Leadership Manager

May 11, 2012 (San Diego)

                                            Reviving an nonprofit organization

            I have been involved with Toastmasters for some time and a member of one local club for 3 years. Last October the club almost folded. I decided to give the club one more chance at being great.

1. I talked with other current members to determine their interest. The interest was there but no energy to move things forward
2. I told them I would be the President if (I asked specific others) so and so would take this role and another person take that role. They agreed to do this until June 2012 when we would reassess.
3. In December 2011 the club was meeting again with 6 members when one of the 6 just said “no.” Way short of June 2012 but what happens / happens.
4. We started putting up flyers everywhere and people started show up and join.
5. We reached out to local group settings where others might be interested in Toastmasters.
6. Last week we were up to 8 members and this week we will be at 11 members.
7. We will finish the TM year on June 30^th with 14 members and being a “Distinguished Club.”

Learning:

1. If someone will take the lead it is amazing what others are willing to do.
2. If you get information out and about and the offering is viable people will come.
3. Deliver on what you promise people will join and bring others.

March 5, 2012 (from Hyderabad, India)  How many different ways have we heard to “seek first to understand” or “diagnose before prescribing”. None of us would want our medical doctors telling us what medications to take without having first done a thorough diagnosis. Obviously! What I observe in the workplace is often just the opposite. An employee comes to the manager with a problem and the manager immediate suggests a solution. OK, the employee now has a solution, but was that the problem?

First: I find that employees often state a less the precise problem because they are either unsure of the exact problem or they are leery of the manager’s potential response. The employee does not want to appear “stupid.”

Second: The employee may have an answer but wants to bounce the idea off the manager before proceeding. They start the conversation as if they did not have an answer.

Suppose in the First case: the manager asked what they had already tried or thought of thus empowering whatever knowledge the employee has gained.

Suppose in the second case: the manager asked what ideas the employee had thus having the opportunity to empower the thoughts and solutions of the employee.

In both of the “supposition” responses the manager has done due diligence in diagnosis and has empowered and and developed the employee just one more step.

Meanwhile

1. the employee has becomes stronger in decision making;

2. the speed to solution picks up and

3. the time-cost of solution goes down.

That is good for all.

February 6, 2012 (from San Diego, Ca)

The Boss “Knows Best”?

Tell me about it

Here is a story that is just frustrating and demoralizing for the employees and debilitating for managers. Managers say they want to build an empowered work force, but sometimes they get in the way of their own “best intentions.”

The Sad Story

Upon receiving an email from a client, the employee responsible for reviewing inquiries and sending proposals researched the project for a few hours, assessed the level of difficulty and followed up with an email asking additional questions to clarify the current work being done. The client had very little helpful information, but was clearly very frustrated with the lack of progress being currently done by another party. The project was determined to be difficult to nearly impossible. The employee notified the manager that the project should not be quoted due to the level of difficulty, the lack of understanding of the project by the client, and the likelihood that the company would lose money on the project.

            The manager responded that the employee had not spent enough time researching the project and should stop being so negative. The employee attempted to explain what had already been done and why the conclusion had been made. The manager interrupted and told the employee that he would do the research himself so that the agency would make a good impression and sound intelligent. He would set up a teleconference to speak with the client and showcase what we can do. The employee said no problem, if you want to do some additional research, please forward your research and discussion points to me prior to the telecon so that I will know what we plan to discuss with the client. Manager said, “Ok.” The manager spent two days researching the project. He forwarded the information to the employee at 7:20 pm the night before the 9 am telecon. He called the employee and insured him that they would review the information before the meeting.

Only bullet points with no supporting research were in the email. Some of the discussion points were not even possible based on the complexity of the project. The employee sent an email back to the manager to clarify how some of the points could even be done. No response was returned as it was now late in the evening. The next morning prior to the telecon, the employee met with manager to ask how the questionable topics could be possible and to review the research. The manager had prepared a packet of information for the employee to review which included no supporting information for most of the talking points. Upon asking the manager again why the topics were on the agenda with no supporting data, the manager informed the employee that we just need to throw some ideas out there so that it looks like we have put some thought and effort into this. During the telecon, the client could not answer any questions brought up by manager or employee and clearly had no idea what was currently going on or how to approach the project.

At the end of the telecon, the client asked if we would be willing to send a proposal and take on this project. After a dramatic pause, while the manager was likely hoping the employee would say yes and employee was hoping to god the manager would explain that we needed more information before we could even consider it, the manager responded “yes”, we will send a quote out to you.

After hanging up with the client, the manager confronted the employee about his negative attitude and explained that company was founded on the principle of helping people with their tough challenges. The employee asked the manager if at any time during the telecom the client could have ever gotten the impression that the employee was negative or if any negativity was conveyed. The manager responded “no”, but you were asking questions which made the project seem almost impossible and clearly you have not changed your mind about taking on this project. The employee said if you want to take this project on, then we will take the project. We have already committed to quoting it. The manager responded that we would ask the client for some follow up information and send a quote to do a few weeks feasibility study. The employee responded that this approach would give the client the impression that we are going to save them so if we take it, we need to have a serious plan to actually get the project working. The manager said we will quote two weeks of feasibility study so that we can back out of this if it can’t be done and tell them we can’t start on it for a few weeks so that they hopefully find somebody else to work on it. Employee said fine.

Additional information was requested from the client who responded with completely useless information. The supervisor sent an internal email stating the information was useless. The feasibility study was conducted and it was determined that the project was beyond existing technology to complete.

The upshot of all this: the project was cancelled; time, energy, and revenue was wasted; good will between that manager and employee was diminished; and the manager’s credibility with this employee and the workforce in general suffered.

Trust your staff, they are not the enemy!