Leadership
#25-01-15-07: Nardelli Predicted
Nardelli Is Fired
“Nardelli is fired from Home Depot”
Posted by Steven Cerri on Monday, January 15, 2007
Good evening!
Well, it’s finally happened. Bob Nardelli, CEO of Home Depot has been fired.
I knew it was going to happen, I just didn’t know when. When I saw his picture on the cover of BusinessWeek a year ago, with the magazine bragging about his “tough” management style, I knew it was only a matter of time. Then I predicted he had a year or two left. Well he had a year, apparently.
Why was I so sure Nardelli would fail or at the very least have a very difficult time of it? Because he wasn’t practicing something I call “Contextual Management and Leadership"©, CML for short. Now it’s true, I’ve developed this program myself, but it’s based on what I believe leads to a better way to manage in any given situation.
My approach to this whole management/leadership choice thing is based on the idea that the best management or leadership style is tied to the situation at hand. Therefore, the manager or leader is most effective if he or she selects a management or leadership style based on the parameters of the given situation.
(Now I know that everyone “thinks” they do this. I know that most managers and leaders think they are modifying their style based on the situtation as they see it, but I don’t think so. When you read further, you’ll see that my idea of adjusting your management style to the situation is very different. By the way, the given management or leadership situation is what I call the “context”.)
Now Nardelli came from GE in large scale manufacturing and went to Home Depot, a retailer. He attempted to use the things that worked in manufacturing in a retail business. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Lets look at two ex-GE guys and look a little deeper into STCI/CML© to see exactly what I mean.
STCI/CML© is based on the idea that there is a best way to manage or lead in any given situation and that best way is based on six parameters. The parameters are the following:
1. Who has the expertise, the manager or the employees?
2. What is the project’s risk?
3. What is the project schedule?
4. What is the manner in which the employees want to be managed?
5. What and how does the manager want the employees to learn?
6. What are the complexities and interfaces of the task or project?
The current state of the project, task, or organization with respect to these six parameters will lead the manager using STCI/CML© to the best management style for the given situation.
So now lets look at two different approaches used by two different ex-GE managers who went to new companies they knew very little about. The two ex-GE employees are Robert J. Nardelli and James W. McNerney. Both were past over by Jack Welch when he selected Jeffrey R. Immelt to succeed him. Nardelli left GE and ended up as CEO of Home Depot. McNerney left GE and ended up as CEO of Boeing Co. Now lets look at how both of these men measured up with respect to the six parameters I’ve listed and how they handled their respective jobs and what the results have been so far.
With respect to Parameter #1: Who has the expertise, the manager or the employees?
In both cases the expertise lies with the employees. Nardelli had never been in a retail business and McNerney had never headed up an airplane manufacturer. Both men were on the short end of the straw when it came to understanding what they had taken over. McNerney understood this fact and spent the first six months talking to employees, building consensus, and attempting to understand the business.
Nardelli was certain he had the answer and everyone else didn’t. By his own statements, the people of Home Depot didn’t know what was going on and he was there to fix it. He was there to fix a business he had no experience in.
With respect to Parameter #2: What is the project’s risk?
In both cases the risk was relatively low. Home Depot was not in any serious trouble even though the stock price had been flat for a while. It’s probably fair to say that Nardelli had no where to go but up.
McNerney was also in a relatively stable environment. Even though, when he took over Boeing it was reeling from some ethics problems and the European airplane manufacturer was beating Boeing in sales, McNerney was also taking over a company that could probably be said to have a potentially bright future. So this parameter is not a significant one with respect to the selection of a management style in either case.
With respect to Parameter #3: What is the project schedule?
In both cases the schedule is not a serious consideration. Therefore, this parameter is not a significant one with respect to the selection of a management style in either case.
With respect to Parameter #4: What is the manner in which the employees want to be managed?
In both cases this is a big deal. Both companies, Home Depot and Boeing had a history of a unique, entrenched, and important culture. To ignore this culture or to make war with it is a huge risk. McNerney embraced the Boeing culture, giving respect to the engineers, manufactures, and to all employees for their ability to contribute.
Nardelli seems to have had contempt for the Home Depot culture he inherited and didn’t hide his feelings. Big mistake!
With respect to Parameter #5: What and how does the manager want the employees to learn?
Nardelli wanted the Home Depot employees to learn discipline, a reasonable goal. McNerney seems to have wanted the Boeing employees to learn to focus. Another reasonable goal.
However, the learning goals here are not important drivers in the selection of an optimum management and leadership style.
Finally, with respect to Parameter #6: What are the complexities and interfaces of the task or project?
In both cases this is a big deal. While Boeing had many complexities and interfaces with their products and vendors, Home Depot had many complexities and interfaces with respect to their stores and suppliers, as well. In both cases, the complexities of the interfaces coupled with the lack of knowledge of these businesses by the CEOs, leads to the conclusion that the expertise, once again, rests with the employees.
In summary of these six parameters, both men took over very similar situations. They both had very similar environments they stepped in to, at least as they relate to the six STCI/CML parameters. In looking at the six parameters, there are only two parameters that stand out as drivers for the selection of the best management style and they are:
Parameter #1: Who has the expertise, the employees or the manager?
Parameter #4: The manner in which the employees want to be managed?
These two parameters drive the preferred management processes toward a participative management style. When the knowledge rests with the employees it is foolish for a manager to pretend he or she can dictate what the “right answer” is. And with an entrenched, long standing culture, it is equally foolish for a manager to assume that he or she can turn the culture over quickly without a great deal of “blood-letting”. In both cases, Home Depot and Boeing, the STCI/CML contextual evaluation would lead to the selection of a participative, collaborative management style.
The participative, collaborative style is what McNerney picked at Boeing and we can certainly see the results of that. Boeing is doing very well indeed.
The directive, authoritative style is what Nardelli picked at Home Depot and we can certainly see the results of that. Home Depot got rid of him.
You don’t have to be tough to be successful, unless it’s called for, and in some cases it is. But in all cases you have to be smart.
It only remains now to see what Nardelli’s successor does. Stay tuned, (and drop me a comment).
Be well
Steven Cerri
Posted by Steven Cerri on 01/15 at 07:21 PM Case Studies • Leadership • Management • Inter-Personal People Skills • (0) Comments • Permalink
#23-01-02-07: Radio Head
Radio Head
“Being real doesn’t get it”
Posted by Steven Cerri on Monday, January 2, 2007
Good evening!
I was listening to a radio show just before the new year to an interview with the lead member of band Radio Head. Now Radio Head has been called one of the best bands around and at times the best band playing anywhere. I don’t much listen to them, but I found the interview interesting and there is a connection between what I heard and technology management.
At one point, the lead member of Radio Head was asked what it’s like to continually play the same songs over and over while on tour. He responded that by the time his band had played the same songs over and over on their last tour and then they thought about the fact that they were going to record some of those same songs and then they would have to play them again on their subsequent tour, he indicated that it was a bit much.
In fact, he said that on his last tour there were times when he would just stare at the audience for a long while mumbling something about having to play these songs again. The interviewer said that she had heard that at one point he was “unravelling” on stage and he admitted that he indeed had been “unravelling”, mumbling and complaining to the audience. Having to play the same songs over and over was getting to him he said. When she asked about his rationale for doing that in front of the audience that had paid money to see him and his band, he said that,
“Well, I can either be real or not. I think people want me to be real.”
REALLY?!
The people in the audience didn’t pay to see him be real. They paid to be entertained. The band members can be self-indulgent before or after the show, but not during the show.
Do you go to concerts hoping to see the band members work out their personal crises on stage or do you go to hear them play the songs that excite you and make you want to hear more? In the environment of a concert, the band members are expected to transcend their personal issues and do what they came to do… play their music, and play it well. The situation, the context, requires that they behave in a way that is appropriate for that context. (Bruce Springstein gets sick before many of his concerts but you wouldn’t know it when he steps on stage.)
So, “What does this have to do with management, and technical management in particular?”, you might ask. The same is expected of a manager as is expected of the band. As a technology manager, you’re not expected to work out your issues of management, leadership, self-esteem, authority figures, shyness, etc. while you are managing or leading your direct reports. Just like the band members, you’re expected to be human, you’re expected to lead your team, but your are not expected to be “real” in the sense that you don’t deliver. And as a manager or leader your job is to deliver the management or deliver the leadership. That means your job is to be effective.
You’ll often hear me say that I’m not concerned about the comfort of the manager. Some people say that the manager needs to be comfortable in order to do a good job of managing. Not so. I don’t care if the manager is comfortable. It’s important that the employees be motivated and if that means that the manager is uncomfortable, so be it. As a technical manager your job is not to be “real” in the sense that it interferes with your effectiveness. Just like the audience that paid to attend a concert to be entertained, your company is paying your to be an effective manager and an effective leader. And, your direct reports are expecting the same thing.
Let me be clear. In order to be effective you don’t have to give up your humanity. However, if being effective means stretching your behavior so that you are a little uncomfortable, then stretch. In the final analysis your being paid for the results of your team, not for being “real”.
Just some food for thought.
Until next Monday.
Be well
Steven Cerri
Posted by Steven Cerri on 01/02 at 10:05 PM Leadership • Management • Inter-Personal People Skills • Communication for engineers • Soft Skills for engineers • Soft Skills for Technologists • (0) Comments • Permalink
#20-12-04-06: Why Are You A Technologist?
Why be a Technologist?
”What made you choose to be a technical professional?”
Posted by Steven Cerri on Monday, December 4, 2006
Good evening!
Do you believe in accidents? Do you believe in choice? When you go to an ice cream store, (assuming you like a particular ice cream) do you always select the same flavor? Do you really select that “favorite ice cream (or food) or does it select you? Does your physiology begin the cascade of chemicals as soon as you see that favorite flavor and does your body begin preparing you to select it? Is this really choice or just the allusion of choice?
Did you select your career or did your career select you?For some of you reading this right now you are probably wondering what part of what planet I must be from. How can a career select us?
Look at it this way. Let’s break this career topic into two major groups; the world of apparent and seemingly provable order and the world of apparent disorder. And in the world of apparent order lets put all engineering, scientific, and technical disciplines. In the world of apparent disorder lets put all marketing, inter-personal human interaction and communication, social, and psychological disciplines.
I don’t have to work very hard to convince most of you that the disciplines of marketing, inter-personal human interaction and communication, social, and physiological are areas that we don’t understand well enough to even come close to having a cause-and-effect relationship between the various known parameters. In fact, to most of us, these “human” disciplines are completely “unknowable”. They depend on “people”. They seem to be independent of rational thought or analysis. They seem to be more dependent on blood sugar levels and moon cycles than on identifiable and predictable laws of the universe. Interacting with other people can be as unpredictable as tossing a coin.
On the other hand, F=ma, E=IR, Bernoulli’s equation, computer coding, and the first, second, and third laws of thermodynamics, are trustworthy laws and processes that allow us to build bridges, put humans on the moon, develop electric motors and do the million and one things that allow us to create an ever advancing world. That’s the key isn’t it? These predictable laws allow us to create. Predictable laws of the universe allow us to create something new in that universe.
Now, I can guarantee you that those people who have selected inter-personal human interaction and communication, marketing, and psychology believe they are creating their worlds as well. Only they don’t have to create that world from a predictable set of laws and cause-and-effect relationships. They are willing to live with the seeming uncertainty that comes from working without “concrete” laws.
Therefore, to choose a career in technology instead of a career in marketing or human development is not so much to choose a career, it is rather to choose a way of moving through the world. It is a choice about how much “certainty” you want in the world and how you want to deal with the uncertainty in it. In one career we attempt to diminish the uncertainty in order to create something. In the other, we are willing to live with the uncertainty in order to create something, as well. Both careers create, one with laws that attempt to reduce variability, the other within the dynamics of the variability.
To become an engineer or a scientist is to make a statement to the world something like: “I don’t particularly like uncertainty, and I’m going to do two things; first, I’m going to create what I can using those things I know to be certain in the world; and second, I’m going to do what I can to illuminate what looks like uncertainty and attempt to show that there is actually something certain about what appears to be uncertain. (This, of course, is what Chaos Theory is all about, isn’t it?)
Therefore, for those of us who have chosen the career of technology, (I’m included) we have done so because we want to understand and create order out of the seeming disorder all around us. And the biggest arena of disorder that we see is associated with people (just look at the current international world stage!).
Therefore, as a technologist, when you are tapped to move into technology management, and when you begin down the technology management path, you are making not only a career change, but also a fundamental shift in the way you are choosing to move through the world.
The reason most technical professionals fail to become good technical managers, or the reason they fail to even make the transition, is that they are being asked to completely shift their concept of world. They are being asked to shift form an appreciation of certainty and an understanding of a seemingly predictable world to an acceptance of the unpredictability and seeming chaos of the human world. They are ultimately being asked to leave the world of technology were cause-and-effect rule for the dynamic and variable world of human interaction of human inter-personal communication, motivation, management and leadership.
Is it any wonder this is such a difficult shift to make? Most technical professionals don’t even know they are being asked to take on a new career! Think of it that way, and you begin to understand why I think preparation for this shift is so important. From technologist to technical manager is, for most, a new career.
The transition can be made. It is actually a very enjoyable transition. But it is best made with your eyes wide open and with an understanding of what you are really being asked to do.
Be well
Steven Cerri
Posted by Steven Cerri on 12/04 at 11:03 PM Engineer to Technical Manager • Leadership • Management • Fully Integrated Tech Professional • (0) Comments • Permalink
