Lesson Eight: Managing Time

Time management is critical for everyone who wakes up in the morning.  It is especially critical for supervisors, who not only must juggle others' work as well as their own, but must set a good example for the troops, build their confidence, and let them know that they matter by handling every task that involves them not only correctly, but promptly.

There are several ways to learn to manage time.  Most of those involve reading an entire book on the subject, then making a list of everything one does for two weeks, then analyzing that list, then applying several different types of logic and physics in order to fight free of time wastage.  But people who have time management problems rarely find time to read books about time management.

The other - and the only genuinely successful - way to learn to manage time is to change habits - quickly, firmly, immediately - by applying six simple rules, starting right now.

These six rules were devised by a sage named Alan Lakein more than 40 years ago, but they still work perfectly.  Here they are:

1.  List goals; set priorities.

2.  Make a daily 'to do' list.

3.  Start with As, not with Cs.

4.  Ask, What is the best use of my time right now?

5.  Handle each piece of paper (or email) only once.

6.  Do it now.

Can a set of rules this old still work?  It's actually the only set of rules that DOES work.  Here is a little more on each item.

1.  List goals; set priorities.
    This is the only item that requires a bit of extra work, but not much.  You know what your medium- and long-term main goals are:  re-structure the work unit, re-wire the house, train the dog, write the novel.  Call it by its new term if you like: a bucket list. Which of those is most important and/or critical to your mission or your life? Write them down.

2.  Make a daily 'to do' list.
    This list - written on paper, not stored in your head - must include individual items that will move you toward your long-term goals as well as every small item that you need to do: outline that novel, order a reference book, write your mother, take the car for an oil change, make a dental appointment, meet with a recalcitrant employee, clean up your email in box.  Writing this list should take only a minute or two, especially after you get into the habit of doing it daily since much of it will come from yesterday's list. Yes, the list will include far too many things to do in one day, but that's okay because next - and most important of all these rules - you are going to...

3.  Start with As, not with Cs
    In front of every item on the list, put a letter A, B or C, depending on how urgent or important that item is in comparison with all the others.  Don't confuse urgency with importance, by the way:  there are tasks that are plenty noisy, but if there are no consequences to not doing such a task right away, it is not an A; it is only a B or a C and should not be done until all the As are done, unless not doing it will take longer than doing it.

    Is everything on the list an A?  No, it's not.  Be honest here; we are trying to help you.  Re-assess that list.  As must be done; Bs should be done; Cs might benefit from never being done unless they rise in importance, or else they can be done at some time in the future rather than this week.

    Are there more than one A?  Of course there are.  So go down the As, quickly assess which of those is the most important and urgent, and add a number to each (A1, A2, A3, etc)  Do the same with the Bs and the Cs.

    Unless there is an excellent reason to do otherwise (and checking your email is NOT such a reason), roll up your sleeves and do A1.

    Once an item is completed, cross it off the list. (This simple stroke of a pen can be a source of immense satisfaction.)

    As the day goes along, new tasks will arise. Don't just run off and do them, unless they actually are A1s. Put them on the list. Write them on in the margins, or between other items, and prioritize them. By the end of the day, many items will be crossed off and many added. You might or might not have finished all the As, but everything you did WAS an A. Tomorrow morning, write a new list, prioritize it, and get to work.

4.  What is the best use of your time right now?
    This is the rule that tempers the one before.  You have a meeting in 15 minutes, which is not enough time to do your A1. What other A will take 15 minutes? Scan the list , find it, and do it, cross it off the list, then go to the meeting feeling clean and virtuous.

5.  Handle each piece of paper only once.
     This rule was created, of course, in the days before email, but it applies equally to that wonderful, terrible medium.  You must know people whose desks are heaped with documents (but claim that's not a problem because 'I know where everything is') and who complain that they need more email space because the 'In" box is always full. Inevitably they believe that paging through a thousand-item mailbox to find a single item, or sorting through the desk top to find the memo they need to answer, is efficient.

     No, it's not.

     Here is the rule for papers and email:  it is brutal, but it works.

     If you touch it, you must act on it.

     Papers coming in?  As they arrive, sort them into A, B and C piles, and tackle them in that order.  After that fast initial sort, if you touch it, you MUST do it.  Once you have done what you need to do to each item, get rid of it:  file it, shred it, put it in an envelop and toss it into the Out box.

     And by the way, the C pile should not be on your desk.  It should be across the room where you will be less tempted to rummage through it.  You know that it's only Cs; they are not important.  Do the As.  In order.

     How does this rule apply to email? Sort first. People who get a lot of emails, or those who take a day or a week off and return to an In box of several hundred items, must do this, and it's not that hard. It's exactly why God gave us clickable columns.

     Depending on your organization's structure, you might sort first by the sender. You can then delete the daily lunch menus, routine personnel notices, and whatever else comes out daily and pertains only to that day.

     Then sort by subject. Once everything on a particular subject is grouped, look at the latest items first: the very most recent might be a conclusion or final answer to the issue so that you won't have to read anything that came before.

     Just like a paper item, if you open an email you MUST act on it. If you should and can answer it immediately, answer it and then delete it. If you can forward it to someone else for action, do that now.  If it can and should wait, attach an electronic flag to it with a specific date and/or time when you need to respond. When it pops up again, act on it.

    Need to keep a record? Save a copy of your Sent message in a separate electronic folder - outside of the email system - that you created just for that subject. Then delete the Sent message as well. There should be no more than a dozen un-acted-on items in your email In box at any time. There is NO valid excuse to have more.

6.  Do it now.
     Putting off the A1 because it's complex, contentious, or ugly? Take a deep breath and just do it.  Every time you look at an item on the list, you are using time and thought that could be applied to actually doing it. Very soon, the seconds you used to excuse yourself from tackling it will add up to enough time to have done it, yet it will still sit there simmering.  Do it.  Yes, do it.

     Now, close this window and go make your list.


For further reference.

Lesson Seven: The Balancing Act of Delegation

Reams have been written - and countless electrons harassed - about delegation.  Here is the simple, most immediately effective, non-philosophical version.

Successful delegation requires only two features:

- Responsibility and authority must exist in equal measure.

- The ultimate responsibility still belongs to the supervisor.

The second feature is easy.  The first, not so at all.  Or rather, it's easy, but doesn't appear so.  Here are the six levels of delegation, with the best, of course, coming  last.

1.  The boss requests information, then evaluates, decides, and assigns action.  Most unskilled supervisors get stuck here and never move further.

"What's the problem?  Okay, we'll fix it this way.  George, do this; Mary, do that; Sanjay, do this other thing."


2. The boss requests information and suggestions, then evaluates, decides and assigns action.


"What's the problem?  Any ideas about how to solve it?  Okay, George...."

3.  The Boss defines objectives and limitations.  All agree on implementation.

"What's the problem?  Here is the solution we need and here are the limits.  Can we do this?  How?  Okay, George..."

 4.  Boss defines objectives and limitations, studies and agrees to suggestions.  Employees implement.

"What's the problem?  Here is the solution we need and here are the limits.  What can we do to get there?  Great.  Let's try that."


5.  Boss defines objectives and limitations.  Employees evaluate, decide, act and report afterwards.

"What's the problem?  Here are our objectives and here are our limits.  Let me know how it goes."


6.   (IDEAL) Boss and employees together define objectives.  Employees evaluate, decide, act.

"What are our objectives?  Do we all agree?  Great.  Go for it.  Let me know if you need my help."


Here is an example of bad delegation:

"What are all those people doing outside?  Get rid of them!"
A little later:
"Why don't we have any customers in here?  You sent them away?  What?!  You were supposed to figure out how to get them in and take care of them!"


And good delegation:
"So we agree that we are essentially a customer service organization.  Are we serving our customers in the best ways?  Can we define the word "best" and apply it?  Great.  Let me know what I can do to help.  I look forward to hearing what you decide and how it's working."

Lesson Six: Kick-Ass Meetings

 Yes, we know.  You hate meetings.  Everyone hates meetings.  And why do we hate them?  Because most meetings use more time than they provide useful information.

But they don't have to do that.  A well-run meeting should not last longer than 30 minutes, preferably less.  Impossible?  Not at all.

To run a meeting well sends a powerful message:  I value your time as much as my own.  It also gives no time for droning...

... or napping.

There are four kinds of meetings you might chair:

- Regularly scheduled staff meetings with your own work team/group, to bring everyone up to date and cross-fertilize

- Meetings with your own team to solve a specific problem

- Meetings with peers, to share information and/or make decisions that reach beyond your immediate group

- Meetings with outsiders, usually to acquire or pass on information

All of these benefit from a rapid pace.  Unless the topic is extremely controversial, any meeting of any number of participants should be completed, all relevant information exchanged, any need for further information determined and the collection of the information assigned to a member or members, and any necessary decisions made, in less than 30 minutes.

How can I do that?

- Know exactly what you want to get out of the meeting

- Announce the purpose of the meeting immediately.  If several topics will be addressed, circulate or post an agenda in advance.  Follow it exactly (no adding, rearranging or skipping).  This will assure that those who must speak on a specific topic will be anxious and ready.

- Make a verbal commitment to a specific length of time, and stick to it.  A clock should be visible to everyone.

- Allow only topics or information that are relevant to the topic or of interest to all present.

- Use ‘urgent’ body language and a quick pace of speech.

- Stay with each speaker:  keep eye contact all the time he/she is speaking, use facial expressions, gestures and brisk nodding to show that you are with him, and expect him to finish quickly.

- Cut off the long-winded politely:  be ruthless with time but courteous with people.

What if –

- Someone comes late?

Continue the meeting.  Do not fill in latecomers:  that only punishes those who came on time.  If the missed information is important to the latecomer, fill him in after the meeting is over, or suggest that someone else do so.

Do not call attention to those who come late.  Smile to welcome them, but do not stop talking, or stop whoever else is talking.

Always start exactly on time.  Once you have established a reputation for doing that, your members will be on time and will be grateful.  They will participate much more willingly, more fully and more often.

- Someone changes the subject?

At the first opportunity, thank him and return to the topic of the meeting.

How can I –

- Cut off a member who talks too long (after the point, if any, is made) without being discourteous?

The human voice abhors a vacuum.  If you allow silence after someone finishes speaking, he will continue speaking without adding anything substantial to what he already said.  So as soon as the speaker ends a sentence, immediately thank him, and go on to the next person.

- Cut off a participant (or a group of participants) whose topic is irrelevant to most people at the meeting?

Congratulations for noticing!  As soon as the speaker reaches a punctuation point, thank him for his thoughts and suggest that the smaller group, or the two of you, continue this discussion after the meeting when it won’t hold up the others.

If he/she persists, follow the tactics advised by the HBR: 

- Encourage brevity in the meetings I attend but do not chair?

Practice the same alert body language as if you were chairperson:

- sit forward, watch each speaker intently

- When it’s your turn, speak quickly and concisely, only including items that pertain to the topic of the meeting and are (or should be) of interest to everyone present

- complete your report or idea in as few words as necessary, then state clearly that you have nothing more

-If you have nothing to report, say so and stop

Lesson Five: Vonnegut Was Right. Mostly. Maybe.

The American writer, Kurt Vonnegut, famously wrote, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

We all have experienced the rightness of the first half of this sentence, if not the last:  taking a deep, quaking breath, then striding in and making a kiss-ass presentation as if we had all the confidence in the world, for example, when we actually feel as if we're on stage giving the performance of a lifetime.  Walking through a room packed with suits while wearing Gap jeans and a polo shirt, and exuding such presence that the suits get out of the way.  A million other examples.

From the other side, though, there are times - not just times, but whole swatches of our lives - in which we absolutely believe we are a certain way when in fact we are not.

Can this affect more than our eventual self-esteem if we ever get a clue?  You bet it can.

Remember the guy you worked for one summer, who was all laughing and hearty and back-slapping and 'how's the little wife doing, and the kids' but who had, at full volume, berated one employee over a broken screwdriver, summarily fired another as he ran in the door late from having delivered his child to school when the bus broke down, and always believed the first version he heard of any complaint - especially from his two or three pet employees - and would never accept a word from the other side?  And yet this man truly saw himself as a good guy and a great boss.  Your view, and that of all the other workers, except for the pets, was radically different.

Harold, a supervisor in a baking shop, was once approached by Isabel, a long-time worker, who - quietly and hesitantly - told him she had found a position in the office and would be moving upstairs in two weeks.  Harold, who liked this employee very much, opened his mouth to say something joking and hearty like "Abandoning us for the big time!" or "Tired of flour in your shoes?" or something of that sort, but happened to notice the other workers, all standing nearby watching with worried, even frightened faces.  Good for Harold - he stopped the words before they came, did a rapid mental check of himself, really looked at all those faces, and especially Isabel's, and said instead, quietly and with real feeling, "That's great news, Isabel.  We'll miss you, but you'll do a terrific job upstairs.  Congratulations."

The entire staff let out a huge sigh.  Isabel hugged Harold, and then Harold was left alone with his thoughts, which were many and disturbing.

"How come they don't know I like them?"  Harold thought.  "Why don't they know that I want to see them promoted?  What's wrong with those people, anyway?"

But then Harold did a very smart, very difficult, thing.  He looked not at his employees but at himself and thought, "If I were Isabel, why would I have been so worried about telling me this?  If I were one of the other workers, why would I have feared for her?"  And finally, "What is it actually like to work for me?  If I weren't me, would I like myself as a boss?  Would I trust me?  Would I do my best for me?"

He went into his little office and closed the door, and thought.  Then he found this, a list of things that 'good' bosses believe, and 'bad' ones don't.

This entire list seemed written for him alone, from the first item which says, "I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me" to the final, devastating,"Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like an insensitive jerk — and not realizing it."

I would like to say that Harold came out of that office a changed man.  Perhaps he did.  But what about the rest of us?  And what about Vonnegut?  What about the precious, time-honored rule of "kiss up, kick down?"

Harold suspects that Kurt was right, and was wrong.  After all, you in jeans and a polo in the room full of suits is real, and it's all in how you present yourself to that room.  The backslapping, ranting jerk, on the other hand, saw his own reality far differently than anyone else did.

Maybe there is no easy reconciliation between these thoughts.  But that's why they pay you the big bucks, isn't it?

Lesson Four: Take a Hike

A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.
—John le Carré

Management by walking around, they used to call it.  The One-Minute Manager celebrated it.  It's the simplest and hardest activity of any supervisor.

Getting off the chair, out from behind the desk, and out into the area of your personal responsibility is also the most essential part of a supervisor's job.  After all, your primary job is not answering emails, writing reports, analyzing data, or keeping your boss happy.  Your primary job is helping your employees do their jobs.  If those other activities directly support your primary job, then find a way to fit them in when you can take some minutes away from that primary job.  Otherwise, don't do them.

Here is a lovely, succinct summary.  Go out there, don't rush, wander, make eye contact, smile, greet by name, ask questions you don't know the answers to, let your employees educate you, show honest respect for their expertise, practice appropriate humility, listen without simply waiting for your chance to talk, invite jokes on yourself and laugh at them, remember that every one of these people knows something you don't know and is probably as smart as you are, remember that every one of these people knows his job far better than you do, and remember that you are always on stage and are being judged by every instant of your behavior.  If you do this right, you will leave the shop floor or its equivalent feeling humble, proud, exhilarated, energized, and full of useful ideas.  You will be respected and liked by your employees rather than tolerated.  They will tell you things.  They will get you out of trouble before you even know you're getting into it.  And you will all produce better widgets on time.

Lesson Three: Supervision By Objective

 Lewis Carroll once wrote, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there."

This can be fun for a tourist, but fatal for a business.  In fact, it's probably guaranteed to be fatal for a business.  After all, a tourist trip, however laissez-faire, really does have a goal of some kind; possibly several goals (eat great food cheap, learn Lao, get laid by a cute French girl, see what's over there, find a clean bed for the night, Discover Myself, etc.).  So does a business - and no, "Staying in business" is NOT a proper goal.  Sorry.  Only clearly articulated, measurable achievements that everyone will know when you get there and they might ALSO keep you in business are goals.


Sadly, management by objectives fell out of favor some years ago.  It had become reduced to a performance assessment tool for employees, meaning that eventually it deteriorated to a list of numbers on a paper that could be rolled up and used to swat the employee from time to time.  While there is nothing wrong with assigning employees measurable productivity goals in some areas (produce 10,000 widgets per work day with 1% or less quality failure, for example), employees' goals sometimes did not include things that were more difficult to quantify, such as getting along with colleagues, coming up with new ideas, or practicing contagious enthusiasm.  From those perceived shortcomings it was just a short fall into 'how the heck do they dare objectify me that way, I am a unique human being with unique skills and knowledge,' and subsequent sheepish obscurity.

 Nevertheless, dragged out of the trash bin, dusted off, set back on its feet and fed a nourishing breakfast, management by objectives can be extremely useful to any organization that wants to succeed.

Cassandra once worked in a large division of a huge company.  This division produced and sold a certain category of widgets.  Every month, the sales department would meet with the production department.  At these meetings - Cassandra is not making this up - the sales department would say, "We need XP million widgets next month."  The production department would say, "We can produce XA million widgets next month."  (XA being fewer, of course, than XP.)

Then - and remember that Cassandra is not making this up - the meeting would be over.  The sales people would go back to their desks and the production people would go back to their production line.  All month, customers would call to ask where the heck the widgets they needed were, and the sales people would explain that they were doing their best to get the production people to produce them.  Then they would call for emergency production lots, which would - of course - interrupt the orderly work flow and make other productions lots late.  Next month, there would be another meeting.

Eventually, the Great Mother Company sold the unprofitable and customer-toxic division.  New management reduced the product range, sent customers whose widgets the division had never made very well shopping elsewhere, made the production process more efficient, and suddenly could deliver the number of widgets the customers wanted, when the customers wanted them.  The old division began to turn a modest profit for the first time since Franklin Roosevelt was a household name.

This turnaround was not magic.  It was management by objectives.  In fact, in this case it was management by objective:  one objective.  That entire objective was, "Ship good, competitively priced widgets on time."

In order to reach that objective, sales and production held a meeting.  In that meeting they actually talked to each other.  They brainstormed (another '60's term - sorry) ideas that would allow them to reach that goal.  First, of course, they had to all agree on what they meant by the terms "good" "competitively priced" and "on time."  Then everything that impeded that objective was either fixed or jettisoned.  Everything that made the widgets cost too much was either fixed or jettisoned.  If they couldn't make a certain style of widget competitively, they sent the customer to a competitor.  Everything that ruined widgets, or made bad widgets, was fixed.  And every day a computer tracked every production lot of widgets so that the sales department could not try to sell widgets that could not be made on time.  The same computer tracked the needs of the customers, so that production knew when they should finish and ship what kinds of widgets; the same computer had learned the production process, so it couldn't expect the widgets to be produced and shipped faster than actually possible.  There were no more emergencies, so production was steady and predictable.  The phone hardly ever rang in the sales department, except to place new orders for delivery dates that could be met.  There was peace in widget land.

Ship good parts on time.  It ain't rocket science.  And what business can't define its most basic and critical goals in the same terms; in fact, in one single sentence?  A factory, a restaurant, a visa office, a lawyer, they all can define their primary objective as delivering a quality product when it's wanted.

Define the objective.  You only need one of them.  Then remove from the process everything that impedes that objective, that no on will be arrested for not doing.

Result, success.  Really.  You won't be able to help yourself.

Well, fine, you say.  But you're going on and on about management, while you already told us that management and supervision are two different things.  So what's the supervision angle on this sermon?  Are you ever going to get around to something I care about?

Care about this:  supervision by objective.

If your organization has only one objective, it is pathetically easy for both you and your employees to know what you all should be doing, and do it.  Is what you and they are doing at every moment helping to get good widgets out the door on time?  Is it interfering with that objective?  Does it have nothing to do with that objective, but is only an add-on that somebody once thought was a good idea, but isn't?

If any action isn't working toward that objective, either fix it or remove it from the process.  Period.

No, you're not.  You're interfering with the objective and making everybody crazy in the process.  Stop that right now.

And for the rest of us, happy widget-making.

Lesson Two: Motivation - It's Not What We Wish It Were

http://www.despair.com/

A new employee walks into the workplace for the first time.  He might be thinking, “I hope I can sulk, balk, complain, never take a risk, backbite, brown-nose, do as little as possible and still get paid.”

Or he might be thinking, “I hope I do well.  I hope they like me and will respect me.  I hope I’ll learn a lot.  I hope I’ll feel satisfied, and be productive.  I hope that what I do will matter.”

If you believe the first set of thoughts, shame on you and you should never be allowed to supervise a well-behaved Dachshund, never mind a human employee.  If you believe the second, we can move a step forward.

Under these conscious thoughts of your new employee, there will be some unconscious thoughts as well.  What do you suppose these might include?
Maybe ...

1.  Tell me when payday is, and all the days I will have off.

2.  Give me a nice desk and a comfortable chair.  And a window.

3.  Show me the cafeteria with its award-winning decor and award-winning menu.

4.  Give me the promotion schedule, so I'll know when to expect a raise.

5.  Show me the company newsletter, and give me an internal email address so that I can receive regular missives, updates and exhortations from management.

6.  Remember my birthday.

So this is how to motivate my employees? Just give them stuff?  Piece of cake.

... or maybe not.  Do these things and you can be pretty sure that your employee will not be demotivated by what some call 'hygiene factors,' but not necessarily that he will be motivated to any reliable degree for any reasonable length of time.  Like the classic old New Yorker cartoon in which a woman tells her husband, "Saying you don't hate me is not the same as saying that you love me."

Sorry about the cake.


 The difference between 'motivating' and 'not demotivating' has been known for many years - although, sadly, by very few actual supervisors.  The 'secret' of motivation was first explained in 1968 by Frederick Herzberg in his wonderful article for the Harvard Business Review, "One More Time, How do You Motivate Employees?"  It has never been explained better than Herzberg's Schnauzer analogy:  I want the dog to move, I kick the dog, he moves.  If I want him to move again, I have to kick him again.  And yet, motivation is supposed to be a little like a conscience - an engine that runs itself.  If I have to do something before the dog moves, it's me who is motivated, not the dog.  So under what circumstances will the dog want to move?

A properly motivated Schauzer can't be kept from moving (Cassandra has tried.  It can't be done.)   Just like a properly motivated employee can't be kept from working - not by ugly offices, by junky food, by low pay, not by anything.

Herzberg's article, with its update, should be required reading for all first-time supervisors before they even sit down behind their new desks.  It should be required reading annually thereafter.  It is not long, and it is invaluable.

Please go read it.  Then come back here.

..........................................................................

Ready?  Now let's try another list of your new employee's possible thoughts.  Some of these involve powerful motivators.  Others look as if they do, but actually do not.  Consider...

1.     Set me up to win.  Help me understand what I’m doing and why it matters.  See that I get all the training I need, so that I won’t make mistakes.   Give me parameters within which I can work confidently.  Encourage me to ask questions without mocking me or growing impatient.

2.   Impress me.  Let me know that you are a strong, confident leader who will help and protect me.  Be the one I will want to emulate, not the one I will want to avoid.

3.    Give me some autonomy.  Trust me with opportunity.

4.    Praise me.  Encourage me by using my strengths, not harping on my weaknesses.  Tell me every time I’ve done well; I never get tired of hearing it.

5.    Tell me immediately if I make a mistake.  Then show your confidence in me by letting me fix my error, or by making me a full member of the group that will fix it.  (A possibly apocryphal tale involves a young employee whose mistake cost the company $100,000.  When he asked his boss, 'You're going to fire me now, right?' the boss responded, 'Fire you?  Not a chance.  I just spent $100,000 training you!')

6.    Show loyalty down the chain of command.  Show your commitment to me - not just to YOUR boss.  Let me know for certain that you have my back.

7.    Don’t play favorites.  Discipline my coworker who is out of line, even if she is senior.  Hold everyone accountable to a single standard.

8.   Don't pass it on.  Even though your first boss treated you like crap, or your current boss treats you like crap, don't take it out on me.

Feeling slightly convinced but not yet committed? Here is another useful viewpoint.

 And here is still more to consider:

Motivation is not all-or-nothing.  Take Marilyn, who works as a kind of auditor.  She finds significant professional and personal meaning in helping units that have strayed from the regulations or that aren’t working efficiently get back on track to produce a faster, more accurate product that they can take pride in, and do take pride in by the time Marilyn is finished helping them.  Marilyn loves her work, gets up early and stays up late on her own time to do her work, talks about her work, and feels enormous pride in her work.  She gets notes and emails from employees she has audited sometimes years before, thanking her for her help and the permanent changes she made in their working lives.  She keeps those messages; they are precious to her.

On the other hand, the office where Marilyn sits when she’s not out auditing runs like a dormitory of nine-year-old schoolgirls with all the concomitant gossip, hair-pulling, shifting alliances, whisper campaigns, character assassination and tattling.  If you ask Marilyn what she thinks of her boss, she will tell you quite cheerfully that, if The Ferret’s brain were on fire, she wouldn’t piss in his ear to help put it out.  She didn’t start out feeling that way; but Marilyn has friends in this office; she knows what The Ferret says about her, never to her face.  Yet if he believes her work is not impeccable, he had never told her why he believes this.  She tried approaching him twice to ask what she was doing wrong, and got no clear answer upon which she could act to change any of her work practices.  Reluctantly - because she is not an egotistical person - Marilyn has concluded that he somehow dislikes her personally, for a reason he will not discuss with her, but he does murmur to her co-workers who are in the ‘in’ crowd, and to her potential team leaders.

So Marilyn - like many, many employees, is both motivated and not motivated.  She does the minimum required in the office, and saves her energy, expertise and creativity for her clients.  She will someday walk away from this job with a sense of accomplishment tempered by the bitterness of unfairness and unprofessionalism.  Will the company have gotten its money’s worth from her?  Sure, as far as it knows.  Could it have gotten more?  Much, much more.  This is an extremely common phenomenon.  Organizations suffer for it, without even knowing their loss.

Motivation.  A supervisor can't create it, exactly, but he or she can destroy it.

Will there be a test later?  You bet there will.  It will be called doing your job.

Lesson One: A Supervisor is Not a Manager is Not a Supervisor

Manager:  A person who is in charge of a certain group of tasks, or a certain subset of a company or other organization.

Supervisor:  A person who monitors and regulates employees in the performance of assigned or delegated tasks.

A manager might have direct responsibilities for, for example, huge amounts of money or buildings and/or other assets, yet supervise no one.  His work is his own.

A supervisor might or might not have direct responsibilities for money or buildings or other assets, but his work is not his own.  He gets work done through other people.

Of course, this isn't always black and white.  A manager might also supervise a staff; a supervisor might manage a budget or a hiring process.  But this is not necessarily the case and the two terms should not be confused.  Nor should the two individuals who perform this work be confused with one other.  The jobs require very different skills and priorities, and god help the organization that doesn't get this, because for all the cash and property and airplanes and furniture and tech goodies that an organization owns, its most expensive asset is its employees.  Always was, still is.  Even now.


A manager might never receive a letter like the one above.  A bad supervisor assuredly will.  And such a letter can hurt the organization far more - and far more chronically - than most decisions made by mere managers.


Good supervision is a skill, a royal pain in the ass, a constant headache, and a source of enormous satisfaction, pride and gratitude.  It has not the most direct but certainly the most lasting effect on the organization's effectiveness and even its existence.

The Enron and Arthur Andersen failures were due primarily the shameless activities of a gang of runaway brumby managers, but if you suspect that these idiots might not have been able to spread irresponsibility and misery up and down the corporate structure, across several states, down Wall Street and through the pocketbooks and bank accounts of thousands of investors and employees had they been properly supervised, you're onto something.  Hold that thought.


Good supervision is critical.  Good management?  Yeah, whatever.

................................................................................

In any kind of business - shop, bank, factory, office, farm - the biggest step any employee will ever make is the one in which he moves from doing the work himself to getting the work done through other people.

Yes, that's right.  On the way from the depths of the mail room to Bill Gates, the first, biggest, hardest step is the first time a person supervises the work of another person.  And that first step on the long climb from mail to Bill is the one step that trips up the most people. So it is a big deal.  A very, very big deal.

Because suddenly you don't have one boss to satisfy:  you have two or twelve or five hundred bosses to satisfy.  And if you don't understand that, god help you.

How are you prepared for this sudden, complex responsibility over your former peers?  Your own boss tells you something like, "Good job.  You're now the supervisor.  You need to go buy a better tie."

Most never get over that.  Most never GET it.  Nevertheless, most who were productive, effective mail deliverers do continue to crawl - not stride - up that staircase dragging some kind of success - however they define it - along behind them, but also dragging stress, uncertainty, frustration, misunderstanding and misery, too, for the rest of their careers.


Many of them do have careers that, from a distance, one could envy.  But too many (ONE is too many) of those careers were built on the mistreatment, resentment and unhappiness of others for whom there was never any accounting demanded or given.  And most of all those careers could have been superior in every way had they been built on a better foundation.


If only these struggling, stressed, intentionally or unintentionally abusive supervisors had known this:  supervision is not an art.  It is a skill.  It is not luck, instinct, insight, abstract concepts, psychology, sociology, or philosophy; it is action and implementation.  It is not a secret, not magic, not the innate or inborn gift of a fortunate, talented few.  Anyone can learn it.

At the end of a long, seemingly successful career that involves supervising other people, a person can look back at one of two things:


- Personal achievement despite other people.


- Personal achievement through helping other people attain personal achievement.

And yes, the difference is significant.

As the wonderful cartoonist Hugh MacLeod puts it:  

Introduction, Part Four: What Everybody Knows That's Wrong

"Supervisor" and "Manager" are a ten cent word and a ten dollar word, both meaning the same thing.

"Time Management" is just getting your damned work done on time for once, and stop it with the overtime, will you?

Employees want to get more, but deliver less.  All of them.  All the time.

Nobody notices what the supervisor does, except to complain to higher management if he tries to impose high production standards.

The supervisor's job is to do his own work in his own office.  Preferably with the door closed so he can concentrate.

A supervisor shouldn't ever do his subordinates' work; it demeans him if he can't do it as fast and as well as they do it, and besides, that is their job.

Delegation is a fancy word for telling people what to do.  Which they ought to already know.

Long, droning meetings are stupid wastes of time, but we have to have them because higher management says so.

Employees' greatest motivators are more money and more time off.

If they got this far, they should know what to do and how to do it.  If they don't do it, they need to be criticized, disciplined, or fired.

If an employee makes a mistake, it's his fault and he should (pay, be disciplined, be bawled out, be embarrassed in public, be blamed for other problems as well, be trashed to higher management behind his back, be fired) for it.

.........................................

Okay, you say.  Okay, already.  I've got it.  So when do the introductions stop and the actual lessons finally start?

Next week.  And thank you for your patience.


photo with thanks from master-art-gallery.blogspot.com

Introduction, Part Three: First, Do No Harm

Once upon a time, Roger went to work for a man named Max whom Roger quickly realized did almost nothing.

Max talked fluently about teamwork and about never being afraid of hard work, but never did any himself.

Max did, however, listen patiently and kindly to employees' woes, and he did give excellent advice.

He did not help them work, but he helped them find and use the tools they needed to do the work themselves.

When faced with a roadblock in productivity, Max would ask an employee to find out how to fix it.  When the employee came back with an answer, he would listen, then tell the employee to go ahead and try that.  If the trial failed, he would listen to the employee explain how and why it had failed, then let him try again.  If the attempt succeeded, Max gathered all the troops together, described in cheerful, false detail how HE had helped the employee to solve the problem, then praised the employee in that public venue.

Max - let's reiterate here - never did a moment's actual work.  He never even wrote the mandatory annual performance reviews for his employees; he told them to write them, and sent them back if they weren't sufficiently laudatory.  Then he added a few more flattering words, and signed them.  In corporate meetings, he described in glowing terms what his section had accomplished, taking some credit for himself, but then giving all the remainder of the credit to his employees, by name, in those public venues. 

For many years, this is how Max worked.  Doing nothing, taking some credit he didn't deserve, then spreading all the rest of the credit around. He was promoted, then promoted, then promoted again.  Some day, Roger suspected, Max would be promoted to a job where he would HAVE to do something.  But he was such a likable guy that this worried rather than pleased Roger.

Life goes on, but sometimes it doesn't.  One day, Max dropped dead at work.

One of Roger's first thoughts upon hearing the news had to do with how ironic it was that Max had died in the office, since he had never actually done any work there.  But over the years since Max's death Roger met and re-met others who had worked for him.  All of them had been through Max's catch-and-release praise process; not a single one of them expressed anything but sadness for the loss.

He had been a pretty good boss, in fact, as far as they were concerned - especially compared to others they had worked for before and since.  He had been kind, patient, supportive, and had given a lot of credit where it was due.  In the long run, it didn't matter that he had never even filled out a time card if he could get someone else to do it.  He had at least done no harm.

This may seem like damning with faint praise, but  Roger knows now - if he didn't know then - that in most organizations this might be the best that an employee will ever find:  a boss who is kind, is patient, does not stab employees in the back,  does not interfere with them doing their best, and only steals part of the credit.

RIP indeed.

Introduction, Part Two: It Only Takes Once to Assure The Employee Loyalty You Deserve

Once upon a time, on a Monday morning long ago, a young woman started a new job.  Like all new transferees, she was tense, happy, worried, eager to learn, to do well, to impress her new boss, to succeed.

During a walk through the office, the boss showed her the large walk-in vault which held the most valuable items.  He handed her the combination and invited her to open it.

The young woman had learned about vaults in a three-hour class, four weeks before.  She had learned about several different types of combination locks, all of which operate differently.  In the same class, she had learned how to re-set a combination and how to repair a stuck or broken lock.  Four weeks before.  In three hours.

She studied the huge, black, silent dial.  She looked at the numbers.  The new boss, the man she was desperate to impress, stepped back, crossed his arms, and said nothing.

So she tried the combination.  Right first, or left?  She didn't remember so she tried one way.  When that didn't work, she tried the other.  No luck.  Maybe there should be two rotations between numbers instead of only one.  No.  Maybe two, then one.  Nothing.  The door remained stubbornly closed.

The young woman began to perspire.  She wiped her hand on her new uniform skirt, the skirt she had pressed early this morning with such care, with such hope and excitement, and tried again.

No.

She realized, very suddenly, that she might cry.  Then she stole a glance, just a quick sideways flick of the eye, at her new boss.

On his face she saw a knowing, sarcastic smile.

At that moment, although she didn't recognize it until much later, she thought, "You son of a bitch.  Some day I'll get you for this."

She never forgot that experience.  She never forgot how she felt that day.  She never liked her boss, and never trusted him.  She never went a step out of her way to make him look good.  It took ten years, but she got him.

Introduction, Part One: You Are What You Hire What You Believe

Joe once worked in a long-established factory in an East Coast city.  One of his responsibilities was new employee orientation.  For months he struggled to introduce trainees to the basics of their work:  what the factory made and how those products were used, how to use simple instruments, how to make quality products, how to safeguard their health and fingers around serious metal-working equipment.

Joe's work was a bit frustrating, mostly because the new employees were - how can Joe put this delicately - truly stupid.  Now, you will see this blog carry on later about how wrong it can be to make assumptions about anyone's intelligence from his or her appearance, but this was a different thing.  These folks were lovely people - kind, generous, funny, eager to work - but absolutely bovine in education and intelligence.  They did not know basic arithmetic, let alone fractions or decimals - bits of knowledge essential to the correct setup and operation of the equipment they had been hired to run.  Teaching them simple addition and then the long division they would have to be able to do rapidly in their heads, began to take up more and more of Joe's (and therefore the company's and the employees') time, to the detriment of getting the products out the door.

Men and women who had worked in this factory for decades were baffled:  they were responsible for providing the on-the-job portion of new employees' training, and found it almost impossible.  Foremen and superintendents asked, "Is THIS the best I can get?  Jeepers!"  Management shook its head and sighed, and did nothing further.

In his puzzlement, Joe finally went to the human resources manager to ask why these folks were being hired.  That manager told him, with fierce sincerity, "Factory work is cruel and dehumanizing.  This place is one of the pits of hell.  Intelligent, clever, ambitious people do not want to work in this ugly, noisy, dangerous place, getting their hands dirty.  So I hire what I can get."

Joe trekked back to report to the foremen and superintendents, who shook their heads.  Management sighed and did nothing further.  And Joe himself could hardly complain, when they wouldn't, about hiring practices that favored the extremely-hard-to-employ.

Flash forward a couple of months.  The human resources manager left.  Her replacement was a woman who found the factory fascinating and the products beautiful.  Suddenly the new hires coming to orientation were intelligent, clever and ambitious people who loved to work with their hands, and get dirty.  And yes, they could already do long division in their heads, thank you very much, and what a nifty set of instruments we get to work with!   How does this one work, Joe, and what does it do?  Ah, I see.  What about this one?  Cool, got it.  When do I start?  What else can I learn?

Did productivity and quality suddenly improve overnight?  This isn't a fairy tale so the answer is no.  But several different foremen lost that haunted look.  Joe actually saw - for the first time in a long time - superintendents engaged in intense three-way conversations with one of these new workers and one of the very old timers, with all interlocutors looking deeply interested and satisfied.  Senior workers realized that they could pass on all that they knew and their accumulated wisdom would be safe with newer workers who could explain what they did, and why they did it that way - and could present well-reasoned arguments for tweaking the system.

Life for everyone got a tick better.  All because of what one person who never set foot on the shop floor did and did not believe.

And the moral of this story is --- Oh, come on.  You tell me!