Now, what is it that you do?

In my last post I pondered briefly whether mentoring can be effective, if the mentor does not consciously articulate how he or she is effective.

Recently, a professional said to me that he 'leads by example.' I asked what that meant: "Well, I act professionally, so that employees know what it looks like." Was he ever disappointed because some people didn't pick up on his cues? 'Sure. Some people just don't learn.'

Now, here I have to hit the [PAUSE] button. Before anyone criticizes, think about it, and ask yourself to be candid: haven't you done this very thing? Maybe you've coached an employee on a performance issue, and you've taken care to do all the right things in your coaching session: you make it safe for the individual to listen and learn; you describe the gap; you explain why it's important to close the gap; you gain a commitment. The employee responds well to the coaching, and even turns around his or her performance. Then you witness the same employee holding someone else accountable -- and he's doing ALL the wrong things -- it's a complete disaster. How did he not understand what you expected him to do when he was coaching his staff? You demonstrated it, right? He's a manager; he shouldn't have to be told everything!

Well, maybe your employee thought your behaviors were just a stylistic difference (you're 'touchy-feely'; he's 'direct'). Or maybe he thought that your approach works well with people on his professional level, but hourly employees need to be handled differently. There could be dozens of different assumptions that your employee holds. Thing is, you don't know what they are, because you didn't talk about it. At the end of your coaching session, it would be oh so easy to segue to asking what your employee experienced and learned in the session. Then, ask, "Is this what you would want for your own employees? Let's discuss how I led this discussion, to understand what I did that was helpful for you. It's important to me that you are able to benefit not only as an employee, but also in your professional development. It will also help me understand how I can better support you, as your manager."

I can readily admit that I have never gone to that next step, and explained how I manage to the managers who work for me. Yet almost everyone who works for me has expressed an interest in moving forward in his career to the next management or professional level. And yet, I focus my development coaching on what they are doing, and never what skills I have that I could share. Actually, it feels a little self-important to articulate my own behaviors -- who would be interested in that, right? Well, your employees who aspire to your role (or your level) would be absolutely interested. Employees would probably be fascinated to understand what you do every day, what you find challenging and what you learn. They definitely want to know what you're thinking. And they would be so grateful to hear about your mistakes, and what you learned from them.

I hear there's a television show that places CEOs in front-line positions, I assume to demonstrate just how clueless executives are. I agree that executives need to be present at all levels of the company, to understand employee and customer engagement. But equally important to employees is what the executive does. It's the same sort of curiosity that underpins Inside the Actors Studio (or the film Being John Malkovich?) or reading the autobiographies of famous business leaders. But you don't have to be John Malkovich or Jack Welch to be interesting to people in your company. And perhaps just reflecting on your own behaviors will help you become more aware -- which may even make you more effective than you already are.

Build or Buy?

The cover story in this weekend's NY Times Magazine, "Building a Better Teacher," intrigued me. I'm interested in the country's educational system from any number of perspectives: as a parent, as an employer, as a citizen, I am a stakeholder. Recent studies have illuminated the significance that the quality of the teacher has on the educational outcomes, far outweighing other factors such as curriculum (teaching to the test), class size, race, class, or ability. 

"Eric Hanushek, a Stanford economist, found that while the top 5 percent of teachers were able to impart a year and a half’s worth of learning to students in one school year, as judged by standardized tests, the weakest 5 percent advanced their students only half a year of material each year."

One popular response to this data is to create strategies for employing more of the 'good' teachers: raising salary offers to attract the best and the brightest from industry, making it easier to remove the ineffective teachers. The downside is that this is not scalable. The country has 3.7 million teachers. If you only select those who are naturally talented and skilled in teaching, how do you staff this many positions?

Doug Lemov, featured in the article, advocates a different strategy, to build rather than buy teaching skills. His extensive observation-based research indicates that excellent teachers -- those who have measurably superior student results -- all employ specific behaviors that enable them to engage students in learning. (If you're interested, I suggest visiting the article online so that you can watch the short videos of teachers employing some of these behaviors. I can't say that I've ever witnessed classroom experiences like these.) His book Teach Like a Champion will be published in April, and I can't wait to read it. 

I think it's possible that there is something to learn from this to inform management development programs in industry. To achieve consistently high performance requires not just great processes but also great managers and leaders. A high performance company can only afford managers capable of achieving high performance through others -- just like, I would think, a school could only employ highly effective teachers to enable their students to achieve high scores in standardized tests. One way to get there is to buy the talent, and performance manage out any manager who is not a great manager. This isn't an easily scalable strategy, and it limits how much the company can promote internally, which increases employee turnover, which further limits the company. The other strategy of course is to build great managers. Lots of companies, including the one where I work, have waded deep into this strategy. The challenge  remains how to do it effectively.

I've read my fair share of business books that attempt to teach management skills, but in reading this article I was struck by the thought that there could be a taxonomy of behaviors that differentiate effective teachers (managers). Teachers need to hear not just 'get control of the class' but how to do this with reproducible behaviors such as hand signals, timing of transitions, cold calling (asking for student responses). I'm not suggesting that managers treat their employees like children; I am suggesting that adult human beings probably respond to body cues and verbal communication no differently than they did when they were younger. I don't think that people become different in kind as they age. If as children we need positive feedback, clear instruction, physical engagement, and context in order to learn, why should we not need the same as we mature?

Although mentoring is thought to be a highly impactful means to develop managers, I am now questioning that assumption. A person who is naturally talented may have little awareness of his own behaviors that enable his success. Talent allows a person to remain unconscious of the skills that increase effectiveness. If the mentored student is not highly observant himself, and the mentor isn't conscious of his skills, the only lesson learned may be to emulate the mentor. The effective manager undoubtedly demonstrates consistently behaviors that support others to succeed with his management; with awareness, he could help other managers learn how to do the same.

To make something reproducible, you must be able to define and describe its process. A taxonomy of management development would provide that nuts and bolts description: how to write an e-mail, how to communicate direction, how to conduct a performance review. If this seems too reductive, perhaps you're holding onto a hope that management is an art. Leadership may well be. Management, however, should be reproducible and scalable, and very definitely not driven by personality or unpredictability. When I watched the videos of effective teachers in action, I realized that these were undoubtedly people of great talent and expertise in their subjects, but what differentiated them from other teachers was the level of engagement between them and their students, and how attuned they were to each other. When we in business speak of alignment and employee engagement, surely these images impart the essence of those meanings. "Joy and Structure" - what could a company achieve that melded both of these seamlessly into its daily work?

First, Move the Ficus

Last month I reorganized my office. I should have done it long ago. It's a big change, and I was looking for a big change. Actually, I needed a change inside my head, but of course I wasn't thinking that at the time.

The new office look has brought lots of curious peeks, surprised approvals, and flat out questions. 'Why'd you....' (everyone has a decorating opinion in a furniture retail company, but, thankfully, always diplomatically phrased). The most persistent question has been "What made you do it?"

It all started with the ficus in the corner that was uncomfortably close to the meeting table. I can become easily distracted in meetings when people are mildly discomforted by the physical environment: dodging the slatted sunlight coming from open blinds late in the late afternoon; brushing off the wayward leaves of an office plant that is only inches away. When the environment is my office, I'm more than distracted -- I'm responsible. One day, I finally acted. I moved the ficus across the room. Easy fix.

But then, the ficus was clearly in the wrong place. For a week I walked out of my way, around the ficus, to reach my desk. I also realized the room was unbalanced with the tree sticking out like a hitchhiker's thumb. So for a week I suffered it, and contemplated that even though I had hated my office layout since I'd moved in, now I'd made it even worse. And then the second shoe dropped: this is something I can change. So one Saturday I dug in and dug out. I even organized my pencil drawer, uncovering relics and antiquities, which soon made their way to recycle bins.

This was a few weeks ago, and I'm still surprised by how organized my thinking has been. I've been more effective in staying on top of projects. I've been more receptive to coworkers who drop in. I'm thinking more consciously about producing stuff to put in paper files. It's a wonderful feeling. Metaphors are wonderful for change. I needed to clear out, open up, and organize my physical environment so that I make the same changes in my thinking.

But why did it take me so long to figure this out? I realized as I was moving my desk and cabinets just how much I loathed the old arrangement. Before the move, I sighed internally every morning as I switched on the lights and approached my desk. How is it possible that I didn't recognize my own reactions, and do something about it?

Well that's simple - it seemed like so much work, and as evidenced by the piles of stuff around me, I was already buried in work. Making a change for me was just in the too-hard basket. It would take a day out of my life. I didn't have that to give. I would just have to make do.

Instead, I did one small thing that was easy. I moved the ficus. I thought I was creating a more comfortable space for my colleagues. Actually, I was creating more discomfort for myself. Necessary discomfort, it turns out -- necessary to commit to the more unwieldy task of actually fixing the real problem. I had to make it worse to release the inertia.

I'm now thinking of ways to move the ficus metaphorically in other areas of the business. We're surrounded by operational status quo, some of which clearly doesn't work for us or our customers, but which we tolerate, with a sigh. Is there a ficus to be moved?