OK, you've made the big transition. Someone has finally recognized your superior talents and has named you a manager. Now you have it made, right? It's just a matter of time until the next promotion, until you are in middle management, and then, senior management, even executive management. Well, here's some news, this manager stuff is an awful lot of hard work. And MOST people simply can't do it. I don't know why, but that's been my discovery in 30 years of managerial experience. I named a lot of managers in that time, and even after careful interviewing and selection, 50% of them couldn't do it. I admit, some of that failure rate could be my problem, but I had lots of help selecting them, and more than enough help deciding they weren't cutting the mustard, so there must be something to the job that makes it tough.
Along the way, I had the good fortune to work for some excellent managers, but I also had the extreme good fortune to have some excellent staff that worked with me, and they taught me more than any of the bosses I had! I also had some terrible managers, but they also taught me some extremely valuable lessons. I paid a great price for that learning, and I would like to share the investment.
When naming a new manager, I often wanted to give them a handy little guide to management. Oh, we put them through courses, and I gave them books and articles to read, but they were usually long things, and had lots of extraneous stuff in them. What I really wanted was a set of simple rules -- pay attention to these, and things will go well. So, here's that set of rules.
By the way, this is an ongoing work. I know I still have a lot to learn, and you could teach me, and others. If you think this is a fair start, let me know. If it needs improvements, or additions, send them to me. I would even like to credit the source, if that's ok. I'd tell you where I learned all of these, but I honestly don't remember with great precision. I would bet that the people who taught me these would be able to tell you -- and if you happen to be one of those reading this, and you want to claim one or other of these, please don't hesitate to let me know!
Here's a short, summarized list. It serves 2 purposes. Most of us don't read. And, for some odd reason, although most successful managers can read, they don't read very much! They prefer talking, listening, walking around, etc. So to entice them, you have to give them a one page summary. This is that summary. If it whets your appetite, each of these is explained at some greater length further on.
Be Absolutely Honest.
This is just a good rule for life, but it is an absolute requirement for management. If you can't do this, look for another line of work -- maybe stock trading, or used car sales, or something. This is the basis for trust between humans, and that is the primary glue of a good work team.
Hire and Promote the Best People You Can.
This is not easy, and you will make mistakes, but it will cost you up front. Take someone with you to the important interviews. Discuss it, sit on it. If you have a question, think about it. Don't hire them for their immediate potential, hire them for the long haul. And NEVER, NEVER hire an "idiot"!
Treat Everyone As If They Were A Volunteer.
Yes, you are the boss, and you could tell them what to do -- but that only gets them to show up. To get their enthusiasm, genius, creativity and energy, they have to want to be there! This works for staff, customers, boss, peers.
Be The Coach, Not The Dictator.
Remember that they have talent, even more talent than you do. And they have the ball, you are on the sidelines. Your goal is to help them succeed. Think John Gagliardi, not Vince Lombardi.
You can make mistakes.
It's not the end of the world if you make a mistake, nor if someone else does. Welcome to the human race. Accept it, fix it, and move on. It can be very empowering to your associates.
Watch Your Language
Try to embody the above rules in how you talk. They are NOT MY team, MY staff, MY people, MY employees. They work for themselves, their family and the company. They may be "the people I work with" or "my associates", but you don't own them.
Sit On The Other Side Of The Desk
It's a little thing, but go around and sit with them on the other side of your desk. It sends a very different message, believe me. It's putting the first few rules into action.
Keep Your Door Open.
Have a REAL open door policy -- keep it open, unless you are disturbing people nearby! It's another clear message.
Let Them Make The Decisions.
Sometimes this is called "delegation", but "let them make decisions" has a different flavor to it. This is very, very scary, but it works. Of course, you have to know HOW to do it. There are rules, results expected, etc., but the decisions have to be theirs.
Talk To Team Members Directly.
This is not a problem with small teams -- under 6 people. If you have a larger one, make sure you have a way to visit regularly with every single person. It is amazing what people will tell you when they get to know you.
Walk Around.
More of same. You will learn an enormous amount just bumping into people in the halls and cafeteria, at their work stations, whatever.
Hold Regular Weekly Staff Meetings.
Something happens when folks are all gathered in a room and can actually see and hear each other. It raises the level of engagement. And the weekly part is really important too, trust me.
Conduct TIGHT Meetings.
Develop Skills To Meet Needs.
Create Metrics.
There are lots of these, but the important thing is to do them. Numbers are facts, and they have amazing power. Here's a short list of ones you might consider:
Set High Standards.
People are amazing, and will respond with great energy if you set reasonable, but high standards. Shoot higher rather than lower. Back it up with facts and examples, and ask them to land on the moon and they will do it!
Share The Rewards.
Once you have good metrics, turn them into incentives. Share the rewards. Inspiration and leadership are wonderful motivators, but money also works!
Work A 40 Hour Week.
You are going to find this impossible at first, but plan on it. And mandate it for your staff. There may be exceptions on occasion for rare reasons, but if this breaks down, it will wreak havoc on your quality and productivity. This is another good reason for sound metrics.
Confront Problems, Never Run From Them.
Welcome problems when they show up -- the ones you don't know about are the ones that will kill you.
Run With People's Strengths, Ignore Their Weaknesses.
This one took me forever to learn. You can help people fix small problems, but you can't fundamentally change them. Try to get their attention, then let it go. If their weaknesses won't work in this job, then find them another one, here or elsewhere.
Performance Reviews are Hard Work.
The normal temptation of most managers in performance reviews is to avoid confrontation, and keep people happy. But this just delays things until they become bigger problems. On the other hand, artificial mechanisms to achieve a normal performance distribution curve are useless exercises in futility.
Pay People What They Are Worth
That sounds easy, but it is really tough. You will want to pay them more than they are worth, you will want to pay them all the same, you will want to pay them less than you. Don't do it.
Get To Know Your Associates.
They won't bite, it won't hurt you, and it will work a lot better.
Lots of managers run from this. They think it will compromise their decisions -- but it actually improves things greatly.
Network.
Or . . . get to know everybody. Talk to your peers, your customers, your partners, your suppliers, people in your field. Get on a first name basis with them all. Meet with the important ones regularly. You want them to know who you are when they have a problem, or when you need them. Get to know your boss's boss -- trust me, there are ways to do it without threatening your boss, and it's very handy.
Build An Annual Plan Quarterly.
Annual plans are a pain in the posterior. By the time they are 6 months old, they are completely outdated. Redo the plan yourself quarterly, and keep a rolling plan alive.
Build a Long Range Plan Annually.
This is a different exercise entirely. Take a day or two, go off site, brainstorm, look at long range goals, skills, etc.
Have Some Fun.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and ruins many an organization.
Have A Regular Quarterly Meeting.
This is a more formal one, with food, results, plans, talks, and a few games! It's part of having fun, but it does other important things as well.
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate.
I can't stress this enough. It does amazing things to a team when they believe they actually know what is going on. It has some sub rules:
Train Your Successor.
You really don't want to do this job forever, do you? And if you find someone with the potential for management, they are an incredibly valuable resource to you and the organization.
Try To Be Brief.
I realize I didn't follow this rule too well here. I got carried away. See if you can't condense things a bit. Most people can't retain 7 things in their head at once, Moses got by with 10 rules. Keep it simple, 7 things max, one page, stuff like that. When you drone on like this, folks eyes glaze over. But I did try to prioritize them, so you can go back to the beginning and work on the first few! The rest kind of flow from those.
These are the same as above, just fleshed out a bit and with some examples.
Be Absolutely Honest.
This is just a good rule for life, but it is an absolute requirement for management. If you can't be absolutely honest, look for another line of work -- maybe stock trading, or used car sales. This is the basis for trust between humans, and trust is the primary glue of a good work team.
If you find yourself in an environment where you cannot be honest, all the time, either set about changing the environment, or find another place to work. It is simply not healthy to stay there.
Being honest also means being absolutely straight. Don't mislead anyone, but also don't hide anything. Trust is like a glass vase - if you drop it once, it will take a very long time to glue it back together, and it will never be as good as it was. Sometimes there are things you really can't tell people, like insider information, tentative decisions and plans, but you don't want to mislead them, either. Just be up front about it. They will understand that.
You have to follow this principle with EVERYONE. It just doesn't work to tell your associates that you are always honest with them, and to then mislead a supplier or a customer. They know about this character stuff, and you will lose all credibility. If you do that when their back is turned, what do you do when mine is turned?
Sometimes, it is just inconvenient to make people aware of things -- but when you do, then you really engage their trust. I remember once that I broke this rule a long time ago, when I was fairly new to this stuff. We had a supplier of a piece of hardware, and we decided to swap it out for one that had broader industry acceptance. The sales person for this supplier would call on me regularly, and inquire as to how things were going. I didn't want to tell him that we were going to swap it out when the lease was up, because then he would inundate me with sales efforts to persuade us to keep it. So I told him things were just fine. When I did inform him, it was a fait accomplis, and his company was out. He confronted me on that -- he said he was going to lose his job because this cancellation came out of the blue, and he had no chance to change it. I felt really bad about the impact on him, but it also occurred to me that I had just sent a message to my associates that I clearly had the potential to mislead them in the future. And I would do it if it was simply inconvenient to me! Not a very good lesson in trustworthiness.
Of course, the toughest person to be honest with is the boss. When she or he puts out an opinion, it carries a lot of weight. But if you disagree, it is absolutely essential that you be clear about that. If not, your lack of agreement will surely leak out, and it will seem that you are not trustworthy. Early on, establish some ground rules with the person that gives you a safe way to bring up issues.
I once had a nasty "customer". This was an internal manager that tended to scream and shout at my staff in order to get what she wanted. When I first started dealing with her, I just bit my tongue a lot. Who wants to get on her bad side! But she read that as deceptive behavior. I finally had to set up a "protocol" where I could be frank and honest with her. I would always do it in private to avoid any embarrassment. The first time was the hardest, but after that, we established a working relationship based on mutual respect. We did not always agree, and as the customer, she could call the shots, but it was always clear what I thought about it. The biggest test came when she got a new boss that treated her in a similar manner, and I worked to create the same relationship with him.
Of course, how you go about this is extremely important. It cannot be a confrontation -- it has to be a "sharing". Here is what I heard, here is what I think about it -- be non judgmental, open to discussion, affirming the person, but commenting on the issues. It is the essence of negotiating.
Hire and Promote the Best People You Can.
This is not easy, and you will make mistakes, but it will cost you up front. Take someone with you to the important interviews. Discuss it, sit on it. If you have a question, think about it. Don't hire them for their immediate potential, hire them for the long haul. And NEVER, NEVER hire an "idiot"!
Take the time to find the prize. Think of a hiring opportunity like a gold coin that you have to spend. You only get to spend it once -- get the very best person you can for the coin. I once worked for a person who did this - it took him a year to make me an offer! But he eventually hired most of the senior management of our division as entry level people. That was a significant accomplishment.
And what is an "idiot"? You know what I mean. These are those imperious so and so's, or the needy egos, or the screamers and complainers. I don't care what talents or prizes they bring with them, if you can't live with them, they are not worth the trouble.
Yes, you are the boss, and you could tell them what to do -- but that only gets them to show up. To get their enthusiasm, genius, creativity and energy, they have to want to be there! This applies to staff, customers, boss, peers.
While you are at it, you should apply this to family and friends. It's just a good rule for life.
So what does that mean? Well, to start with, you treat them with care and respect. You ask them things -- you don't tell them. You value their opinion. You trust them as independent persons. You discuss things with them, you ask them for input and advice. You ask them if they would be willing to undertake something. You build a relationship with them, an emotional bank account of positive deposits, so that you can ask them to do things.
The upside of this is tremendous. They will do their best, because you are expecting it, not demanding it. Here's an example. I hate overtime -- it kills people, and their families, and it generates errors and lower productivity. But, on rare occasions, you just may have to do it. We were facing a situation like that once, but I could not see any way we could demand that people work overtime. Another department head had made such a demand, and he was met with serious morale problems and staff conflict. We approached it by getting every one together to explain the problem, and ask for their input. We explained the schedule, the business reasons why we wanted to try to meet it, and then we asked them to brainstorm ideas. They came up with a bunch of things we could do -- one of which was to work some overtime for this period. We, the management team, said, super -- let's do all those things. And they did it -- including the overtime. We paid the price for that, but they did it with some energy and enthusiasm. Now if they had not taken that option, I am not real clear what we would have done, but, in 30 years, I have rarely been forced to demand anything.
Be The Coach, Not The Dictator.
This works with the volunteer thing, but it is also a nice mental image that you can easily call up. John Gagliardi is a tremendous coach. He recognizes talent, and he lets the players do what they do best. He expects it -- and they do it. He doesn't scream and yell and get upset when they make a mistake. He points the problem out, he helps them understand it, and to avoid it next time.
Gagliardi also realizes that he can't play as well as most of the team can! This is a hard one for a new boss, because you are usually promoted because you did a really fine job doing what they do. But now you have to reach down even further, and figure out how to get them to do even better than you did! Expectations keep rising, and you need to meet them, and you are now fast becoming technically obsolete!
You only win when they win. They are not working for you, or to help you win, but to achieve the results themselves. This also means that everyone shares the rewards. If someone is a major contributor to the results, they should benefit from that, even more than the coach. Professional sports recognizes this in player and coach salaries.
You can make mistakes.
It's not the end of the world if you make a mistake, nor if someone else does. Welcome to the human race. Accept it, fix it, and move on. It can be very empowering to your associates. the last thing you want to do is try to cover them up, or defend them, or blame them on someone else. That destroys credibility. And there is no lesson learned like a good mistake. I have personally, on several occasions, brought an entire company to a standstill. After I fixed the problem, I made sure that my mistake would not be repeated by anyone else!
Watch Your Language
Try to embody the above rules in how you talk. They are NOT MY team, MY staff, MY people, MY employees. They work for themselves, their family and the company. They may be "the people I work with" or "my associates", but you don't own them.
This may seem like a small thing, and you will not hear very many managers do it, but when you do, you know they understand, and their associates will hear it as well. It really is all about symbols -- they speak louder than words. You don't wear a different coat, or a crown, or even a tie, anymore. Kings need those things, because they often don't have personal power -- they depend on the trappings of royalty. You don't need it, and you don't want it. Count on the relationships you have built, not on the trappings of power.
Sit On The Other Side Of The Desk
It's a little thing, but go around and sit with them on the other side of your desk. It sends a very different message, believe me. It's putting the first few rules into action.
It's a symbol, again, but it is powerful. I will only sit behind the desk if that's the only chair left in the room. Putting the desk between us is another symbol of power. You don't want it between you and the people you work with. When I sit next to them, or around a work table, I also get closer to them, and I can even reach out and touch them, if the situation calls for it. Touch is also very powerful, and I used to use it a lot. You want to be careful these days, however, that you don't appear to be violating their personal boundaries. You can tell when someone needs a touch, or even a hug, and won't be offended by it. But, treat them with respect -- if they aren't comfortable with something, for heaven's sake, don't do it!
I try to use the same approach for customers and suppliers, and even my boss. They are often in charge of the mechanics, but if we can move to a different venue, around a work table, where they are not behind the desk any more, it often works better. The idea is to jointly work on things, not to have stuff between us.
Keep Your Door Open.
Have a REAL open door policy -- keep it open, unless you are disturbing people nearby! It's another clear message.
Yes, I know this one also looks trivial, but it sends another clear message. When I first started for my major employer, we had what was called "An Open Floor Plan". When I entered the front door in the morning, I could look to the left and see the Chairman at his desk. He had a bigger desk than I did, and it was surrounded by a kind of knee wall so you could tell he was important, but he sat right out there in the open. I knew him, had been introduced to him, and I was pretty sure that if I walked up to his desk, he would ask me how he could help me. He was that kind of guy, and that was why we had that kind of floor plan!
The management changed over the years, we refurbished the building, built a major addition and added offices. The executive management were now on the top floor of the building, nowhere near the front door. For a while, you could actually walk up there and say hello, if you didn't mind the stares of the secretaries -- they still had their doors open and you could still get in. On occasion, I would take a new group of trainees and just walk through the executive offices so they knew that you could. If one of the "old" management was there, we would even stop and introduce everyone. But that didn't last.
We had security on the outside doors, so that only employees could get into the building, or guests with a chaperone. But the executives had to have secured access to their 17th floor. I wanted to ask them if they were that afraid of the employees. But they were past the point of understanding the humor at that point. The laughable part is that they still published an "open door" policy -- you just had to call to make an appointment, I guess!
I also got an office in this new world, and it was very handy. We used to have to schedule conference rooms for all kinds of things, and now I could just get up and shut the door for a few minutes. You realize, of course, in this atmosphere that my office had a glass wall -- so that I could look out and keep an eye on everyone. On the clerical floors, they actually designed the cubical walls so that they were not high enough to hide anyone. You could look out at your kingdom and see who was at their desk, or who was napping.
I have since learned that quiet and privacy are essential to any truly productive environment. In about 1980 IBM did a study on office design and productivity for their Santa Teresa programming labs in California. They determined that the optimum productivity resulted when they had no more than 2 people in a room, with a door that could be closed, and a window that looked out onto the real world. They found that you can't really get any good work done without at least one hour of uninterrupted time. People chatting and answering the phone next to you is very much an interruption. For a while they tried masking the sounds with "white noise", but then the quality suffered. The noise raised everyone's anxiety levels enough that they couldn't really concentrate.
I used to tell people: "If you really have to get something done, don't answer the phone, put up a piece of yellow tape across the door to your workstation, and ignore everyone. Or go and work in the cafeteria. Or go home and work. Whatever works. You have my permission." It always amazed me that people rarely took advantage of that offer.
Let Them Make The Decisions.
Sometimes this is called "delegation", but "let them make decisions" has a different flavor to it. This is very, very scary, but it works. Of course, you have to know HOW to do it. There are rules, results expected, etc., but the decisions have to be theirs.
There are lots of reasons for this, but the fundamental one is that things just work a lot better, whether we are talking customer service, cost savings, productivity or anything else. When the boss is in charge of decisions, then no one makes them if they can avoid it. They push it up, they push it back, they step aside. "It's not my problem." When they really own the decision, then things happen. Then they can respond to the customer in a timely fashion, and with energy, because it was their decision to do it that way. They can make the cost saving decision, because it is theirs, it is their money, their concern. They don't have to kick it up to you, and wait for you to tell them what to do. Face it, they are on the front line, they see the problem, let them tackle it.
I could tell a hundred stories around this. In the organization where I spent most of my working life, only a department head could actually approve an expenditure -- for even a single dollar. So people were always beating on my door asking me to spend money for this or that. I finally figured out that what I should do is simply tell them to do whatever made sense. They understood our budget, they shared the corporate financial goals. If we made money that year, their pay would be modestly higher. If they thought this expense would actually save us money, or increase our productivity, or other measurable goal, they should go for it. When presented with the decision themselves, they would often say that they needed to think on it a bit. Regularly, they would come back and tell me "never mind" for this one.
They call it delegating, but it is really a form of coaching. Here's the basics:
Then get out of the way! Let them run with it. Resist that great temptation to look over their shoulder and kibitz. If they ask for help, be gracious, and do whatever they ask. At the first review point, call them to task, and give them a frank assessment. Sometimes it takes one or two runs at something before people realize that you really mean it when you say it is theirs to do. Start them out with something not life threatening! To you or them!
That said, there are times when you absolutely have to demand something. Then try to do it in a way that they will at least understand the imperative. Once, we had a problem because we were working overtime, and people were not coding the extra hours, not billing it back to the customer. They were trying to be nice about it, and keep the customer's budget in balance. But it was clear to me that this way lies a deep and dark pit. If the customer realizes that we are basically free, they will never let up on the overtime approach. And it generates such a cost to us, that we will never recover from it. So, at a staff meeting where we were discussing it, and could not come to agreement, I decided that I just had to make the point, loud and clear. I climbed up on the conference table, stood in the center of it, and shouted: "We are coding every single hour spent working, is that clear?" At least I was pretty sure they would not forget what I said, and they might remember why I said it!
Given the realities of the world, your own manager is not likely to understand this approach of letting people make decisions, so you also need to educate your co-workers on that perspective. If they think the "big boss" would be upset about something, then they absolutely must let you know about it. Otherwise you are toast, and you can't help them anymore. All you ask is that they let you know in a timely fashion, so that you do appear to be "in control" of the situation when the big boss asks you a question about it. "Walking around" also helps with this -- see that rule.
Talk To Team Members Directly.
This is not a problem with small teams -- under 6 people. If you have a larger one, make sure you have a way to visit regularly with every single person. It is amazing what people will tell you when they get to know you.
I learned this the hard way. I had a team which reported to me, and then I was promoted, and replaced myself with a new supervisor. I thought I knew these folks pretty well. But one day, one of them came in, and closed the door behind him -- an unusual move. He sat down and with some trepidation, told me of some of the problems with the new manager. Even though I knew these folks well, and they knew my management style, they all felt it would not be proper to go over the boss's head -- he might get upset. Since then, I make it clear to the managers reporting to me, that I will be talking to their staff on a regular basis, and I'll share any concerns they have with them. I set up formal appointments with every member of the department on a rotating basis. If possible I would go visit with them in their workspace, but they could always meet in my office if they preferred that. It did not prevent all of the problems that we had with communications, but I think it did help somewhat.
Walk Around.
More of same. You will learn an enormous amount just bumping into people in the halls and cafeteria, at their work stations, whatever.
There is actually a Harvard Business Review article on this topic: "Management by Walking Around". They did a little research, and found out that the most effective managers are touching base with people and things all the time. The most important stuff happens in the hall -- not a formal meeting. You will learn things you could never have learned in other ways, and people will open up about issues and problems.
But, do NOT walk around at quitting time. I had a VP that would do that -- he was checking on who left early. People do NOT work harder if you check up on them. They work harder if they are trusted, confided in, inspired, led, etc. If you have to check up on them to keep them working, you have a serious problem.
Hold Regular Weekly Staff Meetings.
Something happens when folks are all gathered in a room and can actually see and hear each other. It raises the level of engagement. And the weekly part is really important too, trust me.
It may be cultural, but people get geared up at the start of the week, and wind down toward the end. If you want them to be as productive as possible, get them moving at the start of the week by reminding them what is to be accomplished that week. It doesn't work to remind them on Thursday!
And NEVER plan tasks that are longer than one week -- most people just cannot manage their time that well. They need that weekly reminder to keep them on task.
You need to "go to Church" once a week on core values, as well. If you have something underway, and you think it is important, you need to be talking about it at least once a week. If it doesn't come up weekly, it no longer exists. Why do you think all of the great religions get everyone together once a week?
Conduct TIGHT Meetings.
If you just walk into a meeting and expect something to happen, you can count on needing another meeting. Think of it like a stage play or a liturgy. People have roles, and they are going to play them out for the benefit of everyone else there. You have a meeting because you are trying to move people to something. You need to rehearse the important characters to accomplish what you need.
Just take a few minutes at the start of the meeting, and ask everyone what items they have to discuss, and jot them on the board in front. If it is MY meeting, I generally have a number of things I want to accomplish, and I make sure these are on the list. Making the list visible does a couple of things: it focuses the group on getting through the list, and it keeps extraneous items off the list.
Everyone's time is valuable, and you are wasting everyone's time if you are late. If you really cannot make the meeting, or make it on time, send a delegate. Let that person take your part in the discussion until you can get there. If it is a management meeting, having a staff person attend on your behalf is a good thing also. It gives them a better understanding of how things work. Don't hesitate to do that. If something truly confidential comes up, alert them to that -- and if need be, ask them to leave for that portion of the meeting -- but that should be a rare occurrence.
For a while, we would penalize anyone that came late a $1. They would deposit it in the kitty as they entered. We used the fund collected to go out for drinks after work!
This is a big deal. Minutes are VERY useful. They give the people who attend the meeting a better understanding of what went on, and what their assignments are. But it really does good things to those who do not attend -- especially more junior staff. Send them to everyone, not just the attendees.
And publish them in a timely fashion -- the NEXT day works well. If you wait until the day before the next meeting, 90% of the purpose of the minutes is not achievable. It reminds people what happened, and what they need to do before the next meeting.
I always took my own minutes, and then sent them to people who reported to me, who sent them to their reports. After we got electronic publishing, I would email them to everyone directly, or post them in a public spot. It turned out that my minutes were circulated throughout the whole division. So then the big boss had his secretary come in and take the minutes, so that he could edit them before they went out! Personally, I think it worked very well for my staff to hear my take on everything directly.
The BOSS is really never a good person to run the meeting. The Boss tends to direct things way too much, and to inhibit conversation and creativity. Let the group rotate the chair of the meeting until you find out who can really run a meeting well.
We actually got to the point of training "meeting facilitators". These people are experts at running meetings. Then we required every formal meeting to engage a facilitator.
If you talk first, you kill the discussion. Anyone that agrees with you will chime in, but no one else will dare to talk. I worked for people for years that simply did not understand this. They would introduce a very controversial topic, and ask our opinion -- and then, in 2 beats, immediately give us their opinion, in no uncertain terms. I couldn't believe they didn't see what they were doing.
These will be in the minutes, but it really clarifies things if the agenda is summed up with the follow up items at the end.
Develop Skills To Meet Needs.
Do this at the management level first. What is going on with your industry, your business, your technology? What skills do you have, what skills do you need? Put your ratings into a matrix -- skills and staff. The holes will appear. Then publish it, and recruit volunteers to learn these needed skills. They might be new things you simply do not have at all, or they might be back up skills for people who are the only ones with a particular expertise. You want a leader and a stand-in for every skill. If someone signs up, commit to give them the training to develop that skill. Sometimes this means rotating staff through areas to ensure that you have a fully rounded group of people. Review this matrix quarterly, and make adjustments as needed.
This is staff development with a business focus. People are motivated to learn new things, and it is driven by your business needs.
Create Metrics.
There are lots of these, but the important thing is to do them. Numbers are facts, and they have amazing power. Here's a short list of ones you might consider:
Get the results, and publish it to everyone, as well as the customers. Keep a history of it and see how the trend line moves. You are in business to serve them -- just telling them that you realize it sometimes works wonders, and telling the staff that you are measuring it also sends a powerful message.
Build this one carefully, and don't do it more than every 6 months. Let people submit their replies anonymously, and include yourself and anyone else up the line that you can. Select the questions with care -- this is not a popularity contest, but an effectiveness measure. Just asking people for their input on this is powerful, and the message to the managers is also very good. Sometimes people do a 360 survey -- everyone rates their boss, their reports and their peers. That works as well, but the administration is a bit more complex.
Be sure to allow comments. We had a management survey once, where one of the VPs got over 400 negative comments about a particular decision -- about 1/3 of the staff! He was somewhat moved by the experience, more than you will ever believe. I thought I was going to have to call in a psychiatrist -- but he recovered, and responded well. It was a great learning experience.
This is very important. It's one thing to keep the customers happy, but that won't necessarily make any money. Making money requires productive work, with high quality. You need to focus folks on always improving their output, while maintaining and even improving their quality and customer orientation. There are 3 legs to the stool, and you just can't focus on one of them or you will fall over.
This is also a tough one. Staff will tell you it is impossible, or too much work, or whatever -- but do it anyway. Find examples of other places that are doing it, and make them aware of it. Do a seat of the pants estimate for the heck of it, and then compare your supposed productivity to some industry standards -- you will likely be somewhat amazed at how poor yours is! It can get better, but only if you start to measure it.
Quality is harder than productivity, but you HAVE to do it. The easiest way to raise productivity is to ship sloppy work. The easiest way to fix quality is to slow things down and don't make any changes. Both paths are disasters. You have to do both, and you can. Find a good book, find a guru on quality, and train people on it. Everyone is doing it these days -- you cannot ignore it.
High productivity and high quality are nothing if nothing ever gets done when promised. Track it, track all of them. Do reviews, improvement meetings, etc.
If you are an internal service unit, this one is particularly important. If you delivered a product to internal customers, it must have a business impact. Get an estimate of it, a measure of it, and track it. Keep the records, so that you and your staff understand that their goal is really to benefit the business, not just generate their own work product. Make them share in the overall business objectives and goals. Keep them focused.
There's a whole section on this one -- it's about staff development to achieve business goals..
Set High Standards.
People are amazing, and will respond with great energy if you set reasonable, but high standards. Shoot higher rather than lower. Back it up with facts and examples, and ask them to land on the moon and they will do it!
I organized a software quality improvement effort once. I found some industry experts, and invited one of them to visit with our division management. He asked my boss what he thought the range of improvement of our efforts might be if we really worked at it. The boss guessed 15 to 20%. This fellow had actually published studies that indicated that the best shops were doing 200% better than we were. He didn't tell the boss that, but he also said that he didn't think we could benefit from his assistance. If you think the highest achievable improvement is 20%, it constrains your results, even if you never tell anyone about it.
I took the 200% improvement stories and put them in front of the staff. They were not convinced, but it got their attention. Then I persuaded them to commit to a 10% improvement each year. After talking about 200%, this seemed a lot more reasonable. Well, I am convinced that people can improve software development or just about anything by 10% just by trying a bit harder. But you have to really change things fundamentally to get anywhere near 50%, let alone 200%.
Well, 10% a year, compounded annually, gets to be a very significant number. It becomes 46% in 4 years, and 61% in 5 years -- a stretchy goal indeed.
Share The Rewards.
Once you have good metrics, turn them into incentives. Share the rewards. Inspiration and leadership are wonderful motivators, but money also works!
I don't know if this is true in all cultures, but it is certainly true in ours. We use money as a measure of success, of achievement, as our primary means to enjoyment. Why do you think capitalism works so well in our culture? We thrive on competition. If the team makes significant quality and improvement gains, use the measures to determine how much is saved in one year -- and split the annual savings with the staff. Next year, it is all free. With real dollars behind those numbers, they begin to pay a lot more attention to the metrics.
Work A 40 Hour Week.
You are going to find this impossible at first, but plan on it. And mandate it for your staff. There may be exceptions on occasion for rare reasons, but if this breaks down, it will wreak havoc on your quality and productivity. This is another good reason for sound metrics. Once we were building a billing system for the chief accounting officer. He called me in one day and said that he would like us to not charge back our over time hours. He was breaking his budget, and the hours we worked overtime were basically free -- everyone was salaried. I told him that instead of not charging for overtime at all, I was considering doubling the charge. Overtime cost us enormously in morale, in productivity, and in problem generation. We tracked our software problems and we always included the date that the problem was inserted into the system. When we went back to do analysis, any time we were stressed by schedule or by overtime, we generated many, many more problems. It cost us much more to remove these problems eventually than we ever saved by working longer hours.
A 40 hour week is also the only way to stay sane and preserve your marriage, or family and social life. A good friend of mine started his own business. He started off working 60 and 70 hour weeks, always thinking that he would slow down a bit when things got established, and he had things under control. After a number of years, he realized that things are really never going to change to the point where he actually got everything done. Tomorrow will be just like today, unless you do something very different. You simply have to decide that enough is enough, and there are other priorities in life.
Confront Problems, Never Run From Them.
Welcome problems when they show up -- the ones you don't know about are the ones that will kill you.
This is a tough one for some people. Procrastination is death itself. And do not kill the messenger -- they just brought you an opportunity to improve things that you did not even know was there.
When a problem appears, I get as much information as I can from the persons responsible for it. I lay out a plan of attack on how to fix it, and then I go directly to the person experiencing the problem. I identify the problem to them, help them understand that I realize its full impact, I apologize, and then I lay out a plan of attack to fix it, and I make sure that it is implemented. Don't be afraid to confront the victim of the problem, and the perpetrator. I have only rarely been physically threatened. Verbal threats are simple -- accept the emotional heat and deflect it with an empathic statement, and a solution to the problem.
A corollary to this is: "When a problem is found, fix the system or process in such a way that this one will never appear again". It is not enough to fix this one occurrence -- you have to reach in and figure out where this came from, and make sure it can never happen again. Woe to me if the problem catches me once. Double woe if I don't make it impossible for it to ever happen again.
Run With People's Strengths, Ignore Their Weaknesses.
This one took me forever to learn. You can help people fix small problems, but you can't fundamentally change them. Try to get their attention, then let it go. If their weaknesses won't work in this job, then find them another one, here or elsewhere.
As I said, it took me a long time to learn this one. I found this wise advice in an article in Harvard Business Review by Peter Drucker -- and he is right. I used to spend forever trying to help people fix their problems. It consumed enormous amounts of my time, it annoyed them, and our customers and staff -- and it rarely did any good. In hiring or promoting managers, I think 50% of my choices were failures. In that long list, only one of them responded to my intervention and improved enough to stay on the job. He was just lazy, and I scared him enough that he responded. Most of the time, it is a much more profound problem, and you do not have the time nor the expertise or the time to really help the person.
In retrospect, I think I wanted to fix them so that I wouldn't be a failure, having hired them. Another part of my rationale was that I was sending a message to the staff -- we'll work with you to help you solve problems. But the staff were just generally annoyed by the length of time it always took me to resolve the problem of an inadequate manager. Better to cut your losses and run with someone else.
Performance Reviews are Hard Work.
The normal temptation of most managers in performance reviews is to avoid confrontation, and keep everyone happy. But this just delays things until they become bigger problems. On the other hand, artificial mechanisms to achieve a normal performance distribution curve are useless exercises in futility.
I still remember my first performance review. I came in with my documentation, sat down and started in to offer some constructive criticism to this young lady. She responded by attacking me and my opinion. I figured I was the boss and she should just sit there and listen. She figured I was an idiot who needed to be set straight. By the time we were through, I was ready to resign. Who wants to put up with this crap.
Through the years, I found a technique that worked pretty well:
Forget that normal curve stuff, but do rank folk, pay the better ones more, and work on improving the bottom ones. In 30 years I must have revised our performance management system 3 times to try to get away from performance upwards creep. I say, forget it. Everyone thinks that they are above average. If they have no serious problem that needs to be fixed, let them think that -- it doesn't hurt anything. But that doesn't mean that their pay is above average. See the next rule: Pay People What They Are Worth.
Pay People What They Are Worth
That sounds easy, but it is really tough. You will want to pay them more than they are worth, you will want to pay them all the same, you will want to pay them less than you. Don't do it.
Get some external standard as to what jobs are worth, don't just go with your gut and anecdotal evidence. There are generally salary surveys that compare similar jobs. Make sure your company subscribes to one and that it is used to set pay scales. It's a lot easier to pay people what they are worth than to be replacing them all the time.
Don't give in to the temptation to pay them all the same. For annual reviews, I would ask the managers to rank their folks, top to bottom, and then we would share the rankings with the other managers at a staff meeting. We would typically have some lively discussions about how they ranked people. I tried to get a general consensus. Then we would allocate the salary increase dollars based on the ranking. You HAVE to give the best people more money, you just have to. Yes, they will find out, and someone will be upset, but that's part of life. My goal always was that we should be able to post all of the salaries on the wall, and I would be happy to defend the relative pay. People might not agree with our decisions, but we should be able to explain why one person makes more than another.
And it won't kill you to pay the top technical people more than the managers. They can do things your managers cannot, and you don't want to promote them out of it. Structure a senior level technical position, and keep it for the very best folk.
Get To Know Your Associates.
They won't bite, it won't hurt you, and it will work a lot better.
Lots of managers run from this. They think it will compromise their decisions -- but it actually improves things greatly.
The conventional wisdom is that you can't get too close with the folks who "work for you", or you will be handicapped when you have to make the tough decisions. I found it works the opposite. The more I know them, the better the decision is. It may not be an easy decision, and I may have made it much more difficult for myself, but I definitely raised the quality of the decisions.
I also found that the stuff of true delegation (see above) only works well when you have some kind of emotional bond with your co-workers. They have to trust you, and you them, for it to work well. If everyone is always protecting their backside, and looking to get at ours, you waste an enormous amount of time and energy.
Network.
Or . . . get to know everybody. Talk to your peers, your customers, your partners, your suppliers, people in your field. Get on a first name basis with them all. Meet with the important ones regularly. You want them to know who you are when they have a problem, or when you need them. Get to know your boss's boss -- trust me, there are ways to do it without threatening your boss, and it's very handy.
Whenever I got a new assignment, I made it a point to visit with all of the customer management, and to make regular return visits. Every chance I got, I would talk to my peers, formally and informally, within and without the company. If we didn't have staff meetings, I would set up regular, personal one on one's with them.
I would also find a professional society that specialized in the area I was working in -- and if one didn't exist, I would set about and form one in the local area. It gave me a great opportunity to meet regularly with my peers in other companies.
There are lots of benefits from this networking.
Build An Annual Plan Quarterly.
Annual plans are a pain in the posterior. By the time they are 6 months old, they are completely outdated. Redo the plan yourself quarterly, and keep a rolling plan alive.
Once a year, take some time, get a fresh perspective, do "what if" planning. What's our mission and goals? What did we do with the prior long range plan? How did we do last year? Any unexpected threats on the horizon? There is a whole discipline for doing this. Hire a consultant for it, if you can afford one. It energizes people and gets things running in a new gear.
Have Some Fun.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and ruins many an organization.
It is not a sin to have a good time at work. In fact, many organizations have discovered that a few bucks and a few hours spent trying to make the work place more tolerable generates great rewards in productivity and quality. It's related to the "clean windows" rule. This is where you work in factory that is stressing the improvement of the quality of the product. And every day, when you come to work, the windows in the main door are filthy, grimy. The floor is usually a mess too. You can't get people to do high quality work in a low quality place. Clean it up, paint it up, make it look neat and inspiring, and it will be reflected in the quality of the work as well.
Have A Regular Quarterly Meeting.
This is a more formal one, with food, results, plans, talks, and a few games! It's part of having fun, but it does other important things as well.
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate.
I can't stress this enough. It does amazing things to a team when they believe they actually know what is going on. It has some sub rules:
One of my other rules of life is that most people are not paying attention. You have to be in their face again and again, in many, many ways to get anything across. It isn't the length of the document or the presentation, it's the frequency. But don't let them be phony -- they have to be real, real things from the heart, real information, real decisions. If you just stick up any old thing, it will be seen as the sham it is.
I implemented a corporate technical architecture once -- the key thing, of course was to build it. But once we gained agreement on it, I published a summary in a multi-color poster and gave everyone a copy. They appeared everywhere, on walls, cubicles, on the intranet, and every one would refer to that poster as though it were the bible. Well, it was our technical infrastructure bible.
You are supposed to be the one in charge, so you need to be able to deliver things when they are due. It's a matter of commitments, much more than the mechanics of the diary. I worked at a law firm once, and I had 60 open cases. I went away for a week and I worried all week that I missed something, that some date would pass and I missed a filing or something. When I came back, I spent my Saturday morning dairying all of the important events, and then asked the secretary to do the same for the other attorneys. It saved us a bunch of grief.
Train Your Successor.
You really don't want to do this job forever, do you? And if you find someone with the potential for management, they are an incredibly valuable resource to you and the organization.
Try To Be Brief.
I realize I didn't follow this rule too well here. I got carried away. See if you can't condense things a bit. Most people can't retain 7 things in their head at once, Moses got by with 10 rules. Keep it simple, 7 things max, one page, stuff like that. When you drone on like this, folks eyes glaze over. But I did try to prioritize them, so you can go back to the beginning and work on the first few! The rest kind of flow from those.
Created on ... June 23, 2004
Last updated on March 15, 2005
© Carl Scheider, 2004, 2005