Tag Archives: accountability

The Measure of Performance

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
I attended one of your workshops last week. How do you evaluate the Potential Capability of prospective or current employees, using Time Span as the metric?

Response:
While this sounds like a simple question, there are many elements to it. Your question is all about Capability.

  • Does this person have the Capability to fill the role, now?
  • Does this person have the Potential Capability to fill this role in one or two years?
  • Is the underperformance, that I observe, related to a lack of Capability, OR another factor?

These are all absolutely legitimate questions for a manager to ask when making a decision related to task assignment, internal promotion and external recruiting from a candidate pool.

It is critical to understand that successful performance in ANY role can be traced to these four factors –

  • Capability (your question above)
  • Skill (Technical knowledge and practiced performance)
  • Interest or Passion (Value for the work)
  • Reasonable Behavior (Habits and the absence of extreme negative temperament)

And I depend on the judgment of the manager to determine which factor(s) are most directly related to the performance I observe. And if the primary factor turns out to be Capability, the most descriptive term is Applied Capability. Indeed, the person may have greater Potential Capability, but as a manager, I am only able to see Applied Capability. I can see Applied Capability because there is a work product, direct output.

But your question was about Potential Capability. As a manager, I may make an intuitive judgment that a team member has greater Potential. This typically means, that, as a manager, I observe underperformance that I deem “could be better.” The question is “why?” What factors could be changed to create higher levels of effectiveness in the role (or task)?

Changing the degree of Applied Capability has little to do with Capability. It has more to do with the other three factors. The limits to Applied Capability have to do with Skill, Interest and Reasonable Behavior. Change any one of those factors and you will see a change in Applied Capability.

But your question was about Potential Capability. The only method, as a manager, to gain insight into a person’s Potential Capability is to test for it. Project work is the single best way to test for Potential Capability. Lee Thayer says it best, “The only measure of performance, is performance.”
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Our next online program Hiring Talent kicks off Mar 19, 2012. Pre-register now.

The Value in a Manager’s Role

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“What do you mean, bring value?” Joan asked. “Sounds easy to say, but I don’t know what you mean. How does a manager bring value to the problem solving and decision making in the team?”

“Do you bring value by telling people what to do?” I asked.

Joan sat back, looking for the odd angle in the question. “No,” she replied.

“You and I are sitting here talking,” I nodded. “And in our conversation, am I directing you, telling you how to be a manager?”

Again, the answer was “No.”

“And would you say that our conversations are valuable, valuable to you, in your role, as a manager?”

Joan followed the nod. “Yes,” she said slowly.

“I am not telling you what to do, yet, am I bringing value to the conversation?” I could see Joan making a leap in her mind to follow. “How am I doing that? If I am not telling you what to do, what kinds of sentences am I using?”

“Questions,” she responded. “You are not telling me what to do. You are asking questions and listening. And your questions are bringing value to the decisions I have to make and the problems I have to solve.”

Culture Fit as Part of a Role Description

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Yesterday, I got a question from a participant in our Hiring Talent online program. In the Field Work assignment to create a Role Description (according to a specific template), the question came up.

Question:
I wasn’t sure about including the culture/values piece, as it is not something I typically see in role descriptions, however I felt strongly in doing so, as I think this is something that really lives in our organization, provides a compass for how decisions are made, how people interact, and is why we are able to attract and retain top talent.

Just curious – is the culture/value piece something you are seeing companies incorporate more and more into their role descriptions?

Response:
The culture/values piece is rare to find in a role description, but think about this.

What is culture? It is that unwritten set of rules, intentional or not, that governs the way we behave as a group. It governs the way we work together.

Here are the four criteria I interview for –
1. Capability for the level of work in the role (Time Span)
2. Skill (Technical knowledge and practiced performance)
3. Interest, passion (Value for the work)
4. Reasonable behavior (Habits, absence of an extreme negative temperament, -T)

The elements you describe in the Role Description, related to culture/values have a distinct place in the interview process. Where I can ask questions related to values, specifically value for the work we do, I am looking for interest or passion. Where I can ask questions related to habits, reasonable behavior, I am looking for fit with our culture.

These elements, interest, passion and culture fit are as critical to success as capability and skills. I look forward to seeing the questions generated by this Key Result Area in the Role Description.

If you would like more information about our online program Hiring Talent, let me know. I am gathering the next group to start on March 19, 2012.

Do Not Sit Silent

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We have been following the story the past few days of Rene, who had been asked to participate as a senior manager on a hiring team. Rene was NOT the Hiring Manager (who will ultimately be held accountable for the output of the new hire), nor the Manager-Once-Removed (who will be held accountable for the quality of the decision of the Hiring Manager). Rene’s role was to participate, and in most companies, the accountability and authority of that role remains undefined, most of the effort is wasted.

Neither Rene nor the hiring team knew what to expect of her. Rene’s participation on this hiring team was NOT a managerial role, carried no managerial clout, yet had distinct cross-functional accountability and authority. Rene was playing a collateral role at Stratum IV, collateral to the Manager-Once-Removed.

The collateral cross-functional role carries three distinct characteristics.

  • Rene has clear access to the MOR (and the Hiring Manager) to persuade
  • Rene has clear access to the MOR (and the Hiring Manager) to explain
  • If there is disagreement between Rene and the MOR, then they must do what the CEO expects them to do. If that expectation is not clear, they must consult the CEO for clarity.

So, Rene has clear accountability and authority. If Rene observes that a defined process is not being followed, I would hold her accountable for approaching the team to explain the process and to persuade the team to follow the process. It is not Rene’s role to sit silent in those meetings.

Lost In Translation

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
In your Time Span workshop, you talk about the breakdowns in communication that can occur when a manager skips a layer, for example a Stratum IV manager working with a Stratum II supervisor. How can you tell when you have a lost-in-translation issue?

Response:
Communication breakdowns can occur for many reasons. Elliott Jaques, in his Time Span research often found, that problems we attribute to communication breakdowns or personality issues, turn out to be a misalignment in organizational structure.

A Stratum IV manager and a Stratum II supervisor are typically working on goals with markedly different Time Spans. Even looking at the same problem, their analysis will be different. The Stratum II supervisor may piece some of the elements together while the Stratum IV manager looks to see how this problem impacts other related systems down the road. Indeed, they may describe the problem using different words (terminology).


The S-II supervisor may wonder what the S-IV manager is talking about while the S-IV manager wonders why the S-II supervisor cannot see what is altogether clear. They use different words and see the world in different ways, creating that lost-in-translation syndrome.

But, your question was, how can you tell if this is Lost-in-translation? More importantly, how can we recognize the difficulty and what steps can we take to prevent it or cure it?

Underperformance of any kind indicates a problem. Any time performance does not meet expectation, there are three places to immediately look.

  • Is it a problem with the performance?
  • Is it a defect in the expectation?
  • Is there a problem with the communication of the expectation?

If it’s a problem with the communication, then lost-in-translation could be the culprit. And the accountability lies with the manager. It is (always) the manager who I hold accountable for the output of the team member.

What needs to change? What managerial behavior needs to change? I see two steps.

  1. The manager should recognize the time span framework of the team member. Here is a quick set of diagnostic questions – “What is the task? When should this task be completed?” The response from the team member is a clear indication of the Time Span the team member has in mind. This Time Span is impacting every decision surrounding this project. The adjustment for the manager is to speak in terms of the other person.
  2. The manager should examine the language (words) being used to make sure the meaning of the words is common and clear. During a task assignment, I will often ask the team member to take written notes and feed back to me their understanding of the work instruction. In there is confusion, it can generally identified in this step.

It is the manager I hold accountable. The manager is 100 percent responsible for the communication in this lost-in-translation issue.

It’s Not About Flow and Luck

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
In your workshop, it was clear, the research you presented supports hierarchy in an organization. I am still not sure I buy that. There is so much talk these days about “tribes” as a better, more flexible structure.

Response:
Notwithstanding how great Mel Gibson looked in his Mayan costume in Apocalypto, all the talk of modern tribal systems is misguided.

One reason is the misunderstanding of the purpose for hierarchy. We think, because we watch too many military movies, we think hierarchy exists to create a reporting protocol in the organization. Here’s the bad news, you are NOT a manager so people can report to you.

The fact is, we report to people all over the organization. I contribute to a project for Paul. I am responsible to compile a forecast for a report for Frank. I have to procure some super-special material on a project for Bill. I sit in on a steering committee for Jim. I report to people all over the organization. There is no lack of flexibility. It might even have the appearance of a tribe.

But even in a tribal structure, every once in a while, like every day, I will run up against a problem or a decision where I need some help. I may have a conflict priority between Bill’s project and Frank’s project. Who do I go to for help? If I go to Bill or Frank, I may get the wrong answer. So who is accountable for that decision. In a tribal system, no one is accountable. There is ambiguity. And ambiguity kills accountability.

A tribal system is great, unless we are trying to get some work done.

The purpose of the managerial relationship, the mandate for every manager, is to bring value to the problem solving and decision making of the team member. And that’s the purpose for hierarchy, to fix accountability at the appropriate decision level. The right decision on the conflict between Bill’s project and Frank’s project may require perspective on BOTH projects, as well as capital budgets, multiple customer initiatives and the availability of technical support. If I don’t have that perspective (to make the right decision), then who?

In a tribe, there is no one accountable for that perspective? It’s all about flow and luck.

In a hierarchy, it is my manager who is accountable. I may report to people all over the organization, but there is only one person accountable for my output, and that is my manager.