Improving Front Line Supervisors Effectiveness - part #2

Last Monday, we began exploring how to improve front line supervision.  When ever this topic surfaces, we need to remember The Law of the Whole, namely that change in one part influences and changes all other parts. 

Our goal as a leader is to help front line supervisors to achieve clarity in the following three areas, namely role clarity and definition, individual and team expectations, and organizational systems, processes and metrics. We also need  to remember that if we change any of these three things, we have impacted, if not changed, the other two. We also have to realize that our understanding of each of these three things might not be the same as the supervisor, their direct reports, or the customers.  Therefore, we need to spend more time creating clarity rather than simply telling supervisors what to do.

Furthermore, Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (and their employees), Jossey-Bass 2007, wrote that there are three core problems that many people experience at work. They are as follows:

- Anonymity: People cannot be fulfilled in their work if they are not known.

- Irrelevance: Everyone needs to know that their job matters, to someone.

- Immeasurement: Employees need to be able to gauge their progress and level of contribution for themselves.

Whenever, I read this list, written by Lencioni in 2007, I think back to what James Belasco and Ralph C. Stayer wrote much earlier in their book, Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring To Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead (Time Warner, 1994). These two authors believed that creating the environment for ownership and responsibility was mission critical to success. The foundation of this environment revolved around four key concepts:

- Transfer ownership for work to those who execute the work.

- Create the environment for ownership where each person wants to be responsible for his/her own performance.

- Coach the development of individual capability and competence.

- Learn fast.

When it comes to improving front line supervision, the above list is a great place to start.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Improving Front Line Supervisors Effectiveness - part #1

During past From Vision to Action Executive Roundtables, we have discussed the roles, responsibilities and challenges of senior leadership and middle management. At the Spring 2012 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable, those gathered also discussed the roles, responsibilities and challenges of being a front line supervisor.

In the beginning, we have to ask a simple but important question: How many of us remember being a front line supervisor? As senior executives, we, at times, forget that front line supervisors are dealing with entry level staff, the people who make the brand real, and often the people with the least experience. We also forget how hard and frustrating this work can be on a day to day basis. We can even forget the struggles to manage the people and the diversity of systems that are constantly changing.

The first step to improving front line supervisors’ effectiveness is to remember what they are actually expected to do each day. Here is a short list:

- keep people safe

- focus people on the work that needs to be done

- build and maintain a team

- teach people what they need to need to know

- reward good outcomes and behaviors

- balance the needs of the company vs. the needs of their direct reports

On top of the above, we also need to remember that many front line supervisors are often supervising their former peers!

Given the current economy and the speed of desired change in many companies through out the country, we have to add to the above list these “new” expectations:

- clarify direction, expectations, and what is non-negotiable

- make the right decisions

- participate on teams over which they have no control and little influence

- do performance management including coaching and employee evaluations

- participate in hiring and orientation

- maintain boundaries with former peers related to HR issues

- handle complaints

All of a sudden the job of a front line supervisor starts to look like the job that many mid-level managers were expected to do 10 to 15 years ago. In this economy, more and more senior leaders need to realize that the expectations of front line supervisor are becoming more complex and difficult than they were many years ago.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Building a Learning Organization - part #2

David Ulrich and Norm Smallwood in their article called “Building a Leadership Brand”,  in the July-August 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review, ask a most unusual and thought-provoking question: What do you want to be know for by your customers? They then follow up with another wonderful question: To achieve that brand identity, what leadership and management skills do people need to know?

As we explored earlier this week, more and more organizations need to become learning organizations in order to be more competitive and more flexible in this time of constant uncertainty and volatility in the markets. However, I believe there are five challenges to this process that few executives are recognizing.

First, many people forget that learning is a dangerous activity. It challenges status quo by calling into question many core practices and systems. Furthermore, in-depth learning can cause the organization’s “immune system” to shut down or discount any new ideas because it again calls into question core assumptions or methods of working.

Second, once an organization does commit to learning new ways of doing things, it must realize that there will always be more than one way to achieve a particular outcome. However, right now, I am witnessing more and more senior teams stuck debating whether or not there is only one right technique and only one right way to do something. We as leaders and learners need to understand that there will always be many paths to the same destination. Part of becoming a learning organization is to educate people to make smarter choices and better decisions along those paths.

Third, part of becoming a learning organization is to build learning communities more than hierarchies of control. Collaboration over individualization, i.e. me first and looking out for #1, requires us to have common language and commit to the overall success of the company. The best learning communities that I have seen are mission centric learning communities.

Fourth, we, as leaders and learners must realize that the more important a relationship and the more time spent developing that relationship to a greater degree of understanding and “health”, then the less skill matters. I have witnessed and understand that building these relationships is as vital as the content that is being learned. It takes healthy relationships and healthy learning to become a learning organization.

Fifth, the more experienced and constantly learning a manager or leader is, the more likely they trust their gut or intuition. Never under estimate the value of years of experience and perspective. It molds people and provides for them an internal sense of what to do. These kinds of managers and leaders often look to the people on the ground, not outside experts, for real improvements.

When we commit to becoming a learning organization, we commit to a wonderful process of in-depth reflection and re-evaluation, and new perspectives.  

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Building a Learning Organization - part #1

“When both the destination and current reality are clear, and the staged objectives have been defined,” writes Judy Rosenblum, an advisor at Duke Corporate Education, “managers next need to answer the question: “What does the organization need to be able to do to execute the strategy and reach the destination?” 

Individual competencies refer to a specific person’s knowledge and skills required to fulfill specific role requirements.  

Organizational capabilities are collective abilities of the firm required to execute the business strategy.  

Even the most brilliant strategy will not succeed if the firm lacks the organizational capability to execute it. It is striking how much time is spent in corporate business planning on “what we are going to do” and “what that will do for growth and profit” and how little time is spent on “what we have to be able to do” in order to make any of it happen.” 

The development of capability becomes an integral part of the plan as the manager thinks about what has to happen in terms of people, process, knowledge, measurement and environment for the strategy to be executed.” 

When building a learning organization, start by understanding how different people learn. We explored this topic at the Fall 2010 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable. As we all know, people learn in different ways, and no one has a better learning style than anyone else. Basically, there are three types of learning: Analyzing learners, Doing learners, and Watching learners. The Analyzer understands a task by taking it apart, examining its elements, and reconstructing it piece by piece. They craves information, and needs to know all there is to know before they are comfortable with it. The best way to teach them is with ample classroom time and post-mortem through analysis. These learners do like mistakes and do not like to wing it. On the other hand , Doers learn best by throwing themselves into in a new situation and just going for it. Analyzers learns before something happens; Doers learns during the actual event. For them, mistakes are the raw material for learning. Finally, Watchers learn through imitation. They need to see the total performance done by the most experienced performers. 

To understand how people learn on your team, ask the following questions: When in your career do you think you were learning the most? Why did you learn so much? What’s the best way for you to learn? For more information, I recommend reading the following book: Buckingham, Marcus. The One Thing You Need to Know ... About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success, Free Press, 2005.

Also, remember that there is a difference between proficiency and learning. Learners are not proficient as experts. If you want to get better at something “new” or “different,” then you need to pay the price for people to become proficient. However, many leaders and managers are truly afraid to make mistakes. Still, learning means making mistakes and tolerating people who fail. Recognizing that a learner is a beginner and not very good the first couple of times around, we must realize that orderly work environments do not support people who make mistakes. Therefore, we must focus on and consider the implications if a work environment is filled with fear or disrespect. Learning is difficult even in the best environment.

Finally, we as leaders most focus on “better than”, not optimal when it comes to performance and learning. We must send the message that our job is to do something today that's better than what we did yesterday. And to do something tomorrow that's better than what we did today. Learning is always a challenge. Having the support of a great leader makes a world of difference.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Maintaining Operational Excellence During Constant Change

“Do you ever coach more than one person in an organization?” the CEO asked me during our morning coaching session. 

“Often,” I responded. “Why do you ask?”

“I have this guy who runs one of our divisions who is really good with the customer, really good with quality but he is old school and not so good with people. 30% turnover is the norm in that division. We need to improve that and get better.”

“Yes,” I nodded. “And then you will have to balance constant change with constant improvement. This will not be easy.”

Years ago, in an early session of the From Vision to Action Leadership Training, a former agriculture salesman shared a simple truth with me, “the bigger the burger, the bigger the bun.” Right now, the burger, i.e the moment of truth when a customer engages with your products and services, is more important than ever. Therefore, we need to look at the bun, namely the four pillars that support the burger, i.e. people structure, systems and culture.

As we all know, change can come in two basic forms: doing things better or doing things differently. However, the majority of operational excellence is focused on maintaining SOP, which means doing things the same. As leaders, we at times forget that there are a lot of systems and infra-structure engaged in this level of work. We also forget that real change requires real effort. And today in companies all over the globe, most of the effort is focused on maintaining order rather than making things better or different.

Now the common solution to this situation is to generate SMART Goals, i.e. specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound goals. However from my vantage point, the real solution is to translate SMART Goals into SMART Execution. 

First, there is an assumption related to SMART Goals and operational excellence, namely that all SMART goals are owned and understood by those who are going to do the work rather than imposed by those who manage the work. From what I hear and see, ownership is low right now and imposition by external forces to do better and be more profitable is high and getting higher. For SMART Goals to become SMART Execution, we must have ownership. 

Second, SMART Execution assumes a leader, manager or supervisor is actively involved in monitoring and coaching someone on their progress related to the SMART Goals. Right now there are few good coaches and fewer people who are committed to do it. When time becomes pressurized by operational problem solving, then coaching falls by the wayside. For SMART Execution to take place, coaching is a non-negotiable. Every one must do it and participate in it on a regular basis.

As SMART Execution takes place, we need to realize that other people’s perceptions may take time to change. As we all know, each of us carries preconceived notions of other people and other departments. We are often prejudiced by experience and information. When SMART Execution takes place, we need to understand that changing perceptions takes time and awareness. Often people during constant change are not very aware as much as just coping. 

Furthermore, the more things change, the more things stay the same which is a problem during SMART Execution. Few people plan for distractions, competing goals or the proverbial “once in a lifetime” short-term profit opportunities to appear, but they do show up and it does happen. 

At the same time, few people plan and invest time and energy into the maintenance element of what ever they are seeking to change. Remember the line: If you build it, they will come. From my perspective, go ahead and build it but also remember to have dollars set aside for re-shingling the roof, fixing the toilet and providing three good meals a day. 

For many leaders, the fun is in the building of the SMART Goals. But wise people know that there is more to life than just building new goals. Someone must move from creating the goals to executing them. SMART Execution may not always be glamorous but the discipline of SMART Execution is the foundation to sustainability and excellence.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

The Strategic Mindset and Operational Excellence

Routinely now, I tell leaders to embrace a strategic mindset, and commit to operational excellence. While this is a challenging action, the first step in this process is to truly comprehend this passage from James Belasco and Ralph Stayer’s book called Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring to Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead (Time Warner, 1994). As they write: 

“The primary purpose of strategic planning is not to strategically plan for the future, although that's an important purpose of the exercise.  It is primarily to develop the strategic management mind-set in each and every individual in the organization. The purpose of the process is not only to produce a plan. It is to produce a plan that will be owned and understood by the people who have to execute it.”

Peter Fuda and Richard Badham understood the concept of a strategic mindset when they wrote their article called “Fur, Snowball, Mask, Movie: How Leaders Spark and Sustain Change” in the November 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review. As they explained: “... Leadership transformation is deeply dependent on context. Everyone follows his own path, has her own story. The key for people who are seeking transformation is to identify the common thread in the experience of others who have achieved success and absorb the insights they find.” To do this, leaders need to understand what is the current context and to reflect on the adaptive problems and challenges that are driving context inside and outside of their organization. Furthermore, they need to understand the technical problems that are impacting SOP if they are to commit to operational excellence.

In essence, to embrace both elements of the above, we need to realize that the most effective leaders are able to tolerate and then utilize to their advantage the “genius of the and,” a concept first put forth by Jim Collins and Jerry Poras in their book, Built To Last.  When they do this, they develop an awareness and understanding of how the two concepts, strategic mind set and operational excellence, dynamically interact, recognizing that this level of understanding and clarity builds ownership for change. They know that ownership is growing in their organization when there is clarity about the why? factor and the why now? factor.

Still, people often ask me what is operational excellence. I always refer them back to the work of Tom Peters. He views operational excellence as a workplace philosophy where problem solving, teamwork and leadership result in on-going improvements or continuos improvements in the organization. In particular, this means all involved focus on meeting customer needs, continual evaluation and optimization of current work place activities, and the development of an engaged work force, i.e. positive and empowered.  

This week, I encourage you to ponder how well you are monitoring context and excellence in your organization. Both are critical to your short and long term success.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Leadership and Communication

Every week, I spend time with leaders discussing communication and communication related problems. Be it in a one to one executive coaching session, or group meeting, I guarantee you that the subject of leadership and communications will surface during our time together. After much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that the more we communicate as leaders, the less we understand.

During the first session of the From Vision to Action Leadership Training, I ask the group to read the following article: “The Leader of the Future” by William C. Taylor, Fast Company magazine - June 1999. In it, Ron Heiftz states, “leaders die with their mouths open.” This spring I have seen more leaders with their mouths open and their brains on overload.

Here is an exercise to see whether or not this is happening to you. On one side of a 3x5 card, write down what is most important about your entire company. On the other side, write down what is most important about what you do. 

Many people when confronted with this exercise just sit and stare at the 3x5 card, wondering what to write. Others quickly want a bigger card. Some write paragraphs of information in tiny handwriting. They key is to have an answer that is clear and concise.

After you have done this exercise yourself, then ask the following two questions during your next five coaching sessions:

- What do you do?

- What do you do that matters the most?

Your answers on the 3x5 card and their answers should have some degree of alignment if you hope to be successful during the coming 18-24 months. Otherwise, key information is not understood and not getting passed along to others clearly.

Another thing that is important in the world of leadership and communication is the ability to listen and to understand before being understood. Stephen Covey told us this years ago and some leaders are still practicing it. In order to improve communications this spring, seek input from different people and value different perspectives. Authentic listening is a powerful form of communication.

Next, realize the difference between words and actions. On one hand, words are about talking and the other is about doing. But the difficulty for many young leaders and many people new to the world of leadership, particularly senior leadership, is for them to realize that Words = Actions. Words convey commitments and thus equal actions when you become a leader. Furthermore, actions may only be seen by a few people in a large company, but words are heard and can impact many people in a large company.

This week be more mindful when you are listening and more aware that when you lead, your words are part of your actions.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257