Avoid The Focus Group of One

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The broader your sphere of influence, the broader your sphere of listening has to be. Don’t let conviction get in the way of listening to others.

Mature professionals listen.

But, on the path to maturity, those same professionals learn to trust their gut, rely on convictions, and assert.

This is nothing new:  You become truly effective by moving from a regime of telling to a regime of asking.  In making this shift, you learn more, you lead more, and you do more.

But…

Many leaders who are very effective at listening to those around them make a mistake that only tends to come from the isolation that leadership brings.  They stop (or never start) listening to people who are two and three levels removed from them.

The lesson here is this:  As your sphere of influence expands, your sphere of listening must expand in kind. 

This concept is especially critical when you contemplate so-called transformational changes to your organization that can impact customers, employees, and other stakeholders.

Why?  Well, it stems from a phenomenon I’ll call the “Focus Group of One.”

A focus group is a gathering of a group of people, usually from a target demographic, intended to collect impressions about an issue, product, or strategy.

When you make assumptions about how your decisions will impact not simply those who meet with you regularly, but also those in the field, stores, plants, or factories; you can fall into the trap of using your own intuition and experience as a guide instead of collecting impressions that may differ from your own.

You use a focus group, it’s just a focus group comprised of your own experience over time–the many different “selves” from your experience–instead of a focus group of people facing the impact of your decisions here and now.

“When I was a salesperson, all I cared about was making my numbers; and I didn’t want the distraction” might be a refrain a CEO would make when deciding not to extend training to a portion of his sales force.

This can have negative consequences.

Why?  Here are a few ideas:

  • People are different – People have different wants and needs than you do, and you should beware making decisions based on what you want and need.
  • Experiences are different – People have different experiences in the field, plant, or line than a given executive might have had.  The mere fact that the executive is an executive may show that his or her experience was different (or coddled) and a bad reference case for making decisions today.
  • Your recollections change – You may forget what it was like in the field.  You may only remember the wins and forget the hard times. You also, given your experience, probably ended your time in the field pretty well.  There is a cognitive bias called peak-end bias that shows how our brains tend to remember the most intense part of an experience, and the way we left it.  We forget the run-of-the-mill times; and generally you as an executive are making decisions that affect the run of the mill.
  • You are muddled by your biases – Knowing the right thing to do and overcoming your incentives to do otherwise can be very, very challenging. If you face a defining moment that can have big impact on your organization, it might be best to listen to those impacted first.

So what?

To get out of the focus group of one, you can employ a few different methods:

Easiest is to just go and listen to folks.  That takes time, and in some organizations comes with a substantial hierarchy filter.

Next would be to listen to those closest to you on their impressions of the impact.  But, keep in mind they are biased as well.

Finally, and probably most effective, would be to send a few trusted agents into the field to gather real impressions of possible changes.  Reflect on them.  Then make the decision.

Don’t fall into the Focus Group of One trap.  Listen to those you lead.

Please share your thoughts and experiences on the impact of and how to avoid this trap.

Never, Ever Stop Learning

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Like it or not, you have to keep learning to stay relevant.

“I don’t think I can learn anything else here.”

It’s a sentiment that, when expressed, probably means it’s time to move on.

You see, we live in the age of the autodidact.  It’s a fun word to say (well, fun to say to yourself…I’ve been around folks who might beat you up for dropping that one on the table).

But, more importantly, it’s a fact of life today.

You see, we are blessed with a set of tools that no generation has ever been blessed with before.  The poorest schoolkid can access the entire world of knowledge, practically up to the minute, from a terminal in a public library nearly every day of the year. 

But, once you or I settle in and stop learning, we are toast.

Toast, I tell you.

Why?  Simple competitive reality.

In past generations, a person could formally train on a trade or profession and then ply that trade for the next 30 years without a tremendous amount of change.

Also, in past generations, most companies thought of training as an investment to be built upon.  Today, it is often viewed more as a cost to be contained.  Any corporate trainer whose programs have been bid out by the procurement department knows this all too well.

So, you have to keep a strong focus on learning, no matter where you are in your career.

A case study

Have a look at the very long term history of computer programming languages posted by Tiobe:

 

 

What do you see?

If you look at a “mid career” point in time, say 15-20 years in, the results are astounding.

A person who is mid career today did their training between 15 and 20 years ago.  Let’s assume that the person has been head down and working at his programming trade for the past 15 years in a sort of “Rip Van Winkle the coder” approach to his career.

What does he find when he is exposed to the real world?

First, 5 of the top 10 programming languages today were not even on the radar when Rip started his career in the year 2000.

Second, If Rip started college in 1995, and trained on legacy systems, he’s in even more of a world of hurt.  The “middle tier” of programming languages from 1995–Pascal, Lisp, Ada, and Fortran–are essentially irrelevant today.

If Rip returns to the workforce, he had better get caught up.

Yeah, you say, but that’s computers…

Sure, the tech sector moves faster than others; and many innovators are moving forward with new learning models.  One of my favorite happens to be The Iron Yard and its code school (now closed – unfortunately), which is among a group of companies changing the way that career prep is done in the tech sector.

But the same career learning quandary is true across sectors when it comes to learning and career advancement–whether you are an accountant, clerk, manager, or even CEO…

What got you here probably won’t get you there.

Case in point:  There is more knowledge available to the average corporate executive today than ever before–at a valuable or nonexistent price point–through forums, experts, and networks.  In my experience, a plurality of execs tap only a fraction of the avenues available to them, and rely solely on methods and intuition forged in a different world.  One need only look at the degree to which executives use networks like LinkedIn to see how “current” they are.

“I don’t have time for that” you’ll hear them say.

I’d argue you can’t afford not to constantly learn and network in the world.

If you are truly busy, and your time is that valuable, have somebody else do it.

So what? 

I’ll offer two reasons that a healthy approach to constantly teaching yourself is imperative for people in all parts of the workforce today… And, they are simple.

First, you and your company need it.

If you are a corporate manager or executive today, you probably grew up in an age where expertise and distinct knowledge was owned by a few people and doled out at a very high price (through brand names we all know well).  That has all changed.  Experts can be found and tapped in a much more ad hoc manner, and if your company isn’t doing it, your competitors probably are.

Second, it’s insurance!

Today’s job market and the more “flexible” (some might say cynical) approach to employing people makes investment in your own skills imperative.  If your company isn’t investing in your current employability, and you aren’t either, then you may be in for a rude awakening when the whimsy and capriciousness of cost cutting comes into your life.

It’s much better to be employable than to simply be employed.  Employed is an instantaneous state…Employable is a transferable one.

We are in the age of the autodidact.   Embrace it.

Never, ever stop learning.

I’d be interested in your thoughts, experiences, and reactions…Leave a comment below.

How To Salvage Sunken Trust

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You can salvage trust that is sunk. But some kinds of trust sink deeper than others.

Have you ever faced the need to recover from breaking trust?

Most of us have, and the ones who haven’t just haven’t admitted it. All of life is a web of trust, and arguably the more trust you build, the better off you are.

The author L. Frank Baum wrote in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that “A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others.”

Trust likewise ought to be judged not by how trustworthy those around you are, but by how trustworthy you are.

If you think about trust as a ship at sea, then it’s easy to envision how breaking trust essentially sinks the ship.

But, not all breaches of trust are the same. How far must you go to salvage it?

There are four depths that breaches of trust sink to, and our ability to salvage trust depends on how deep it’s sunk.

The Trust Equation

I’ll start with an illustration that is not my own, but provides a useful context for the discussion. The “Trust Equation” is a very interesting piece from author, advisor, and trust guru Charles Green, founder of Trusted Advisor Associates.

Green, working with co-authors David Maister and Robert Galford in the book The Trusted Advisor, outlines an equation for trust that looks like this:

That is to say, trust derives from how we view others’ credibility (our assessment of what they know)…

…Reliability (Our view of how reliably they deliver)…

…Intimacy (Our level of emotional and intellectual comfort with them) and…

…their Self-Orientation (how selfish we think they or their actions are).

The really cool part of the “equation” structure is the insight that all the “good” aspects of trust are additive, but that self orientation undermines it all. The more selfish you are (or even appear), the more you undermine any trust and goodwill that exists.

Self-oriented people are not trustworthy, regardless of their positive attributes.

I’m going to use the four component parts here to outline the four depths of trust recovery.

The Four Depths of Trust Recovery

Recovery of sunken trust is a lot like recovery of a sunken vessel. It depends on the type of vessel as well as the depth of the water. That said, here are four depths of recovery, and some explanation of what it takes to get there and to salvage it.

1. The shoals of trust:

The shallowest form of trust breach to recover from is related to abuses of reliability. Because it is the most visible, reliability is also the easiest to demonstrate and therefore recover from.

Recovery from the shoals of trust (that is to say, the shallow water) can be as simple as improving on clarity and communication of deadlines. Trust sunk through reliability can be recovered relatively quickly because it’s a shallow recovery. People can see you becoming more reliable.

The shoals are where breaches of trust–like missed deadlines or partially completed work–reside. To be clear, they are a breach of trust. But the individual can regain this sort of trust by changing behavior.

Reliability trust is usually the most flexible of trust types out there.

2. The shallow seas:

The next depth of recovery relates to abuses of credibility. When a person is trusted for what they know and chooses to abuse that trust through posing as something they are not, they abuse trust.

In the professional services arena, we see this sort of abuse far too often. “Experts” in one area might represent themselves as expert in another area. They “fake it until they make it.” This is a sort of trust abuse that can only sometimes be surfaced, and then often too late.

Even though the shallow seas are where trust is frequently sunk, it’s a relatively recoverable area. Most of us respect people who stretch their capabilities and expertise. Most of us are willing to offer a person the benefit of the doubt when it comes to testing their boundaries.

Credibility trust is thus relatively flexible. If it is bent, it can be caused to go back into shape with demonstration of more credibility. Brands do this all the time through credibility-stretching brand extensions (remember chocolate Jello gelatin? How about Dr Pepper Marinade? Yep).

Recovery from this sort of trust abuse means just sticking to or falling back on what works to rebuild credibility. It’s not easy, but it is straightforward.

3. Open ocean:

The open ocean of trust abuse–areas where shipwrecks often stay put–is in abuses of trust related to self-orientation. Loss of trust due to selfishness gets into an area that is far less transparent than reliability or credibility, and that makes recovery from a breach of this sort far less likely.

Once someone abuses trust for personal gain, people tend to be wary of working with them again.

Salvaging trust sunk in the open ocean is very tough and takes a lot of time. The magnitude of the breach certainly matters; however, once a person is viewed as self-oriented, trust tends to be extremely hard to build.

There’s a reason that self-orientation undermines all else in the trust equation above.

The open ocean is where shirkers, self-dealers, executives with hidden incentives, and embezzlers reside.

On the lighter side, it’s the realm of the me-monster at your conference table and the credit hog on your team.

4. The Mariana Trench:

The deepest depth of trust recovery–one where recovery is usually impossible–is where breaches of trust that relate to abuse of intimacy lie. This is, and should be, the most brittle type of trust that there is. It is a deal killer, particularly when combined with an abundance of self-interest by the abuser.

Witness the trusted colleague or leader who exercises a highly cynical abuse of an “intimate” professional relationship to manipulate others for personal gain and prestige, and you’ll know how deep the Mariana Trench can be.

The Mariana Trench is the deepest, darkest part of the ocean. Things sunk there are lost.

This is the depth where lie the ravages of trust in cheating spouses and con artists in the long game.

It is the realm of the corporate sociopath revealed only too late.

Breaches of trust which abuse intimacy often take time. They rely on the most basic aspects of human relationships: friendship, common cause, and warmth. As such, the average person may disbelieve when a close friend is abusing intimate trust until it is far too late.

Thus, this type of sunken trust is very tough to salvage.

Intimate trust is like a diamond: extremely hard, often forged through pressure, sometimes exotically beautiful, but brittle…

…once bent, it breaks.

I don’t see a way to recover this sort of trust, but I am open to suggestions.

So what?

Why does this stuff matter?

Because we deal in trust as a currency every day of our lives. We do it in personal and professional relationships. We do it through our brands and our corporations.

I illustrate these four depths only to provide the reader with a perspective on how damaging the breaches of different kinds of trust can be.

If you haven’t noticed it yet, let me put this last: Breaches of trust related to what is knowable and transparent–reliability, for instance–are much easier to recover from than those related to what is concealed and largely unknowable–the selfish or cynical disposition of an individual or a company.

Don’t sink trust, and know when trust is sunk too deep.

I’d enjoy your thoughts and reflections on this topic.

Pardon the Manterruption

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Interrupting is just…plain…rude.

A couple of weeks ago at the SXSW conference, an interesting thing happened.

YOUR LINK IS HERE

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and Aspen Institute CEO (and author) Walt Isaacson were called out for repeatedly interrupting Megan Smith, the U.S. government’s Chief Technology Officer.

The real stinger for Schmidt is that the person who did the calling out was none other than Google’s own Judith Williams, head of global diversity and talent programs and by some accounts head of Google’s “Unconscious Bias Program.”

From the article:

“The incident was a classic example of what Jessica Bennett, writing in Time magazine earlier this year, has dubbed ‘manterrupting’, or the ‘unnecessary interruption of a woman by a man’.”

While I doubt the real usefulness of the word “manterrupting” beyond being an interesting mashup–“interrupting” suffices nicely for all genders–I do think that there is a real lesson here in watching out for known biases.

Not to mention the lesson of watching out for simply rude behavior.  This is especially true for “smart” people or people who believe their position of power affords them the right to interrupt.

Most interruptors (like me at times) might say they do so out of excitement or passion or a “strong personality.”  (By the way, anyone who uses the term “strong personality” without their tongue firmly in cheek is probably somebody watch out for).

The truth is, it’s just rude and impatient.  And, it’s often just a blind spot for those of us who have or do suffer from the urge to interrupt.

The extent of such a blind spot can be shocking. For instance, after a frustrating set of interruptions, I once tested the mettle of a particularly egregious senior executive interruptor to see how far the arrogance of the interruption would extend.

While speaking, I grew to know the interruption was coming, so I chose–once–to just keep talking through it.

I made it about twice the length of this sentence while this person just kept talking before I, finally, relented. It seems that my upbringing wouldn’t allow me to sustain talking over someone for that long–even from the proverbial high ground.

Imagine a full 10 seconds of two grown people talking over one another, and you’ll get a sense of the ridiculousness of the situation. I’m sure the others in the room saw it.

Though I never tested it again, the person’s ability to interrupt and continue interrupting when room wasn’t ceded was a striking exercise of arrogance and impatience.

Don’t be that person!

On this Saturday morning, consider the need to let others speak.

Especially watch out for cultural or gender differences in assertiveness.

As I’ve posted previously (link here), this sensitivity can make your team better, not to mention make you (and me) a better person to work with.

To all those I’ve interrupted:  I’m sorry. I was rude.

Pardon the manterruption.

Don’t Waste Your Life: Overcome The Endowment Effect

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Never, ever let your current situation adversely define your future situation.

Here’s a quick hit in the spirit of Saturday and “Coffee and a Do Not.”

How often do you “stick” where you are not because it’s the best place, but because it’s “your” place?

You keep a crappy job, or a good job within a crappy culture.

You keep a car that constantly breaks down.

You own stocks that have been perennial losers.

Perhaps you are business owner that keeps holding onto an underperforming management team, or a set of underperforming businesses.

In really nasty situations, you stay close to bullies, abusers, cheats, and other ugly people because they are the ones you’ve grown up with.

It happens to all of us.

The explanation

In social psychology is a cognitive bias known as The Endowment Effect.   In short and simple words, this effect means that, as humans, we have a tendency to value things we currently own more than we would value them if they were somebody else’s.

A bird in the hand is worth more than a bird in the bush.  But worse, even when faced with a better bird right in front of us we keep the bird in the hand.

That car you have that constantly breaks down?  You’d never buy it from someone else, because better ones are on the market right now.

That crappy job you’ve stayed in for years?  You’d never take it again if you knew what you know now because, again, better ones are on the market right now.

That loyalty you feel to that clearly unethical leader?  You’d criticize anyone else who did that because you know better.

But, these are yours, and so you ascribe higher value to them–in many cases defending them irrationally–than you otherwise would.

The impact

The result of the endowment effect isn’t all bad.  It allows us to have some comfort in difficult times.  How many times have you heard people justify their current awful situation as a “blessing” when pretty much anyone else would say it was a curse?  That is, at least partly, the endowment effect in action.  Loyalty has some roots in this effect, and loyalty can be good…to a degree.

But, on the downside, the endowment effect has a highly insidious effect on your career, finances, relationships, etc.

It causes you to let your current situation define more of your future situation than it should. 

That’s right, you “stick” in bad situations, investments, relationships, and jobs longer than a “smart” person would, because your brain is wired to make it so.

Why else do people look back on years working for a particular leader and say “what was I thinking?”

The truth is, they weren’t thinking.  They valued where they were, irrationally so.

How to guard against it

I’m not one who believes that absolute objectivity is either possible or really a good thing.  We have emotional and irrational ties to everything; and in general they help us to function.

But…

Because this particular bias can cause you to waste valuable years of your career (or, even valuable time repairing a crappy car), you and I need to watch out for its effects.

The best way to guard against the endowment effect is to think.   Yeah, that’s right, just think.   Stop for a minute and ask yourself if you are valuing the abuse you take, or the ethical stretches you have been ordered to execute, more than a sane person on the outside would.

Stop for a minute and ask yourself whether you’d be better off making a trade.  That works whether we are talking investments, jobs, subordinates, superiors, or that priceless artwork you own.

You guard against the endowment effect by considering a trade.

A parting, and partly personal anecdote

One of the very interesting people I had the opportunity to work with and then know for years was the famous “genius” of American football, Bill Walsh.

Bill was famously effective as a general manager in the NFL–that is, he was great at making personnel decisions.  In fact, he made a lot of very high profile athletes very angry by trading them to other teams while they were still “good” players. Bill wanted to trade players a year before their production fell off.  This facet of Bill Walsh’s approach was chronicled nicely in the recent NFL Network documentary Bill Walsh a Football Life.

A famous aspect of Bill’s objectivity was that he asked his staff what they thought Joe Montana’s trade value was…during Joe Montana’s prime.  Joe Montana, for those who do no know, was and is one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the NFL.  Bill was willing to test the market for his quarterback–the lynchpin of his offensive gameplan–while his quarterback was still building a hall of fame resume.

Bill didn’t suffer from the endowment effect, at least in his player personnel decisions.

I guess I should call it a privilege to be a guy who was recruited by, hired by, and cut by Bill.  You knew where you stood.

As brutal as that seems, and I’ll write on the brutality of NFL talent management at some point in the future, sometimes we need to adopt a little bit of that mindset to protect ourselves.

Where does the endowment effect show itself in your life and experience?  Please share…

Coffee and a Do Not: Delegating Vision

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 The one leadership aspect that you cannot delegate is all too often the one that under-apprenticed leaders want to give away first.  

You see this situation play out all the time…

A person with good management skills flies up the corporate ladder because he can execute.

He can control, direct, and manage details with impunity; and that is a terribly valuable thing early in one’s career.

And then…he gets to a point and a position that requires him to do something very different.  He has to go from being “the guy” to being the guy behind the guy.  He goes from solving the problem to ensuring that the problem gets solved.

Through span of control, volume of work, or simply the sheer complexity the high performing manager has to make the leap to being an executive.  He has to be a leader.

And, wow, what a leap it is.

Why the leap from management to leadership is hard

The complication of the leap is that high performing managers, unlike executives, have the privilege of operating without having to have vision. Vision is provided to them in the form of budget directives, strategic plans, and senior management dialogues.

When our friendly manager makes the leap, he has to figure out how to “do” vision.

But, an odd thing happens to high performing managers promoted too fast…

…They suddenly realize that since vision is coming from no one else above them in the organization, they start to look for it from below them in the organization.

After all…it has to come from somewhere, right?

They feel the need to find things to manage, like budgets, or headcount, minute deal details, or–too often–how their subordinates do their jobs.  They are good at doing those things.

They ignore the need to provide vision because, well, they’ve never had to…and success has come on the merits of a strong management approach.

Thus, they “delegate vision” into the organization.

They say to their subordinates (sometimes explicitly, even!): “I don’t know where we are going. You show me and then I’ll know; but until then, here are some details I’ll dig into.”

The outcomes for our under-apprenticed “leader”

Three outcomes are possible for our manager. Two are good for the organization and one is bad…very bad…

First, if he is a good learner (which typically means good listener) and is able to absorb clues, training, and mentorship about what it is that leaders do vs. what managers do, he makes the leap.  He crafts his own vision. He learns to deliver that vision and to get out of the way.  This is a good outcome.

Second, if he isn’t a good learner but the organization is well governed, he “peters” out.  The Peter principle catches up to him. He has risen to the level of his incompetence, and in well-governed companies his sniff at an executive position is ended quickly, humanely, and soundly.  He returns to a solid management position.  This, likewise, is a good outcome.

Third, if the organization isn’t good at evaluating executive talent and/or acting on evaluations, he–shockingly–sticks.  In poorly governed companies–typically those centered on personality cults and favoritism or those with absentee hierarchies–high performing managers can populate executive positions (albeit ineffectively) for long periods of time.

The third scenario is a bad one:  The brutally bad reality of the manager sticking in such a position is that because he doesn’t know what it means to be an executive, he very often serves as an absolute antagonist to people with real executive talent.  They don’t “manage” like he does; and so they can’t be senior.  He blocks progression by the very virtue of his ignorance.

The more senior the high performing manager “sticks,” the more his foibles and contra-indicated style will metastasize in the organization.  It’s bad for the organization not only because the organization has a sub-optimal leader in an executive position; but also because latent executive talent votes with its feet.  It finds its place elsewhere. They know better.

So what? 

The leap between manager and executive is every bit as big as the leap between a high performing analyst with a spreadsheet and the manager of a pool of analysts.  The skillsets and mindsets are worlds apart.

The lessons of this particular “Coffee and a Do Not” are these:

First, executives should never, ever delegate vision.  Doing so is confusing to the organization and the result of it–a micromanaging executive–is actually a very strong indicator of a disengaged, demotivated organization.  (If you are interested, here’s a study from Stanford University that backs that assertion.)

Second, companies must have solid executive development, evaluation and coaching processes. People can learn. While executive talent is an intrinsic thing to some degree, executive behaviors are teachable. Ideally, high performing managers get to understand these things before they get their first bite at the executive apple.

Third, high performing managers and under-apprenticed executives need to develop themselves. If you are one of those lucky, high velocity, high performing managers who finds yourself in a senior executive role before really being apprenticed well enough…Go home at night and entertain the remote possibility that you might not be all that in your new role.  Be willing to listen…up and down in the organization.  Look for mentors.  Reflect.  Think.  Improve.

Delegation of leadership vision is an upside down, bizarre outcome of a leadership culture that under-prepares people for the next steps in their careers. This is a situation that individuals need to guard against and that companies need to watch out for.

Being a high performing manager and being an executive are very different things.

Executives need to be visionary.  No, not Steve Jobs visionary; but at least “next three years” visionary.

If this is your particular weakness, know this:  Trying to delegate vision will frustrate your organization, handicap its performance, and (assuming a well-governed company) shorten your tenure.

Do not delegate vision.

Should We Eliminate The “A Player” Trope?

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A recent Forbes publication calls into question the offhand assignment of “A Player” labels.

On the heels of my article on how organizations handcuff their talent (link here); and my use of the “A Player” meme in that article to boot, I find an article that calls the entire “A Player” meme into question.

And I like it.

In Forbes, Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta published an article titled Silicon Valley Mythbusting: Rethinking The Concept of ‘A’ Players.  In this article, Mehta dives into some of the structure- and leadership-oriented issues related to talent; and as the title suggests, calls into question whether the “A Player” label is actually a transferable thing.

Here’s your link.

The operative quote from the article is this:

As a leader, you get paid a lot to do your job. It is your responsibility to find the right people for the right roles with the right manager. It is also your responsibility to coax the best performance out of your team, and using terms like “A Player” does them a disservice. On the other hand, you can build your team into the best they can be, both together and individually: then you’d have an “A Team.”

Mehta’s article outlines how a so-called A-Player in one company could very well be a failure in another.  He brings it down to fit within company culture, fit within role, and fit with management.

So what? 

Mehta’s analysis (and mine in my handcuff article) is a take off on the old nature vs. nurture debate.  To be clear, it is not an appeal to the mindset of “we are all the same.”  I don’t see where Mehta is saying that all players are the same; but rather that it’s very hard to read talent from a single situation (great or otherwise).

It brings up questions like:

Is talent really situational? (I’d argue, yes)

Does a talented “A Player” really have the passport to be an A Player anywhere, or has the A Player really been shrewd (or lucky) about the factors that Mehta outlines (again, company, role, management)? (I think it’s a little bit of both)

Do we do a disservice to our entire talent base, as Mehta suggests, by labeling some people “A Players?” (In my opinion, maybe…especially if the culture allows that an “A” grade is untested after it is conferred.)

Finally, shouldn’t we be focused, as leaders, on building the highest performing team and not the team filled with the highest talent individuals?  (Yes, yes, yes…A thousand times)

Parting thought:

I have had the privilege of working alongside senior executives who have the talent to fit right in across any number of corporate cultures and leadership positions.  I have also witnessed under-talented and opportunistic executives who by happenstance, good luck, obsequiousness,  or sharp elbows found their only possible senior executive position in the entire world.

Knowing both, I can say that situation matters.

Senior leaders should be humble enough to assess others’ talent across time, company, and role.  Nick Mehta is onto something.

What do you think?

 

Why Your Entrepreneurs Leave

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In large organizations, if board oversight and management incentives aren’t aligned with value creation, entrepreneurial mindsets can and will be crushed by “iron bureaucrats.”

In a recent post, I juxtaposed the decision-making approaches applied by hard core entrepreneurs and those applied by big company executives.  My thesis was that big company execs can learn from the decision making approach applied by entrepreneurs, if only their incentive structures can allow for it.

One reader, Graham Moores, responded on LinkedIn with this comment:

“In my experience the collaboration between Entrepreneurs and Executives is what should be aimed for, when one side does not understand and respect the other, problems will exist.”

This is a fantastic point, and in the ideal world, makes great sense.

If we can couple the entrepreneurial mindset of building businesses and bearing risk with the executive mindset of allocating resources and protecting against downside; all can win.

However, as Mr. Moores noted, the two sides often don’t understand one another; and therein lies the rub…

Why are real entrepreneurs so often bred out of large organizations?

The classical answers tend to be given offhand.  They include that big organizations move too slow, are too risk averse, and are double ungood at listening to new ideas.

These “reasons” tend to imply that large organizations are uncomfortable for people with an entrepreneurial bent.

That may be true…

But…

I’d argue the real reason entrepreneurship is bred out of large orgs is actually rooted in an organizational phenomenon best articulated by science fiction author Jerry Pournelle.  It has been called the “Iron Law of Bureaucracy.”

I’m capturing it from his website, but it has been quoted in many other places.

It reads (with my emphasis added):

“In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.”

If we replace Pournelle’s well-known government-connected bureaucracies with some generic corporate examples, then you and I can start to see how this law applies to the problem of entrepreneurship and executive management.

It could easily read as follows (to be clear, all edits are my own and I present it only for conjecture):

“In any business bureaucracy there will be two kinds of people:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are people dedicated to customer satisfaction, product excellence, and advancing the organization’s reputation among employees, customers, and the community…

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples include executives and administrators who focus exclusively on defending position, avoiding risk, and managing to the letter of all incentives.

It’s plausible to argue that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization.It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.”

What this might mean is that instead of large organizations being uncomfortable for entrepreneurial people, they actually become actively hostile to people who want to rock the boat in the name of building value.

The two don’t merely misunderstand each other; they grow to be fundamentally incompatible.

And, since the second group is far more likely to play the bureaucracy game with alacrity, its most senior representatives will eventually call the shots, just as Pournelle’s law states.

They are the “Iron Bureaucrats.”

So what?  Isn’t that just life?

Well, sort of.

As my reader, Mr. Moores, noted, it’s actually ideal if the entrepreneurial and executive mindsets can coexist and collaborate.  We want large organizations to both embrace business building and risk taking while at the same time embracing discipline and risk awareness.

That’s a good strategy.

But how?

Much of the time, this comes down to the inherent bent of the CEO and senior management.  If the CEO is an iron bureaucrat, then entrepreneurs will struggle.

If the CEO is a closet entrepreneur, even within the trappings of a large bureaucracy, then entrepreneurs can thrive.  One need only look at some of the shifts in strategy at bellwether companies like IBM, Apple, Nucor and many others over the years to see the evidence of this factor.

The other factor is the incentive set that is outlined for senior executives.  In a sort of Judo move, boards can take an iron bureaucrat’s best strength (hitting the numbers) and make it work for the long term value of the company by measuring business building activity aggressively.

So, while entrepreneurs are likely to be bred out of large organizations, they don’t have to be.  Through better board oversight (particularly on the philosophical bent of the CEO) and incentive alignment (particularly around business building) the curse of the Iron Bureaucrat can be overcome.

It’s always great to get thoughtful responses on blog posts, regardless of platform; and I hope you’ll add your thoughts here.

 

How to Handcuff Your Talent

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Talent waste is a leadership issue…

Have you ever walked around an under-performing business and marveled at the level of individual talent it has?

Have you ever seen a team comprised of “A” level talent deliver a “C” level result?

If you haven’t, keep looking. You’ll see it.

In a gross over-generalization of what constitutes “talent” it’s a proven fact that you can walk around some organizations and see hordes of squandered university degrees, MBAs, and PhDs; not to mention mountains of practical experience sitting shelved, squashed, and frozen.

We waste talent.  It’s a fact of life.  Sometimes that’s a conscious thing; and sometimes it’s accidental.

The curious case of Barbara the sales leader…

Let me tell you about Barbara.  Barbara is a deeply experienced professional in the technical materials field she has worked in for her entire career.  She has spent time across disciplines and functions, spanning engineering, manufacturing, customer services, product development, and–at the midpoint of this story–sales.

Barbara the sales leader was comfortable.  She had been working for Kenneth for a long time; and Kenneth called the shots.  Barbara learned when to speak up, and when to shut up. She was a good soldier.

When I engaged in a strategic planning project with Kenneth’s organization at the request of another sponsoring executive, Barbara was a distant figure–the sales leader who sat in the back of the room and didn’t say much.

On the one hand, I’d say Barbara was a good listener and perhaps a bit of an introvert.

On the other hand, I would call her disengaged.

She wasn’t under-performing.  She was “fine” as an employee.  She had good experience and used it well; but was a wallflower when it came to strategic thinking.

Then…Kenneth left the company.

And, Barbara, as the most senior person on the team, was named as the interim executive.

Guess what happened?

Barbara blossomed.

In one of the better examples of a senior person grabbing the bull by the horns that I have ever witnessed, she suddenly became a highly thoughtful, engaged, and action-oriented leader.  She has subsequently led the business to several successful years of performance, largely on the back of her own strategic and customer-centric mind.

It seems that all it took was to ask her to lead.  That, and to perhaps get out of her way.

Barbara was an A player just waiting to be asked to be what she was.  In a sort of sad reality, Barbara was only asked to be a C-level contributor; and her talents as a business leader were squandered for years because she was exceptionally loyal and remarkably under-led. 

What we can learn from the Barbara case

Just as Barbara was an A-player only tasked with a C result; sometimes, a team of “A” players can play like a team of C players.  They can produce a C result through a combination of disengagement and disenchantment.

I’ll go even further:  “A” talent is squandered when it isn’t tested.  In corporate cultures built on stability and loyalty, “A” talent waste can become acute.

Why?  Because in those cultures the employees with “A” talent are docile enough to let an organization squander their talent.

Shockingly, my experience has been that organizations that are exceptionally stable do more to squander talent than those that engender some turnover.  That’s why a talent performance management is a critical strategic tool.

In an odd and maybe counter-intuitive reality, organizations with high churn squander talent, but rarely squander careers.

Careers get squandered in stable cultures.  And it happens because of loyalty and leadership. These two powerfully valuable facets of culture combine to waste talent every day.

5 ways A-level talent can be led to C-level results.

I’ve alluded to all of these in the case above, but let me outline a few of the reasons great talent can combine into under-performing results.

1. Managers don’t systematically stretch their followers – They never figure out that they have A-level talent on their team.  They run a system based on time vs. one based on effectiveness.

2.  Managers know they have A-Level talent, but don’t want to let it go – A players are systematically hoarded by savvy bureaucrats who won’t open their hands and let talented people find their level in the organization.  A lot of bad leaders focus on talent having to “pay dues” in the organization; which is usually just code speak for “don’t take my job.”

3.  Managers are scared of good talent – Yep, it happens.  Insecure leaders will bury talented people in the organization. Ask around your organization, you will find stories of managers who have “killed careers” of talented people who have either taken a risk or shown up their manager (even accidentally).  As organizations approach the “cult of personality” archetype, this factor tends to be the dominant one.  Managers only promote those who promote them.  Ugh.

4.  Managers respond with indignance or confusion when A-players ask for “more” – Whenever a manager pooh pooh’s a talented subordinate’s desire to do more, he or she inadvertently puts a cap on what people will ask for in the future.  Pretty soon, people stop asking to be stretched.

5. Loyal followers learn the game and stop asking – Just as in factor 4, where people are subtly ridiculed for asking for more and stop asking, loyal people who “like their jobs” and “like the people” will understand that asking to be tested as an A-player comes with consequences.  So, they stop asking.  Pretty soon, they look at their careers and a decade has passed.

It’s sad.

When all of these things come together, you find yourself walking around the organization and marveling at the juxtaposition of amazing talent and middling performance.  You see brilliant people watching the clock.

And, you see senior managers with shocking blind spots about how they have kneecapped good talent.

The bottom line on this article is this:  All organizations squander some talent; but organizations that get a C result from A talent have a special combination of leadership myopia and organizational inertia.

Don’t let talent waste be a part of your company’s social contract.

Coffee and a Do Not: Span Breaks

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For all the benefits of being a senior manager in a company, far too many management positions, even very senior ones, come with limited authority… Avoid filling or creating them.

In the grand scheme of things, being senior is a nice thing. Having position, especially position that others believe is influential and interesting, can be very rewarding.

However, in many organizations, particularly those focused on hierarchical control and “execution,” management positions–even very senior ones–can start to look like information channels vs. leadership roles.

They start to look like “span breaks.”  Literally they are a funnel for the span of control in an organization and not for the efficient operation of the company.

McKinsey defines a span break as a manager who relays information from executives to workers.  In an only mildly backhanded definition of reality for these sorts of managers, one McKinsey article explains that:

“Such managers keep an eye on things, enforce plans and policies, report operational results, and quickly escalate issues or problems. In other words, a [span break] manager is meant to communicate decisions, not to make them”

The result?  Managers in these positions play the role of observer, reporter, and monitor.  They may have “authority” on paper, but they know where decisions are made…and it’s at a higher level than them.  They spend more time in PowerPoint preparing for others to make decisions than they take making decisions.

Sometimes companies create these kinds of positions willfully as a means of developing people.  Most of the time, the created position is, unfortunately, an unrewarding one. If it is offered without a developmental time horizon, it can be career purgatory.

One firm’s leadership–intending to create developmental roles for high potential executives–consolidated multiple businesses into single senior management positions reporting directly to other senior management positions (in football speak, this is the old “I” formation). In the process, the company effectively re-layered its hierarchy with a redundant layer of management–not a fun thing for the professionals attempting to make a difference from those roles.

More often, the existence of span breaks in an organization represents brokenness in the leadership culture.  Top managers skip levels, second guess, and generate decision fear to the point where their subordinates only bring them decisions to make–and then, you suddenly have a span break.

It’s not the way the organization works on paper, but when you ask around, you realize that “all roads go to Rome.”  Often the decision maker is a tribal leader or highly controlling (and often excessively insecure) senior executive.

One semiconductor materials manufacturer’s CEO was so prone to second-guessing on particulars of any decision that his subordinates slowed their decision pace to a crawl while they funneled information through the CEO in a long series of “trial closes” for their own decisions.  The organization, up to and including its most senior business and functional leaders, was paralyzed by a smart but highly detail-oriented executive.

Do you have these issues in your organization?  Have you taken steps to create role clarity and real authority?  If so, what has worked?

Don’t create span breaks in your organization.  Devote time to real development of people through the development of meaty roles vs. symbolic ones; and ruthlessly eliminate actions that turn leaders into information carriers.

Most of all, don’t be a span break yourself.  Such is, in the most basic of terms, a bureaucratic pursuit.