Category Archives: Teams

In the Meeting, Not Out

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Alicia looked puzzled. “But I think I really need to have a heart to heart talk with my two project leaders, away from the team. When we have that kind of friction, I don’t think the team can be very productive.”

“I agree you need to have a heart to heart talk with your project leaders,” I replied. “But what would happen if you had that talk in the meeting instead of away from the team?” -TF

Personality Conflict?

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“Why do you think they were too scared to talk about the real problem stopping this project?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Alicia replied. “I guess I really need to work on creating a more open environment. But I think I have a personality problem. It’s hard to talk about a personality conflict in the middle of a meeting. That’s why it was so weird. We couldn’t talk about the real problem, so we couldn’t talk about anything at all.”

“So, how do you intend to create an environment where your team can deal with the real problem and get back to productive work?”

“I guess I need to pull the two project leaders aside and talk to them in private,” Alicia nodded.

“What if I told you, in the long run, that would make matters worse?” -TF

Undermining Authority

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
What is the best way to explain undermining authority to a supervisor who is doing it to another supervisor? Also, can you give me examples I can use?

Response:
Before I offer direct advice (yes, I have some specific thoughts), I would like to extend the opportunity for feedback from fellow readers. If you have some advice, please post a comment. -TF

The People System

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
You have talked about Managers and systems. And you’ve described the most important system for a Manager as the People System. What’s inside that system?

Response:
There are three primary accountabilities for any Manager.

  • First, is that the Manager is responsible for the output of the team. I don’t listen to excuses that some team member failed to perform, or some other team member fell short. I hold the Manager accountable for the output of the team.
  • The ingredients that support that output are the ability of the Manager to assemble the team together. This has a great deal to do with identifying and selecting talent.
  • Once assembled, the Manager must lead the team to work together, competently and with commitment in pursuit of the goal.

Failure in any part of this system falls to the Manager. -TF

Not a Failure to Communicate

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“I don’t understand,” Dean complained, disappointed with a botched handoff between two of his departments. “We had a meeting about the need to communicate better in the middle of the project. Both sides dropped the ball and everyone is playing the blame game.”

“Yes, but did they get their bonus?” I asked.

Dean looked at me like I was from Mars. “We’re not talking about bonuses, here. We have a communication problem.”

I was looking at pre-project package. It clearly pointed to several team goals for each of the four teams that had to coordinate on the project. And there was a $2000 team bonus tagged to each goal.

“You think you have a communication problem. I think you have a bonus problem.” -TF

Complain to Upper Management?

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

How do you handle Managers who take credit for your work (my immediate manager and his boss)? My immediate manager does not know the job well and depends on everyone for support. The operation has downfalls due to his shortcomings. Only a few immediate individuals know the truth and feel uncomfortable going to upper management.

Response:

The Manager and the Manager-Once-Removed are both absolutely responsible for the output of their teams. I hold them both accountable for the team’s successes and the team’s failure. So, they DO get the credit when times are good and they shoulder the blame when things go bad.

And often, it is not necessary that a Manager have in-depth technical knowledge. That’s what the team is for. I often lead teams where I have zero knowledge of their internal processes or technology.

So, my concern is for the downfalls in operations. Why are they happening? And how can we get better in the future? I use the following questions to debrief. You might be able to share these with your boss so your team can make some progress.

  • What did we expect?
  • What did we do well?
  • What went wrong?
  • What can we do next time, to prevent that from going wrong?
  • When will we meet again?

When the team focuses on these questions, things begin to change. Complaining to upper management accomplishes little. -TF

Bad Decision?

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

Need advice on recovering from a bad decision I made that has caused my boss and several other to be disappointed in me. I apologized to my boss for my actions and he says I didn’t do anything wrong, but the look on his face and others indicates that that is not his true feelings. I didn’t support my boss and several other is a plan that they worked on for months, I didn’t do it intentionally, just got caught up in the momentum of a new idea. I made a quick decision that was wrong. Really don’t know how to recover and feel better. These people are important to me and I’m personally and professionally upset with myself.

Response:

I am going to agree with your boss and take it on face value that you did NOT do anything wrong. So, quit beating yourself up.

Disagreements and enthusiastic other positions are healthy on any management team. If there are no disagreements, then you don’t need those people on the management team. By the way, this would not be the first time a CEO and a management team worked for six months on the wrong thing.

On the other hand, I don’t need unsubstantiated opinion without evidence to support it. I also need an attitude of cooperation and support in the midst of the disagreement. It sounds like this.

“Thank you for inviting me to this meeting. I know this project is very important to the company.

“This may be difficult to hear, because I know you have all worked very hard on this project, and I am in possession of some information and supporting data that may put this project in jeopardy. We may be working on the wrong thing.

“The reason I am presenting this information today is so that, at the end of the meeting, we can agree on a plan of action. We still may not agree with the facts or the data, but we need to agree on a plan of action that we can all support.

“If you had information that was adverse to one of my projects, I would expect you to challenge me in the same way.

“I have the data organized into a handout and I can present these ideas in approximately five minutes. Do I have the team’s permission to proceed?”

Not Sam’s Problem

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“What has to happen in the next two hours that will indicate time well spent,” Sam asked. Each person looked around at each of the other members of this management team, then looked down and began to write.

It was not Sam’s intention to figure out the solution to this problem. It was Sam’s intention to have the group figure out the solution to this problem.

The responses from the team were positive.

  • We have to agree on the purpose. We have to agree on what we are trying to achieve. We have to agree on the goal.
  • We have to agree on what actions we will take. We have to agree on the coordination and interdependencies of those actions. This has to be a period of cooperation.
  • We have to agree on what results we are looking for. We have to agree on what measures we will collect and analyze. We have to agree to raise the flag when something doesn’t look right, not to bury our statistics in a warehouse.

Most importantly, this was no longer Sam’s problem. This problem now belonged to the group. -TF

A System Problem

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The conference room was comfortable. New leather chairs and a marble top. Nothing like success to create a little overhead.

Sam had assembled a cast of the brightest minds in the company. Marketing was represented, sales, customer service, production and accounting. Everyone looked armed with official looking reports, charts and graphs, ready to defend the slightest attack.

Sam was good. He wasn’t looking for a scapegoat. He knew the problem wasn’t from someone being lazy, or even a wrong decision. He knew it was more likely that the organization’s system needed some attention.

He began by explaining what he had observed, and asked each member to accurately report the real figures behind the events. Unfortunately, four weeks worth of excess finished goods had translated into an eight-week inventory turn. Something had put the brakes on the market.

“So, take a piece of paper,” Sam began, “and write down your condition of satisfaction for this meeting? What has to happen in the next two hours that will indicate time well spent?”

Ability to Engage

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Gretchen’s face displayed confusion. “What do managers do to their teams that systematically, over time, disables them from being able to solve even the simplest of problems?” I repeated.

“You’re not thinking this is my fault, are you?” she finally spoke.

I turned my head to the side, still staring at her.

“No way,” she protested.

“Every time a manager provides the solution to a problem, it robs the team of its ability to engage the problem. Over time, the team’s ability to solve problems begins to atrophy. Before long, even the simplest of problems will be brought to the manager for solution finding.

“The team begins to enjoy this new arrangement. With the responsibility for the decision now firmly resting on the manager, so goes the responsibility for the outcome. If the outcome is poor, it’s the manager’s fault. If the outcome creates more problems, it’s the manager’s fault. Your team likes this arrangement.” -TF
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Thanks for those who responded to our survey. It only takes about a minute. We will keep the survey open until October 19. The results will help us finalize an online program we are set to release in the next three weeks. -TF

http://www.managementblog.org/survey-oct2007/