If most managers could listen to themselves for just a few hours, they would discover that they are chronically undermining whatever formal delegation systems are in place and enabling dependency all around them.

How is this happening?

Just listen and you will hear a stream of questions coming at them followed by answers in response.

Most managers get to be managers because they have some field in which they are very strong performers. They are the organization’s experts. So, it is so natural for them, and everyone around them, to follow the reflexive pattern: ask the expert and be rewarded with answers.

However, if you want to get people to take responsibility and be involved in the business, you can’t go on answering all these questions. They will just go on asking whether they need to or not.

What should a manager do to break this pattern?

Simply announce to the troops, “If you want to ask me a question, you have to have at least three possible answers thought through before I will consider your question. If you are having trouble coming up with answers, ask others to help you. Group thinking is always the best thinking.”

In my next posting on this topic I will go into a few further refinements to make this a really effective policy. For the moment, the really tough step is entirely in the mind and habits of you the manager. You have to get up every morning and look yourself in the mirror and say, “My job as manager is to create an environment in which everyone will take responsibility and participate fully. To help this along, I will help people by not answering their questions.”

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Recently I visited a medium size bakery. My host was the founder, a third generation pastry chef, and, as I quickly learned, a very clever yet profoundly modest person. As we talked about how he had started the business and guided its growth, it was immediately obvious to me that he completely understood who he is and who he is not. He has assembled a team of managers around him to handle all of the aspect of the business that are not his natural bent. When I asked him, “What part of the business do you wake up in the morning and rush over here to get to?”, he immediately launched into stories of his new products, pies, cakes, torts, pastries of all sorts. When I asked him about other parts of the business, he referred to his colleagues as the holders of the reins and wisdom, though I had no doubt that he had more than a passing awareness of those fields, too. Overall, during our discussion, he focused continuously on the positive, the positives in his people, customers, and suppliers. The negatives were just factors to be dealt with, but not moaned over. So, I thought, here is a manager with a powerful sense of the strength of the positive.

Finally, we got to the tour of the plant. This is the third plant he has built. Clearly he had continued to learn lessons. The most telling point for me came when we paused in the break room and he pointed to a TV hanging off the wall to explain that they frequently used that for employee training. Then, he told me this wonderful story.

[I paraphrase his story below]

Recently we have been hiring employees who come from Brazil. We carefully sit them down in front of the TV and show them videos about the importance of cleanliness and detailed instructions for washing hands. After the video we re-emphasize the importance of hand washing, especially the use of hot water. So, I think, we have done a good job of instructing our new hires.

Then, I noticed that when they went to one of the numerous wash stations, they used cold water to wash. Well, lets repeat the lessons with more emphasis on hot water. Nothing seemed to be working. Finally, I learned from one of the employees that for many Brazilians, warm water is bad water, it is the water standing around in their tropical and semi-tropical environments. For them, cold water is rare and represents purity. Aha, now I understood how to break through. They are responding with their hearts in the best way they know how.

I was stunned. Here was his power of the positive in action and on display. No executive speech. A simple story that demonstrates how he sees the best in people around him and acts on that.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

After you hire or promote a person, there is a tendency to walk away with a big smile on your face. “What a smart person I am. I hired the right person and now my job is done.” Six months later you realize that the person has drowned in their new post, everything is in disarray. But, now it is too late. The damage is done.

To correct this managers need to practice a little humility and be attentive, supportive and alert during the early stages of a new hire or promotion’s tenure. The humility arises from recognizing that more than at any other point in the life span of a manager-supervisee relationship, the early stages require the most intense application of an all important management rule: “If an employee is working below expected or required performance it is always the manager’s fault.” The first place to look is at the manager. After all, the manager hired or selected the person. The manager defines the work, provides tools, training, and all other resources required for the job.  The manager is responsible for the success of every person they supervise. By focusing on the results achieved and understanding how to move the performance towards the desired results, you can focus on tools, training, support resources that will allow your new person to succeed.

Beyond this principle, we have to acknowledge that the hiring and promotion process is one of the more flawed management practices. Some claim that in a third or a half of the cases we make the wrong decision. This merely emphasizes the need to be very observant of the performance of new hires a and new promotions because we need to be ready to act when it turns out that we’ve made a mistake.

So, when you have your new person in place and have given them clear instructions about their initial tasks, set up a time, within a week or so, at which you will have a meeting to review performance and see what further support needs to be provided. This is especially valuable in environments where you have a new hire or promotion in a new position where the variables of the goals and tasks are inherently unclear. There’s nothing like having a quick meeting to take the pulse of the new tasks and make course corrections immediately. And, remind your new person that you are readily available to discuss their work at any time.

If you find yourself in one of those rare positions where your decision to hire or promote a person turned out to be fatally flawed, don’t let the situation just linger on. If you follow that strategy, you will end up with a lot of poor performance and unhappy people. It is almost always true that other people in the organization will readily recognize that your new hire is not performing well and is in fact in the early stages of drowning. When you let a person linger in this manner, you are demonstrating to others that you are not a very competent manager, nor a caring one. And, your new hire or promotion know themselves that they’re having deep trouble performing their job. You are doing no one a favor by allowing a failing person to linger on. If you’re in a larger organization, you should seek out alternative positions where this person could perform well for the company. If such a transfer is not possible, you have to face up to it and terminate the person’s employment. When you act promptly in such situations, everyone around you sees that you are a competent manager who is facing up to an error in judgment. And, in my experience the employee involved is grateful that you dealt with the situation in an objective, fair, and caring manner.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Good communications is important to the health of the organization. However, there are moments when managers should look carefully at their communications and push on the “not-so-fast” button.

During periods of organizational stress, like changes in ownership, senior leadership, layoffs, mergers, and others, managers may think that they can calm down the troops by increasing the frequency and depth of their communications. Unfortunately, this may lead to a surprising result. Employees, like everyone else, pay attention to more than the message. Marshall McLuhan got this right.

During times of stress, the tendency of managers to increase the frequency of communication with staff in fact sends the message, “Gee, the bosses are nervous about what is going on. Look at how much they are talking about it.”

So, be careful. Focus on brevity and facts. Be as honest as you can about what is going on.

But, be a good model for your staff. During times of stress and turbulence, redouble your focus on customers and day-to-day tasks. Get in early and be at work when the staff arrives. They will get that message. No matter what happens, being productive is always a good strategy, both for the company and the individual.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Performance reviews are one of those tasks that managers and organizations struggle with. Even companies that have well-developed performance review and development processes have difficulty getting managers to complete them on time and in good faith. Sluggish performance in human resource management is a leading indicator of current or near at hand organizational troubles.

It all starts at the top. The leader of the organization must make personnel selection and appraisal of job performance a central personal task. Timeliness at this level will trickle down quite quickly.

One simple method of demonstrating a commitment to timely performance reviews is to tie each manager’s own performance appraisal and all pay changes and other pay-for-performance compensation to the timeliness of performance reviews for their subordinates. If they are late with subordinates’ reviews, then their review and potential compensation changes will be delayed by the cumulative tardiness. Include the CEO and COB in this policy.

Organizations with a real commitment to great personnel make this work.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites