All,

Thanks for the feedback on last week’s note.

I spent the week bouncing between one topic and another trying to decide what was second in the natural order. I’ve settled on one from the farm, how to apply the “parable of the talents” to management, specifically building your dream team, picking a lawyer, etc.

In the simplest form, if someone new comes into the team give them an easy task to deliver, task “a”.

If you have to chase them five times over a month to get an update and it takes forever, the groove for that relationship is getting set. Fire them immediately.

If you follow up with them after a month and they did the task, just the task, but didn’t report back.. well you might think about firing them also. Needs a bit more thought, but the person might have just highlighted that they’ve an issue with “reporting” to you. Life might be too short and you don’t need the hassle.

If they complete the task, just the task, and let you know – there is something to work with.

Of course, every once in a while someone pops up who comes back a week or two later with “a” completed, the let you know that they saw “b”, “c” and “d” that needed done in a similar vein, so cleared those up also. Then while looking at “d” got out to see to a client and closed a PO for a new product, “e”.. boom, someone for the dream team.

Back in the day my dad used a slightly different variant of this for farm workers. When a new labourer had been with us for a few weeks he’d head into town for a day without leaving anyway instructions. If the yard was tidied and all the tools in the garage sorted when he got back.. hey presto, a keeper. If the guy was sleeping on the hay, time to try someone else.

Now, in terms of qualifying this, in reality it’s often not that simple in particular as people with niche skills are hard to find and a big part of management is making the most of the resources available (per last week’s note). Still, as a manger you can often create a lot of impact by giving the right team members a free rein. Also, folks may need a few opportunities and nudges for you to get an accurate picture depending on the culture in previous companies where they’ve worked and the like. People have learned assumptions about what managers expect.

Second, the resentment of management, the “man”, powers that be, folks who are better off, etc, is deeply engrained in many cultures, not least in Ireland, and often for valid historical reasons. In your management careers you’ll bump up against reports who lean towards doing the bear minimum, work to rule, or who hate you just because you’re in “management”. It’s useful to flush this out early so you know the lie of the land. Also, remember it isn’t personal, at least so far as negative emotion directed your way can be considered not personal (because often it is personal). Emotions engrained deeply in family or community histories are hard to shift. The best advice if you’re running a company is to find a hiring manager who is really good at reading people with an eye for “cultural fit”.

Finally as some of you know when onboarding senior execs I use a variant of this approach. The marching orders for the first three months are for the exec to have a dig around and then tell us what needs done, essentially defining their own objectives and job spec. Some folks in the senior team came back after a month with a message of the form “we identified this massive hole that we’d just plugged in my last shop, and have implemented x, y & z to fix it”. Others came back with a bunch of the aforementioned POs for new product lines.

There are a number of common ways that managers disrespect the principle. For example, micromanagers never create a context where the stars can shine. There is a view that micromanagers create a culture of “B”s.. Drop a micromanager into a team and folks with star potential are the first out the door, they hate being hassled and have always got a few offers. If the micromanager can maintain the pressure the lazy and under performers follow the stars out the door looking for an easy life somewhere else. Hey presto they’re left with a group of people who like getting micromanaged.

The tricky thing for many micromanagers is that their approach can be really effective with teams that have gotten into a deep slump but they don’t realise that the impact they see is context based and toxic in the medium term. A “couch-to-5k” program is a really effective approach to improving someone’s running pace in one context but likely to be a disaster if applied to an Olympic 10,000m hopeful. Part of being a great manager is understanding the difference and having the finesse to use the right approach at the right time.

I would draw a distinction between micromanagement and coaching.. everyone needs a fire lit under them from time to time, many top performers want to learn and actually appreciate the kick in the butt when its warranted. One key character trait of top performers is that they want be part of winning teams (or successful businesses) so they tend to be very supportive of the collective kick in the butt in the right context. This discussion also glosses over the subtleties of the skill sets that mesh in high performance teams, you need starters, prototypers, finishers, people with deep passion about the the area who see it as plan and mess about with it on the weekend, people who could see snow to Eskimo’s, etc. The next layer of sophistication as a manager is recognising and developing these traits.

Hope this is useful. Probably generated a few face palms also. .. after all we all sit on both sides of the table in this discussion.

I also feel like I’m giving away a few (management) trade secrets; not something most textbooks cover.

Danny

——

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_talents_or_minas