Preston Leadership Blog

Manage Up or Be Disappointed

The very idea of managing one’s boss (“managing up”) is quickly coming back into the mainstream. Subordinates the world over raise their eyebrows when we suggest that it’s not only OK to manage your boss, it’s something you really must do.

The late Peter Drucker wrote about it in 1999, typically pushing the envelope in his time. Those who admire Drucker, including me, consider NOW to be his time – but that’s for another post.

Many good articles and books have been published on the topic since then.

As you might imagine, there are lots of similarities between managing a direct report and managing a boss. For example, setting expectations. Why do so many leaders fail to manage their boss’ expectations well? Surprises are usually not good. Avoiding conflict now often leads to unavoidable strife later.

My dad liked to say, “If you work for a man, work for him.” He was talking about loyalty. It’s never a good idea to be disloyal to your boss.

Finally, get to know your boss’s communication preferences. Drucker puts leaders into two categories in this regard: readers or listeners. Do you rush into your boss’ office with new information, expecting him to make a decision on the spot? It’s more likely that you’ll get the decision you want if you give him time to absorb the information in writing first. Obviously emergencies are emergencies, but readers strongly prefer a little time to ponder.

Or, do you send your boss volumes of information via e-mail (or paper), only to be disappointed when you learn that she didn’t even read it! Listeners prefer to evaluate facts on the spot, discuss options, and make the call. Volumes of data are not nearly as influential with this style of communication as an overview would be. Give ‘em the summaries.

Interacting with your boss in the most effective way will get you what you want more quickly. It’s really as simple as that. Why do so many people miss this? Send me an e-mail if you’d like to discuss.

You and Your Boss

I read a great blog post by Linda Hill and Ken Lineback in Harvard Business Review called “In Pursuit of a Better Boss”. I liked their emphasis on accountability. In my experience, many “bad bosses” are parties to a dysfunctional relationship; and one that can be fixed if both sides are willing to work at it.

It won’t surprise anyone that good communication is the foundation of a mutually rewarding and productive relationship at work. When we trust each other we can disagree without emotion, and be challenged without getting defensive. Getting all the best ideas out on the table assures the best decisions.

One of the bosses I particularly enjoyed working for at eBay, Mike Bringuel, once said, “Smart people should disagree”. He wouldn’t let his team sidestep disagreements to maintain harmony. After a brief adjustment period, we got used to it and became a much more productive group.

The trend toward more candor at work may sound counter-intuitive in today’s hyper-litigious workplace, but it’s not. The better we get at expressing ourselves in ways that don’t cause problems, the better off our companies will be.

Lots of people are afraid to disagree with their boss or other executives! I hear stories all the time from CEOs who have built teams of yes-people. They complain about not getting honest feedback. Hill and Lineback say that both sides have a responsibility to fix it.

I couldn’t agree more. In work relationships where the stakes are high, there’s a hierarchy and pressure to perform, people can become tentative. What they need to do is learn to speak up appropriately. Bosses need to prove that they can take it by not attacking subordinates who challenge them. It takes time but the payoff is huge.

Ideas on Maintaining Momentum

In my monthly newsletter for April 2011 I wrote about the value of momentum. A lot of people chimed in to say they couldn’t agree more. But what we all lacked were suggestions on how to maintain momentum and how to incentivize others to do the same. So here goes:

1. Establish periodic goals that not only reward but point out the incompleteness of the program that may be put on hold. My theory is that unfinished business bugs people.
2. Don’t approve any new programs unless you feel confident that funding and other resources will be treated as “sacred”.
3. Get support and endorsement from the highest levels of the organization and make any progress updates supplied to the C-level as open and public as possible.

What other suggestions do you have? Discuss.

Be Predictable?

As funny as it sounds, many leaders work at keeping their teams guessing. With all the best intentions (usually), they believe that their dynamic and ever-changing behavior only serves to help others grow. I suppose there is some logic to this, but is it really more productive?

College is not about what we study so much as it is about learning how to think. If it were simply a matter of memorization, just about anyone could absorb enough to graduate. But it's so much more. Applying what we know in new and different ways is where real growth occurs.

In a leadership relationship, the best way to inspire creativity and strategic thinking is to be somewhat predictable. When a subordinate comes to his manager with an opportunity or a problem, he better well be prepared to discuss possible solutions as well. How does he learn to do that? He imagines the questions his leader will ask; learning to think like his boss.

The more ways in which others can visualize everything that goes into their leaders' decision-making, the faster they will be ready to move up. Resist giving the answers and instead ask the important questions followed by "and why?"

Here's an example. A busy executive is on the road 60% of the time, making her a moving target for her subordinates. As they try to find her to get answers and decisions, they're wasting valuable time. In most cases, they already know what her questions will be. Eventually, when everyone knows what the important considerations will be, we all make faster, more informed decisions. Bottlenecks are broken open when a leader's pushback is somewhat familiar and predictable.

We should teach our teams the questions. Make it a habit. Anticipating concerns, addressing big sticking points up front, and learning to get to the point are key skills for leaders who aspire to become C-level executives.

“There was nobody in charge”

One of the more startling quotes I saw about the BP disaster was a statement by a rig worker that "there was nobody in charge" just after the explosion.

Several senior people and many who were purportedly trained for such a calamity didn't follow documented and safe response procedures. And I'm talking about the 90 minutes after eleven people lost their lives. Strong and credible leadership was needed; but what we got was a sad and frustrating tragedy.

We will learn from this to be sure. One would hope that drilling for oil gets safer and more responsible as a result. But we can also learn a lot about the most obvious cornerstone of leadership that it almost goes without saying.

In my opinion, the "nobody was in charge" assessment is about the harshest thing one could say about another's leadership. Being well-regarded, well-respected and somewhat successful at leadership is certainly easier in good times than in bad. To be sure, a crisis of this proportion is an epic test of leadership; BP and Transocean, Ltd. have failed miserably.

Lee Iacocca used to quote Thomas Paine in his Chrysler commercials, saying "Lead, follow, or get out of the way!" Amen.

No one is inspired by a wishy-washy, non-decisive leader. One can still collaborate, gather information, and use instinct while being a strong leader. Many people confuse powerful leadership with headstrong steamrolling. They're different.

The most influential leaders pull all their resources together quickly, analyze the data, and act in a time-sensitive fashion. Waiting around for someone else or a crisis situation to make (or force) a decision is followership – and bad followership at that. It takes preparation, quick-thinking, and courage to be decisive when disaster strikes…but also when it doesn't.

The first entry in a leader's job description should be "make decisions."

You can read the article I read here.

Why Top Performers Leave Good Companies

Think about the top performers in your organization. Do you really know what makes them tick?

High-potential and high-performing employees are motivated by a unique set of experiences and rewards that have been identified by the authors of a significant study appearing in the May 2010 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Understanding what keeps star employees from leaving will prevent the significant brain drain that always accompanies an economic recovery cycle.

Why do they give 110%?

One very common mistake that corporate leaders tend to make is the assumption that everyone values the same things to the same degree. Equity or cash? Flex-time or four 10-hour workdays? And why doesn’t everyone love the new on-site doggie daycare??

The fact is that we will never know all the reasons why the average employee chooses to lend his energy to certain organizations and not to others. But superstar employees are not “average” and we certainly should not treat them as such.

Authors Jean Martin and Conrad Schmidt, along with their team at the Corporate Leadership Council, studied 20,000 high-potential employees in 100 organizations around the world over six years.* They uncovered the patterns that some of the world’s best companies are already addressing.

The results may or may not surprise you, but know this: the war for talent is just beginning. Ignore it at your peril. What motivates “everyone” doesn’t necessarily inspire the people who we really really want to keep.

Figuring out what makes high-potential employees tick is complicated by the fact that there are generational differences at play. Yesterday’s high-potentials were different from today’s high-potentials; and what about the Millennials?

Step 1: We need to ask them and be ready for some challenging answers.

What did the Corporate Leadership Council discover about “emerging stars”?

1. Recognition is much more important than it used to be. Do it early and often.
2. Explicitly link individual goals to corporate objectives.

3. Get them involved in solving your organization’s most challenging problems.

Generally speaking, our best employees want to make a difference and be rewarded for it. What a great concept!

One-size-fits-all, egalitarian compensation and reward programs are de-motivating for top performers. They do not want to do average work or be regarded as average contributors.

Let’s look at #2 above. Linking individual goals to corporate objectives is not as simple as creating a performance appraisal template with the first five entries pre-written.

We need to understand personal and professional goals and then offer experiences and skill-building opportunities that connect them to the bigger picture in the organization.

Johnson & Johnson’s LeAD program for high-potentials provides regular assessments and coaching from an outside firm. “The company has found that when top talent is seen as a critical organizational asset…the [high-potentials’] ability and willingness to contribute to the firm dramatically increases.”

The study also found that 25% of the highest-potential employees intend to jump ship within the year, and 70% of all high-potentials lack the critical skills necessary to succeed at higher levels in their organizations.

This is a serious problem with tremendous implications for the future. Suddenly professional development becomes a high ROI proposition when [limited] salary and bonus dollars alone will not provide the long-term connection to organizational performance that the high-potential employee now seeks.

Developing a meaningful program for retaining your star employees will take work, but several very successful companies like Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, H-P, and Novartis have made it their priority as the economy begins to offer greener pastures in a multitude of locations now more easily accessible to motivated employees.

* From “How to Keep Your Top Talent” (Harvard Business Review, May 2010, pgs. 54-61)

“We Could Do That So Much Better!”

How many times have you experienced bad service and said to yourself, your spouse or your friends, "we could do that so much better!" The truth is that we probably could, if we only had the resources, the experience, the opportunity and…most importantly, the drive. What's common to most lousy service is lack of drive.

What bothers me most, and should bother all leaders, is complacency. When people take their paycheck for granted, service always suffers. OK maybe you hate your job, and maybe you feel that you're underemployed, I get that. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the way you perform your responsibilities and serve your customers.

I was having lunch with some leaders from Green Lawn Fertilizing the other day when this very subject came up. Green Lawn has provided exemplary customer service to thousands of customers for many years. They know the difference between average service and exemplary service. How do they do it in a business that is very competitive and logistically demanding? They are simply driven by results, not effort.

Effort is fundamental to success, but it's not everything. Do your best and oftentimes you get the result you want, but sometimes you don't - and that's reality. Problems come in when leaders mistake activity (or effort) for results. It's tempting to be sure; Herculean efforts should not go unnoticed, but results are what should generate meaningful rewards. Acknowledging extra effort is not the same as rewarding results.

Examples abound. Let's say Jack is very tired after a long day on his feet dealing with customers who have been inconvenienced. Just before the end of his shift, an equally weary customer presents him with yet another tedious and challenging problem to solve. It takes every bit of his remaining energy (and some extra time) to provide the level of service he is expected (and paid) to provide.

Extra effort is expended and the customer is satisfied. It took a lot of effort for Jack at the time, but the result for the customer was not exceptional. Does he deserve special recognition for digging deep in his 11^th hour? No.

Now Sally encounters an equally challenging customer. She takes a minute to think about the problem and to see things from the customer's perspective. She expends some effort to do this and figures out the best way to thrill the customer. Not a lot of effort, but an optimal result. Reward? Yes! Does Jack feel somehow cheated? These days, perhaps, but he certainly was not.

As leaders, we should maintain our focus on results over effort every time. Employees who are great at their jobs may have learned to excel with nominal effort – good for them. Give them more challenges right away! But employees who toil away and expect recognition because of their struggles just deserve encouragement…not necessarily reward.

Got ROI?

We make investments every day, putting our time, our energy, or our attention to work with the purpose of getting some sort of return. If I do this, I'll get that. Or if I do this, someone else will get that.

Most of the time, these return calculations are instantaneous and even subconscious, but we still make them. Deliberate ROI calculations beg for quantifiable outcomes. If I sell 1,000 widgets at $10 each, and my profit margin is 30%, then I'll make $3,333 in gross profit.

But intangible, non-quantifiable components, unless perhaps you're a Physicist, inherently bring inexact returns. Let's use leadership development activities as an example.

If you pay one manager $100,000 per year and he's performing at about 80% effectiveness, you're wasting approximately $20,000, right? People are not robots; we're working with inexact calculations here. What would it take to get this manager up to 90% effectiveness? Should you spend $5,000 or $10,000 to get a positive return? Probably not and here's why: You lack the benefit of leverage.

One leader usually cannot, by himself, generate productivity increases that are ample enough to justify a substantial investment. The ROI is by nature limited by his scope of influence, control and responsibility. The solution is to leverage several leaders at the same time. First, you can gain efficiencies on the cost side, and second, you will realize exponential increases in productivity.

When just one manager improves, his staff becomes more productive. There's a modest gain there. But when you help three managers improve, their corresponding staffs become more productive, many of whom are likely to interact with one another. The cost to benefit ratio is accelerated by mutual dependencies, improved cooperation and better relationships. Your cost goes down and your ROI improves.

When you calculate the ROI of a leadership development initiative, don't forget to account for the increased intra-company leverage. Leadership never occurs in a vacuum and taking your organization forward will require a concerted effort among several leaders if you wish to gain efficiencies and maximize overall productivity.

How Women are Redefining Work and Success

From BusinessWeek (06/01/09) Vol. 4133, No. 66, Shipman, Claire; Kay, Katty

The presence of women--especially senior women--in the workplace often equals higher revenues, finds several recent surveys on the subject, including one by Catalyst.

With more than 75 percent of U.S. couples being dual-earners, the need for flexibility for working mothers is much greater, yet organizations are finding that men also desire the flexibility to spend more time with family. This chain reaction set off by the acceptance and appreciation of women as valuable workforce leaders is producing a number of policy changes in corporations around the country.

One high-profile example is Brenda Barnes, former CEO of PepsiCo's North American operation, who received much criticism after leaving the position more than a decade ago to raise her three children. With her children now grown, Barnes returned to the corporate sphere as the CEO of Sara Lee, where she has been since 2004.

The present business environment necessitates flexibility and the opportunity to attain work-life balance, says Barnes. This balance does not translate into less work; rather, "it means empowering employees to do their work on a schedule that works for them."

Companies must recognize that work can be completed at different times and locations other than the office, and Barnes believes this type of flexibility "offers employees the ability to manage and balance their own careers and lives, which improves productivity and employee morale."

3-D Leadership

The idea of management layers in a company gets a bad rap. We have moved toward flatter organizations for good reason. But leaders still need to lead in ways that are appropriate for their position, and that depends on many things.

There are three dimensions of leadership: time values, action priorities, and role evolution.

Time Values

Time values are simply where you spend your time, which is a function of where you place your attention plus how important an outcome is to your overall mission. The more important an outcome, the more time a leader should spend engaged in its delivery. Great leaders don't often say, "There's nothing I can do." To discover your time values, write down how you spend your time for a week or two. This will reveal what it is you value. If it surprises you, develop a plan to delegate or get more organized.

Action Priorities

Prioritization comes first, then action. But action for the sake of action isn't a valuable use of time. I see many new leaders who value any action as worthwhile. If we prioritize the development of those who report to us, sometimes it's better NOT to act so that learning can occur. Action requires time and resources, so we must use it wisely. Actions speak loudly, so we must use it carefully. Don't confuse thinking with action – while thinking is certainly a valuable use of time and one that is de-prioritized all too often – action always has an effect on someone or something.

Role Evolution

We are in a constant state of evolution. Leaders work hard to have influence in their organizations. Our role today will most certainly evolve, so it makes sense to develop a strategy for role evolution. How do you want to grow the role you play in certain initiatives or the organization overall? Are you taking specific steps to expand or shrink your role? Again, great leaders will almost never say, "There's nothing I can do."

Exercise

Ask yourself, am I doing things that move me forward in my company and my career? Am I spending an appropriate amount of time on the activities that are most important to accomplishing my (our) goals? Assuming I want my role to grow, am I building relationships and gaining experiences that will increase my influence? Be honest with yourself and remember what the great John Wooden said, "Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."