The Facilitative Leader

Steve Reilly

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781631576256
• eBook ISBN: 9781631576263
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

This book is for anyone who has either worked for or been a difficult boss. It will especially benefit those new to management and struggling to figure out how to lead a team without being too controlling. Using the foundational ideas of clear expectations, honest and constructive feedback, and personal accountability, it is possible to manage people's performance without controlling their behaviors. It is a shift in priorities and mindset, but has been proven with such companies like Nike, Microsoft, Caterpillar, Cisco Systems, United Healthcare, and many other Fortune 100 companies.

CHAPTER 1

A Performance Problem

Leadership by example is the only kind of real leadership. Everything else is just authority playing itself out.

—Albert Emerson Unaterra

A few years ago, I was asked to take on an employee who was struggling in his role. His name was and is Charles. I did this as a favor to my manager as I had previously salvaged a problematic employee who was now one of the company’s top performers. Charles, like the previous employee, was one of the company’s poorest performers, and it was my job to turn him around. I knew this was Charles’s last chance. If I succeeded in correcting his problems, Charles got to keep his job. If he failed to improve his performance, Charles loses his job.

Prior to meeting with Charles after his lateral move, I reviewed his personnel file to get a handle on the challenges I would face. I wanted to have a game plan for helping him get back on track. I was not encouraged by what I found.

There was a litany of problems recorded by his previous manager. They included:

• He is consistently late for work about 2 days per week.

• He failed to accomplish his objectives in the previous two fiscal years.

• He doesn’t return voicemail or e-mail messages for days.

• He constantly bothers other employees when they are busy.

• He shows up late for meetings, even the meetings he calls.

• He invades other people’s offices to chat, even when his projects are overdue.

• He refuses to deal with certain employees.

• He has alienated many employees to the point where they no longer deal with him.

• He tends to sabotage his department’s efforts by undermining their decisions with other departments.

Where to start, where to start?

I asked myself some questions:

• Is Charles the right person for the job?

• Is he motivated to do the job?

• Why does he seem to create his own problems?

• Does he have an attitude problem?

• Is his personal life interfering with his performance?

When faced with this problem, managers try to figure out whether Charles wants to do the job, and whether he is or isn’t motivated to change his behaviors. If Charles isn’t motivated, they will then try to “fix” Charles by motivating him. Many managers feel that if a person isn’t motivated, there is little that can be done to turn around poor performance. Following this route, managers who fail to motivate Charles will most likely attempt to replace him with someone who is motivated.

The Card Game

This is an exercise I’ve done with first line supervisors on assembly lines and one-on-one with CEOs in their office suites. I call it the “Card Game” and usually use a set of five cards placed on a table in front of my audience.

The outcome of the Card Game is to get managers to figure out how much control they have over human performance. It is almost always enlightening to every audience.

The best managers are keenly aware of how much control they have over another person’s performance. In my experience coaching and working with managers in almost every industry, one key characteristic of all the most successful managers is the ability to focus on the factors they have the most control over; especially when managing and leading people. And one thing that makes all these managers effective is that they always, always, always focus on the factors they have the most control over; they all manage best within the span of their control.

And the opposite is true as well. Again, in my experience, the managers who are most challenged by people performance issues are those who attempt to control, some might say micro-manage, factors that they have the least control over, regardless of whether theirs is a “hands-on” or “hands-off” approach.

One indicator of whether you as a manager are focusing on the wrong things is the number of performance issues you have in your team. As a manager, you are only as good as your bench strength, and if your bench is causing you problems for more than six months, it might not be the make-up of your team; it might be that you do not understand where your control as a manager starts and where it ends.

So, a good exercise is to apply the factors that you have most control over to apply it to a specific situation, to Charles.

The ability of anyone (in any job) to perform is influenced by five interrelated but independent factors. Managers have more control over some of these factors than others. It is critical to your success as a people manager to understand each of these factors. If you do, then you can begin the work of managing performance without controlling people. As an example, I can salvage Charles’s career . . . maybe.

Here are the five factors that impact a person’s ability to perform in their role. These are listed in random order, for now.

There is one and only one assumption: that intelligence is a given. Assume, especially in Charles’s case, that he is smart enough to perform that task. Charles is a talented guy; he just hasn’t been pulling his weight.

So, the question I pose to you is, “Which of these factors do you as a manager have the most control over and which do you have the least control over?”

The answer to that question can determine your success as a people manager.

Before we begin, let me define each one of these factors so you can make a more informed evaluation regarding most control to least control.

Selection:	Selection is about hiring and firing; the decision to offer a person a position and the decision to terminate a current employee. So the question is, how much control does a manager have over selection or deselection?
Expectations:	Expectations is whether an employee knows what is expected of him or her in the position. These can include many things from job description to professional objectives to code of conduct. Again, how much control does a manager have over an employee’s expectations?
Resources:	Resources are the tools and support needed to fulfill responsibilities and perform in a role. These can include everything from the needed technology to the proper training. How much control does a manager have over resources?
Motivation:	Motivation is the desire to do the job as it is defined. While more qualitative than some of the other factors, it has been proven repeatedly that motivation is key to a person’s success in his or her job. So, ask yourself, how much control does a manager have over one of his or her team members’ desire to perform?
Feedback:	Feedback is the regular coaching and input into performance intended to improve or extend performance. An employee who knows where he or she stands has a better grip on his or her developmental needs and can work on getting better and better. How much control do you as a manager have over feedback?

The next couple of pages may strike you as running counter to many of the leadership/management books you’ve read or the theories you’ve heard from business gurus. Keep in mind that my principles come from working with the best leaders, from first-line manufacturing supervisors on Caterpillar assembly lines to executives at United Healthcare, and in almost every other industry.

This comes at you fast, so pay attention.

The six factors that influence performance are listed below in descending order of the amount of control a manager has over them.

Manage Within the Span of Your Control

The factor you as a manager have the most control over is . . .

1. Expectations:

Has the employee been told explicitly what is expected by his or her manager and company?

You need no one’s permission to sit down with your people and have a frank discussion about objectives, deliverables, behavioral guidelines, or anything else that is expected of them. You don’t need permission from Human Resources or your manager (although you might want to validate your list of expectations with your direct supervisor) or anyone else.

But then why is it that the most common complaint I encounter from people struggling in their positions is that they do not understand what is expected of them? They almost always complain about unclear, unattainable, or constantly changing priorities. And that contributes to an autocratic behavioristic model of management to “solve” this performance problem.

Why would a manager avoid communicating (engage) and getting buy-in to a set of clearly defined, attainable, flexible, and mutually agreed upon expectations? A couple of reasons.

First, it is the potential for conflict. If the employee fails to buy into any of the proposed objectives or deliverables, a dialogue needs to ensue to work things out. Managers need to be able to communicate, negotiate, and persuade their people into agreeing to expectations up-front.

Second, I would say that many managers have a less-than-complete understanding of the things that are considered expectations. For instance, the following fall under the definition of company expectations: goals and objectives, the company mission, the company vision, the company values, parking policy, compensation policy, behavioral guidelines, work hours, and the list goes on and on.

But there are some key expectations that most employees are interested in having clarified and provide 90 percent of the direction they need. One of the objectives of this book is to clarify them for you and provide tools for reaching a mutually agreed-upon set of expectations that will reduce your people-management challenges and reduce the amount of drama in your team.

But the third and I would say most likely reason managers avoid setting clear expectations is that once a set of mutually agreed-upon expectations are in place, another factor comes into play: accountability. Accountability is the act of applying a consequence; a reward or discipline based on performance. Once an expectation is made clear and agreed upon, if a member of your team falls short of or exceeds, then accountability for his or her performance becomes an inherent part of the expectations. We will address this in much more detail in the following chapters, but keep in mind that without accountability, expectations mean nothing. Once you set a bedtime for your child, you must enforce it. Otherwise that and other rules begin to erode.

Managers who do set expectations often do it in an autocratic way. Expectations can be set as hard-and-fast rules or as guidelines within which people can make their own decisions. Expectations can be set in a way that facilitates the learning process. The way expectations are set can be the starting point for helping people become better decision makers.

My first job is to ensure that Charles is aware of and buys-into the expectations of his job and our company.

The factor that you as a manager have the most control over after expectations are clear is . . .

2. Feedback:

Does the employee know whether he or she is or is not meeting the defined expectations?

The second most common complaint I hear from individual contributors about their manager is, “I never know where I stand!” And that is also strange because you as a manager need no one’s permission to sit down on a regular basis and discuss performance with a person who works for you. You don’t have to check with Human Resources or your manager or anyone else for that matter. That is one of the privileges of being a people-manager and one of your responsibilities as a manager and a duty to your people.

Why would a manager avoid providing his or her people with honest and constructive feedback? There are a couple of reasons.

First, many do not know how to have an effective and motivating performance discussion with employees. What comes to mind when you hear these phrases, “First I want to say that you’re doing a great job . . .” or “Can I see you in my office for a minute?” or the un-reassuring “First, I’d like for you to tell me how you think you are doing.” These phrases most likely cause defensive responses from your people or set them up for a demotivating discussion. But it is possible to have an engaged, c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgment
• Control or Engage?
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 A Performance Problem
• Chapter 2 Expectations
• Chapter 3 Feedback
• Chapter 4 Accountability
• Chapter 5 The Facilitative Leaders’ Last Resort
• Index