I think we are all young to a certain extent. I don’t think it matters how old we are. Although we all equate numerical age with being young, we shouldn’t. Being young is something else. We all start youths and as we gain experience we also seem to start to lose our ability to be young. I think in many instances we do not see these changes in ourselves. I do not think that those that we continue to work with see these changes either, since they too are gaining experience right along with us. I think the loss of being young is a little more insidious than that. When we are young we don’t know what we can’t do, and as a result we are able to do the things that others can’t because they “know better”.
In case you are missing the connection here I am not saying there is a direct connection between your age and being young. I don’t think there is. I think being young in business resides in your head.
I watched a great rant by the comedian Craig Ferguson on the “Deification of Youth” or otherwise titled “Why Everything Sucks”. You can find it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROJKEwYEx8Q. Aside from being very funny he does touch on some of the issues and sources of our obsession with youth. I think they apply equally to business.
Notice again that I am not connecting “Youth” with being “Young”.
We tend to associate being young with the physical attributes of youth and age. As Craig Ferguson points out there are also experiential and state of mind attributes associated with being young. Unfortunately we all seem to focus on the youth aspect of being young. We assume you have to be a youth in order to be young. Hence again according to Craig we seem to be focusing our resources on retaining our youth instead of what I would call being young.
I tell people that I have grown older, but that I have not grown up. My wife does not seem to be entirely happy about my lack of growing up.
I absolutely agree with the preconception that we need young people in business. Young people have energy. They don’t seem to slow down. They have places to be and things to do. They walk fast. They get there early and stay till they are done, not till any specific time. They look at goals as something to be attained and exceeded, not something to be measured against. The young believe that they are responsible for their own attainments, or failures, and act accordingly.
I remember few if any incidents in my youth where I looked for a consensus on just about anything I did. In some instances I might have been better off doing so, but in the long run it was probably those failures that taught me the most.
Young people take on challenges because they have no idea what they are getting into, or if they do they don’t know any better about saying no. When we were young we did not know what we could do, or conversely what we couldn’t do. There were always plenty of people who were ready to tell us what we couldn’t do. There are many of those people still around in business now. When we remain young we retain this don’t know that I can’t do it approach even though we may have gained some of the experience that tells us it may be difficult if not impossible.
Young people ask direct questions and give direct answers. There was an old television show hosted by Art Linkletter called “Kids Say the Darnedest Things”. It consisted of kids (in this case really young people) answering some simple and seemingly innocuous questions and everyone listening to what they said. The kids answered directly without first wondering if they should answer at all, if they would look foolish for their answer, or if they would get the answer wrong. They just answered. I can’t help but believe that approach might help improve business.
Direct questions are usually the simplest ones to ask. Why? How much? What do you do? We seem to have evolved to a point where direct questions are associated with being rude. The young ask direct questions without the consideration of if it is rude or not. It shouldn’t be construed as a question of etiquette. It is merely a request for a desired piece of information.
Young people understand that they can be wrong. They think they know everything (especially my children) but I think deep down they know that they don’t. That doesn’t stop them though. That’s why they went to school. To learn some things that they didn’t know that will help them later. That learning process usually involves getting a few things wrong. They don’t want to be wrong, but they know it happens and hopefully they will learn from it.
The active ingredient here for this aspect of being young is learning. Sometimes it is mandatory and we are forced to go to school and learn something whether we want to or not. On the other hand as we gain and gather experience we should recognize how much we have yet to learn and no so much rely on how much we believe we already know. When we have decided that we either have learned enough, or know enough is when we begin to not be young.
Too often it seems we have a tendency to get defensive in our business posture as a result of feeling that we must defend what we have already achieved or accomplished instead of remembering the risks and behaviors that enabled those accomplishments to occur. We understand the new challenge but may not as fully commit to or embrace it. We are now more conservative in our approach. We feel that we have something to lose and not so much to gain. We are no longer young, and we are acting like it.
I do not wish to sound too utopian in my views. I understand the realities of life and business. At least I hope I do. My objective is to remember my approach to things as a youth and combine it with the knowledge and experience I have gained since then. I may have a little better idea of some of the things that I can do, but I think there are probably vast expanses of things that I can’t do that need exploring, if for no other reason than to prove that there are parts of it that can actually be done.
I think being young in business is about remembering and channeling the energy, excitement and approach we had to proving something when we started out. It’s more about having somewhere to go instead of looking back at where you have been. It’s about continuing to learn new skills and capabilities instead of relying on those that you already have. It is retaining the realization that it still is about the destination and not so much about the path or process that is supposed to get you there.
It is remembering that it is not so much about youth but more about retaining our approach to things in our youth. I think that is the essence and key to being young.
Category Archives: Leadership
Professionals
I think we all like to think of ourselves as professionals. In the truest sense of the word, since we all get paid for what we do, we are professionals. If we didn’t get paid we wouldn’t be called amateurs, we would be called unemployed. I’ve written in the past about what I think makes a leader in business. This time I am going to depart a little bit from that idea, but not too far. I am going to look at what makes a professional.
This may end up being one of my shorter discussions in that it doesn’t really seem to take a lot to define what a professional is. It does however take a lot to be a professional in business. It’s that execution thing that most people have a problem with. It is very much like golf (one of my favorite hobbies). Anybody can play golf. Get the proper equipment. Dress in attire that you would never normally own yet alone put on. Find a place called a golf course. Pay your admittance. Bingo, you are golfing. Very few however are golfers. I guess by extension even fewer are professional golfers.
I aspire to be considered a golfer. Since I have no illusions over the probability that I will ever be paid to play golf, I suspect that being a professional golfer is out of the question. Notice that I said I wished to be considered a golfer. Being a leader, being a professional, and by connected example being a golfer is really not something you can proclaim yourself to be. Others usually have to do it for you.
Being a golfer, like the other two, requires a little time and a commitment. It takes practice and an understanding of your own tendencies and behaviors. I have learned that getting mad or frustrated does not improve my golf game. It took me a long time to learn this. Sometimes I occasionally forget it after some unexpected turn of events or particularly bad break and my score then reflects this fact.
Professionals understand that similar events occur in business. Competition is fierce and occasionally may seem to be playing by a different set of rules. Management and staff may appear arbitrary and misguided from time to time. As the various television commercials enjoy pointing out, humans are not fully logical beings and seem to want to do things that from the outside looking in are misguided at best, but from the individuals point of view may have been a viable alternative at the time.
Regardless of whether the ball is in the fairway, the rough or a hazard, a golfer will always try to execute the best shot they are capable of in order to achieve the best score that they are capable of that day. Conditions change; people are not machines so their performance levels may vary from day to day. Just because you were able to par or even birdie a hole the last time you played it does not mean you will perform the same way or attain the same outcome this time. The experience helps but as they say in the stock market; past performance is no guarantee of future success. You have to try your best every time.
Professionals are those that understand that not every assignment may be in accordance with their opinion of a correct or proper strategy. They may not agree with the decision or direction that is being undertaken, but like the golfer, they do their absolute professional best regardless of the situation. They don’t complain or foment discord in the business ranks. They look at the situation, try to understand the direction and objective and do their best to achieve it.
They don’t get frustrated or mad that the business is doing something other than what they would prefer. They know that won’t help or improve their personal, their team’s or the business’ performance.
In theory golf is a pretty simple game. Get the ball in the hole in as few strokes as possible. Unlike so many other sports there are no opposing teams or people trying to keep you from your objective, and the ball doesn’t even move when you are trying to hit it. Despite these facts there are far fewer golfers on a golf course that there are people playing golf. You know them when you see them, and they don’t usually proclaim it. They just go quietly about their game, doing their best at all times. Their score usually reflects this.
Business as well is not rocket surgery (to mix metaphors a little, just for fun). While there is competition, their goal is not specifically to keep you from achieving your objective. It is more to achieve theirs. But like golfers on a golf course, there does not seem to be an abundance of professionals in business. You know them when you see them, and they too do not usually go around proclaiming their status. They just go quietly about their assignments trying to make sure that the business’ objectives are achieved. This includes even the assignments and objectives that they may not be fully in agreement with.
Especially those.
Little Things
I recently read an article by Gretchen Rubin titled “Trick Question: Can One Coin Make a Person Rich?” In this article she cites the fifteenth century scholar, Erasmus, from Rotterdam, Netherlands. This intrigued me as some of those who know me and my never ending quest for the arcane can attest. I finished reading the article and then did a little research on Erasmus as my curiosity had been piqued. Gretchen sited not a book, but a footnote in Erasmus’ 1509 essay “In Praise of Folly”. Now I was hooked. The footnote was related to and explained “the argument of the growing heap.”
According to the footnote, the argument of the growing heap is: “If ten coins are not enough to make a man rich, what if you add one coin? What if you add another? Finally, you will have to say that no one can be rich unless one coin can make him so.”
This is an interesting proposition. If you continue to give a person coins, at some point in time you will have given them enough so that they can be considered rich. But how many coins does it take? Which specific coin is the one that pushes the individual across the “rich” threshold? I think we can all conceive of and follow the logic here in general, but again may have divergent views on which individual act of giving a coin is the “special” one. This got me to thinking, yet again. That is always a dangerous process.
I continually try to look at what leadership is, as opposed to what management is in the business and sales environments. I like to point out that we have always looked up to and followed great leaders, not great managers. Applying what Gretchen Rubin cited and what Erasmus footnoted may seem at first to be a bit of a stretch here, but overall I think it is pretty interesting.
If we apply the argument of the growing heap to actions demonstrating leadership (or to actions demonstrating management for that matter) we would have to say that there is obviously some threshold where at which, after a certain number of leadership demonstrating actions an individual would be considered a leader. Let’s not get into what a leadership demonstrating action is. That too is a matter for conjecture. For purposes here, let’s just assume that there is such a thing.
To put this question another way, I would ask if one anomalous leader like activity in the career of an otherwise drone like manager would make that individual a leader. Now remember we are talking about business, not politics. My suggested answer would be no, one leadership action in a career doesn’t qualify anyone to be a leader. I have seen some managers take leader like actions by mistake and immediately revert back to their management activities. If it is not one action, then how many? Would ten qualify? How about a hundred?
I think you can now see the application of the argument of the growing heap that I am making to business. The fact that it originates in a sixteenth century essay titled “The Praise of Folly” seems to me to make it that much more apropos for its application to business, or politics today.
We all make a number of decisions and take a myriad of actions during the course of a normal business day. These decisions can either add to or detract from growing our leadership “heap”. How we are perceived as leaders is subjective in that each individual will have a different threshold for what they consider an acceptable leadership heap to be. Many will also have varying values that will be assigned as to how much a demonstration of leadership advances the heap and how much a management act reduces it.
I remember reading a joke which stated that every time someone did something good at the office they got a little token that read “Atta Boy!” When they got one hundred “Atta Boy!” tokens they were entitled to a firm handshake, a slap on the back and a “Good Job!” from the boss. However if they ever did something wrong they got an “Aw Crap!” sticker which meant that they had to immediately give back all of their “Atta Boy!” tokens, even if they had ninety-nine of them, and then start back from zero in their quest for a “Good Job!” from the boss.
I don’t know why that little story came to mind, but it does seem to fit in when we talk about the subjective nature of leadership activities, management acts, and how the two are judged by the population in general.
Sometimes we manage the issue and sometimes we lead by example. We need to remember that inevitably people are always watching what we as leaders do. According to the argument of the growing heap, it is in fact one individual act of leadership, in a succession of leadership acts that can qualify an individual to be a leader. The question then arises as to which single act is it? As no two individuals are going to have the same perceptions and values, it’s probably safe to say that there will never be an agreement on which specific act caused someone to cross the leadership threshold, or which management act caused them to fall back from it. Therefore I would say that every act is important.
If we add the complexity to the argument that an “Aw Crap!” management moment can reduce the “Atta Boy!” leadership heap by a disproportionate amount, it means that every action counts, both positive and negative counts even more.
Gretchen Rubin noted in her article “Often, when we consider our actions, it’s clear that any one instance of an action is almost meaningless, yet at the same time, a sum of those actions is very meaningful.”
I would suggest that this is not the case in business. As a leader every action we take will have meaning. It will either add to or detract from your leadership position. I think we have all experienced the fact that it normally takes many more positive acts to outweigh what may be considered or perceived as a negative act.
Leadership is an ongoing process where every action counts. It will be good to remember that the next time you are going to take an action, even on the little things.
Boredom
Boredom, the very thought of it makes me cringe. It also makes me yawn. You know what they say; “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” But that’s not the type of boredom I am going to discuss here. In this book, Augie March says: Now this is coming from a character that actually goes to the mountain desert of Mexico to train bald eagles to hunt giant iguanas. I couldn’t make that up. I am not that good a writer. Saul Bellow made that up. He is that good a writer. He has many awards to prove it. Now I don’t know if Augie did that because he was bored, or did that to avoid becoming bored. I guess it doesn’t matter. In other words, are you sure that everyone in the organization feels that no part of the work they are doing in their opinion is useless? If you are not sure, then how do you find out? I have gotten my best results and responses to this question by asking it of team members in real-time exchanges, either face to face or over the phone. Sending an email or asking them to fill out a survey or questionnaire means you really don’t care.
I got in some of the deepest trouble that I could get in when I was a kid just because I got bored. When you don’t have anything to do, doing just about anything seems like a good idea, regardless of how bad an idea it really is. This concept has really been brought home to me when I have watched the things that my kids are prone to do when they are bored.
In physics there is a concept called Entropy. It is a crucial concept associated with the second law of thermodynamics. It governs which processes can spontaneously occur and which can’t. In layman’s terms entropy is the universe’s tendency to maximum disorder. As an example, a box of marbles that is overturned on the floor will tend to disperse across the floor (disorder), rather than stay stacked up on top of each other in the form of a box (order). All actions and functions increase the entropy or disorder of the universe, from a physics point of view.
Are you bored yet?
When I was in graduate school, I used to think that in business the accounting equivalent to entropy was boredom. That means that anything that anybody ever did in accounting added to the boredom of the universe. There were several accounting majors who didn’t seem to see the humor in this entropy – boredom comparison, but this was to be expected since they were already in accounting and had obviously already undergone a borg-like assimilation.
This is not the type of boredom that I am going to discuss here either.
My inspiration for this discussion of boredom comes from of all places a book I recently read: “The Adventures of Augie March”, by Saul Bellow. In case you are not familiar with it, it is number 81 on the Modern Library’s editor’s list of the top 100 novels of the twentieth century. It also has nothing to do with business. I find that I read many different books that have nothing to do with business directly, but that regardless of that, provide me with some insights that do help me with business. This is one of those instances.
“Boredom starts with useless effort.”
We have all at one time or another felt like we have been compelled to perform some task or do some work that we felt was useless. It is normally called busy work, or scut work, or any number of other names. It all comes down to we felt as if we were doing something that did not add value, that wasted both out talents and our efforts. It may have actually had a value, we just might not have been aware of it at the time. However, I think we all know when we are doing something useful, and when we are not.
The point I would make here is that if we as leaders have gone through the boredom associated with useless effort, are there people in our organizations and on our teams that are feeling the same way about their assignments? Assignments that may initially have seemed logical and useful by the leaders when they were requested, that may no longer seem that way to the team members responsible for fulfilling the requirements now.
That sort of behavior will only increase their boredom by requiring them to respond to another useless email or survey.
There is only benefit to be gained from this approach to communications with team members. At the worst you may have to explain what the value is (if there indeed is any value) in the work you have assigned them. They may not like what they have to do, but they will at least understand that it is not useless effort. At the best you may find that you have incremental capacity on the team because they were in fact engaged in efforts with minimal value. That useless effort can be stopped and the resulting functional capacity can be applied to more valuable projects and efforts.
No one wants to be bored due to the lack of things to do. I think in today’s business environment we can safely say that this is not a high probability issue. I also think that no one wants to be bored because they have to do accounting. That’s why we have accountants. Let them be bored. And no one wants to be bored because they feel they are engaged in a useless effort. If the effort has value there is benefit in explaining it and further aligning the team. If it turns out that there is no value in it, I am sure that there are a myriad of other things with definable value that the business needs to get done with that newly available resource.
What’s Right?
Anytime you have a business or office environment, people will congregate to talk. It’s part of the social aspect of working in the office. These are euphemistically known as “water cooler” conversations (although I really suspect that it has been decades since there was actually a real live water cooler in an office). People will talk about many things, but if they are in the office at least some part of the conversation will usually be about the company that employs them. I have worked in several different companies and this is a fairly consistent topic for discussion, at least in my experience.
What I have also found is that these conversations normally migrate to, and revolve around the issues, challenges and problems that the business is facing. Company stock prices, competitors’ products and capabilities, pending or potential staff reductions, executive bi-play and office politics are all favorite topics for discussion. I think we have all been there, and probably even participated.
In short, most of these conversations are at best group reinforcement sessions for all that can be perceived as wrong (rightly or wrongly) about the business, and at worst become a functionally demoralizing aspect of the work day environment. Sometimes it appears that these meetings can become an opportunity for company bashing where the objective is to see who can relate the worst example of bad corporate behavior or malfeasance. It has been seen it in the boom times of the past and it seems to have taken on an even greater propensity in the difficult times of today.
This “what’s wrong” discussion concept got me to thinking, which is always a dangerous proposition for me. Why do we always tend to focus on the negative? Doing so has to have a negative effect on both ourselves and those we share the negativity with at the office. Surely something has been going right, and probably has been going right for some time, to enable the companies and business units we work for to survive and grow for the periods of time that they have been around. I decided some time ago that I would put this idea to the test at one of these negative conversations that I was party to. I asked:
“Okay, I have heard your view on what is wrong with the company, but can you tell me what’s right with the company?
People looked at me as if I had just come from another planet.
Instead of playing along with the rehashing of all the latest down side issues and topics that seem to be present in every organization, I had challenged people to at least try and define what was good about the place we all worked.
I was immediately challenged in return to see if I could actually start the list of what’s right. I think this was done as a delay tactic so that everybody else’s brain could do a cold restart in this new direction for the conversation. I started off with the most basic good thing about working for the company that I could come up with:
“My paycheck cleared and was deposited in my account at the bank.”
I assumed that everyone else’s paycheck had achieved the same status. This is a tough item to argue about. We all got paid. Something had in fact gone right enough that we got, and continue to get paid. I also assumed that everybody would like to continue to get paid. The focus now should be what else we need to do right going forward to assure that we continue to get paid. It was an interesting change to the standard conversation at that point. It also seemed to work. Several other right topics ensued. There were some good things out there if people just thought about them.
I am not a Pollyanna in that we must only look on the brighter side of things. If we do not acknowledge what is wrong we will never focus on it, and there will be no improvement. What I am saying that we do have a tendency to not just focus on, but to dwell on what is wrong almost to the point of discouragement. This means that occasionally we need to take a step back and look at what has been done right.
I don’t think it needs to be done all the time. A certain amount of venting with friends and peers is good to provide a healthy work environment. There have also been instances in these negative conversations that have germinated some of the teams’ better ideas and plans on how to improve the business as a result of hearing from others what they think is wrong with the business. However, I really do think that on occasion it is a good idea for the group to have the water cooler conversation taken in a different direction and talk about what’s right with the business.
Being Liked
I think it is pretty safe to say that we all want to be “liked”. There are few people in business that set out to be disliked. They may end up being disliked, but I don’t think they started out with that as an objective. However, there do seem to be many business leaders who it appears do set out to try to be liked by everyone. While it is a good leadership characteristic to be able to try and get along with everyone, I don’t think a leader has to try to be liked by everyone. Business leaders are vested with the responsibility of setting the direction for the business. This includes the strategic longer term direction as well as the shorter term tactics and steps required to achieve the longer term goal. This means that leaders have to make choices. Making choices means that some people will agree with your choices and some people will not. Healthy disagreement within an organization is a desirable trait. It makes you continually check your choices and directions against differing views to make sure that you are not missing any overlooked piece of information. It fills gaps and strengthens the overall plan.
Still, making decisions, especially difficult or contentious decisions will mean that some people will “like” the decision, and some will not. Each individual’s position as it pertains to the decision will in turn be associated with the leader who made the decision. However if the decision is clearly made and the reasons and criteria that were applied are well communicated everyone can respect the decision. That can be a key point. While some people may not like the decision, and by extension the leader that made it, if they are provided with some insight into the factors that have lead to that decision they can respect it.
Providing insight and understanding into leadership decisions does not mean having to explain why one direction was taken instead of another. That would mean that everybody in the organization would have to be supplied the same aspects and information as the leader for each decision. That would be far too cumbersome and slow. Economic theory states that businesses exist to provide earnings to their owners (either stockholders or other types of equity holders). They do this by providing value to their customers, and from that generated value creating profit and earnings.
When leaders make decisions that are in support of these basic business precepts, it is hard to argue with them. As leaders they will have to make difficult decisions in association with these directions. It will fall to them to decide which projects go forward and which ones do not when limited resources dictate that the business cannot sustain multiple investments. Some will like the decisions, and those whose projects have been discontinued may not. It will be the responsibility of the leader to decide if market conditions dictate a reduction in staffing, when it will happen and who will be affected. The list goes on.
Leadership and management mean making decisions. There have been documented instances where management could not decide on the strategic direction for the business. They decided to set two strategies in progress and see which one did better, then choose it. In theory this would indicate that at best they were wasting half of their scarce resources. In reality with only half a full commitment to each initiative, neither worked out well. The leaders wanted to be liked by all but ended up not being respected by anyone.
There have been instances where leaders have tried to avoid being disliked or having to do the politically unpleasant. This can be manifested in the “peanut butter” type staff reductions that occur where all business units within the overall organization, performing and underperforming alike, are reduced in response to overall profitability pressures. Instead of being guided by business profitability and customer value, and focusing on those specific business units that are relatively unprofitable, other non-performance based criteria clouded a critical decision. Invariably this leads to management eroding the support of their respective teams, and again an overall loss of respect for the leaders.
A business leader does not need to be liked by everyone. A good leader will be respected for the quality and timeliness of their decisions. If a leader fails to make a decision, or the right decision based on the acknowledged business drivers and available information, it will not result in the leader being liked by more people or disliked by fewer people. Invariably it will lead to a reduction in the team’s performance as it becomes more recognized that performance may not be the primary decision criteria. It seems that managing a responsibility or a business from the aspect of trying to minimize the number of people who dislike you, invariably results in a less healthy business, and nobody likes that.
Initiative
I think we
have all had the opportunity to relax and talk with our coworkers around the
office. What is interesting is that invariably these impromptu discussions have
a tendency to become complaining sessions regarding the then current set of
ills befalling the company. I remember back to one of these sessions some time
ago where I was doing some of the complaining. What happened as a result of
that “discussion” still affects the way I work today.
After
complaining about a specific problem and my proposed specific solution to it,
one of the people in the group said to me:
“If you have
such a good solution, why don’t you take the initiative and do something about
it?”
I was at a
relatively early stage in my career. I thought their suggestion had merit. I
went ahead and took the risk and proposed an action. I put
together an overview of the issue, what my proposal to address the issue was,
and what the business case and benefit to the company would be. I took it up my
management chain.
I didn’t
think too much more about it until a couple of weeks later when I was asked to
come into a meeting and explain my approach to the issue and why I thought it
would work. I was actually called into a senior management staff meeting.
The toughest
question I had to answer was why I was making a suggestion about an issue that
was outside of my area of responsibility. I responded by saying that I thought
I had a workable answer to the problem. The result of the meeting was that I
was given the challenge of implementing the solution I proposed.
Not every
suggestion that I have made since has been as well received, however several of
them have been. The point is that it pays to take the initiative. Putting a
considered solution proposal together to address an issue is always in order.
We have all learned that no one has the market cornered on good ideas. As I
have moved on in management I have kept the lesson I learned in mind and still
try to practice it.
If you see a
problem and you think you have a good solution to it, go ahead and propose the
solution. Don’t just complain. Don’t say it isn’t your job or it’s not your
responsibility. Understand that it’s okay if you are told “no”, and your
proposal is not acted upon. Taking the initiative on the solving of all types
of problems seems to be the space that we all need to get back into.
The next time you find yourself discussing the problems facing your
company today, remember to take the initiative and step up and propose a
solution. Good suggestions on how to address issues are always appreciated and
they can help establish your ability to help solve some of the issues facing
business today.
What Would You Do?
The other day a friend of mine told me that he had been given notice that he was being laid off from his company. He worked in a medium/small sized technology equipment company. As we all know the economy has not been such that any of us can take our current employment for granted. We all know that it can in fact come to an end either when we do or don’t expect it.
We had lunch and started the planning process on where he might look for a position and how he should present himself. I put him in contact with some of the networking groups that I had been associated with in the past as well as gave his resume a fairly aggressive review. For a sales guy, he did not seem to have enough “sales” activities on it. I made some changes and I also put him on to a person who was something of a resume “guru” to help him restructure it going forward.
He then started to tell me the story of how he got laid off. He was not caught off guard. He was probably far from surprised. But it also provided the grist for the ethical question that his manager faced, and that I am posing here.
Secrets are hard to keep in any company, let alone a smaller one. As decisions of this type get made they have a tendency to filter down at least in deed, if not in fact. If management knows they are going to be making a change, they start planning for it. As the plans become apparent, so does the precipitating action. This is the situation that my friend faced.
He did the right thing. He called his manager. He asked the question. Should he be prepared for an employment event? This was a man that he had known and been friends with for more than 20 years. His manager and friend told him “no”.
3 days later his manager called him in and notified him of the company’s decision to make a change and of his severance.
When he asked “Why didn’t you tell me when I asked 3 days ago?” his manager responded by saying that he had been instructed by management not to tell him until the official notification date, “… and besides, what difference does 3 days make?”
This brings up the question: What would you do if you were in the manager’s position?
Would you too rigorously obey the corporate directive? Would you disobey the directive and provide the direct and honest information to a friend and colleague of 20 years? Would you try to find some middle ground where you don’t directly disobey the corporate directive, but do obliquely confirm that the notification is going to happen?
I can not, and do not speak for my friend. If I were in his position I would believe that a 20 year relationship may have been irreparably damaged. I don’t count myself as lucky as to say that I have so many friends that I could take the losing of one in such circumstances lightly.
I can not and do not speak for the manager. I have been in his position. In today’s business world we all have varying levels of concern regarding or employments and our future employments. Do we truly fear for our own positions at such a level as to alter our behaviors to such an extent? I will say that having been there, that open, direct and honest responses and communication in these situations has always, always been the best approach. If a decision has been made, I would respond as such. If it is still pending, then that should be communicated as well.
Yes, this approach has gotten me in a little trouble in the past, but it has always proved to be the proper course when dealing with these types of employment situations. The company knows what it is going to do with respect to the employee in question. It has probably known for some time. It is the trouble I would prefer to have when confronted by an employee who asks “Am I on the list for the coming lay-off?” instead of having to respond to “Why didn’t you tell me when I asked?”
To me a direct question deserves a direct response, even if it is a response that is not desired, or even feared. If you really don’t want to know, then don’t ask. If you do want to know, accept the response, good or bad, in the same way as the question was posed.
That’s just me. What would you do?
Information…or Punishment
Business and project reviews are good opportunities for leaders to get a view into the business on how it is performing. They need to be scheduled often enough so that topics and trends can be identified before they become issues, and not so often that they become onerous and drain time and resources away from the business in preparing for them.
How often should you have them? Monthly? Every two Months? Quarterly? I think that it depends on the actual cycle time of the business. By cycle time I mean the amount of time that must pass before the results of an action can be recognized in the business’s financial reports. Hi-tech business cycle times are normally on the order of months.
However, we have all been in organizations where managers have uttered the immortal phrase “We will have weekly reviews on this issue until it is resolved…” It is good to let the team know which topic is a high priority and what is not, but a leader should not take this approach for several reasons.
If you are truly committed to this approach you have to be prepared to attend every one of these reviews. As soon as you fail to attend, or send a delegate, you are communicating to the team that the issue is no longer as high a priority to you. The team will also take that into account as they set and work their own priorities.
The other aspect of this action is, what are you trying to achieve? If you understand your business’s cycle time, and you know it is longer than the periodicity of the reviews, what do you hope to gain, or learn from the more frequent reviews? It is in this area that information transfer becomes perceived as a punishment. You are in effect telling your team that you did not like the information that they provided you, and that you will hold repeated reviews until they provide you the information that you do like.
A better approach is to take and assign action items at the initial review. The action items can and should be specific and should have response and delivery objectives that are well in advance of the next regularly scheduled review. That way changes and actions can be taken quickly, feedback can be obtained in advance of the next review, and enough time can be provided to recognize the financial impact of the changes. In this way you can communicate the priority of a topic, the actions that you feel need to be taken, assign time lines and monitor progress, without turning what should be a useful communication session into a perceived ordeal and punishment.
Remember, if you are perceived as punishing people for bringing you what you feel is bad news, they will stop bringing you the issues. By taking the action item approach you can encourage the early discussion of potential issues and help work to avoid them. The team will appreciate the leadership.
Significance
Are you significant? Are you relevant? I don’t mean these questions in some sort of cosmic, or existential sort of way. I am sure that to yourself, your family and friends, you are. At least I hope you are. I mean are you significant and / or relevant on the professional level to you individually, and also on the greater level to the business you create or lead.
Let’s say you lead an organization that is responsible for $25 Million in revenue. If the entire revenue of the business is $25 Million, then you are obviously extremely significant. If the entire revenue of the business is $1 Billion, then potentially, at only 2.5% of total revenues, you may not be very significant.
On the other hand, if the total earnings for the 1$ Billion business is only $10 Million, and your $25 Million revenue organization is responsible for $10 Million in earnings, you could be very significant, depending on the earnings and losses of the other organizations within the business. As you can see, there may be no hard and fast rules regarding significance and relevance for a business.
There may however be some indications about an organization’s significance and relevance to the business. What is the revenue trend? Is it up, down or flat? Upward revenue trending businesses are naturally more relevant as business growth is always a focus. What is the earnings trend in both real dollars and as a percentage of revenue? Of the two, real dollars are usually more important, but businesses like to see both earnings dollars and percentage of revenue on an upward trend.
As you can see, significance and relevance in business is usually measured with a number, and the number usually has a “$” sign in front of it.
Now there are some “significant” businesses that may not meet this acid test. These are organizations that are usually deemed either “strategic” or “investment” organizations. That means that the business is putting resources into these organizations with the expectation that they will become significant and relevant quickly. Usually very quickly.
With the increased demand for and the decreased supply of resources (money, time, people) in the business, strategic and investment organizations are becoming rarer, and those that do exist are having greater demands for more significant performance faster. As the owners of the business (Stockholders, either private or public) demand better performance, so must this be translated into increased demands on each of the business’s organizations for increased and faster improvements in their performance.
Now with all this in place, what do you do when you find yourself in an organization that seems to be neither Relevant nor Strategic to the business?
There are several paths that can be taken in this instance. The choice can depend on personal preference and personality, assessment of the overall business, and the willingness of the individual and organization to accept change. I won’t go into great detail here. I will leave that to the next Blog article, but the basic responses to being in an irrelevant or non-strategic organization are:
- Move to a new organization that meets the requirements of either a Relevant or Strategic organization.
- Accept the organizations status within the business and work to make it successful within the bounds and expectations associated with that status.
- Make the changes required to make the existing organization relevant. This can include changes to products, people and processes. This would include making the required changes needed to make the organization relevant on either the Revenue or Earnings level, or moving it into a strategic role.
I have always tried to be a change agent within the organizations that I have been associated with, so you can suspect what choices I have made in the past. I will look at those options, and others in the next article.