As the legendary Bruce Springsteen said back in the 1970s when he just started to win recording contracts - ‘When they pay you $400 a day you get to have $400 dollar a day problems’.
I found a great blog yesterday that quoted some research on the relationship between wealth and stress.
The following five types of deal were offered:
The Bum Deal: Being stressed out, overworked, and making less than $100,000 per year.
The Really Bum Deal: Being stressed, overworked, and making less than $25,000 per year.
The Submission Deal: Making around $20,000 per year, but accepting your dirt-poor status. Your dire situation, in turn, leads to a sense of resignation that allows you to relax and enjoy your free time.
The You’re-An-Idiot Deal: Being ultra-rich (making more than, say, $3 million per year off interest income), having nothing to do, and stressing out over golf games, financial managers, and all the poor people trying to bilk you out of your fortune.
The Sweet Deal: Making more than $3 million per year off interest income and relishing your liesure time with hedonistic pleasure. At the same time, you’re conscious enough to avoid misogyny and gambling addictions.
Now I think that sometimes the deals people settle for are a reflection of their self worth, as much as of their potential or achievement.
I get fired up about management because it the best tool for helping both organisations and the people that work in them to make progress.
Outstanding managers are able to facilitate the progress of both the individual and the organisation and to connect these in a way that results in win/wins for both.
They do this by:
regularly creating time and space to allow people to understand what progress looks and feels like right now - for them and for the organisation
building a consensus around the ‘direction(s) in which progress lies’
enabling people to make things happen in pursuit of progress - they promote a ‘bias for action’
by building the skills and confidence of people to act creatively and pro-actively in pursuit of progress within the mission, vision and values of the organisation.
One of the greatest opportunities for performance improvement is to take more time to explore these questions about progress in some depth and then to link them to immediate next steps - practical things that individuals and groups can do to close the gap between where we are now and where we want to be. And this is what Brilliant 121s are all about.
Another reason why 121s are so powerful dawned on me this morning. And it relates to the Stephen Covey Priority and Time Management Quadrants shown above.
121s almost compel you to focus on quadrant 2 type activities.
Quadrant 1 stuff has to be done almost immediately- it can’t wait for a 121. And who is going to continually bring quadrant 3 and 4 items into play with their manager?
So the existence of 121s more or less forces attention onto the important but not urgent quadrant which is the one where the greatest value tends to be created.
So pay attention to the content of your 121s and see what you can do to bring the focus onto quadrant 2.
This is the title of blog post by Jim Estill over at CEO Blog - Time Leadership. And as Wally Bock says this is ‘one of those hoary old management sayings that hangs around because it’s both true and useful’.
Interestingly in the main body of the post Jim changes the saying slightly to:
What gets tracked and measured gets done.
The addition of this one word makes a massive difference. The truism leads to poor management because it often gets put into practice as:
What can be measured (objectively) that appears to be a reasonable proxy for what we want to get done?
Let’s measure it and then hope we will get the important things done.
However many of the ‘important things’ are difficult to objectify and measure. But they can usually be tracked.
Take for example this core value:
‘We challenge complacency and the second rate and embrace change’
My guess is that it would not ‘get measured’. My second guess is that it would rarely be tracked. And my third guess is that it would therefore rarely get done!
So how might it be tracked to see if it does get done?
By asking regularly (in 121s perhaps…) questions like:
‘Have you found yourself putting any of our core values in to practice this week?’
‘Which ones?’
‘How did they help or hinder your progress?’
we can regularly track core values and are far more likely to get all team members thinking about how they live the values (or not) in their day to day work. We can track which are being used to shape practice and decision making and which ones aren’t. Can you imagine the impact on equality and diversity in your organisation if every employee was asked regularly:
How has your work, this week, lived our value of ‘welcoming people’s differences’.
Or have you found any situations this week where living this value was difficult?
So revisit the mission, vision, values, principles and objectives of your organisation and ask yourself:
Are these important enough for me to want to measure or track regularly?
How can I track these in such a way that they are more likely to get done? (If you are doing 121s this should be a no-brainer!)
Do we have the balance right between tracking and measuring the ‘whats’ the ‘whys’ and the ‘hows’?
What are the risks of writing these sorts of statements and then not tracking them regularly and building them into expectations around employee performance and development?
Your answer to this last question might feature some or all of the following - hypocrisy, mediocrity, blandness, disillusionment….
When I am talking with managers about the benefits of doing 121s they usually resist the idea and offer a range of objections:
I don’t need 121s - I speak with my staff ALL the time!
I would never have enough time to meet with each member of staff for half an hour every week.
What would we talk about if we met every week?
My staff would feel that I was micro-managing them - they just want to get on with the job
My staff aren’t interested in strategy or otherwise engaging - they just want to do a good job
I don’t need 121s - I speak with my staff ALL the time!
It is true that a lot of managers spend a lot of time talking with staff. The conversations are spontaneous, unplanned, unstructured, unfocused and often unproductive. They promote a conversation culture rather that is characterised by high levels of interruptions - ‘Sorry to disturb you but can an I just have a quick word with about….’ Managerial time is freely available and therefore barely valued. Prioritisation by staff is poor and managers are often diverted from more important tasks as they feel obliged to respond to staff requests for help. Such managers usually have gaping holes in their performance when it comes to areas such as innovation, creativity, strategy and planning as they are too busy ‘mole-whacking’.
I would never have enough time to meet with each member of staff for half an hour every week
This translates direclty to ‘I have more important things to do than work in planned structured way with staff on a 121 basis’. It also translates to ‘People are not our most important asset and therefore I can afford to neglect them’.
Company costs per full-time employee in the UK now stand at £97,122. Such costs typically include:
pay and bonuses,
employers’ national insurance payments and pension contributions,
office accommodation costs, and
central costs, which incorporate elements such as HR and finance departments.
What other assets do you manage that cost this much to keep in the game - that, if they feel disgruntled, devalued or otherwise fed up can literally just get up and walk out the door? You really think that investing 30 minutes a week in them to keep them engaged, challenged, informed, recognised and valued won’t give you a great return on your investment. NB See above - structured 121 time is very different to ‘talking with them all of the time’.
What would we talk about if we met every week?
This one comes from managers where the culture is about delivering this year what we delivered last year but incrementally better. No-one is thinking or exploring, looking for better ways to skin the cat/butter the parsnips etc . No one is learning stuff every week that is relevant to improving the product, service or processes of work. Expect people to make things better every week and ask them what they have done every week to contribute to making things better. It also comes from managers that have ‘values on the website’ but don’t see their role in reinforcing them in practice on a weekly basis.
My staff would feel that I was micro-managing them
This comes from managers who don’t understand that most people want to have a connection to work. They want to be engaged and to matter. They want to have a chance to give their best. They don’t want to be alienated and cynical. Although if you don’t work with them frequently on a 121 basis they will be!
They also don’t understand the difference between dabbling in the detail (micro-managing) and unleashing potential (the number 1 priority of the high performance manager).
My staff aren’t interested in strategy or otherwise engaging
This comes from managers who have tried to engage staff but failed. Therefore in order to maintain their own self - image (I am a good manager) they have to believe that staff are not interested. Do you REALLY have staff who aren’t interested in the future of their employer and how they can help to make it better?
This post first appeared on my other blog ‘Enterprise and Entrepreneurship in the Community‘ but I have reproduced it here because it contains some insights on working with ‘Vision’ that are relevant to the progressive manager. Apologies to those of you who have got it for the second time!
Our Vision for Leeds is an internationally competitive European city at the heart of a prosperous region where everyone can enjoy a high quality of life.
Leeds Initiative Vision for Leeds - 2004 2020
That must seem like a pretty distant vision for many Leeds residents. For the tens of thousands that are living on incapacity benefits. For those who have no job. For those who work in the third sector and are more interested in social justice than international competitiveness. For parents who are struggling to raise and educate their children. For pensioners. For migrants and refugees.
But the problem is not with the vision per se. The problem lies with the capacity available to help a very wide range of people and communities to connect with it. To understand why it is relevant to them and how it can help them to make progress on their agenda. How it can help them find a sense of belonging in a Leeds community that is striving to make ‘progress’.
For a vision to be effective a wide range of stakeholders have to be able to connect with it and make sense of it in their own context, and then to use it to leverage action - to make things happen. Otherwise it is just words. I suspect it is no accident that this ‘Vision for Leeds’ appeals so directly to the white collar community, to the developers and the investors. To those that have power shall be given more.
Visions can help to pull us towards a more attractive future, but only if they are relevant to us and are dripping with possibilities for action.
In the world of organisational and business development the ‘Vision backlash’ has started. Instead of dreaming of distant possibilities those leading the backlash ask:
‘What is it that we are on the verge of becoming?’,
‘How, at this time, is it possible that we could change?’
This ‘emergence’ based on a process of ‘presencing’ (understanding the ‘here and now’ and then acting to tip the balance in favour of progress) honours the past as much as the future. It ensures that the future is rooted in the strengths and cultures of the past. It encourages placemaking based on history as much as on the future. And this matters because it is the history that has shaped us all. Our cultures, our psyches our potentials and our preferences. Development that honours who we are, what we have become and what we believe it is possible for us to be.
Perhaps we should compliment the Vision with a real understanding of what we have the potential to become - not by 2020 - but right now.
It is true that we don’t see with our eyes as much as with our brain. Sure the eyes capture the photons - but it is in the brain that we actually do the seeing - largely based on what we are looking for.
If you need proof, try this. NB you will need to hear the soundtrack!
Our ‘findings really do follow our seekings’, and our brain only lets us see what makes sense in the context.
This is especially important when we start to form opinions about people or projects. If we believe that they are good - then all we will see is the good stuff (as our subconscious filters aout what does not fit in with our pre-conceived ideas). If on the other hand we think that people are bad or lazy then all we wil tend to see is the behaviour that serves to confirm our beliefs.
Learning to observe and feedback on a range of work behaviours in a non judgemental, non-evaluative way is a key skill for the effective manager. BTW there is some evidence that women in general tend to be more open to ‘peripheral’ stuff, to pick up on the background and make more sense of it than men. I wonder if there are gender differences in spotting the dancing bear!
Most of the managers that I work with have an incredibly detailed knowledge of the organisations that they work in - or at least of the parts of it that they come into regular contact with. Far fewer have a good understanding of what their own organisation looks like from a more strategic or higher level perspective. This imbalance in perspective can cause too much focus on the here and now and not enough consideration of the medium and longer term. This deceptively simple, yet powerful model can help to restore a bit of balance.
It starts of with a recognition that every organisation does something (operations) for someone (customers). Whether the operation is about providing a service or a product - understanding what you provide to your customers - and their level of satisfaction is clearly important.
Just considering these two parts of the organisation can raise a host of powerful questions:
Who are our customers?
Why do they choose us?
What do they love about we do?
What do they hate?
What do they pay for? What else might they pay for?
What do they use? What else might they use?
How are our customers changing?
How efficient are our operations?
How effective are they?
Where is there most scope for improvement?
Who is responsible for managing operations?
Who is responsible for managing customers?
How effective is the working relationship between them?
Now let’s add a third component to the organisation that will help us to thrive into the future - a cunning plan - a strategy.
The strategy loop invests time and money in thinking about what the organisation should be doing today if it is to continue to thrive in the future. In simple terms the operational loop is about earning today’s bottom line. The strategy loop is about ensuring tomorrow’s. In many organisations the strategy loop is almost vanishingly small. Only a few people ever think about it - and acting on it is even rarer! Sometimes ’strategy’ is done on an annual basis usually tied up with the planning process and budgeting. Often it is done in a top down way - strategy is conceived in the board room or the chief execs office and handed down for implementation. Frequently it does not exist at all!
This strategy loop opens up some further challenging and potentially very valuable questions:
What is our strategy?
How is it developed?
Who is responsible for developing it?
How is it communicated?
Who is able to shape it?
This gives us a fuller picture of the organisation - but it is still not complete. A final component is required to link strategy and operations together. A component to ensure that operations inform strategy and that strategy is put into practice in operations. This component is management.
This is just about the simplest complete model of an organisation that I can imagine. A manager who is able to develop well founded knowledge of customers, operations, strategy and management is well placed to succeed.
A management team that is able to ensure balanced development of operations, management and strategy - driven by a thorough understanding of customers and their changing needs should be unstoppable.
Is management equally effective at developing both operations and strategy?
Does management make sure that what happens (operations) takes full account of strategy?
Who is responsible for management in your organisation?
How could management be improved?
This simple model of the organisation can provide a powerful catalyst for diagnosis and improvement.
