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Cleaning Up the Promisphere in Companies

Recently, the breakdown in worker/management relationships at RBTT Jamaica and the Fiesta Hotel in Hanover, Jamaica have made me think where I would start, if given the chance, to make a difference in each of these companies.

I would start by working to restore the condition of the promisphere in each company.

What is the promisphere?

The promisphere is the internal environment within a group that consists of promises and agreements that have been made, broken, changed or are hanging in limbo. It also includes promises that are expected to be made, believed to have been made or thought necessary to make at some point in the future.

The total environment of promises collectively work together to create a promisphere.

Just like our physical environment, a promisphere can be polluted. In fact, there is almost no perfect promisphere that exists, simply because groups are made up of people who are imperfect.

In the case of RBTT Jamaica, the workers went on strike on Friday. In the case of Fiesta Hotel, a worker was shot in a recent riot. In both cases, the workers will be back to work on Monday. At RBTT, they have been ordered back to to work by the government. In the case of Fiesta, there was a negotiated agreement, again brokered by the government.

On Monday morning, it is likely that each situation will be a tense one.

There will be a temptation for the leadership of both companies to “grin and bear it” — try their best to “just move on” without dwelling on the problem at hand, or the past. In fact, they will be quite happy if collective amnesia were to set in.

Unfortunately, this remains the best tool that most managers have — an ability to force things to move on, and to avoid talking about the difficult issues at hand.

However, this approach only works to delay troublesome issues, and in the case of the Jamaican workplace, it only serves to allow issues to build a quiet, dark momentum.

A much better tactic is to deal with the promisphere.

In each company I have consulted with that has issues between individuals, or groups of individuals, there has existed issues with respect to the promisphere.

A promise made in public that no merger was underway, was broken when the merger was announced within a matter of days. A promise made to clean up the physical environment is abandoned. An agreement to increase wages is laid aside.

An expectation that the company is a family is willfully violated in a newspaper report. A secret told in confidence is leaked. An expectation that a manager will be around to lead his people is violated with an abrupt resignation.

These are everyday occurrences in business, and they happen between people and groups who are good, bad or somewhere in between.

The point is, that a transformation in the culture of a company, department or team cannot happen unless the following takes place:

  • broken agreements are restored
  • amends are made for forgotten promises
  • apologies are rendered where damage has been done
  • mis-understood promises are openly dealt with

These simple acts take courage, but their effects are powerful. Trust can begin to be restored, forgiveness can start to heal relationships, and the promisphere, which is critical to getting complex work done in groups, can be restored.

A well-working promisphere is not one that is empty of promises — instead it is filled with clarity, and the simple power that comes from human trust and mutual expectations.

Ultimately, and in the real world, all promises cannot be kept.

In a well-working promisphere all members are vigilant for the smallest instances of pollution. They act as if the smallest promise that is broken is easier to resolve sooner than later, and that the collapse of this very fragile entity starts with small instances of overlooked agreements.

The very worst companies do not even acknowledge the existence of a promisphere, and are oblivious to the effect that seemingly simple actions have. They rely on unauthentic and hollow “rah-rah” efforts to get people excited, which fail because they are built on promispheres that result in:

  • skeptical employees that assume the worst — “Yeah right…”
  • pessimism and doom-saying — “Whatever…”
  • constant questions about whether or not the newest statements/efforts/projects/initiatives can be trusted, because of what happened in the past

The worst companies just try harder, with more posters, slogans, slicker graphics, more consultants, newer programs, more exotic team-building, longer surveys, new mission/vision/value statements, etc.

As a consultant who is sometimes brought in under these auspices, I try to ask each and every time when an executive explains that things are not working — “What is the state of the promisphere?” (without actually using the word.)

The truth is that companies should forget about trying to do anything different until they begin to see some gains in cleaning up their promisphere. Only then will they be able to move them, and their people ahead.

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Customer Experience “Intelligence”

An article entitled Understanding Customer Experience recently came out in the February 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review that echoed some of my earlier posts on the topic.

Here is one of those prior posts.

I am convinced that a focus on experience can be more easily taught to Caribbean service workers, than training based on abstract standards or vague definitions of “customer needs.”

Perhaps there is scope for something called “Experience Intelligence” which has to do with a customer service provider’s ability to scope out the experience that the customer is having in the moment. This phrase seems like a much more precise way to define this important skill.

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Turnover Documents and Small Biz Owners

As a former President of my high school’s student council (Wolmers) I remember reading the organization’s constitution — with all the awe that a 16 year-old can muster. Part of my job (as
defined in the document) was to amend it and make it current — it was my first attempt to write a “turnover document.”

When I was appointed to a different position — Head-Boy — the following year, I was acutely aware that there was no document whatsoever that described the job, and all I had was the imperfect memory of my predecessors to try to follow. When I was about to graduate I panicked — and only made up for it by taking a very long walk with my successor around the school. In
an hour or so I did my best to pass on the experience of some 255+ Head-Boys that the school had had up until that point.

I suspect that my 18 year old mind did more to scare my 17 year old successor than anything else.

Yet, I am sure that my experience is close to what happens when executives turn accountabilities over to managers without doing the tedious work of systematizing their functions, and undergoing the painstaking coaching required to turn them over in phases. The result is a sharp loss of trust that is rarely replaced, because few executives realize that the source of the managers failure (and success) is actually in themselves, and not in the manager.

What does all this talk about turnover documents have to do with small business owners?

Simply put, even small business owners must work ON their companies, as well as IN them. In other words, they must work on the structure of their companies as much as those professionals who work in the largest multinationals.

Why so?

For example, I am having a challenge converting this issue of FirstCuts into html, and placing it on my blog. I do not know html very well, yet each month I have to determine why the html in Blogger (the blog host) works differently than every other place.

While I may or may not ever hire an IT specialist, I am suffering because I didn’t capture the procedures I used back in February, and now that I need them in March I am having to reinvent the wheel.

Secondly, in my opinion, the difference between a small, casual company and a small, serious company is the degree of infrastructure the owner has created to run the company on a consistent basis, whether there are ten people or just one person on the payroll. Only hobbyists can afford to run their company casually, and without infrastructure — and even hobbyists can make money.

However, at the end of their careers, hobbyists have little to show for their efforts other than a company that supported them at a casual level. Their company cannot be bought, sold or merged because its success is reliant on the personality of the owner, rather than the infrastructure they created to keep the entity viable.

These are the two reasons I can think of — if you’d like to add your own, please do so in the comments below.

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FirstCuts Issue 9.0

FirstCuts Framework Consulting logo

A Framework Consulting Online eZine

High-Stake Interventions — New Ideas Issue 9
March 15, 2007

Delegating in Caribbean Companies (part 2)
by Francis Wade

Editorial

A few weeks ago in Jamaica, there was a riot at the construction
site of a hotel being built by a Spanish hotel conglomerate:
the Fiesta Hotel Group.

The bottom line was that a worker was shot, cars were burned,
offices were looted and work was suspended for almost two weeks.

Now and then I receive a reminder that our work in the region can
have very dramatic results, and that when we discuss ideas such as
those we tackle in FirstCuts it is not just a matter of
intellectual interest, but also a matter of doing work that
impacts the lives of workers, families and communities.

Until next month,

Francis

Delegating in Caribbean Companies (part 2)

In last month’s issue of FirstCuts, I wrote about the need for
regional executives to think deeply about the process they use to
turn over accountabilities to new direct reports. I mentioned the
need for executives to systematize the work they do so that it can
be captured and passed on effectively.

In that issue, I discussed the need for Caribbean executives to
produce a “turnover document” for every new accountability. In
addition to writing such a document, they must also create ways to
progressively delegate the content of a new job. (To see the prior
edition of FirstCuts, visit http://urlcut.com/FirstCuts8.)

In this issue, we describe the way in which we have worked with
executives to produce the critical content included in a turnover
document. Once the document is produced, we advocate a phased
turnover of tasks to ensure that learning takes place.

More on Turnover Documents

While turnover documents might include all kinds of important
details about a job, at the heart of them is a list of key
activities. These activities are discovered by breaking down the
job into three tiers, as follows:

= Tier 1 consists of a list of top-level Results to be produced
= Tier 2 consists of the Targets to be reached to accomplish each
result
= Tier 3 consists of the individual Tasks that must be performed to
hit each target

An example of the breakdown of results, targets, and tasks (i.e.,
the elements that make up a job) for a sales manager might be as
follows:

= Result: $100 million revenue increase

That result might be broken down into two targets:

= Target 1: Motivate top salespeople to increase sales by 20% each
= Target 2: Create new sales of $10 million for new product X

Each of the two targets outlined above can be further broken down
into tasks to produce the following:

= Target 1: Motivate top salespeople to increase sales by 20% each
– Task 1.1: Coach each salesperson to manage time better
– Task 1.2: Look at top prospects and determine a way to enter
their network of friends and colleagues

= Target 2: Create new sales of $10 million for new product X
– Task 2.1: Create a list of features and benefits for product X
– Task 2.2: Test new product X with five customers in a focus group

Ideally, this cascade of results, targets, and tasks should all be
prepared in the turnover document for a new manager before he or
she ever takes the job.

However, once the information has been adequately developed, it
would be a mistake to dump the turnover documents into the lap of
the new manager. This is a trap into which many impatient
executives fall, hoping that a well-written document telling a new
manager what to do is all that the new manager needs to be
successful.

Our research shows that the best executives do things differently—
they actually use the turnover documents in phases that coincide
with the ability of the new manager to learn the job.

A Phased Turnover

The safest assumption for executives to make is that new managers
know little or nothing about the new job and that they cannot be
trusted to undertake it successfully. In the beginning, they should
assume that on the new manager’s first day, the executive is
responsible for getting 100% of the job done, and this number can
only be decreased as the new manager’s capabilities increase.

We recommend that executives start the reduction from 100%
gradually—and that they first delegate tasks, then targets, and,
finally, results.

For example, Task 1.1 in the above sales manager turnover document
involved the need for the manager to coach salespeople in managing
their time. While new sales managers may have generic coaching
skills, they probably would not yet know the intricacies of the
salesperson-to-sales-manager relationship. They would not yet
appreciate the time pressures that salespeople face or the
successful coaching techniques that managers before them had used.

This information, if passed on by a prior executive, can make all
the difference in learning this new skill.

Once a crucial set of tasks has been mastered, the executive can
then decide that the next objective would be to delegate a
particular target. Once the target is mastered by the new manager,
it can be delegated. The same applies to the third tier of the job:
results.

In this way, the manager’s competency grows gradually but steadily,
guided at different phases by the turnover document.

However, something else is happening while a new manager is
becoming more proficient. The executive’s confidence in the
manager’s ability, so critical to the process of delegation,
steadily grows.

As it grows, the executive is increasingly able to supervise the
manager through periodic written or verbal reports, and the
executive can trust that he or she will be brought in by the
manager when help is truly needed. Less of the executive’s precious
time is therefore needed.

It’s worth repeating that executives must resist the temptation to
impatiently walk away from this phased process before the new
managers are ready, or before their confidence level is where it
should be. The results of doing so can be disastrous.

What executives need to know is that this process is not designed
to bury them in a world of micromanagement. Instead, they should
understand that the time commitment involved is very different from
what they might expect from their own past experience.

A Different Time Commitment

As the executive engages in this process of turning over tasks,
targets, and results to the new manager, the time required by the
process can vary greatly from day to day.

When a new element or skill is being taught, the executive must be
prepared to spend a great deal of time helping the manager to
understand the details. This kind of hands-on coaching can only be
done in person, although it can be facilitated by the existence of
a good turnover document.

In most cases, questions from the new manager require some
thinking, and executives may decide to update the turnover document
on the spot, as they remember what is truly needed to execute the
job effectively.

Over time, however, the time spent up front more than pays off in
the manager’s increased capabilities, and when the job is properly
delegated, the executive can effectively forget about it. When a
new task, target, or result is chosen as the next item to be
delegated, the intense time involvement starts again.

This sawtooth pattern of time commitment is quite different from
the everyday process that we’ve observed.

Our experience tells us that busy executives who hire new managers
typically hand them little more than a job description. They try to
spend time with the manager in the beginning, squeezing in time
between other existing commitments.

In short order, a crisis hits and the executive becomes too busy to
spend time to ask anything more than, “Is everything fine?”

When the manager (who, at this point, is undertrained and ill
prepared) experiences a significant failure, however, the executive
is ready to swoop in to firefight and control the damage. The
executive does what many executives do best—which is to save the
day, using considerable time and energy.

The new manager feels like a bit of a fool. The executive’s trust
begins to waiver, and he or she watches the manager more closely.

More failures occur, and the firefighting continues until either
the manager learns through trial and error or the executive loses
patience and fires or ostracizes the manager.

In one regional company, an executive explained that he “could not
be expected to keep the person on board because he was taking too
much of my time … and, after all, no one spent that kind of time
with me when I had that same job.”

This executive didn’t realize that the manager’s shortfall was
actually the executive’s failure—he had done little to prepare the
new manager to be successful.

Failures and Feedback

Even in the best of circumstances, however, failures do occur. At
this point, executives must be ready to step in to avert serious
problems. Rather than coming in like a hurricane, blowing away the
credibility and confidence of the new manager, the executive should
instead go back to the drawing board with the manager and reexamine
the turnover document.

Frequently, the seeds of the failure can be found here—in poor
turnover timing, inadequate definitions, and incomplete training.
In the most extreme cases, the executive must be prepared to step
in and re-assume responsibility for items that had previously been
turned over.

For example, in the case of the sales manager, if there is a sudden
rise in complaints about salespeople being late or a surge in
missed appointments, then the executive may decide to resume
coaching the salespeople and subject the sales manager to further
training.

The difference here is that the feedback is used to surgically
reverse the turnover, retrain the manager, and develop the manager
to the point where the turnover can once again be undertaken.

Summary

The bottom line is simple: make turnover documents an integral part
of your company’s culture, and you will empower your managers to be
successful from the very beginning.

*

P.S. I had promised that I would address the question of why
entrepreneurs and small business owners also need turnover
documents in this issue. I found that the content would not fit
this issue, so instead I have picked up the topic in my blog at
this entry: http://urlcut.com/smallbiz

Useful Stuff

Tips, Ads and Links
I referred to Michael Gerber’s book in this Issue. His website is also filled with information: http://www.e-myth.com, most of it geared towards entrepreneurs. The ideas that I have extracted for this issue are at the heart of his approach.

Back Issues of FirstCuts can be found at http://tinyurl.com/pw7fa

We are on the lookout for possible contributors to FirstCuts. If you are interested, send email to francis@fwconsulting.com to be included in a future mailing. Please send this request along to
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Getting Rid of the Perfect Executive

Getting Rid of the Perfect Executive?

Well, maybe that would be unwise.

It is probably a better idea to get rid of the executive who somehow thinks or acts like he is perfect, because of the damage he does to those around him.

So goes the thinking I happened upon in two separate Harvard Business Review articles (I am wading through a pile of my unread back issues.)

One article is entitled “In Praise of the Incomplete Leader” and was written in February 2007 and was co-authored by Peter Senge. The other is called Wanted: Chief Ignorance Officer and was written back in November of 2003.

The basic idea I took away is that the executive’s job is too complex to pretend that any one person can figure it all out. Also, the more an executive defends the idea that they have figured it all out, the more difficult they make it for the people around them to be authentic, and therefore effective.

As the author the second article, David Gray, puts it, “… few of us would dare to cultivate a healthy ignorance, or nescience, within our own fields of endeavor, where we often take pride in what we purport to know.”

Here in the Caribbean region, we have been steeped in the school of all-knowing leadership, from Backra (the all-powerful slave-owner) to modern day CEO’s, parents, principals, priests, dons and politicians. Those in power like it that way. So do those who are not.

That is, until the person in power fails spectacularly (like the majority of our politicians) and it starts to become painfully obvious that the messiah’s manifesto and message aren’t enough to make a drop of difference.

This very old, colonial, British style is long outdated in Britain, but it lives on in the colonies, and especially those in management in our institutions. It is stale, stiff and dull, but it still gives some vague psychological comfort… kind of what it’s like to hang out with your grandfather.

The only thing is that at some point you must grow up, because your grandfather probably did not move with the times (mine had trouble believing that man had actually landed on the moon.)

Managers and executives must reach for a style that is authentic. With respect to publicly expressing feelings and emotions, this is a tall order for most of our region’s executives who probably aren’t too used to “sharing” in private, let alone before strangers.

However, the pace at which human information is growing might allow most executives to be authentic about their growing inability to know everything.

That would be a start.

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When to Sleep On It

This is just a brilliant article — one of those that deeply resonated with me from the moment I read it and it goes well with that brilliant management/productivity tool so abhorred by corporations — “napping.”

Apparently, recent research is showing that sleeping on a problem is better than trying to consciously solve it.

In other words, when faced with a complex issue, if time allows, the best method to use is to spend a night to sleep on it, and then make a decision the following day.

Why does this work?

Apparently, the processes that the conscious mind uses are quite limited, and likely to introduce irrelevant information that produces poor decision-making. The unconscious mind, however, is a much better instrument and if given the chance, will do a better job.

According to the author, Ap Dijksterhuis, “The moral? Use your unconscious mind to acquire all the information you need for making a decision — but don’t try to analyze the information. Instead, go on holiday while your unconscious mind digests it for a day or two. Whatever your intuitions then tell you is almost certainly going to be the best choice.”

As someone who majored in Operations Research (and got 2 degrees in the subject) it seems to throw a huge spanner in the works of the profession… after all, we studied things like “decision theory” and “non-linear optimization” in order to bring more rational, WIDE -AWAKE thinking into the process.

I cannot remember a single thing from any of those hi-falutin’ courses.

I think it’s just much easier to sleep on it, and maybe while I’m sleeping my subconscious mind can run around and access the algorithms and heuristics I spent years mastering… that way, perhaps I can justify the thousands of dollars spent on an Ivy-League education, while still making good decisions.

I just might not make a good corporate employee, however, given the high importance I appear to give to sleeping (see my prior post on Nigger-itis.)

The relevant article from the Harvard Business Review List of Breakthrough Ideas for 2007 can be found here (as Idea #9).

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How to Grow a Super Athlete

I just read an interesting article in the New York Times that attempts to get at the source of a young athlete’s talent.

In a nutshell, it turns out that superior athletes are able to build additional thicker myelin sheaths, which are the jelly-like substances that cover over nerves. These sheaths operate as insulators, allowing the signals passing along the nerves to move more quickly, and more securely.

The way to accomplish this is through hours of repetitive practice.

This seems to reinforce a theme of several of the posts in this blog, about the importance of repeated practice to success in any field, and how essential it is to mastery.