Category Archives: Teams

Is It the People or the System?

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“You are saying,” Luke started, “that if I see friction in the system, I should look at the system, rather than trying to fix the people?”

I nodded affirmative. “You can have intelligently designed systems, if you create them. But, most systems emerge as a set of outcomes created by random behavior. Worse. Those random behaviors get repeated and become the norm.”

“But, we have standards,” Luke protested. “This is a hospital. We have to inspect and comply with those standards.

“Tell me,” I prodded. “A few years back, you made a change at your hospital. You had a not-so-intelligent system in your operating theatre that created a problem. Mortality rates in your surgical area were statistically above the norm. Even your doctors scratched their heads trying to figure this out. So, you asked your nursing staff what could be the problem. They recommended that you change your system, to make it more intelligent.”

“I remember,” Luke nodded. “We had to change our system of authority. Often, our surgeons were not washing their hands sufficiently prior to surgery. Of course, in the hospital, the surgeon has the authority for most all decisions. We changed our system to give the nursing staff the authority to question a surgeon related to hand-washing. We brought all the nurses and all the surgeons in the same room to discuss and create this new authority for nurses.”

“What happened?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Mortality statistically came back in line within seven days,” Luke replied.

I nodded. “You didn’t change the people, you changed the system.”

The Friction Inside

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“Two people, working together, are likely very nice individuals apart from each other,” I continued. “As the manager, when you put those two people together, you place them in a system. Most often, that system is not defined and dysfunction emerges.”

“I always hope they can figure it out, the working together part,” Luke nodded. “And, most of the time, these teams get along, but there are always things that create friction.”

“As the manager, you notice these things,” I said.

“In an instant,” Luke agreed. “But even when I point things out, and get nodding agreement from everyone, the instant I leave, they go back to the friction-way of doing things.”

“It’s often a matter of telling, or rather not-telling,” I replied. “You tell, you talk, and they pretend to listen. Your team has difficulty making sense of the friction, until they discover it for themselves. Any parent, faced with the same dilemma usually tries these two things with the same result. They speak louder and with more frequency – if I told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times.”

Luke nodded. He had two children, he was familiar with the parental response of louder and more often.

“There are two things we have to define,” I smiled. “In this working relationship, who is accountable for what? And, in this working relationship, who has the authority to make what decisions? Then stand back and simply ask questions.”

“Questions?” Luke looked at me sideways.

“Questions. The best managers are not those who tell people what to do. The best managers are those who ask the best questions, to help the team make sense of the friction, to help them discover it for themselves.”

The Group I am With

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“And, it’s more complicated than that,” Luke explained.

“You’ve been doing some thinking about this?” I said.

“We have to define the working relationships between people, specifically related to accountability and authority, but people play roles,” he continued. “Some people play more than one role. The role both enables and constrains the person. It defines what they have the authority to do and what not to do. So, when I am working with my team, I have to pay attention not only to the working relationship, but also the role. People are different people depending on who they are with. And, sometimes those people are not physically present. If you want to understand why someone is doing something in particular, you may have to figure out which role and which group they have in their head.”

People System

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I nodded. “So, shifting things around inside your system requires that you be alert to the immediate proximity, but also for unintended consequences in a remote part of the system.”

Luke agreed. “It is easy to see when it is a defined step in the system. We can always move things around. But, I saw something else.”

“Pray tell?” I said.

“We have workflow systems,” he started. “In our workflow we can identify discreet steps that are contained. A step starts here, a step ends there. This step impacts that step and impacts another step way over here. But there is another, more complicated system I have to pay attention to. My people system puts players in proximity that have to work together. Working relationships are like steps in a system. If I change a person out, I change the working relationship. A new relationship emerges that starts from scratch and has to be built around these two questions. In this working relationship, what is the accountability for one person to the other person? And, in this working relationship, who has the authority to make what decisions? So, steps in a workflow are easy. People in a workflow, not so much.”

Earning Trust

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“I want to empower my team members,” Reese explained. “I know you prefer I use the word authority instead of empower, but I can’t give my team the authority to make decisions. I am the one with the authority.”

“And, if that is the way you think, then you will be the same manager with same underperforming team until you grow old and gray,” I nodded.

“But, I don’t trust my team to make the right decision in the crunch of a problem,” Reese protested. “How do I give my team the authority to make the wrong decision when the stakes are so high?”

“Lower the stakes,” I said. “Do not empower someone by giving them a promotion. The risks may be too high, and you, as the manager have to manage the risk. Do not give them a promotion, give them a project, and manage the risk in the project. If you give someone a promotion and they fail, you have a chocolate mess on your hands. If you give someone a project and they fail, you just have a failed project, and you manage the risk in the project.”

Reese was quiet. “And, if they successfully complete a series of projects, my trust will go up. If there is a promotion, it will be an earned promotion.”

A Zone of Judgement

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“I tried it,” Bowen shook his head. “I got stuffed. The team resisted. They told me everything was fine, that I was worried about nothing. They said, if my manager wasn’t happy with the team’s output, that was their problem. If my manager didn’t like it, he could just fire the whole team. They thought that was funny, knowing we would never just fire the whole team.”

“Okay,” I nodded. “So, what does that tell you about comfort zones?”

Bowen thought. “Comfort zones infect the way we think. It’s like a habit, so grooved that anything out of the zone must be wrong. The comfort zone looks like a position of judgement, self protecting the way we have always done things.”

“So, while habits help us routinize a process,” I said, “that habit lulls us into a sense of comfort that prevents us from seeing obstacles on the periphery. We ignore those obstacles until they become front and center. So comfortable is our zone, we may continue to deny the obstacle, call it unimportant, maybe not fair.”

Bowen looked straight at me. “I run a fine line. I want to create habits to ensure a consistency of output, that we are doing things the best way, efficiently. But, we also have to watch out that our comfort zone doesn’t cause us to deny new problems or circumstances that require a new response outside of our habit.”

I smiled. “And, how do you imagine getting your team to that point?”

Comfort Zones

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“I call it constructive discontent,” I nodded.

“What do you mean?” Bowen asked.

“You wonder why things don’t improve around your team, you seem to always fall just short of expectations, and you can never figure out why.”

“But, I have a very experienced team,” he said. “They know how things are done around here. There just always seems to be some curve ball that throws us off our game.”

“Sounds like things are comfortable, maybe too easy. Until you get the curve ball? Why do you think the curve ball throws you off your game?”

“It’s unexpected, out of the ordinary, a variance in our routine. When it happens, and it happens regularly, we get off balance, like a deer in the headlights.”

“And, you are not happy about this?” I smiled.

“No,” Bowen frowned. “Most of the time, things run really smooth, but these hiccups in our process seem to constantly put us behind.”

“Perhaps, it is your comfort zone, the comfort zone for the team that prevents an appropriate response to the hiccup. Perhaps, you should create some artificial hiccups, change the pace, increase a quality spec, move the deadline, so your team could practice being out of their comfort zone. Have your team create a stress test exercise, and then, practice. Practice being out of your comfort zone.”

Not About the Box

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It was a shiny new metal box mounted on the wall. A spiffy sign next to the box announced SuGGESTIONS. Luka was proud of the new addition to the wall.

“Hey, Luka,” I said. “Is your suggestion box full yet?”

“I just put it up,” he replied. “I’m trying to get the team to come up with new ideas. It doesn’t seem like people are very engaged in the work we do. I hope this helps.”

“Which comes first?” I asked. “Do you think the suggestion box will get people more engaged? Or do you think people need to be engaged to contribute to the suggestion box?”

Luka gave me a blank stare.

I smiled. “Engagement doesn’t have a lot to do with the box.”

More Control or Less

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“It is very difficult to cede my power as a CEO,” Suzanne shook her head from side to side. “It’s my company, my accountability.”

“You are still accountable. All crumbs lead to the CEO,” I said. “And, what changes when you see your company, not as a hierarchy of power, but, a hierarchy of competence?”

“First of all, I cannot promote people into positions because of their seniority, their loyalty or their current position of power,” she was thinking out loud, knowing I was listening.

“Promote people to a position of what?” I asked.

“A position of authority,” Suzanne replied.

“Authority to do what?” I pressed.

“Authority to make decisions,” she relented.

“Now, we are getting somewhere,” I smiled. “You begin to see your organization through the lens of competence. You cannot promote someone to a position of authority, to make decisions, unless they are competent to make those decisions. If they are competent to make those decisions, are you, as the CEO in more control or less control?”

Guiding Value in Hierarchy

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“But, if I delegate things out to other people, meaning, if I delegate decision making to other people, doesn’t that erode my power, as the CEO?” Suzanne wanted to know.

“If power is that important to you?” I replied.

“Isn’t that why I started this company, built it up from scratch? I am the one who made all the decisions. I am the one who had all the accountability,” she protested.

“And, you still have all the accountability. In the beginning, it was appropriate for you to make all the decisions, there was nobody else around. And, as the number of customers grew from a handful, to a dozen, to a hundred, they demanded your organization grow to accommodate their needs. As your organization grew, through necessity, you had to delegate, first tasks, then decisions. To the point where you now feel a loss of control.”

“And, a loss of power,” Suzanne quickly added.

“And, there is the rub. You see your organization as a hierarchy of power. Don’t kid yourself, the world is biologically ordered into a hierarchy of value. You see the value in your hierarchy as one of power. A power hierarchy begins to weaken the purpose of the organization’s original intent. This is a very serious shift, to understand your organization, not as a power hierarchy, but a hierarchy of competence. And, when you see it that way, what changes?”