This is a tough skill to master, but absolutely critical. This is figuring out the right balance between “inspecting” vs “expecting”. It’s knowing when you need to ask the questions, and when you don’t. It’s giving people enough latitude without micromanaging, but not so much latitude that you’re an absentee manager. Continue reading
“People do not change when they see the light. They change when they feel the heat.”
Freda Lewis-Hall, Chief Medical Officer, Pfizer
This is something I once read that really struck me because we usually do this reversed. We hire fast, and fire slow.
Firing is very hard. It feels terrible. You try and try to make it work…and while there are small signs of improvement, you end up sliding back into the “this isn’t working” place. And you can’t honestly recommend this person to anyone else in your organization. Here’s the problem with firing slow.
Once you’ve come to the conclusion that you need to fire someone, chances are you’re already overdue. You’ve taken on the burden of their work, or their colleagues have. You’ve gotten the complaints from others about the person. Your group meetings are tense because people resent the individual. Mistakes are being made, projects are falling behind schedule. You’re spending the majority of your time on this person. Human resources has heard about the person.
Firing someone is not saying they are bad, or a failure. It’s usually about wrong job in the wrong company, and maybe the wrong industry. BTW, they are probably miserable also: it’s not fun to be unsuccessful in a job day in and day out. Needless to say, human resources are the experts in these cases. The minute you sense that this might be the outcome, you need to get them involved.
Hiring is the exact opposite. You’re both on your best behavior during the interview process: anyone can be charming/smart/fun for an hour. But you need to really assess whether or not the person can be successful in the role you’re interviewing them for.
Some interview questions I like: (everyone knows the strengths and weaknesses question, and they always pick a weakness that sounds like a strength: e.g. “I’ve been told that I drive hard and sometimes need to slow down.”)
1. “What would the people at work who like you say about you? What would your detractors say?” (It’s like the strengths and weaknesses question, but forces them to look at it from another person’s point of view, not their own. It’s also hard to lie. When they have nothing to say, it tells me they might not be very self-aware).
2. “Why do you want to work here?” (It’s amazing, but a lot comes out: both good and bad. I’ve heard everything from “I need a job” to “I have some good friends who work here and they seem really happy”).
3. “Tell me about yourself”..again, another open question (also amazing what people will tell you).
You can’t always get it right when you hire someone. But chances are, your gut instincts are going to be pretty good. I can usually tell in the first 5 minutes of an interview. When someone will be leaving a job, I am even more careful: you want to make sure this is the right thing for them.
Don’t get swayed by the perfect “on paper” resume, and don’t discount the unusual candidate. A CEO once told me that his mantra was “Look for a great athlete, and worry about what position they’ll play later”.
Usually when something goes wrong, someone will tell you what happened and who was involved. A lot of people tend to focus on who dropped the ball.
I find it’s more productive to focus on the process.
The process is the process. And often when something goes wrong, it’s often because the process has weaknesses. A process is like a recipe: meant to ensure the same outcome every time someone makes it, no matter what their skill level is. There is a big difference between a list of ingredients and a great recipe.
When we focus on the person, we miss the point, which is anyone could have been doing those steps and had the same problem happen to them.
So the next time a situation comes across your desk, ask what the process is and figure out how to change the process so it doesn’t happen again-no matter who was doing the steps.
So, I just went through this myself. A colleague went to my boss to complain about how something was disseminated in the organization. He felt “out of the loop” and blindsided. And while it had been communicated, the details hadn’t been shared. And I was so knee deep into that project I thought everyone knew about it. So here were the thoughts that ran through my head (I am human).
“What a jerk. He could have called me and said something.” “If he was so interested, he could have initiated the question and found out about it.” “Really? With everything going on, this is what you complain about?”
So after the tirade in my head (and my fingers itching to send a response), I thought: “Well, maybe other people feel the same way. So I probably need to change our process to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” So, I’ll come up with options and ask people to choose.
Do I like the way he did it? No. But will good come out of it? I think so. (But boy, is it hard!)
“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
Theodore Roosevelt
There are times when nothing can substitute for in person talking. There are two situations where I have seen communications go awry.
1. You offend someone. People are sensitive. And while email and texts are efficient, they can lack context and end up miscommunicating intent. And though you didn’t intend to do it, now you’ve got to go mend fences. I have seen two very senior people not speak to each other for months because of a miscommunication. It can happen because someone got blindsided in a presentation, because an inappropriate response was sent to many people on email, because something got repeated out of context…you get the drift.
When this happens, you need to go see the person and have the conversation. It doesn’t have to be confrontational…often a “Hey, got a minute? I wanted to talk to you about something …” works. Then have the conversation you probably should have had in person versus email/powerpoint/text or whatever form it came in instead. You don’t need to apologize for your point of view, but you do need to apologize for how you made the other person feel. I have said things like ” I didn’t mean to make you feel I was unsupportive. I didn’t mean to make you feel blindsided.” Then move on.
2. There’s a crisis brewing, but you rely on email or voicemail to tell people.
This is the “bad news does not age well.” When you have a problem or issue, here are the steps I’ve taken to make sure people are aware.
1. I stick my head in the office with the “heads up” message. Yes, I interrupt if it’s important enough. It usually goes like this:
“Just wanted to make you aware, we just found out that x happened. We’re still chasing down all the facts, but it looks like y, but we won’t know until probably end of day today. I’ve got Joe and Nancy working on it, and we’ll come back to you when we have more data.”
In that 15 second sentence, the following happened 1) I let my boss know, 2) my boss knows it just happened, 3) he knows I’m looking into the details, 4) he knows when I’ll get back to him, and 5) he knows who I have assigned the problem to.
Now, my boss might have more questions, but in 15 seconds, I covered the most likely set of questions which he would ask. the most important thing: I got to him before anyone else did.
2. More time has passed, and now I have more information. So I’m back in my boss’s office, telling him 1) chronology of what happened, 2) what we need to do now, 3) what we still don’t know, 4) who’s been notified or needs to be told, 5) if I need resources/take action to resolve.
3. After the crisis is resolved, I always go back with the team with the question: “What do we need to change to make sure this doesn’t happen again?”. Nothing is worse than a problem that repeats itself.
And those two senior people who stopped talking? I advised one to go and buy the other person a cup of coffee and go visit him in his office. Just a casual “stop by”. They chatted, and started talking again.
So you know when you have one of those weeks when it seemed every day someone was pushing your buttons and you behaved in a way you now regret?
All of us have triggers: something that when someone does it to you, you see red. For me, it’s when someone makes excuses when something goes wrong. I am not happy when mistakes happen, but if you take accountability, explain to me how you’ll make sure it won’t happen again, I’ll get over it.
It’s a mistake to give me a bunch of excuses. I will see red. (BTW, most managers will too).
The problem is that when we see red, we lapse into our more basic “fight or flight” mode. For some people, they will start dissolving in tears. Some people will shout back and get abusive. Some people will shut down.
There is nothing harder than trying to overcome your natural tendencies. The first step is to be aware: what happens when I am in flight or fight mode? What are the warning signs so that I know to pull back, excuse myself, do something so that I’m not pushed into the danger zone? If you are self-aware, you know to take yourself out of the situation before you do something you’ll regret.
Someone sent me this article about what distinguishes the people we love to work for. It’s a great aspirational article that absolutely hits all the right points. I struggled with number 5 this week “They always think before they speak and act.” I didn’t throw a chair, but I did raise my voice and get visibly mad. Now, I’ve learned enough in my career to know not to make it personal, and I know to do number 8.”They never talk out of school”, but still. I wish I could have stayed calm and kept my volume down. I knew the person felt bad. I just didn’t exercise the self restraint because I saw red.
Still learning. Sigh
In my career, I’ve seen two kinds of people. Managers and administrators.
Administrators react. They are good steady state people. They maintain the status quo. When things go wrong though, they tend to panic. They can be bureaucratic. They’re typically not change agents.
Managers are different. They have a sense of urgency. They are the ones who are always looking for the weakness in the process, the next thing that will go wrong before it does. They constantly pressure test, they ask “what if”, they have a plan b. They solve for the problem before the problem even happens. They are continuously improving. They are not afraid to address the elephant in the room. They will bring up problems, but will also create answers. They are passionately motivated to do the right thing. Even though they look for faults, they’re positive and optimistic, because they believe in getting better.
Managers are often unsung heroes because there is no drama. We have a culture that likes drama, the rescuing, the adrenaline rush. I heard a great description at one company: “We’re so good at putting out fires, we’ve become pyromaniacs.”
But eventually, someone asks “Could this have been avoided?” So be a manager.