Welcome to issue No. 079 of the Lever

When I shifted careers from working offshore to working onshore, one of my new responsibilities was to write reports.

Not just any reports; technical reports with specific criteria and guidelines that needed to be followed.

I wasn't very good at it in the beginning. But I got better over time.

Exposure and practice helped, sure, but the real key to improvement was the instruction and encouragement I was given by my manager.

Before we continue...

The ideas in this article were influenced in large part by Intel CEO Andrew Grove.

His 1995 book High Output Management takes a production-based view of management (Inputs-->Outputs) and gave us some simple language to apply.

​Grab a copy for yourself.

The Managers Role

What is your actual job as a manager?

What deliverable are you ultimately responsible for delivering?

It helps to start at the end with the question:

If an individual contributor is judged on their individual output, then a managers performance should be judged on the output of their entire team.

A manager is a lever.

They provide the skills, knowhow and support to a larger group so they can get more done.

The role of a successful manager is to increase the total output of their team.

That means improving the two Q's: Quality and Quantity.

And there are only two ways of doing that.

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Training

Back to those reports.

With guidance from my manager I started writing better reports.

I finished them faster and with less errors. And once I was fully up to speed, you know what happened?

The performance of the entire team went up.

If somebody on your team is unable to deliver to the standard required it is your job as their manager to train them until they get there. Because you are responsible for their output.

Not the training department. Not somebody else. You.

Now you could of course choose to fire that person and hire someone new in, hoping they come equipped with the necessary skills. And sometimes that’s the necessary choice. But you also risk demoralizing the team, which impacts the second tool in your toolkit.

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Motivation

Motivation is a complex subject.

You can motivate using positivity ("attaboy, you got this!") or fear ("40 lashes for a late report!").

But in the context of managerial motivation what it ultimately means is to encourage people to work harder (or smarter).

It means to help them dig deep and increase either the quality or quantity of their output.

Because remember, their contribution is measured against their output. And your output is measured against the combined output of your entire team.

What is the best way to do that?

There are many ways to fillet this fish, but here is something that has worked really well for me.

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Expectation Setting

You need to set the expectation early and reinforce it often.

Remember, we are talking about outputs. The two Q's. Quantity and quality.

Both of those can be measured - at least subjectively (by gut feel) if not numerically.

So you need to define the measures of success, lay them out very clearly, then hold people to them.

And you know what? Most of your people will hit them no problem.

Because they are professionals.

The motivation part comes in then by recognizing when they do. Positive reinforcement.

And when they don't hit the standard?

You go back to the training.

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Step By Step

By using these two tools mindfully you start to develop your people in a stepwise fashion.

• Set the standard
• Reinforce the standard
• Train to a new standard

Eventually you'll have someone reach the point where they are ready to take over from you. Which is exactly what you want.

Because while this process has been developing them, it has also been developing you. Their success at scale is your success as an individual. And once you hit that standard it's probably time for you to level up as well.

Thus the cycle of continuous improvement continues.

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P.S.

Can a manager also be a leader?

Of course they can.

(and so can an individual contributor)

But there is one more piece to that puzzle.

We'll talk about it next time, so make sure to subscribe if you haven't already.