Thank Goodness It's Monday #430

GET THE JOB DONE

THROUGH OTHERS

Part Two

 

“So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.” Management mastermind Peter Drucker rightly pointed that out.
 

But I bet we can each recall at least several glaring examples of bosses who often hurt progress as much as they helped others accomplish agreed-to mutual goals.
 



Steve Carell
who portrayed the well-meaning
but Peter-Principle-impaired boss
Michael Scott in the American version
of the long-running TV series
"The Office"

And now, having risen in the ranks –

 

We don’t want to be that boss, do we?

 

Damn right we don’t. So here, as promised last week, are the “back” half-dozen of 12 proven-in-action steps that enable good bosses to get the job done through others.

#7: Keep them involved, but free of your management burden.  The more people know about how the company is doing, the more they feel part of the company and loyal to it. But they don’t need to know everything you know all the time.

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: The superior employee should also be an insulator.  When your boss is on the rampage and turning up the heat, the people you lead shouldn’t necessarily know it and suffer.  Presumably, since you’ve risen in the ranks, you’re being compensated at a level they are not. So understand this and act accordingly: What you’re getting extra pay for is to constructively dissipate that heat and to use it to achieve the company’s goals.

 

 #8: Honesty is the best policy.  Sincerity is a close runner up.  Some of your management responsibilities may preclude being entirely open with the people you supervise.  So when you can’t honestly share information with them, sincerely tell them just that.

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Never lie. Inevitably you’ll be found out your credibility will vanish like the dew in the morning sun. To gain the confidence of your staff, sincerely tell them that you can’t tell them … that as soon as you’re able you will tell them … then ask them to keep giving their all. Odds are they will, especially when you establish a reputation for keeping your part of the bargain.

 

#9: Put yourself in their place. You know what you want. You know what you mean to say. But the people you supervise will most likely hear what they expect.  And that’s seldom the same as the message you want to deliver.

 

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION:  Anticipate misunderstanding. Try to think as your people do and address concerns before they arise. But be ready to take action when you’re not clearly understood. Listen to what they say is bothering them. Empathize. Smooth ruffled feathers. This will calm most troubled waters.

 

#10: Be a benign dictator. It may come as a surprise to many employees but most businesses do not – and could not – run democratically.  Yes, everyone may be entitled to their opinion.  But the boss’ opinion, and the opinion of the boss’ boss and on up to line are what prevail.

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION #1: Strive to reach an accord whenever possible. But if it comes down to “their way” and what you’re absolutely convinced is “the right and only right way”, use your rank and tell them exactly what it will be and how you will be solely responsible for any negative outcome.

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION #2: If things come to a loggerhead, and you can’t break the jam, tell people to do it your way first and then also their way. Explain that this plan, while creating double work, will allow you to pass the results to higher management to judge the correctness of each action.

Payoff: Don’t be surprised if 99% of the time “their way” never gets tried. The rightness of your experienced view will likely reveal itself to the reluctant subordinate.

#11: Make profits and make time. The number one goal of every organization -- and even “not for profits” -- is to operate profitably.  That’s your managerial/leadership responsibility to the company.  Your responsibility to the people you oversee is to make time for everything they need from you to contribute to the profitability goal.

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION:  Whenever a subordinate wants to impinge on your time, strive to be accommodating.  Beyond emergencies, if you’re deeply involved in your own tasks or administrative procedures, you may ask for a delay.  But try to say when you’ll be available.  Make it sooner rather than later.  Then make it so.

#12: Big fleas have little fleas. The favorite piece of doggerel one manager shares with his people at appropriate moments goes like this: 

Big fleas have little fleas,

sit on their backs and bite ‘em.

Little fleas have smaller fleas,

and so on, ad infinitum.

What does this mean for you as a manager and the people who look to you for guidance?

 

Simply this: The better the job is done, the happier everyone up and down the line will be. So resist the urge to go easy on anyone who reports to you. If you must “get on their backs and bite ‘em” to get the job done right, do it. The consequences are being bitten yourself.

Caring is sharing. Hope you cared for these people-empowering nuggets and can use them effectively in the eventful days ahead.

Wrap-up Reminder: If you gained some new insight or found some “reminder” value in any or all of the 12-in-total people-handling guidelines, pass ‘em along to the people you rely on to get more and better work from others.

Sharing is caring. And the more people who can do things well, the more easily and better things will be done.

 

Gettin’ ‘er done every Monday.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373

tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S.  “The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.” Writer, reporter, and political commentator Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) made that observation.

Thank Goodness It's Monday #401

 WHAT TO DO

ABOUT CATCH-22?

It seems as if some time warp has caught up to me – again.

In a recent conversation with a younger (much younger) colleague I said, about an apparent impasse we had reached with some other folks, “Yeah, that’s a real Catch-22.” 

There was a nod of acknowledgement and agreement, a meaningful silent pause, and then -- while thumbing through the documents we were working on -- I was asked –

“Uh, where in this paperwork is Catch-22 specified?”

Uh, oh. Another classic reference point (at least for my generation) bites the dust.

 

Novelist Joseph Heller (b. 1923) died in 1999 and, I guess, somewhere in the decade and a half or so since then, much of his status as a voice and a depicter of the lives of generations immediately post-WWII has diminished. So the phrase “Catch-22” had some contextual meaning for my young associate, but the roots of its origin have all but disappeared.

I can’t let that happen quite yet. 

So today’s TGIM will take a small, non-scholarly look back in an attempt to appreciate the source a bit longer and find some Takeaways that perhaps we can use to circumvent or even prevent Catch-22 situations.

Heller’s early popular fame as a writer came in 1961 with the success of his novel Catch-22.

The literary “catch” – which involved pilots in the Second World War – was fictional, of course. 

But the situation it sums up – an absurd piece of circular reasoning – quickly entered everyday language.

Here’s how Heller first described the “catch” in Catch-22 itself:

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was a process of a rational mind.

Orr (a character in the story) was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more (combat) missions.

Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them.

If he flew them, he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.

Yossarian (who is pretty much the stand-in for the author himself, Heller having WWII service very much like that at the core of the story) was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

“That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.

“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.

Watch this: In the real world the creation of Catch-22s is often inadvertent; the mix up of a number of decisions or instructions that, over time, create an undesirable closed loop of consequences.

TGIM ACTION IDEA #1: Sometimes the unfortunate consequences result from a single decision that’s made without all the facts in place. 

In cases such as these, alert and caring action on the part of an individual willing to step up and acknowledge the predicament can quickly undo the harmful decision.

TGIM ACTION IDEA #2: Sometimes a Catch-22 kind of policy can accomplish a goal (like in the case of Heller’s novel, it discourages pilots from quitting a difficult task).

Most intelligent people can accept such situations if two important leadership factors are present.

 

• One is leadership that’s willing to lead, to get involved and reason through the policy with anyone who fails to grasp its necessity.
• The other is a leadership that recognizes that there are exceptions to every rule and that it may be in the best interests of the overall enterprise to grant an exception and move on with the business at hand.

Either way: Managing a Catch-22 situation requires presence and conviction; taking the leadership lead in a way others look up to.

The characters in Heller’s novel lack such an icon and that lack makes the story.

TGIM TAKEAWAY: Be guided in your leadership style by what the Catch-22 characters conclude about their critically-flawed, top-ranking officer Major Major:

Some men are born mediocre … some men achieve mediocrity … some men have mediocrity thrust upon the. With Major Major it had been all three.

And there’s more sharp-tongued observational wisdom about the human character and human condition from the pages of Catch-22 that shares Joseph Heller’s genius with words: 

He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.

He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.

Even among men lacking in distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.

General Peckem liked to listen to himself talk, and liked most of all listening to himself talk about himself. 

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Don’t be like so many of Heller’s characters so much of the time. Fight against mediocrity. Be outstanding, brilliant, and exceptional. 

In the novel the important character of Captain John Yossarian comes to realize that Catch-22 does not actually exist. But, because the powers that be claim it does, and the world believes it does, it nevertheless has power. In fact, because Catch-22 does not exist, it’s more powerful; there is no way it can be repealed, undone, overthrown, or denounced. 

Don’t buy that thinking. In the end Yossarian realizes it is possible to defeat (or at least escape) his situation and the Catch-22 that supports it. It’s not a particularly happy ending but it is true to the spirit of the character and the (IMHO) evolved state of personal awareness growing in the early 1950s and ’60s.

Yossarian justifies his Catch-22-circumventing action with the statement –

"I’m not running away from my responsibilities. I’m running to them.”

Perhaps we can do the same.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S. Literature 201 fact check: What many who use the phrase today even knowing its origin don’t know is that there was almost no Catch-22.

 

From Joseph Heller's original manuscript
now archived in the Brandeis University Library
Special Collections

The first chapter of Heller’s novel was published a half-dozen years before its bestseller long form in the publication New World Writing as Catch-18. But the numerical designation was later altered so that Heller’s book-length version would not be confused with another best seller of the same period by author Leon Uris entitled Mila 18.