Talented Employees Need Great Managers
However, we need to go back to the third choice and re-examine the phrase, “If you can’t change your team, change your team.” Understanding that the default choice is to fire and hire, i.e. the later half of the phrase, this happens because most managers and front line supervisors do not have the mindset or the skill set to actually do the first half of the phrase in a successful manner, namely “change the team.” When I have talked with managers and front line supervisors about how they are attempting to change their team or a member of their team, the typical response is “I told them to do it and they haven’t done it right yet,” or “I have to tell them everything and I just don’t have enough time in my schedule to track their job and my job.” So, in this situation, firing and hiring seems like a logical choice.
For me, I have to take a deep breath when encountering this kind of mindset, because it reflects something that most senior leaders do not want to discuss. As Rodd Wagner and James K. Harter wrote in their book, 12: The Elements of Great Managing which is the sequel to the book, First, Break All The Rules, “Before a person can deliver what he should as a manager, he must first receive what he needs as an employee.” What most senior managers don’t understand is that talented employees need great managers. And if I encounter a manager or front line supervisor, who instantly wants to fire and hire a new person when a problem occurs, I am certain that this individual is not getting the management and coaching that they need in order to be a successful manager or front line supervisor. As Wagner and Harter explain, “The managers who are best at getting the most from people are those who give the most to them.” And I believe many managers and front line supervisors are not getting what they need from those who supervise them.
Three Critical Actions
Now, if a manager or front line supervisor is receiving adequate and helpful supervision and coaching, they must understand the difference between these three actions, namely supervision, coaching, and a check-in. Supervision is classically defined in the following manner: to observe, direct or oversee in the execution of a task, project or activity Coaching, on the other hand, is a structured dialogue and development process to improve the professional competence to execute. Finally, Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall in their book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World, (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019), define a check-in as “a frequent, one to one conversation about near-term future work between a team leader and a team member.” This check-in is based on “two simple questions: What are your priorities this week? How can I help?.”
Nine times out of ten, when I have been called in to work with a situation where a manager or front line supervisor wants to fire and hire, I discover that this individual does not actually do adequate supervision, coaching, or check-ins. They often do “seagull management,” a term coined many years ago by Ken Blanchard, namely an individual flys in when a situation is nearly out of control, offers thoughtless solutions and ample dumping on people in the form of shame or blame, and then flys off, leaving all involved confused, stressed out, and perplexed about how to clean up the entire mess.
Furthermore, if they are doing some form of supervision, more often than not they are not doing any form of coaching. They just stop what they are doing and tell their direct report how to solve their current problems, assuming that all of this communication is understandable and applicable. And yet, most of the time, these direct reports do not have the skill set, positional power, or the mindset to execute the solutions that the supervisor offers. So, the result is failure in management and supervision, and failure in execution by the direct report. Then, when this happens, the manager’s default choice is to fire and hire someone new.
When we step back from this default choice in order to step forward from clarity, we need to understand that changing out an individual or a team should be the last choice, not the first choice in the face of uncertainty and drama. Instead, we need to engage in some vital and important work at the manager and direct report level. This begins by doing three things.
Understand The Daily Struggle
First, managers need to understand that most employees struggle at work on a daily basis. Patrick Lencioni in his book,. The Truth About Employee Engagement: A Fable About Addressing the Three Root Causes of Job Misery, formerly called The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (and their employees) (Jossey-Bass 2007), writes that “People cannot be fulfilled in their work if they are not known; Everyone needs to know that their job matters, to someone; Employees need to be able to gauge their progress and level of contribution for themselves.” When I find a struggling manager or front line supervisor, I often find someone who does not really know their direct reports, someone who can not articulate how their direct reports’ work impacts others and why their work is important, and someone who has not helped their direct reports assess their own progress or success. In short, as Lencioni notes, “people want to be managed as people, not as mere workers.” And the first step is that managers and front line supervisors need to become better managers and front line supervisors before their direct reports can execute better.
Second, managers and front line supervisors need to understand that most of their direct reports do not know what is expected of them when it comes to work. Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in their seminal book, First, Break All The Rules: What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently (Simon & Schuster, 1999), write that a manager’s role is to be a “catalyst,” i.e. to “speed up the reaction between the employee’s talents and the company’s goals, and between the employee’s talents and the customer’s needs.” This starts by understanding that “each individual is true to his or her own unique nature. Therefore, a “great managers capitalize on this and try to help each person become more and more of who they already are.” They understand that “people don’t change that much. Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.” As part of building on their unique talents and strengths, managers need to clarify performance expectations and to define the right outcomes, not the right steps.
Furthermore, they need to remember these three numbers: 40%, 22%, and 1%. Tom Rath in his book, StrengthsFinder 2.0 (Gallup Press, February 2007), shares the following: “If your manager primarily ignores you, your chances of being actively disengaged are 40%. If your manager primarily focuses on your weaknesses, your chances of being actively disengaged are 22%. If your manager primarily focuses on your strengths, your chances of being actively disengaged are 1%.” The problem, from my perspective, is that many managers and front line supervisors, who default to the fire and hire option, do not realize that their primary form of supervision is to ignore people, or to tell them what they are doing wrong. And the inevitable outcome of this is active disengagement, i.e. poor execution, drama, and people not meeting expectations or delivering on outcomes.
Third, managers and front line supervisors need to engage in proactive and regular supervision, coaching, and check-ins. This should happen daily and weekly. In particular, during the regular weekly check- in, the manager should ask the aforementioned two questions, i.e. “What are your priorities this week? How can I help?” are . Furthermore, the manager needs to help people understand the difference between a priority and a goal. Both are important and people will be held accountable for accomplishing them.
Clarify Priorities And Goals
From my experience of being called in to figure out why a person or team is not doing well, I routinely found that all involved could not state what was a priority, what were their goals, and what were the basic operational expectations, e.g. work as one team, or communicate with positive intent. Instead, I discovered confusion and/or complete misalignment between what the supervisor thought was most important and the direct report thought was most important. Through thoughtful dialogue and clarification, often these problems could be solved and people began moving in a positive direction based on clarity and trust.
Nevertheless, if in the end of doing the above three things, people are still not achieving the desired outcomes, I believe that changing out the team or an individual is a reasonable choice. As executive coach Kevin Cashman pointed out many years ago, “Leaders get what they role model and what they tolerate.” If, over time, a manager or front line supervisor tolerates drama in the midst of uncertainty, this is going generate three problems, namely the growth of this behavior by others, paralysis in action, or ultimately the failure at a team, division or company level. None of these are the desired outcomes that all involved want to take place. Still, they are possibilities if we can not figure out how to change an individual or team over the long haul.
Stay With A Problem Longer
As we deal with the current VUCA environment and the rise of uncertainty in the face drama, I am reminded of something Einstein shared: “It’s not that I am so smart. It’s that I stay with a problem longer.” I think this is the true challenge for leaders at all levels of an organization. They just want all the problems to go away. Therefore, they choose quick fire options rather than sustainable solutions. In short, they choose comfort over courage, and as a result, the problems and challenges persist.
Nevertheless, we can create long term workable solutions if we “stay with a problem longer.” First, we need to focus on keeping calm on the inside in the face of these challenges, to set boundaries, and get support in order to maintain perspective. Second, we need to generate Kotter’s planned short term wins that “energize the change helpers, enlighten the pessimists, defuse the cynics, and build momentum for the effort.” Third, before defaulting to fire and hire, we need to apply Collin’s “First Who, then what” mindset as a rigorous discipline, consistently applied. Fourth, we need to remember Wagner and Harter’s perspective that “before a person can deliver what he should as a manager, he must first receive what he needs as an employee.” All managers and front line supervisors need to have great managers in order to be great managers. Finally, we need to engage in proactive and regular supervision, coaching, and check-ins, plus clarifying priorities and goals.
The convergence of the above elements will make a huge difference, and is the foundation to flipping the current VUCA environment into a time of vision, understanding, clarity, and agility. Yet, the poet Mark Nepo reminds us of one last important point: “To be broken is no reason to see all things broken.” We are all challenged by current events and we all feel overwhelmed by the difficulties before us. Nevertheless, we need to recognize that not everything is broken around us and within us. We do have choices, and we can make choices when dealing with uncertainty in the face of drama. And the first step is to heal ourselves and to regain our center in the midst of it all. Then, we will see that not all things are broken, and we can build a new way of working together. This is the path way to sustainable and engaged change.
© Geery Howe 2024
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