when will tell you the Time Span of the goal. List them all, shortest Time Span to longest Time Span. And, what did you say was your next decision, as a Manager?”

“To decide which goals are mine and which I should delegate,” Colleen smiled.

“When you look at the Time Span of the goals, which are the ones most appropriate for you to keep and which are those most appropriate to delegate?”
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Just a quick note, a milestone. Management Skills Blog published its first post November 15, 2004. This week completes four years of publishing. And I feel like we are just getting started. Look for some big changes coming in January.

Transforming Your Notes

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“That’s the first place I am stumped,” Colleen admitted. “Some of the tasks I know I should be doing, and some of the tasks I need to delegate.”

“How are you going to make that decision?” I asked.

Colleen laughed. “I could keep all the stuff I like to do and give away the rest.” She stopped. “But, that probably won’t work.”

“When you look at the list of things to do, the tasks that have been assigned to you, how easy is it to pick out the goals embedded in the list?”

Colleen looked at her notes. “Not so easy. It made a lot more sense in the meeting.”

“You know you need to organize this list in some way. But you can’t do that until you transform your notes.”

Colleen looked puzzled.

“Look, the goals made sense in the meeting,” I continued, “but to create an effective list, you need to transform your notes into a list of what by whens.”