Management Stress and Meetingitis

Via Newmark's Door, Secretgeek on "The Deadly Cycle of Meetingitis." Here’s an excerpt:

1. Q:What do managers do when they're stressed?
   • A:They call a meeting.
2. Q:What gets managers stressed out?
   • A:When projects are not making progress.
3. Q:When do projects fail to make progress?
   • A:When people spend too much time in meetings.

Secretgeek is talking about programming code crises, but the cycle applies to any situation which creates manager stress. The important part of this cycle is the root cause – it’s not the status of the project, it’s the manager’s stress.

Secretgeek’s solution:

Communicate more, in order to meet less. Be proactive in your communication. Don't wait for them to call a meeting. Tell them what's going on. Produce regular reports. Don't "promise" to produce regular reports -- just produce them. Let them listen in on some of your day to day chatter. If you have daily standups, bring the manager in. Stop baffling them with technical mumbo jumbo. Feed them edible slices of information. Walk them through it in bite-sized chunks. Give them documentation tasks to keep them feeling important. Give them communication tasks. Draw pictures for them to stick on the wall of their office.

Keeping manager’s in the loop obviously helps, but in my experience managers only calm down when they develop confidence their people are on top of the issues and elevate them when necessary. It takes time and positive experience for people to develop that kind of credibility with their management (more on that here). Unfortunately, that level of confidence may never develop if the manager believes progress is a result of their involvement and not their staff’s work.

Are You Consistent Enough to Manage at Wal-Mart?

From Carpe Diem:

Charles Platt (picture above) is a journalist, computer programmer and author of over 40 fiction and nonfiction books and was a senior writer at Wired magazine. Charles moved recently from being a senior writer at Wired magazine to an entry-level position at Wal-Mart, "a company reviled by almost all living journalists," after he read the book "Nickel and Dimed," in which Atlantic contributor Barbara Ehrenreich denounces the exploitation of minimum-wage workers in America…Here are some excerpts from his BoingBoing blog post "Life at Wal-Mart":

Several of my co-workers had relocated from other areas, where they had worked at other Wal-Marts. They wanted more of the same. Everyone agreed that Wal-Mart was preferable to the local Target, where the hourly pay was lower and workers were said to be treated with less respect (an opinion which I was unable to verify). Most of all, my coworkers wanted to avoid those “mom-and-pop” stores beloved by social commentators where, I was told, employees had to deal with quixotic management policies, while lacking the opportunities for promotion that exist in a large corporation.

No surprise that better pay, being treated with respect, and opportunities for promotion would influence people’s employment choices. But, how often do we inflict quixotic decisions on the people we manage? It’s important to people that management heads consistently in the right direction. If Wal-Mart can get it right, certainly the rest of us can too.

Say It. Do It. Repeat.

James Kouzes and Barry Posner have conducted extensive surveys looking for the characteristics employees consider important in their leaders and coworkers. For leaders the top four attributes, in order of importance, are:

• Honest
• Forward Looking
• Inspiring
• Competent

Kouzes and Posner combine these characteristics into one; credibility:

"We want to believe in our leaders. We want to have faith and confidence in them as people. We want to believe they can be trusted, that they have the knowledge and skill to lead, and that they are personally excited and enthusiastic about the direction in which we are headed. Credibility is the foundation of leadership.”

While I agree this is what we want in leaders, I think putting excitement and enthusiasm under the credibility umbrella is stretching the meaning of the word. Some of the most credible people I know are dry as dust, and in my experience the level of enthusiasm with which a statement is made is inversely proportionate to its truth. So, in my formulation honesty and competence are the foundation of credibility.

Back to Kouzes and Posner. The four top characteristics employees look for in their coworkers are, in order of importance:

• Honest
• Cooperative
• Dependable
• Competent

There are two that overlap – our friends honesty and competence. So, in the work world (actually I think the entire world, but we’re focusing on work) if you can nail these two characteristics you are more than halfway there regardless of your role (especially since you’re unlikely to be viewed as inspiring or dependable if you’re a dishonest incompetent).

How does one come to be viewed as honest? You say things, and they turn out to be true.

How does one come to be viewed as competent? To the extent your job is to report on current conditions or project the future, it’s the same process as establishing honesty; you say things, and they turn out to be true. If your job is to produce something (for example, a report or a widget), you produce it as and when it’s expected.

This seems very simple, but every day, almost everyone screws it up:

• You say you will get back to someone, and you don’t
• The meeting starts at 9:00 AM, and you show up at 9:10 (even worse if it’s your meeting)
• You promise numbers to someone today, and give it to them tomorrow

To you, these are minor things, and the other people involved might think so too. How others react depends in large part on your history with them. If over time you’ve demonstrated you’re dependable and competent, an occasional lapse is not a big deal. But, if you don’t interact with the person often the event looms much larger. Fundamental attribution error is the tendency by people to attribute explanations for behaviors to personality explanations rather than situational explanations. You say you were late for the meeting because traffic was bad, and they think you were late because you’re disorganized, don’t respect the time of the other attendees, etc. If you haven’t already established a credible track record, it’s much harder to overcome this effect.

There are a couple of very simple things you can do to increase your success rate in “say it, do it.”

Don’t Say It. Before you open your mouth to say you’ll do something, take a breath and think hard about whether or not you’re going to perform. Offering to do something and then not doing it is much worse than not offering at all.

Say You Won’t Do It. Ironically, often the fastest path to building credibility is to tell someone you won’t or can’t do something. Note such a statement fulfills all the requirements for credibility building; you’ve said something (“I can’t do it”) and it comes true (you don’t do it). It’s obviously preferable to do things for other people if you can, but if it’s not going to happen you might as well build your credibility by saying so rather than undermining it by promising what you can’t deliver.

A final thought; if you just do it without saying it, no credibility is built. Too many highly capable people just handle problems as they arise without anyone being aware of their effectiveness. If no one knows what you are doing, you’re not establishing credibility. Of course, you can take this too far by grandstanding or manufacturing problems to solve. But, letting people know you’re handling things is good for you (it’s an essential step in building your credibility) and good for them (when something difficult comes up, they will be better able to assess your ability to take on the task).