Name: Woody

Email:

Bio: Dr. Woody Sears has been training managers and leaders since 1967. Tested in more than 200 organizations and presented in more than 100 public seminars, his techniques for resolving organizational conflicts have helped thousands of managers just like you to solve problems, develop employees, and enhance their personal effectiveness. Early in his career, Woody was lucky to have been accepted as a resource person by Leadership Resources, Inc., one of the early behaviorally-oriented consulting firms. That provided opportunities to work with and learn from many of the scholars and consultants who were developing the framework for what subsequently became Human Resource Development. Chief among those mentors was Leonard Nadler, Woody’s major professor in the doctoral program at The George Washington University. Professor Nadler coined the term HRD and is the creator of that academic and professional discipline. Those experiences followed a Master’s program in change management at North Carolina State, and a tour as a U.S. Marine officer. Beyond consulting and presenting public seminars (mostly on project management), Woody has designed customized project management systems for a number of companies and government agencies. Throughout his career, he has worked to simplify essential management information so it’s accessible to everyone. Contact Information: Email: woodysears@gmail.com

Posts by :

I’m Waiting for My Boss to Tell Me What To Do

August 23rd, 2010

The Bullfeather Chronicles – Part 4

You know about Intel’s Andy Grove – but do you know Andy Graves?

Probably not. This Andy is a retired USAF master sergeant, a natural leader, and a born (intuitive) manager who currently works for the U.S. Department of State.  This is a record of a recent conversation.

Woody: Some years ago, while riding my motorcycle along the Loch Ness, a definition of leadership came though to me so strongly I stopped to write it down:  Leadership is the creation of structures and processes through which people can contribute to the achievement of worthwhile goals. I still like it because it includes real things like structures and processes, not a lot of airy-fairy hoopla.

Andy: I can go with that.  It ties up the confusion about leaders and managers, you know, where leaders decide the right things to do and then managers do the things right.  Real life hasn’t worked that way for me.

Woody: How’s that?

Andy: Because among workers, someone is always taking the lead.  And who’s that?  It’s the man or woman who knows the most about the task and technology.  This is a lesson a lot of managers miss.  It doesn’t matter who has the rank!  What’s important is who has the most recent and relevant experience.  When I was an enlisted man teaching officer/pilots survival skills, I was the one with the most recent and relevant experience, and those officers knew that my job was to teach them how to survive disaster situations.  I was outranked, but that didn’t matter.  What I knew made them listen to me.

Woody: And did none of them resent being lectured to by an enlisted man?

Andy: Only a few, but they created another lesson – competence is so important that the other officers would tell the few to shut-up!  So I didn’t have to worry about that stuff.  The real leaders in any group will keep you covered.

Woody:  I got a similar lesson.  Once as a lieutenant, I was on a project with a bird colonel and working with a bunch of majors and light colonels.  My boss told me, “Woody, if any of these people give you any trouble, refer them to me.”  That taught me a lot about delegation, and that if I did my job competently, I was fireproof!

Andy: Isn’t that a great feeling?   And when you’re in that zone, do you need to be motivated?  Do you need anything more than knowing at the end of the day that you had a great day, doing your job for someone who appreciated you?  That’s the thing a lot of people don’t get.  I’ve seen a lot of senior people cripple programs because they let their need to be the boss get in the way of getting the job done.

Woody: I once asked a guy who was just standing around, doing nothing., what he was waiting for.  He said, “I’m waiting for my boss to tell me what to do!” I thought he was joking, so I asked if he was going to do something different than the day before.  “Of course not,” he said, “but my boss likes to tell me what to do, and I like to make him happy!”

Andy:  Sure!  If he made that decision, he would be taking his boss’ job.  That’s why the “structure and processes” part of your definition is so important.  You can’t have 15 or 20 people waiting to be told what to do.  They have to know, and they do know — if you involve them in planning  work and laying out schedules.

Woody: Do many managers do that, in your experience?

Andy:  Only the good ones.  Leadership is about taking people to new levels of performance, so they surprise themselves when they see how competent they are, and how much fun it is to hook up with others to win against the clock and the budget. Good leaders stretch their people, push them, and make them stronger performers.

Woody: How hard can you push them?

Andy: Right up the edge of what employment laws allow. Sometimes it’s giving them more work, or tighter schedules, or making them solve problems and implement solutions by themselves.  And when they win, you praise them and talk about what they learned.

Woody: But what if they don’t win?  If they fail?

Andy: Bullfeathers!!! If you pay attention to them, they don’t fail.  You see them struggling and you stop by to offer a suggestion or two.  If they’re afraid to fail, they work too slow. If you let them fail, you tell them that succeeding, being on schedule isn’t important! I don’t care what people write about the freedom to fail, but real leaders don’t let that happen to their people.  Not if there are any real chips on the table!

Woody: Real leaders, then, make sure people are successful at their work?

Andy: Nothing else is more important!

###

Andy Graves has worked in three embassies and a consulate in Eastern Europe and Russia, and is still at work out there, taking raw talent and turning it into professional precision, just as he did on A-10 “Warthog” flight lines.



No Comments "

Here’s a Thought

July 12th, 2010



The Bullfeather Chronicles, Part 3

You know about Intel’s Andy Grove – but do you know Andy Graves?

Probably not. This Andy is a retired USAF master sergeant, a natural leader, and a born (intuitive) manager who currently works for the U.S. Department of State. This is a record of a conversation after he spent 10 days working at an Embassy in the region.

Andy: The strangest thing I found was a woman, sitting maybe 10 feet from her boss, and they’ve been communicating by e-mail because they don’t like each other.

Woody: That’s bizarre! Are they locally-engaged staff?

Andy: Yeah, but what makes it so bad is that her boss is the local HR guy! So naturally I said we’ve got to talk, and I sat down with the two of them. She thinks he’s unfair, he wants to fire her, and this has been going on for more than a year! And they don’t talk to each other!

Woody: That can happen in these cultures. Some of these folks are not great at confronting problems or each other.

Andy: Well, apparently there had been a lot of confrontations, but this guy had no records, no documentation covering what she failed to do, what he advised her to do, and what follow-up actions he took, so of course he can’t fire her. He’s been sent to training, he knows how to do that stuff, he just doesn’t like to do it. So I reminded him of the requirement to document malfeasance and hammered on him about having to keep a record of what he did to help her succeed on the job. It was like he never heard it before!

Woody: And what about her?

Andy: She said she didn’t know what she didn’t do well, because he never told her. All she could say was that he didn’t like her! And since I don’t know the background, I have to think maybe she doesn’t perform adequately. But she says she doesn’t know what she does wrong, and there’s no evidence that he ever told her!

Woody: That doesn’t leave you a lot of maneuver room, especially given the short trip.

Andy: No it didn’t. I even told the Deputy Chief of Mission that they might have to end up firing her. But then something kind of magic happened.

Woody: She resigned?

Andy: No! That would have been too easy. What happened was I sat down with her on Friday, and all she could talk about was how badly she had been treated three months ago, six months ago, nine months ago. And as I listened and looked at her, it was clear that she was a total mess – hair, dress, complexion, emotionally. In fact, she looked like s**t! (soot … this is a family friendly pub)

Woody: This isn’t sounding very politically correct.

Andy: Don’t worry! I’m not going there! What I said was that as long as she was focused on things that happened months ago, all that could happen was that she would create the same situations again. And that instead, she should look at today, tomorrow, and start thinking forward instead of backward.

Woody: And about her appearance?

Andy: I just told her the truth, namely that I’m not big on dressing up and avoid wearing suits and ties and usually show up with an open neck shirt and a sweater, as I was dressed then. And I said that compared to the other women in the building, it didn’t look to me like she as paying much attention to her appearance, and maybe that was somehow connected to how she was looking at her job and maybe….

Woody: Then what happened?

Andy: She admitted that was something to think about and thanked me! But then, on Monday, she shows up looking like a different person! She had a new haircut and style, some make-up, and was wearing a really sharp outfit. I damn near didn’t recognize her!

Woody: How did her boss respond?

Andy: I think he was as blown away as I was.

Woody: Will she still get fired?

Andy: That could happen. But the signal she sent loud and clear on Monday morning was that she wanted to keep her job and get out of the rut she’d been in for so long. For certain, she came to work with a different attitude, and that in itself might be enough to turn things around.

Woody: That’s beautiful, Andy. But why did no one else talk to her, at least the other women?

Andy: You know that women don’t always help each other, and guys are so afraid of getting hit with a charge of sexual harassment or some other bullfeather reason for not getting involved …. Seems like most people are just afraid to be human anymore, to reach out to tell each other the kinds of truth that will bump them off bottom-dead-center, that will help them succeed. That’s what bosses and managers and leaders are supposed to do! Isn’t it?

Woody: I thought so. I hope so. If it isn’t, we’re really lost!

###

Andy Graves has worked in three embassies and a consulate in Eastern Europe and Russia, and is still at work out there, taking raw talent and turning it into professional precision, just as he did on A-10 “Warthog” flight lines.



1 Comment "

Motivation? Not for People Who Are Appreciated

June 16th, 2010

The Bullfeather Chronicles – Part 2



You know about Intel’s Andy Grove – but do you know Andy Graves?

Probably not. This Andy is a retired USAF master sergeant, a natural leader, and a born (intuitive) manager who currently works for the U.S. Department of State. This is a record of a recent conversation.

Woody:  Some of us see the work place as a combat zone in which managers use the emotional technology and bribery of motivational theory, trying  to get more productivity out of unwilling workers.  For their part, workers are likely to cut through the chatter to say, “Do they think we’re stupid?”

Andy: I agree 100 percent!  If people love the work they do and admire and respect their co-workers, you don’t need to add more grease.  In fact, if you try to “motivate” them, it makes them suspicious.

Woody: The problem I see is that if you want highly-effective groups, it has to start during recruiting and screening – like at Southwest Airlines where they put more weight on the attitudes candidates display at the interview than their degrees and other work experience.

Andy: Where I work, there’s so much emphasis on academics that it lets people slip through the Human Resource screen who are long on smarts but short on common sense.  When they’ve got 10 years in the system and have been promoted several times, you’re still having to give them heads-up recommendations on how to work with people, especially with the locally-engaged staff.

Woody: That’s not pretty.  Are these people just insensitive or insecure and need to throw their weight around?

Andy: It doesn’t matter.  The fact is, those order-givers don’t really understand teamwork and don’t realize that they can’t be effective without the support of the locals.  And that lack of understanding makes those at the bottom of the ladder feel bad about themselves and their jobs.

Woody: Probably most people at work don’t love their jobs, but they have to work somewhere.  Can you turn them into effective, committed workers?

Andy: Absolutely!  Usually, it’s not only that  they don’t like their jobs, they don’t like their bosses or the people they have to support.  Organizations can’t control the expectations of the people they hire, but they can definitely influence the quality of the supervision and success-support they get.  When people do their work well, that needs to be celebrated, appreciated, and they need to be recognized among their co-workers.

Woody: But what happens when the same people keep getting the rewards?

Andy: Then you look for the lazy supervisors who spend time in their offices instead of getting out on the work floor and seeing their people in action.  There’s always someone or something to praise, and when people know that their work is being observed, they tend to work better and earn some praise for themselves.

Woody: Still, isn’t there a problem of just a few people being recognized as star performers, and demotivating the others?

Andy: No, no, no!  That’s the bullfeather excuse managers use when they’re too lazy to work the system to get rewards for their people! If you want to know who the star performers are, just ask the workers themselves. They know!  And most of them aren’t jealous.  They know some people work better than others, and that some are just natural performers.  And usually, they are the informal leaders in the group.  At least that’s my experience.  The people who get the rewards and recognition usually are leaders who sort of pull the others to perform in an outstanding manner.  Besides, there are so many ways for a manager to show appreciation that there’s no reason to leave anyone out of the winner’s circle.

Woody: Is it really that simple – just paying attention to performance and rewarding it?

Andy: Yes and no.  Rewards are necessary.  But they are the icing on the cake.  The manager’s real work is in knowing his or her people, talking to them individually, encouraging and appreciating them one-on-one.  That’s how you get to know who your people are, what kinds of skill-building they need, and what kinds of off-the-job burdens they’re carrying.  See, they work for you, not for the company or the organization, and managers have to create that connection with individuals.

Woody: What you’re saying is that if the manager doesn’t create those interpersonal connections,  the workers will create their own!  Those connections don’t always include the manager and can compromise the performance of the entire group.

Andy: Oh yeah!  One of the most useful things I’ve heard you say, quoting Frederick Herzberg, is that if you don’t piss-off your people, they’ll probably give you 10- or 15-percent more performance, for free! That makes sense, because the worst thing that can happen to a worker is to have a selfish, me-first boss who ignores the people who do the work.

Woody: If we could burn that thought into the brains of all managers, we could change the world!

Andy Graves has worked in three embassies and a consulate in Eastern Europe and Russia, and is still at work out there, taking raw talent and turning it into professional precision, just as he did on A-10 “Warthog” flight lines.



No Comments "

Good Planning Can’t Overcome Bad Headwork

May 10th, 2010



Thinking Clearly – and Analytically — May Be the Key to Your Professional Future

Thinking clearly often translates as thinking analytically – taking things apart to find their constituent elements and how they hook up.  For managers, most analysis involves determining why things didn’t work or happen as planned, or what bosses want when they say, “Take care of this.”  Therefore, analytical thinking means looking back (How did this happen?), and looking ahead for likely outcomes and the second- and third-order consequences. Sometimes, follow-on consequences aren’t significant, but ….

Here’s an example: To reduce greenhouse gases, we’re being encouraged to use public transportation. But train and bus services were ignored by governments in favor of air travel and private cars.  So bus and train facilities and equipment were allowed to deteriorate while “serving” no-clout travelers with minimal levels of security and hygiene.  “Bus station” still conjures up unsavory images, and most of us stick to our cars despite fuel costs and global warming.

While public transportation services were decaying, Texaco was building customer loyalty by pledging clean restrooms, back when those amenities weren’t usual.  How much could it have cost to provide that simple, human courtesy?  But that courtesy still is a rare commodity in too many work places.  My consulting visits to more than 200 work places led to my employee-toilet test.  Few things express management’s real view of employees more clearly, and offer better insight into the follow-on consequences that drive up costs.

Analysis is limited by how one thinks about/values the people or issues involved.  If you can’t “see” certain things (such as clean restrooms and their impact on employees), it’s unlikely they will be incorporated in the analyses you perform.  The quest for boss-pleasing, cost-reducing outcomes contaminates thinking and causes a de facto blindness.  Probably, managers are honest when they admit, “I never even thought about that!”

All data can be “bent” in boss-pleasing ways if there’s pressure to do so; that’s when thinking clearly becomes a conflict of interest. Analysis is more straightforward when standards define performance, but flexible standards allow analyses to support one’s biases.  This dynamic, plus another four thinking constraints, effectively block “future vision.”   Specifically:

1. Decision makers strengthen the status quo to protect prerogatives.
2. Doing more of the same stuff minimizes risks and expenditures.
3. Bold visions can’t survive bureaucratic review.
4. Imagination is constrained by rewards and punishments.

Consider:

1. Why is the #1-selling car in America a Japanese product?
2. How did the American automotive industry lose its way?
3. How will Americans respond to European fuel prices?
4. How did development of alternative fuels and more efficient engines get sidetracked?

As intelligent consumers, we know “They” didn’t want it.  Institutions don’t lose their way, but decision makers lead them off-course to get short-term profits.  Maybe there’s a cultural bias against paying attention to world events and thinking clearly in response to them, but if the pay-off is for quick wins and short-term profits, that’s addictive.

Thinking about analysis where you work,

• Is it done to cover failures rather than to revise procedures?
• Is it oriented to assessing blame, rather than examining processes?
• Is it used to justify what we did, not to identify optional outcomes?
• Does it protect individuals and systems, or highlight potential?
• How are performance-improvement suggestions perceived?

What about your thinking habits?  Here’s a small quiz:

A Quick Self-Examination (Circle the most accurate response) 1.  Doing things differently makes me uncomfortable. Never     Sometimes    Usually     Most of the time    Always I might attract attention to myself, which will put me at risk. Never     Sometimes    Usually     Most of the time    Always I like change.  It excites me. It makes me think. Never     Sometimes    Usually     Most of the time    Always My boss frequently frustrates my efforts to try new things. Never     Sometimes    Usually     Most of the time    Always When things go wrong, I get my team together to brainstorm the diagnostic process. Never     Sometimes    Usually     Most of the time    Always Being right in my decisions is more important than getting the best, the quickest, the cheapest results. Never     Sometimes    Usually     Most of the time    Always I really enjoy the analytic process, rooting around to find cause-and-effect relationships. Never     Sometimes    Usually     Most of the time    Always I don’t want to know why it didn’t work.  I just want things to work the first time. Never     Sometimes    Usually     Most of the time    Always I am not impressed by people who want to change things just to be doing the same work in a different way. Never     Sometimes    Usually     Most of the time    Always 10. If a better way to do my job was possible, I think someone already would have figured it out. Never     Sometimes    Usually     Most of the time    Always

What’s your thinking style?  In your next job interview, what stories will you tell to demonstrate your ability to analyze, think clearly, and take effective action?

Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan

That “golden oldie” of management lore has its counterpoint (and some Eastern European cynicism): If you want to hear God laugh, make a plan! That can’t be a call for laissez faire, hands-off management.  Maybe it means that when things change, plans must be changed, too. Otherwise, post-task analysis is meaningless and nothing is ever learned.

A plan that can be inspected while work is in process is a pretty authoritarian, top-down control tool.   But how else do you ensure success of the work, those doing it, and confirm the accuracy of your headwork?  Well, you can let the workers make the plans, chart progress, and prove their competence as thinkers and planners.  Often, they can do it better than their managers!

Thinking clearly about planning must include participative management, and providing operational freedom to others who understand and accept their individual and collective responsibilities.   When everyone has the same information and participates in planning, what can go wrong?

Such understandings of role and function don’t rise spontaneously; they are based on conversations that include the entire work group. Co-workers, too, must be thinking clearly about tasks and outcomes and responding to the same imperatives.  That’s how strong relationships (teams?) are built.

The most effective control that thinking clearly can provide is a fast feedback system with reporting points negotiated with workers, modified as necessary to provide timely information at appropriate levels of detail.  When managers ask, “How’s it going?” the answer needs to be more substantial than “Okay!”  What the manager wants is a response with some analyzable metrics, such as, “So far, we’re on schedule and ahead of budget.”

Who would think that the ability to get that answer begins with clean toilets?

###



No Comments "

Management Theory is Completely Useless

May 7th, 2010



The Bullfeathers Chronicles

You know about Intel’s Andy Grove – but do you know Andy Graves?

Probably not.

This Andy is a retired USAF master sergeant, a natural leader, and a born (intuitive) manager who currently works for the U.S. Department of State. Andy Graves has worked in three embassies and a consulate in Eastern Europe and Russia, and is still at work out there, taking raw talent and turning it into professional precision, just as he did on A-10 “Warthog” flight lines. This is a record of a recent conversation.

Woody: What do you mean? You can’t say categorically that management theory is useless. For the last 100 years….



Andy Graves

Andy: No, that’s exactly what I mean! For the last 100 years, we’ve been capturing people and putting them in work groups they didn’t choose. As often as not with people they don’t like and wouldn’t choose to be with. What managers and wanna-be managers need to know is how to mix with those people and help them find the common points of interest that will let them work together effectively. And hanging onto their salaries is a good place to start getting their attention.

Woody: I thought goals, objectives, and targets and team building did that kind of thing.

Andy: I love that story about Frederick Taylor designing a new coal scoop 100 years ago – you know, when scientific management was born? As far as working people think, management’s been redesigning the coal scoop ever since, trying to find new ways to make them work harder, faster, cheaper. Most people believe in program goals like they believe in bull feathers.

Woody: So how would you train managers?

Andy: That woman you quoted in your book said it – but no guy ever would – that you have to love your people enough to listen to them. People who can’t do that can’t be managers – just people pushers. When managers don’t listen, they send a clear signal that they don’t care about their people. Even so, they think their people are dumb enough to do extra work for them, to make them look good in front of their bosses. Man, I don’t think so!

Woody: People pushers? I like that term. Never heard it before.

Andy: That’s the alternative to having your people working with you. If a manager can’t get in with his or her staff and lead them to see the points of common interest among them, then the only choice is to threaten, push, and behave in ways that are basically abusive and push people further away. Those are the nasty guys everyone knows and hates.

Woody: Yeah, I’ve known a lot of those guys, and some women, too. But back to the question – what do you recommend for manager training? Or, better, the great theorist Douglas McGregor– the Theories X and Y guy – said that every managerial act begins with a theory. What’s your theory of management, the ideas that guide you?

Andy: Empowerment! Responsibility! Collaboration! These words don’t have meaning outside the context of a specific group doing specific tasks in a specific place and time. Otherwise, those words are just more bull feathers. I guess I push too hard sometimes, but I want people to make decisions, to act as if the work was their own, to make sure it gets done to support the mission. But for that to work, everyone has to be held accountable and be responsible for doing professional work that meets the expectations of others whose work must be integrated into a service or product.

Woody: Does everyone “get it”? Do they appreciate your approach?

Andy: I wish it, but no. There are always some hardheads who’ve got their egos and heads up their a—s. But the majority get used to me and find that they are doing more work independently, slipping into leadership roles, and taking initiatives they never imagined before. You have to remember that most of the people I work with are locally-employed staff, and in this part of the world (Eastern Europe), their culture tells them not to stand out, not to be noticed, not to outperform their colleagues. But this tends to chill down when the rewards and recognition starts coming – not only from me, but from the Ambassador, the Deputy Chief of Mission, and from Washington and regional bureaus. As for the hardheads, they are a benchmark for how far we’ve come.

Woody: So there really is a theory behind management success?

Andy: If it’s a personal theory. But real people at work don’t want theory. They want to know in specific terms how to be successful. They want to perform well, they want to please their managers, and they want to be appreciated when they make extra effort. Anything else is just pure bull feathers. I’ve been sent to a lot of so-called management training, and it’s at least 50 percent bull feathers and has no connection to working with untrained staff on tight deadlines and inadequate budgets That’s where the “can do spirit” kicks in, and I think you have to live it, at least once, to know it..

Woody: I wish I knew how to bottle what you know. We could change the world.

###



2 Comments "

How to Package Yourself for Success

March 25th, 2010

Have you or a family member or friend become a statistic in the current meltdown, there may be no better source of rescue than the annual update of What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers. Author Richard Nelson Bowles has created a framework that practically everyone in the career-counseling/job-finding business uses. But few realize that the concept on which the book is written is now more than 60 years old.

After World War II, millions of veterans returned from years of military service, some never having had a civilian job. How do you translate war-time roles like being a tail-gunner in a B-24 Liberator into civilian job skills? Bernard Haldane found the way.

“Tell me about your best achievements,” he asked, and discovered how to unlock the relationship between success in aiming and firing twin .50-caliber machine guns in aerial combat and the hand-eye coordination required by a civilian employer. He appears to have been the first person to capitalize on the fact that most of us have a set of proven traits, abilities, and predispositions that existed before we were educated and before we refined the interpersonal skills that support our social lives. We rely on them to succeed in personal and professional ventures, but paradoxically, most of us are unaware of those success factors. Too often, we don’t identify, develop, and strengthen them, and can’t use them to provide the competitive edge we need to win the job interview.

The mechanics of the Haldane/Bowles process work equally well for teenagers, teachers, physicians, cowboys and high school dropouts. The critical variable is discipline to invest the time in working the process. There is no substitute for the time required to dig into your own success stories, whether you pay a counselor to direct you or follow the instructions provided in the Parachute book.

The basic discovery process is straightforward, but commitment to homework and headwork is the true heart of the process. Your experiences have to be mined, researched and revisited until you discover the transferable skills that have operated in several or many successes. That information is what you want to sell. It is the can-do code that says to potential employers, “This person will make money for me, quickly!” Buy the book, read it, then do the work it structures. If your career is worth a 100-hour investment, it will be the best 20 bucks you’ve ever spent!

(By the way, does “Haldane” sound familiar? Bernard Haldane formed a consulting group, opened several offices, franchised his process and finally sold the company and the use of his name. Some franchisees promised more than they could deliver, were sued and the Haldane name was tainted. That was painful to Bernie, whom I met through a mutual friend, an Episcopal priest. Few people have ever contributed more to the career successes of many than this honest educator who, late in life, shifted his interests from working with adults to creating success assurance for young people. Bad things do happen to good people!)

I taught a one-day version of Bernie’s program in the federal community many years ago, and worked through it in meticulous detail two decades later when my job was abolished a month after my wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It worked for me in making an unplanned, mid-life career change, and I believe it will work for you—if you have the courage to do the work and package yourself for success.



2 Comments "

Laughing, Learning, Leadership & Leprechauns

February 8th, 2010


Photo courtesy of Disney Dad

If you’re reading this, you owe someone back there a debt of gratitude for the advice, counsel, and concern-for-your-future invested in you.  If someone cared enough about you to celebrate your successes but to be brutally honest when you screwed up, to refocus you when you lost your bearings or to kick you in the ass when you allowed a sour impulse to override your common sense, you were lucky  You are living well today because someone, maybe several, became your mentor for a moment, a month,  or for years.

I am remembering my mentors with the hope that it will prompt you to remember yours — and your obligation to pass along to others those gifts that can only be repaid in kind.

Robert L. (Bob) Stockment was as close to a leprechaun as anyone I’ve ever known.  It wasn’t that he was short, because he wasn’t.  It was more his smile, his laughter, his ability to be kind and gentle even in the midst of the most inconvenient muddles.  He was the one, more than any other person, who taught me how to be a presenter, a public speaker, a lecturer.  His message was simple: “People want to laugh, to be entertained, more than they want to learn.  But if you can allow them to have fun, you will be amazed at how much they will learn.”

A number of times, participants have asked if I was a boxer, and when I can be scrupulously honest, I have to confess that I never was – but my mentor was!  And like a duckling imprinting on the first thing it sees, I imprinted on Bob, his easy, expressive style, and his self-deprecating humor, and his way of moving among participants rather than standing behind or hanging onto a podium.  I watched him lecture, I watched him sitting in circles with groups of executives, and the way he would reach out to include them in discussions and to support them when they participated.  He was the instant friend, the good listener who made everyone feel comfortable.

When I met Bob, he was working for the Agricultural Research Service, recently returned from a stint in New York as an executive with a major organization for managers.  He had liked the job, most of his associates, and the majority of the executives he met.  But not his boss, who assigned to Bob the disagreeable collateral duty of finding women to be escorts and sleep-over companions for some of the visiting executives.  So he returned to Washington and government employment.

One of his first assignments as training director for Agricultural Research Service involved enhancing the managerial performance of the Service’s director.  It was an assignment organized by someone very senior in the Department of Agriculture who saw a need, an opportunity for a solution, and made it happen.

The director, an MD/PhD scientist, came to their first meeting, wearing his white lab coat and carrying a clipboard.   He was almost sarcastic when he threw down his gauntlet, the world-renowned scientist confronting a man with no academic credentials. “Okay, Bob, how are you going to make me into a better manager?”

In that beautiful way he had, of smiling and dropping one shoulder as though he was ready to fire a right hand to the body, Bob said,  “Well, sir, the first thing you need to do is take off that lab coat.  It identifies you as a scientist. It locks you into the safe role as a researcher, as an expert, as an authority.  It causes the people who work for you to respond to you as a technical advisor.  That keeps them from seeing you as an executive and it keeps you in the dance of pleasing them instead of providing direction for the growth and future of the Agricultural Research Service.”

The director looked at Bob, without moving, for nearly a minute.  Then he shrugged, took off the lab coat, tossed it onto a chair. He sat down and asked, “Okay, Bob, what else do I need to know?”  They did not need many such conversations, and as far as anyone could tell, the director never again wore the lab coat.

Early in his life, after an undistinguished stint in the Navy as an enlisted man, Bob worked on a lathe in South Bend, Indiana.  He remembered “a nice kid” with a new degree in industrial engineering.  One day, Bob saw the engineer coming through the plant with his boss.  Bob pushed his stock bench several feet away so he would have to step away from the lathe to get new stock.  Sure enough, the engineer spotted the extra steps.  “Bob, wouldn’t it be easier if you rolled the stock bench closer to the lathe?  Then you could save those extra steps.”  Bob expressed his appreciation for the suggestion and said, “Why didn’t I think of that?”  The engineer looked content as he and his smiling boss continued their tour.

Bob’s lesson in these stories was that no manager wants to fail, and no one wants to work for a manager who is failing.

Employees in even the most menial jobs will help their managers look good and succeed – if only the manager will give them the opportunity and appreciate their integrity.  Adversarial relationships at work are caused by managers who cannot allow workers to express their integrity and will not recognize the dignity of those whose tasks are menial and whose prospects are limited.

Bob’s widow sent me his pocket watch, as he had directed, but he left me with so much more.  With three academic degrees more than he had, I still struggle to be his peer.



2 Comments "

How Mentoring Really Happens – In the Company of Heroes

January 25th, 2010

Mentoring can happen in an instant, in a few well-chosen words, and initiate lasting and life-changing insights.



Flickr photo courtesy of H.Kopp Delaney

If you’re reading this, you owe someone back there a debt of gratitude for the advice, counsel, and concern-for-your-future invested in you. If someone cared enough about you to celebrate your successes but to be brutally honest when you screwed up, to refocus you when you lost your bearings or to kick you in the ass when you allowed a sour impulse to override your common sense, you were lucky You are living well today because someone, maybe several, became your mentor for a moment, a month, or for years. I am remembering my mentors with the hope that it will prompt you to remember yours — and your obligation to pass along to others those gifts that can only be repaid in kind.

Two people who became my heroes are celebrated here. Who knows? Maybe you will hear what I heard, and the impact of their words will continue to ripple across time and space.

Lori Eisenberg was my first marriage counselor. It was our second meeting alone. Between the first and second, she had met with my wife and then with both of us. She opened the meeting with stunning directness: “What have you got against getting a divorce?”

I was shocked into speechlessness. Finally, I stammered, lamely, “Well, it would cost a lot of money.”

And here is her world-class, life-changing response: “So, go make some more!”

Talk about cutting to the chase, knocking off the nonsense, and getting down to making decisions! That’s been more than thirty years ago, and the imperative to act, to decide, to quit equivocating, is still as powerful. I’ve remembered it at least weekly, and it has pushed me into maybe a thousand decisions. “So, go make some more!”

Her direct advice has been included in more than 200 lectures, and it’s always a surprise to people who want to wallow in the clouds of high-level abstractions instead deciding to get out OR to stay-in-and-make-it-better. With all due respect to the semanticists, sometimes either/or is the only honest, courageous decision.

What a gift! I pass it along to you.

Fr. Joe Frazier, an Episcopal (Anglican) priest, was my second short-statement mentor. He had been nearly-famous as a member of the Chad Mitchell Trio. Their anti-establishment songs delighted Libertarians and those of the political left about the same time The Beach Boys and The Kingston Trio were enchanting the politically asleep.



He was making a pastoral call to my wife, who had terminal cancer. After suffering through three abdominal surgeries and three rounds of aggressive chemotherapy with attendant hair loss, she was angry and often lashed out. She looked at me, then at Joe, and like a verbal arsonist said, “I don’t think Woody is a Christian!”

Fr. Joe put out the fire in a six-word, world-class, life-changing response: “Is he taking care of you?”

I’ve spent at least a hundred hours thinking about that situation and the lessons implicit in it. His gentle way of cutting to the bottom line while bringing the single, most important issue to the surface, was a powerful intervention, worth studying, worth thinking about.

In another instance, Fr. Joe and I were discussing capital punishment. I was rolling out the usual pro-death-penalty arguments. Again, without heat, Fr. Joe changed my attitude, my values, and maybe my life with a few well-chosen words.

“I guess the death penalty would be okay if I could imagine Jesus pulling the switch. But I can’t!”

Of course, he was employing the rhetorical strategy of identifying an acknowledged standard to neutralize an argument, and it worked! I had to confront the duplicity in my values, and my trust in the man who had asked, in my behalf, “Is he taking care of you?”



Flickr photo courtesy of the great H. Kopp Delaney

These three interventions have been transformative. Each was weeks or months of tutorials distilled into less than a minute. They were clear, concise, and authentic; pointed, straight shots to the heart of the issue and to the heart of the recipient. They were as finely crafted as any piece of art, models of efficiency and effectiveness.

Where does the ability to speak in such succinct, truth-telling terms originate? My guess it’s from integrating three separate skills: listening and attending acutely, reading the situational dynamics, and suspending judgment. Individually, these may be the most challenging of the interpersonal skills, and integrating them in a single moment is a great feat of personal discipline. But when it happens, magic moments are possible.

I’ve seen the magic, and I’ve struggled for the discipline to replicate it. When I’ve been able to make it happen for others, I feel that I’m at my best – and repaying a debt to two remarkable mentors.

Author’s note: This is the last of 13 recollections of some of the Heroes in my life. Thanks for sharing them with me, and I hope you will take a few minutes to visit with the Heroes in your life .



4 Comments "

The Secret to Team Work or Team Building

December 6th, 2009


Photo courtesy fo Nighthawk 3

The “secret” to team work and team building lies in the possessive pronoun “our.”

WHEN WORK BECOMES “OURS”

When work becomes ours, obstacles become ours, and our successes are celebrated, people “naturally” become team members. But people — at work or in civic activities — usually need a catalyst, someone who says “our” and who involves others in making decisions and experiencing small successes until they, too, talk about “our” tasks and team.

TALKING ABOUT “WE”

The catalyst — leader or manager — begins by talking about what “we have to do,” and what “they want from us,” and is scrupulous in avoiding “I” and “my.” The catalyst asks, “What do you think? How should we approach this? How can we use ourselves best? Who has some ideas about how to solve this problem?” When people respond, the catalyst does not accept or reject, but instead asks others to build on the idea or suggestion, to embellish it out of their experiences and knowledge of the subject.

THE ROLE OF GAME-PLAYING … NONE

Such participation often is hard to get in that part of the world in which I live. Learned patterns of mistrust and caution in dealing with those in authority will not be overcome in a single Monday-morning meeting. Nor will the process be expedited much by taking people out of the office for a day or two of “team building,” playing games and being led, blindfolded, by others to “build trust and confidence.” (All this suggests that employees need to be “fixed” so that they will work harder, better, faster, and cheaper for their managers.)

Genuine participation, encouraged and rewarded, consistently and convincingly by the designated leader, is the only way to build effective work groups.

(This writer’s bias is for “work groups,” as teams always have an authoritarian component in the coach, captain, or manager. They tend to view people as expendable if they’re not productive, like athletes who get too old or lame to perform. Athletes are volunteers, employees aren’t! Most of us are economic conscripts, trading time and talent for money. Please don’t abuse us further by trying to motivate us!)

PATIENCE & PERSISTENCE

Developing effective work groups requires patience and persistence in acknowledging individual and collective contributions, recognizing and rewarding people at every opportunity, along with sincerity in expressing appreciation for anything done to support the group and its performance.

These things come from the heart, from belief in the value of co-workers. Few managers appear to have the commitment to their people and the discipline to do these things – which is why “team building exercises” become necessary. Unfortunately, there really is no substitute for a manager’s attention and appreciation.



No Comments "

How to Successfully Market Yourself?

November 21st, 2009


Photo courtesy of L.Can1

Once upon a time, I was a human resource manager. I interviewed a lot of professionals. I hired some of them, but most I ignored. Why? Because I didn’t like them. Why? Because they wasted my time. They submitted resumes that I reviewed and passed along to hiring managers. They came to my office by invitation because it seemed they had promise. But they came unprepared to use my time effectively, and to present themselves intelligently.

Those unprepared candidates had no specific information about my company, its position in its industry, its primary (and secondary) products and services, its major clients, the number of its offices and its reputation in the local area. Obviously then, there was no way for them to tell me how they would contribute to the success of my company; that is, how they would contribute to its profitable operations.

And as for saving their resumes for six months or so … ? Their resumes went directly into a trash can.

To push the point further, some of those candidates were professionally accomplished and physically attractive men and women. They had attended good schools, but they did a really poor job of representing their schools or themselves.

There are at least six fundamental things they did not understand about work, jobs and interviewing:

1. You are NOT your diploma. Like noses, most people have one.

2. You are NOT special unless your presentation of yourself makes you so.

3. You MUST understand some specific things about the work you want to do as it is done in my company.

4. You MUST be able to answer my questions in terms of your ability to make money for my company.

5. You MUST understand that interviews are serious assessments of your character and your probable value to my company.

6. You MUST prepare for interviews as you would for a final exam or some demanding board or licensing certification. If you fail to do so, you will fail to be hired! Count on it.

Burn these six truths into your brain. Understanding and acting on them may be the difference between getting a really good job or ending up in a job that is a professional dead-end from day one!

If you are job-hunting, you have a lot of competitors. The November report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics says unemployment is at 10.2 percent, and trending up. In real terms, that means it’s probably closer to 15 percent. That’s a lot of people in personal and professional pain, and some of them will be hoping to win every job for which you apply.

Before getting into the mechanics of preparing for an interview, there is one more thing—another “secret”—that I want to share with you. It was passed along to me by an experienced human resource manager in response to my question, how do you make good hiring choices? She said, “It’s really so simple. First you realize that all the candidates have essentially the same academic preparation, so you focus on what your gut tells you. As you look across your desk at the applicant, ask yourself, would I like to have dinner or spend an evening with that person? If your gut says NO, then don’t go forward with the application. Why impose on your co-workers and clients someone you don’t want to spend time with?” (I know this violates the EEOC spirit, but … So pay attention to your appearance, attitude and overall presentation of yourself. If you are careless with these details, you’d better be a world-class player.

Hooray for simplicity! I used her system. I never had to fire anyone I hired!


Life’s Six Ps

This rule is not an elegant statement, but it is infallible: Poor planning predicts piss-poor performance!

Planning begins long before the interview. It begins with learning what you are bringing to the party, what you have to offer an employer that will provide a prompt payoff for the investment in your salary. This is the essential point you must make with the HR or hiring manager—that you are competent, quick to learn and have proof of your past performance.

People look at me as though I’m from another planet when I tell them that writing a resume can take as much as 100 hours. Most are defeated right then. But consider this: A resume that is not based on a thorough search of one’s skills and experiences will likely reflect that shallow, thoughtless preparation. A resume does not win you a job; it is the gate pass that allows you to present yourself as an employable candidate!

Without that thorough preparation, what have you got to say for yourself? You may be well-dressed and have okay interpersonal skills, but is that all there is to you? What have you done that predicts high-levels of future performance? Can you answer any question the interviewer asks in words that predict prompt payoff for the employer? These are the questions that differentiate postal clerks and bus drivers from those who get the good jobs, the good salaries, the good life.

Why are you applying to that company?

Because they have an attractive ad is not a good reason. Neither is having a good reputation. The only reason you should apply to a specific company is because it is one you have chosen in advance, in the industry, or using the technology that fits your interests, skills, and preparation. This leads to two points:

1. You should focus your job search on those companies that do what you want to do; and

2. Do some preliminary research on those companies before you contact them, and let it be reflected in your CV and cover letter.

If you get a response and an invitation to come for an interview, do some SERIOUS research on that company. Don’t stop with what you find on the internet. Go to a library and review journals prepared by ratings agencies and other sources. Use your interpersonal skills to get the research librarian to help you.

There is a lot of gold buried in libraries that often only a skilled researcher will be able to pull up for you. Focus on current clients and contracts, major projects, products and processes. See what you can find about the role you are most likely to be hired to fill, and begin to think about how your skills and experiences will allow you to succeed.

Make notes. Study them. Prepare as though you really want to get that job.

Then, before you go for the interview, prepare yourself mentally—meditation, prayer, guided imagery, or whatever works for you. In short, do not play fast and loose with this opportunity because, for the interviewer, you are just one of several/many who will be rejected in the process of finding a keeper. Trust me, this is so!!!

Beyond doing the necessary homework suggested above, here are some more survival tips:

1. Arrive at least 15 minutes before your appointment.

2. Make yourself known to the receptionist. Present a business card or the note inviting you to the interview that includes the name of the person with whom you are to meet. (Use a highlighter to make that name easy to see. The receptionist doesn’t always know everyone.)

3. When you meet the interviewer, express appreciation for the opportunity the interview represents.

4. Once seated, you could say something like, “I know quite a lot about FlimFlam Manufacturing, and I would like very much to work here!” That sets up the interviewer to ask, “Yes? What do you know?” Now you have an opportunity to put your research to work. It also does something else important: It puts you in the position of driving the interview. You have made the first move! You can demonstrate that you have done your homework and are serious about wanting to work there. That will impress the interviewer!!! Trust me, that almost never happens, and you will have the interviewer’s rapt attention. Sometimes, the interviewer will interrupt you to call in someone else to hear your recitation. That’s a great start!

5. Be sure to mention the role for which you are applying. Use the knowledge of your skills, abilities, and experiences to explain why you know you will be the candidate who will make money for the company from the first day. Emphasize your ability to work with others and your willingness to contribute to their success as well as your own. But keep it light—don’t over-sell. The tone you want is like, “By the way, while I was at the university, I worked nights doing similar work, but for a smaller company. I really loved that job.”

6. If I were the interviewer, I would ask you to tell me about a job that you did not love. What I would be listening for is a sense of perspective, recognition that life throws you some lemons, and appreciation for what was learned in an unhappy situation. These are clues to maturity.

7. To the extent possible, answer every question with a reference to your capacity to perform. See #5 above. Be gentle. Polite. Being overly assertive can be offensive. Usually it is. If you are in charge of the interview, you really are interviewing the interviewer, so there’s no need to be heavy-handed! By the way, self-deprecating humor is always appreciated, but do NOT tell jokes or risk sounding like a smartass. Instant death!

8. At the end of the interview, be sure to thank the interviewer for courtesies extended, and be sure to ask, “When do you imagine that I might hear from you about the decision on this job?” Remember, usually it is the manager for whom you will work who makes the hiring decision, not the human resource person. When you are interviewed by the actual manager, be sure to emphasize your ability to hook up with others to create results—another way to say you are a team player. And of most importance, be courteous. Do not create the impression with the manager that you will be difficult to control!

9. Do not let the sun set that day without sending (at least by e-mail) a thank-you note to the interviewer(s)—and do make sure you get business cards so you have the address. To be sure your note is received, follow up with a handwritten note sent by post or left with the receptionist. It’s such a fundamental courtesy, but it’s usually overlooked. Bad move! It might be just the small gesture that tips the hiring decision in your direction. (Expect that others being interviewed are as sharp as you are, so your play needs to be geared to outperforming competitors as much as winning with the interviewer.)

10. Practice. Get your spouse or friend to pretend to be the interviewer. Practice responding to the predictable questions. Do this for the simple reason that if you fumble while responding to a predictable question, you really demonstrate that you are not prepared for the interview and probably aren’t worth hiring!

If you attend to the details reflected in these 10 points, you will do well. Is there more to say? Of course! There are books out there that can help you. One is “Ask the Headhunter: Reinventing the Interview to Win the Job,” by Nick A. Corcodilos. And always, the annual version of “What Color Is Your Parachute?,” that classic by Richard Nelson Bolles. You can find others—not the day before your interview, but in the weeks and months when you are planning your job-hunting campaign. Remember the Six Ps. Remember, this is a high-stakes game you have entered, and your competitors often have just as much to offer potential employers. You really need to pay attention to the details of packaging yourself for success, or you put yourself at serious risk of losing the opportunity!

If you want details on packaging what you have to offer a potential employer in this tough job market, see the next edition of Expert Access.

Good luck? No way! Luck favors the prepared. Get ready to win!

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission, Life-long Learning programme, administered by Education Exchanges Support Foundation in Lithuania. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.



No Comments "

The Broken Bridge Between Think and Work

October 28th, 2009



Managers think and plan, workers work.

In between is delegation, by which authority to perform tasks and consume corporate resources is granted. That’s how managers used to be taught in America, so there are probably still some contaminating effectiveness in many work places.

That authoritarian procedure – tasking subordinates — was based on the premise that workers are dull and uninspired, need to be given specific guidance, and watched closely. Missing in that equation was workers’ competence, intelligence, and responsibility. In this still-new century, formerly dull-witted workers have been buffed-up by a couple of decades of computers, instant access to the internet, and have seen millions of once-great jobs dumbed down by technology or eliminated by the dynamics of globalization.

What persists too often is the managerial assumption that employees need to be kept on a short leash.



Once employees are oriented, shown job routines, and introduced to co-workers, they should “own” those jobs and be free to perform tasks and duties involved with only nominal oversight. Then, “order giving” is unnecessary.

What employees might be told is something like this:

“You can do all routine work (about 85%), and let me know when it is complete. Here are a few things (maybe 10%) that, if you do them, tell me immediately. And if these specific things (about 5%) come up, please get my permission first.”

That gives employees latitude to organize their work so they can respond to priorities. When you see employees waiting for orders, you know that no scheme of delegation — permission to work — is in place. Instead, they must be members of teams — it’s really hard to keep teams busy all day every day.

People resent being told what to do. In its most gentle form, it’s still order-giving.

Consider this creative solution developed by New York consultant Robert House, late in the 1950s. He was hired to resolve often dangerous conflicts in restaurants between waitresses and cooks. The cooks (mostly male), resented having orders shouted at them. House resolved the issue by installing a spindle on the counter, to which waitresses could attach orders, spinning the spindle to signal a new order. Alternatively, there was a wire with clothes pins to which orders could be attached. Cooks then could take the orders off the spindle in the order that that fit stove and counter capacity, and conflicts were reduced nearly to zero. Spindles were soon found in nearly every American restaurant – until they were replaced by computerized systems that have the same “sanitizing” effect.

When people know their roles and responsibilities, are free to use their intelligence and creativity, and can ask for help when necessary, work gets done on time and within budget. Workers and managers can collaborate to ensure smooth execution of tasks, and profitable performance results. A basis for developing increasingly effective work groups is provided when order-giving, that residue of authoritarian management, yields to individual competence and results in collaborative effort.

###

Photo 1 courtesy MichyLal2
Photo 2 courtesy Barracuty00



No Comments "

What’s the Difference Between Leaders and Managers?

October 4th, 2009


Photo courtesy Kay Ef

What is the difference between leaders and managers?

Some say leaders point out right things to do, while managers ensure that things are done correctly.

Following that definition, anyone can be a leader when his/her experience and knowledge provide the key to overcoming an obstacle.

LEADERSHIP IS AN ACT OF CREATION

This writer’s definition is that “leadership is the creation of structures and processes through which people participate in achieving worthwhile goals.”

This could happen more often if rank, hierarchy, and old ideas about social distance between bosses and workers did not interfere.

Such constraints keep both managers and workers from reaching out to include and share, and still operate in too many work places.

In his exciting 1997 book, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman pulled together a lot of research to demonstrate that “the qualities of leadership and the qualities of the heart….are largely the same.”

SIMPLE IDEAS

That means simple ideas about caring and sharing and working together toward common goals are the building blocks of leadership.  Add to those the ability to project a vision with challenging roles for all and worthwhile outcomes, and the “raw material” of leadership is in view.

GUIDE SUCCESS

How do you develop leaders who can guide their organizations to succeed in a global economy being shaped by unprecedented combinations of cultures and technologies? How do you develop competent managers?  One requirement is that leaders invest time in developing their successors, in challenging all the assumptions about “how it is now” to see if those conditions will continue.  Probably they will not.

PECULIAR – BUT NECESSARY

It takes a peculiar kind of courage to admit that what is will not be adequate in the future.

More fundamentally, managers need a peculiar kind of courage to reach out to employees, to ask their opinions, to teach them to become fully-participating members of the organization’s problem-solving system.  Leaders cannot be developed when 2 or 3 managers, talking behind closed doors, make all the decisions and give orders.

A contemporary corporate hero, Jack Welch of General Electric, is said to have participated in developing over 15,000 leaders, asking them to think about tomorrow’s customers, their needs, and how GE must reshape itself to respond.

SOME TOUGH QUESTIONS

Asking tough questions, listening actively, and participating fully in the dialog about profitable and business-building responses might be a useful way to characterize leaders and the things they do to create role models that others can replicate.



4 Comments "

The Secret Passageway to Increased Employee Productivity

September 7th, 2009

Some see the work place as a combat zone in which managers, using the emotional technology and bribery of motivational theory, try to get more productivity out of unwilling workers.  This is a win/lose game in which everyone loses, with mutual respect being one of the first casualties.

Almost 40 years ago, American motivational theorist Frederick Herzberg said two sets of factors operate in any work place — things that satisfy people and things that dissatisfy people.  All the factors reduce to how people are treated.  If employees feel they are treated with respect, they will work satisfactorily.  If employees feel mistreated, they will withhold their productivity.

Herzberg likened his “motivation hygiene theory” to chlorinating water.  People who drink contaminated water get ill, but drinking treated water does not make them well — it just keeps them from getting sick.  So, he envisioned (and his research proved) that if workers are not frustrated and angry with their managers, they will do all that is required and maybe 10 or 15 percent more.  Free!!!!  Conversely, when employees are unhappy, they restrict their output!

What satisfies people at work?

Good working conditions, challenging work, recognition for achievements.

Surprisingly, salaries are not high on the list.

We never get enough money.  However, if people feel they are underpaid relative to others doing the same type of work, they see that as management’s contempt for them, and they withhold effort, suggestions, and support.

In these “crisis” days,  it’s especially important for managers to treat people with respect, to  ask employees for help in solving production problems, and to treat people as co-workers, not as “subordinates.”  They will respond positively.

However, if managers are getting pay-offs from vendors or ”under the table” money, two things are certain:  First, employees know.  Second, forget about motivation.  Working men and women are not stupid or gullible, despite what many managers think.



1 Comment "

Authority is the Tool of Neanderthal Managers

August 14th, 2009

The people-side of enterprise is where the gold is buried.

Almost everyone says that.

Then why are all the people-managing/-motivating-manipulating models so complex and so often rooted in psycho-babble?

Information about how to work with people, how to contribute to their success and how to ensure the success of the enterprise is too valuable to be complicated.

Neither should it be expensive to acquire, difficult and time-consuming to implement, and ultimately forgettable. The real fundamentals break into 12 bite-sized pieces, and here is the first of them:

On Management Theory:

About 100 years ago, Frederick W. Taylor designed a new coal scoop that enabled a “good worker” to increase the amount of coal he could move in a day by nearly 40 percent.  Scientific management was born, along with time and motion studies and the pursuit of metrics to turn working people into approximations of machines.   That gave managers sophisticated 20^th Century tools to increase productivity, more recently referred to as the chase for better, faster, cheaper (BFC) output.

Many motivational and organizational schemes have been promoted since then.  But managers continued to find that there is no BFC scheme that workers cannot defeat — if their relations with management give them reasons to do so!

And there is the stick in the spokes – relationships between workers and managers were essentially a no-go area, and where research was done, it was ignored! (See note below.)  Management, that bastion of authoritarian prerogative, would not condescend to negotiate with the rabble, so unions became de facto third-party interveners, later replaced or augmented by government regulators (such as OSHA, EEOC, and the Department of Labor).

MBO NO GO

The non-relationship was best exemplified by Management by Objectives (MBO).  It was a two-decade  attempt to use performance objectives as a substitute for dialogue.  But MBO contained an authoritarian oversight  –  you can’t hold people accountable for failure if they can’t control the variables on which success depends!    And control was management’s prerogative. Currently, enlightened companies (the usual suspects, but maybe your company is one of them) focus on building communities of individuals and groups, held together by common vision and shared goals and given broad discretion to act for the common good.

Management defines goals and budgets, but allows teams within the organizations to figure out how to get the work done.  Inter-departmental collaboration and high levels of internal “customer service” replace competition and mistrust.  The more community is emphasized, the less need there is for hierarchy, social distance, and secrecy.  And giving orders.

Even the most brilliant manager is handicapped if people wait to be told what to do.  It takes longer to develop detailed plans than to share an idea with empowered workers and support them in turning ideas into profitable reality.   Where incentive programs and manager involvement permit, there is little distance between corporate interests and worker self-interest.

Authority is the Blunt Tool of Neanderthal managers.

Collaboration among co-workers is a more civilized approach, especially with Gen X and Y workers, and now with the wired wunderkind coming to work.  The next letter will be On Motivation.

Want to see a Template for Worker/Manager Relationships?

Track down Rensis Likert’s award-winning 1961 text, New Patterns of Management. Notice the date: 1961! Have you ever heard of Lickert?

###

Awesome photo courtesy of Von Murr



No Comments "

Taking Care … In the Company of Heroes

July 19th, 2009

By Dr. Woody Sears

If you’re reading this, you owe someone back there a debt of gratitude for the advice, counsel, and concern-for-your-future invested in you.  If someone cared enough about you to celebrate your successes but to be brutally honest when you screwed up, to refocus you when you lost your bearings or to kick you in the ass when you allowed a sour impulse to override your common sense, you were lucky.

You are living well today because someone, maybe several, became your mentor for a moment, a month,  or for years.  I am remembering my mentors with the hope that it will prompt you to remember yours — and your obligation to pass along to others those gifts that can only be repaid in kind.


It Can Happen In An Instant

Mentoring can happen in an instant, in a few well-chosen words, and initiate lasting and life-changing insights.  Two people who became my heroes are celebrated here.  Who knows?  Maybe you will hear what I heard, and the impact of their words will continue to ripple across time and space.

Marriage, Money & Go Make Some More

Lori Eisenberg was my first marriage counselor.  It was our second meeting alone.  Between the first and second, she had met with my wife and then with both of us.  She opened the meeting with stunning directness:  “What have you got against getting a divorce?”

I was shocked into speechlessness.  Finally, I stammered, lamely, “Well, it would cost a lot of money.”

And here is her world-class, life-changing response: “So, go make some more!”

Talk about cutting to the chase, knocking off the nonsense, and getting down to making decisions!  That’s been more than thirty years ago, and the imperative to act, to decide, to quit equivocating, is still as powerful.  I’ve remembered it at least weekly, and it has pushed me into maybe a thousand decisions.  “So, go make some more!”

Her direct advice has been included in more than 200 lectures, and it’s always a surprise to people who want to wallow in the clouds of high-level abstractions instead deciding to get out OR to stay-in-and-make-it-better.  With all due respect to the semanticists, sometimes either/or is the only honest, courageous decision.

What a gift!  I pass it along to you.

A Nearly Famous Father



Fr. Joe Frazier, an Episcopal (Anglican) priest, was my second short-statement mentor.   He had been nearly-famous as a member of the Chad Mitchell Trio. Their anti-establishment songs delighted Libertarians and those of the political left about the same time The Beach Boys and The Kingston Trio were enchanting the politically asleep.

Taking Care

He was making a pastoral call to my wife, who had terminal cancer.  After suffering through three abdominal surgeries and three rounds of aggressive chemotherapy with attendant hair loss, she was angry and often lashed out.  She looked at me, then at Joe, and like a verbal arsonist said, “I don’t think Woody is a Christian!”

Fr. Joe put out the fire in a six-word, world-class, life-changing response: “Is he taking care of you?”

I’ve spent at least a hundred hours thinking about that situation and the lessons implicit in it.  His gentle way of cutting to the bottom line while bringing the single, most important issue to the surface, was a powerful intervention, worth studying, worth thinking about.

In another instance, Fr. Joe and I were discussing capital punishment. I was rolling out the usual pro-death-penalty arguments.  Again, without heat, Fr. Joe changed my attitude, my values, and maybe my life with a few well-chosen words.

The Switch

“I guess the death penalty would be okay if I could imagine Jesus pulling the switch.  But I can’t!”

Of course, he was employing the rhetorical strategy of identifying an acknowledged standard to neutralize an argument, and it worked!  I had to confront the duplicity in my values, and my trust in the man who had asked, in my behalf, “Is he taking care of you?”

Arrows to the Heart

These three interventions have been transformative.  Each was weeks or months of tutorials distilled into less than a minute.  They were clear, concise, and authentic; pointed, straight shots to the heart of the issue and to the heart of the recipient.  They were as finely crafted as any piece of art, models of efficiency and effectiveness.

Where Does This Ability Come From?

Where does the ability to speak in such succinct, truth-telling terms originate?  My guess it’s from integrating three separate skills: listening and attending acutely, reading the situational dynamics, and suspending judgment.  Individually, these may be the most challenging of the interpersonal skills, and integrating them in a single moment is a great feat of personal discipline.

Magic Moments

But when it happens, magic moments are possible.

I’ve seen the magic, and I’ve struggled for the discipline to replicate it.  When I’ve been able to make it happen for others, I feel that I’m at my best – and repaying a debt to two remarkable mentors.

Author’s note: This is the last of 13 recollections of some of the Heroes in my life.  Thanks for sharing them with me, and I hope you will take a few minutes to visit with the Heroes in your life .



No Comments "