Leading Teams

When Implementing Change, You’ll Encounter These Three Types Of People

April 6, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

To successfully make changes in your workplace, you’ll need to have everyone on board. But don’t try to get them all to accept change at once. Not everyone responds to change similarly; some employees will not react well to it initially.

According to Hans Finzel’s Change is Like a Slinky Paperback (2004,) you must anticipate your allies and adversaries. Determine which of these three groups each of your employees belongs to and adapt.

The Innovators and Early Adopters. Some people love the challenge of change for its excitement and the opportunity to spearhead change. These employees can research the topic, develop prototypes, and act as “change ambassadors” to motivate people further down the hierarchy.
The Careful Majority. Most employees will support change once they’re reasonably confident it’ll succeed. Demonstrate to skeptics what the change will represent and how it will benefit them and the company. Acknowledge concerns—both the spoken and unspoken—and the discomfort of being in unfamiliar territory while focusing on what’s within their control. Eventually, the majority will follow the early adopters’ lead.
The Holdouts. A few employees may resist—and even sabotage—change because they feel uncomfortable about it, don’t believe in it, or can’t see any benefits in it for themselves. If their contentions are worth the time and energy to debate and discuss, make a fair effort to gain alignment on perspective and resolution on position, but be firm with your strategic direction. Get key organizational leaders to give these dissenters reasons and opportunities to get on board, but let them know the price if they don’t accept change.

Idea for Impact: The best managers understand that each employee has different skills, sentiments, wants and needs—and work to put each employee in a position to feel valued and contribute.

These are the Two Best Employee Engagement Questions

March 30, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Engaged employees are more likely to be effective, stay with your company, and nurture a favorable corporate culture. To gauge employee engagement levels regularly, run a pulse survey and ask these two questions:

To what degree are you proactively engaged in improving the tasks you’re responsible for? Does your workplace actively seek your ideas to make those improvements?
To what degree do the processes that you are working with enable you to be highly successful in your job?

Seek ideas meaningful for improvements from people on the job. Demonstrate commitment to taking significant action and follow through.

Managerial Lessons from the Show Business: Summary of Leadership from the Director’s Chair

March 13, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Notes on Directing: 130 Lessons in Leadership from the Director’s Chair (2008) explores the parallels between directing the stage and managing projects. The shared themes include ad hoc teams, one-off goals, tight time frames, limited budgets, nebulous chains of command, shared objectives, etc.

Compiled by writer Russell Reich from the notes of British stage director Frank Hauser, this tome contains 130 meditations on casting actors, rehearsing, stage-setting, supervising the production units, and handling critics.

Organized temporally from a director’s initial encounter with the play’s script to its final production, this slim volume is so much more—it’s not just for stage directors.

#7: “Learn to love a play you don’t particularly like. You may be asked—or may choose—to direct a play that, for any number of reasons, you don’t think is very good. In such cases it is better to focus and build on the play’s virtues than attempt to repair its inherent problems.” Idea for Impact: Focus on virtues and strengths, not weaknesses. Spend more of their time reinforcing the good performers than dealing with untrainable performers—i.e., you can never remediate grievous weaknesses. Position the person somewhere else where her talents are a better match.
#33: “Every scene is a chase scene. Character A wants something from Character B who doesn’t want to give it.” Idea for Impact: Productive relationships with balance and joy call for continuous concession and managing one another’s expectations. Work hard to ensure that all sides feel contented with a negotiated compromise.
#73: “Know your actors. Some like a lot of attention; others want to be left alone. Some like written notes; some spoken. Get to know them. It doesn’t have to take long. It’s a good investment that will pay enormous benefits later.” Idea for Impact: Embrace individualized management. No two employees are alike—their temperaments, qualifications, experiences, and backgrounds shape them into thoroughly unique people who’re persuaded, challenged, and inspired in different ways. So why treat them all the same way?

Recommendation: Read Notes on Directing. It’s a worthwhile meditation in managing people, projects, and yourself. Anyone who must get things done through people will find insightful meditations on getting to the core of the narrative, handling people with diplomacy and nuance, and navigating conflict.

You Can’t Serve Two Masters

February 6, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Learning to “serve two masters” and managing multiple supervisors is a vital skill in today’s work world. Organizations have increasingly embraced matrix structures, with “dashed line” reporting (you work under a supervisor who doesn’t do your performance reviews) and “solid line” reporting (the true boss who evaluates your performance.) Do your best to accommodate the latter, but don’t overlook the other(s.)

Further, with cross-functional teams, it’s common these days to have multiple team-based supervisors, each overseeing your work on different projects. If you’re not cautious, it’ll become all too easy for each supervisor to regard you as if you have no other commitments, and you can end up letting them both down.

The key to managing expectations at odds is insisting on boundaries. If you aren’t too careful, you could become totally overwhelmed—each boss isn’t mindful of what the other’s sending you. Each ends up pushing their own agendas regardless of what you already bear on your plate.

To resolve the two-boss dilemma and try to please everybody, take the initiative and get your bosses to cooperate and liaise regularly:

Create and maintain one master priority list of everything on your plate. Update it at the beginning of every week, and make sure both bosses have a copy. This should help each understand how any emergent task would jibe with the other items on your list.
When one boss drops an urgent task on your lap, refer to the master priority list and ask, “If you want me to do this, what is it you want me to take off the list because I also have three other deliverables due in the next few days.”
Establish a daily 5- or 10-minute standing coordination meeting (“scrum”) with all the bosses. In the meeting, point out your current and impending priorities. They can adjust their relative preferences for you.
Don’t be the “go-between” and agree to speak on behalf of one boss to the other—especially if they aren’t speaking to each other. There’s much ambiguity, and managing conflict can become a significant challenge for you.

Even if you have multiple supervisors whom you take direction from, you’re likely to have one boss who’s ultimately responsible for their career. This boss will judge your performance and decide about your compensation and promotions. Tell her about your double bind and see if she can work out an acceptable arrangement with her colleague.

Idea for Impact: Remember to maintain good relations with everybody you work with. Personnel changes are widespread and frequent in most companies, and you never know who’ll be your next boss. Don’t strain your relationships with the other.

How to … Deal with Meetings That Get Derailed

January 26, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Refuse meetings that swallow up your time with little benefit. Unproductive talk and time tend to fill the space at protracted meetings.

Cut the meetings you have in half. Cut the time of the meetings that remain in half. Then cut the number of attendees in half.

Show up only if you’re required—not just to be seen, and be prepared with your contribution.

Anecdote: When Andy Grove was CEO at Intel, every new employee, from a production worker to an executive, was required to take the company’s course on effective meetings, often taught by the acclaimed CEO himself. Grove believed good meetings were of such consequence to Intel that it was worth his time to train all employees.

Books in Brief: The Power of Introverts

December 24, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Susan Cain’s bestselling Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking (2012) investigates how our schools and offices have an intrinsic cultural bias towards extroverts—they’re more likely to be social and enjoy being in high-stimulus environments.

At a business meeting, for example, extroverts hog the conversation, while introverts are often quiet. Extroverts think by talking and arguing, whereas introverts think and process internally.

I worry that there are people who are put in positions of authority because they’re good talkers, but they don’t have good ideas. It’s so easy to confuse schmoozing ability with talent. Someone seems like a good presenter, easy to get along with, and those traits are rewarded. Well, why is that? They’re valuable traits, but we put too much of a premium on presenting and not enough on substance and critical thinking.

Idea for Impact: Don’t miss out on introverted excellence.

Goal-Setting for Managers: Set Tough but Achievable Challenges

December 15, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Finding the middle ground between setting the bar too low and too high can challenge managers.

Sure, aggressive goals can spark great accomplishments, but they also can induce employees to bend or break the rules in pursuit of those goals, as the Wells Fargo and Volkswagen scandals illustrate.

When employees get comfortable with their usual tasks, it’s time to push them outside their comfort zones. New responsibilities can propel employees to take on new challenges and learn new things.

However, before giving employees new tasks, take away some of the older responsibilities they’ve already mastered. Many people feel they have an unrealistic amount of work to do already. If you aren’t prudent enough to keep your employees’ workloads in check, giving “stretch” assignments can lead to burnout, not growth.

Idea for Impact: Goals that are too high or low can be demotivating. Set goals that are challenging and inspiring but with extra effort, realistically attainable.

Are Layoffs Your Best Strategy Now?

November 28, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

We’re in a demand slump; if you think downsizing will cut costs and shore up the bottom line, consider the unexpected consequences of layoffs.

Hefty severance pay, outplacement services, and other direct costs can add up quickly, and indirect costs can be substantial. E.g., losing experienced employees can precipitate lasting damage to your business. The direct costs can wipe out any short-term financial benefit if new hard-to-find employees are to be hired and trained within six to twelve months when the downtrend stops.

Then there’s the trap of believing that things will get better soon and downsizing the smallest number of people in anticipation of a quick turnaround. And when that expected miracle doesn’t materialize, you’ll wind up making successive cuts. That’s awful for the morale of the employees spared. The best employees won’t feel indebted to soldier on and may start casting around for new offers, terrified that they will be among the next to be cut.

Idea for Impact: Layoffs may not be the best strategy for grappling with hard times. Examine not just the cost of labor but also the value created by labor. Consider the trade-offs and try furloughs, pay cuts, job sharing, and scaled-down hours instead, depending on when you foresee business rebounding. You’ll spread the pain of the downturn more broadly, keep talented employees, earn loyalty, and better position your company for recovery.

Lessons from the Japanese Decision-Making Process

November 10, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Japanese firms traditionally use the ringi seido (“request for approval system”) to make critical decisions. A proposal is circulated to appropriate people, advancing from lower to higher ranks. As the proposal works through the management layers before landing at the top, each participant puts their stamp (the hanko) on the document.

This collective consensus process allows for a greater number of reasonable alternatives to be considered and for the risk to be spread. Although it may be slow, the implementation is faster once the decision is made. (Since the early ’90s, Toyota has followed a “three-stamp movement,” restricting the number of people needing to approve a proposal to three.)

Unlike consensus management in the west, the ringi system is often used to appease factions in an institution. Given the Japanese norms (nemawashi) of social structure and intercultural communication, everybody tends to be very diplomatic when giving an opinion. A decision isn’t made if unanimity isn’t reached.

Make the Problem Yours

September 21, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

From a profile of The Gillette Company’s then-CEO Jim Kilts in the 20-Dec-2002 issue of Fortune magazine:

At a meeting with all his division chiefs, Kilts asked for a show of hands: “How many of you think our costs are too high?” Everyone in the room immediately raised his hand. Then he asked, “How many of you think costs are too high in your department?” Not a single hand went up. According to Kilts, it’s a common response among managers of companies in trouble: Everyone knows there’s a problem, it’s just that nobody thinks it’s his problem. And that’s where Kilts comes in: He’ll make it his problem–and yours, if you plan on keeping your job.

Idea for Impact: Make the problem yours. Think and act like an owner.

One of the most underrated skills most employees lack is ownership/stewardship—taking responsibility for results, recognizing when things aren’t working, and getting problems solved.

Plus, teams mirror initiative-takers. When someone starts to take ownership, other people see that, and they’re likely to take ownership of their bits as well.

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