#81-1/29/09-Building Buy-In
Building Buy-In Is Easy
“When you know what to do”
Posted by Steven Cerri on Thursday, January 29, 2009
Hello everyone!
The big question is...
I often get asked these questions: “Steven, how do you get buy-in from people?” or “In this difficult business environment, how do you get people to buy-in instead of worrying about other things that take them away from what they need to be accomplishing?” or “How do I get the team to give buy-in and have everyone pull in the same direction?”
It doesn’t much matter how you phrase the question… it usually boils down to “How to I get everyone to agree to contribute their best efforts to what I want them to be doing?”
The answer comes in 3 parts and Part 1 is...
If you read my Ezine/Newsletter of last week, you know that the first part of the answer to getting buy-in is to understand that no one does anything they don’t want to do.
So getting buy-in is not about getting people to buy-in because they feel that they have to do something they don’t want to do.
You get buy-in by getting people to do something they want to do. The goal is to get them to do what they want to do in such a way that it dovetails with what you want them to do as well.
Part 2 of the answer is...
If people are only going to do what they want to do, and if you want to align what they want to do with what you want them to do, it is important that you understand the motivation of your team members.
You can generalize to some extent but each person is motivated by something a little different and you have to understand this. And this is not rocket science, but it does take some special attention to detail. Here is and example of what I mean.
An example...
Several years ago I was working inside a printer company. Most manufacturers have a number they watch. The number is titled, “First Pass Yield”. When a product, in this case a printer, comes off the assembly line it’s tested to see if it will work “right out of the box”. The ratio of those that work to those that don’t is called the First Pass Yield.
Those printers that don’t work must to be repaired by hand with labor and maybe parts added to the original cost. If the first pass yield for a specific product falls to low, the product line will make no profit. If it falls even lower, the product line will actually loose money.
The particular printer company in this example had a certain printer line that had problems. The first pass yield was around 75%. This was definitely a loosing proposition. The cost of reworking 25% of the printers before they could be shipped guaranteed that this printer line was not profitable.
The CEO established a “Tiger Team” made up of a representative from each department. These included manufacturing, manufacturing engineering, procurement, quality assurance, receiving, test, and sustaining engineering.
This Tiger Team met every week and it had been doing so for 16 months. During that time, First Pass Yield remained stuck at 75%.
Finally the CEO asked me to join the Tiger Team and determine what if anything could be done.
I joined the team, and while I had authority because the CEO sent me into the meeting I didn’t use it.
At the first meeting I introduced myself and then I just listened as the meeting went on. I may have asked a question or two, but essentially I was a “fly on the wall” just observing and listening.
At the second meeting I told the team that I had some questions I’d like to ask, and I respectfully went around the table and asked each person what their responsibility was and what they thought the real issues were.
As I went around the room I listened for what answers were being given. Did they think it was someone else’s fault or responsibility? Did they think it was a poor design? Did they not have any idea? Did they think that the answer was right around the corner? Did they understand the fundamental problem(s), the fundamental forces involved with First Pass Yield?
By the time I went around the table, I had a relatively clear idea of who was “moving toward a higher first pass yield” and who as “moving away from a lower first pass yield”. I was also clear about who saw this as an opportunity and who saw this as a problem. And I saw who was “passing the buck” to someone else and who was willing to jump in and figure out a solution.
After I went around the table I then gave the meeting back to the quality assurance manager who had been leading the meetings and I went back into “observation” mode.
First Pass Yield is all about statistics...
Those of you in manufacturing know that First Pass Yield is all about the statistical reliability of individual components that make up the product. Since I used to teach statistics at the college level, I understood the implications of what was happening to the printer line.
By the third meeting is was clear to me that members of the team didn’t understand the issues around statistics and First Pass Yield. Therefore, in third meeting I took the lead and I told the team that the challenge was essentially one of statistical reliability of the printer components. I then gave them a mini-statistics course in 15 minutes.
This printer had only 5 independent components. Some coming from China. Some manufactured in the U.S. and all five of them assembled at the company’s manufacturing facility. All we had to do was increase the statistical reliability of each of those five components and we were home free.
Here comes the buy-in...
Now the challenge was to get buy-in from each of the Tiger Team members so they would focus on the component reliability that they were responsible for and stop pointing fingers and chasing ideas that didn’t matter.
Most of the team members were hungry for some sign of success after 16 months of 75% First Pass Yield. So when I gave direction, suggestions of what to do in order to adjust our test and reliability procedures, many of the team agreed.
There were certain people however, who really understood the relationship between statistical reliability and First Pass Yield. They got it intuitively. To these people I gave more work and more responsibility. I knew they could be trusted to understand the complexity of what we were doing and the inter-relationships between components. And they wanted the freedom to use their judgment. So I gave them more open-ended direction and suggestions.
To others, who didn’t get the subtleties of what we were doing so well, I gave very clear direction. They were not given such wide latitude to express their own judgment.
And with regard to the one person who was not going to give me buy-in, I removed him from the Tiger Team. It became clear this person was not going to move forward for the benefit of the team and the printer line and it was clear that his power and authority were more important to him than working as a team for the benefit of the product line. Therefore, within a matter of four weeks from the time I joined the team, I removed him from the team.
If you want to know how we did (we did very well) and you want to know what I did to get buy-in, you can get the rest of this story in my Ezine/Newsletter at:
Steven’s January 26, 2009 Newsletter
Be well,
Steven Cerri
P.S. By the way. If you’d like to leave a comment, and I’d sure be interested if you did, I’ve changed the comments software. Only your comment and your name will show up at the end of the comment. I have modified the software so that your email address will not show up anywhere.
“What would it be like to be as successful with people as you are with your technology?” Steven trains, coaches, and facilitates engineers and technical managers to BE the answer to that question. More information can be found at the:http://stevencerri.com/index.php/Home/index/
Copyright©2008 STCerri International and Steven Cerri. You are free to pass this information on to others and to reproduce it. If you reproduce it in whole or part please give attribution to Steven Cerri. Thank you.
Posted by Steven Cerri on 01/29 at 08:44 PM (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
#80-1/19/09-First Rule of Leadership
1st Rule Of Leadership
“The #1 leadership rule you need to know!”
Posted by Steven Cerri on Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Hello everyone!
If you were to pick one and only one leadership rule, I’ve put it in this blog. Everything else about leadership pales in comparison to this rule. I’ve devoted this blog and this week’s ezine/newsletter to just this topic.
We often hear the following definition of leadership:
“Leadership is the ability to get people to do what they don’t want to do”. Or some variation on that theme.
It’s wrong. Period.
That’s not the way human beings work.
Let’s get this really clear… it is impossible for a human being to do what they don’t want to do. We are not wired to do anything we don’t want to do. To act (or even to not act) requires “volition” which means it is impossible to do something that we don’t want to do.
Humans as coins.
Imagine that every human being is a coin. As we know, on one side of US coinage is a “head” or bust of a prominent historical figure and on the other side is something that is not a bust of someone and we call this a “tail”. If we use the analogy that human beings are like coins then each human being is motivated to move toward what they want (we can call this heads) or they are motivated to move away from what we don’t want (we can call this tails).
There is no in-between. We either move toward what we want or we move away from what we don’t want. Both are actions to do what we want to do. Neither one is a movement to do something we don’t want. Both are movements to do what we do want… either to gain or to avoid.
Leadership is NOT getting people to do something they don’t want to do.
Leadership is getting people to do something based on the possibility of an outcome or the fear of an outcome.
So which do you use?
Now here is the important point… there is a place for both motivations; moving towards and moving away from. In fact, there are certain people who prefer to be motivated by moving away from. They tend to be the people who believe their “glass is always half empty”.
So I’m not going to suggest that leaders ought never to motivate using a moving away from motivation. At times its useful. And there are people who will like it and respond to it.
However, I personally prefer to use a moving toward motivation strategy whenever possible. I have at times, used moving away from strategies in leadership, but rarely.
By far the most powerful, effective, inspiring, and successful forms of motivation are those that employ moving towards. This has been my experience.
So here is my final leadership rule now expanded into all its corollaries:
Leadership Rule. True great leadership is getting people to do something as a result of the excitement of achieving the possibility of an outcome or as a result of action prompted by avoiding the fear of an outcome.
Associated Corollaries
1. There is no such thing as “Leadership is getting people to do something they don’t want to do. It’s impossible for people to do what they don’t want to do.
2. People are in constant tug between moving toward and moving away from.
3. Great leaders know how to assess the best motivaiton strategy based on the individuals and the team psychology.
4. A combination of moving towards and moving away from can often be more effective than using any one mode.
5. Too much “moving away from” leadership tends to drain an individual or team of it’s energy and ultimately the team will disintegrate if too much moving away from strategy is employed.
6. The greatest creativity, possibility, and energy come from moving toward strategies.
If you have any comments please add them to the end of this blog. I’d be very interested in your ideas.
Have fun leading!
Be well,
Steven Cerri
P.S. If you want more information on this Rule visit this week’s newsletter where I go into much more detail about it. You can find it at: STCI January 19, 2009 Newsletter
By the way. If you’d like to leave a comment, and I’d sure be interested if you did, I’ve changed the comments software. Only your comment and your name will show up at the end of the comment. I have modified the software so that your email address will not show up anywhere.
“What would it be like to be as successful with people as you are with your technology?” Steven trains, coaches, and facilitates engineers and technical managers to BE the answer to that question. More information can be found at the:http://stevencerri.com/index.php/Home/index/
Copyright©2008 STCerri International and Steven Cerri. You are free to pass this information on to others and to reproduce it. If you reproduce it in whole or part please give attribution to Steven Cerri. Thank you.
Posted by Steven Cerri on 01/20 at 11:23 PM (1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
#79-1/12/09-Trust Your Experiences
Trust Your Experiences
“How do you recognize good management advice?”
Posted by Steven Cerri on Monday, January 12, 2009
Hello everyone!
“Who do you trust and what is the truth in management?”
This last week I was reading some of the blogs on the people skills necessary for successful management. One blog, in particular, caught my eye. It had to do with “behaviors” that are necessary for a good manager.
Some of the behaviors put forth by the author included things like these soft skills:
1. When you are managing, never show your emotions.
2. When you are managing, never raise your voice. Always have a calm voice. If you get frustrated you can scream into a pillow in your office.
3. Always have a smile on your face.
4. Walk around and talk to your direct reports. Ask them how they are doing and give them suggestions on how they can do their job better.
These were just a few of the “best practices” that this author put forward regarding how to behave if you want to be a good manager. The author had been a manager for five years and wanted to share what he had learned.
Fair enough.
What I find interesting is this; “How is a new manager who is reading this information, to use and apply these suggestions and to know which suggestions are true and which are false?
But wait… the truth!
How do you know that the information put forth is accurate? Is there any way that you might know if 5 years as manager is enough to give authoritative knowledge? Is the equivalent of two years of engineering school enough to allow someone to sign off on the design of a bridge or analyze the orbital velocity requirements for rendezvous with the International Space Station?
Actually there is a way to know.
In our own personal experience we know what works for management and what doesn’t. In our own personal experience we have a sense of what good managers do and what bad managers do or don’t do.
And yet, many, many people choose to discount their own personal experience in order to follow the “leader”. They discount what they know in their gut to be true, because the “leader” says that something else is true, instead. And yet, we know it’s not.
So lets take some of those “gems” put forth on the blog post and see if they align with our personal experience.
When you are managing, never show your emotions.
My experience: Not true.
It’s not a question of showing emotions, its a question of what emotions you do show and the degree to which you do so. It’s not very useful to be a tyrant and yell at people and insult them in public. But it’s certainly useful to show compassion, and determination, and even sternness, and maybe levity, politeness, and at times frustration, disappointment, and even anger. It’s impossible to not show emotions. The key is to show the right ones and at the appropriate level. (I could write a book on this.)
When you are managing, never raise your voice. Always have a calm voice. If you get frustrated you can scream into a pillow in your office.
My experience: Half true, half not true.
Never raise your voice… well it depends. I have had direct reports with whom I would never raise my voice. And I’ve had direct reports with whom a good, hearty, give-and-take, with raised voices and even yelling was the only way to build the rapport and connection that the direct report (and I for that matter) wanted. To be always calm with this direct report would have actually adversely affected our professional relationship.
And the idea of always having a calm voice… come on. Have you ever been really upset and in need of help? So you called a customer service representative and the person at the other end of the line sounded as if they were as calm as could be. What was your response?
I know that my response has been to be annoyed with them. They were too calm. They didn’t understand that my situation was important.
Always being calm is nearly as bad as always yelling, almost.
And yes, if you are going to go off on someone… go scream into a pillow until you calm down.
Always have smile on your face.
My experience: Not true.
First, have you ever been around someone who always has a smile on their face? Have you ever thought to yourself, “What are they doing… always with a smile on their face. It can’t be real.” And often it’s not real.
No one wants to be around a doom and gloom person (except other doom and gloom people) but it’s important to be authentic and yet appropriate.
So rules like “always have a smile on your face” are just not useful. A better suggestion is to always be appropriate and effective in any given situation so that you and the team can achieve your/their desired outcome. (This is a topic for another book).
Now the important point about my comments is this; the suggestions put in the blog I read were a decent attempt to quantify behaviors that would make a manager a good manager.
However, management is not a simple process. It is not given to quick and simple rules. In engineering, F=ma. The laws of physics are clear, stable, repeatable. Unfortunately or fortunately, management doesn’t have similarly clear, stable, repeatable rules. The biggest rule in management is “it depends.” The best way to know if what someone is telling you is true, is to match it to your experience. And if you have no experience in a specific are, then take it “one-step-at-a-time”.
With respect to every suggested soft skill behavior I listed from the blog, we all have personal experiences that contradict what was suggested.
We all know of times when emotion displayed by our managers was just what we wanted to see, hear, and experience. Therefore, when to display what emotion is context dependent. It depends.
We all have experiences when we didn’t want our managers to display a smile. We want to be able to “read” our managers by hearing the tone of their voice. We don’t want them to be smiling when they are laying people off. Once again, it depends.
And, there are times when we certainly don’t want our managers to come around talking to us, looking over our shoulders and giving us suggestions about how we can do things better. There are times when we will welcome the advice and other times when we’ll probably consider it micromanagement. So once again it depends.
The bottom line is...
So the bottom line is this. Management, leadership, even contributing your maximum to your organization is not something you learn in five years of on-the-job training. (How long was the intense training your received for your engineering degree?)
It’s also not something you learn from a simple set of rules.
In basic terms…
Engineering is about knowledge; Management is about judgment.
Engineering is about rules; Management is about context.
Engineering is an application of knowledge in search of certainty; Management is the application of judgment in search of an outcome.
Very different worlds.
Be well,
Steven Cerri
By the way. If you’d like to leave a comment, and I’d sure be interested if you did, I’ve changed the comments software. Only your comment and your name will show up at the end of the comment. I have modified the software so that your email address will not show up anywhere.
“What would it be like to be as successful with people as you are with your technology?” Steven trains, coaches, and facilitates engineers and technical managers to BE the answer to that question. More information can be found at the:http://stevencerri.com/index.php/Home/index/
Copyright©2008 STCerri International and Steven Cerri. You are free to pass this information on to others and to reproduce it. If you reproduce it in whole or part please give attribution to Steven Cerri. Thank you.
Posted by Steven Cerri on 01/12 at 11:15 PM Engineer to Technical Manager • Becoming a manager • Technical Manager • Leadership • Engineering Leadership • Management • Engineering Management • Management for engineers • Inter-Personal People Skills • Soft Skills for engineers • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
