November 20, 2008 – 7:30 am
Here’s a an e-mail that caught me by surprise and made me sit up, take notice, and review what I’ve been sending out to subscribers of our Improvement Points service.
“I enjoy your improvement points but think that you are far too hard on managers and leaders. Your articles show a distinct bias for employees rather than leaders, supervisors, and managers. While you often indicate that you need a balance, I have trouble sending some of your stuff out to staff as it will just encourage them to be critical of their supervisors. You need to provide a better balance. I’ve been a leader, a manager, a supervisor, etc. for 26 years and you clearly have not worked in a union environment or had staff that really and truly don’t like anyone in authority.”
Thanks for your feedback. I always appreciate when readers or audience members voice concerns or issues that I need to look at more closely in my work. Your message has pushed me to think further about the bias issue you raise.
As you can see on our web page describing the Improvement Points service (www.clemmer.net/improvement.shtml), I have focused this service on organizational effectiveness and personal/leadership effectiveness. The most appropriate Improvement Points to pass on to staff would be those on personal/leadership effectiveness. The organizational effectiveness points are aimed at helping managers continuously improve the way they lead their organizations or teams. Many of these would not be appropriate to pass on to staff. I know many readers pass them on to other supervisors/managers and sometimes use the Improvement Point or its linked article for further management team discussion.
Like my books and workshops or presentations, these management messages are designed to stretch the recipient further. They often are critical of managers because I am pointing out mediocre or bad management practices and providing suggestions for improving those. Of course, as with any advice in our lives, we have to weigh what’s being said against our growth or development goals and personal approach. If the comment irritates or causes us to flinch, that may be the grain of sand around which we can spin our own pearl of improvement. If it doesn’t fit, we need to ignore the advice or hit the delete key.
I have worked extensively in union environments with my Clients for over twenty-five years. Many of my sessions have included active and quite vocal union leaders or been designed exclusively for them. I’ve certainly encountered my share of frontline people who don’t like anyone in authority. The big challenge in this environment is for the manager to not fall into the classic We/They Gap and become a victim pointing fingers at “they.” You can scan through a large collection of articles on taking responsibility for our choices here.
Thanks again for your input. This has been a valuable reflection exercise for me to re-examine the focus and intent of Improvement Points
November 18, 2008 – 7:28 am
Most people want and appreciate a boss or work colleague who is direct and to the point. But it’s about the way that’s conveyed. We’ve all found ourselves resisting someone else not because of what they are saying, but how they are saying it. They may strike us as arrogant, unfeeling, rude, or overly critical. It’s been said that 90 percent of the friction in our relationships comes from the wrong tone of voice.
The number one rule in working with others is to focus on the issue, problem, or behavior and not the person. We often don’t recognize when we’re making statements of exasperation, broad brush (”you’re always so ______”), or judgment (”you’re too _____”). We need to ensure we’re focusing on facts, what we’ve observed, or what we are feeling. We often don’t realize when we’re putting labels or generalizations on other people or their behavior. A good team leadership or supervisory training program can be a great investment to help with this common trap.
We need to take action when we feel we can make a difference. That’s being a navigator or leader, not a just-getting-by survivor or victim. But it’s all about how we take that action. Bosses or managers get people to do things because they have to. Leaders get people to do the same things because they want to. It’s the same goal, but with a world of difference in execution and long-term results.
November 13, 2008 – 7:25 am
Too many managers seem to operate on a variation of an old Groucho Marx routine; “I’ve got top priorities. I am going to stick to those priorities. And if you don’t like those priorities…I have others.” It’s very hard to bring the discipline of a goal setting system or planning process to a team or organization if your own time management and personal organization is a joke.
- What are you so busy doing? Are you working on high leverage activities that will catapult you, your team, and your organization toward your vision? Are people “delegating up” to you and your team? Has busyness and long hours become a dangerous status symbol of importance? Are you and your team members measuring your importance by how many e-mails you get, vacations missed, or crazy hours you work?
- Know thy time. Figuring out how effective your busyness is, starts with a time log. This takes some real discipline, but the learning and personal effectiveness you’ll gain is immeasurable. For a few weeks, (ideally a month), keep a log of how you spend each fifteen minute block of your day from the time you get up until the time you go to bed. Before you start, develop categories such as reading, learning, meetings, dealing with e-mails, family time, relaxation, travel, telephone calls, visiting, preparing, planning, etc. Estimate how much time you spend in each activity before you start your log. Once your log is complete compare your estimates to the way you actually use your time.
- Plan your time. Use a time organizer system, software program, or Personal Digital Assistant. Take it with you everywhere you go. Develop weekly or monthly activity lists that link to your vision, values, and purpose so you’re always doing the most important things. Over the weekend or first thing Monday morning, sketch out your week. Each morning reprioritize your day’s activities and plans.
- Learn how to lead effective meetings. Poorly run meetings cost you and everyone else an enormous amount of precious time. There are few excuses for not starting and finishing on time, not having clear meeting outcomes and agendas, not keeping discussions on track, not minimizing disruptions, or not handling conflict effectively. It’s a skill issue. Improve yours and you’ll free up time for everybody.
- Schedule regular reflection time (daily/weekly/monthly) to review progress on your goals and reset your priorities.
November 6, 2008 – 7:22 am
High-performing organizations like Toyota have developed and evolved a very disciplined methodology that they call “Hoshin kanri.” It starts with high level or strategic imperatives and then cascades these through every part of the organization. Follow-through and follow-up is the key to moving this process from just another bolt-on planning program to a built-in management process. From my experience facilitating the senior management team through parts of this process in their Cambridge, Ontario plant, I know this is a core management process for Toyota. They aren’t just “doing their planning thing” and going through the motions.
The generic diagram below shows the flow of a process like this. It starts at the center with the management establishing, reaffirming, or revitalizing their Vision, Values, and Purpose (what I call Focus and Context).
1.Agree on three to five strategic (high leverage/impact) imperatives (do-or-die) for the planning cycle (usually annual). This generally involves using some form of Affinity Diagramming or clustering similar goals together to form a higher level strategic objective.
2.Establish management ownership/accountability (and steering/improvement teams) for each imperative.
3.Develop key measurements for each imperative.
4.Have every department/division at all levels develop their three to five imperatives and measures that flow directly from one or more of the strategic imperatives.
5.Set regular (e.g. weekly/monthly/quarterly) review and follow-up meetings at all levels, and communicate the results broadly (the more visible the better).
6.Start the next cycle by agreeing upon the three to five strategic imperatives for the next planning cycle.
Many organizations do steps #1 and #2 each year. With tools like the Balanced Scorecard, some organizations are trying to develop a balanced set of leading and lagging indicators. Few organizations get to step #4 with any vigor or consistency. And only a handful of the best-run organizations ever follow through on step #5 with any discipline.
November 4, 2008 – 7:03 am
In the midst of October’s economic uncertainty and turbulence, a reporter sent me an e-mail asking what leaders need to do in order to keep their business on track and employees reassured. Here are her questions and my responses:
What do a firm’s executives and leaders need to do to reassure staff and maintain productivity?
Leaders need to provide opportunities for staff to vent their fears and concerns and ask questions about how economic turmoil might impact their organization. These could be a series of town-hall type meetings or more informal chats over coffee, lunch, or just hallway conversations. During turbulent times leaders must dramatically ramp up the amount of time they spend out of their offices talking with staff, key customers, and any other critical constituents. Leaders should be as open and transparent as they can about what’s going on in their markets/organizations and share what information they have.
Like nature, communication abhors a vacuum. In the absence of concrete information and real data, people will make it up. And since negativity and fear feeds on itself during uncertain times, people tend to feed the rumor mill with catastrophic scenarios of impending doom.
Strong leaders make people hopeful and focus everyone on what could be. The tricky balance is to point out the rays of hope amidst the doom and gloom without being Pollyannaish or looking like you’re hiding your head in the sand. Issues or problems should be faced squarely. But they need to be framed with a can-do attitude. Focus on building confidence to counterbalance all the drag of negativity and disaster. Use stories or examples of how the organization, you, members of the audience, or others have faced similar situations or worse in the past and how those tough times were overcome – leaving everything stronger as a result.
See “Navigating Change and Adversity” at http://jimclemmer.com/content/view/346/9 or http://jimclemmer.com/component/option,com_seyret/Itemid,114/catid,2 (Navigating Change video clip) for more.
What is a realistic course of action for a firm leader to address business conditions, to evolve with changing situations, and to maintain staff morale?
Increase participation and involvement as broadly as possible. Find ways to include as many people as you can in identifying and working the key problems facing the organization. If this work is focused on strategic issues that will truly make a difference it will help to focus everyone’s nervous energy, and increase everyone’s sense of having control over their own fate, while reinforcing a feeling of progress and forward momentum.
A big fear for most staff is losing their job during a time when finding another one and paying bills may be difficult. Strong leaders look ahead and prepare for the worst while helping people focus on bringing about the best possible outcomes. Go to http://jimclemmer.com/content/view/223/9 for my views on how wise managers treat lay-offs as a last resort.
What are some of the classic mistakes leaders make in tough financial times like the one we are currently experiencing?
- Adding to doom and gloom with fear and a negative attitude.
- Jumping to downsizing and layoffs without fully exploring the myriad of alternatives that are much more inclusive and treat staff as partners in finding ways to reduce costs rather than “overhead” to be chucked overboard like useless ballast as the ship is sinking.
- Running closed-door meetings in their offices with just other managers. This feeds the rumor mill of fear and impending doom.
- Not communicating. People need to know what’s happening “out there” and what the organization is doing about it.
- Failing to realize that they are being minutely scrutinized for any signs of distress or coming disaster. During a previous recession a CEO was seen on the elevator holding my second book, Firing on all Cylinders: The Service/Quality System for High-Powered Corporate Performance, which he was reading. He didn’t realize that as he held the book with the title facing outward his hand covered up all of the title except for the word “firing.” Within hours rumors raced through the building that the CEO was planning mass layoffs. In fact, he and the senior team were working on a plan to reduce costs through quality improvement and reverse sliding revenues through increased customer service. The effort succeeded and the company not only didn’t let anyone go, they actually hired more people over the next few months.
October 30, 2008 – 7:15 am
Effective leaders are comfortable with paradox and ambiguity. This has been a favorite theme of mine since I began studying and writing about leadership over twenty years ago.
Recently our son, Chris, was home from university to celebrate his birthday. During the weekend, he and I had a conversation about how much more complex, nuanced, and interesting the world has become for him than when he was a teenager. During his teenage years the world, and most of the people he encountered in it, could be easily divided into right and wrong, stupid and smart, good and bad, cool and not cool, and so on. With his interest in politics we had many ideological debates about the social and political issues of the day. He had strong beliefs and clear answers for just about every situation. I often argued both sides of an issue – even the side I didn’t believe in – to try to help him understand that it wasn’t that black and white. Since he was studying politics in high school and “political science” was his first year major in university, he failed to see the humor in me calling “political science” an oxymoron. By his third year, he’s had to write papers arguing both sides of issues or even presenting the opposite side of an issue to his own belief. In doing so he found himself becoming more tolerant and understanding of many social and political issues today. In other words, he was growing up.
There are clearly times when we need to take a stand and draw a firm line between what we see as right and wrong or moral and immoral. Continually hiding behind ambiguity and waffling on our position is a sign of weakness and a real lack of leadership. But I have also long believed that the capacity to live in the gray zone between black and white is a sign of maturity. A great deal of destruction and disaster in organizations, relationships, families, religions, and throughout societies comes from the intolerance and inflexibility of immature “leaders” who believe there are clear right and wrong answers to just about every situation. Their harsh and judgmental position usually comes from a base of fear. Mature leaders can live with not having clear answers or letting situations unfold.
They seek to understand with a more accepting position that comes from a base of love.
October 28, 2008 – 7:09 am
Here’s an e-mail I received from a regular web site visitor and subscriber to my monthly newsletter. My response follows:
“I am an ardent reader of your articles. The latest improvement point article on Team Development is indeed good. The only point where I disagree is where you have brushed aside the adventure games as just “fun,” nothing more. This is not true.
I would like to point out that these - the games or the wilderness experiences - are the means of educating people on how effective the team work will be. Of course, the teams have to apply what they have learned in their workplace. Nature teaches us best, like the penguin story you narrated in The Leader’s Digest.”
I am sure that some teams get value from those activities. I am not a fan of these approaches because I have spent so much time with teams who have tried these techniques and not received much value from them. It might be argued that those same teams likely wouldn’t get much value from any team development activity because they aren’t open to learning or don’t diligently apply the lessons that are available for them.
But what most teams really need are practical approaches they can apply to real issues now. Perhaps some of these games and exercises obliquely do that. But many have a high play or entertainment value and a very low relevancy or application value. Participants see only theoretical connections between this make-believe world and their real world issues. Too many team games or ‘experiential learning’ don’t get very practical. They can be fun and energizing. But if they aren’t helping the team address real-time problems and opportunities, they ultimately frustrate participants. They can raise dissatisfaction and decrease teamwork because team members contrast the theories and team ideals they are learning with what they’re experiencing every day in the team, and feel an even bigger disconnect.
October 23, 2008 – 7:04 am
Grant’s experience in the e-mail he sent me below underlines the need for manager’s having authentic conversations during performance discussions. His is a vivid example of how people join an organization and quit their boss. Retention is going to become a critical issue in the next few years in many organizations as baby boomers retire in much larger numbers than new people coming into the workforce. Research on attracting and retaining top talent shows that 70% of the reason people quit is because of their immediate boss. What does your turnover rate say about your leadership? How about any supervisors or managers you may be leading?
Grant also provides an excellent example of having the courage to leave if you feel victimized by a bad boss. How much job pain are we willing to accept for the security of a paycheck? What’s the price of our self-worth?
“I am about half-way through reading The Leader’s Digest and had to write you to say how wonderful I’m finding your book. It has been re-affirming my leadership passion and stoking me with confidence. You see, I had a bad experience in my last job (where I was a software team leader) and was wondering why I was so upset and unhappy at work.
I thought lots of things were going wrong (and so did many of those I was leading), but my managers thought the project was doing great. Now I realize my leadership intuition was right on the money! My decision to leave was the correct one – I had no leaders to support or motivate me; time to move on and find some.
What motivated me to write was a section I just read on “The Power of One” explaining that a key leadership word is “care” (page 126). On my last performance review, I made the following comment about my own job satisfaction:
“I care about my job. I care about quality. I care that customers are happy. I care that we do a good job. But if my job satisfaction doesn’t improve, then I will stop caring.”
During my performance review, my managers didn’t care enough to dig into this issue! Here was an employee crying out for help, but their inaction to understand my concerns was flabbergasting. To make matters worse, one of the managers took the concerns and issues that I raised as a personal attack on him and the company. He then went on the offensive and started to attack me in an attempt to ‘put me back in my place.’ He told me the project will not change the way it is being run, and don’t expect everyone to change to suit me! After he ranted at me for a few minutes, I calmly looked him squarely in the eye and told him I would no longer commit to his project. His chin dropped. I smiled.
I had realized at that instant he was no longer the leader that I could follow. He was the root cause of my low job satisfaction. Too bad for them, as I was considered one of the better team leads and despite my low job satisfaction rating (3 out of 10), I still had a strong review from my peers. So they lost a good employee that day - but some other company out there will gain one! One that knows the value of leadership.”
Grant Edwards
Delta, BC
New Downloadable Audios
One of the most amazing things about the internet is its ability to reach people around the globe. Each day hundreds of new visitors drop by http://www.jimclemmer.com and visit my online store.
And while shipping costs can be more than the items some folks order, if they’re outside Canada or the U.S., I like to think these materials are still worth it.
However, to get around the shipping costs I’ve made most of my books available as electronic downloads that can be read on many hand helds and any computer.
This week I introduced downloadable audio versions of my popular CDs, Firing on all Cylinders and Leading in Turbulent Times. Along with the existing audiobook to Moose on the Table, I’m thrilled to have another way for leaders to access these powerful resources - wherever they happen to be.
October 21, 2008 – 7:02 am
As I continue to think and write about leadership courage, two points stand out for me. The first point is around having the courage as a leader to make it easy for people in our organization or team to speak up. Most managers dump out information (mainly through e-mail) and call it “communication.” Strong leaders develop multiple forums, processes, channels, and opportunities to foster genuine conversations – real communication – up, down, and across their organization.
I am starting to define courage as doing what our heart tells us needs to be done despite our fear. A really tough question for many managers is whether he or she has the courage to speak up or get out of work situations that are dripping acid on his or her self-esteem, diminishing happiness, and even jeopardizing health. What price are we paying for “going along to get along?” This is the central issue of the main character in my latest book Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work.