Episode 3 | Hair on Fire Managers - Part 2
In this cast hair on fire managers, part two, have you seen them? The managers that when you ask them how they're doing, I'm so busy, have you seen them in your business? Undoubtedly, you have, because they're everywhere managers that seem to always have too much to do and not enough time to do it. In our previous cast, we explored the primary reason why this is the case. And we looked specifically at the fact that many managers simply don't know how to solve problems to root cause. And if you don't solve a problem to root cause what's going to happen, the problem's going to come back. Only this time. It to be worse, because you've probably told your customer, you fixed it only you haven't the problem wasn't really resolved. They just put a bandaid on it that they need to learn to solve problems.
We need to be able to pose the right problem. So that we can drill to root cause and then apply solutions that actually work. I was thinking about that response as I listened to the cast during editing and I realized that there's another important reason why managers are so busy. And I want to address that now. And it really is this. They don't know how to prioritize in the first place. Oh my gosh. I've seen managers like this all the time. They're like chicken, little, this sky's falling. The sky's falling. They're running around trying to get all kinds of stuff done, but they really don't know what the priorities are. So they're working on the wrong things.
They simply have no clear sense of priority. When I think about established businesses, there's a series of KPIs or key performance indicators lagging indicators that tell you how you're doing. And I think it's important that we remember these and honestly, C P Q R S are the big five. As far as I'm concerned, C for cost P for productivity, Q for quality R for revenue and S for safety. Now I put them in that order because it's alphabetical, but realistically it probably goes the other way. S R Q P C. And those of you that are hung up on the productivity one, and you think that that's the most important one. Um, if you don't put Safety Revenue and Quality first, you're not going to have a anything to produce.
So we need to recognize these five are interdependent. If you're on the operational side of a business, you probably don't deal with the revenue piece. So then you just have the four of safety, quality, productivity, and cost, but make no mistake. These are the big five in any business. And the question is, do all of your direct report managers understand their role in achieving those five KPIs or four? If they're on the operational side, chances are they don't. Chances are they're acting in such a way where they're saying safety's the most important value in our company and our performance there is crucial. And then they'll go out and make decisions that put productivity over safety. This is something you need to address. if you don't make safety as important as if not more so than productivity managers deeper in the business will act in such a way as to create unsafe conditions. It's just, it's a fact I've seen it. So are your managers, your direct reports Are they acting in accordance with the organizational values? Are they acting in accordance with what's most important? It's a very big question.
Now let's assume that you understand what those KPIs are and you have targets for each of them. You know, you don't want to have any injuries or any recordables, any lost time. You know, that you want to hit certain productivity targets. You know, that you want to hit certain quality targets, cost targets. You want to hit certain revenue targets. The most important thing that you can do as a senior manager is during your one-on-ones have a conversation with your direct report managers and ask them, first of all, do they understand the priorities of those KPIs? And second, do they know how to hit them?
I'll never forget a moment. I was a quality manager many years ago, and a colleague of mine was an operations manager. His unit was underperforming. And I went up to him at the beginning of the year, because it was the December, January time frame when we're setting goals for the, the upcoming year. And I said to him, so and so I just want to let you know that my entire team is at your disposal. It's really important to us that we support you in making sure that your quality and your productivity KPIs get back to standard. I want to know what projects you've got planned. My team will, will join the projects and do everything on our power to help you succeed. This manager looked at me and said “projects?”, and I thought O M G, this guy has no idea. He has no idea.
He thinks he's going to pour some magical fufu to over top of his process, by making it important and stressing the importance of quality and productivity. That everything's going to be fine. What he doesn't realize is that he was actually relying on something called the Hawthorne effect where what, what a manager pays attention to must be important. So the employees pay extra attention to it as well. The problem with the Hawthorne effect though, is folks that once you take your eye off the ball and you, you walk away and that particular KPI is no longer demonstrated important by your actions and your behave year. What do you think happens to performance? The employees see that they were hoodwinked, that they were manipulated. And if anything, performance goes lower than it was before you made the effort. No guys, there is no magical Fu food dust. There are no silver bullets. What we need to do is recognize that the only way through to get a KPI to where it needs to be is good management of process. And if the process isn't performing at the right level, then we need to Institute projects that will get it to where it needs to be, where we can identify the problem, drill the root cause and implement countermeasures or corrective actions that get it to where it needs to be. It's that simple, there is no magical fufu dust.
This brings up a really important point when I think about what makes for a great manager. And let's get that. When I think about the question, what makes for a manager I'm often conflicted at the difference between a manager and leader. I think a leader is more about the interpersonal piece and the alignment piece and dealing with the people where the manager is about incrementally, improving the process and maintaining the process to, to achieve results. But this area that we're talking about, the performance piece, when performance, isn't, where it needs to be. It to me is where leader and manager the lines get blurred. And one of the things that we need to understand that as a manager with leadership responsibility, we must master not only the management of the process, but we also need to master the project management model. And why do do I say that?
Well, look, the project management model has at its core, this idea of a work breakdown structure. And it's, it's the simple kind of age old perspective of how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time you break it down into component parts and ever smaller increments so that the individual increments can be completed. And when you sum up all the individual increments in the right order and frequency, you get the project done. And that piece is so crucial. So when I hear a hair on fire manager go, I'm so busy. I'm thinking, are you working on the right things? Are you, do you understand what the next step is in the process of the work breakdown structure? Oh, you haven't done a work breakdown structure? Oh, well, there you go. That's probably why you are so busy.
We need to understand that managing a process is a little bit different than managing a project. The best way to think about the difference is that managing a project is a lot like a sprint or a hundred yard dash. And yes, projects can be different lengths, but it's, it's a all out sprint to the finish line. Managing a process is much more attuned to a marathon where, you know, there is a, a destination, but it's a long way out in the future. And you have to pace yourself. You have to be able to incrementally improve over time.
I believe that if you, as a senior manager can understand whether your direct report managers understand this concept, the difference between managing process versus managing project chances are they're going to understand the process part. They may not understand the project part and the project part is what will get them back to standard. If they have a KPI, a key performance indicator that is too low, it's out of scope for where it needs to be. We need to be able to diagnose whether they have this ability or not.
So that leads us to our who does what by when, and in this particular cast, we're going to look at this in a very specific way. What I want you to do. I want you to think about the next time you're in a one-on-one with your direct report manager and oh, by the way, you should be doing one-on-ones.
And if you're not, um, what are you thinking? These are one of the most powerful tools for you to mentor your manager, your direct report managers, to higher levels of performance. One of the best ways you to understand the nuance and the detail of what's going on throughout your organization. So whatever level you're at your direct reports, and you should be doing one-on-ones on a regular basis. Now let's, let's assume you're in a one-on-one with one of your direct report managers, and you want to understand how well they understand the difference between process, project and, and hitting KPIs. My recommendation is that you start with a very frank discussion about what are the KPIs. And we talked about safety, revenue, quality productivity cost. What are your targets in each of those areas or the four areas. If they're on, on the operational side, make sure that they're exceptionally clear. And that should be a very simple conversation. As you're held accountable to those, they should be held accountable to those. But once they're clear, I want you to pick one of the five, preferably one of the top three. And I want you to ask, them a very simple question. Where are you at now?
I want you to ask them about the performance of one of their KPIs and the one that I want you to choose first is one that's either below target or it's variable and not consistently hitting target either way. They've got a problem with one of these KPIs. And what I want you to ask them is what is your plan to get this back to the goal? And then I want you to listen and very carefully to how they respond. So, first of all, if they look at you with hesitation, with a deer in the headlights, look, what's that tell you, it's kind of like that manager I talked to who said “projects?”, they're counting on magical Fu food dust. They don't understand project management, work breakdown, structure, delegating to lower levels of a responsibility.
They don't understand not aspect of management yet, which means they're doing it all themselves. They're a glorified individual contributor in a manager's chair. that is a technical term. I like to call stupid. Now, if they do understand, can they tell you what projects they plan implement to get the back to standard, or do they simply hum and ha, and talk about discipline and retraining and all of the tired, old excuses that mediocre managers give instead of actually solving the problem. If they can't get to a point where they can describe, I'm going to do project X and project, Y here's what I'm planning to do. And here's how it will impact the KPI. If they can't get that level of specificity, what do you think the chances are that they're ever going to solve the problem? And if they don't solve that problem in their area, guess what? Now you've got a problem in your KPIs.
So that's our, who does what it by when in your O3’s I want you to clarify the, the KPIs and the expectations. And then I want you to dig in on a variable or below target one and find out whether they have a plan or not. If they don't in follow following o3’s (one-on-ones), you can actually help them build the plan with them through the process, build the competence that they're going to need to be successful for you. If they do have a plan in the follow on one-on-one, here's what I want you to do. Go back to the one that you talked about and get a status update on the project and see that they're progressing it and, and implement a little bit of accountability into the system so that every time you're meeting them in a one-on-one, you're expecting an update on where they're at on their projects. Think if you do this, you're going to find that performance is actually fairly simple to get in most business situations. It's just a matter of having a manager that reports to you that has the right ability to both manager, a process and lead projects. Okay. That's it for now, we'll see you in the next cast.
My company Developing Leaders Inc. provides a number of performance improvement related services to companies such as yours. We work with the Fortune 500 and local so Cal Businesses. If your company needs support in developing their process performance or in enhancing leadership effectiveness, reserve your no obligation strategy session with us today.
Reserve Your Strategy Session
In this cast hair on fire managers, part two, have you seen them? The managers that when you ask them how they're doing, I'm so busy, have you seen them in your business? Undoubtedly, you have, because they're everywhere managers that seem to always have too much to do and not enough time to do it. In our previous cast, we explored the primary reason why this is the case. And we looked specifically at the fact that many managers simply don't know how to solve problems to root cause. And if you don't solve a problem to root cause what's going to happen, the problem's going to come back. Only this time. It to be worse, because you've probably told your customer, you fixed it only you haven't the problem wasn't really resolved. They just put a bandaid on it that they need to learn to solve problems.
We need to be able to pose the right problem. So that we can drill to root cause and then apply solutions that actually work. I was thinking about that response as I listened to the cast during editing and I realized that there's another important reason why managers are so busy. And I want to address that now. And it really is this. They don't know how to prioritize in the first place. Oh my gosh. I've seen managers like this all the time. They're like chicken, little, this sky's falling. The sky's falling. They're running around trying to get all kinds of stuff done, but they really don't know what the priorities are. So they're working on the wrong things.
They simply have no clear sense of priority. When I think about established businesses, there's a series of KPIs or key performance indicators lagging indicators that tell you how you're doing. And I think it's important that we remember these and honestly, C P Q R S are the big five. As far as I'm concerned, C for cost P for productivity, Q for quality R for revenue and S for safety. Now I put them in that order because it's alphabetical, but realistically it probably goes the other way. S R Q P C. And those of you that are hung up on the productivity one, and you think that that's the most important one. Um, if you don't put Safety Revenue and Quality first, you're not going to have a anything to produce.
So we need to recognize these five are interdependent. If you're on the operational side of a business, you probably don't deal with the revenue piece. So then you just have the four of safety, quality, productivity, and cost, but make no mistake. These are the big five in any business. And the question is, do all of your direct report managers understand their role in achieving those five KPIs or four? If they're on the operational side, chances are they don't. Chances are they're acting in such a way where they're saying safety's the most important value in our company and our performance there is crucial. And then they'll go out and make decisions that put productivity over safety. This is something you need to address. if you don't make safety as important as if not more so than productivity managers deeper in the business will act in such a way as to create unsafe conditions. It's just, it's a fact I've seen it. So are your managers, your direct reports Are they acting in accordance with the organizational values? Are they acting in accordance with what's most important? It's a very big question.
Now let's assume that you understand what those KPIs are and you have targets for each of them. You know, you don't want to have any injuries or any recordables, any lost time. You know, that you want to hit certain productivity targets. You know, that you want to hit certain quality targets, cost targets. You want to hit certain revenue targets. The most important thing that you can do as a senior manager is during your one-on-ones have a conversation with your direct report managers and ask them, first of all, do they understand the priorities of those KPIs? And second, do they know how to hit them?
I'll never forget a moment. I was a quality manager many years ago, and a colleague of mine was an operations manager. His unit was underperforming. And I went up to him at the beginning of the year, because it was the December, January time frame when we're setting goals for the, the upcoming year. And I said to him, so and so I just want to let you know that my entire team is at your disposal. It's really important to us that we support you in making sure that your quality and your productivity KPIs get back to standard. I want to know what projects you've got planned. My team will, will join the projects and do everything on our power to help you succeed. This manager looked at me and said “projects?”, and I thought O M G, this guy has no idea. He has no idea.
He thinks he's going to pour some magical fufu to over top of his process, by making it important and stressing the importance of quality and productivity. That everything's going to be fine. What he doesn't realize is that he was actually relying on something called the Hawthorne effect where what, what a manager pays attention to must be important. So the employees pay extra attention to it as well. The problem with the Hawthorne effect though, is folks that once you take your eye off the ball and you, you walk away and that particular KPI is no longer demonstrated important by your actions and your behave year. What do you think happens to performance? The employees see that they were hoodwinked, that they were manipulated. And if anything, performance goes lower than it was before you made the effort. No guys, there is no magical Fu food dust. There are no silver bullets. What we need to do is recognize that the only way through to get a KPI to where it needs to be is good management of process. And if the process isn't performing at the right level, then we need to Institute projects that will get it to where it needs to be, where we can identify the problem, drill the root cause and implement countermeasures or corrective actions that get it to where it needs to be. It's that simple, there is no magical fufu dust.
This brings up a really important point when I think about what makes for a great manager. And let's get that. When I think about the question, what makes for a manager I'm often conflicted at the difference between a manager and leader. I think a leader is more about the interpersonal piece and the alignment piece and dealing with the people where the manager is about incrementally, improving the process and maintaining the process to, to achieve results. But this area that we're talking about, the performance piece, when performance, isn't, where it needs to be. It to me is where leader and manager the lines get blurred. And one of the things that we need to understand that as a manager with leadership responsibility, we must master not only the management of the process, but we also need to master the project management model. And why do do I say that?
Well, look, the project management model has at its core, this idea of a work breakdown structure. And it's, it's the simple kind of age old perspective of how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time you break it down into component parts and ever smaller increments so that the individual increments can be completed. And when you sum up all the individual increments in the right order and frequency, you get the project done. And that piece is so crucial. So when I hear a hair on fire manager go, I'm so busy. I'm thinking, are you working on the right things? Are you, do you understand what the next step is in the process of the work breakdown structure? Oh, you haven't done a work breakdown structure? Oh, well, there you go. That's probably why you are so busy.
We need to understand that managing a process is a little bit different than managing a project. The best way to think about the difference is that managing a project is a lot like a sprint or a hundred yard dash. And yes, projects can be different lengths, but it's, it's a all out sprint to the finish line. Managing a process is much more attuned to a marathon where, you know, there is a, a destination, but it's a long way out in the future. And you have to pace yourself. You have to be able to incrementally improve over time.
I believe that if you, as a senior manager can understand whether your direct report managers understand this concept, the difference between managing process versus managing project chances are they're going to understand the process part. They may not understand the project part and the project part is what will get them back to standard. If they have a KPI, a key performance indicator that is too low, it's out of scope for where it needs to be. We need to be able to diagnose whether they have this ability or not.
So that leads us to our who does what by when, and in this particular cast, we're going to look at this in a very specific way. What I want you to do. I want you to think about the next time you're in a one-on-one with your direct report manager and oh, by the way, you should be doing one-on-ones.
And if you're not, um, what are you thinking? These are one of the most powerful tools for you to mentor your manager, your direct report managers, to higher levels of performance. One of the best ways you to understand the nuance and the detail of what's going on throughout your organization. So whatever level you're at your direct reports, and you should be doing one-on-ones on a regular basis. Now let's, let's assume you're in a one-on-one with one of your direct report managers, and you want to understand how well they understand the difference between process, project and, and hitting KPIs. My recommendation is that you start with a very frank discussion about what are the KPIs. And we talked about safety, revenue, quality productivity cost. What are your targets in each of those areas or the four areas. If they're on, on the operational side, make sure that they're exceptionally clear. And that should be a very simple conversation. As you're held accountable to those, they should be held accountable to those. But once they're clear, I want you to pick one of the five, preferably one of the top three. And I want you to ask, them a very simple question. Where are you at now?
I want you to ask them about the performance of one of their KPIs and the one that I want you to choose first is one that's either below target or it's variable and not consistently hitting target either way. They've got a problem with one of these KPIs. And what I want you to ask them is what is your plan to get this back to the goal? And then I want you to listen and very carefully to how they respond. So, first of all, if they look at you with hesitation, with a deer in the headlights, look, what's that tell you, it's kind of like that manager I talked to who said “projects?”, they're counting on magical Fu food dust. They don't understand project management, work breakdown, structure, delegating to lower levels of a responsibility.
They don't understand not aspect of management yet, which means they're doing it all themselves. They're a glorified individual contributor in a manager's chair. that is a technical term. I like to call stupid. Now, if they do understand, can they tell you what projects they plan implement to get the back to standard, or do they simply hum and ha, and talk about discipline and retraining and all of the tired, old excuses that mediocre managers give instead of actually solving the problem. If they can't get to a point where they can describe, I'm going to do project X and project, Y here's what I'm planning to do. And here's how it will impact the KPI. If they can't get that level of specificity, what do you think the chances are that they're ever going to solve the problem? And if they don't solve that problem in their area, guess what? Now you've got a problem in your KPIs.
So that's our, who does what it by when in your O3’s I want you to clarify the, the KPIs and the expectations. And then I want you to dig in on a variable or below target one and find out whether they have a plan or not. If they don't in follow following o3’s (one-on-ones), you can actually help them build the plan with them through the process, build the competence that they're going to need to be successful for you. If they do have a plan in the follow on one-on-one, here's what I want you to do. Go back to the one that you talked about and get a status update on the project and see that they're progressing it and, and implement a little bit of accountability into the system so that every time you're meeting them in a one-on-one, you're expecting an update on where they're at on their projects. Think if you do this, you're going to find that performance is actually fairly simple to get in most business situations. It's just a matter of having a manager that reports to you that has the right ability to both manager, a process and lead projects. Okay. That's it for now, we'll see you in the next cast.
My company Developing Leaders Inc. provides a number of performance improvement related services to companies such as yours. We work with the Fortune 500 and local so Cal Businesses. If your company needs support in developing their process performance or in enhancing leadership effectiveness, reserve your no obligation strategy session with us today.
Reserve Your Strategy Session