Archive for the ‘Management’ Category

Leaders and managers, simply because of their position in an organization, can exert significant influence over discussions and decisions.  When there’s a debate (or just an open discussion) about some important decision, chiming in with an opinion as “the boss” carries a weight of its own.  It’s natural for people to be influenced by the attitude or views or perceived direction provided by their management.

I’ve worked hard through my years as a leader to be explicitly aware of that power.  I don’t avoid it, but I’m careful to use it consciously and intentionally.  Frequently (and sometimes to the amusement of colleagues and subordinates), I explicitly and overtly work to avoid this situation.  I will often preface my comments with “I’m not the expert on this…” or “Maybe I’m being naïve here but…” or even “This might be a bad idea, but…”  With each of those openings (and countless variations), I’m silently telling people “You have my permission to disagree with me and say so.”  This is an important lesson for leaders to learn (and an important skill to possess as a leader).

There is a strong foundation necessary for this approach to work.  Most importantly, the leader needs to feel that he (or she) has the respect and confidence of his subordinates.  Weak leaders who demonstrate weakness just become weaker.  [Make no mistake - leading with “maybe I’m wrong” isn’t a show of strength!]  This style will only be successful for individuals who feel secure in their relationships with co-workers and comfortable in their own knowledge and ability to make sound decisions. 

In addition, a leader needs to feel secure in the relationship with other leadership (including his superiors) in the organization.  Again, if I feel that my boss is looking for reasons to criticize me or squeeze me out, I’m unlikely to be open to solicit criticism and disagreement.

Finally, for this approach to work, the individuals being empowered must be skilled enough for it to matter.  A manager isn’t going to tell someone “it’s OK to disagree with me” if the manager doesn’t think that person has any basis for being right in the first place.  A strong organization needs strong individuals, not just strong leaders.  A good leader needs to build a team that includes people who can be trusted with “I need you to share your ideas too, even if they differ from mine.”

In a well-run organization (i.e., one that doesn’t reflect the insecurities described in the previous paragraphs), this style can be particularly effective.  Strong organizations have exceptional employees at every level.  Those employees have good ideas and have a solid understanding of the problems they confront in their daily work.  When looking for solutions to problems, those employees often have the best, the most effective, and the most practical ideas.  Stifling those ideas means stifling the value of the most skilled employees and ultimately can harm the company.

 For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Actively seek out ideas from others, even when it means giving them permission to disagree with you.

Reviewing the Situation

We’re getting ready to do performance reviews here in our office.  We do them annually and (at least in my department) we invest a lot of effort in completing them.  Throughout my career, I’ve heard (and even participated in) a lot of grumbling about performance reviews being a “waste of time” (sometimes with even more colorful language!).

Why do we do this?  There’s always lots of competition for our time.  It would be easier to skip this time consuming process.  Surely, our top performers know they’re doing well and our worst performers know they’re in trouble, right?  Generally, yes.  However, there’s a lot more to it.

Performance reviews should be part of an ongoing dialog between a manager and an employee.  Communication about performance can’t be a “once a year” event.  The performance review should provide a focal point for frank discussion – reflecting back on what went well and what went poorly in the review period AND looking forward to new goals and growth opportunities for the employee in the coming year. 

What shouldn’t you do?  Here are several traps I think should be avoided:

• Don’t focus only on low performers
  Many managers spend the bulk of their time addressing “performance problems” with difficult employees.  If more of that time was spent helping the best performers become even more productive and more valuable, the payback would be much greater.  Spend time providing serious and thoughtful feedback to the top performers.  How can they become even more valuable?  How can you challenge them?  What new goals or projects could motivate them to grow (and help the organization as well)?
• Don’t do it all yourself
  When you’re writing a review, it’s unreasonable to think you have the complete perspective on that employee’s performance.  Ask for peer reviews.  Ask the employee to complete a self-review.  Use everything you receive as input for (but not a replacement for) your own assessments as you complete the review.
• Don’t focus exclusively (or even primarily) on a numeric rating
  Most companies use some kind of numeric rating.  These systems provide a good “short hand” for summarizing the content of the review, but I don’t recommend that you rely on them.  The core of the review should be in written comments, including feedback on previous projects and goals and specific suggestions for future improvement, along with objectives for the next review period.
• Don’t compare employees to each other
  Lots of companies (including big ones like Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard) do “stack rankings”.  Personally, I think that’s stupid.  It’s a waste of time to force managers to “fight for” their employees while comparing people who have applied disparate skills across vastly different responsibilities and expectations. 

 
What should you do? Here is what I recommend for creating a worthwhile performance review:

• Broad participation
  Employees should write self-reviews and everyone should be asked to provide “360 degree” review feedback – peer reviews and subordinate reviews of managers – for the people they’ve worked closely with during the review period.  This collective input gives the manager writing the review a more complete perspective of the work the employee has done.  Naturally, the manager needs to be careful to ensure that the source of candid 360 degree feedback is anonymous.
• Focus on constructive feedback – both backward and forward-looking
  It is important to identify what the employee did well and what skills they have that are strong.  It’s equally important to identify where the employee can improve and grow.  This is especially critical for the best employees.
• Deliver the review in person, in a one-on-one meeting
  A review document isn’t a complete, stand-alone entity.  It’s a part of a conversation – it provides reference material and talking points for the dialog between the manager and the employee.

 
In the end, if the information delivered in the performance review is a big surprise to the employee, then the manager probably hasn’t been communicating effectively throughout the year.

Next time, I’ll share a funny story about the most interesting performance review I ever received.

 For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Performance reviews, like many other management tools, provide value that’s directly related to the effort you put into them.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to Jazz Alley in Seattle to see the jazz vocal ensemble Manhattan Transfer.  We’ve seen them several times before and they always put on a great show.

Manhattan Transfer features four vocalists – Alan Paul, Tim Hauser, Janis Siegel, and Cheryl Bentyne.  Interestingly (at least to me), Alan Paul played the Teen Angel in the original Broadway cast of Grease and, in that role, was the original performer of the songs Beauty School Dropout and Born to Hand Jive. As a child, he was also in the original Broadway cast of Oliver! [I realize as I write this paragraph that I’ve been remiss in including musical theatre references in these blog posts!]

The four of them have been singing together as Manhattan Transfer for more than 30 years and their comfort with each other is evident.  At different times throughout the concert, I noticed the easy interaction between the different combinations of performers.  When Alan and Tim sang together, the connection between the two men presented a contrast to how each of them interacted with either Janis or Cheryl.  Similarly, duets with the two women presented a completely different view of their personalities and singing styles.  In addition, I noticed that each of the four made a special effort to acknowledge and recognize their supporting performers – the pianist (and music director), the percussionist, the guitarist, and the bassist.  I was particularly touched by their genuine appreciation for those other musicians.

After the concert, I thought about the interactions among those ensemble members and realized that it’s similar to the interactions among the members of our management team.  There are six of us – Morris (CEO), Doug (CFO), David (EVP of Sales and Marketing), Jan (VP of Professional Services), Pat and me (both VP’s of Engineering).  Each of us has different responsibilities, with different strengths and experience.  We rely on each other in very different ways for advice, coordination, and responsibility sharing.  [Sadly, we have zero Broadway credits in the backgrounds of our management ensemble.]

We’ve been working together, in our current roles, for nearly seven years (which, in today’s business world is an eternity).  When we’re all together, there are generally accepted roles that we’re accustomed to – some of them are explicit, based on our job responsibilities while others are implicit, based on our skills and strengths and previous experiences together.  When we work one-on-one, I recognize that my own interactions with Pat (for example) are very different from how I relate with Jan, Doug, David, or Morris.  Naturally, there are exchanges between the others that don’t involve me at all.

In the end, I realized that much of what makes a musical ensemble successful is similar to what it takes for a management team to succeed:

• Talented individual members, who are capable and skilled on their own
• Complementary skills, so that individuals can rely on (and trust) each other
• Unique one-on-one relationships among various combinations of team members (and with the rest of the organization)

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Building a successful management team goes beyond just talent – interactions among the managers on that team are critical.

This Sunday is Halloween – a (mostly) American annual holiday observed on October 31.  On Halloween, there’s a tradition of “trick or treating” – children dress in costumes and go from house to house in search of sweet treats by asking the question “trick or treat?”  The “trick” is an implied threat (almost never a serious one) of trouble if a treat isn’t provided.  It’s all done in good fun.

Many companies, especially technology companies, have moved work offshore, expecting a “treat”.  Frequently, things don’t work seamlessly.  Instead of cost savings and increased productivity those companies end up getting “tricked” when they don’t achieve the benefits they expected.

How can you avoid the “trick” and ensure that your business gets the “treat”?  I think the approach we’ve taken at my company provides a good model, though not the only one.

About six years ago, we took action on the trend that was (and continues to be) obvious to nearly every U.S. based technology company: skilled resources are available at much lower cost in developing countries like India and China.  We had recognized the trend for a number of years and finally decided to move some of our software development offshore.

We realized that our products were pretty complex.  It took months for a new U.S.-based engineer to get enough training to be productive.  We were leery of trying to replicate that training program in a new location, thousands of miles away, with communication barriers caused by both time zone variations and language differences.  We knew we needed to do something, and so we took care to make sure we would be successful.

In setting up our offshore operation, we made two key decisions that provided the foundation for our success:

1.  We hired our own employees instead of outsourcing.

Outsourcing is a quick, low cost way to move work offshore (or move it to a professional services company onshore).  However, with that approach you lose a lot of control.  The outsource partner determines the resources to assign to your team.  You have a lot of input, but ultimately you don’t own the hiring decisions.  In addition, many companies that have taken this approach find that the most skilled people get moved off their projects. These resources are the most valuable so the outsource vendor is tempted to re-assign them to high profile projects for other clients.

We chose to create our own office in India.  We decided from the beginning that everyone working for us would be an employee of our company.  We would sign their paychecks.  They all would receive stock options and vacation and other benefits provided by us.  We would put a local management team in place and those managers would report to executives here in the U.S.

2.  We sent an established expert from the States to build and lead the India team.

It’s difficult to build an office thousands of miles away.  Interviewing and hiring are more challenging.  Establishing a corporate culture is tricky.  Understanding local business practices and legal requirements can be confusing.

When we launched our Hyderabad office, we were fortunate to have Krish on our team.  He was a Director of Engineering, intimately familiar with our technology and our processes.  Krish was originally from India and agreed to return to India for six months to establish the office.  His mixture of corporate knowledge and awareness of Indian local business realities was invaluable.  He led the hiring and the training of our initial employees and oversaw the knowledge transfer necessary to make the team productive as quickly as possible.

Looking back, our company got the “treat” in this arrangement.  Our India office is incredibly successful.  Employee retention is very high – in fact, many of the initial employees hired by Krish more than six years ago still work for us today.  We’ve built a strong foundation of knowledge of our products, our processes, and the core principles of our business.  Our U.S.-based executives travel to India regularly to spend time with our team there.  In fact, I’ll be flying there again in a mid-November.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

The lure of a sweet treat can be tempting, but plan carefully before moving work offshore.

Happy Halloween!

Most new managers get promoted into a position in which they manage people doing the same thing they were doing before they got promoted.  Software developers become software development managers.  Sales reps become sales managers.  Clerks at the supermarket become managers of clerks at the supermarket.

It seems pretty obvious and makes natural sense.  The best person to supervise a task is someone who is an expert at doing that task herself.  This allows the manager to directly train, supervise, mentor, and evaluate the employees who are being managed.

However, what happens when a manager progresses higher in the organization?  Taken to its extreme, the “manager as expert” rule would require that a CEO be an expert in sales, finance, product development, marketing, manufacturing, human resources, and any other discipline in the company.  It’s not a realistic expectation.

One of my most rewarding managerial experiences came when I took over responsibility for some areas in which I was not an expert.  I was VP of Engineering for a software startup that had recently been acquired.  As we became integrated into our new parent company, I took over the role of “Site Manager” for our entire location.  The rest of the integration wasn’t yet complete, so we retained many of the normal functions of a small company: finance, HR, IT, and facilities.  In a short time, each of these functions reported to me.

I wasn’t an expert in any of these areas.  I had a reasonable grasp of what our IT group did, since the Engineering team I ran was the primary IT customer.  When it came to finance and HR, I was pretty clueless.  I have to admit – there was a little bit of “Uh oh – now what do I do?” panic on my part.

Lucky for me, we had some very capable people in place.  Most important was Kris, our controller.  She had complete responsibility for the financial operations.  In addition, because one of the startup’s original founders had left, she had also been managing HR for a few months.  Kris was wonderful – the ideal co-worker and employee.  She was smart, knowledgeable, and professional.  She took initiative without being unaccountable or unmanageable.

My first action seemed pretty clear.  I met with Kris and acknowledged what was obvious to both of us: she knew her functional area and I didn’t.  I further explained that, as far as I knew, there weren’t any immediate problems that needed to be corrected, but I could be wrong.  After that, I just listened.  Kris explained the current challenges, along with the status quo things that worked just fine.  I asked where she thought she needed help and we discussed a few areas where we could improve things.

I repeated that interaction with the managers of the other groups – IT, HR, Facilities, Customer Support.    Those initial meetings provided the model for our working relationships as we moved forward.  We established mutual trust, which served as the foundation for all of our communications.

What did I learn?  Here are the key points of advice for managing an area outside your own expertise:

1.  Recruit capable people who deserve your trust

This is critically important (and can be the most difficult to achieve, if you’re not as lucky as I was with the team I inherited).  As a manager, it’s essential to have confidence that you’re getting accurate information and that your input will be accepted.

2.  Agree on (and clearly articulate) the objectives

Make sure that everyone understands what the goals are and how you expect the team to get there.  Let the people who understand their functions develop the detailed tactical plans.

3.  Manage by asking the right questions, rather than by providing answers

Even when you’re not an expert, you still need to provide guidance.  The best way to do that is to ensure that good thought processes are used.  Don’t be afraid to ask questions that reveal your ignorance.  Don’t just accept a decision (or an answer or a recommendation).  Ask why.  Ask for alternatives.  Ask why those other options weren’t chosen.  Ask “what if?”

4.  Ask how you can help

Even when you have trusting relationships with people reporting to you, those same people can be reluctant to ask for help.  Pre-empt that reluctance by offering your help.  Ask what you can do.  Ask if there are obstacles.  Ask if there’s a better way to do something.  After you ask, listen.  Really listen.

All of this advice can work just as well for managers who are responsible for things they understand well – there’s nothing that constrains this advice to “things I don’t know anything about.”

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Don’t panic if you’re asked to take on new responsibilities.

Solid management practices still make sense.

In my last post, “Learning from Mistakes,” I discussed a question I like to ask interview candidates: “What is the biggest mistake you’ve made?” and promised to explain how I would answer that same question.

Before finishing, I’ll equivocate a little bit.  I’d probably answer differently depending on who asked the question.  Is the questioner going to be my boss, my peer, or my subordinate?   I would want to choose something that would be directly relevant.  Having said all that, there are several situations I would consider, but there’s one that stands out to me.

My wife and I were good friends with our next-door neighbors (I’ll call them Connie and Phil).  We had barbecues together and celebrated birthdays together.  Phil and I even took turns cutting each other’s lawns (allowing us each to face that chore only half as often).  We were all close friends.

Connie was a talented and ambitious manager.  She was professional, organized, and well-spoken.  We had talked frequently about our jobs and I was consistently impressed with her descriptions of how she handled herself at work.  She had recently left her job, taking time off to have a baby.

At the time, I was VP of Engineering for a software company (but not the one where I currently work).  My responsibilities had just expanded to include Technical Documentation, as well as Software Localization.  Both functions were new for our company and we didn’t have anyone internally to oversee them.  I needed to hire some help.

One weekend, as the four of us enjoyed a bottle (or two) of wine, we were discussing these changes.  I explained that I needed to hire a new Documentation Manager.  Connie asked if I’d consider hiring her. I was intrigued, but hesitant.  She had never been a Documentation Manager (although both she and Phil had done a lot of technical writing, so she knew quite a bit about the function).  In addition, she was my friend – if it didn’t work out, would it damage our friendship?  What about her friendship with my wife – would that be impacted?

Fast forward a few weeks – we interviewed Connie, everyone thought she was great, and I hired her.  It started off well and we commuted to work together.

As I already knew, she really was talented and she was very organized.  She created a solid organization structure, hired some good tech writers, put standards and processes in place, and had things on the right track.

Fast forward a bit more – it didn’t take long for problems to surface.  Within just a few months, Connie began pushing for broader power and more responsibility.  “Daryl – why not give me Localization too?”  “Hey Daryl, how come Henry is a Director and I’m just a Manager?”  “You know, Daryl, I’m worth more than you’re paying me.”

Fast forward to the end, less than six months later – it didn’t end well.  I resisted Connie’s pleas for more power, more money, more control – and she resented that.  Our friendship frayed.  Her work began to suffer – she wasn’t as committed or focused and it showed.  I took too long to confront the problems and address the issues (largely because I was struggling to separate “being Connie’s boss” from “being Connie’s friend”).  I allowed her to make poor decisions without correcting them.  I didn’t address questionable managerial decisions quickly enough. Finally, Connie saved me from my own neglect by resigning and moving on to another job (with the Director title that was so important to her).  Our friendship was irreparably fractured and, fairly quickly, her friendship with my wife dissolved as well.

What did I learn from this experience?  There’s the obvious: be very careful before hiring a friend to work for you.  I’m not saying never to do it.  Obviously, it can work and can be very successful, but it’s risky. More importantly, it showed me (painfully) how damaging it can be when I let personal feelings (“being Connie’s friend”) prevent me from making good business decisions.

In my next post, I’ll discuss a very different situation of managing a friend – one with a much better outcome.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

When hiring a friend, be wary of the possible consequences.  After hiring that friend, stay aware to avoid letting the friendship cloud your decision making.

One of my favorite interview questions is “In your recent jobs, what is the biggest mistake you’ve made?”  There’s a natural follow-up question: “What did you learn that would help you avoid making that mistake again?”

There are several things I like about this line of questioning.  It often catches the candidate by surprise.  I never like to ask interview questions for which the candidate probably has a prepared and rehearsed answer.  Examples include: “What is your greatest strength / weakness?” or “Where do you see yourself in X years?”  Those common questions (because they’re so common) don’t reveal much.  [I realize that, by writing this, I’ll ruin the surprise nature of this question for any candidate who is resourceful enough to have read my blog before the interview.  That’s OK – a candidate like that deserves to have an advantage!]

What kind of answers have I gotten?  They’re all over the map.  The worst answer is “I can’t really think of any mistakes I’ve made” or some variant of that.  I hope it’s obvious why that’s dreadful.  First of all, it’s either dishonest or demonstrates a complete absence of introspection.  Everyone makes mistakes.  Most of us, if we’re honest about it, make quite a few.  Ideally, we don’t make the same ones repeatedly.  When we do make them, we hope to recognize them quickly and take corrective action to limit the damage and learn from the overall experience.

Typical answers from candidates early in their careers include poor choices of algorithms or bad estimates that caused deadlines to be missed.  Those responses aren’t bad, but they’re not terribly enlightening.  Other common answers (especially from ambitious, career-focused candidates) involve career choices: “I shouldn’t have transferred to that role” or “I shouldn’t have joined that company” or “I shouldn’t have relied on or trusted so-and-so.”  These responses are a little trickier because they can provide early warning signs of potential problems.  These candidates might be (but aren’t necessarily) impatient job-hoppers or (worse) blame shifters who try to avoid responsibility for their choices.

One of the best answers I’ve ever gotten came from a recent candidate (let’s call him Adam) for a position in our Professional Services organization.  Adam was a project manager, with extensive technical experience.  He described an assignment he was given to develop a moderately complex application with a small team (three or four people) in a short time frame (three or four months).  Adam explained that, because of the time pressure, he chose to use a language and underlying tools (C++, with some existing libraries the company had built) that everyone was familiar with.  Adam recognized that this wasn’t an ideal choice – the requirements of the project made Java (or some similar platform-independent technology) a much better fit.  Unfortunately, he felt constrained by the compressed schedule.  It was soon clear that they had made the wrong choice and the project wasn’t going to succeed, but they continued forward (because of the deadline).  Eventually, Adam went back to the project sponsors, explained the situation and proposed corrective action: start over, switch to Java, assign a new resource who is experienced in Java to help with knowledge transfer, and extend the deadline.

What makes this answer so good?  It contains enough detail to convey that it’s genuine and honest.  In addition, it explains the recognition of the bad choice and the correction that was made (while acknowledging that it wasn’t corrected soon enough).  [That part is important – if it was recognized and corrected quickly, it wouldn’t really have been a “mistake”]  Finally, Adam anticipated the logical follow-up question (“What did you learn…”) and addressed it without having to be asked.

My feedback on Adam was an enthusiastic “Hire him!”

In my next post, I’ll provide a few examples of how I would answer the question if it were posed to me.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

Everyone can learn from mistakes, but not everyone takes advantage of those opportunities.

How do you convince people to do what you want them to do at work (or anywhere else, for that matter)?  Why does it seem that some people have that gift of rallying others to get things done?  It’s not just The Boss who convinces co-workers to do something.  In fact, in many organizations, management has far less influence than a well-respected colleague.

Last week, at Noetix, I delivered a management training session on this topic. It was pretty well-received by our employees, so I decided to reiterate some of my thoughts here.

Influencing people, presenting compelling arguments, building coalitions – these are all things that come fairly naturally to me.  After our HR Director asked me to provide this training session, I had to figure out what to say and found myself struggling to find the right words to describe my approach.  Like many people, I sometimes find it difficult to explain how to do something that comes easily to me.  It’s like asking a baseball player to explain how to hit a curve ball or asking a pianist to teach you to sight-read a piece of music.

After a little research on interpersonal networking, I discovered that there’s a whole science (with a lot of research behind it) on office politics and managing a network of colleagues and co-workers. For the most part, this science centers around two core concepts: power and influence.  In this context, the definitions of these terms are as follows:

• Power – the ability to get someone to do what you want or the ability to make things happen in the way that you want
• Influence – the result of exercising your power, expressed by how others respond (and adjust their behavior) to your power

Let’s explore some practical examples.

Power. What does it really mean and how can it help you?  Position power results from someone’s position in an organization.  Your boss has position power over you because she can create consequences that impact you.  Your manager can provide material rewards like a raise or a bonus, or negative consequences such as undesirable assignments or even employment termination.

There’s another kind of power: personal power.  If someone is well-respected or admired, they have power over others because people want to listen to them, and consider them likely to be on target with their insight.  If someone is particularly persuasive or convincing or believable, they also have power.  People will listen to them because their arguments are compelling.  And, if a co-worker is a recognized expert in some area, you’re likely to follow his or her lead in that area.

Influence. What does it really mean and how can it help you?  To be effective, you need to learn how to exercise influence upward (to your boss, her peers, her boss), laterally (to your peers and people at the same level in other departments), and, if you’re a manager, downward (to the people who report to you).  There are lots of influence techniques we all use every day.  We reason, we show friendliness, we bargain.  Sometimes, we resort to sticks instead of carrots: we threaten sanctions, cajole or even intimidate.  On occasion, we appeal to a higher authority.  Children do this, of course (“I’m going to tell Mommy!”), but we often see this in business, too – “You need to add this feature because I promised it to a customer”.  All of those actions have the same goal: to get someone to do what we want them to do.

How can you blend both power and influence to help you?  To be successful, you need to use your power to exert influence. Using “position power” isn’t always effective.  Any manager (and any parent) knows that “Because I said so!” isn’t a successful long-term approach for getting anyone to do anything.  Instead, we need to be a little more creative.  We use personal power to persuade others who also have power.  We seek out colleagues who are well-respected to try to convince them to be on our side.  We find an expert who will agree with our position and support it.  We divide and conquer: identify people who might disagree with us, isolate them, and try to convince them individually.  [This approach is closely related to “socializing the idea,” which sounds a lot nicer than “divide and conquer!”]

To successfully manage your network of co-workers, you need to understand the sources of power within that network.  Who are the experts?  Who is well respected?  Who respects you?  In addition, you need to try to understand the interests and objectives of others.  When you have that knowledge, you’ll be able to figure out the right techniques of influence to build consensus or gain allies.

A final (somewhat cautionary) word: use your power wisely.  You don’t want to end up like the bad parent or bad manager mentioned above. “Because I’m the boss” isn’t very compelling.  Maintain your integrity and your ethics as you work to find supporters and build coalitions.

For now…I’ll leave you with this thought:

To get what you need, first understand who has the real power in your organization.  Then, find them and use your power to persuade them.