Tag Archives: necessity

Steps to Necessity

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“My question still stands,” Erica was insistent. “How do I get my team to the point where they believe performance is necessary?”

“It starts with competence,” I replied. “We cannot perform at a level where we are not competent. If we are not competent, then, not only will it NOT happen, it cannot be believed to be necessary. So, the first step in believing in the necessity of performance is to build the competence required.”

Erica was a good student. “And, competence is a combination of capability, skill and practiced performance?”

“Moreover,” I responded, “if we have the capability, possess the required skill and practice to the point of habit, then necessity follows. The habit of pace, at quality spec, produces the necessity of performance.”

Nature of Necessity

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“How does necessity work?” Erica wanted to know.

“Think of something in your life that is necessary, nothing complicated, but something you do that is necessary,” I replied.

“Okay, I brush my teeth, not because my mother told me, though that is how I started, but because I believe it is necessary.”

“So, in the beginning, your mother told you, and you followed, not because it was necessary, but because you knew you she would continue to remind you until you complied.”

“And, now,” Erica picked up, “I do it because I believe it is necessary.”

“Now, think about your team. You want them to do something, perform at a pace, and in a way that meets a quality spec, because you believe it is necessary?”

“Yes,” Erica nodded.

“But is your team doing it because you believe it is necessary or because they believe it is necessary?” I prompted.

Erica shrugged. “No, they are only doing it because I told them to do it.”

“And, they will continue to do it as long as you are around to remind them to pick up the pace and pay attention to quality. But, the instant you are gone, they will only do what they believe is necessary. Necessity is not what you believe, it’s what they believe.”

Long Term Consequence

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“Clarity, competence, habits, conscientiousness. There’s more?” Mariana asked.

“I told you that making performance necessary was not a simple sleight of hand, or even a hat trick of three,” I said.  “The most powerful element of necessity is consequences. And, I am not talking about pizza for the team for a job well done. Necessity becomes a part of a person’s life.  Long term consequences. Over a decade, the difference in a person’s life has to do with clarity of aim, competence to perform, positive habits that build momentum and conscientiousness to persist toward the goal, in spite of obstacles. That difference is the consequence that matters in our quality of life.

“For you, as a leader, you must surround yourself, build your team with people who see performance as necessary. Not only for your goals, but for their own personal aspirations.”

Conscientiousness

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Mariana counted on her fingers. “Necessity requires clarity, competence and habits,” she nodded.

I smiled. “Did I mention conscientiousness?.** It’s a mental state related to personal responsibility. You would observe conscientiousness in the things a person feels obligated to do, in their persistence to complete a task, to maintain necessary standards.”

“How will I know, if a person is conscientious or not?” Mariana asked.

“It’s there in front of you to observe. Given a task, the person may have a few questions, but they do not procrastinate. They get right to it and work to the end. They will never ask – Is that good enough? If you were clear in the standard, they will know what is good enough.”

“We started this discussion,” Mariana said, “because you told me the reason my team underperformed is because I had not made the performance standard necessary. Making performance necessary must be my accountability.”

I nodded in agreement, before I added one more thing.
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**Conscientiousness is a trait measured by the Big Five Assessment, free version here.

Necessary Habits

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“More?” Mariana repeated.

“Yes, understanding necessity is not a simple salvo,” I replied. “It’s more complex with several factors. We have talked about clarity. You, as the manager, cannot make something necessary unless its standard is clear. The second element of necessity is competence. You cannot make something necessary for a team unless the team has the requisite competence to meet the standard. The third element is habits.

“For something to be necessary, there can be no choice. Yoda says there is no try, there is only do. The team cannot choose to perform to a standard that it necessary, they must be in the habit of performing to that standard, because it is necessary.

“Habits are routine, grooved behaviors in pursuit of the goal. We have good habits and bad habits. Good habits support our pursuit toward the goal. Bad habits support our travel away from the goal. Even habits are a part of necessity. We do not choose our habits, our habits choose us. Movement toward the goal requires a set of necessary habits. Your choice is only whether to move toward the goal or away from the goal. Aim high.”

Necessity Requires?

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“If I want to make high performance necessary, I have to be clear,” Mariana repeated. “And, I have to make that clarity understood. Not what I understand, but what my team understands.”

I smiled. “And there is more.”

“More?”

“More. You can make the performance standard clear, but the team may not have the competence to make it happen. Necessity requires competence. A team without competence, in spite of necessity, will never perform at standard. Necessity requires both clarity and competence.”

Mariana nodded. “And, if they are not competent?”

“You are the manager,” I replied. “If the team members are not competent, why did you pick them?”

“At the time, I didn’t know if they were competent. They looked competent, sounded competent. I thought they had potential, that’s why I picked them.”

“Competence starts with potential. You assembled the team. Then, what did you do?”

“Well, we started with training,” she explained.

“You described, you demonstrated, they tried, you coached, they tried again, they practiced, you tested, they practiced more. You put them through drills, pace and quality. Pace and quality, until you, as the manager were satisfied at their level of competence. Necessity requires both clarity and competence.”

Mariana sighed acceptance.

“And, there’s more.”

More Powerful Than Yelling

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“We missed our target,” Mariana complained. “Again, we missed our target.”

“How so?” I asked.

“There are just so many hours in the day, so many minutes in the hour. I just can’t get the results we hoped for,” she explained.

“You are not getting the performance you want because you have not made it necessary,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Mariana wanted to know.

“Raise your hand,” I continued. “Raise your hand as high as you can.”

Mariana was puzzled but complied.

“Now, raise it higher,” I smiled.

Her head dropped, but she raised her hand higher.

“So, why didn’t you raise your hand as high as you could, when I first asked?”

“I don’t know,” Mariana replied, still puzzled.

“You didn’t do it, because it was not necessary. I did not make it necessary for you to perform at that higher level.”

“So, to make performance necessary, high performance necessary, as a manager, what do I do? Yell at the team?”

“Yelling only works in the short term and is only practiced by parents who have no children. Parents who have children know that yelling does not work. Yelling does not create necessity. Necessity is much more powerful than yelling.” I nodded.

“So, how?” Mariana was curious. “If necessity is so powerful, how do we create necessity?”

“There are many ways,” I continued to nod. “Let me ask again. When I first asked you to raise your hand as high as possible, you thought you did, but you didn’t. Why not?”

“Well,” Mariana thought harder, “I thought you just wanted me to raise my hand high. I didn’t know you wanted me to stretch.”

“Part of necessity is clarity. Not clarity in my mind, but clarity in your mind. Clarity in the mind of the team. We cannot make something necessary unless the standards of performance are clearly perceived by the team.”

Muddling

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“Given your intuitive sense of competence, an understanding of your current limits of success, and what it might take to overcome those limits in the future, how does that translate to your team?” I asked.

“To run a marathon, I need to train,” Naomi replied, “I get that. But, my team appears to see things differently. If you gave me a challenge to run a marathon, and I agreed this was something I wanted to do, then I would engage in the necessary training at that distance. When I give my team a challenge, beyond their current ability to perform, they seem to shy away, avoid, make excuses, find something else to busy themselves with.”

“So, first they would have to agree that it was something they wanted to do?” I confirmed.

“In many cases, they don’t have a choice,” Naomi smiled. “If we are changing a process that requires additional technical skills, we are going to change the process, no choice. It’s similar to the question, how long do you give a child to learn to walk? There is no choice.”

“So, as a leader, you make it necessary?” I nodded.

“People will just muddle through, if you let them. If we install a new process, there is no muddle. I have to make it necessary.”

Skip the Detail

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“We understand handoffs,” Max agreed. “That handoff between estimating and project management is so critical that we have a hard agenda, 150 boxes to check. Now, most projects only have, maybe, 50 critical items, but we go through the checklist just the same.”

“And why do you use the checklist?” I asked.

“What we found was that the output from estimating, I mean, it was a great estimate, but sometimes it wasn’t what the project manager needed. Sometimes, we estimate in one unit of measure, but install in a different unit of measure. So we mapped a checklist to make sure that the output of estimating matched the input requirements for project management. It’s all about outputs and inputs.”

“So what went wrong? You identified a problem with the handoff meeting that didn’t get discovered until you were in the field. What happened with the checklist?” I wanted to know.

“I looked at the paperwork. Both the estimator and the project manager just got lazy. Instead of checking all the items, there was just a big checkmark that covered the page. They got busy and skipped the detail. They were trying to save time.”

“And saving time turned out to cost time,” I nodded. “Why didn’t they slow down and take the time?”

“That’s the $64,000 question,” Max replied.

“No, it’s a really simple question. They didn’t examine the detail because you didn’t make it necessary to examine the detail. Often, things don’t get done, because we don’t make them necessary.”

Discretionary Behavior

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
You indicate the reason people do what they do is because they can. How does if-they-can relate to competence? And, if someone can-do, has the competence to-do, then how do we get them to do it? I am always looking for discretionary behavior.

Response:
Lot’s of questions embedded here. The first cause of underperformance is the lack of competence to perform. The accountability for this goes to the manager. It is the manager that determines the capability and skills required for the role. The manager is accountable for selecting the team member for the role based on their possession of that capability and skills. If the team member does not possess the requisite capability and skills, then that is poor selection on the part of the manager. This has nothing to do with discretionary behavior, this has only to do with competence.

If someone has the competence to perform, the only way for a manager to influence effective behavior is to make it necessary. The reason we don’t get the performance we want, and need, is because we do not make it necessary. If a person has the requisite skills and capability (competence) and the performance has been made necessary, then the only reason for underperformance is a matter of discretion. We can only assume underperformance occurs, is because underperformance was chosen.

The conditions for performance require –

  • Competence
  • Necessity

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For a more thorough discussion, please read Leadership: Thinking, Being, Doing by Lee Thayer