Who is first?

Photo by Faith Goble

A few days ago I read a post in the blog education invitation titled: Putting Students First and Putting Teachers First: The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community.  This is the basic idea: Education is about the students. We should put them first. Giving them valuable education is the number one goal. But in order to do that, we need to put teachers first. Because by investing in our teachers, we do the best thing for the students. Now, on its face these two ideas seem to contradict each other. And that is exactly the point. Because holding these two contradicting ideas together in our minds, allows us to reach innovative solutions.

And this is applicable not only in education but also in business:

Research by Gallup and others shows that engaged employees are more productive. They are more profitable, more customer-focused, safer, and more likely to withstand temptations to leave. The best-performing companies know that an employee engagement improvement strategy linked to the achievement of corporate goals will help them win in the marketplace (source: Gallup Website)

Yes. The customer comes first. Yes. We need to think about the bottom line and profit. But as I wrote in Obliquity and management, sometimes the best way to reach your goal is the indirect way. And in this case, the indirect way is by putting your employees first.

I hope that by putting the employees and some other goal first, we will have to come with innovative ideas about how to treat our employees. It is time we desert the Taylorism and begin to adopt an approach that does not see the employees as an instrument but as a partner. It is time to understand that most businesses thrive if employees are given the right tools and good bosses. It is time to accept new thinking that allows innovative solutions. Let’s put our employees first together with other goals.

Elad

Is money equals motivation a conventional wisdom we have to break?

The last few days I have been reading the book Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely. It describes many experiments done over the years that illustrate how people behave in irrational ways when we – and when I say we I mean traditional economics – expect them to act like rational people. While I don’t agree with some of the conclusions Ariely makes in his book, I find the questions fascinating. Thus, I am going to dedicate my next few posts to relevant lessons for managing people the book.

Chapter 4 of the book is called: “the cost of social norms – why we are happy to do things, but not when we are paid to do them”. In it, Ariely describes a number of experiments that show how when people are paid to do things, they do them with less enthusiasm and effectiveness. It reminded me of the above fascinating TED talk by Dan Pink that talks about similar experiments that led to similar (but a little different) conclusions. Both Ariely and Pink conclude that we need to rethink the effectiveness of money as a motivator for work.

So, is money being the best motivator another conventional wisdom that needs breaking.  Well, I will let my past as lawyer get the better of me and say – yes and no.

Yes, because we need to realize that the world is changing. That some things that we thought were true are not true anymore. There is a growing tendency of people to seek out work that not only gives them money, but also gives them joy, a sense of impact and work life balance. People look to use their strengths more and attempt to reach a state of flow. And we need to understand that money creates problems, because it is easy to compare (link in Hebrew). I would direct you to Ariely’s first chapter in the book about relativity.

But the answer is also no. in some situations, monetary rewards work. And when we think about these experiments we need to remember a few things. First, the experiments described in Ariley’s book and in Pink’s lecture are experiments, done in a lab, on students and not in a real work environment. Real life is different and we need to be careful in applying the lessons learned in the lab without thinking about the differences between students in the lab and real life work environment. Second, these experiments are social science experiments. They don’t have one result. They check for averages. And averages are sometimes dangerous. The experiments show trends. They show tendencies. But they don’t show how all people behave in all situations. And we know that monetary rewards do work in certain circumstances. As Paul Hebert from I2I explains, although there are some accurate things in Dan Pinks’s lecture, we must be careful when taking it as saying all monetary rewards are bad. Below is his presentation on how to look at incentive reward strategies within the context of how business operates:

From all the theories of motivation I encountered to date, the one I like the most is Vroom’s expectancy theory.  The reason I like it so much is that it talks about personalization. About understanding each employee specific motivation and about customizing the right rewards, invectives, and recognition, in order to motivate him. And I think this is the most important lesson from the science and experiments. We should be careful from applying one approach. We should doubt and check if what we are doing actually works. And the most important thing of all, we should not assume what motivates people, we should find out.

Elad

Lessons from conductors – musings about modern managers

Modern managers deal with a challenge. Mangers have to manage people who know more than they do. In the past, the manager was someone who did the job and was promoted to the management role. That meant that he usually had superior professional knowledge and could teach his employees how to practice the profession.

In many of today’s jobs, that is not the case anymore. Specialization and specific knowledge are commonplace and even if a manager knows about a specific profession, the speed in which profession change and evolve do not allow managers to keep this advantage for long. That is why managers need to learn how to manage people who are more proficient in doing their job then they are. And there are many professions from which mangers can learn how to do that. The profession of a conductor is one of them.

A conductor manages an orchestra to do a task. Create music. He knows and understands music. Perhaps he can play a few instruments. But he cannot do what the musicians in his orchestra are doing. I doubt that every conductor can play every instrument in the orchestra. And like a modern manager, even if he did, he could not do complete the task, the music, alone. He has to rely on his team. He has to facilitate the creation of music.

That is why I think the above TED talk by Itay Talgam is so insightful to modern mangers. By giving examples from famous conductors, Talgam exposes us to different method of management for modern team. As usual, I don’t want to ruin the entire talk for you, as it is a magnificent talk. I just want to point out a few messages I especially liked:

If you are a manger and you wake up every day depressed to go to work you should know something is wrong. If you don’t find joy in working with people, in trying to help them excel, then you are probably in the wrong role. The joy in management is found in enabling others to feel the joy of work all the time. How can you enable them to feel joy? Help them find flow; help them use their strengths a higher percentage of the day. Help them develop personally.  

A manger leads his team, not by control or authority, but by being there a 100% of the time, full in awareness and with a passion to help and enable learning and development. It does not mean that authority is not useful. When it is needed authority is there and should be used, but it is not enough to make the members of your team into partners.

And making your employees your partners is what modern management is all about. The task could not be completed alone. It is a shared journey. Many people today are not satisfied with getting their wages and doing what they are told. People spend a high percentage of their day at work and they want to enjoy it. They want to feel that it is about them. That they are part of the story. And a manager has to remember that. It is not about the manager’s story; it is about the team’s story. The part of the manager is facilitating the building of a shared story for the team.

They way to create a shared story is not using your employees as instruments, but treating them as partners. And if you treat them as partners, the results will follow. It is more than making sure the job gets done. In order to get the job done, you can put processes in place. But a manager needs to think beyond getting the job done and beyond the process. A manager, as a facilitator, needs to create the conditions in which these processes take place. Conditions that lead to flow, joy and happiness.

Authority is not about telling people what to do either. The worst damage you can do is giving clear instructions because it prevents the communication inside the team and prevents the development of people. It means that there is a big chance the team will fail when you would not be there. And it is not about you, it is about your team. It is about completing the task together.

Elad

More on managing meetings

A week and a half ago I wrote here about my most important concepts for managing meetings. I got many comments on this post, many of them offering other important concepts and some disagreeing with some of the concepts I mentioned. One of the disagreements that kept coming up dealt with my concept about coming prepared.

This is what I wrote:

Everybody must come prepared. And when I say prepared I mean totally and utterly prepared. When you get to the meeting you already: read everything; made the preparations; calculated the numbers; came up with your own ideas. I spent so many meetings where people come unprepared and as a consequence half of the meeting is spent on just understanding the issue or on doing things that should have been done earlier without wasting everybody else’s time. Too many people believe that they perform the best under pressure and rationalize their way into procrastination. This trend extends itself into the meetings and people say to themselves – “hey, I learn the subject while the meeting takes place”.

Here are some of the comments about this point:

Everyone needs to be prepared. However, avoid over preparation if you want to be innovative. If you want to build ideas as a group, you don’t want to have people come with their ideas nailed down.

Too much preparation can be a downside, leading to people coming in with pre-conceived ideas and already solved problems. Basic preparation is a must though, to understand the key facts etc. but I’ve found too much preparation can hold back a discussion.

While I respect the people who commented on this point, I have to strongly disagree with them.

First, I think the comments confuse between communication skills and preparation. One can come totally unprepared, but still be closed to other people’s opinions. On the other hand, somebody can come with his own ideas and solutions, but be open, receptive and listen to other people. The fact that some people come prepared and are not willing to listen does not mean that coming prepared is the problem (causality). It means that their lack of communication skills and ability to listen is probably the problem. I think one of comments actually described it quite well:

… but I think there is a thin line between coming prepared for a meeting and coming with THE solution. I think it’s very important to be open to new ideas and avoid selling your solution. The attitude that you have when you go to a meeting is crucial.

The issue is the attitude and not the preparation which is positive.

And this brings on the second point. Part of the problem occurs when only one person comes to the meeting prepared. The others, who are not prepared are not able to contradict that person so he seems like he is not listening to them and they are also not able to point mistakes or to create a positive influence on his idea. Everybody loses.

Third, most of the comments also talked about wasting time in meetings and the fact that we have to many meetings. If people come unprepared, everybody’s time is wasted because people have different abilities and speed of understanding. I honestly don’t see the negative connection between preparation and being innovative. On the contrary, the fact that everybody has come prepared only allows spending more of the time on the actual innovation and allows avoiding things like groupthink.  

Fourth, preparation is disregarded in many aspects of our lives, and while I don’t support excessive over perpetration I feel that it should be given its due place. Just recently Jon Gordon wrote a post exactly on this subject:

So often we fail because we fail to prepare. We focus on hitting the ball but we forget to take the time to tie our shoes tight before the game starts

I am going to come prepared to my next meeting. What about you?

Elad

Two of the most important concepts of feedback

Two days ago I wrote about an interview with Carol Bartz, Yahoo’s CEO, focusing on one of the quotes in the interview that got me really angry. But, as mad as I was, I must admit that most of interview made a lot of sense and there were two quotes that I found really interesting. I want to discuss one of them today. Here it is:

Q. And how do you give feedback?

A. I have the puppy theory. When the puppy pees on the carpet, you say something right then because you don’t say six months later, “Remember that day, January 12th, when you peed on the carpet?” That doesn’t make any sense. “This is what’s on my mind. This is quick feedback.” And then I’m on to the next thing.

If I had my way I wouldn’t do annual reviews, if I felt that everybody would be more honest about positive and negative feedback along the way. I think the annual review process is so antiquated. I almost would rather ask each employee to tell us if they’ve had a meaningful conversation with their manager this quarter. Yes or no. And if they say no, they ought to have one. I don’t even need to know what it is. But if you viewed it as meaningful, then that’s all that counts.

Two important concepts of giving feedback are revealed in this quote.

Promptness – the closer the feedback to the event the more effective it is for both parties (the giver and the receiver). We see so many things during a day that we want to communicate to our peers, but we hold them back. While I do agree that you should not always say everything immediately, the longer you wait the less effective the feedback will be. It looks something like this:

  

When you look at this graph you immediately understand what the problem with quarterly evaluations is. The feedback on the beginning of the quarter is just not effective and might actually be a waste of time for both sides.

Consistency – feedback should be given all the time. Not at a predetermined time once a quarter. But all along the year. This is where I disagree with Bratz. The question is not whether you had one meaningful conversation with your manager once a quarter. The question is how often during the quarter did you have meaningful conversations with your manager. Conversations that create value for you and are not done just to fill some kind of form or requirement from HR. If constructive feedback is given consistently, the answer will be all the time. And if it is done all the time, there is a high probability that we are dealing with a good boss.

 Elad

Bad parents, bad bosses, and the role of managers

Photo by Yodel Anecdotal

What do you think of this claim?

I also think people should understand that they will learn more from bad parents than a good parent. They tend to get into a cycle where they’re so frustrated that they aren’t paying attention actually to what’s happening to them. When you have a good parent things go so well that you don’t even know why it’s going well because it just feels fine.

When you have a bad parent you have to look at what’s irritating you and say: “Would I do that? Would I make those choices? Would I talk to me that way? How would I do this?”

Sounds ridiculous, right? We would not want bad parents just because it might be more educational for the kids. Replace the word “Parent” with the word “Manager”. Does it still sound ridiculous?

Well, it does to me. But not Carol Bartz, chief executive of Yahoo, who actually said this in an interview with Adam Bryant on The New York Times. While I do agree, like Bob Sutton does, that you should make the most even out of a bad situation, this line of thought makes me angry. I think it is not only a rationalisation for bad managers, it also a misconception of what good managers actually do.

First, I am worried that managers will take this as an excuse to say – “hey, I am a bad manager, but it is better for you. You will learn from it. What does not kill you, makes you stronger. Why should I invest in being a good manager if you can learn more from me being a bad manager?” And of course, that employee will think the same when he becomes a manager. So, because of this rationalisation, we will only end up with bad managers. Is that something we want?

Second, do you really think that if an employee does not even know why things are going well, his manager is doing a good job? A manager is not a supervisor that just needs to make sure the work is done. A manager is a good manager when he makes people think; when he helps employees improve their abilities and capitalize on their strengths; when he supports their own self development, self-efficacy and sense of achievement; and when he helps them prepare for their next role.

Because if a manager is only about making sure that things are as usual, then he is not a good manager. He is a bad manager. And form those; I agree you can learn something. Learning from mistakes is a good way to learn. But just as children to bad parents sometimes become bad parents themselves, employees of bad managers become bad managers themselves. And that is not something I want to see. As Carol Bartz accurately says, being a manager is hard enough as it is:

Managing is a tough job. When you’re young, you just think it’s a natural progression — I’m good at this so I’m going to be good at that, and it’s not that way at all.

Elad

Managing meetings

Photo by tiarescott

I have been thinking about writing this post for a long time now, ever since I read this post by Karlyn Morissette a few weeks ago. One thing I hoped to learn more about in my MBA is about how to run meetings. This something I have been struggling for a long time now and even once tried to help somebody prepare a lecture about.

These are five of my top ideas (rules?) for running effective meetings.:

1. Everybody must come prepared. And when I say prepared I mean totally and utterly prepared. When you get to the meeting you already: read everything; made the preparations; calculated the numbers; came up with your own ideas. I spent so many meetings where people come unprepared and as a consequence half of the meeting is spent on just understanding the issue or on doing things that should have been done earlier without wasting everybody else’s time. Too many people believe that they perform the best under pressure and rationalize their way into procrastination. This trend extends itself into the meetings and people say to themselves – “hey, I learn the subject while the meeting takes place”. I even got constructive feedback about the fact that I turn up to meetings too prepared. My main challenge with this rule is that it is hard to enforce and hard to create an atmosphere where preparation is the norm and the exception.

2. Have an agenda. I think this is where Karlyn’s post makes the point better than I can:  

How many meetings do you attend actually have an agenda? Better yet, a stated purpose? I learned this technique from a lady much smarter than I, Dr. Pamela Skyrme.  Pamela is a brilliant organizational coach.  She also happens to be the Director of Professional Development in my office at Dartmouth, where I’ve had the privilege of being coached by her for the last several months.  The tactic goes like this: At the beginning of each meeting make sure the group as a whole knows what they are seeking to accomplish in that meeting (if you don’t have something you’re seeking to accomplish, then you probably shouldn’t be meeting in the first place). At the end of the meeting, assess whether or not you accomplished your initial stated goals. Do this consistently and it will keep people on track and focused, since there will be some level of accountability (however minor) for not accomplishing a stated goal.

The only thing I would add is that if possible send the agenda before the meeting. The main issue I find challenging here is what happens if the group does not agree on the agenda. You can spend more time discussing the agenda then the issue.

3. Everybody speaks. If someone is at the meeting and does not talk then it is a waste of his time to have him there. Everybody has an opinion and every opinion matters. Don’t let the meeting become a shouting contest where the one who has the loudest voice or the most confidence win. There is an added bonus to this. The more people are a part of the process, the more inclined they will be to follow the decision of the group. Any challenges with this one?

4. Respect people’s time. People have short attention span. They also have busy schedule. It is important not only to start and finish a meeting on time but also to be aware of the limitations of people. If need be, take a break. If it you realize it will have to go over time, stop, acknowledge the fact out loud and discuss how you are going to approach the fact that the meeting is going to go over time and allow people to make the needed arrangements.

5. Have a clear, actionable summary. Whatever happens, you need to spend the last few minutes of the meeting assessing the conclusions, decisions and action items that are the result of the meeting. If somebody is responsible for an action item, have him write it down (it has a psychological effect). In any case, have somebody send the details to all of the relevant parties and ask them to acknowledge it was received.

Any other ideas (rules)? Any important lessons from past meetings? Thoughts about the ideas (rules) I offered? About the challenges associated with them? Waiting to hear your thoughts…

Elad

What did you learn today?

Photo by Rick

I urge you to read this blog post by Naomi Simson describing the main points from Joe John Duran’s lecture at the Entrepreneur Organization event in Barcelona. Most of the points reminded me of the things I constantly write about in this blog. I actually felt it is a good summary of what I believe in. The fact that similar lessons come from a serial entrepreneur who talks about personal life balance makes me proud and happy.

Two of my favourite quotes:

If you have to tell people how to do something you have got the wrong people. Tell them what is wanted and let them figure it out for themselves. Decision makers are more expensive but you cannot grow without them

I call this outcome management. We need to remember that the added bonus of this is that people grow up to be capable and creative. Then, the manager’s job is about communicating the right values to take into account in the decision making.

The best ideas come from those that listen the hardest… and have time to be creative. It is important to create an environment of listening. Joe says in his experience women are the best listeners

I think that listening is one of the most important skills to master. Again and again it comes up in stories of success. Successful companies that listen to their customers. Successful managers who listen to their employees. Successful communicators who listen to their audiences. The good thing is you don’t really need to do a lot in order to master it. Talk less. Ask more. That’s it. Everyday ask yourself – what is the one thing I learned today from/about my employees? If you can come up with one good answer every day, the effects will start to appear soon enough.

Elad

Social networks, the fear of the unknown and employee control

Photo by carrotcreative

It seems that lately, everywhere you go, social media and social networks are there. Why, this post on this blog, will, immediately after I publish it, automatically be published on my twitter account as a tweet and from there as a status update on my Facebook account. For me, social media is not only a part of how I connect and engage with people it is also a tool for constant learning. I have friends who I engage with more through social media then through phones or even in actual meetings.

And the evil organizations (:)) want to take that away from me and my friends. I came across this post which summarizes the finding of a recent Computerworld article regarding social media. I was especially baffled to find this statistic:

54% of U.S. companies have banned employees from social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace

Why? What are they afraid off? No one would even think about not allowing employees to talk on the phone with a friend, go to a coffee break with a colleague from work or waste time in so many other ways. Why this ban on social media?

I think it comes down to two things: fear of the unknown and employee control. I have written of the later in this blog, from a different perspective:

But it is actually more than that. I think my friends represent an approach. An approach of control. When you work for me, I control you, your time and your thoughts. You must adhere to my rules, to my way of doing things and get permission from me to do anything that is not related to me. Like some of today’s jobs are modern forms of slavery. Many organizations think to themselves – if I don’t control all of his time he will use me and I will lose. So they try to make sure that the employee is occupied all the time and create system to supervise him and prevent him from doing things (like surfing to sites like facebook).

I think that organizations should do the opposite.  Not only should they avoid setting rules and boundaries and rigid process, they should actually encourage people to find they own way to do whatever they want, as long as they deliver the results. In “first, break all the rules”, Marcus Buckingham claims that great managers never try to teach people how to do their job, they just set goals and outcomes and let each individual get to them, in his own way. If the employee is creating the needed outcomes, why should the organization care how he does it or how much time it takes? Letting go of the control will eventually only bring benefits.

And fear from the unknown is just as relevant. Many decision makers in organizations do not understand social media. For them, it is a waste of time. It is a game. It is not something for serious people. And if they don’t understand it, it must be wrong and thus banned. I cannot allow my employees to do something I don’t understand and I don’t know about. It is another way the past is trying to stop the future.

But we know these tools work. There are some studies who say they even make people more productive. And obviously they make people more connected and enables internal organization communication. That is without talking about the obvious advantages it offers the business itself. Yes, it has some risks associated with it, but hey, they could be easily mitigated as Alexandra Samuel from the Harvard Business Review blog points out.

Let’s let go of the fear from the unknown and the attempt to control people. it is, after all, the 21^st century. It is time to show a little trust in people.

Elad

More on the art of giving praise

Photo by annthrop

I love this blog post, “The art of giving praise”, by Steven DeMaio on the Harvard Business Review blog. As someone who has been teaching the art of feedback and is a firm believer in the importance of positive recognition, I still face some hurdles when I give positive feedback and I think DeMaio’s post confronted some of these hurdles.

People sometimes find it harder to give positive feedback then negative feedback. Especially to people who are humble and are eager to learn, because they feel a little bit shy while listening to how good they performed. And the person giving the feedback feels a little, well, stupid, saying to the other guy how good he was. It’s awkward and it seems like a waste of time. After all, they guy did it well. I know. I have been there.

That is why I think the first tip given by DeMaio is really important:

Be truly specific. General compliments like “Great job!” or “Excellent presentation!” surely have their place, especially as you hurry to your next meeting. But precise feedback does much more, both for the ego of the recipient and for the quality of her future work. And guess what? “You were so inspiring” or “I loved your final pitch” isn’t specific enough. Tell Carmen that her well-organized tables in part 2 helped you realize that the team’s new project is actually an extension of the previous one (contrary to how others have framed the new venture) and that key components can be imported to save time. She might be able to build on the point at the next team meeting. At the very least, you’ve helped her identify a takeaway message that she delivered successfully.

If you concentrate your feedback not only on what was done well, but also on the ramifications of it, both tangible and intangible, your allow the listener to get a better insight of the implications of his positive behaviour. Sometimes, this person is aware that he is good at something, but does not understand all the effects his positive performance had. Feedback is about providing information that the performer cannot see or hear by himself. It is an attempt to put a real-time mirror that will enable the listener to see himself fully. We need to remember that that feedback giver sees things that the receiver doesn’t and we should be careful from assuming otherwise. Thus, the more information we give, the more valuable it will be for the listener.

But, focusing on positive feedback is even more important. I have seen many people who are truly eager to learn and improve and their enthusiasm leads them to ignore the positive feedback and focus only on the negative feedback. “OK”, they say, “just tell me what I need to improve”.

While learning from your mistakes and improving aspects of your performance is important, an enormous untapped potential lies in recognizing ones strengths and leveraging them to future better performance.  That is why I think DeMaio’s tip #3: “Praise with action, not just words” is an important one. It holds an understanding about the importance of a person’s strengths and the fact that leveraging your strength might produce superior results to improving your weakness.

Like DeMaio, I don’t think we should give positive feedback just because it is the polite thing to do or in order to mitigate the negative feedback. This actually can hinder the effectiveness of the feedback process. But as soon as we recognize the importance of positive feedback and spend time making it count, the recipients of our feedback will not only appreciate it, but will learn to use it in order to advance their next performance and overcome their weakness.

Elad