How to Undermine Your Credibility – A Brief Case Study
During a recession there were several major layoffs and management would hold mandatory quarterly meetings with the employees to review the company’s situation. Every quarter a “V”-shaped revenue vs. time graph was shown, with the bottom tantalizingly just one quarter in the future – the message was that the company was on the verge of turning around. But after a year and a half of showing the “V” graph, it was obvious that they had no idea when things might actually pick up.
During this time period an employee engagement survey (of the typical, generic type) was circulated; participation was not optional. When the survey results were revealed, I had to laugh - Result number one was, (and I wish I was kidding) “We have the best management team!” Rarely have I witnessed a more glaring example of a management team so tone-deaf and out of touch with their own situation and the needs of their employees.
Respect your employees. They’re adults. They understand that occasional downturns are normal in business. Pitching a sugar-coated fantasy undermines your credibility as a leader. Believing your own hype undermines the team’s respect for you.
Remember, it is not necessary for your team to like every decision you make, but it is essential for them to understand why you’re making it. If they have the facts, they are in a position to think “That’s a tough decision, what would I do if I were in charge?” While they might not come up with the same answer, they will be able to see how you came to the conclusion you did. This strengthens credibility and respect.
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Over the years we’ve been exposed to Six Sigma, Juran, Deming PDCA, 8D, Dale Carnegie, A3, Shainin, and more. Each technique works pretty well, and has been demonstrated many times in a wide variety of industries and circumstances. At the core they are all essentially the same!
Each approach relies on an underlying logical flow that goes like this: [a] make sure the problem is clearly defined; [b] be open to all sources of information; [c] vet the information for relevance and accuracy; [d] use the process of elimination to narrow down all possible causes to the most likely few; [e] prove which of the suspects is really the cause of the issue; [f] generate a number of potential solutions; [g] evaluate the effectiveness, feasibility and risk of the potential solutions; [h] implement the winning solution(s); and [i] take steps to make sure your solution(s) don’t unravel in the future.
The differences between the paradigms resides in supplementary steps and toolkits. For example, 8D contains the important “In
Your team is marching through the tools of your company's chosen problem-solving approach. This is time not spent on growing your business or delivering cost reductions. Yet your customers are suffering, and they're not shy about letting you know it! Why isn't it working?
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Your primary role as a manager is to ensure your team’s success. Internalize this. Make sure your team members know this. Build an environment of trust and collaboration. A direct report of mine would frequently leave me out of the loop as problems escalated, preferring instead to “work harder”. It was clear that he felt uncomfortable delivering bad news to me (his boss) when things were not going according to plan. Let me tell you the rest of the story.
