Who defines project goals: top management or implementers?

It matters. When top management defines a project they usually do so because they have information front-line employees don't have: a competitor's new market strategy will affect sales; a new technology will soon be available that may reduce costs; the cost of capital is going up/down which influences the ability to expand.

All good reasons. The risks of a top-defined project: top level managers often don't know enough about implementer constraints and resources: current employee skills do not match the project requirements; current technology can't support project needs; other projects and daily tasks are more critical or salient to the employees' success. Sometimes current employee evaluation, compensation and promotion systems lead employees to focus on goals that are at cross-purposes to the project goals. While this is something within top management control, they rarely acknowledge or even notice it, and therefore it goes unchanged.

When front line employees define project goals, they may do so because they see the need first hand: customer behavior changes, calling for a new service method; access to a supply changes, requiring substitutions; or there's a shift in the labor pool, requiring new training systems.

Again, good reasons. The risks of bottom-up defined project scope are that folks at the front don't have access to or understanding of corporate resources, and may ask for unreasonable funding or management attention. They don't see where the overall organization is headed, and may not realize that their project goals run counter to the strategic direction. And they don't have access to competitive analysis that might require them to speed up or slow down or drop their project.

Ultimately, when project requirements come from the top, the implementers complain that management is being unreasonable: "we can't possibly get this done in that amount of time!" When project requirements come from the bottom, senior managers don't value the outcome and therefore don't reward success and may not supply needed resources or champion-support.

Solution? Communication!

While ideas for projects should come from everywhere, project scope and resource allocation must be defined by a cross-level group. Senior people in the group must recognize that by their very title they may inhibit surfacing of critical information and must therefore make extra effort to create psychological safety within the group. Everyone should recognize what each member brings to the table.

With open communication and clear understanding of each person's limited vision, project goals will be defined more precisely, leading to greater success.

"Managers help people find and mine the gold that lies within them."

Edward Hallowell. Shine: Using Brain Science to Get the Best from Your People

In-groups and out-groups

Do you have in-groups and out-groups in your work team? In-groups are those with whom the group leader is most comfortable, while out-group members seem to live on the periphery of the leader's world.

On the one hand, as a leader I know I prefer to work with people who are self-motivated, who are willing to disagree and to do so agreeably, whose work quality is consistenly high, and who either do what is asked or explain why they shouldn't do what is asked. And those not fitting that profile? They end up in the out-group.

On the other hand, there are risks when some members of the group have the leader's ear and others have less influence: good ideas get lost and perceptions of (or actual) biases lead to active disengagement. The full work-group's potential is reduced.

So, is that just the way it is? Because some people, no matter how hard a leader tries to coach a poor performer or communicator, will not get to the level that others achieve we will always have in- and out-groups?

When I teach leaders to coach their employees, I encourage them to focus their energies on those with the greatest potential to improve: taking a B-quality employee to A-quality is like mining gold. Getting a D-quality employee to a C? Well, then you still have a C-quality employee -- what good is that? And at what level of effort and investment of time?

What if the leader eliminates lower-performing employees? Then there won't be out-groups, right? Unfortunately, I see in-groups and out-groups even when employees are working at a high level.

What happens is that leaders, like all humans, are more comfortable with some personality types than others. I might like to talk about my kids but you might like to talk football. I might be into technology and want to show off my latest app, and you might find such talk tedious or vapid.

If you're the leader, TOO BAD! It's up to you to be sure to eat lunch with a variety or employees, take care not to have coffee with the same 1 - 3 people every day, stop by everyone's work space on a regular basis, ensure employees are communicating with each other consistently, and generally be on a friendly basis with everyone equally. Take care to allocate the most visible projects and juicy challenges equitably. Talk up and support all employees when communicating with the higher ups. Close friends are for outside of work.

A leader will make decision-errors if he hears more information or gives more credence to information from his in-group. Take extra care to disband in- and out-groups at work.

Can you change your mind?

Burnout vs. exhaustion

People talk about burnout at work as if it's caused by spending too much time doing high stress tasks or in a high stress environment. It is not. That is exhausting, but is not burnout. If it were, doctors, firefighters, teachers and others in these types of environments would be burned out all the time.

Burnout is doing work that has no meaning to you personally. People burn out even in low-stress jobs completed in 8 hour days. I've been overworked and I've been burned out. Burnout is a much worse experience and to be avoided at all costs. Overwork is life for most people trying to do something truly great. That's why there are vacations.

Vacations don't cure burnout yet many people expect them to. If you do work that to you has no value, you will be just as burned out when you return to that work from vacation as you were when you left it.

There are two cures: either redesign your job or get a different one.

What if I do all this and I fail?

In the last few days, no fewer than 5 people said, in response to my asking them what is keeping them from doing the work they say they need to do to reach the goals they set for themselves, "what if I do all this and I fail?" Now, I've heard this before; most successful people fear failure. However, what is new here is the "all this" part -- it isn't just "what if I fail" but "what if I fail after I've expended tremendous effort or time."

To each I responded, "and then what? What happens if you did all this and failed."

Common response, "then it would have been a waste of energy/effort/time."

And I'm thinking how is this wasted time different from the time wasted watching tv., posting to facebook, etc.? But I don't say this because such a comment would take them to a different place -- defense or shame -- than where they need to go.

Me: "Ok, then what. You wasted some effort or time, so . . . "

Common responses:
1) So, then I would have failed. If I don't try then I can always hold out hope that if I were willing to spend the effort I might succeed. Whereas if I fail, I'll know the truth is I can't do it. Then, I might not try anything like it again.

2) I'd burn out from all the work. I need to conserve my energy.

3) I wouldn't have fun and if I didn't have fun then my life would be really sad.

In the context of my discussions with these folks -- one of helping them develop the capacity to solve their own problems -- I didn't want to lecture them from my perspective and values on these three responses. For the purposes of this blog, though, I want to ask my readers: what do you think about these three responses? If you were to give advice to these folks, what would it be?

Finally, while the "fear of failure" concern comes up frequently in my coaching work, I'd never heard concerns 2 and 3 before. Both were from people under age 25. Is this a new generation thing? Is there some new fear of over-exertion and lack of fun?

What is meaningful to you at work?

Overhead from an 8th grader's mom: I can't get my son to do any schoolwork. "Why bother, mom", he tells his mother, "I already got into the high school I want to go to."

Well what did she think? Clearly she's taught him that the goal of middle school is to get into a competitive high school. Does she not know that the goal of high school will be to get into a competitive college, then a competitive graduate school. Gee mom, I wonder what he'll do the last semester of high school and college? Learn? Doubt it.

My 7th grader said to me, "I'd rather be in an incredibly difficult chemistry class, working really heard to earn a C but actually learning something, than sitting in this easy class taking my A for doing nothing."

And I felt both pride and a little prickle of fear: if he goes for those high-level classes taught by the self-described "tough graders" maybe he won't get into the top colleges when all the other kids are grabbing the easy A's. On the other hand, he won't feel like a fraud when he does get in: he'll know how hard he worked and he'll know what he learned.

What happens at work? Do we work for the next promotion? Then what? At some point in the vast majority of careers, there is no higher place on that org chart we're going to reach. We either need to start our own business or decide that the work itself is meaningful.

What is meaningful and important to you at work? What do you think is meaningful and important to your children in school?

We are teachers all the time

If you want your team to treat each other with respect, treat everyone with respect. If you want your team to make ethical decisions, make ethical decisions yourself. But be sure the people you're trying to inspire think of you as "like them" in some way. We are all influenced by the behavior of others: if we feel an affinity with you, we'll behave more like you. If we don't, we just might do the opposite. If you hold yourself apart, you may not have the influence you expect to have.

Francesca Gino and Dan Ariely "gave groups of college students from Carnegie Mellon University a series of math problems and paid them based on how many they solved correctly in five minutes." Gino explains in an HBR article, "We hired an actor who made it clear to the other participants that cheating was possible. The actor was asked to wear a plain t-shirt in one condition, and a t-shirt of a rival university in another. When the actor appeared to be a member of the students' community, participants were more likely to cheat than when the actor appeared to be a member of another group. The actor was setting the norm for whether cheating was acceptable."

What you do is reflected in the actions of others.

What does your team see you do? Do you pad your expense account? Do you order more expensive meals at a business lunch than you would order if lunch were on your own dime? Do you squeeze the supplier you know needs the sale just because you can? What does your team learn?

What do your children see you do? Do you take home pads of paper from the office? Do you sneak your short 13-year-old in to movies with a "12 & under discount"? Are you making little cheats on your taxes? What do your children learn?

Trust is critical to any successful team

As Peirre Beaudoin tells McKinsey Quarterly, "if you want to make a change . . . You need the people who are willing to make themselves vulnerable, the people who are willing to learn, to work in teams, to promote the leadership skills that we agree are important."

Trust is the willingness to make oneself vulnerable to another based on one's belief in that other's good intentions and/or competency. Bombardier's successful change effort was moved forward because leaders were willing to accept that vulnerability. He goes on to say that those who couldn't do so were let go, even if they had been top performers. They simply no longer fit the culture.

The company had been one where no one was willing to tell hard truths; things were always "great". Silos were powerful, information sharing was poor. To become a culture where privately held information could bubble up from all levels, leaders had to learn to trust one another. How successful has that turnaround been?

1. "The level of engagement in employee surveys has climbed more than 15 percent since 2004" -- this in a recession!
   
2. "recently named the third most admired and trusted brand in Canada in a survey of consumers; the survey also ranked our workplace second most admired.^4"
   

and for those of you who find #'s 1 and 2 too "soft" how about some hard financial data: Bombardier went :from an EBIT³ margin of 2 or 3 percent to 8 percent, a $500 million improvement."

Ultimately, change takes hard work and a lot of internal trust. Two "soft" things Bombardier has achieved.

Don't underestimate the power of early wins

As John Kotter teaches, if you want to create change in your organization you have to provide opportunities for early wins and then use those early wins to build momentum. In an interview with McKinsey Quarterly, Pierre Beaudoin, CEO of Bombardier explains how they used early wins to persuade those who weren't convinced: "We started by identifying discrete projects that were small enough to show the organization fairly quickly that if we accepted change, we could succeed. There were five or six. Once these were working, we could take the doubters to see them, and the employees who had been involved in the successes could talk to the others. We believed that if we could involve about 30 percent of the organization that transformed in this way, the ideas would catch on in the whole organization."

When working toward a major change such as that implemented by Bombardier, the organization must have specific, measurable, relevant, timelined and achievable yet challenging goals. Achievable so that you feel confident you'll get those early wins, yet challenging or your detractors will say, "of course they achieved that goal; it was easy."

Groups, and therefore organizations, find themselves in upward, virtuous spirals or downward vicious spirals. An early win can be the push upward. An early loss does not have to push downward; leaders must be quick to identify and communicate what went wrong and plan to overcome the challenge. Then, as the saying goes, try, try again. Create a new stretch goal, and ensure success on which you can build momentum.

Need a little tiger management too!

Okay dammit, lead from the front already.

Perhaps I've pushed this lead from behind concept too much? Last night my grad students "climbed Everest" (via Harvard B. School Publishing's simulation). Because I assign roles in advance of class, leaders are predetermined (the teams don't get to choose their leaders).

Unlike my undergrad leaders, who seemed to completely lack the ability to lead from behind and yanked their team up the mountain whether they wanted to go or not (some team members have hidden goals to stay at lower camps -- a setup in the simulation), the leaders last night seemed to be working so hard to be nice, neither got a single member to the top!

These students attended my management course and are now in a more advanced leadership course. In the management course I taught them to listen to and coach their teams. But I thought I balanced that with meeting organization and personal goals. One has to listen: honor direct reports' goals while ensuring surfacing hidden information. Then one must make a decision or, if using a participative management style, ensure the team makes the decision based on fully-available information and with full awareness and understanding that some individual goals will not be met. By struggling to ensure each teammember met his individual goals, neither leader came close to meeting group goals.

What about you? Have you figured out how to be the right mix of tiger and participative manager?

We need Nelson Mandela now

Nelson Mandela said: "a leader is like a shepherd … he stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go on ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind."

Many business consultants and writers encourage leaders to lead from the front. The reality is, most leaders already do this. We need to get leaders to take a facilitator's role at least some of the time. Develop the most "nimble" to lead by letting them lead while you provide necessary support and resources. Get out of the way of your best people.

Matthew Alexander, author of Kill or Capture, is on NPR right now talking about his role as a Senior US Interrogator in Iraq. He says something important to all of us -- managers, leaders, parents, and citizens: the number one thing that prevents getting good information is stereotypes. When interrogators stereotyped Arabs or Muslims, they took the wrong approach or couldn't establish the trust necessary to form the relationship that would encourage the Taliban member in front of them to share critical information.

For example, if you believe that all Muslims are anti-US, then you are unlikely to look for areas where you share likes and dislikes. Alexander used these connections to develop trust that eventually leads to the capture of senior Taliban.

By the same token, if you assume all lower-level employees care only about their paycheck or have no loyalty to your organization, you won't look for ways to enable commitment that do not involve compensation. If you believe that they're all stupid, you are unlikely to search for underlying causes for specific challenges your organization faces, and therefore you'll be far less likely to solve those challenges sustainably. And if you believe your children only want things, you are unlikely to form relationships with them that will lead to their self-development.

What stereotypes get in your way to being a great manager, leader or parent?

Management lessons from the 4th grade

In the car today my sons talked about being a safety in fourth grade: safeties are responsible for ensuring children entering and leaving the building before and after school get to their car/bus safely. Here's what my guys had to say:

1. Captains and lieutenants seemed to have been chosen randomly – and because they were in the position for the full trimester, no one ever got a chance to earn the position
2. Captains and lieutenants were given the combination to the safety locker (where badges were kept), which led the other safeties to feel as though the school didn’t trust them. Why not give the code to all the safeties?, they asked.
   
3. Some safeties seemed to abuse the position, as in, when a safety would do something wrong and another child threatened to tell, the safety might say, “you can’t do that, I’m a safety” as if being a safety granted him/her immunity.
4. Because everyone became a safety eventually, the kids who were safeties in the last trimester knew they only got chosen because they were left over. And more, this did not demonstrate that school officials saw you as especially capable or dependable, thereby diminishing the honor.

Now I’d like not to get into the debate about how American sports and schools give everyone an award for showing up, but I would like to see how we can take this 4^th grade view of the world and apply it to management and leadership:

1. Are your team leads chosen carefully, with input from the full team? Does your company have specific promotional plans clarifying expectations and ensuring that all employees both have a chance for advancement as well as a chance not to advance? When a promotion is made, is the choice explained well and using more than one medium (or do you rely on the mass email: “congrats to so ‘n so, chosen for his such ‘n such”)?
2. Do your employees experience themselves as being trusted? If not, can you expect them to trust you?
3. Do you have systems in place to ensure that team leads use their positions well? Remember: Power corrupts. So does the lack of power. When abusive power leads to powerlessness, corruption spills over into business processes and eventually the bottom line.
4. Do you provide meaningful opportunities for development, growth, and achievement? People are motivated by different things – some by challenge, others by esteem, and so on. Managers must provide a variety of outcomes to ensure all employees have the opportunity to self-motivate.

What does your 4th grader have to say about management and leadership?

Have you created spaces where hunches can collide?

Steven Johnson tells us that great ideas take years to come to fruition during which hunches incubate and collide with other hunches. Today's managers have to create spaces to allow for both of these. By now you've heard about Google's 20% time (when everyone gets one day a week to work on whatever they want) and another company's (sorry forgot the name) 24 hour period where they work on whatever they want and how these "time off" periods have led to some of these companies' most profitable products or most critical fixes to serious glitches.

It seems as though I have so much work that has to get done in so little time, as does everyone working for me and with me, that I don't know how to give up (or at least it feels like giving up) a day of work.

But beyond incubation time, let's think about the "how" of the colliding hunches. Most of the people with whom I work I rarely see F-2-F. So, how do we create spaces for the collision of hunches when we rarely share a cup of coffee and debate ideas? I've been polishing my virtual management / teamwork skills and I've come to realize that sometimes we have to meet synchronously and visually. Skype is nice because it's cheap, although the slight time delay is awkward. Perhaps we can have a Skype coffee?

Ideas anyone?