Category Archives: Learning

Most Important Variable

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“But, shouldn’t we start with the great management books in the literature?” Leonard questioned. “I mean the great management books, not the mediocre, not the lousy ones. Those people have tried and failed, tried again and finally succeeded. Shouldn’t I pay attention to how they did it?”

“How they did it, might be instructive,” I replied. “IF you were in those exact circumstances, at that exact time and IF you were who they were. But you’re not. You expect all things to be equal. Your circumstances are different, your time is different. Most importantly, YOU are different. The cogent variable is not the step-by-step instructions. The most important variable is YOU.”

The Way It Works

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“So you are not so high on reading books about leadership?” Leonard pushed back. “You read books on leadership. Are you saying that I shouldn’t listen to you. After all, you are the teacher.”

I smiled. “Yes, I read books. And, you choose whether to listen to me or not, it’s your choice. I know for a fact that I cannot teach leadership or management. It doesn’t happen that way. I also know, for a fact, that leadership or management can be learned. That’s the way it works.”

Conscientiousness

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Mariana counted on her fingers. “Necessity requires clarity, competence and habits,” she nodded.

I smiled. “Did I mention conscientiousness?.** It’s a mental state related to personal responsibility. You would observe conscientiousness in the things a person feels obligated to do, in their persistence to complete a task, to maintain necessary standards.”

“How will I know, if a person is conscientious or not?” Mariana asked.

“It’s there in front of you to observe. Given a task, the person may have a few questions, but they do not procrastinate. They get right to it and work to the end. They will never ask – Is that good enough? If you were clear in the standard, they will know what is good enough.”

“We started this discussion,” Mariana said, “because you told me the reason my team underperformed is because I had not made the performance standard necessary. Making performance necessary must be my accountability.”

I nodded in agreement, before I added one more thing.
—
**Conscientiousness is a trait measured by the Big Five Assessment, free version here.

Perfectly in Flow

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“My team struggled with this problem all last week,” Regina was almost giddy. “I took one look at it and knew exactly what to do. Like a pop up fly right into my glove. It’s really satisfying to solve a problem, almost by instinct.”

“You seem pleased,” I responded.

“Perfectly in flow,” she replied. “Athletes get like that sometimes, where the world slows down, they are one with the motion that perfectly connects.”

“And, your team? What of your team?”

“They were relieved. It was a really hard problem. They discovered the cause, and generated some alternative solutions. It was actually staring them in the face, but the real solution, the one that saved the day was the first part of one alternative connected with the back end of another. Honestly, I don’t know why they didn’t see it.”

“And, you, in flow, took their discovery away?”

Regina’s delight turned cold. “It’s not like I took candy from a baby,” she defended. “I solved a problem for them.”

“So, the next time your team struggles with a problem, what are they going to do? Who are they going to call on?”

Best Practices

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“That was a terrific conference,” Pauline happily reported. “I met a bunch of interesting people and came away with a ton of best practices.”

“Tell me more,” I replied.

“I created this chart from the conference,” she continued. “One side is the problem we see, in the other column is the best practice solution. Neat.”

“Great. So, now you have a solution for all the problems that you see over and over, again and again. Neat.”

Pauline stared at me, no longer happy.

Do What Is Expected

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Gillian had a smile on her face. “I think I finally have the right team. Everything is working smoothly. And every team member has the competence to do what it is expected. What more could I want?”

“Dangerous to ask me an open-ended question,” I replied. “Do you feel prepared? Do they have the skills? Not to do what is expected, but to grapple with the unexpected?”

Increasing Customer Service

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Regina was proud, “We just got an increase to my annual budget for my customer service team.”

If you engage with your customers through email, you can use various tools like timetoreply to improve response times instantly.

“Oh, really?” I replied.

“Yes. Two years ago, we had a small team and our customer service scores were 1-2 on a 5 point scale. Not good.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“I spent a lot of time working on how we respond to the various glitches in our product and warranty claims. Turns out, there were five problems we had to deal with most often, so we trained hard on those.”

“And?” I nodded.

“And, our scores improved. I got the green light to hire ten percent more to the team. Last year, we actually won a customer service award, averaging 4.8 on our scores.” Regina was bursting with pride. “And, this year, I got the go-ahead to really ramp up the head count on my team.”

“Regina, did you ever have a conversation with your operations team to talk about the five things that created so much customer service traffic?”

Screwed Up Again

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“They screwed it up again,” Charmagne protested. “Luckily, I managed the risk, so it wasn’t a devastating mistake.”

“Perfect,” I said.

“What do you mean, perfect? You mean perfectly wrong?” she stated flatly.

“I find competent people always in learning mode,” I responded. “To build the competence of the team, you have to keep them in learning mode. Do people learn more by accidentally getting it right? Or inevitably making a mistake? As the manager, this is your perfect opportunity to get your team in learning mode.”

Just a Parade

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“Why do they constantly make the wrong decision?” Deidra asked. “We have problems where the solution is counterintuitive. If the team follows the popular trend, they come up with a response that creates more damage than the original problem.”

“Why do you think that is?” I wanted to know.

“I don’t know. Instead of thinking through the problem, they wait and follow behind whoever has status in the group. And, of course, once that person has made a move, contributed the first idea, no one else is willing to question or challenge. Or add alternative solutions, or judge one idea more effective than another. After a while, that popular team member becomes a person of influence. One or two problems down the road and the team becomes incapable of wrestling with the root cause. And, I become the street sweeper in the elephant parade.”

“And?” I glanced sideways.

“And, what?” Deidra was frustrated. “You are looking at me like I’m the problem.”

“I just wanted to know what else?” I smiled. “Who taught them to follow someone else’s lead, instead of thinking for themselves? Who taught them to bring the problem to the street sweeper?”

Building the Habit

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“Okay, so we pinned showing up to work, to starting on time to meeting deadlines,” I concluded. “Now what. What is the next habit?”

“I get the practice of meeting deadlines, but I am still stumped on what to work on next,” Naomi looked puzzled.

“You’re stuck because you are trying too hard,” I suggested. “Put the next habit on your team. Have your team decide what the next habit of competence will be.”

“If I am stuck, they are going to be stuck,” she complained.

“You are stuck because you haven’t set up some guardrails to guide their thinking. Let’s take a simple framework like MUDA,” I prompted.

“I know MUDA, that’s the seven wastes,” Naomi sparked.

“And, what are the seven wastes?” I asked.

“Moving stuff around too many times,” she started. “Making too much stuff, overproduction. Making things too complicated, overproduction. Holding too much inventory, raw goods or consumables. Unnecessary movement, work flow and work flow sequence. Waiting for stuff, white space in the workflow, creating unnecessary idle time. Identifying and eliminating defects.”

“Very good,” my turn to smile. “Do you think your team could identify one of the seven wastes and work to improve their competence? Competence is not a choice, it’s a practice, it’s a habit.”