The Coalition Of Enemies

When Boston University organized a leadership session with MBA alumni this year, one of the activities was to play cards. Ok, the cards were from the Center of Creative Leadership. They depicted different themes: a caring gardener, collaborative mountain climbers, creative artists, a happy family, a team of well-organized workers, a group of thieves, connecting rivers, etc. Pick a first card to illustrate your present status and a second one to represent your aspirations. Let me depart from this interesting exercise and focus on the one card that I chose as my first pick: two medieval armies turned their fight towards a third enemy. Big companies are highly politicized and conflict-prone when seen from the inside. Sometimes they appear to be a Coalition of Enemies. In this post I'll try to explain why it is so, and hopefully I'll be able to distill a few good tips on how to navigate successfully through conflict and politics.

Much like cars that have complex designs, corporations have complex organizations. A car has an engine designed to deliver acceleration and speed, at the same time it has well designed brakes and electronic systems to stop quickly. Like cars, corporations have organizations that have built-in conflictive functions, checks and balances if you wish. Some of these company-wide conflicts are well known: regions want to have more autonomy, salesmen seek volume, corporate wants to keep prices high and cut costs, and manufacturing grumbles against engineering who grumbles against quality assurance who in turn... you get the picture. Those broad conflicts trickle within the organization: VPs represent different perspectives, middle-managers take example on their function-head and bring the conflict one level down, and so forth by replication until it reaches every individual in the organization. At the individual level this overlays with a crossroad of conflicts due to overlaps in responsibilities, career aspirations, personal incompatibilities, etc. Then another dynamics takes effect: who can see the conflicts can also exploit the conflicts. If a child can play mom against dad at home, imagine what smart employees or managers can do in complex organizations!

So, how to deal with conflicts in your organization?
1 - First recognize natural conflicts. In doing so, remember that more often than not conflicts are good. In GE our most recent HR initiative is called “Boundaryless Collaboration” and has attributes like “Embraces Constructive Conflict” and at the same time “Leverages Teamwork”. Step-back and try to identify the natural biases of your surroundings. Create the car-like analogy that best matches your organization. Get your company context.
2 - Be skeptical. People will come to you with pre-packaged explanations of what is at play. It can be based on unhealed conflicts, it can be an attempt to play the system and many times it is a defense mechanism (“something is not working and it is not my fault, there is a conflict between…”).
3 - Gather information and perform interviews. People will explain the trade-offs they see, and their behavior and actions will make sense from their perspective. Things will fall into place. I like to write down simple “who thinks what?” two-column tables. It’s simple and powerful
4 - Judge: flag the forces that are good and healthy and segregate them from those that are bad and ill. This will help you drive your actions.
5 - Attack the ill forces. Tackle them; do it on the spot, every time you encounter them. Be courageous; don’t hide behind the “politically correct” and the “benefit of the doubt”. Remember that you always lead by the example first, and people are watching you.
6 - Build coalitions. There is no shame in that, as long as the purpose of the coalition is honorable. Work with your peers, align your teams, and manage up. Build common ground and start from shared values or aspirations.
7 - Communicate, communicate, and communicate. People in your team will understand better the decisions that are not to their liking. They will align and work more effectively. If you are in the engine, you’ll be happier to understand why the driver is braking…communicate!
8 - Close the loop. Continuously check your beliefs, confirm your assumptions, re-interview the stakeholders, re-do the analysis and adjust your actions accordingly. What if you are wrong? Reading this older post on decision and uncertainty can help you managing that.

If you want to dig this deeper, I recommend reading an HBR classic: How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight.

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The economist, the manager, and the doctor

Whether you are an economist a manager or a doctor, you have been trained to predict: the economist predicts GDP and downturns, the manager schedules and costs and the doctor diagnoses and predicts the effect of cures. What makes life interesting is that those predictions are far from perfect... So here is the dilemma of this post: should you improve your prediction skills or should you focus on managing your mistakes?

Let's start with the economists... they rarely predict well the future, but damn! how confident and thorough they are in explaining what happens! No shame involved. They understand the rules of the game: they live with their imperfect predictions, manage their image and move on. Brilliant!

My relationship with doctors is more personal. Two years ago my son could have died. Why? Sickness and an inaccurate diagnosis: the doctors assumed the most probable diagnostic to be certain. My son was very sick and suffered from respiratory issues up to the point of loosing consciousness and needing reanimation. Unfortunately for him, his twin brother was tested positive to RSV (an aggressive respiratory disease) while he was tested negative: "It could be a false negative Mr.Atria, he didn't have enough saliva for the test" they said. The 2nd day, in the hospital, they missed the time-window for the confirmation test: "It's not a big deal, we do the test only to confirm; we are pretty sure that he has RSV". The 3rd day they tested negative for the  RSV again... so they assumed he had another similar respiratory infection, and continued the treatment. To make a long story short, the poor kid had newborn's apnea and needed to be treated with caffeine. If only the doctors would have seriously considered the possibility that their predictions where wrong!

For the manager, what lesson can we take from the economists and those (bad) doctors? In my experience there is a higher pay-off for addressing the risks of an inaccurate prediction than for improving the prediction itself.

Here are some tips on how to do that:

Tip 1 - Do not try to confirm your predictions. It can be pointless. I'm often pulled-in into discussions where engineers are trying to diagnose some kind of technical problem. Most of the time, they have big discussions on what to test next and they end-up trying to perform tests that can confirm or refute their predictions. This sometimes works, but when it does not, they end-up having multiple hypothesis-test iterations, loosing critical time and money. Many times you don't have to know how something happens, but how to deal with what happens... so why bother knowing?

Tip 2 - Don't fall in love with your predictions. We all hate the unknown and --like a mirage in the desert-- we can easily be tricked by our own brain. Embrace the prediction at first, follow-it to the end and create a scenario that makes sense. When you are satisfied, throw your prediction away, call your alter ego Mr.Hide and start again. Continue collecting the scenarios, ask people around you to give you some new ones. Now you are ready to draw a comprehensive action plan.

Tip 3 - Build decision trees. This is a pretty good tool that can help you seeing the big picture. Many times the value of this exercise is not in the math or the probabilities of each branch, but the type of decision points you have, or their order.... which leads us to the next tip.
Tip 4 - Buy time. Why decide today if you can decide tomorrow? Don't jump to quickly on any action if you don't need to, delay your decision the most you can and let new information weight-in. You never know what tomorrow can bring. Be aware that this can be uncomfortable... it's in our genes, we hate the unknown!
Tip 5 - Buy options. Remember that the unknown works both ways... so be also an optimist and you'll be rewarded.  Assuming you have a grounded multi-scenario game plan, there are as many improbable bad things that can happen than good ones.

For what is worth....here is my prediction:
Failure will burn who does not mitigate risk and success will touch who's exposed to luck.

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Jurassic Management and You

We live in times when communication is flowing faster than ever. Not only the tools we work with are evolving fast, we are evolving fast. People don't have careers anymore --they have jobs-- and jobs change quickly! Work can be distributed around the globe (think croudsourcing), and collaboration rules (think wikis and open source). Shift really happens (and if you haven't seen any of the "Did you know" videos you are really out of touch). So...to the point: the management you have observed looking up the corporate ladder is probably not the management you have to replicate. Unfortunately there is no road-map to follow... and I can only help with a few don'ts and some tips.


Don't #1 - My first advice is not to copy your "good'old boss".

If you are reading this blog chances are that you belong to the generation X, and you will be managing a mix of gen Y's and X's and a few boomers. Your boss is probably a baby boomer who manages gen X's. By all means, learn from him but do not copy him. He probably has a different challenge than you have so don't replicate... It just won't work the same way.

Don't #2 - Don't get in the way of things. PR-managers talk well, and their value comes primarily from reporting-up what the team is doing and managing down whatever the business guidelines are. Today, value can't come from being a communication agent. E-mail, webcasts and instant messages are fast and efficient. CEOs are emailing their employees like that: zap! ... and some are blogging or twittering. Same thing for micro-managers...the volume of things going on is so huge that it's impossible to keep-up with everything that is happening. Both the PR-manager and the micro-manager will get in the way of things and add very little in the process... well, other than slowing-down everyone's work by adding time; They are poised to fail. 

Don't #3 - Don't be a father for your team. I still see some "papa-managers" out there... If you are one of them, you take care of your team members as if they were family; you protect them from the cold corporate world and nourish them with your experience. Get real; it won't last long; the family will be devastated by turnover and you'll fall into depression.


Enough Don'ts... time for some constructive tips!

Tip #1 - Understand your organization and culture. No one is better placed than the manager to understand how the organization and culture play at the different levels between the company, the business unit and the team. Spend time on this. Organizations are getting more complex. The management structures have evolved from pyramids to matrices, to .... let's call them hyper-organizations. See the big picture: where do you fit with your company organization, your stakeholders, your suppliers, the corporate process owners, your business environment? What moves the myriad of players around you, how can you leverage them (how can they leverage you?), and what creates barriers to the success of your team's mission? Map this, do a force field analysis. Think about the culture as well. You can only underestimate the impact it can have in the success or failure of a project. 

Tip #2 - Hunt for complexity. Simplification is in vogue. People communicate well and can digest the work for you. Powerpoint presentations, 3 bullets per page, one hour reviews to skim the surface, "you only need to know this", big picture bla, bla, bla! I see this everyday! Today it's too easy to get out of touch with what happens on the ground, what things really mean, or metrics really measure (no, I don't work in finance... but the story is the same, we manage a system we don't always understand). How simple everything looks! But look under the hood and see the complexity! If you decompose how things work you'll be amazed: in my work, to close a "simple action" you have dozens of people involved from 5 places around the world, relying on systems that are unreliable and that are managed in _ _ _ (fill the blanks). You get the picture... things are getting more complex and it's your job to see where the complexity is.

Tip #3 - Take action. The first tips are about doing good analysis... so don't forget to use your analysis and take action. Sometimes you can simplify things. Do it! Sometimes you can only do risk management. Hey, better than nothing.


Tip #4 - Outsource yourself. Well, not literally. What I mean by outsourcing yourself is that you should tap into others when you can. Use your networks and the distributed resources that are available for free... How? By asking questions an helping others to better communicate. If you ask questions you'll have other's brains working for you. And if they can tap into other brains themselves... you see the picture. Sometimes I ask a difficult question and I get an answer right there, on the spot. I hate it, I did a bad job asking or whomever answered didn't get it. I wanted him or her to ask the question as well and then come with many better answers. In summary, If you ensure that your team members are well connected and communicate well, you'll receive direct benefit through networks effects. Use that network!

How many balls can you juggle?

This summer I was reading a Business Week's cover story that I highly recommend: a very interesting interview of Obama on Business. I particularly liked Obama's thought on his agenda towards the end of the interview. The dilemma is whether he should focus and get more things done... or try to do more but risk to have unfinished business.

I can bet: you all have had the same dilemma right!?

Stop! Let's get real:

We are not Obama, we don't have his stellar team nor his political goodwill, we don't have all of America's resources and we do not have to deal with the worst crisis since the 30's...

Nevertheless... the dilemma is similar:

How many balls can you juggle?

When is it too much?

I asked a colleague of mine this question and his answer was:

Answer 1 - "As many as you are able to."

That was a good answer... but inspired by Business Week's article I said: "what about...:

Answer 2 - As many as you need to."

My colleague laughed at me and added:

"What if you are not able to juggle as many balls as you need to? Shouldn't you go back to juggle as many as you are able to?".

Here our ball-juggling analogy breaks... in management --like in politics-- there is an important thing called d-e-l-e-g-a-t-i-o-n. Once you acknowledge that as a manager you can have others juggle some balls you start thinking about which ones you should juggle, if any at all! So... ready for the tips?

Tips:

1) Never forget that you don't necessarily need to juggle balls, you need to get results. How common is that you ask for a status on results and people tell you what they are doing!Arghhhh! Don't focus on showing that you are juggling (i.e. working hard) but focus on getting the work done... and go golfing if you do get results without juggling.

2) Don't think of delegation as giving the leftovers that someone else can deal with (because it is a lesser risk task, or a lesser visibility task). Look at your team and see who can better run which tasks, you get the leftovers.

3) Don't forget that you are ultimately responsible for all the juggling... watch the jugglers, ensure they are well trained, and provide the needed support.

4) Hire the right jugglers...

5) Hate prioritization, don't fall in the priority trap... you need to do what you need to do. If you are a bottleneck you are not doing a good job: step back and reorganize.

6) And if you find yourself playing golf too often as a result of your good management ... feel good, you are ready to move on to your next challenge!

How having kids helped me at work

I have to admit that when my previous boss made an analogy on how his direct reports were fighting like 5 year old kids, I said to myself: "What a #@$R$@#$ @!##@!$!" (let's say that I don't remember the exact words). Despite how politically incorrect such comparisons can be, the truth is that there are striking similarities between being a father (or mother) and managing teams.

I am a father of three: my daughter is 4 and my twin boys are two years old... Well, let me confess that my interactions with people at work are easier now that I have children and I believe that having to raise little kids is the direct cause.

Why?

a) My communications are simpler and better tailored to different audiences. I believe that you exercise extreme targeted communication with kids. Not only you go to the essence of the message (good or bad, yes or no), but since the words don't mean much to a one or a two year old, you emphathize the tone, the face expression, the pace, etc. Also, you exercise audience specific tailoring of your message by switching register between the younger and older kids... and your wife!

b) I feel more comfortable directing, coaching, and most important, switching between those management modes. Technically put, you exercise situational leadership every day... I still remember practicing situational leadership in a training at GE's John F. Welch Leadership Development Center (a.k.a. Crotonville) where you had to move from one box drawn on the floor to another depending on which management style you used. That was fun... but I guess that practicing it for 10 minutes was illustrative but not as effective.

c) Back to my boss's original comment, I am convinced that you become better at recognizing emotional patterns... and yes-it's-true-even-if-it-hurts (ok, we where fighting like kids sometimes) you can diagnose those situations quickly and react accordingly.

Tips:

1) Have kids... or use any opportunity you have to babysit your best friend's!

2) Enjoy talking to them and spending time with them... consider it a management training!

Jokes aside... I'm interested in your experience:

Did having kids helped you manage? And if so...how?

The value of trust

What is the most valuable asset a manager has? Trust?! Bingo!

Whether you are managing up, down or side wise... trust remains the answer.

Managing up:

Every week I report to my boss who is a VP in a headquarter somewhere in the US, far from Massachusetts where I live and work. The guy is a very good manager, experienced and business oriented. I have one hour where my team and I present our status and our weekly progress. I am a voice on the phone, and a few slides on a screen. Just put yourself in my bosses shoes: If you don't trust the voice, or think that the presented data is biased it can be hell. You will be trying to catch me, you will be double checking the data and you will end up doing my job yourself... hell for you and me isn't it?

Managing side wise and managing down:

Whether it's collaborating, directing or coaching... with no trust neither are effective. I remember getting a new project that was already underway... and I had to replace a charismatic program manager! Ouch! Having observed his project from the side, I had my own ideas on what he was doing wrong... I was younger and impatient then, and I started implementing change before building trust. BIG MISTAKE! Not many followed my lead. Why would anyone follow the new guy?

One advice I can give with confidence:

Trust is the most valuable asset a manager has....

Trust me!

Tips:

1 - Everyone has a different starting point, but be assured that everyone is continuously checking you and measuring your say/do ratio.

2 - Younger people seem to be more forgiving and experienced people more skeptical.

3 - Think of trust as a game:

One mistake and you lose many trust points; one success and you gain one.

4 - Building trust is a long game and the game never ends... so be ready to walk the talk!

My thoughts about management in Corporate America

Hi folks,

It happens every time; I get a good management advice from a peer I work with, or I give an advice to my friends and I say to myself: "Cristian: you have to start a blogging and writing this down."

So here I am...writing a Blog about management in Corporate America.

My credo will be: "Write practical advices, down to earth everyday advices, based on real life/management experience".

That's it for the first post, enjoy it!