So You Want to Be a Manager

SO YOU WANT TO BE A MANAGER
By Robert W. Gallant, Dow Chemical U.S.A.
Chemical Engineering. Nov. 9 de 1987

Time banking -- An hour saved is an hour earned.
Bob: All through college, I dreamed of becoming a manager. And when I went to work, my goal was to be a manager. I've been out of college several years now, working in a manufacturing plant of a large chemical company. Some of the work is very stimulating engineering, but much of my time is consumed by routine activities, such as weekly production reports, and getting equipment repaired. These keep me so busy, I don't have a chance to develop my ability to be a manager. I'm not getting any managerial experience. I don't mind working extra hours to achieve my goal, and I expect to spend time building a foundation, but I feel bogged down. I need help. You made it to the management level. What should I do? Chuck Dear Chuck: If it's any consolation, many engineers struggle with the same concern you have. I certainly did. Being a topnotch engineer all your career can be exciting and rewarding, both professionally and financially, but managers usually enjoy added prestige, more independence, and higher salaries than those who stay predominantly as engineers. Managers are let in early on major company decisions, and help shape those decisions. So being a manager has many advantages. But reaching management rank is a difficult task. The competition is stiff and there are no easy routes. Only one out of ten engineers makes it to a significant management level, and only one out of a hundred attains an upper management position. It's important to understand the difference between engineering and management. The discipline we learned in school makes us seek exact answers. The same equations give the same answers as long as we use the same bases. The time frame for knowing if we are right or wrong on a decision is reasonably short, usually less than two years. Mistakes are made in steel and concrete, and can be corrected with dollars. In many cases, the decision and its implementation are in our hands. In contrast, a manager's bases are more nebulous, the results less predictable, and making decisions often means sailing into uncharted waters. Mistakes are measured in flesh and blood, because management decisions invariably affect people. Success or failure may not be known for up to five years, and even longer. Most of the manager's decisions call for painful compromises between complex alternatives. Furthermore, the success of those decisions depends on the performance of others. A manager must delegate the authority and responsibility for making many decisions and for implementing all of them. But being a manager is exhilarating, challenging and rewarding. I thoroughly enjoyed, and thrived on, being an engineer, but being a manager surpasses anything I ever did. How do you personally lay the foundation for climbing the management ladder? Your present assignment offers fertile ground for developing managerial skills. Many skills essential to being a good manager also make you a better engineer. These can be honed right where you are. Let me first talk about “time banking”, a very important skill that you should develop, whether you remain an engineer or become a manager. Time banking is to your job what a savings account is to your financial well-being. A savings account earns interest for us. It's a reserve that we can dip into for emergencies, or for purchases planned for the right time at the right price. It gives us financial flexibility. Time banking serves the same purpose in our job. In its simplest terms, time banking means investing time today to save time tomorrow. For example, you have a routine weekly report that requires about three hours for gathering and calculating the data. It's due on Friday, so you compile the data from the instruments and the operator logsheets on Thursday, do the necessary calculations, and write a brief

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summary, which you give to the secretary for typing on Friday morning. Next week, try time banking. Stay over an extra six hours to format a computer program that will do the calculations and print out a form when you enter the data. After you've added the appropriate comments, the report will be ready. You'll save one hour per week by expending six now, so your payout time is six weeks -- a quick return on your investment. Next, spend that hour per week teaching the technician how to measure, record and enter the data. Now you'll have cut down the time to one hour per week. That hour will be spent analyzing the data and writing the summary, plus doing ``quality control'' (i.e., checking some of the data personally). Now you'll have two hours a week for other time banking tasks. You'll have eliminated the repetitious chores and retained the management tasks (analysis, decisionmaking, delegation and inspection). Even more important, time banking will help you tackle recurring problems. For example, a pump on a storage tank occasionally vapor-locks for no obvious reason, doubling the time for loading railcars. Getting it working again takes four hours of your time, plus the loading operator's time, and a shipment is sometimes delayed. By spending perhaps eighteen hours digging through the data and running tests on the pump, you may figure out the cause. Let's assume that you spend another ten hours getting the instrumentation installed that eliminates the problem. Thus, you'll have spent twentyeight hours solving a problem that costs you eight hours a month (not including the loading operator's time). Based only on your time, that's a four-month payout. More importantly, you'll have eliminated a problem that, when it occurs, demands your time immediately. Most importantly, you'll have practiced one of the critical rules for being a good manager. A good manager doesn't tolerate problems -- not even small ones! Small problems that are ignored tend to lead to serious consequences: injuries to people, ruined equipment, missed shipments, poor employee morale. I still remember when a perennial tiny leak at a pump seal resulted in a small fire that burned out the wiring to a minor instrument, throwing off an important controller causing a runaway reaction that damaged trays in a giant stripping tower and wrecked a large compressor. The result: a seven-day shutdown and a half-milliondollar repair bill. Bhopal represents the most well-known case of a minor problem escalating into a catastrophe. We often apply bandages on problems in order to keep a plant running. This is like taking an aspirin for a fever. The aspirin temporarily reduces the fever but does nothing to eliminate the infection. Don't routinely feed aspirins to a problem. Find the cause and cure it -- once and for all! There are three objectives in time banking: 1. Reducing the time consumed by routine tasks; 2. Eliminating recurring problems; 3. Freeing your time for more-productive, creative responsibilities. The benefits of time banking are so obvious, it's surprising how much it's underused. The most common excuse: ``I don't have time, I'm too buried with work.'' Time is like money -- you save neither if both are consumed by daily requirements. Although you may not have access to extra money, you do have access to extra time. You can work at night, on weekends, and you can even skip lunch. I'm not suggesting that you become a workaholic . . . quite the contrary. Working sixty hours a week is a poor substitute for not practicing time banking. Time banking can make you the person about whom your boss will say, ``Chuck always seems to be one step ahead of problems and even has time for extra jobs.'' It allows you to accomplish more in fewer hours, and to choose your priorities. This is very important because a manager is always short of time. Time banking will help you up another important step in reaching the management level: taking on extra responsibility. Most job descriptions start with a box, in which are relatively well-defined responsibilities. The management-savvy engineer quickly begins to expand this box: mastering the regular job, building up a time banking account, then cashing in some of the dividends to ``buy'' extra responsibilities. Make such an extra task one that will enable your department to operate better or to lessen the time load on your supervisor. Such a task should also broaden your insight and experience. Make a trip with the marketing person to see a customer. Understanding customer needs may enable you to improve product quality and service, and will certainly earn you high marks from the marketing people. If your plant and another conflict every month over the metered quantity of steam or raw materials, take on the assignment of working out a resolution. Volunteer to head up the department safety committee. Even offer to write the report on long-term capital spending needs. Get exposure to other people's ideas and techniques. Learn how to negotiate with people to resolve differences. Clearing away the dull, energy-sapping tasks in your box will give you the time to handle your assigned responsibilities, deal with emergencies, and still reach out for other opportunities. How do you get started? First, analyze how you spend your time. Break your assignment down into about ten jobs, and note how much time each takes per week. Second, list the nonrecurring tasks that have consumed your time in the past two months. Third, list your five most

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bothersome recurring problems or tasks. Fourth, select six candidates from these lists for time banking. Beside each, put your estimate of how much time it'll take you to eliminate, or significantly reduce, the present time burden. Resolve to accomplish at least one of these within the next thirty days -- then make this happen! Don't let anything keep you from spending the time necessary. Work nights and weekends, or come in early each morning. Incidentally, coming in an hour early for a month can accomplish wonders. You'll gain twenty-three hours that seem to come out of nowhere. Actually, they'll come out of the hours that you sleep, but most of us can do without that extra hour of sleep. If you struggle holding a cup of coffee in the morning and hit your peak late in the day, then do your time banking in the evening. Does carpooling keep you from working late or early? Then skip lunch for the month, or eat a sandwich while you work on your time-banking project. Gather information during the day, and do the diagnosing and planning at home in the evening. Time is an asset, like money or a manufacturing facility, but its value depreciates more rapidly to zero. Time wasted is time lost forever. Reinvest your time-banking dividends to solve other problems, to simplify routine tasks, and to expand your horizon. By time banking, you'll create the foundation for two essential tools to becoming a manager: eliminating problems, and taking on extra responsibilities. Bob.

Management techniques -- I never thought managing could be so simple.
Dear Bob: I tried time banking, and it works pretty much like you said. I can see some of the repetitious jobs diminishing as I get them better organized. However, you should've warned me about the extra hours. I'm putting in more than ever. Still, I'm enjoying my work more. Once I started seeing the results, I want to do so many things in a hurry. Chuck Dear Chuck: As you said, it's so much fun making deposits that you sometimes forget to go home. Let me now tell you what I consider to be the fundamental tasks of a good manager. The best short summary of the responsibilities of a manager was given to me by one of my bosses. He said, “The two things a manager must do are develop people and ensure that the correct strategy is set. If you don't have time to do both, concentrate on developing people. If you do that well, they'll handle the strategy with only a little help from you”. I've been a manager in research, engineering, manufacturing, and commercial areas. The same management rules apply to all of them: Develop your people and make sure that the strategy is correct. There are many other things a manager needs to do, but virtually all of them will be a part of these two tasks. First, I'll take up setting correct strategy. Why is this so important? Visualize a firetruck arriving at a building surrounded by an anxious crowd. With rapid precision, two firefighters lay a firehose from a hydrant nearly a block away. Other firefighters don breathing apparatus and rush inside to search for the source of the fire and to look for trapped people. A ladder is quickly extended to a second-story window, where two people are seen. The firefighters have performed their tasks superbly. Now visualize the reactions of the firefighters and the crowd when they realize that they're at the wrong place . . . that the burning building is three blocks away. The firefighters' determined effort and superb execution becomes a fiasco. There's nothing more costly and demoralizing than for a person, or group of people, to do an exemplary job on the wrong task for the wrong reason. This is why developing the correct strategy and making sure that everyone understands it is critical. Management also needs to understand your strategy. You need its support, to know that your strategy fits its strategy. The surest way to make management nonsupportive is to have a strategy that it doesn't understand. By strategy, I mean: what do you want to accomplish (basic objectives)? Closely allied are: why do you want to do it (rewards), what can go wrong (risks), and why strive for one particular goal rather than others (alternatives)? After you've determined your strategy, figure out how you're going to realize it (plans), how long it'll take (timing), who's going to make it happen (people commitments), and how'll you know whether or not the project is being pursued successfully (performance measurements). Three criteria are involved in setting strategy: First, how to maximize the reward and minimize the risk. Most managers like to stress rewards, but equally important are two other aspects of strategy: what are the risks, and what are the alternatives? Nothing significant happens without risk. Just be certain that you weigh the risk/reward ratio, and those of the alternatives. I'll talk more about this later. Second, how to balance short-term goals against long-term ones. If a manager doesn't take care of the present, there won't be any future. Conversely, a strategy dedicated to maximizing the present will eventually doom a company

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to mediocrity. Third, how to make events happen rather than simply taking advantage of, or coping with, situations that occur. Few good opportunities just come along. You have to make something good happen. This touches upon another characteristic of a good manager: he, or she, generates momentum. Probably no other skill so totally separates outstanding managers from ordinary ones. Momentum generators are creative, optimistic, relentless and risk-takers. Their organizations are characterized by enthusiasm, confidence and records of accomplishments that ordinary managers only dream about. Momentum generators are of all types. Some are always the center of attention. Their contributions are often dramatic and far reaching (occasionally, they fail equally dramatically). Others are quietly self-assured, dramatic movers in their own groups but not very visible outside them. Their accomplishments are so smoothly done that they are often underestimated. Momentum generators are essential to the long-term success of companies. They push companies into new frontiers. They transform the most mundane assignment into a corporate crown jewel, and turn lackluster departments into dynamic, high-achieving units, spawning top performers in their wake. But they also can destroy departments, such as by siphoning off resources into the wrong projects, and sending companies rushing down the wrong paths. Perpetual motion is no substitute for good strategic planning and methodical implementation. Momentum provides the thrust that makes decisions successful. Some people are born momentum generators, but most become so by dint of effort, and you can develop the characteristics of the momentum generator. Such people are dedicated. They really care about what they're doing, and how projects turn out. Their energy seems boundless, their pursuit of the goals relentless. Successes ignite them. They are relentless. Setbacks only strengthen their resolve; indeed, turning adversity into opportunity is one of their trademarks. They want the assignment that'll make or break a project. So seek out the tough assignments, and expect to succeed. A momentum generator brings enthusiasm and confidence to a task. People around them are drawn into their wake. Average performers accomplish things they'd never thought possible. Groups become so enmeshed in the project that the normal organizational restraints disappear. Upper management gets talked into doing things it would normally delay. Get all the help possible. Give as much credit as possible to others, so they'll be eager to assist. Nothing creates momentum in others as much as feeling they're contributing to a successful project. Your objective is to make the project work, not to build a monument to yourself. Be creative in ways that don't occur to most people. A momentum generator will always find the ladder needed to scale a wall, or the dynamite to blast it away. The ordinary person will chip away at the wall, but the momentum generator will figure out how to get to the other side now, not later. Think big. Don't limit yourself to what's clearly obtainable. Ask yourself what're the best things that could happen in your assignment. Go for 90% of the impossible, rather than 100% of the obviously attainable. Today's economic climate presents endless opportunities for the exceptional manager. To be such a manager, concentrate on: developing subordinates, making certain that your strategy is right and understood by your subordinates and your management, being intolerant of problems, and generating momentum. You can practice doing all of these things in your present job, regardless of your level. Bob

People development -- How does your garden grow?
Dear Bob: You've said that people development is the single most important task of a manager. I'm ready for you to tell me more about this. How does a manager do this? And how do I begin sharpening this skill now? Chuck Dear Chuck: There's an old saying: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink”. It can be paraphrased: If people don't want to take time to develop themselves, you can't force them. But there's another saying: “A horse can die of thirst because no one shows it where the water is”. It's perhaps more precise to say that managers speed up and improve the development of people, rather than that they “develop people”. The responsibility for development rests primarily on the individual, not the manager. A manager can influence that development, but not control it. Some people grow rapidly without guidance from a manager. But everyone develops faster and better when the manager makes people development a fundamental priority. Developing people means improving their skills, teaching them new ones, helping them to eliminate weaknesses, increasing their responsibilities, and moving them to new assignments to broaden their experience. It also involves delegating appropriate decision-making authority to them. This includes the right to make some mistakes, so as to learn from them. Development must take place at all levels.

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This applies as much to a shift operator as to a production superintendent. The approach will differ, but the same principles are applicable. Without intending to dehumanize the task, let me compare developing people to tending a garden. The manager is the gardener; the department is the garden; and the people are the plants. We're all familiar enough with gardens to recognize some obvious truths. First, a well-cared-for garden will do better than an untended one. Second, a garden must fit its environment. The plants must be appropriate for the soil and the season. Your first task as a manager will be to ask yourself what is the role of your department? Don't assume that its organization is correct. If its mission has changed, it's time to change its focus and organization. Establishing the correct environment for your people is essential to their development. You'll make certain that your department is making, and will continue to make, a substantial contribution to the company. Otherwise your people will be in jeopardy. There are two sure ways to get a department eliminated: One, upper management doesn't understand its function; Two, on its best day, this department contributes only marginally to the company's well-being. So your first responsibility will be to figure out where your department fits in the company and what it should be contributing. You'll make certain that your strategy is understood and approved by upper management, so that you'll have its support, and you'll develop the standards by which the performance of your group can be readily measured. There's some risk in doing this. If you do poorly, management will know it. In a nutshell, you'll make certain that you've organized your department to fit its role, that its function enhances the company, and that you change it when the company changes. Second, pruning is essential in gardening. Similarly, you'll keep your group lean and overloaded. That's the sure way to be certain that they'll set priorities on their tasks (and will practice time banking). I suspect that an unprejudiced survey of most departments would show that up to 25% of the workload is unnecessary, or can be readily deferred. Such work is being done mainly because someone needs to do it to keep busy, or because it provides “interesting information”. When the boss asks for something new to be done, something else should have to be delayed; otherwise, you have too many people. Prune out excess people. Too many in a department stifles individual growth. That's not fair to the people or to the company. Keeping too many people in a department is like having too many plants in a garden when the water supply is inadequate. Many managers wait for the company to announce layoffs, then pass the buck by telling their people, “Upper management says we have to cut staff by 10%”. That's a terrible indictment of a manager's failure to prune out weak and excess people on a routine basis. Don't let this happen to your department. To paraphrase General Patton: “Your job is not to lay off your people, but to make the mediocre managers in other departments lay off their people”. You'll have to do your personnel homework day in and day out -- constantly revitalizing the department structure to improve efficiency, maintaining a lean staff, intensely developing people, rejuvenating (or, when necessary, culling) weak performers, continually boosting standards for each person -- so that even a recession will mostly pass you and your people by. You can grade your people into three categories: exceptional, good, and below average. Obviously, there are ranges in these categories. Do you treat each category the same in development? Absolutely not! Most managers spend three times more effort than they should with the person who is barely performing. They do this so as to keep this person's head above water and to minimize damage to the department. Time is next mostly spent trying to upgrade the average performer. Little time is spent with the exceptional one. Is this priority correct? A good gardener wouldn't think so. It's the superior plants that make a garden exceptional. Similarly, it's the superior performer who makes a department exceptional. Too many managers have their priorities upside down. It's the top performer -- the one who makes that one research project in ten pay off, who comes up with new technology, who overhauls the plant maintenance program to reduce costs dramatically, who through personal dynamism ignites other people to perform better -who has the most impact on the company. By speeding up this person's development, you'll make him or her even more valuable sooner. How do you help exceptional performers? They do everything so well, they don't seem to have weaknesses -- Right? No! Such a person has a wealth of talents and energy -- and a few flaws that don't seem important at this stage. Nevertheless, a manager works on the flaws now, because each time the exceptional performer moves up the ladder another notch, the competition becomes stiffer and the challenges tougher. Those seemingly innocuous flaws may begin to slow down progress, to limit success. So get rid of the flaws early. Hone the talents razor sharp. The top performer

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can generally take tough critiquing, indeed, welcomes it from the manager. Note that I said “critiquing” -- not “criticism”. There's a world of difference. How do you critique top people? I like to be straightforward. I tell them they're among the best. Therefore, the purpose of our discussions is to look toward their future, to hone even their present excellent performance. We talk about strengths and weaknesses. I point out that often a person's strengths may also be potential faults. For instance, an unusual ability to analyze information and come up with a correct answer makes a person a whiz at solving problems. However, this ability may incline one to focus on the data and to leave people out of the equation. When is the right time to do this developing? All the time. It'll be a part of your daily contact with the person. But there are times when a carefully planned, deliberate discussion is essential. One such time will be right after someone comes to work for you, or you're promoting someone. Take the time -- make the time -- to sit down and discuss the job, its problems, your reasons for giving it to him or her, your concerns about its toughest aspects. Stake out the working relationship early. “I've picked you for this job because I believe you're the best person for it and it's an excellent opportunity for you. We're going to be frank with each other. If you do something that irritates or worries me, I'm going to tell you. I'll do this because I want you to be the best there is at your job. If I do something that bothers you or interferes with your ability to run your job right, or that you don't understand, tell me. You'll do that to help me and to help yourself. “When we sit together in this office, there's no boss. We'll discuss, debate, and occasionally argue in order to make the best decisions. I'll need you to critique my decisions and techniques. We'll discuss activities and each other's performance as often as necessary. The newer we are as a team, the more often we'll do this. And we won't wait for an emergency. “At least once a year, I'll formally appraise your performance. We'll discuss what has gone well and not so well, where you are strongest and weakest, and how I feel you are doing overall. There'll be no surprises, because we'll have discussed such things informally throughout the year. This session will pull everything together. We'll talk about your view of your job and performance, your objectives, your potential promotions, and what it'll take to be a candidate for those promotions. It'll be an open exchange. I'll also ask that you critique how I'm handling my job, and how can I help you more.'' Why a formal performance review every year? Why not do it informally, as needed? The value of a planned appraisal is that it'll force you to draw all your thoughts together, to critique the overall performance, to ask yourself: Am I so impressed with this person's talents in a few areas that I'm ignoring a recurring weakness? When I put all the evaluations together, is this person even better than I thought? Is he or she so methodical and so in command of the job that I've underestimated how many difficult problems are being solved? Is it now time to expand the job or to move this person into another? But, you might ask, can't this be done without a formal review? It can. I've worked for a manager who never gave me a formal review. Instead, three or four times a year, he gave me a clear indication of how I was doing, and together we explored my opportunities. Although such sessions always seemed to be spur-of-the-moment events, I saw, from the depths of his comments, that he had done a lot of thinking about them. You'll need to give priority, and devote the time, to offering truthful and thorough critiques, and not just “you're doing great” appraisals. You'll also get second opinions. You'll talk to people in other groups with which your star performer is in routine contact. You may be surprised! Some of them may think the person is very provincial in always looking out only for his or her interests or department. This could be an obstacle to promotions into other departments. But check still further. Perhaps your star thinks this is what you want. Suppose a previous manager of your star says, “He left some dirty linen that none of us knew about until after he was gone”. Perhaps your superman uses his cape to cover up problems. Check some of his work to see if the results are really what he claimed. Or, suppose someone says of your star, “She helps everybody do their jobs better, and probably doesn't get as much credit as she deserves because she's such a team player”. This sounds as if a future promotion to a multidepartmental job would be in order. You'll need to get insights about your exceptional performers from people in other departments so that you can counsel your people better. Equally important, you'll help

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your exceptional people get ahead by making sure that others know about their performance, particularly the management people who'll influence their future. You'll work actively at getting promotions for them. Some managers are inclined to think that losing a super performer will leave a big hole in their departments. But, if you've done a good job of developing your people, such a hole will be eagerly and capably filled by others. Promotions to other departments are great developmental steps, both for the particular person and for others in your department. There're many good articles on the mechanics of conducting performance appraisals, and companies often have specific formats. So I'm not going to cover these details. More important than the mechanics will be your dedication to doing appraisals well, and making them vehicles for advancing the careers of your people. This applies to all levels of performers -- exceptional, good and average. Bob

Average performers -- My garden is not doing as well as it should.
Dear Bob: You've told me a lot about how I'll have to handle the outstanding performer, and some about dealing with the average performer. Because most people are not superstars, I feel I'll need more information about how to work with the average person. Chuck Dear Chuck: If you'll be doing your job right, your “average” performers will be very good. They'll have the same dedication and enthusiasm as your best people. They'll understand and participate in the development of strategy. They'll be creative, excellent implementers, and persistent in making the right things happen. And they'll improve each year, assuming more responsibility even while staying in the same job for a long time. Additionally, at least one such person will emerge in the near future as an exceptional performer. Right now, some flaws or inexperience is holding back this person. You'll help remove the blocks with guidance. You'll diagnose this person's strengths and weaknesses, help him or her eliminate the flaws and hone talents, and give a lot of thought to future assignments. Sound familiar? I'm saying that you'll give the same dedication to developing average performers as for the exceptional ones. A good gardener nurtures the average plant to help it become everything it can be. In so doing, he develops a strong, reliable plant that enhances the entire garden, and that occasionally grows into a showpiece. A good manager does the same. Average performers are an essential part of a department. Some are as valuable as the exceptional performer. So you'll nurture and employ them well. However, it's important to remember that most of them will not become managers. They'll work for a first-level manager or supervisor. Thus, it's essential that all levels of supervisors be proficient in developing people. The average person shouldn't be allowed to be shortchanged by a mediocre supervisor. Such a boss generates mediocre performers and can stifle even the best performer. Early in my career, I worked in a very relaxed group. They spent a lot of time talking about yesterday's sports results, and were out of the gate as soon as their eight hours were over. They sat at their desks and made the technicians gather the data. Afterward, I spent three months in another group. They worked their heads off, and spent most of the day in the middle of the research units. They were dedicated to developing the next technological breakthrough. Ten years later, a half-dozen people in the latter group had become superintendents and managers. Their former boss became a vice-president. In contrast, many of the people in the first group were gone from the company. None had reached a managerial level. Not one of their projects had been commercialized. In fact, the entire department had disappeared. Sadly, its manager had let this happen, as did the individuals. Mediocre managers breed mediocrity. A study on developing new people, by the American Telephone and Telegraph Co., revealed that the first two years were critical to establishing long-term enthusiasm and creativity. If a person's first assignment is challenging, he or she develops a momentum that remains even on later mundane projects. Conversely, if new people are started on assignments that are not demanding, they often never gear up to a high level of performance, not even when they have the opportunity to do so on later projects. The message is clear. People development requires enthusiastic, effective supervision at all levels. Consequently, no organization can afford to have mediocre managers; indeed, it can't even afford to have very many average ones. Too often, people who don't have management skills are promoted because they're good at their current jobs or because they're “the next in line”. Only those people who would make good supervisors should be promoted to supervisory or managerial positions. Those in these

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positions should be moved out if they don't perform suitably. Employees need exposure to top-notch supervisors and their demanding standards. This means that it's very important that you develop your management skills in your present job. Demonstrate management capabilities now, and the good manager will put you on the candidate list for managerial jobs. Then, upon your promotion, you'll start out at full speed, and not have to spend time learning the necessary skills. A manager who lets average performers settle into one job indefinitely will end up with people who're more concerned with preserving the status quo rather than with changing, because change removes their chief asset -- experience. If their strength is consistency and they're slow to absorb new tasks, build up their confidence and vary their experience by adding new pieces to their jobs. Don't let average performers slip backward, or even to stand still, because others will rush past, and suddenly they're far back in the pack, striving to simply stay in the race. What about the mediocre performer? Remember what I've said about the good manager not tolerating problems, that he either cures a problem or gets rid of it! Of course, this isn't simple when people are the problem. Your first obligation will be to upgrade the weak performers to an acceptable level. Firing a person should be your last resort, something you do only after you've become convinced that the person can't become an acceptable performer in the present job or in another. First, you'll own up to the fact that you have a poor performer. Then set a goal to resolve the problem within a reasonable period. Next, decide who'll do this. If you won't have the time, you'll give this responsibility to one of your supervisors, to one who you're confident can handle it. You'll give the problem performer a chance to succeed. Second, you'll figure out what the problem is. Why is the performance unacceptable? Is the problem the person, the job, poor supervision, or misunderstood responsibilities? Is the cause relatively obvious, or some underlying factor? One engineer who joined my department was soon put on the “endangered species” list. He tried hard, and spent many hours on the job. His attitude was excellent, and he got along well with people. Still, he never accomplished anything. Diagnosis: He was afraid to make a decision. Numerous supervisors had worked with him without success. Following my rule, I should've “bitten the bullet” and counseled him out. However, his attitude was so good that I felt it worth giving him one more chance. I deliberately moved him into an assignment that required that he report to me on one part of it. One week later, despite my spending hours with him discussing the project, he still hadn't started anything except some minor, lowpriority tasks. Twice again, I discussed the project with him. Both times, he went off and worked tenaciously on minor side pieces and ignored the tough key decisions. These experiences persuaded me that the other supervisors had been right. However, in the midst of an intense discussion with him about the situation, I had an insight. Every small piece of the project had been done, even a couple of parts that required tough decisions. So perhaps, I thought, his problem wasn't an inability to make decisions. Instead, the problem might be that he doesn't know how to take a difficult task and break it down into pieces that he could grasp. I decided to test this insight. We picked out the project's highest-priority task, and broke it down into six parts. We agreed on his tackling two of the six parts, plus three small aspects, of the project. A week later, all the tasks were rolling along. I asked him to break down another part into pieces, and to come back in two days so that I could critique and help him. Over the next thirty days, we worked our way similarly through every part of the project. Soon, he was making decisions, and was completing the project in logical sequences. By spending time with him, by experimenting, and by talking frankly about his problem, I had guided him to the root of it. Improvement in such a case can be dramatic. No other experience can be so exhilarating for a manager. Thus, the key to developing people is to pay attention to each one of them. Communicate often, be honest, be sure they understand what you expect, tell them how they're doing, and work on making their future attractive, for their sake and for the company. If you'll do these things, you'll rarely have to counsel out a person. Yet, if this must be done, you'll not pass the buck, but do the task yourself. If you'll think that another chance in a different setting might cure the problem, work out an agreement with another manager to take the person on a trial basis. Both managers must agree that if this assignment doesn't result in acceptable performance, one of them will counsel out the person, and make sure that the person understands this. This may frighten him, but not nearly as much as your telling him that he has been fired. No task is more gut-grinding than for a manager than to look at an employee who has been with the company for fifteen years, who's nearly forty years old, who now is, and always has been, mediocre, and no one can figure out how to get him up to an acceptable level of performance. Long ago, some

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manager didn't do his job in correcting this person's poor performance or in counseling him out of the company. If the performance of a recent graduate can't be corrected within three years, don't prolong the agony. Give such a person the chance, while he or she is still young, to find other opportunities. Such a person may be in the wrong company or profession. You'll be doing the person a favor by helping him or her find this out as early as possible. Bob

Discipline -- Being almost perfect is better than being average.
Dear Bob: I went through the roughest experience of my career this week. I had to fire a plant operator for breaking rules who was already on probation for past problems. My superintendent told me, ``Welcome to the supervisor ranks. Discipline is the worst part of the job.'' You haven't really said anything specific about discipline in a manager's job. Will it get more painful as I move up the ladder? Chuck Dear Chuck: Having to fire someone will always be painful. But, I'd like to rephrase your boss' statement to: “Remedying the lack of discipline is the worst part of a supervisor's job”. Discipline involves much more than punishment for violations and failures. It should be positive, morale boosting, beneficial to the people, the plant and management. Discipline involves setting standards for performance and insisting that these be met. Discipline represents in a single word my earlier statement that a good manager expects, demands, plans for, inspects for, follows up for, and enforces high standards. I didn't use the word earlier because it conveys a negative connotation to most people. To achieve high standards (i.e., good discipline), pay attention to these fundamentals: 1. You generally won't get much more than you demand. 2. You can expect to get what you want only if you inform people what your standards are, and teach them how to achieve them. 3. You can expect to get what you want only if you inspect what you're getting. 4. You can only inspect results if you establish measurement criteria. 5. You must enforce standards. Enforcement doesn't necessarily involve punishment. Punishment is the last resort for failure to achieve the required standards. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, enforcement means reinforcement of standards via critiques, reeducation and clarification. I had a superintendent who seemed an enigma. His rules were strict, errors were unacceptable, and every mistake was reviewed. Yet his people had the highest morale in the entire operating division. How was this possible? The answer is critical to the concept of discipline. First, he demanded high standards of everyone -- including himself. Second, he was consistent. If something went wrong, he talked with the people responsible and took corrective action. I used the word “talked” deliberately. Instead of asking, “Why did you mess that up?” he would ask, “What happened?” If the problem was traced to lack of training, he saw to it that the people were reeducated. If a procedure was at fault, he had it revised. If the blame lay with the plant equipment, he assigned someone to correct it. If a person failed to perform up to his standards, he took appropriate steps, which ranged from constructive criticism to firing. Most important, his first act was always to establish what had happened and why. This done, he took appropriate action. He enforced discipline by persistent inspection and corrective steps to attain high performance. In a nutshell, he was tough but fair. However, he did more than just react consistently on enforcement. He also demanded excellent performance. If he saw that someone's performance was slipping a little, he would immediately talk with the person. If someone's performance improved, he would establish this new, higher level as the minimum. Consequently, performance in his department always trended upward. But he also did three other important things: He complimented people profusely when they performed outstandingly. He represented them well to management. And he liked people. His people knew he was concerned about them, very demanding and fair. No wonder their morale was sky high. They thrived, the plant thrived, and he thrived. So add two more fundamentals for achieving high standards. 6. Be consistent, persistent, demanding and fair. 7. Establish rules to define standards, but never let rules substitute for judgments of motives and circumstances. Thus, discipline because it's the right and fair thing to do, not because rules require it. You'll face many situations that, on the surface, clearly require firm disciplinary action according to company rules, but that involve unusual circumstances and motives. Most of these times, you'll impose the discipline dictated by the company rules. Occasionally, you won't. In all cases, you'll ask yourself such questions as: “What is correct and fair?” ``Will these actions reinforce or weaken the standards?'' This brings me to my final statement on discipline. 8. Don't tolerate continuing violations of standards. If you've diligently trained and critiqued a problem performer, yet performance remains unacceptable,

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the time has come to solve the problem. If the person has been clearly negligent about responsibilities, or has repeatedly violated policies (such as on safety and absenteeism), or has routinely not met minimum performance standards -- you'll have to fire the person. I was about to say you have a responsibility to fire the person, but that implies that company rules force you, as a supervisor, to fire the person. This shouldn't be the reason. You'll fire the person because you're a good manager, and a good manager doesn't tolerate problems. Problem people will lower the performance of your entire department and distract you from more-important tasks. You'll owe it to yourself, and to those under, around and above you to insist on maintaining high performance standards, even if this means firing someone. Fundamental to managing is establishing high standards and maintaining them. If you do this well, you'll rarely have to correct lack of discipline. Bob

Presentations -- I forgot to think like a manager.
Dear Bob: I thought I was finally rolling along on developing my managerial skills. But I really blew it on a presentation to my superintendent's boss of a proposal for converting an instrumentation system. It's a complex project, so I gave him a detailed explanation. Once he understood it, he would jump at the idea, I figured. But we weren't on the same wavelength. He asked me questions that were completely out of my league. The whole session was a disaster, although, at the end, he did encourage me to keep working on the project. Where did I go wrong? Chuck Dear Chuck: I think I can pinpoint where your presentation went wrong. Note that I said your presentation, not your idea. How you present your project to a manager is critical to how it'll be perceived and whether it'll be accepted. The manager did a good job. He made it clear that you weren't properly prepared. That's painful but valuable feedback. (I've been on both sides of the table, and I've heard superb presentations, struggled through mediocre ones, and suffered with terrible ones.) He told you to see him again when you are prepared. That's positive. The key to making a good presentation to a manager is to think like a manager. (Remember, I'd said that a top priority for a manager is to determine that strategy is correct). He wanted to understand and critique your proposal. He wasn't interested in the details of what you're doing. You were boring him. Instead, you should've told him what he needs to know to make a decision. So the manager wanted answers to the following questions: What do you want to accomplish? Does this fit our strategy? What are the rewards and risks? What are the alternatives? How are you going to accomplish your goal? Who'll make it happen? How critical is timing? What do you need from management? The more such questions that you answer, the more confidence he'll have in your analysis. These questions will be in his mind, competing for attention; address them before you go into your technical explanation. After he's satisfied with the answers to the managerial questions, he'll be ready to concentrate on the technical details. Sometimes, the technical aspects are so fundamental to the viability of the project that they do belong early in the presentation. If so, tell him you'll first go into detail on the technology, then show how the proposal fits into overall strategy. But keep the technical explanation concise and relevant. Prepare for questions as intensely as you prepared the presentation itself. Ask yourself, and answer, every question that you think the manager might ask. Talk to other people about the project. If the manager has a staff person who reviews or coordinates projects, get his reaction. He may tip you off to many of the questions the manager might ask. As a supervisor, you'll take the time to preview every presentation your people make to a manager, and ask them every question you can think of. You'll want the project to get the best possible hearing, and you'll want your people to look good to the manager. So you'll help them to think like a manager. Nothing makes a manager more comfortable than for you to answer a half dozen questions that he considers relevant. You needn't score a 100%. He'll allow you to occasionally say, “I'll have to get that information for you”. There are several other important aspects I'd like to mention. Don't create a suspense story. Disclose in your opening comments the key points of what you'll be presenting and what action will be necessary. This will give him a grasp of the management perspective. And don't assume that he remembers the background from previous presentations. He has to keep up with a lot of projects. If the background is relevant, spend a few minutes bringing him up to date. Also tell the unvarnished truth, not what you think he wants to hear. Doing this may make your presentations a little less exciting initially, but the credibility you'll earn

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will pay off in the future. If the project's profitability appears marginal or carries considerable risk because of the uncertainty of the technology, say so. A manager will forgive a lot of mistakes, but won't tolerate distortions of the facts. Take responsibility for your statements. Don't say, “The economic evaluation department says this project will return a 25% discounted cash flow”. Instead, say, “My review with the economic evaluation department shows ...” -- i.e., you've personally reviewed the project's economics with those in the department and can say that they have used the correct bases and have developed a sound conclusion. Accountability for this rests on your shoulders, not on those of some staff person in another department. When preparing your presentation, think of the two to four key facts that you'll want the manager to remember. Focus on them in your presentation and reiterate them in your summary. For instance, I can tell you the key factors of your instrumentation project that the manager needed to hear. One: The existing pneumatic instrumentation is outdated and unreliable; it causes plant upsets, is expensive to maintain, and limits our flexibility in installing computer control. Two: An electronic system will solve these shortcomings and provide a high return on investment. Three: This instrumentation is identical to that installed in two newer plants, where it simplified maintenance training and spare-parts inventory. Four: The conversion can be accomplished over a six-month period, without disrupting production, except for two three-day shutdowns for making critical component tie-ins, but both shutdowns will occur during routinely scheduled production outages. Now fill him in on the information that supports these statements. After telling him who'll work on the project and how the work will be done, reemphasize these points in your summary, and answer questions. It'll be easy for a manager to approve a project presented in such a manner. Presentations are often accompanied by illustrations, usually shown via overhead transparencies. Keep these simple. When talking, look at the manager, not at the screen. Giving eye contact conveys intensity and self-confidence. Lastly, make your presentation with gusto. The project may be rather routine and the facts mundanely logical, still it's your project. Believe in it; even be excited about it. Convey that you're going to do it well. Make the manager feel the same way. Bob

Handling authority -- Now I'm the boss.
Dear Bob: I just became the boss. As you know, I've been a supervisor, directing a few people, and influencing the activities of some others. Now I'm the head of the department. I've been practicing the techniques of good management. But, how do I handle being the boss? Chuck Dear Chuck: Almost every new manager asks himself your question. Mastering the techniques of being a good manager is the first step, but there are other key factors in “being the boss”. A favorite buzzword today is “management style”. I don't believe there is such a thing as an ideal management style. Some good managers are very intense; others are downright mellow. Some are very sociable; others never feel comfortable in a group. Some are charismatic leaders; others quietly control things “from behind the scenes”. You can benefit by watching other managers in action. You can seek counsel from people above, below, and next to you. However, what works for others may not work for you. Your style must be compatible with your personality, your strengths and weaknesses, and your particular situation. Nevertheless, there are some techniques that will always serve you well.

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