All Posts in Organizational Effectiveness

|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

I hate making dumb mistakes in this column, but make ’em I do. In a recent column on technical architecture, I described LU2 as IBM’s peer-to-peer protocol and LU6.2 as handling 3270 terminal sessions.

That is, of course, exactly backward, as a few of you kindly pointed out. The good news is that nobody yells at me when I make mistakes like this. The bad news is that far too many people, faced with a choice between owning up to a mistake and burying it deep, will choose burial in an unmarked grave rather than dealing with a bullying boss.

Following my recent column on bosses who rule by fear, lots of you wrote to ask how I learned the innermost details of your situations. Don’t worry — I don’t have a platoon of secret Ninja informants faithfully reporting to me. Having seen a few organizations run by bully bosses, I’ve seen them all.

Although my advice — find a better job — was just fine for someone on the receiving end of a bullying boss, it didn’t do much to help you prevent the problem in your own organization or to catch and fix it when it happens.

So here’s a practical program to keep fear out of your organization. It will work, so long as you sincerely want to create a great workplace:

1. Set the right tone: Model good leadership. Your leadership team will, for the most part, mimic your style.

2. Training: Hold regular one-day off-site sessions. Work through real-world scenarios, perhaps with role-playing exercises. Explore each scenario in depth. If you think your team ends up with the wrong conclusion, let them know your expectations. That’s called leadership. Disagreeing with your initial conclusion doesn’t make your team wrong, though. Learn from your team while you’re leading it.

3. Create communication channels: Make it easy for employees to tell you about problem managers. Establish an open-door policy. Meet employees for off-site breakfasts if they seem concerned over repercussions. Be open, friendly, casual, and available — don’t hide behind an imposing office and a big desk. Set up a Suggestion Box. Discourage anonymous messages — it’s too easy to stuff a ballot box — but treat signed messages as confidential whenever an employee requests it. Make sure employees can go to your boss if they have complaints about you — you aren’t perfect either, and you have to live under the same rules as the rest of your leadership team. Remind employees of their options frequently — not because “I want to spot bad managers,” but because “We want this to be a great place to work and I want to know where we can improve.”

4. Monitor turnover: Excessive turnover is an obvious warning sign. A manager who explains that “We’re better off without that employee,” is a bigger warning sign. Hold exit interviews. If possible, conduct them yourself; otherwise make sure exit interviews are with a senior member of your leadership team outside the departing employee’s reporting structure. Do not delegate this to HR — this is your job.

5. Give bad managers a chance to improve: A chance, not lots of chances. Let the problem manager know, in clear and precise terms, that you won’t put up with dysfunctional leadership behavior and that unemployment is the most likely outcome. Provide training if it’s needed, too.

When you’ve identified a bad manager, you need to take corrective action and monitor progress. This is the trickiest part, because the manager’s team must be told something, but not something that undermines the manager’s authority. That would eliminate any chance of success.

You’re best off if your manager describes a new approach to leadership to his or her team without having to acknowledge and apologize for past behavior. He or she is trying something different and has asked you to personally help monitor progress, explaining why you’ll be personally meeting with each team member periodically for a while.

You won’t satisfy employees who want retribution through this process. Retribution, though, is simply another layer of fear.

That’s what you’re trying to get rid of, remember?

Comments

|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

Two lawsuits further demonstrate how much some practitioners of law are willing to debase their profession.

In the first, a glamor photographer brought suit against a Web site because it contained a link to another site, which in turn linked to a third site that had illegally published one of his photographs. The judge wisely dismissed the suit.

In the second, an attorney brought a class-action suit against Intuit for damages its customers might experience in the future should it not provide them with a fix for year-2000 problems in older versions of Quicken. The courts found in favor of Intuit, figuring no lawsuit should precede experience of damage.

In both cases the courts made the right decision, but only after the court system accepted a ridiculous suit in the first place. How hard can it be to institute a screening mechanism to prevent this clutter?

Clearly, we rely excessively on a single tool — the law — to resolve disputes. Legal action has replaced scolding, public humiliation, sending to the principal’s office, sarcasm, slaps in the face, lecturing, telling Mommy, and working together to resolve our differences in far too many situations.

Anytime someone relies excessively on a single tool it’s unhealthy, whether they’re using a spreadsheet to write memos, Cobol to write expert systems, a lawnmower to trim hedges, or lawsuits to handle … well, most of what lawsuits are being used for these days.

As a manager, you’re susceptible to the same syndrome — the use of a single tool to handle all situations. Perhaps it’s the threat of termination (remember how often George Steinbrenner fired Billy Martin?). Or maybe you give compliments too freely, expecting a constant flow of praise to energize your staff regardless of their actual performance. Whatever the tool, overuse will blunt it, and using it for the wrong job will ruin it for the right one.

As a manager you have a wide variety of tools at your disposal: encouragement, private warnings, public reprimands, one-on-one coaching, spot bonuses, raises, the cookie penalty, team-building events … the list is, if not endless, at least very long. Just for giggles, make a list of every one you can think of. Then estimate how many times you’ve used each of them in the past year.

I’m guessing you’ve ignored most of them … you’re in a rut.

The next time you’re faced with a “management opportunity” take a moment to plan:

1. Define the problem: What exactly are you trying to solve? Imagine your boss is challenging you, and you have to explain why it’s an issue. Too often, what managers are really trying to solve is, “I don’t like it.” Make sure you’re clear on what the problem is.

2. Define your goals: What constitutes a solution or resolution? Remember, the proper sequence isn’t “Ready … Fire!” If you don’t take a moment to define your goals you’re skipping “Aim”. At times, this means deciding whether you’re going to do what’s best for the company or for yourself. If, for example, you have a talented but insubordinate employee, you have to decide if your goal is to salvage the employee or to get rid of him. Salvaging may be best for the company — this is a talented individual, after all — but getting rid of him maybe the best choice for you since it eliminates a distraction and clearly establishes some boundaries for everyone else.

3. Choose the tool best suited to achieving your goals: Once you’ve defined your goal, choosing a good tool is pretty easy. Since we’re getting you out of a rut, though, choose a tool you haven’t used for a while … or ever. Don’t choose something completely alien to your nature, of course. We’re expanding your range, not turning you into a phony.

Back when I taught people to use software I’d advise them to learn one new technique with every project as a way of painlessly building a big bag o’tricks. It’s just a good an idea when it comes to improving as a manager.

Comments