Stuck in a Pattern

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“I just do what comes naturally,” Morgan started. “I manage my team the way it feels right. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.”

“Sometimes not?” I asked.

“Sometimes, what feels natural, puts me right back in the same problem as before. What feels like progress is just staying stuck.”

“Staying stuck?”

“In the past, I made managerial moves that didn’t work out. Like delegating a project, then dissatisfied with the result, taking the project back. Next project, same thing, over and over.”

“Over and over?”

“Like a grooved, routine behavior. I got used to taking projects back. Almost like a habit, even if it didn’t work. Taking a project back was comfortable. The project got done (by me) and the quality was up to standard. Problem solved,” Morgan explained.

“Then, what’s the problem?”

“Just because we do something over and over, doesn’t make it the best move. I have to do something different to interrupt the pattern, when the pattern doesn’t get what I want.”

“What do you want?”

“I want my team to solve the problem, and I want the output up to standard,” Morgan replied.

“So, how are you going to interrupt the pattern?”

Three Magic Words

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“I don’t why my manager is so bull-headed,” Marjorie complained. “He asks for my advice and then argues with me. It’s infuriating.”

“Infuriating?” I asked.

“Yes, just because he has his opinion doesn’t mean he is right.”

“Marjorie, seldom are things so stark that one person is right and the other wrong, but if that is the case, doesn’t it make sense to make sure you are not the person who is wrong? The only way you can do that is through thoughtful dialogue.”

“Oh, yeah, and how am I supposed to do that?” Marjorie wanted to know.

“Three magic words. In the face of disagreement, just say – Tell me more.”

Required Behaviors – Culture

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Elliott’s Four Absolutes, required for success in a role (any role, no matter the discipline), here is the list.

  • Capability (measured in Time Span)
  • Skill (technical knowledge and practiced performance)
  • Interest, passion (value for the work)
  • Required behaviors

Required behaviors, with three strings.

  • Contracted behaviors
  • Habits
  • Culture

    • Today is about required behaviors and culture.

    Culture is that unwritten set of rules that governs our required behaviors in the work that we do together. If the rules were written, that would be our standard operating procedures (SOPs). Culture is typically an unwritten set of rules, often more powerful that our SOPs.

    If there is a conflict between our SOPs and our culture, which wins? Culture wins every time.

    Culture is that behavior which is tolerated. I know we all think that culture is that lofty set of values like integrity and teamwork, but the baseline is what we tolerate. You stand for what you tolerate.

    It is what it is.

    Whether interviewing a candidate or coaching a teammate, have you ever hired anyone who had the capability for the role, possessed the skills, had interest and passion for the work, but they did not fit your culture? What happened?

    You either fired them, and they left.
    Or they quit, and they left.
    Or they quit, and they stayed.

Required Behaviors – Habits

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Elliott’s Four Absolutes, required for success in a role (any role, no matter the discipline), here is the list.

  • Capability (measured in Time Span)
  • Skill (technical knowledge and practiced performance)
  • Interest, passion (value for the work)
  • Required behaviors

Required behaviors, with three strings.

  • Contracted behaviors
  • Habits
  • Culture

    • Today is about habits.

    When I interview a candidate, I look at the role description, identify the critical role requirements and those habits that support those role requirements. We all have habits that support our success, we all have habits that detract from our success.

    Habits are those routine grooved behaviors that we lean on during times of decision, times of problem solving and times of stress. Some habits, we lean on, even if those behaviors were not successful in the past. Habits are familiar, habits require less brain power. Habits are a short cut to decision making and problem solving. In the face of urgency, we lean on our habits.

    As a hiring manager, interviewing a candidate, we can anticipate the problems to be solved and the decisions to be made in the role. The question is, what are the habits that contribute to success, what are the habits that detract from success?

    We all think we choose our success. We do not. The only thing we choose are our habits, and it is our habits that determine our success.

Required Behaviors – Contracted

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When I look at Elliott’s Four Absolutes, required for success in a role (any role, no matter the discipline), here is the list.

  • Capability (measured in Time Span)
  • Skill (technical knowledge and practiced performance)
  • Interest, passion (value for the work)
  • Required behaviors

Required behaviors is an interesting absolute, with three strings.

  • Contracted behaviors
  • Habits
  • Culture

    • Today, the focus is on contracted behaviors. Through his career, Elliot shifted away from personality theory (though, he was trained as a clinical psychologist) to required behaviors. He became less interested in a person’s behavioral tendencies and more interested in required behaviors. If a person wants the job, there are required behaviors. There are some behaviors, you simply contract for.

    Some people do not possess the behavioral tendency for punctuality. But, if the role required the person be on-site at 8am, Elliott didn’t care about the behavioral tendency, the requirement was on-site at 8am. Not on-site at 8am, can’t have the job. As a matter of contract.

    Can I contract for respect (Aretha Franklin rule)? Not the attitude of respect, because I cannot figure out what goes on in the mind of my teammates, but behaviors connected to respect?

    Anything I can translate into behavior is a behavior I can contract for. I cannot contract for respect, but I can contract for behaviors connected to respect.

    “If you disagree with a teammate, you are required, first, to listen before communicating your position.” Listening is a behavior. I can contract for that.

    “If you disagree with a teammate, you are required, first, to listen, not because it is a nice thing to do, not because it is courteous, but as a matter of contract. If you disagree with a teammate, you are required, first, to listen.”

    Elliott did not care if you had a dominating personality or did not value relationships, as a matter of contract, you were required to listen. Can’t listen, can’t have the role. There are some behaviors, you simply contract for.

Clues to Levels of Work

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
I am working on our role descriptions around time span. Do you have a set of definitions that would communicate levels of work that would be user friendly?

Response:
Great question. Levels of work is only valuable if we can easily recognize it in work behavior. It’s not only what we can observe, as managers, but how we describe the work, our expectations and written role descriptions. Here are some clues.

S-I is typically a production role of some sort. Often, what our customer experiences is a direct result of this level of work.

  • The carpet that gets cleaned.
  • The car that gets washed.
  • The product assembled.
  • The package delivered.

This role typically uses real tools, machinery, equipment as part of that service delivery or production. If it is a clerical position, probably a computer.

S-II is typically an implementation role, coordinating role, scheduling role, using checklists, schedules and short huddle meetings. The purpose of this role is to make sure production gets done, according to standards and deadlines.

S-III is typically a system role, to design work flow, inputs and outputs for consistency. This role would use flow diagrams, schematics, sequence and planning tools.

S-IV is typically an integration role, observing and facilitating system integration, the way in which one system in the organization interacts with other systems. This level of work specifically focuses on two things –

  • Optimizing output from each system to balance total throughput from the whole organization. This balances the volume of marketing leads assigned to sales follow-up against operations capacity to fulfill. We can write too many contracts that outstrips our capacity to fulfill.
  • Manicuring the work output or handoff from one system to another. This is to ensure the work output from one system meets the input spec for the next system.

S-IV looks at total organization throughput for all the systems working in concert.

As you write the role description, using these descriptions will provide insight on how decisions are made and problems solved in the role. BTW, that’s work, making decisions, solving problems.

Either Play, Or Not

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
I’ve been in my new position as a manager for the past three year. Over time, I noticed that one of our supervisors always seems to do his own thing and doesn’t conform to all of the company’s policies. He has been with the company since it started and has a wealth of knowledge about our industry. Yet, he refuses to help train new employees or take on a larger work load. This causes problems with the other supervisors who feel their work load is too heavy. A month ago, I inherited this situation. His former manager never confronted him so he feels like his behavior is normal and that no change is necessary. What can you suggest to help this situation?

Response:
The inattention from his former manager placed you in a tough position, but that’s nothing new. Management is all about the reality of behavior. I know you want him to either shape up or ship out, but the downside is the loss of tribal knowledge, continuity of service to customers, having to recruit and train a replacement.

This issue will not be solved overnight.

Step One. Start with a one on one conversation. As a manager, this is a listening exercise, using questions. The subject areas should begin with history, then job satisfaction, teamwork, team member assessments, productivity and training. The purpose of this conversation is to make the supervisor’s thoughts visible, nothing more. It is likely that what is said by the supervisor more closely conforms to company policy than the behavior you have witnessed.

Step Two. Use the team dynamic to have a supervisor’s meeting to discuss those same subject areas. Again, this exercise is one of asking questions and listening. The purpose of this conversation is to make the team’s thoughts visible. And this is the first of several on-going meetings. The time spent in this meeting should not exceed thirty minutes. Do not try to solve the world’s problems, but make their thoughts visible, thank them and adjourn the meeting.

Step Three. Continue with these meetings on a scheduled basis, perhaps once a week and make progress toward problem solving especially in those areas where you have noticed a breakdown in collaboration. The purpose of these meetings is to have the supervisors define and take responsibility for making progress. Your supervisor in question will either play, or not.

Happiness

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“What makes you happy?” I asked.

“Not sure anymore,” Nate replied. “When things are going well, I am happy. Lately, though, not so much. Sometimes, the world just doesn’t go my way.”

“And, it will continue to go that way, making you unhappy until you come to this realization. Happiness is not something that happens to you. Happiness is a choice. Only when you choose to be happy, will you be happy.”

Disconnect Your Focus

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“Not sure how to respond to our competitor’s latest move. They just offered a extra year’s warranty on their product for free.” Miguel complained.

“For free?” I asked.

“Yes, we’ve battled our competitor hard for the past two years. We make a move, they counter. They make a move, we counter. Tit for tat. I’m not sure how to win this battle.”

“Have you thought about disconnecting your focus from your competitor to think more about your customer? As long as you focus on your competitor, you can only think like your competitor thinks. Focus on your customer.”

A Manager’s Accountability for Culture

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
This is not a simple question. What is company culture? And what is my accountability, as a manager, related to culture?

Response:
Some time ago, writing a role description, I added Culture as a Key Result Area. What is the accountability of a manager in the Key Result Area of Company Culture?

Company culture is that unwritten set of rules that governs our required behavior in the work that we do together. It is unwritten in contrast to our written set of rules, policies, procedures. Culture is often more powerful than any policy we may write or attempt to officially enforce. Sometimes, culture even works against our stated policy.

What is the source of culture, where does it start? How is culture visible, how do we see it? How is culture tested? How is culture institutionalized, reinforced and perpetuated? These are the four steps in the Culture Cycle.

1. The source of culture is the way we see the world. It includes our beliefs, bias, our experience, our interpretation of our experience. Culture is the story we carry into our experience that provides the lens, the frame, the tint, the brightness or darkness of that story.

2. Culture, the way we see the world drives our behavior. We cannot see the bias in others. We cannot see their interpretations of the world. We cannot see the story people carry in their minds, but, we can see behavior. Culture drives behavior. Behavior makes culture visible.

3. Behavior, driven by culture, is constantly tested against the reality of consequences. For better or worse, behaviors driven by culture are proven valid, or not. Our culture stands for what we tolerate. This is counter to the notion of the lofty intentions of honesty and integrity. Our culture stands for the behaviors we tolerate related to the lofty intentions.

4. Behaviors that survive, for better or worse, are institutionalized in our rituals and customs. This ranges from the peer lunch on a team member’s first day at work to the hazing in a fraternity house. But, it all starts with the way we see the world.

There is accountability, for a manager, in each of the four steps in the culture cycle.

Beliefs and assumptions. Every manager must be able to verbalize and discuss the beliefs held by the organization. This discussion may be in the form of stories, or observations of specific behaviors that support those beliefs. If the belief is that all team members must return home each day with all their fingers and toes, the manager must be able to tell stories that illustrate safe and unsafe work practices and the consequence of each.

Connected behaviors. Every manager must be able to identify behaviors that support the beliefs of the organization (positive behavior) and behaviors inconsistent with those beliefs (negative behavior). Every manager must be able to verbalize and coach those behaviors, acknowledging positive behavior and intervening negative behavior. If the belief is that every team member must return home each day with all their fingers and toes, the manager must be able to verbalize safe work practices and coach corrective behavior.

Testing against reality. Every manager must be able to reconcile connected behaviors with the consequences of reality. There must be consistency between positive behaviors and negative behaviors with what really happens as a result. If the behavior related to safety is to wear protective gear (safety glasses and gloves), then the manager may not allow unsafe work practices just because it is more convenient. Convenience often wins. We stand for what we tolerate.

Customs and rituals. Every manager must execute in the customs and rituals that support the beliefs of the organization. If it is the ritual to reinforce behaviors related to safety, the manager cannot cancel the morning safety meeting because she is too busy.