Leading Through Transition

Change is constant, especially with your team. People leave, people come. Usually it’s not a big deal, but sometimes you have to transition a key person. Success then comes down to two things: training and expectations.

Training is more administrative than leadership, so it doesn’t need a lot of attention here. Suffice it to say the more training you can do with the outgoing person, the better.

Expectations, though, take some thought. Are they the same for the new person? Sometimes you end up with less experience and you want to lower expectations. Sometimes a new hire is a chance to up your game. No matter what you do, though, your team, and others, will expect the same things from the new person.

If you want transitions to succeed, and new people to acclimate quickly, you have to be very deliberate about thinking through what your expectations are, and then making sure your team has the same expectations. That way, the new guy or gal doesn’t get conflicting signals.

It May Be Your Fault They're Lazy

A colleague of mine is frustrated with the slackers on his team. Truth is, I have a couple too. But as we talked it through, we realized we were to blame.

First, we wondered where they got the idea that they can get away with slacking off. The answer: Us. We’re the ones who set the standards for our teams. If somewhere along the line slacking off got to be OK, it’s because we let the standard slip. 

Second, we realized that sometimes they just don’t have anything to do. There’s no demand for their work. In that case, we don’t have work flow balanced very well. That’s our job too, to make sure there’s the right amount of labor to keep every step of the process moving. Not enough, and someone waits (and looks lazy). Too much, and someone stands around (and looks lazy).

There are a few people in the world who will actively try to evade work, but I don’t think there are many. Instead, the ones you think are lazy more likely fall into the two categories described above: the opportunists, who just don’t work any harder than you make them, and the ones who run out of work. Either way, you can fix it.

Get It Right

There’s a thing we say at the plant: If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?

That’s a good concept for almost any kind of work, but it has special significance for leaders. That’s because there are a lot more questions than just how to redo the work.

If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to retrain your team to the standard? Your example is their permission; when they see you compromise, that becomes the new standard. So think about it the next time you’re tempted to not go back and get your safety glasses, or to skip that call to the customer.

If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do the corrective action? When you’re the leader, your lowered standards can result in process lapses, and sometimes someone else catches it. In that case, you might be ordered to fix it, or required by a customer to document you fixed it. Or even pay a regulatory agency a fine and then still have to fix it.

The fastest, most effective and most efficient way to lead is to do the right thing, always. Any so-called short-cut will only require you to come back later on.

Leading When You Don't Feel It

Let’s be honest. Some days you just don’t feel like leading. The goal doesn’t inspire you, life outside work seems more engaging, you just don’t have the energy. Summertime especially we can all be vulnerable to days like that.

The first thing to do is remind yourself that you owe it to your team and your organization to lead. Now is the time for your discipline to take over; you have to do it no matter how you feel. That means you have to act as if. Do all the same things, even if you don’t feel the same passion.

It also can help just to focus on the next intermediate goal. Now is not the time for long-range planning, or recasting the vision. Trust the planning and vision-setting you did earlier, and just execute the next step. That will greatly simplify the mental part of leading.

Finally, cut yourself some slack. Instead of swinging for the fence, trying to connect on that home-run ball, just make solid contact and get a base hit. Someone once said, “Never try something vast with a half-vast attitude.” Some days, you need to give yourself permission just to tackle that one day as best you can.

The key, though: Don’t let yourself stay in this place very long. A few days while you cope with something else or regain your mental juice is OK. But if you’re thinking of mailing it in all summer, you need to do a gut check on whether you really want to lead at all.

You're Not Using Your Best Motivational Tool

Write down the name of every team member you thanked for something in the last two days. What percent of your team is on that list?

If you wrote more than half of them, you’re an unusual person. Most of us reserve “Thank you” for people we need to ask things from, not for those we have authority over. And that, my friends, is the biggest danger with authority.

Because you should never have to use your authority to get team members to do things. Any normal worker will do his or her job because it’s the right thing to do. And if you want them to go above and beyond, then you should ask, not order.

And say thank you. If a team member ever does something that makes a difference (and they all do, all the time, or you shouldn’t have them on the team) then you’re wrong if you don’t acknowledge that. 

I struggle with this, because I’m old school. But the truth is that all of us just want someone to appreciate what we do.

Let Them Tell You

Here’s a technique that’s so simple leaders seldom use it: Let them say what they’ll do. Then hold them to it.

I use this in most disciplinary situations, but it works other places too. When I have to discipline, I first tell the person why we’re talking - for example, “Packaging Line Two was idle for most of the morning yesterday because you were absent from your mill.” Note that this is a simple statement of what the bad thing was and what I believe the cause to have been.

I then ask them to explain, and listen while they do so. I may ask a few questions to clarify my or their understanding. And then I ask what they’re going to do to prevent a recurrence. We agree on something that should work, and then I ask them to write it down and sign it.

Only then do I talk about consequences, for this occurrence and the next. Consequences are completely separate from solutions, and probably less important.

The reason I like this method is that in all future cases we talk about a commitment that person made, not orders I gave. It eliminates a lot of the conversation right from the start. 

When Priorities Change

What’s the most critical thing your team has to get done today? If you haven’t thought about that question today, you probably don’t know. In that case, you’re still working a plan you made sometime in the past, and some factors may have changed. 

Change is most likely to come from two kinds of things: opportunities and crises. The common characteristic of the two is they can pop up at any time, and they don’t care about your plans.

So you need to have a habit and a process to keep up with the pace of change in your organization. My habit is to spend the last 15 minutes of the day reviewing the plan for the rest of the week. To know if changes are needed, I look at new orders in the system, and communication from salesmen, owners or key managers. 

It’s as simple as this: has demand (what we need to do) or capacity (the resources we have to do it) changed? If either has, you need to rethink tomorrow’s work, and likely someone’s number one thing is going to change.

If you don’t deliberately do this, some days your team is going to miss the most important thing.

Don't Clog Your Bandwidth

We’ve all had it - that moment when, in your impatience, you get too many things going over the Wifi and everything slows to a crawl. When that happens to me, I picture several large people all trying to push through a doorway simultaneously. That’s a good mental picture of what’s happening with my data stream.

Just like the Internet, leaders have only so much bandwidth. Just like the Internet, available bandwidth might depend on contextual factors. For that reason, you need to be selective in how you task your bandwidth.

There are some things only you can do. There are some things others could do, but you should. Those two kinds of things should get your first and best time and energy.

Then there are those things that anyone could do but you maybe like to do. Beware of those; they’ll suck your time away in a hurry. They’re the work equivalent of Twitter. And finally, there are things that you want to poke your nose into that really aren’t your job. Those not only waste your time, but damage your relationships as well.

My rule of thumb: I plan only for the first two, the things only I can do or the things that I should do instead of someone else. The other stuff will clamor for my attention, and get it if I don’t already have my time planned around the good stuff.

When Trust is Breached

I’m coaching a supervisor through a tough thing right now. He observed one of his team out fishing when he was supposed to be home sick. He didn’t say anything to the person, but came to me with his anger and frustration.

He’s angry because he trusted the guy. He’s frustrated because a missing team member affects the whole team. 

I’m coaching him again about the basics of work relationships: honest communication, and accountability.

He needs first to talk it all out with his team member. He needs to tell him what he saw, how he came to see it, and how it was different that expected. He needs to be fair but explicit about how this person’s behavior affected the team, and how it makes it hard to trust. And then he needs to listen just as long as he talked, to give his team member a chance to explain, respond and, hopefully, agree to responsibility.

But here’s the hard part: after all that, if possible, he needs to motivate his team member to hold himself accountable. Accountability that comes from the boss will only be effective as long as the boss is watching. True accountability comes from a person’s own sense of how their behavior affects things they care about, things like their friends or their career. That kind of accountability comes from seeing clearly the consequences of losing trust.

If successful, my supervisor will end up with a team member who no longer wants to play hookie because he understands it isn’t worth the potential bad outcomes. 

Option B

Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, is said to have a sign in her office that reads, “Let’s kick the s— out of option B.” That quote allegedly came from a friend whose life took an unexpected turn for the worse.

I like it for two reasons. First, it recognizes the reality that your plan A isn’t always going to work. Second, it focuses all the same energy and enthusiasm onto plan B. It says that we might have lost a battle, but we still intend to win the war.

We all want to take the direct, easy route to our goals, but sometimes life doesn’t let us do that. Sometimes we even get pushed past option B to C or even D. At those times we have a choice. We can get discouraged, or we can get to work.

As leaders, we can’t afford to get discouraged. If we do, we’ll drag our teams down, and it will take a lot of work to pep them back up again. So we need to do a couple of things for our teams. We need to always have an option B. And, when the time comes, we have to show just as much enthusiasm for that second choice as we did for our first. 

Know Who You're Talking To

I used to think that it was dishonest to change my message as I interact with different people. I wanted to be myself and expected everyone to either like it or lump it.

With some gray in my hair, I’ve come to realize that the ability to adapt communication to other people is critical. In leadership, most conversations are about sharing ideas and encouraging behaviors. In both cases you really need to make it as easy as possible for people to get it.

That’s why you always have to think about who you’re talking to, and talk in the best way to be heard. That best way is based on what they value. People will always plug into their own values; only the most altruistic will go through the work of plugging into yours.

So when you’re talking to your boss, you talk about organizational goals. When you’re talking to your peers, you talk about helping them solve their problems. When you’re talking to your team, you appeal to what they want out of the work. For some that’s self-fulfillment. For others, it might be security in the status quo, or the excitement of change.

This isn’t cynical button-pushing. It’s recognition that everyone has different reasons for why they show up every day. All you’re doing is showing them all why doing the right thing is the right thing for everyone.

Handling Drama

Interpersonal drama is one of my least favorite things, but my team is made up of people so sometimes I just have to deal with it. In fact, I just finished leading my team through a situation that, even though it seemed like middle-school stuff to me, could have become a hostile workplace complaint.

Here are a couple of things I was reminded of.

Don’t add fuel to the fire. I was tempted to do some venting of my own. That just adds to the drama, though. You kill a fire by removing fuel and oxygen; you end drama the same way. You need to be the consistent, calm weight that smothers the passion.

Don’t let them get historical. The people involved want to point out every negative thing the other guy ever did, going back to the start of time. There’s no purpose to that. I said, “Look, everyone has flaws. Let’s talk about today.” Keep the focus very tightly on the incident at hand.

Go back to commonly accepted values. In my case, I leaned heavily on the company’s respect policy. “Remember, everyone deserves to be treated with respect. You need to do that even when you’re hurt.”

Finally, give it some time. No one can keep up a full head of steam forever, so a cooling-off period can be a big help. I separated some folks for a few days, and reminded them of expectations and consequences before I put them back together.

Don't Give Unspoken Permission

I’m coaching through a problem today: some team members saw an executive walking a friend to his car. The man was smoking, and we have a no-smoking campus. And several of my team smoke.

The old saying “monkey see, monkey do” doesn’t really apply to employees except for this. If they ever observe you pushing the envelope as far as rules go, they’ll take that as permission. If they get called on it, after all, they can just point at you.

That’s why I hold myself to a much stricter standard as far as rules go than I do my team. I know that seems backward. After all, isn’t rank supposed to have its privileges? But the way I see it, I’d rather cut them some slack and have them see it as kindness, than have them see me do something I won’t permit them to do.

It’s about obligations. I have an obligation to my organization to see that rules are followed, at least in spirit. I also have an obligation to my team to treat them fairly. So I give them a break when I can, but they know it’s an exception because they never see me doing it. It builds trust, and leaders can’t lead without trust.

Crisis and Influence

Much like recessions, crises should never be allowed to go to waste. Both are negative, but offer the opportunity for positive growth. For leaders, a crisis is a chance to make huge strides in building influence.

The reason is simple: When everything falls apart, most people vapor-lock, at least to some extent. It takes a little time for the fear to ease and the shock to wear off. During that time, those emotions make people desperate for leadership. Whoever sounds like the voice of reason will immediately gain followers, meaning they gain influence.

So a couple of suggestions. First, know your immediate action drill. This is the first two or three things you’re going to do in a crisis. Have a plan to calm and reassure your team. Have some ideas to keep them busy while you figure out what’s going on, get guidance as needed, put a plan together.

But the other thing is, don’t freak out. Stay calm. Keep your voice down. Even if you don’t know what to do, don’t be scared of that fact. You’ll figure it out, but not if you’re not calm. Plus, seeing you calm will calm everyone else, and focus their eyes on you. And they’ll look for you the next time.

After 25 years of training and operations as a military officer, there are a few comments that I still treasure more than a decade later. One of them was on my efficiency report as a company commander: “I’ve never seen CPT Steggerda get excited. He keeps his cool.” Every time I did that, I gained influence.

Be True to Yourself

At my workplace our senior management group has all taken one of those strengths evaluations. This particular one uses an intensive questionnaire to identify your five greatest strengths out of an array of 30 or more.

Interestingly, the 20 of us who took it collectively cover almost all of those strengths. None of us had the same top five. The most any one strength was present was in half of us. The big takeaway for me: There is amazing variety in the kinds of people who can lead well.

I’ve touched on this before, but you’ll be the most effective for your team and the happiest in your work if you intentionally lead in your own way. Small forests of trees have gone into the pages written on the topic, but for you, it’s all just context. Read to get ideas, but listen to yourself when you lead. The more natural and enjoyable a technique feels, the closer you’re getting to the real you.

My wife is a natural leader; she doesn’t study it or even call herself a leader. She’s very empathetic and selfless, a great relationship builder and one of those encouragers who pulls the best out of everyone. I’m more of a strategist, planner, and overt coach. I lead from in front; she leads from the middle of the group. We’re both good at it, but she might be better.

To lead, you have to set a vision, get people to see it, and move them toward it. How you do that is a very personal thing, so be true to yourself, not an imitator of someone else.

Give Them a Mission

A veteran sergeant, tasked with teaching me how to lead as a young lieutenant, once said, “The thing that will solve most problems is a mission.”

Mission is Army-speak for a goal, a job that has to get done. And he was right. I discovered again and again that whenever there was drama in my team, whenever the energy level got low, whenever team members were worried about the future, I could fix it with work.

Work does some good things. It occupies minds and hands. It accomplishes things that can bring satisfaction. It gives a feeling of demand, meaning someone somewhere needs what you do. Beyond that, a mission focuses work on an immediate need. People set aside differences and their own concerns to respond. 

So when you sense team unity is starting to fray, or focus is lapsing, find a mission. “Guys, if we want to avoid overtime this summer we have to build some inventory now. Here’s my targets.” “Team, one of our important customers will be out of product on Monday if we can’t somehow get them some.” “We can serve this new client need if we figure out X.” “We’ll be more environmentally friendly if we can change this process.”

Keep them focused and moving ahead, and you won’t have to deal with the drama.

Decide

I know these days we’re all about empowerment, but I still think one of the basic things every leader owes his or her team is a decision.

I’m not talking about things like when breaks are taken or what to work on first (if there’s not a required sequence). On those things you do want to step back and allow team members to mold their workdays the way they like them.

But someone has to decide what the goal is. Someone needs to set strategy. Someone needs to make the call when things don’t fit normal procedures. Those kinds of things set the context for your team to work.

Want your team to be effective? Then don’t hesitate to make the call when you come to a fork in the road. Sure, get some input. But empowerment is letting them choose how they move ahead. Part of empowerment is being clear about which direction to move.

Wondering what’s next is a key source of frustration or stress. You need to keep that period of uncertainty as short as possible. Don’t wait for a consensus or a sign from above. You decide. 

Not Drawing Dot-to-Dots

I remember pushing my company commander for more guidance. I felt he hadn’t given me enough information that I knew what he expected from my platoon. When I asked what route he wanted us to take to our assigned position, he said, “I don’t care how you get there, just be there.”

These days I think of that incident whenever I get hung up on intermediate objectives. I’m a backwards planner: I plan the end state first, and then work from there to determine what will be needed. In the end, I have intermediate objectives, goals that, if accomplished in sequence, will bring my team to the result I want.

The thing is, though, we’re not drawing dot-to-dot diagrams. It doesn’t matter if our route to success goes through my objectives or not. The only point of the objectives is the end goal; they’re a useful guide to get us moving in the right direction.

So don’t worry too much if your team misses a progress report, or Googles a formula instead of doing research, or figures out they can skip a step or do a test later. Are they moving toward the goal? Then it’s all good. 

My advice: present intermediate objectives or goals as one way to do it. Spend most of your time describing what you want in the end. If they find a different way there, what does it matter?

Focus Brings Clarity

Dan Rockwell, author of Leadership Freak (you can read it on WordPress and I recommend you do), wrote something that struck a cord this morning. “Control your focus because your focus controls you.”

He was writing about the impact what you focus on will have on how your team feels and reacts. I thought, though, of focus as a tool of clarity.

You see, your focus is visible. Your significant other, if you have one, can tell instantly where your focus is, and especially if it isn’t on him or her. Your team can tell, too, if you’ve left the building even if you’re still in your chair. Or worse yet, if you’re attention is jumping from one thing to another at work.

There is only one number-one thing. There are only a small handful of priorities - if you have more then nothing is really a priority. Don’t lose your focus. When your team starts seeing the alligators crawling out of the water, they need to see you still locked in on the objective of draining the swamp.

Clarity is that clear understanding of what the team is doing and why. They get it from you, partly from the words you say, but mostly from where they see you focused. So control your focus, as Mr. Rockwell says. It not only controls you, it controls your team.

How to Eliminate Whining

I call it whining. Our HR director says that’s insensitive. We’re both right.

I think people whine when they gripe but don’t do anything about it. He thinks they wouldn’t gripe if they didn’t have legitimate beefs. As I considered that, it led me to a solution that’s been working pretty well.

I wanted to set an expectation that recognizing a problem brings with it a responsibility to work toward a solution. Some people do that naturally, but not most. I realized that if that’s what I want my team to be like, they need a pretty robust problem-solving toolkit.

So I did two things. First, I made it as easy as possible for team members to log a problem and recommend a fix. There’s a drop box, an online form, an email address, and they can verbally tell me any time I walk through. I have the process down to two sentences, as short and sweet as they want to make it.

Next, I carved out a budget. If their proposed fix makes sense, they can go ahead and fix it. If not, we put a little work group together to find a better answer. Either way, there’s already resources available.

Whining just doesn’t happen around here anymore. Instead, a lot of problems get solved. And solved quickly.