Tag Archives: management

Management is a Contact Sport

1 Reply

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
I have a manager who wants to work from home. Have you ever seen any statistics about productivity of people working from home? Does it work? Or is something lost?

Response:
The first two words from the mouth of any good consultant are, “It depends.”

Working from home works for some people, for some it doesn’t. The problem with most studies, designed or cited, is they are biased to provide a great article in a magazine about alternative methods of productivity.

One of the most powerful time management tools has to do with getting uninterrupted time for work that requires focus. Working from home can provide that time.

But what is the work of a manager? A manager is that person in the organization held accountable for the output of the team. The most important work of a manager is assembling the team, assigning the roles (and tasks in those roles), coaching behaviors, setting the context for the team and measuring output. Management is a contact sport.

Steve Jobs, designing his building, placed all the restrooms in the front part of the building, so that at least for some portion of the day, people were forced to intermingle. He knew that collaboration was paramount, people being in the same space, talking with each other, out of their cubicles. Building cooperation, team culture and team spirit is difficult to do from home. This is not a rah-rah concept. Team spirit is not the goal, but team spirit is required to gain collaboration, innovation, adaptation, awareness.

Individual output of anything truly great, is a myth. The real work of a manager is coordinating all that individual direct output into organizational throughput. Management is a contact sport. Tough to do from home.

How Does That Happen?

3 Replies

“So, what’s the solution?” Arnie was puzzled. “I pressed hard, we made our numbers. I lost seven good people in three months. Five technicians and two direct reports.”

“Let’s start with that,” I said.

“Start with what?” Arnie asked.

“Direct reports. Most managers think they are managers so people can report to them. That is not the purpose of a manager. Your role, as a manager, is to bring value to the problem solving and decision making of your team members.”

Arnie pushed his glasses up. “Okay. I’ll bite. I even believe you. But how?”

“Remember, we talked about a shift? A shift in management behavior to get a different result?”

Arnie nodded, “Yes, a shift.”

“Here’s the shift. Do you bring value to a person’s problem solving and decision making by telling them what to do?”

Arnie looked crossways at me.

“Look,” I said. “I come in here to talk with you, as a manager. I really don’t know that much about how things get done around here, so do I tell you what to do, as a manager?”

“Not really,” Arnie replied.

“But, would you say, I bring value to your problem solving and decision making?”

“Well, yes. I mean, sometimes, you piss me off, but, yes, you bring value.”

“So, how does that happen? I don’t tell you what to do, yet, I bring value. How does that happen?”

“Well, you ask me questions.” Arnie stopped. “You ask me questions.”

Grooved Behaviors

1 Reply

To be more effective managers, we cannot change our entire psychological makeup. We are who we are. But we can engage in more effective behaviors, shifts in our behaviors. Arnie was hell bent on accountability. Two managers and five production people lost to turnover, he was finally looking inward.

“As a manager, what can you shift to be more effective?” I asked. “I know you are under a lot of pressure and that you want to maintain a high level of accountability. What can you shift?”

“We are under pressure, and that’s why accountability is so important to me. When one of my team members makes a mistake, it’s a reflection on me,” Arnie explained.

“It’s more than a reflection,” I replied. “As the manager, I hold you accountable for the output of your team. They make a mistake, it’s on you.”

“That’s why I am so hard on them about their mistakes,” he defended.

“I understand, and how has that been working?”

Now, Arnie had to step back. His head was nodding. “You’re right. It seems the harder I press, the more mistakes get made, or the person ends up quitting.”

“Understand, Arnie, that you are under pressure,” I reminded. “And when we are under pressure, we fall into old behavior patterns, comfortable, grooved behaviors, even if they were not successful in the past.”

No Escape

Leave a reply

But there was no escape. “If I am the problem,” Arnie said slowly, “then what’s the solution?”

Calm settled. Arnie was no longer looking outside. There still might be a pang of defensiveness, a throwback of justification, but he was ready to explore the real reason for his turnover problem.

“Do you think you can totally remake your personality?” I exaggerated.

I got a chuckle. “No,” he replied.

“I didn’t think so,” I said, with a reciprocating smile. “But can you shift?”

“Shift?” Arnie asked.

“Shift,” I confirmed. “A subtle shift, that changes everything. You are who you are. That will not change. But can you shift?”

If We Paid Better Wages

Leave a reply

Arnie was quiet. He made his budget for the quarter. Along the way, he lost two critical managers and five of his best production people. Over a period of three months, it didn’t seem like a frenzy, but in the lookback, the numbers stacked up.

“Well, if we paid more competitive wages, we could attract a higher caliber of people, and perhaps our turnover ratios wouldn’t look.” Arnie stopped mid-sentence. He knew it was a well articulated excuse, and he knew I wasn’t buying it.

“What do you think the problem is?” I asked.

Arnie dropped his face and looked directly at me. The silence was long. Finally, his eyes grabbed a thought from the top of the room. “You are not asking me to go through personnel records, or walk the floor, trying to figure out what the problem is,” he started slowly. “You are sitting in my office, looking at me. You think I’m the problem?”

“And?”

His eyes went left, then right, up, left. “Outlast the panic,” I directed. “Be calm.” While his body was calm, his mind was racing, for escape, for avoidance, for denial.

The Numbers Are In

Leave a reply

“The numbers are in,” Arnie exclaimed. “We made budget. Took a lot of hard work, but in the end, we got the result we wanted.”

“I’m impressed,” I replied. “And how many body bags in the wake?”

Arnie looked puzzled, then he understood. He had hoped I wouldn’t notice, or at least, wouldn’t bring it up. “Well, there are those on the team, I mean, that were on the team, that just weren’t committed. Sometimes, you have to weed the garden.”

“So, you will accept some casualties along the way?” I prodded.

“In every battle, there are casualties,” Arnie suggested.

“Yes, and this isn’t a battle. This is a company, with work to do, under client pressure, with regulatory constraints and margin requirements. Why all the body bags?”

Luck? or Variability

Leave a reply

“Okay, we got together and hammered out what we think we are facing, as an organization, moving forward,” Vicki explained. “We wrote it all down on eight flip chart pages. We used your chart on Growing Pains. We think we have moved through the first two stages. We have a sustainable sales volume and we have documented our methods and processes, our best practices. But you were right, our problem is our profitability.”

“How so?” I asked.

“We get most of the way through a project, everything is right on track, then, it all goes out the window. Things happen. We get to the end of the project, and boom, our labor budget lands 40 percent over. Lucky, our buyout was 10 percent under, but we still lose 30 points on the job.”

“How often does this happen?”

Vicki squinted, looking for the answer. “Seven out of eight projects in the past three months,” she grimaced. “And the one project on target was a fluke, dumb luck. There was a problem on the job covered by a bond from another contractor. We got through by the skin of our teeth.”

“You realize, you have used the word ‘luck’ twice in the past 15 seconds?”

Burning Platforms

2 Replies

From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
I attended your Time Span workshop. So now I am curious, this clearly resonated. But where do we start?

Response:
Why? at the beginning, of course.

There are a number of simple things you can do, as a manager. But, I think, first, is to determine why you would do them. In the workshop, we started with an organizational analysis, to surface the challenges your company has faced, getting to where it is today. And then, to look forward, to understand what changes you will face taking your company to the next level.

In most cases, those challenges are predictable, depending on what stage your organization is moving through. But you have to write them down, with some detail.

This is where I start.

What are the burning platforms, the hot spots? Where do things seem to be stuck? What has to change? Where are the growing pains?

Only when you identify these changes, only when you identify the pain, will you understand the necessity of the solution. This is where I start.

This starting place is obvious, you and your management team already know this pain. You have likely discussed it, in meetings and in the hallway. So, write it down. Fishbone out the details. Don’t try to solve the pain, yet. Just document it.

Slow down.

Don’t jump to conclusions about solutions, because you, now, have this new lens, this new framework to look at these challenges. Before the workshop, you thought you had a personality conflict or a breakdown in communication. Most often, those turn out to be a misalignment in organizational structure.

Reframe your challenges, now, in the light of Time Span. This is where I start.

Leader or Manager? Argument Continues

7 Replies

From the Ask Tom mailbag – from a new subscriber in Brazil.

Question:
Your blog is fantastic! I´d like to know, what´s your opinion about the difference between managers and leaders?

Response:
I usually avoid this discussion. It’s an important question, but usually draws all kinds of fire that is counter-productive. Let’s see if I can make a go of it without getting my underwear wrapped around the axle.

A manager is a role, an organizational role, with specific authority and accountability. A manager is that person, in the organization, who is held accountable for the output of other people. It is a very specific role in an organization designed to accomplish work.

Leadership is a necessary trait of an effective manager.

We often, in casual conversation refer to leadership roles, but in that sense, it carries only vague (generic) accountability and authority. And leadership, as a trait, may be found in other roles outside the role of a manager. In addition to managerial leadership, there is also political leadership, parental leadership, spiritual leadership, scientific leadership, academic leadership. These are all roles in groups organized for purposes other than work.

So, a manager is a very specific role, with defined accountability and authority, in an organization whose purpose is work. Leadership is a necessary trait.

Referring to a leadership role, a leader has undefined accountability and authority and may exist in many types of groups, organized for different purposes.

It’s Just a Dotted Line on the Org Chart

3 Replies

It’s been a whirlwind of a week. I would like to welcome our new subscribers from workshops in Minneapolis, Des Moines and Austin.
____

“What do you mean, she doesn’t know she is accountable? It’s very clear to me,” Megan complained. “She has a very clear dotted line to that area of responsibility. I know it’s not her highest priority, but still, she is responsible.”

“So, there is a conflict in her priorities?” I asked.

“Not a conflict, really, she has to get it all done. Just because it’s a dotted line doesn’t mean she can ignore it. Besides, at the bottom of her job description, it says, -and all other duties assigned.- That should cover it.”

“As her manager, what do you observe about the way she handles the conflict in her priorities?” I pressed.

Megan thought. “I think it’s an attitude problem. It’s almost as if she doesn’t care about one part of her job.”

“I thought it was just a dotted line?” I smiled.

Megan stopped cold. “You think the problem is the dotted line?”

“Dotted lines create ambiguity. Ambiguity kills accountability. What do you think?”