“Yes, but shouldn’t these people be reporting to me?” asked Ted.

“That depends. Functionally, their roles produce results you are interested in, but are you prepared to be their Manager?” I replied.

“I think so. I think they can report to me. I think I can hold them accountable for producing those results. I think I can check up on them to make sure they are working,” Ted proposed.

“That’s only the surface part of being a Manager.” I stopped to draw a picture. “Here you are, and these people, you believe, should report to you. But are you prepared to be their Manager?

“Your most important role, in the Manager relationship with your team, is for you to bring value to their problem solving and decision making.” Ted stared at the simple picture of circles and lines. “Are you bringing value by telling them that their reports are due on Friday and then reminding them Monday morning that their reports are late?”

Ted was still staring, but putting the pieces together. “Well, no, not when you put it that way.”

“Then, how, as their Manager, do you bring that value? And are you committed to bring that value? Are you willing to commit the time to bring that value?

“The answers to these questions will determine whether you should be the manager of this team.”

“What do you mean, bring value?” Joan asked. “Sounds easy to say, but I don’t know what you mean. How does a manager bring value to the problem solving and decision making of the team?”

“So, you and I are sitting here talking,” I nodded. “And in our conversation, am I telling you, directing you on how to be a manager?”

“Well, no,” she replied.

“And would you say that our conversations are valuable, valuable to you, in your role, as a manager?”

Joan followed the nod. “Yes,” she said slowly.

“I am not telling you what to do, yet, I am bringing value to the conversation?” I could see Joan making a leap in her mind to follow. “How am I doing that? If I am not telling you what to do, what kinds of sentences am I using?”

The music clicked. “Questions,” she responded. “You are not telling me what to do. You are asking questions. And your questions are bringing value to the decisions I have to make and the problems I have to solve.”

“She ignores me, like I am not even here,” Joan complained, “I know she has been here for twelve years and I have only been here for nine months, but, I am her boss.”

“What is the behavior you observe?” I asked.

“I call a meeting of my staff, she doesn’t show. I walk past her in the hallway and she doesn’t acknowledge me. She is focus forward. I have seen personality conflicts before, but this one takes the cake.”

“How do you think you will gain her respect?”

Joan shook her head. “I just want her to be nice. At this point, I have about given up on respect.”

I waited for the pity party to settle for a few seconds. “First, this is not a personality conflict. Second, I don’t care if she is nice to you, I just want her respect.”

“Yeah, right, how is that going to happen?”

“It is really very simple. All you have to do is bring value to her problem solving and decision making. Stimulate her thinking. Help her improve to the next level. You cannot gain respect by giving directives or demanding that she be a nice person. You can only gain respect by bringing value.”

The next Subject Area in our Working Leadership Online program begins August 2, 2010 – Coaching – Bringing Value as a Manager. As is our custom, we are opening 50 slots with a Free Introductory membership (one month). If you have an interest, please follow the link.

Free Introductory Membership

Miguel was stunned. At some point, he thought I was a nice guy, but now he was not so sure. Our production volume was coming back, and because of layoffs in his department, he was already working twelve hour days running a 10 hour staggered shift. We were about to expand to an 18 hour swing shift, adding more production people and expecting Miguel to run the whole thing. Welcome to management.

“But I am already working as hard as I can,” Miguel protested. “How can you possibly expect more?”

“I expect more, because you are capable of more,” I replied. Miguel’s face turned blank. He was tired of fighting. He was tired of fighting the twelve hour days, he was tired of fighting me, but mostly he was tired of fighting his own thinking.

“I can’t work this way any longer,” he resigned. “Something has to give. I am already in trouble with my wife. I hardly get to play with my kids. My golf clubs have rust on them.”

“And I want you to manage a longer work process with about double the headcount you have now. What are you going to change?”

Great comments coming in, as we continue our discussion. This is from Jim D’Wolf.

“To further muddy the waters, I have found that people who study the numbers and people who manage the people will not always share a common language or common goals.Both perspectives are equally important in managing an operation, but getting them on the same page is a challenge. It helps to define effecient as the use of resources in being effective and to define effective as the degree to which you meet or exceed the customer’s needs or requirements (George Eckes – Six Sigma).”

Jim’s comment stirs the continuing debate over the difference between managerial practices and leadership practices. In some sense, it is very simple. People do NOT want to be managed. People want direction and strategy. People want to be led. By the same token, you cannot lead a process. A process has to be managed. Manage processes, lead people.

In the end, it takes both, managerial leadership practices to make this engine run.

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
Outstanding blog! I have been associated with Results Based Performance and was not at all impressed. How would one know their true capacity? Additionally, how would you evaluate a manager’s effectiveness or performance?

Response:
If a team member was a goose and the intended result was a golden egg, we often focus on the number of golden eggs and ignore the goose.

In my manager workshops, I ask, “Who can walk onto the plant floor, or into the field and spot positive behavior?” Always a show of hands. “And how many can spot negative behavior?” Again, a show of hands. “And long does it take to tell the difference.” Managers are observers of behavior. Behavior that moves toward the goal and behavior that moves away from the goal.

So, how do we take that one or two layers up the food chain? How do we evaluate effectiveness on the part of the manager? What are positive managerial behaviors? What are negative managerial behaviors? How do we tell the difference?

Elliott Jaques described four managerial authorities that help us answer that question.

1. Team Member Selection
2. Team Member De-Selection
3. Task Assignments
4. Evaluation of Effectiveness

Our next Working Leadership Online focuses on Team Member Selection, the first of those four managerial authorities. We have ten scholarships available. If you would like to participate, please reply to Ask Tom.

• Oct 5 – Managerial Authorities – Time Span and Hiring Talent
• Oct 26 – Time Span and the Personal Effectiveness Appraisal
• Nov 23 – Break (Thanksgiving – USA)
• Nov 30 – Bringing Out the Best in People
• Dec 21 – Jan 10, 2010 – Winter Break

“I’m working as hard as I can,” Jerrold defended.

“I know you are working hard,” I matched. “Are you focused on the right things?”

Jerrold was tensing up. “Look, production has to get done and we seem to be short-handed, maybe we cut back a little too much. The only way I know how, is to pitch in and help out.”

“Every minute you spend in production is a minute you are not spending scheduling and adjusting,” I replied. “I am not saying you shouldn’t help out on the line, but that is not the work of supervision. You are burned out, not because you are working too hard. You are burned out because you are working hard and not making any progress.”

Jerrold was quiet. His breathing slowed. “I know what I need to do. I just need to do it.”

It seems noble to roll up your sleeves and pitch in to help out. It feels good. But if you continue to focus on production work at the expense of supervision work, you will fail. You will feel beat up and ineffective. As you are ineffective, you will get pummeled by customer demand, your boss and ultimately, your team will turn on you.

In the short term, you may get today’s quota out the door. In the long term, you begin the death spiral.

I want to step outside the stories for a couple of days and talk about a few things we are doing here. Management Skills Blog is in its fifth year with more than 1000 posts talking about issues faced by managers.

Over the years we have been working on an interactive platform that kicks off today. Those of you from my workshops know about the research of Elliott Jaques. His concepts of Requisite Organization will be the cornerstone of this new platform. Today, a group jumps in with both feet.

We start with Goals. Everything we do, as a person, is goal directed behavior. Our daily lives are filled with “what by whens.” Sometimes we are aware of our goals, sometimes our goals are so routine that we don’t even notice. Yet our days are full of goals.

Some goals are noble, some not so noble. Some goals are driven by needs, some driven by desire, some driven by avoidance.

And there are times, plenty of times, when we are most definitely aware of our goals. We think about them, share them with others, change them, write them down and achieve them. Everything we do starts with a goal.
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Working Leadership Online kicks off today. Register Now.
Feb 2 – Goal Setting and Time Span (2 weeks)
Feb 16 – Delegation (2 weeks)
Mar 2 – Planning (2 weeks)
Mar 16 – Decision Making (2 weeks)
Mar 30 – Control Systems and Feedback Loops (2 weeks)
We have 8 week subscriptions and annual subscriptions.

Today begins the Orientation for our Working Leadership Online program. Those who have registered will receive their program codes later today. Next Monday, we will begin our first subject area on Setting Goals and Time Span.

We will continue registration throughout this week, so if you have an interest, please follow this link.

Setting Goals seems so elementary, it would be easy to overlook. Perhaps that is why so few goals get written down. And it wasn’t until my understanding of Elliott Jaques research on Time Span that I began to see Setting Goals in a new light.

A goal is simply a What by When. For some reason, we always seem to focus on the What without understanding the importance of by When.

It is this lack of focus on by When that causes misunderstandings, missed priorities, project delays and overruns. This lack of focus causes procrastination and our inability to manage the complexity involved in longer Time Span tasks.

“Who decides the by When of a task?” asked Torrey.

“The Manager,” I replied.

“But what if my team tells me they cannot meet the deadline?”

“It is the responsibility of the team to tell you that. And the sooner they are able to tell you, the sooner you, as the Manager can make the adjustment.”

“You mean, move the deadline?”

“No. If the deadline is important (not arbitrary), then you, as the Manager, must make adjustments. And these are decisions that only you can make. You might bring in more manpower, allocate more machine time, authorize overtime. None of those decisions can be made by your team. Only you, as the Manager, have that authority.”
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Join us for Working Leadership Online.
Feb 2 – Goal Setting and Time Span (2 weeks)
Feb 16 – Delegation (2 weeks)
Mar 2 – Planning (2 weeks)
Mar 16 – Decision Making (2 weeks)
Mar 30 – Control Systems and Feedback Loops (2 weeks)
We have 8 week subscriptions and annual subscriptions.