Astromanager LLC

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Month: April 2010

  • What are you really concerned about here?

    I learned this particularly powerful combination of words from one of my (few) regular commenters here, Andy Flach. I might generalize them slightly, though to “What are you concerned about?” If managers used these words more often, they’d make their lives a lot easier.

    Andy uses them a lot during contract negotiations. Inevitably one side has issues with a particular contract clause or detail and then the other side proposes alternative wording which doesn’t end up satisfying the objecting side and long delays and discussions ensue. Andy cuts through all that by asking quite early in the process, What are you really concerned about here? and I can tell you not only is it a huge time-saver, but it often leaves us with a more advantageous contract than if this question had not been asked. What happens without this question is that side 1 objects to something, side 2 tries to figure out what the objection is and how much it is willing to compromise and then offers some substitute terms. Since side 2 is only guessing at what is bothering side 1, it usually guesses wrong (which means another round of negotiating) and it often gives up too much in an attempt to compromise as it tries to cover all possible bases of discontent.

    Instead, by asking directly what the real concern is, Andy can offer a limited, targeted change of terms which directly addresses the other party’s concerns. The issue is usually resolved quite easily thereafter, with each getting more of what they want than would have happened otherwise.

    What every good manager should do- carefully look under each rock for trouble or gold! (Photo borrowed from snailstales.blogspot.com.)

    Another use for this phrase is for managers to understand what is going on that their people know about, but they don’t. These are often issues that are so apparent to people on the lines that they simply assume that since management is doing nothing about, they must not care. Actually, more often management simply doesn’t know – or worse – doesn’t want to know. By continually asking what are you concerned about? or what should I be concerned about?, leaders and managers can learn a lot about those thorny issues that no one likes to talk about, but that everyone (except themselves, of course) knows. In Good to Great parlance, this is the process of “looking under the rocks”, of finding and dealing with potential problems of the future before they get too big.

    And as described in my last post, asking questions like these is a direct, visible request for input. If the response is really heard and actively and transparently processed as I described, employees will feel their input is valued and that they can make a difference to improve the organization by noting and reporting on current and possible future issues. What an empowering environment to work in!

    In adopting these words into his daily life, Scot learned (the hard way) to be careful about the word “really”. Someone once thought Scot was implying this person was hiding her true motives by using “really”. He now uses “really” less often, or changes the phrase to “what’s the core issue here?”, when deemed appropriate.

  • There’s more to getting input than just getting input

    It’s funny, I’m starting to feel a bit like Scott Adams, I mean beyond sharing part of a first name. About the time I start wondering what I should next write about and figuring I might finally have to go back and re-read the ends of recent posts to figure out what I said I might write about, something happens, or someone says something that rings a bell- and ding! I have a topic for my next post.

    See if this one rings a bell for you, too:

    These people are always complaining that we never give them a chance to tell us what they think. They have plenty of chances. I don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re just crazy!

    Well, OK. That’s one way to handle it. I say X, you say Y; you’re clearly an idiot. OK, let’s first assume that you really did give people plenty of chances to provide input, yet they’re still complaining. Sure, they might be idiots, but it is probably more productive to take a little deeper look, first. If nothing else, you have a perception problem, and that’s something you probably can and should work on.

    So, there are really two issues here. First, if you really want to understand what people are saying about you, take some time to look beyond just their words. In this case, if you’re confident that there really were opportunities for input, yet people still complain about there not being enough, then ask yourself what else might it be they are really complaining about. (You should also ask yourself if their complaint is valid, too. i.e., are you really giving people opportunities to provide input?) Dismissing the complaint as erroneous or nonsensical does nothing to promote a better understanding and relationship between you and “them”. Avoid the easy way out by saying they are simply wrong, and look behind the surface for what’s really going on.

    In this case, what’s really behind the surface might be a number of things that are really being complained about.

    • You never really asked for my input, so although I found a way to state it, I don’t feel you did enough to actually seek my input.
    • Sure, you let me say what I wanted to say, but you didn’t really hear it.
    • I gave my input, but I never really heard about what happened next, so I don’t really understand how the final decision was reached. Was my input weighed at all?
    • You never do what I want. Why should I waste my time giving input if you don’t take my advice in the first place?

    And I’m sure there are other possibilities, but these issues are pretty common so probably bare a bit more discussion:

    • It’s not enough (even though you may think it should be) to say something like “my door is always open” or “you have my email address” if you don’t also explicitly seek input. Input given that doesn’t appear to be really wanted or requested, doesn’t really feel like giving input.
    • Upon receiving input, you need to really show that you’ve heard it, even if you disagree with it. You need to at least acknowledge the point of view contained within. Don’t ask for input then as soon as it’s given, continue on with what you were going to say anyway. You have to hear, process, and acknowledge the input. What you say/do next should reflect the new point of view you were just offered, even if it doesn’t change the actual action you end up taking.
    • You can actively ask for input, receive it, and even properly acknowledge it, but if the decision process from there is opaque, you won’t get any credit for it. It must be clear that the gathered input was considered and evaluated, even if it wasn’t ultimately taken to heart. The decision process needs to be clear and transparent, else people will just assume their input was ignored and the normal decision decided upon anyhow.
    • The last step is to explain the ultimate decision. Be clear that alternative options and views were considered, but for reasons x,y, and q, the final decision was made as it was.

    If people feel their input was wanted, heard, and considered, and the rationale for the eventual decision was clearly stated, most of the time they will be satisfied even if things don’t end up going completely their way. People want their ideas heard and considered; they don’t expect to always get their way. Treating their opinions with respect and explaining your own will go a long way to making your people feel happy and valued.

    As readers of this blog know, Scot has plenty of opinions. Do they always get listened to and acted upon? Nope, but at least through this blog, he can make believe people are reading, agreeing with, and acting on everything he writes! 🙂

  • Only you can prevent needless fires!

    A colleague sent me a link to a John Hersey blog post about the role of a leader. He argues an effective leader is not one who can come in and solve problems single-handedly, leaving people wondering how this miraculous solution was enacted so quickly. No, a real leader/manager is one who sets up his team to solve (and I would add prevent) their own problems. The manager’s job is to make sure the right problems are getting solved, but not to go in and solve each one directly, even though she may be very capable of doing so. A true leader does not try to appear the hero, but sets up her team to be successful themselves.

    One bit of Hersey’s post that rang a few bells was the following:

    It is very common to hear managers talk about the quantity of emails and voice mails they receive, about the amount of projects, meetings, and endless hours they work, and one never knows if they are bragging or complaining.  One thing is certain though, these managers get trapped into this vicious cycle because it makes them feel important, because it puts them in the heart of the action, because they are making things happen.  They depend on the adrenaline rush that comes with solving urgent problems, on being the savior of their poor and ill-fated team.

    Boy, have I seen that before! Particularly in institutions that have not yet made the transition from construction and commissioning to operations, which describes nearly every astronomy institution I’ve been involved with – even those that should have clearly been in an operations mode already!

    Getting projects up and running on time and budget while pushing the frontiers of current technology, doing what none have done before, is exciting stuff.  The rush from being completely absorbed in your project and heroically solving the latest challenge is addicting, but it’s not a sustainable way of being and it’s certainly not for everyone.  At some point, in addition to (or perhaps rather than, in some cases) bringing new capabilities online, you have to stop and make what you already can do more efficient. You have to stop to smooth the rough edges and establish a system that doesn’t require regular heroics to operate.  While you want your key innovators to be working on that next project, you want their previous projects to become stable and operable by mere mortals.  In other words, you need a staff for construction, commissioning, and innovation, and you need a different staff for regular operations and maintenance.  (You may need another staff to make that transition for you as well.)

    If you don’t make this conscious shift in staff and their organizational roles as your project matures, you end up with just the kind of bravado Hersey describes. You end up with staff that continues to find rewards mainly by finding (and sometimes even creating) fires so they can then heroically swoop in and put them out, when what you want is a staff that predicts what fires might occur and works behind the scenes to prevent them before they ever have a chance to start. Being a hero for answering 300 emails a day and solving 6 problems at the last minute may be far removed from the challenges of bringing a new facility to life, but a real fire fighter lives to fight fires, wherever they are, or can be created!

    In a typical project, the stars from the project’s start-up phase end up being promoted to managerial positions by the time the project should be switching to a more sustainable operations phase. But this approach clearly results in a classic mismatch. Managers trained to, and rewarded by, putting out fires end up trying to manage a team that isn’t designed or made for fire-fighting. The newly-hired operations staff will not be the fire-fighting innovators that started the project (people like that would never take an operations job), but they are often managed by those that are. Unless these managers make a very purposeful effort to switch gears, a fire-fighting culture and generally unhappy employees will be the result. Much better to give new projects to your innovators and hire (or train) new managers to run a stable operations staff.


    Having helped set and put out several fires of his own, Scot spends most of his time these days trying to predict and prevent trouble before it bursts into all-out flame. It’s perhaps less noticeable work, but personally, very rewarding.

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