Island Fever

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“No man is an island,” I nodded.

Myra stared back, returning my nod. “I agree. I’ve got one hot-shot technician and one rainmaker on my executive team. Between the two of them, they are driving me crazy.”

“How does it show up?” I asked.

“It seems like they are in it for themselves. All they ever do is talk about me-me and my-my. My budget, my team, my resources. And the salesperson thinks nothing happens until a sale is made. He struts around like a rooster. I have to remind the both of them that we are a team. If the sale isn’t made, we don’t have budget. And if the product isn’t engineered, we have nothing to sell.”

“It’s a trouble in most growing companies,” I replied. You have a couple of core systems that hum along, high pace, high quality, but the other systems tip-toe around, get pushed around, underperform, pretty soon the wheels of the entire organization get wobbly.”

“What do I do with these two characters?” Myra wanted to know.

“That’s the hat trick for every manager working in a company that has grown multiple systems. The silo effect takes hold.”

“So, I need to get rid of my silos?” Myra stated in the form of a question.

“Nope,” I smiled. “You put those silos there for a reason. You needed them to be efficient, internally profitable, no waste, no idle, charging pace. But, now you have multiple systems who don’t care about each other. You have to convince them that the company is larger than their individual system. Each system is interdependent on all the other systems.”

Myra was quiet. Shook her head. “So, how do I do that?”

Collusive Behavior

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Carson was deep in thought. “How do I, as a manager, interrupt the cycle of victimhood, to shift a team’s mental state from negative to positive?”

“It’s not quite as simple as that,” I replied. “If the only states were negative and positive, we could solve that with a motivational speaker and posters on the wall.”

Carson smirked. “Yes, we tried that. The teamwork posters became wallpaper that eventually faded.”

“It’s not negative vs positive, though that is a start,” I nodded. “This is not a binary condition, like a switch we can turn on and off. Humans, teams and their mental states are more subtle. Let’s take a look at a number of parameters, and I will concede to the first as negative vs. positive.

  • Negative – Positive
  • Irrational – Rational
  • Unscientific – Scientific
  • Collusive – Cooperative
  • Uncontrolled – Controlled
  • Unconscious – Conscious

All of these are mental states. How do you, as a manager, influence a shift in the mental state of the team?”

Infectious

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“You said, being a victim is a mental state?” Carson wanted to explore.

“Yes, it can even be more pervasive,” I replied. “There is a continuum – a mood, which is temporary, to a mental state, or a prolonged mood, to the way we see the world, a belief, which is longer term, persistent, base on a thought we think over and over. Moods are easy to change with ice cream. A mental state, not so much. And beliefs become ingrained, not permanent, but doggedly stubborn.”

“And infectious,” Carson flatly stated.

“How so?” I asked.

“I can have a teammate in a mood, less say, not so positive, bordering on negative. That mood influences other teammates, mostly at the water cooler. ‘You wouldn’t believe what happened to me on the way to work today. This guy cut me off in traffic, almost crashed my car’.”

“And, now you get a better story from someone else, and on it goes, until it creates a mental state for the whole team,” I smiled.

“What’s worse, the team now has to solve a real work problem from a triggered state. And, the real problem becomes the vehicle of bad luck, for which the team has no accountability.”

“It’s a cycle,” I nodded. “How do you interrupt the cycle? How do you, as a manager, shift the mental state of the team?”

Obesity

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“Yes, luck would be easier to blame things on,” I nodded. “Luck is something outside of our control. It is popular, because it allows us to be off the hook on accountability.”

Carson chimed in. “Good luck or bad luck is a common scapegoat. Luck doesn’t require us to understand what happens when things go well, more specifically, what we did in sequence when things go well, things we might repeat. It was just luck. Luck allows my team to shrug their shoulders when things go poorly. It was just luck. It allows the team to exist as a victim, without agency that might impact the outcome one way or another.”

“And, being a victim creates a cottage industry of people, consultants, special programs to manicure external circumstances to suit the victim mental state,” I said. “We used to describe the role of a parent, and you can think the role of a manager in a similar capacity, was to prepare the child for the path of life. We now see parents, consultants, special programs preparing the path of life for the child, who now has no accountability.”

“Like lung cancer is no longer the fault of the smoker. Or obesity is no longer the fault of the overeater, or more directly, the grocery shopper. It is a matter of corporate greed and the solution is a GLP-1 drug,” Carson mused.

“So, how do we improve the situation, prevent the death spiral of victimhood?” I asked. “How do we prepare the child for the path of life. How do we prepare our team members for the path of their employment?”

Mastery and Practice

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“And, how does the rest of your team see Carl?” I asked.

Carson smiled. “I get it. You are right. The rest of the team sees him as a brown noser. They laugh behind his back. Maybe secretly jealous.”

“Jealous of what,” I prodded.

“Carl gets some preferential treatment. If we can only send one person to training, we pick Carl, because we know Carl will come back and share what he learned.”

“Does the team see Carl as successful?” I wanted to know.

“Yes, they do, but they think it was all about luck. Sometimes, I have to step in and mitigate some of the taunting.”

“So, having someone competent, inquisitive and curious on the team can create a problem for you?”

“Yes,” Carson nodded. “As long as people see success as luck, it can be made fun of. As the manager, I have to be vigilant and communicate success as a mastery and practice of fundamentals, enthusiasm and support of the team.”

“Of course, it doesn’t hurt to be a little lucky.”

If It’s Not Luck

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“When you recruit a new person onto your team, what are you looking for?” I asked.

“I think we have dispensed with luck as a criteria,” Carson replied.

I smiled. “Yes, we can dispense with luck. What are you looking for in a new team member? In fact, let’s take a look at your current team. If you had to hold someone up as a model, what would I see in that person?”

Carson nodded. “Carl. It would be Carl.”

“And, what would I see in Carl?”

“Easy. Carl shows up a half-hour early, stays a half hour late, every day. In every training session, he always has his hand up asking questions. When he makes a mistake, he always owns up to it, then fixes it. I would like everybody to be like Carl.”

“So, here are four questions.

  • Do you trust him to make good decisions at his level of work?
  • Does he practice the skills required in his role, every day?
  • Do you observe commitment to the practice required in his role?
  • Does he meet the required behaviors in the work he does, for safety, for cooperation?

“It would be easier, if it was all about luck,” Carson said.

Are You Lucky?

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“What do you think it takes to be successful?” I asked.

“Luck,” Carson snapped. “Sometimes, pure dumb luck.”

“And, do you feel like you have been lucky?” I wanted to know.

“Not lucky enough,” Carson replied.

“If luck can’t get you where you want to be, then what is it? You see, Carson, everyone looks for the magic fairy dust, the secret formula that reveals the hat trick. But, if you’re not lucky enough, and most people aren’t, then what does it take to be successful?” I asked again.

Carson was silent, thinking.

“Let me change the question,” I said. “What does it take to become competent? I think you will find the answer is NOT luck.”

And, at the Bottom?

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“It still looks like a communication problem,” Nolan insisted. “They are in a meeting, they are talking. Yes, there is a checklist. That is what they are communicating about.”

“I will agree, there is communication, but that is not the problem. The problem is that there are no dumpsters on the job site to haul away the debris and your project gets delayed by a day.”

“But, they are talking about a checklist, it’s communication,” he continued to push back.

“Yes, they are talking about the items on the checklist, but I helped design that checklist,” I nodded. “What is at the bottom of the checklist?”

Nolan was trying to imagine the checklist and what checklist item was last on the list.

“Below the items on the list,” I directed.

It suddenly became clear. “You are right,” Nolan admitted. “At the bottom is a signature line for both the estimator and the project manager to sign. It’s not just a checklist, it’s a commitment list.”

“Not a communication problem,” I said. “It’s an accountability and authority issue.”

It’s a Box on a Checklist

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“What’s the name of the movie that said – What we have here is a failure to communicate?” Nolan asked.

“You are way too young to have seen Cool Hand Luke,” I replied. “So, what’s the problem?”

Nolan nodded, “We have a communication problem.”

“I don’t believe in communication problems,” I nodded back. “A breakdown in communication is only a symptom of the problem. So, again, what’s the problem?”

“The first part of every project is a demolition phase, to tear down what was already there. The crew shows up, tears things down, but there are no dumpsters to haul away the debris. The project manager says the estimator left the dumpsters off the bid package. The estimator says the project manager should have known because we have dumpsters on every project. Looks like a communication problem to me.”

“I don’t believe in communication problems and I don’t think you have one. What you have, is an accountability and authority issue. In the working relationship between your project manager and your estimator, they have a handoff meeting at the beginning of the project. That meeting is so predictable that you have a checklist to make sure that everything is covered. I would bet that somewhere on that checklist is the word dumpster.”

“You are right,” Nolan said. “But they didn’t talk about it, AND it wasn’t included in the bid package.”

“Look,” I stared at Nolan, “you have an estimator, a project manager and a checklist in a meeting. In that meeting, what is the accountability of the estimator and what is the accountability of the project manager?  It is up to you to define that.”

Not-So-Intelligent

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“That makes sense,” Luke said. “It was a little outside our normal behavior, giving nurses the authority to question a doctor about hand washing.”

“That’s the problem with normal,” I replied. “Normal is just repeated behavior regardless of the outcome. It’s the desired outcome we have to pay attention to, not what is normal.”

“I agree,” Luke nodded. “Likely, we would never make that decision without looking at mortality rates. It was only when we asked the nurses, that things became clear.”

“When you examine systems, you have to figure out how that system emerged. Was it designed to produce an outcome, or did it arrive out of repeated behaviors, ingrained as habits, without regard for the outcome?” I stopped. “A not-so-intelligent system makes even competent people (surgeons and nurses) look dumb. Eventually, competent people will overcome a not-so-intelligent system, if you give them permission, better yet, ask them.”