Classic: The Burnout

Originally published:  April 6, 2011

Most Burnouts were something else before they slipped into this extreme leadership type.  Perhaps the burnout was a hard-charging manager on a rapid ascent up the corporate ladder.  Or perhaps she was an extreme leader that exhibited other challenging leadership style such as being a Micromanager or a Super-critic.

Then something happened, something that changed everything.  That “something” sucked the interest, enthusiasm and, dare I say, the joy, out of work.

The “something” might be an event such as a personal tragedy, a career disappointment, or an epiphany gained by observing someone else’s sad experiences.  Or the “something” could be an accumulation of little events that have piled on top of one another, much as that proverbial final straw on the camel's back.

For whatever reason, the Burnout enters a time and place where they no longer care about the business, co-workers, customers, and often a combination of all three.

Once there, they normally can’t escape.

The Burnout lacks motivation for work.  He tries to spend time doing things that give him energy, but those “things” are definitely not the normal tasks of management.  Often the Burnout exhibits habitual fatigue, and seems to have a tough time putting on a show of interest – even for his boss.  In an odd moment, the Burnout might be caught surfing the web, working a crossword puzzle, or gossiping about peers – anything that avoids reviewing last month's financials or conducting a staff meeting.

Burnouts are noticeable mainly by their lack of presence and participation.  While most are fairly transparent, some learn ways to disguise their lack of motivation – at least in a superficial way.  The Burnout tends to be indecisive, uncaring, disengaged, and provides little inspiration to their team or organization.  They go through the motions, rather than driving performance (or even a reaction, in some cases).

For subordinates, the burnout is one of the easiest extreme leadership types to tolerate – mainly because the Burnout leaves them to their own devices.  While Burnouts are unmotivated, they aren't necessarily willing to accept blame for failures.  They certainly won't offer subordinates helpful guidance on the politics of the organization, or mentor them.  Doing so simply requires too much effort.

Destructive conflict is often present between subordinates when the Burnout is in charge.  Stepping in and settling disagreements and feuds is not something the Burnout willingly does.  Tolerance of a wide range of normally unacceptable behaviors is quite common.

The Burnout fails as her lack of action becomes obvious to more senior management.  While her superiors may be slow to replace her, the Burnout eventually leaves the organization when performance of her group slips – unless she quits or retires on her own, which is not an infrequent occurrence.

The cover of EMPOWERED, my latest novel.  Click the image for details.

The highest level Burnout I’ve ever directly observed was once an ambitious, hard-driving executive – until a personal tragedy sucked all the energy out of his work-life.  In this example, the Burnout was able to cruise along in a General Management role for an extended period of time for two reasons – the core of the business was strong and the markets were steady state, meaning the job required little day-to-day course adjustment; and because there was a strong heir apparent who stepped in and handled most issues without the formal power of the GM title.

This Burnout eventually retired early, completely tapped out.  I recall him saying, by way of explanation, that “he could no longer pretend to care about a tenth of a margin point.”

I’ve never seen a Burnout in the top executive position of a company, but I’m sure it occurs.  In some organizations, a Burnout could conceivably exist at the top for a very long time – if facilitated by the next tier of management, that is.  Often the staff below the CEO can “take the ball and run with it” when the chief executive fails to do so.  Eventually, the Burnout will become obvious to even a disengaged board, and when that happens, theoretically the end would arrive rapidly.

Other Recent Posts:

• On the Way Out?  Vagueness

• Classic:  The Micromanager

• On the Way Out?  Taking Mysterious Time Off

• Classic:  The Super-Critic

• When They are on the Way Out

• Classic:  Extreme Leadership Types

• This Time It’s Personal

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My LinkedIn profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

To the right is the cover for HEIR APPARENT.  Someone is killing corporate leaders in Kansas City.  But who?  The police and FBI pursue a "serial killer" theory, leaving Joel Smith and Evangelina Sikes to examine other motives.  As the pair zero in on the perpetrator, they put their own lives at risk.  There are multiple suspects and enough clues for the reader to identify the killer in this classic whodunnit set in a corporate crucible.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

On the Way Out? Taking Mysterious Time Off

While there are a number of tell-tale signs that a key subordinate may be leaving, none is harder to disguise than “mysterious” time taken off.  If you are concerned a critical employee is looking for a new job, this is where you should start your observations.

While not always the case, most subordinates need to interview with new, prospective employers before an offer is made.  This is typically (but not always) carried out during normal business hours thus necessitating time off from their regular jobs.

While I’ve seen employees fake illness, or use personal days for interviews, usually the time off has been taken as vacation which was arranged at relatively short notice.

Of course, employees take time off for a variety of other reasons, so you’ll need a few additional clues before you can conclude that the time off is related to a job search.  Below is a list of the characteristics I normally look for to increase the chances I have the “job search” diagnosis correct.

• Full or half vacation days that were arranged close to the actual day to be taken (1-2 weeks ahead, typically)
• A lone Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday taken off.
• No explanation for where the person went was volunteered, or if something was offered it was vague or misleading.
• Peers and friends were seemingly unaware of where the subordinate went during the mysterious time off.
• Being present in the office on a partial day off in obvious “interview clothes.”
• A “sick day” taken when the employee is not obviously sick upon their return.

By itself, one of these clues is not usually sufficient to conclude your subordinate is getting ready to jump ship.  If you observe a couple of them, you should be more than just suspicious.  I’ve found that directly asking the employee if they are interviewing for another position is often the easiest way to clear up the doubt.  Some employees will simply lie when thus questioned, but most will level with you – particularly if you have a history of taking such information in stride.

This is the cover of my latest Novel:  EMPOWERED.  Click the image for more details.

Mysterious time off is a valuable clue to an imminent departure, but it isn’t always present when an employee is interviewing.  If the target position is local, it is quite possible your subordinate may arrange interview(s) at the fringes of the day, or simply slip out for a couple of hours midday and hope you don’t notice.  Employees that are a little more cautious will arrange for interviews on a Monday or Friday, thus making the time off look less suspicious.  In some instances, I’ve known candidates interviewing for high level jobs to successfully arrange for interviews on the weekends or evenings, thus avoiding the leaving of any suspicious clues.

Even with these exceptions, in my experience there is a better than even chance that your potentially defecting employee will be exposed through careful scrutiny of their comings and goings.

Of course, what you decided to do with such information is a different matter.  If the employee isn’t a critical employee – usually one of those that would be classified as “Engaged” in my last post When They are on the Way Out – you should consider pre-emptive action (which I will describe in greater detail in the final post of this series).  If the employee is “Actively Disengaged,” you may elect to do nothing or even provide them an incentive to move on.  Making the right call on this is a key part of the art of management.

Other Recent Posts:

• Classic:  The Super-Critic
• When They are on the Way Out
• Classic:  Extreme Leadership Types
• This Time It’s Personal
• Close Enough is Good Enough
• Pointing out the Obvious
• Looking Past the Façade

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My LinkedIn profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

To the right is the cover for DELIVERABLES.  This novel features a senior manager approached by government officials to spy on his employer, concerned about how a "deal" the company is negotiating might put critical technical secrets into the hands of enemies of the United States.  Of course, things are not exactly as it seems....

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

Classic: The Super-Critic

Originally Published:  March 27, 2011

A large part of a manager’s daily work consists of dealing with problems, and an important part of that task includes figuring out what went wrong.  Digging into past failures can sensitize a manager to the many decisions that caused the issues to arise in the first place.  It is in this crucible of critical dissection armed with perfect hindsight that managers learn to become hypercritical.

Audiobook version of INCENTIVIZE.  Click the image to learn more.

I remember sitting in MBA Classes taught using the case method, and listening as student after student harshly criticized the actions of the managers portrayed in the case being studied.  We even once had Jack Welch visit the campus and some of the students felt free to criticize his management of GE to his face!  (Talk about arrogant overconfidence….)  For all the advantages of the case method as a tool of instruction, it does seem to set young budding managers along the path to becoming a Super-Critic.

The Super-Critic expects perfection and doesn't hesitate to find flaws with everything going on around him.  He criticizes how things were done even if the outcome was good, the idea being that if he had only been available to apply his piercing insight to the situation, things would have turned out even better.

Some Super-Critics learn to toss out the occasional compliment, but these are typically given only on the most trivial of matters (nice shirt, now on to my critique of your work!). A few Super-Critics learn to compliment in public and criticize in private, but while they seem to exert a high level of control over their criticisms, the critique still flows downhill to its intended target – just through a proxy rather than directly.

The world of the Super-Critic is one of imperfection to be pointed out as a result of her superior intellect.  It is a world of sneering at any job no matter how well done, as it undoubtedly should have been better done.

The impact on people in the organization is fairly predictable, avoidance being one of the principle reactions.  Less contact represents less exposure to the Super-Critic's caustic, ego-toppling manner.  Tougher employees develop protections – a kind of emotional armor – and use them to shrug off the harshest of critical evaluations.  Others lose all initiative, realizing that any attempt to go beyond strictly following the manager’s lead invites biting disparagement.

When the Super-Critic occupies a position high in management, the employee who hears condemnation must always wonder about the ultimate source – often the evaluation emanates from the Super-Critic himself, but sometimes it comes from imitators place all along the management ladder.  Highly placed Super-Critics inspire other to emulate their methods.  Often the lead Super-Critic will actually express admiration of the quick, piercing criticism offered by the most aggressive of subordinates.  In such an environment, one often hears employees complain that “nothing is ever good enough,” or “the absence of criticism is the only compliment around here.”

This is the cover of my latest novel, EMPOWERED.  Click on the image for more information.

The Super-Critic drives talent out of the organization and breaking the drive to achieve in those who remain.  When negative critique is all that is offered – regardless of effort or result – most remaining employees reduce their efforts to the minimum necessary to survive.  They certainly don’t expose themselves to unnecessary risks when the result is almost certain to be harsh second-guessing.

The Super-Critic CEO ultimately fails when the organization can’t perform up to expectations.  Unfortunately, Boards are not equipped to discover and remove the Super-Critic solely based of his caustic effect on the people.  Instead, Boards normally need to see the impact of larger scale problems resulting from a loss of talent from the organization.  In some companies this can becomes evident quickly.  In organizations with strong a franchise and entrenched market positions, it can take a very long time, and might never be evident in the midst of the daily impact of dozens other factors that influence results.  Under such circumstances, the Super-Critic is there to stay for a long haul.

The employee subjected to the Super-Critic, the best defense is to leave the company or at least the Super-Critic’s sphere of influence.  If you must stay, avoidance and unflinching following of the Super-Critic’s direction may make the job tolerable – at least for a time.

Other Recent Posts:

• When They are on the Way Out
• Classic:  Extreme Leadership Types
• A Shaky Foundation
• This Time It’s Personal
• Close Enough is Good Enough
• Pointing out the Obvious
• Looking Past the Façade

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My LinkedIn profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

To the right is the cover for INCENTIVIZE.  This novel is about a U.S. based mining company, and criminal activity that the protagonist (a woman by the name of Julia McCoy) uncovers at the firm's Ethiopian subsidiary.  Her discover sets in motion a series of events that include, kidnapping, murder, and terrorism in the Horn of Africa.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

When They are on the Way Out

This series of blog posts takes its inspiration from an article by Ilya Pozin titled “8 Ways to Tell Your Employee is About to Quit.”

People quit their jobs every day.  Probably more should.  When I was working for one of my large employers, the company began performing an annual Gallup survey known as the “Gallup Twelve Questions.”  This survey (which I found to be a little silly) allowed us to classify the workforce into one of three categories – engaged, disengaged, or actively disengaged.  The methodology might have been a little suspect (although Gallup swears there is research that backs it up), but I found the classification methodology to be quite useful when thinking about how to handle employees and the challenge of insuring their continuing employment.

Audiobook version of my novel, INCENTIVIZE, set in the Horn of Africa.

Actively Disengaged

The Actively Disengaged category of people, which fortunately wasn’t unusually large in my group, tended to be toxic to nearly everyone else.  Actively Disengaged employees complained the most, worked the least, and often made people around them miserable.

I wanted these people out of the company.  They weren’t worth the effort to try to rehabilitate, as was proven to me by multiple attempts over the years to do so.  In my opinion, many of these folks are “hardcore unhappy,” and no matter what attention, concessions, and flexibility was shown toward them, they never seemed to change.

Disengaged

Beyond the actively disengaged, my employer invested significant time and attention in trying to motivate and inspire the disengaged, moving them up the ladder into the Engaged category in the process.  This was done by trying to correct problems identified in small group sessions – a time-consuming and daunting task.  Over time, I managed to make slow progress with this effort, but it was definitely tough going.  Eventually, it became clear that “victory” would never be declared – an excellent circumstance when your job is selling consulting services to help move people up the ladder, but deflating when you’re embroiled in the effort.

Along the way, we lost some of our Disengaged employees.  Perhaps progress was too slow, or maybe I focused on the wrong things to make a difference for them.  Or maybe there were outside circumstances that dictated a change (such a spouse changing jobs, or needs surrounding child/senior care).  Some Disengaged employees undoubtedly could have been saved by better, smarter, quicker action.  But probably not the majority of them.  And since they weren’t my most valuable employees, taking extraordinary measures generally simply wasn’t justified.

Engaged

But extraordinary measures were justified when it came to the Engaged employees.  This group of people was the exact opposite of the Actively Disengaged – they took up little management time, produced a lot, and were a positive influence on their peers.  Engaged employees are very valuable, and are definitely worth preserving.

And yet we still lost some of them.  Sometimes the cause was better opportunity.  Sometimes it was frustration.  Occasionally, it was me (or their direct supervisor) failing to recognize issues as they appeared on the horizon and taking appropriate action to counter them.  While it isn’t always true, the old saying that “employees join companies and leave supervisors” has more than a grain of truth in it.  A single Engaged employee bailing out on a supervisor might be random chance.  Two or three is a pattern that indicates something is seriously wrong.

Not sure who is “Engaged?”  Generally, you can just look at your most valuable and productive employees – many of these, if not most, will be “Engaged.”

This is my latest release -- click the image for details.

Because the managerial task is about selectivity (deciding where to spend your limited time and attention, and where not to waste it), I recommend making your Engaged employees the primary focus of retention efforts.  While I would still keep an eye on “Disengaged” employees and try to retain them, I wouldn’t take extraordinary steps to do so.

What does turnover really cost?  It depends….

“150% of annual salary.”  I’ve seen this figure quoted as the cost of turnover again and again.

But I don’t believe it – at least not as a general rule.

In my experience, if you swap out an Actively Disengaged employee for one that is Engaged, the break even point arrives very quickly.  Engaged employees are usually eager to dig in, and can produce a large amount of valuable output in a short period of time – particularly when they are new to the company.  They will often challenge existing paradigms and propose better ways of doing things utilizing insights that they bring with them from their past jobs.

I’d make this kind of trade all day, every day.

Swapping one Disengaged employee for another one probably causes some loss of traction, but I certainly don’t think it is anywhere close to the equivalent of an annual salary.  Sometimes I (experimentally) left such positions open for a time while we made a thorough search for a replacement – often times this lead to job redesign, consolidation, or some other form of savings.

Losing a Disengaged employee may cause some hiccups, but with a little creativity it can also represent an opportunity.

An Engaged employee, however, is often never adequately replaced.  This is the person who, when they leave, sometimes requires two people to replace them.  After the loss of an Engaged employee, things are generally never the same, and often never as good as they once were.

Employee turnover is another example of the 80:20 rule – 80% of your costs in turnover come from 20% of the people who quit.  In reality, it might really be closer to 95:5.

The signs

A B&W version of the Cover to my novel INCENTIVIZE.  Click the image for more details

Are departures preventable?  In the majority of cases, the answer is “yes.”  Preventing a valued, Engaged employee from leaving requires carefully planning and good observation skills.  You must pay particular attention to the opportunity-related signals you are sending through things like promotion, increases in responsibility, interesting projects and other challenges, and rewards.  Engaged employees want to feel like they are valued and that their efforts are getting them somewhere.

But Engaged employees are also the ones that are least likely to complain when those elements aren't adequately present – they tend to vote with their feet.  As a result, managers need to watch for the signs that their most valuable employees may be looking elsewhere.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be exploring each of these signs and discussing what you can do to counter the situation.  So without further ado, here are the subtle (and not-so-subtle) signs that an employee may be on the verge of quitting.

1. Taking mysterious time off
2. Offering vague explanations about what’s happening when away from work
3. A change in normal work habits (dressing, workday, personal items)
4. Rumors that the employee is unhappy or considering leaving
5. Emotions that are out of the ordinary
6. Suspicious computer activity
7. Stepping back from challenges and responsibilities
8. A sudden change in outside-of-work relationships
9. Commute fatigue and complaining

Once these subjects have been explored individually, I’ll also provide posts on a few related topics such as:  Intervening in personal matters, Counteroffers, and friendships with subordinates (and anything else that seems appropriately related as I further develop the subject).

Other Recent Posts:

• Classic:  Extreme Leadership Types
• This Time It’s Personal
• Close Enough is Good Enough
• Pointing out the Obvious
• Looking Past the Façade
• What Was, What Is, What Could Have Been
• Stay in the Saddle, or Shoot the Horse?

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My LinkedIn profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

To the right is the cover for INCENTIVIZE.  This novel is about a U.S. based mining company, and criminal activity that the protagonist (a woman by the name of Julia McCoy) uncovers at the firm's Ethiopian subsidiary.  Her discover sets in motion a series of events that include, kidnapping, murder, and terrorism in the Horn of Africa.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

Classic: Extreme Leadership Types

Originally published:  March 11, 2011

While working on one of my novels (HEIR APPARENT, cover photo shown below), I found myself exploring several hard-to-work-for leadership styles.  The novel got me thinking about the many different kinds of extreme leaders that I’ve encountered over the years and how many different ways there are for leaders to fail in their jobs.

My initial investigation into this subject on the web yielded little material and even less insight.  As a result, I've decided to take a different tact by adapting a leadership guide published by Darrell Zahorsky, and imagining what could happen when the "successful" leadership styles described there are pushed to the extreme.

I've developed a list of ten extreme leadership styles -- the types of things that cause partial or total failure of the executive in their job.  As you read the descriptions, you should think of these as “extreme CEOs” as that is where the failings will be most plainly evident.  The behaviors of CEOs, after all, are much less externally regulated than the behaviors of those below them on the ladder -- who criticizes the CEO to his face?  I've seen several of these failed leadership types, and am intimately familiar with a couple of them.

Throwback Cover Image -- the original cover of Leverage.

So without further ado, here are the ten extreme leadership types that ultimately lead to failure:

1.  The Super-critic -- In this leadership style, the CEO become so critical of everyone's efforts that no one does anything to his satisfaction.

2.  The Micro-manager -- Micro managers take the super-critic one step further, substituting the CEO's judgment for... pretty much everyone's.  The Micro-manager sees himself as a genius among morons, and rarely allows anyone else's decision to stand unaltered.

3.  The Burnout -- This leader has had enough… of everything – enough struggle, enough competition, and enough conflict.  She should retire, but keeps hanging on, much to everyone's chagrin.

4.  The Diva – He really isn't interested in what he can do for the company, only what the company can do for him.  He is focused on money, power, prestige or a combination of the three.

5.  The Oddball -- Locked into outdated or ineffective leadership paradigms, this CEOs actions seem to have little or nothing to do with success or failure for the company.

B&W version of the Leverage Cover

6.  The Blame-gamer -- Every problem or shortcoming has a name attached to it, and you can guarantee it isn't hers.  She'll make sure to position every risk so that someone else will take the fall.

7.  The Procrastinator -- Unable to make a decision without perfect information, this leader is perpetually stuck in neutral and hoping someone else will step forward and take a stand.

8.  The Regurgitator -- A variant on the Procrastinator, this leader decides, reconsiders and then decides again in a seemingly endless loop.

9.  The Screamer – This CEO his way through a combination of intimidation and brow-beating.  He is usually dramatic, and sometimes reacts just for show.

10.  The Gentleman – He can't imagine doing, saying, or deciding anything in a way that might offend someone.  This CEO has a tough time making decisions that might impact other's opinion of him.

Leverage Audiobook cover

This list of extreme leadership types is not necessarily exhaustive, nor are the an “either/or” situation -- any given leader may demonstrate characteristics of multiple extreme types, while also doing some or even a lot of things right.

I would love to hear comments on other “Extreme Leadership” types that have led to the ultimate downfall of the leader or the organization – please post these in the comments section and, if timely, I’ll add them to the series.

Other Recent Posts:

• A Shaky Foundation
• This Time It’s Personal
• Close Enough is Good Enough
• Pointing out the Obvious
• Looking Past the Façade
• What Was, What Is, What Could Have Been
• Stay in the Saddle, or Shoot the Horse?

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My LinkedIn profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

To the right is the cover of LEVERAGE.  This novel explores the theft of sensitive DOD designs from a Minneapolis Tech Company, and the dangers associated with digging too deeply into the surrounding mystery.  The tale features first level manager, Mark Carson, and the struggle he experiences as he finds the resources of the corporation aligned against him.  Its sequel, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, was released in May of 2014.  A third book in the series, OUTSOURCED, is in the works.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

Corporate Politics Blog Changes

I currently write three blog posts a week, two (on Monday and Wednesday) for "Corporate Politics -- The Blog" and one on Fridays in my "Writing Journal."  Unless I'm out of town when I normally have skipped posts altogether.  I recently built an Index for the posts on Corporate Politics, and was surprised to find are now almost 250 of them.

250 posts is a lot.  As I went back through the list, I noticed a bit of redundancy and a lot of pretty interesting older material.  The inspiration for more than half of my blog posts came from a book written by a friend of many years, John Samuels.  John published a book called "Lessons Learned the Hard Way" (you should probably buy a copy if you enjoy my Corporate Politics blog) earlier this year, and I was lucky enough to involved in the editing process.  John kindly allowed me to put my own twist on his "lessons," which, for the past couple of years, provided me with a road map for my Corporate Politics blog.

That road has come to its inevitable end.  This week I posted the book's final "Lessons...."

Finding fresh business perspectives for commentary is hard work -- particularly if you're trying to avoid rehashing the same old topics.  While I wouldn't say I'm having an "inspiration drought," I recognize that producing close to 100 original blog posts every year is more work than I should sign up for --  in addition to my other endeavors, that is.

Additionally, I've noticed that some of my oldest posts are the most popular -- specifically ones related to "Behaviors bosses hate in their subordinates" and "Boss types that drive subordinates crazy."

So here's the plan:

I'm going to take a week's break.  Beginning on November 10th, I will switch my Monday posts to a "Classic" format.  I'll start by republishing each of the posts in the above two series.  Of course, they'll get a facelift and a re-edit.  In some cases, I'll add content  to further flesh out the ideas.  These posts will be identified as "Classics" in the description lines.

Wednesday posts will continue to be new content.

The Friday Writing Journal posts at this point will not change (until I start to run out of ideas for them, too!)

A Shaky Foundation

Mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures (hereafter, referred to collectively as “acquisitions”) all involve financial modeling of the future.  Such models are the most popular method of determining the value of a target business – and hence, form the basis for the price that is paid in the transaction.  Financial models are typically developed by studying the past and predicting how the future will differ from recent history, often looking as many as ten years forward.

Are such models worthy of the faith we seem to place in them?  Or are they a placebo produced for others to consume, a tool used to justify doing what we (instinctively) want?

In large corporations, review and approval of the acquisition financial model often represents a gauntlet that must be run by the sponsoring executive in order to gain permission to pursue the transaction.  The temptation to manipulate the analysis can be extreme and consequences are often thought to be far off.  Manipulative behavior often leads to exaggerated expectations and a plan for the post-transaction entity that is unrealistic or even impossible to achieve.

Building it up from the details

Acquisition valuation often have both “bottoms up” and “tops down” aspects to them, and they often meet in a “messy middle”.

“Bottoms up” analysis begins with the entity’s historical performance, and works methodically through a large number of underlying assumptions (position in the economic cycle, market share and potential shifts, margin changes, inflation, possible cost savings, etc.) to develop a forecast of future performance.  The primary problem with this approach is the extremely large number of assumptions the analyst has to deal with.  Most honest acquisitions I’ve been involved in include moderately optimistic assumptions for each of these items – i.e. modest economic growth, moderate competitive reaction to the deal, a “reasonable” amount of cost savings, etc.

The problem comes when just a few (sometimes, only one) of these assumptions proves to be wrong.  The model often behaves like a house of cards which rest on a series of shaky critical assumptions.  Disturb just one of those at the base and everything comes crashing down.

This situation can be corrected by forcing assumptions to be more conservative, but it is easy to push this too far and produce a forecast that will preclude the deal from ever happening in the first place.  It can be quite stunning what a couple percentage points of growth or margin can do to the ultimate price you are willing to offer for the target.

An acquisition I once made included a detailed analysis of the future of the firm, one that I thought was appropriately conservative.  Unfortunately, only a few months after the deal closed, there was a severe economic contraction which no one anticipated.  Adding to the trouble caused by the economy was a highly aggressive competitive reaction to the announcement of the deal – something we also hadn’t anticipated (silly me, I thought the competitor would react rationally).  In just a few months, the results were in previously uncharted territory – unfortunately pointing in the wrong direction.

The deal never lived up to the original forecast.  My superiors never let me forget it.

Looking at the big picture

In most (but not all) deals, there is also a “tops down” analysis.  This study usually starts by trying to answer the question:  What will it take to entice the sellers to say “yes?”  While there is plenty of mathematics involved in this type of approach, it is of a completely method than the “bottoms up” valuation.  This analysis often focuses on rules of thumb like comparing “multiples” and examining the details of other, similar deals to determine what is a “fair” price.  There is also often analysis of the seller’s psyche, and how the story needs to be constructed to make the offer palatable.

While this “big picture” look doesn’t rely on a plethora of shaky assumptions, it does contain an implicit one – that the deals you’re using for comparison actually made sense.  We know from academic study that the majority of acquisitions disappoint, and that fact alone should call into question this assumption.

This is the cover of my latest novel, EMPOWERED, published on October 12, 2014.

I’ve seen the most elaborate “tops down” analysis occur when there are Investment Bankers involved in the deal.  Of course, the I-bankers only get paid if a transaction happens (and then they are paid quite well), so they have an inherent motive to justify the highest price the buyer can rationalize.

One transaction I was involved in (essentially and auction) looked impossibly expensive to me using the “tops down” approach.  As deadlines approached for us to submit our bid, our Investment Bankers pushed hard for us to come up with a way to justify a (much) higher bid.  Eventually, it was my call to pull the plug on the transaction.

As it turned out, the I-bankers were right about the price it would take to buy the company – a competitor (one with a lot more synergies in the deal) ending up purchasing the target at a price even higher than we were contemplating.  I remain convinced to this day that if I had approved that bid we would have regretted it.

The messy middle

The place where “tops down” meets “bottoms up” is the zone of self-deception.

Under ideal circumstances, the “bottoms up” approach will produce a valuation that is higher than the “tops down” method.  In my experience, this is rarely the case.  Normally, if the “bottoms up” analysis had any modicum of conservatism in it, there is a gap – sometimes one that is quite large.

What usually happens next is manipulation of the “bottoms up” analysis – selective alteration of the assumptions to produce the desired zone of overlap between the two valuations.  When this happens, completion of the acquisition is extremely risky.  If this type of manipulation is present, the manager responsible for approving the deal should almost always take a pass.

I’ve witnessed such “numbers gaming” happen many times, and it almost always drastically increases the risk that the deal will be a disaster.  In one acquisition where such gaming was clearly present, I was brought in late to visit with the sellers and tour their site.  I quickly realized the underlying assumptions of sales growth in our “bottoms up” model were so rosy there was almost no chance they could be met.  I did my best to moderate that unrealistic assumption, and the target company was eventually purchased by someone else.

Years later, it was clear that the target company experienced nothing close to the growth rate our internal “experts” had been forecasting.

Conclusion

Acquisition analysis is a tricky and potentially dangerous process.  If you’re too aggressive in your assumptions you’ll end up with a deal based on unrealistic expectations, and chances are that subsequent underwhelming results will damage your career.  If you’re too conservative the deal will likely never happen.

If you sense manipulation of the analysis, the chances of a post-acquisition failure go through the roof. Under those circumstances you should almost certainly pull the plug on the deal, no matter how painful.  23.2

Other Recent Posts:

• This Time It’s Personal
• Close Enough is Good Enough
• Pointing out the Obvious
• Looking Past the Façade
• What Was, What Is, What Could Have Been
• Stay in the Saddle, or Shoot the Horse?
• In the End, You Must Answer to Yourself

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My LinkedIn profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

These are is the covers of my Carson series novels.  PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, released in April, 2014.  This story marks the return of LEVERAGE characters Mark Carson and Cathy Chin, now going by the name of Matt and Sandy Lively and on the run from the FBI.  The pair are working for a remote British Columbia lodge specializing in Corporate adventure/retreats for senior executives.  When the Redhouse Consulting retreat goes horribly wrong, Matt finds himself pursuing kidnappers through the wilderness, while Sandy simultaneously tries to fend off an inquisitive police detective and an aggressive lodge owner.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

This Time It’s Personal

Managers sometimes bring their bad tempers to the office.  I’ve witnessed managers shout and rage time and time again.  Some are able to manage the negative fallout of such outbursts, while many crash and burn as a result.

So what’s the difference?  Those who fail tend to personalize their rants, targeting them at specific individuals.  Those who get beyond a temper outburst normally don’t.

Yep, it’s pretty much that simple.

Every problem has a name… of a person

Managing can be a frustrating job.  Things rarely go as it seems like they should.  Circumstances change.  Pesky competitors react in unexpected ways.  Employees mess up.

I’ve noticed over the years that bad tempers and a tendency to search for employees to blame for a problem seem to go hand-in-hand.  Sure, employees screw up.  All the time.  But the majority of substantial business problems – at least in my experience – are caused by erroneous or bad strategies, rather than failures of those charged with executing them.

Strategies can go wrong in a number of ways.  They can be unrealistic, overly complicated, based on incorrect assumptions, poorly communicated, and/or virtually impossible to execute.  And guess who’s responsible for that failed strategy?  Management, of course.

Managers, just like most human beings, are generally unwilling to point the finger back at themselves.  There is the practical matter of the political fallout of admitting to making mistakes, but even bigger barrier is the damage it can do to one’s ego.

It is this tension that seems to lead to the classic “search for the guilty and punishment of the innocent.”  It is also the driver for many managerial emotional outbursts.

How could you… ?

It’s one thing to have an outburst that is generic in nature – “Why can’t we seem to get our sales message into the minds of our customers,” delivered in a raised voice.  People expect a certain amount of table-pounding when things aren’t going right.  Leaders inspire.  They are emotionally invested.  If an emotionally invested leader occasionally boils over because she experiences a major disappointment, most people will forgive and forget.

As long as the target of the rage is not someone they know or work with.

Managers cross the line when they personalize their frustrations and begin blaming (and subsequently savaging) individuals.  There is a big difference between shouting “Why can’t we…!” and “Why did you…!”

This is my most recent release, EMPOWERED, which came out 10/12/14.  You can get it from Amazon by clicking here.

Sometimes the treatment is deserved.  Sometimes employees will think that Fred “had it coming.”  Even when justified, you’ve made a permanent enemy of Fred.

More often the general employee population will think the treatment is unjustified, undignified, and completely unnecessary.  Witnesses will wonder when it will be their turn in the barrel.  They will label you as “unfair” or “explosive.”  They will do what they can to get away from you.  A few might even seek revenge.

Such explosions don’t need to happen often.  Sometimes a single rant is all it takes to severely damage a manager’s reputation.

Handling disappointments

Here are a few bits of advice to help managers better handle such situations.

1. Stay in control.  You’ll do your best thinking and problem solving when your emotions are in check.
2. Fight your predisposition to assume every problem carries with it the name of a person.
3. First examine the possibility of your own guilt.  Is there a problem with strategy, resourcing, environment, etc?  If so, place the blame where it belongs, not on the shoulders of someone else.
4. If you find yourself in a rant, keep it generic.  Above all, avoid dragging in individuals – particularly if the outburst is in public.
5. If the problem really is caused by the neglect, stupidity, or poor execution of an employee and you feel you must rant at them, do so in private – that will minimize collateral damage to your reputation in the minds of any observers.
6. If you fail in all the other advice and launch into a personal, public attack – apologize.  If the rant was in private, offer an apology to the victim.  If it occurred in public, offer a private apology and one in public.  This will at least mitigate some of the damage your reputation will otherwise face.

Conclusion

Losing one’s temper in the workplace is rarely a good idea.  If you find yourself losing control, focus on keeping your rant from becoming personal.  Personalizing your anger will only earn you enemies and damage your reputation.  If you do slip up and name names, it is essential that you immediately humble yourself and apologize.  2.3

Other Recent Posts:

• Close Enough is Good Enough
• Pointing out the Obvious
• Looking Past the Façade
• What Was, What Is, What Could Have Been
• Stay in the Saddle, or Shoot the Horse?
• In the End, You Must Answer to Yourself
• Fast, Good, or Cheap – Pick Two

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My LinkedIn profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

To the right is the cover for HEIR APPARENT.  Someone is killing corporate leaders in Kansas City.  But who?  The police and FBI pursue a "serial killer" theory, leaving Joel Smith and Evangelina Sikes to examine other motives.  As the pair zero in on the perpetrator, they put their own lives at risk.  There are multiple suspects and enough clues for the reader to identify the killer in this classic whodunnit set in a corporate crucible.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

Close Enough is Good Enough

In a perfect world, there would be perfect information on which you could base your business decisions.

In the real business world, decision-making data is often in short supply.  With a bit of work, you can almost always gather more – but doing so costs you in time and/or money.  Knowing when “close enough is good enough” is an important element in the art of managing.  Too little data for the circumstances leads to errors and mistakes.  Too much puts you in the realm of perpetual decision-making delay.

Predicting is difficult, especially when it comes to the future

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a better forecast of how a competitor will react to your new product?  How about a more accurate estimate of who in management will stay and who will leave when you announce that merger?  And what about a clearer picture of where that product you’re trying to license is in its lifecycle?

It’s often tempting to send every recommendation and proposal back for more digging, and sometimes this reaction is justified.

But in my experience, it is easy to slip into “analysis paralysis.”

When you find yourself frittering away time focusing on second order effects or highly unlikely scenarios, you’re probably going too far.

After looking at dozens of decisions over the years, most of the ones that went off the tracks have been a result of events that seemed so unlikely at the time as to have never even entered into consideration.  An unpredictable recession.  War.  Death of a key player.  A competitor’s new technology that leapfrogs your own.  Political actions like embargos, abusive tariffs or outright bans.  If you thought any of these things was going to happen, you wouldn’t have even considered the project in the first place.

In a major factory expansion project we failed to anticipate the ability of a competitor to successfully petition the government to have an obstructive importation tariff put in place.  The tariff was completely in opposition to international trade agreements, and my post-event assessment was that no amount of data would have convinced us this was a possibility.

This is the cover of my most recent novel, EMPOWERED. 

Was it discoverable?  Maybe.  We could have tried teasing the information out of the competitor’s former employees – if they’d even known the plan.  Maybe we could have somehow discovered it from government sources.  Of course, doing so would have delayed the project for weeks.  Possibly months.  The risk was one of hundreds of variables involved in executing the project.  If I’d insisted on gathering better data on all of these risks, the project would have taken years to formulate.

So what did we do?  Scaled back the project, looked for other markets to serve, and petitioned the government to roll back the tariff.  Was it a disaster?  No.  But the project was never the success I’d hoped for.

Experience teaches that the issue that is likely to derail your decision is something that will come out of right field.  Often it won’t even be a part of your analysis.

Separate the significant few from the trivial many

Most managerial decisions don’t require and can’t justify extensive data gathering.  Do you conduct a survey of your subordinates to find the optimal time to have a staff meeting?  Do you perform extensive testing of your messages before having an all-employee meeting?  Do you conduct conjoint analysis before a small price increase that is driven by cost increases that impact all of your competitors?

In most cases, the answer these questions will be “no.”  Instead, you rely on reasoning, experience, past practice, and estimates.  You might discuss your thoughts with others, but normally you don’t gather data.

Why?  Because the importance of the decision doesn’t justify the effort.  Knowing when to “go with your gut,” when to get other opinions, and when to dig in with data-gathering is a key job of a manager.

An easy way to think about this is to break your decision making into three buckets.

1.  Everyday decisions.  These are calls where getting things wrong have relatively small consequences.  Or they could be bigger decisions, but ones where you have the ability to quickly and painlessly respond to errors in the initial direction.
2. Big decisions.  These usually have visibility to those higher in management, or they have a significant impact on the performance of the company/business unit/department.  Smaller decisions can fit into this category when their impacts are irreversible once made (for example, firing an employee with unique skills/abilities).
3. Career make-or-break decisions.  Acquisitions/mergers/license agreements.  A major new product line.  A new factory.  A substantial change in strategy.  These are the calls that build or destroy your career.

Not surprisingly, you need to gather more data as you move down through the various buckets.

In my experience, there are normally only a handful of “Class 3” decisions that most managers will be faced with each year.  You should devote plenty of effort to running through all kinds of “what-ifs” and “scenarios” for these decisions.  The “Class 1” decisions should be dispensed with as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Time sensitivity

Many academics suggest conducting sensitivity analysis as a means of dealing with uncertainty.  This is useful to a point, but hardly a panacea.  I recall numerous “Class 3” projects where the actual results fell outside of the “best case” or “worst case” scenarios within a year or two.  Predicting anything that goes out more than a couple of years into the future becomes an exercise in managing multiple assumptions.  That’s why so many long-term projects that require financial analysis to justify them are manipulated to get the desired result.  There are often dozens of critical assumptions, all of which by themselves can seem reasonable and can be justified, but ultimately produce an irrational result.

I wish there was an easy way to call BS on this type of fluffy financial analysis.  The best way I’ve found is to step away from the numbers and think about how many things need to “go right” for the results to come out as projected.  If the proposal only requires a few assumptions to be wrong in order for the project to fail, you’re not on solid ground.  Utilize your experience and instincts to make a holistic judgment, and don’t be persuaded by numerical analysis alone.

I always had a tough time dealing with this conundrum.  There was rarely a deal or project I didn’t like.  I usually found myself dwelling on all the enticing possibilities in a future that included the project, and tended to ignore or downplay the risks.

I found the best way to deal with my sunny predisposition was to have someone with a “cup is half-empty” mentality working with me.  Sometimes that was my boss.  Other times, the role was filled by an accountant or other financial person.  Even with the advice, I still needed to discipline myself to listen, rather than just brushing aside objections.

Conclusion

Managers can’t permit themselves to become the victims of “analysis paralysis.”  A part of the task of management is applying investigative effort where it is warranted, and dispensing quickly with smaller decisions.

The ability to discriminate between various decision-making levels is something that comes from both experience and careful reflection.

With your most important decisions, take the time to dig into the risks behind the assumptions, but don’t become a slave to the numbers.  Instead, step back and think about the project on a holistic basis.  And don’t ignore your gut.  If you recognize your own predisposition for examining such projects, seek balancing opinions and make sure to listen to them.  2.2

Other Recent Posts:

• Pointing out the Obvious
• Looking Past the Façade
• What Was, What Is, What Could Have Been
• Stay in the Saddle, or Shoot the Horse?
• In the End, You Must Answer to Yourself
• Fast, Good, or Cheap – Pick Two
• They Don’t Call it “The Bleeding Edge” for Nothing

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My LinkedIn profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

To the right is the cover for DELIVERABLES.  This novel features a senior manager approached by government officials to spy on his employer, concerned about how a "deal" the company is negotiating might put critical technical secrets into the hands of enemies of the United States.  Of course, things are not exactly as it seems....

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

Pointing Out the Obvious

There are times when it makes sense to point out the folly of others, and times when it is better to hold your tongue and let them suffer with their own decisions.

As a boss, I often found myself wishing that subordinates would challenge my assertions, pointing out (of course, in a kind and gentle way) where there might be holes in my reasoning.  I knew I was limited by my own preconceived notions and prejudices and needed insightful critique.  Having subordinates simply agree with me didn’t add value.

On the other hand as a subordinate, I rarely found myself inclined to provide such feedback.  There were several reasons for this, some legitimate, some political, and some based solely on emotion.

When to legitimately keep your trap shut

There are several circumstances where you will want to avoid pointing out someone else’s errors.  A prime instance would be when you have an opinion, but it falls outside of your expertise and/or area of responsibility.  Another time might be when pointing out the obvious has virtually zero chance of successfully changing the person’s mind.

For example, at one employer we weighed a significant acquisition during one of the corporate staff meetings.  The deal was essentially a “doubling down” in an industry where we’d already made one (mostly unsuccessful) acquisition.  The theory, as I understood it, was that by owning both companies we could increase our critical mass allowing us to reduce costs and achieve a modicum of pricing power.  The problem, as I saw it, was that the industry was prone to wild demand swings, and the patience level for extracting the “synergies” was exceptionally low given our already suspect track record.

I elected to not point out these problems, ones that seemed obvious to me.

There were a couple of reasons for this.  First, the deal was not in my business unit, and as the “new guy” (I’d been employed by the company about a year), I didn’t think my opinion would carry much weight.  Perhaps a bigger factor was that the corporate sponsor for the deal was my boss, the CEO.  He’d already made up his mind on the transaction, and I could see that no amount of arguing by any of his direct reports – line or staff – was going to change the decision.

In that instance, the deal was completed but the new acquisition did nothing to solve the problems of the original one.  A former owner of the acquired company set up a competing business, and made a mess of the most profitable business segment.  Additionally, after about a year the entire industry entered a deep and prolonged downturn.  Some of the things I was worried about turned out to cause problems, others didn’t.  My prognostication was far from perfect, but I was more accurate than the guy calling the shots.

In short, the strategy turned out to be disastrous.

Politics are often a factor

There are times when it is politically infeasible to point out obvious flaws in plans and strategies.  You always need to consider whether speaking out against someone’s fondly held idea, project, belief, opinion, or the quality of their execution, will create more problems than it is worth.

The problem with a political argument to keep silent is that it is a very small leap to using “politics” as a rationalization for not speaking up, even when something else is really behind the decision (fear, for instance).  In many such situations, I’ve found both of these motives (a rational assessment of political consequences, and politics as an excuse) being a part of the equation.  And I’ve been as guilty as anyone of blending the two.

Is your hesitation to speak out against a proposal for a new capital asset really because you want to ally yourself with the person making the proposal (like a peer or your boss), or are you just afraid of getting into a nasty, loud squabble?

In one real life example, I was running a business unit that was having major problems bringing in raw materials immediately following the installation of a new computer system (ERP).  The new system brought over incorrect and obsolete lead time data from the old system, and our “expert” quit when it became clear he was going to be transferred to the corporate procurement group.  We were running out of everything we needed to produce the products.

I called a meeting to discuss this, but my boss at the time immediately took control of my meeting.  We already had inventory broken into three categories – “A” the high volume items, “B” the medium volume items, and “C” the low volume items.  At least 80% of the parts we bought were in group “C” making the fixing of that group the most problematic.  My boss suggested we purchase “a year’s worth” of every “C” item as a temporary fix, thus allowing the available manpower to focus on correcting lead times for the other two groups.

At the time I knew this would result in major problems.  We only had history to base the “year’s worth” orders on, and the product line wasn’t static and neither was the market.  I figured we’d end up with 5 years of some items, and run out of others after only a few months.

But I kept my mouth shut.  The reason?  My boss had been a tremendous ally, and I didn’t want to risk alienating him – particularly with a public challenge.

It would have been fine if I would have then taken up the issue with him in private, but that’s where the “fear factor” entered the equation.  This boss was bombastic and very hard to convince he was wrong.  And he had a bad temper.  I knew I should have challenged him in private, but I chickened out.

We ended up with a massive influx of inventory, with predictable results.

Fear of…

Confrontation.  Public humiliation.  Ridicule.  Censure.  Embarrassment.  These are the things that can drive a person to hold back.  If you’re a boss and you want open, honest, helpful feedback, you must eliminate these behaviors from your managerial portfolio.  If you’re a subordinate, then sometimes you just have to suck it up and demonstrate some courage.

The cover of my latest novel, EMPOWERED, released October 12, 2014.  You can find it on Amazon here.

I can think of a few instances where I took on the fear and pointed out an obvious flaw in someone’s plans/thinking.  Usually, the consequences were not as bad as I’d worried they might be, although there were usually consequences of some sort.  All too often I took the easy way out – silence.

In one example where I overcame my fears and took on my boss, I found myself telling him his pet project (in this case a new manufacturing plant) was never going to hit the return rates that had been projected in the original project.  At the time I knew full well that he’d had a hand in crafting the analysis.

While doing this didn’t have any immediate negative consequences, it was the beginning of the end.  Afterward our relationship, which was never particularly friendly, became distant.  In a few instances he publically attacked me.

But it was the right thing to do.  Otherwise I (or in this case, my successors) would have spent an eternity explaining why the plant wasn’t achieving the project’s original financial projections.

Conclusion

Pointing out the folly of others is often politically risky, and is rarely a comfortable process.  You might stir up a hornet’s nest, but you might also save the company from making a costly mistake.  Sometimes it might even enhance your reputation.

When you find yourself tempted to hold your tongue, carefully examine your motives.  If it is a pointless exercise, or you lack the credibility for your observations to be taken seriously, then by all means, remain silent.  If your motives are political or emotional, you should carefully weigh the potential rewards and consequences of speaking out.  At least some of the time, you should overcome your fears and point out the errors of bosses, peers, and subordinates.  2.1

Other Recent Posts:

• Looking Past the Façade
• What Was, What Is, What Could Have Been
• Stay in the Saddle, or Shoot the Horse?
• In the End, You Must Answer to Yourself
• Fast, Good, or Cheap – Pick Two
• They Don’t Call it “The Bleeding Edge” for Nothing
• Dying By the Sword

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My LinkedIn profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

To the right is the audiobook cover for INCENTIVIZE.  This novel is about a U.S. based mining company, and criminal activity that the protagonist (a woman by the name of Julia McCoy) uncovers at the firm's Ethiopian subsidiary.  Her discover sets in motion a series of events that include, kidnapping, murder, and terrorism in the Horn of Africa.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

Looking Past the Façade

Job Candidates lie.  Employers lie.  It’s a wonder anyone ever finds a job that suits them.

I’ve previously discussed lying by potential hires in a post titled “Why Job Candidates Lie.”  Today I want to take up the subject of the company’s misrepresentations during the recruiting process, and give you some advice for how to deal with them.

Why do they do it?

In my experience, employers are cleverer in their deceptions than the candidates – most of them committing sins of omission, rather than delivering outright untruths.  The prevailing attitude seems to be one of caveat emptor – it’s your responsibility to dig up the dirt.  Don’t expect the company to volunteer anything that doesn’t cast them in the best light.

Suppose, for example, that your new prospective boss – we’ll call him Fred – has a horrible temper and is known to scream at his subordinates on a regular basis.  Think anyone will volunteer that information during the interview process?

In fact, even if you ask probing questions on the subject (such as:  What is Fred’s management style? Or even:  Does Fred lose his temper?), you’re likely to get a tepid, misleading response.

“Fred is a brilliant, insightful manager, but sometimes he can be a little… challenging.  You’ll learn a lot from him if you accept the position.”  Yeah, I can almost hear the words.  And you can bet you’ll learn a lot, starting with how to avoid the jerk.

About all you can glean from that answer is that there might something about Fred you won’t like.  The nature and magnitude of Fred’s defects, however, will likely remain undiscovered until you join up.

If you ask Fred the same question, you’re likely to only learn how self-aware he is (or isn’t, which is the more common situation).  Unfortunately, that knowledge is still likely to come only after the fact.

Whenever you hear that someone is “complicated,” “challenging,” “brilliant but…” or similar descriptions, you can bet there’s a major problem of some kind.  Asking additional, probing questions during the interview, however, isn’t likely to get you far.

Should one give up on the employer just because you turn up this kind of red flag?  Possibly, but if you do, you might be discarding a perfectly acceptable employer over a suspicion that was ill-founded.  Maybe “a little… challenging” means Fred is a stickler for the rules.  Or maybe it means he goes in his office and cries daily.

Maybe you can live with that.

Why do employers engage in this game?  Because they want the best candidates.  Even if they don’t love their new job.  Even if they won’t stick around forever.  Even if they don’t deserve the candidate.  It isn’t in the company’s interests to volunteer anything that might scare away a potentially great new hire.

Getting one thing right

When changing jobs, employees usually have the thing(s) they disliked the most in their last position firmly front and center in their minds when they go into interviews.

The candidates – fixated as they are on this singular issue – can usually manage to avoid the same pitfall with their new employer.

When leaving one job, I desperately wanted to avoid harsh, confrontational review meetings.  I found an employer that didn’t have them.  Unfortunately, my new boss gave virtually no direct feedback, which I also grew to deeply dislike.  In a sense, I traded one set of undesirable characteristics for another.

The same thing happened when I left that job, trading the lack of feedback for micromanagement and decision flip-flops.

Running the traps

The point is:  The candidate is likely to only be able to detect a limited number of negative characteristics during the interview process.  What you will hate in the new position is likely well known and understood within the company, but unless you are making a determined effort to uncover those behaviors, norms, and practices, you probably won’t be successful.

Fortunately, there is a ready source of information that you can tap into, one that can directly give you “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”  Former employees.

I’ve often considered how I would react if a candidate asked to see my company’s references.  While employers regularly demand a list of people to vouch for the candidate, they seem to think the candidate has to figure out the company based solely on what the company wants to tell them.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could demand the same kind of references from our prospective employers?

I’m not going to hold my breath on that one.  But you can find your own references – through social media and other contacts.

Former employees are your best source of information.  I can count a few instances where I’ve been contacted by candidates about one of my previous employers, but far too few for this to be common practice.  Since I now owe nothing to the company, I am generally willing to provide details on how things work at the company and what to expect.  Sometimes I even knew the styles and personalities of the individuals the candidate is going to work around.

At least those potential employees went into the job (assuming they still accepted the offer) with their eyes wide open.

Finding former employees is relatively easy these days.  You can start with your contacts on LinkedIn – asking them if they know anyone that worked for Company X.  Usually, you can find someone that will offer an introduction.  If you can’t find anyone this way, do a search on LinkedIn and make a blind approach.  It may feel a little awkward, but it is definitely worth it.

This is the cover image from my latest novel, released October 12, 2014.  Click on the image for info on the storyline and how you can get your own copy.

Which brings me to another point – Get yourself on LinkedIn and other social media sites.  Maintaining your connection to people is likely to pay off at some point, and even if it doesn’t being on social media still puts you in a position to help others.  Take the time, create a profile, and connect to your current and former associates.

Once you’ve found a contact, you can ask them to help you find others.  Ideally, you want to talk to people that have been in the job for which you are interviewing, or people that have worked directly for your new boss (these are your most likely points of vulnerability when accepting the new position).  Ask open-ended questions like:  What made you the most uncomfortable in this job?  What did you like least about the boss?

Then listen carefully to the answers and decide if you can stomach what is revealed.

Conclusion

Potential employers regularly omit and skirt facts that are critical to your decision to join their organization.  While it isn’t always easy, you need to conduct your own independent investigation into the firm by tapping into sources that are no longer under their direct influence.  Only by doing this will you have adequate information to decide if the job is right for you.  Anything less is a roll of the dice, and has a high potential to simply trade one set of undesirable characteristics for another.  1.2

Other Recent Posts:

• What Was, What Is, What Could Have Been
• Stay in the Saddle, or Shoot the Horse?
• In the End, You Must Answer to Yourself
• Fast, Good, or Cheap – Pick Two
• They Don’t Call it “The Bleeding Edge” for Nothing
• Dying By the Sword
• It’s Your Money, Not Theirs

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My Linkedin profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

This is the cover of PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, released in April, 2014.  This story marks the return of LEVERAGE characters Mark Carson and Cathy Chin, now going by the name of Matt and Sandy Lively and on the run from the FBI.  The pair are working for a remote British Columbia lodge specializing in Corporate adventure/retreats for senior executives.  When the Redhouse Consulting retreat goes horribly wrong, Matt finds himself pursuing kidnappers through the wilderness, while Sandy simultaneously tries to fend off an inquisitive police detective and an aggressive lodge owner.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations

What Was, What Is, What Could Have Been

I’m hardly the first square peg that tried to fit into the round hole of the Corporation’s hierarchy.  I worked with people just like me (in this respect) every day – the vast majority of them trying desperately to grind off their corners in a vain attempt to somehow fit into that damned hole.  While doing so, they live in complete denial.

Ironically, their peers, bosses, and subordinates usually know the truth, and some will even fill them in – if they were receptive to the message.

Normally, alas, they are not.

It is possible that reaching the conclusion that a high corporate job isn’t right for you may only be possible by experiencing the pain of daily anxiety (experienced over years, in my case) and/or the devastating blow of a major career derailment.  That’s what it took for me to get there, and even then I still initially ignored the indicators.

Signals

For me, the first signs came in graduate school when I took a class on career exploration that partnered me with another student.  My partner questioned whether I was really headed a direction that I would find satisfying – the idea of becoming the CEO of a publically-traded manufacturing company being at odds with what she learned about my likes and dislikes.

Of course I ignored this observation, shaking my head in disbelief.

A few years later I began to experience anxiety over the high pressure review meetings I was forced to endure as a division President.  While I greatly enjoyed the day-to-day work, anxiety over those meetings at corporate headquarters was ruining all the fun.

Rather than questioning my suitability for the job, however, I moved to a new employer.

At my new employer, all the ruthless political battling, criticism, and stress-producing confrontations happened behind the scenes.  Despite the superficial calm, the job still produced a daily cocktail of fear, anxiety, and annoyance.  While the environment was slightly more tolerable, it continued to eat away at me.

This time the decision to leave wasn’t my own – I was terminated.  You’d have thought this would be enough to make me sit up and take notice, but instead I again ignored the signals and plowed ahead into another job.

But my mind was finally working on my paradoxes in the background – why was I always so unhappy with my job?  Was it the bosses, and the structure, and the environment, and the politics?  Or was there something about me?

It took months of self-examination to come to grips with the reality of the situation – I wasn’t in the right kind of job, and pushing higher would only make this situation worse.  My discomfort was caused partially by the work, partially by my relationships (mostly with my bosses), and a lot by my own internal wiring.

I quit, but by then I was almost 50 years old.

Letting go

I quickly found myself in an strange state – “letting go” of many things.  Some of these changes were painful, others simply strange.  All of them were challenging.  I grasped at old work relationships for a time, and discovered a few really did seem to be founded on durable friendships.  Too many, it turned out, were just conveniences of the moment.  Daily habits were also tough to reform.  After years of getting up before 6AM, I found it difficult to sleep in.  And the constant checking of emails took even longer to dispense with.

This is the cover of my newest novel, EMPOWERED, released 10/12/14.  Click on the image to see how you can get your own copy.

I was also exploring my past at the same time these adaptations were going on.  What did I enjoy doing when I was younger, specifically before I became consumed by my career ambitions?

Unfortunately, I learned that many possibilities were now closed to me because of age, education, and experience.  I wasn’t going to become a physicist at this point.  Or a rock star.  Or a star athlete.  (Even though some of these probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d been working toward them from my youth).

I had to let those fantasies go.

That still left me with quite a few potential opportunities to explore.  And a few regrets, as well.

Go exploring

I began sampling opportunities.  I knew I had assets and abilities that I’d developed and honed during my twenty-seven years in corporate life.  I wanted to find something where I comfortably fit, could leverage my experience, and where I wouldn’t just be wasting everyone’s time.  Many career possibilities entered my thinking, and I was encouraged to consider my options broadly.  Teaching?  Tour guide?  Travel planner?  Investment Advisor?  Non-Profit Manager?  These were just a few of the alternatives I mulled over and discarded – some after a mental analysis and others after a short trial.

Ultimately, I ended up as a part time business owner, part time writer, and part time dad.  I layered in a couple new hobbies – beer brewing, hunting – and now feel that I’ve got a satisfying routine.  The combination gives me flexibility, and also keeps me out of most of the stuff that I came to despise in corporate life.

Why wait?

The questions that trouble me the most are:  Why did this evolution take so long?  Why was my unhappiness so difficult to recognize?  Did I need the financial success that came about as a result of this long, blind alley in order to have the freedom and flexibility to make a radical career change?  Or could I have acted earlier?

I should have been able to recognize the poor fit of my ambition and my personality much earlier, and doing so would have saved me a lot of pain and discomfort.  It also would have resulted in a smaller financial cushion when major upheaval became a virtual necessity.  While my future career is limited by the number of years I have left, an earlier change would have been limited by financial considerations.  No matter what, options are going to be limited in a way that they weren’t when you graduated from High School.

The difficulty in recognizing my poor fit was all my own doing.  I put my head down and continued to fight toward my career goal, rather than sitting back and evaluating.  I don’t think this is at all unusual.  The ranks of middle and upper management are filled with people just like I was.  The one thing that would have helped me move faster was a regular period of self-assessment (once per year?) where I could look at what I enjoyed and what I hated in my career.  Then I would have had to give some disciplined thought to the alternatives in a search for something that might better achieve satisfaction.

Overall, better late than never I suppose.

Conclusion

In financial analysis we classify things that have already happened as “sunk costs,” and ignore them when determining how to go forward.  With your life/career, however, there are no “sunk costs.”  You need to be keenly aware of how you may not fit into the role to which you aspire, and what alternatives are progressively choked off because of your advancing age/education/experience.

Don’t continue driving blindly for a goal without coming up for air and reflecting about how you want to spend the balance of your life.  And remember, it’s never too late to reinvent yourself.  34.5

Other Recent Posts:

• Stay in the Saddle, or Shoot the Horse?
• In the End, You Must Answer to Yourself
• Fast, Good, or Cheap – Pick Two
• They Don’t Call it “The Bleeding Edge” for Nothing
• Dying By the Sword
• It’s Your Money, Not Theirs
• Foretelling the Future

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My Linkedin profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

To the right is the B&W version of the cover for HEIR APPARENT.  Someone is killing corporate leaders in Kansas City.  But who?  The police and FBI pursue a "serial killer" theory, leaving Joel Smith and Evangelina Sikes to examine other motives.  As the pair zero in on the perpetrator, they put their own lives at risk.  There are multiple suspects and enough clues for the reader to identify the killer in this classic whodunnit set in a corporate crucible.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations

Stay in the Saddle, or Shoot the Horse?

Most of my career goals were developed when I was in my teens -- I dreamed of being a Captain of Industry, the modern-day equivalent of the (fictional) heroes I’d read about in the works of Ayn Rand.  And while there were a few minor course corrections along the way – most coming as my understanding of the way the work world really functioned grew – I stuck with that goal until I was in my late-forties.  Tenacity can be a virtue, but just like a lot of things, too much of it can be a problem.

Saying I “stuck with it” however, is a vast oversimplification.  I was fixated on it.  Obsessed by it.  The goal became an end unto itself apart from the reason it was ever formulated.  Making progress toward “the goal” became the measuring stick for my life.  When I felt I was making progress, I felt good.  When I felt like I wasn’t, I became alarmed, stressed, and generally grouchy.

Alas, I don’t think my personal experience is unusual among career-primary types.

Setting the autopilot

While the specifics of how and why I ended up running my life for thirty years on autopilot are unique to me, setting long term goals and hunkering down to drive for them (without serious midcourse corrections) isn’t unusual.  I’ve met many careerists who have their “eyes fixed firmly on the prize,” taking every conceivable step they can imagine to enhance their chances of hitting their goal – often at the expense of family, relationships, and even their own health.

And their employers love it.

This type of employee – often termed “ambitious” – work long hard hours, make numerous personal sacrifices, and are focused on achievement at the expense of virtually everything else.  They also are generally more political, harder to satisfy, and at times push their bosses to the point of distraction.  Despite the negatives, on balance they are generally seen as “valuable assets.”  Nothing is done to discourage their view of the importance of “career” nor to curb their self-destructive behaviors.  Often company rules, norms, and processes are deliberately arranged to encourage progressively deeper commitment of careerists to the company, even though few have a realistic chance of achieving their ultimate goals.

It’s a conspiracy of deception that begins with self-deception.

Check your goals

The problem with this variety of blind ambition is that it often goes on for years, if not decades, without being reviewed, checked, or critically evaluated.

When I was fired for the first and only time, the discord I experienced was profound.  But rather than sparking reflection, the event caused had me immediately leaping into another, similar position.  What I should have done was to “come up for air.”  I should have spent a period of time emotionally “processing” the job loss, then critically examining if I still wanted to push for the goal I’d set when I was 17.

But I didn’t.  The familiar corporate career ladder was comforting.  It was what I knew.  And by continuing to pursue it, I was avoiding the difficult work of re-examining my life from basic principles.  I avoided asking questions like:  What did I really enjoy in life?  What did I desperately want to avoid?  What did I want for a legacy?  Was my thirty-year-old goal still relevant?

Surprise, surprise!

When I finally got around to pondering these questions (and others) I’d been in the new job half a year.  I hated it.  I had made my way back in the “rat race,” and it was obvious I no longer belonged.  This time however, I was about to get out.

I started spending an hour each morning in my office with the door shut.  During that time, I forced myself to contemplate these weighty subjects – happiness, satisfaction, duty, my suitability to the kind of work I was doing, and what I enjoyed before I found myself on the corporate hamster wheel.  I realized that in many ways I was a round peg trying to fit myself into a square hole.

I also realized that the job I’d been aiming at was a myth.  I really wanted to be a “Captain of Industry” but even CEOs have masters to satisfy, politics to play, and spend much of their time on things they don’t necessarily enjoy.  I had the data to realized this years earlier, but had been studiously ignoring it.  In short, my “goal” wasn’t worthy of the effort or sacrifice I was giving it.

Then one afternoon, while complaining about everything that made me unhappy at work, my wife said the words that finally sent me over the edge:  “I don’t know why you still work there.”

Why indeed?

In reality, I was there because I had no idea what I wanted to do.  It was a default, and I was now simply going through the motions.  Finally, I made the critical decision – to get out – but where “to go” was still an enigma.  My morning sessions became an exploration of alternative futures.  I planned a year-long sabbatical to investigate these and anything else that serendipitously came along.

I didn’t have any illusions about returning to my current position – I knew there was no chance my employer would hold the job open for me.  Besides, I hated it.  Eventually, I quit with little more than a list of possible activities and occupations I wanted to consider.

Warning:  Shameless plug for my latest novel, EMPOWERED.  You can pre-order it for the Kindle here.

Freedom

The change was liberating.  For the first time in over three decades, the world was an full of possibilities.  While a few directions had closed simply because of age, training, and family obligation, there were literally hundreds of options.  I began investigating them, allowing my direction to be determined by the weight of my emotions (Did I really enjoy it?  Was it satisfying?  Would I like the daily tasks, or quickly become bored?  Did it fit with my family’s needs for my time?  What about my obligation to provide?).

Within a couple of years, I’d reinvented my life.  And while my new self wasn’t as financially rewarding as my life as a corporate climber (although one hit novel could change all that,) it did deliver satisfaction and happiness.

Someone recently asked me if there was anything I missed from corporate life.  The answer was a surprising “yes.”  I missed the social interaction, and the friendships (both real and even the friendship- of-convenience).  But the list of things I don’t miss is much longer.  I don’t miss obsessively checking my email at all hours.  I don’t miss disrupted vacations.  I don’t miss being away from home a hundred nights a year.  I don’t miss gigantic “dog-and-pony-show” presentations.  I don’t miss the dirty politics.

Mostly, I don’t miss feeling like every word, action, and decision are under a microscope, where they are examined by a boss in an attempt to extract and interpret – mostly searching for negatives.

In short, I traded up and can’t imagine ever going back.

Conclusion

Every career-oriented professional owes themselves a regular re-examination of goals – and not just a superficial “yeah, sounds good” flip of the hand, but a deep dive where fundamental motivations and satisfactions are compared to the path they are currently on and the reality of the job or role they are aiming toward.  My only regret was not forcing myself to do this at age 30 or 35, rather than waiting until I was 48.

While you might not have the same epiphany I did, you owe it to yourself to make sure you’re happy with the direction of balance of your career.  Don’t ignore feelings of fear, frustration, and stress – they’re the tell-tale signs that something might be wrong.  Think big.  These decisions are all about family, legacy, and your personal satisfaction.  And do it now -- the longer you wait, the more your alternate future is limited.  34.4

Other Recent Posts:

• In the End, You Must Answer to Yourself
• Fast, Good, or Cheap – Pick Two
• They Don’t Call it “The Bleeding Edge” for Nothing
• Dying By the Sword
• It’s Your Money, Not Theirs
• Foretelling the Future
• Fighting Back

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My Linkedin profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

To the right is the cover for DELIVERABLES.  This novel features a senior manager approached by government officials to spy on his employer, concerned about how a "deal" the company is negotiating might put critical technical secrets into the hands of enemies of the United States.  Of course, things are not exactly as it seems....

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

In the End, You Must Answer to Yourself

Did I do a good job?  Was it an example of my best work?  Did I make errors?  If so, how could I have handled them differently?

These kinds of questions are likely to run through your head quite often when you occupy a managerial position.  Management is an inexact science, one that seems to invite backward reflection and second-guessing.  Rehashing of your decisions are a normal, and often useful, exercise.

But not all reflective questions are healthy, even if they may sometimes be necessary.  At the top of my list:  How were my actions perceived by others in the organization, particularly by those in more senior management positions?

Perception becomes reality

Alas, you could be the most skilled managerial practitioners on the planet, and unless those capabilities are recognized by those higher up in the organization, it will likely do you no good.  To be sure, results count.  You might be tempted to belief that over the long haul they will separate good managers from mediocre.  But so much of what managers do falls into the realm of “not measurable” that perceptions almost always become critical to your success.

Even the measurable stuff can have an asterisk next to it.

Ever hear of a manager being described as the recipient “good luck” or “fortunate timing?”  While senior management is happy to have good results, they will still interpret your role in obtaining them.

Which implies that perhaps you should proactively “spin” the situation, yourself.  But should you?

In my experience, the management of perceptions is a necessary, but uncomfortable, process that must be attended to if you want to succeed in many corporate jobs.

Stress and strain

I worked for a boss who was continuously assessing every manager working for him through the lens of performance perceptions.  Since he continued to cultivate contacts throughout my organization – people some would term these contacts “spies” – I felt like I could never let down my guard.

Every moment I spent on the job was a source of potential problems.  Every decision I made was the subject of second-guessing.  Every day was another act on the stage of our company’s “business theater.”

In the beginning, it was a game.  Could I figure out how he was gathering his information?  Could I spin situations to my advantage?  Could I avoid missteps?

After a couple of years, it became stressful.  The stakes were rising as I tried to avoid any mistakes (which is, I believe, probably impossible).  Toss in a little guilt or regret for each and every error – no matter how small – and you can imagine how the tension mounted.

Eventually, I came to understand that I couldn’t obsessively manage each and every situation.  As that realization occurred, I also passed from stress into irritation.  Why should I have to examine every word and action through a microscope?  It was limiting, and inefficient, and downright annoying.

Epiphany

Eventually, I realized I really needed to satisfy myself.  Was I taking the right actions?  Was I handling issues professionally and adeptly?  Was I performing well? – not based on anyone else’s perceptions, but based on my own understanding of the challenges of the job and my responses to it.

While it wasn’t safe to completely ignore spin, perception, and interpretation, I didn’t need to linger over every gory detail.

This was good, because just like every one of my predecessors, I realized that “perception management” can only carry you so far.  Eventually, things happen that no amount of spin can explain or offset.

By that time I was in a business unit that had circumstances stacked against it – economic disaster, bad acquisitions, errors in the selection of key managers, overly ambitious projects.  Some of those problems simply happened, others I inherited, and a few were mistakes of my own making.  I took the actions I thought would be best to navigate through a period of what would certainly be poor financial performance.  I didn’t take my foot off the gas.  I definitely didn’t throw in the towel, either by abandoning ship or waiting for the ax to fall.

But it was too little, too late.

After months of struggle, I was eventually fired.

Regrets?

After working through my initial feelings, I began to realize that I’d been faced with my personal version of “The Perfect Storm.”  I’m not sure anyone would have had the skills and foresight to successfully navigate through those troubled times.

One thing was sure – once I was out of the company, I didn’t need to satisfy that boss any longer.  His perceptions no longer mattered.

I was left with my own evaluation of the circumstances surrounding my termination.  Did I handle each problem that came up with skill and intelligence?  Did I make mistakes, and if so, were they predictable and preventable?  Did I continue to work at it all the way to the end, fighting to make the right calls and moves to improve the business?

Fundamentally, I was asking myself about my own self-worth.

Conclusion

Perception can easily become your boss’s reality, and you need to pay attention to it.  At the same time, try to avoid getting your own self-worth wrapped up in his or her assessment.  If you can’t, you’re putting the evaluation of your value in the hands of a person who isn’t living the situation, and likely has other agendas (like protecting themselves, even at your expense.)

Make sure that you can be proud of your own actions, that they reflect the best of your capabilities, drive, and perceptivity.

That way, no matter what actions others may take, you’ll know you can be proud of the way you comported yourself.  34.3

Other Recent Posts:

• Fast, Good, or Cheap – Pick Two
• They Don’t Call it “The Bleeding Edge” for Nothing
• Dying By the Sword
• It’s Your Money, Not Theirs
• Foretelling the Future
• Fighting Back
• Control Your Contempt, Sir! – Part 2
• Control Your Contempt, Sir! – Part 1

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My Linkedin profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

To the right is the cover of the Audiobook version of INCENTIVIZE.  This novel is about a U.S. based mining company, and criminal activity that the protagonist (a woman by the name of Julia McCoy) uncovers at the firm's Ethiopian subsidiary.  Her discover sets in motion a series of events that include, kidnapping, murder, and terrorism in the Horn of Africa.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

Fast, Good, or Cheap – Pick Two

The VP of Engineering had this quote written in the upper right corner of his whiteboard when I took over as general manager.  I took it as a challenge directed at me – why couldn’t I have all three?  Wasn’t simultaneous improvement along all three dimensions a reasonable measure of our team’s abilities?

What I didn’t realize at the time was the message was really about risks and risk management.  Push too far along multiple dimensions, and something was likely to break – and this rule of thumb, I later learned, was not limited to new product development projects.

Of swine and nuts

We all love stories about heroic leaders who advanced their organizations by leaps and bounds.  They do the seemingly impossible, accomplishing amazing feats through inspiration, insight, and courage.  Often their success requires a leap of faith or the accepting of major, game-changing risks.  Their efforts successfully transform their organizations.

Impressive?  Absolutely, but just remember that history is written by the winners.

There are scores of failures littering the backwaters of organizations for every one of these daring success stories.  We never hear about the managers that crashed and burned in similar attempts.

In his book Fooled by Randomness, author Nassim Taleb explores how investment advisors can appear to be oracles when in truth they are simply lucky.  There is clearly a similar phenomenon existing in leadership-worship circles.  As the old saying goes, “even a blind pig sometimes finds an acorn.”

The art of management

Sure, you might get lucky.  Most of us do at one time or another.  But if you roll the dice on long odds too often, it will catch up with you.

Most of us can compensate for the high risks in “stretch” projects when we’re in an individual contributor role – by putting in over-the-top, extraordinary effort.  Theoretically, my next book could be out in a month with better writing, fewer errors (there are always a few), and a “knock your socks off” cover.  I know I could make that happen through the investment of massive amounts of.  When you’re entire future is on the line, sleep can be highly overrated.

What works for individuals, however, is much more difficult to pull off with a group.

When you step into management you are become dependent on other people, and the bigger the job the more dependent you are on their efforts.  While occasionally inspiring extraordinary effort is a part of the management task, you have to recognize careers are marathons, not sprints.  If you treat every day like a 100 meter dash, your team will tire and eventually either leave or slow down.  And your career “challenge” may not constitute an “emergency” to your subordinates, no matter how much you try to make it do so.

Which means you need to carefully select the projects and programs you accept with an eye toward stretching – but not breaking – the members of your team.

This is a throwback image -- the original cover of LEVERAGE when it was first published in 2010.

Take on too much risk in the form of tight schedule, challenging performance goals, and/or unrealistic cost targets, and the chances of failure quickly begin to soar.

A project dilemma

This example, though fictional, reflects my real-world experiences.  In the novel I’m currently penning (with a working title of Right Sized), Chris, the protagonist in the story, takes on a project to produce a new product that is a leap forward in accuracy, costs roughly the same as current competitive offerings, and is completed along an uncomfortably tight timetable.  He recruits a project team with all the “right skills” and puts in a project manager with a seemingly stellar track record.

The project manager initially tells him (and the higher-ups) exactly what they want to hear – that the team is making amazing progress and the project is coming in on time and under budget while still meeting the challenging performance requirements.  Based on this, Chris is promoted and his career seems to be on a trajectory that will inevitably take him to the most senior of positions.

But there’s trouble lurking below the surface.  The project manager’s skills have been overestimated (just like Taleb’s investment managers), and the project itself is far too risky.  After a period of time spend covering up bad news, things can no longer be contained.  The project craters bring with it the kind of career consequences you’d likely expect.

New product, new market, new technology

My own, personal donnybrook of this type involved the development of a chemical sprayer.  The business I was managing at the time produced and sold an irrigation system that sometimes delivered chemicals to agricultural fields, although it was a market we really knew nothing about.

The objective of the project was to add a concentrated chemical sprayer to our existing base product.  Success required the development of a new chemical delivery method and a new technology to make it all work.

Leaving out the blow-by-blow details, suffice it to say there were problems along every conceivable dimension.  The product itself experienced repeated field failures during testing, and several key performance criteria were not well understood when the design was developed.  The market economics of the product were completely different than our research estimates, making the product far too expensive.  And our ignorance of the delivery technology made it unlikely we would be able to clear regulatory hurdles – particularly when the mainstream competitors realized what we were up to and flexed their muscles.

The project was abandoned after several years of effort and several million dollars of spending.  I escaped only because I’d inherited this high risk flop.

Looking back, I realized there were far too many risks involved in the project and a prudent manager would have never taken it forward.

Unfortunately that lesson didn’t sink in because I continued to take on risky projects until one of my own devising finally crashed and burned, taking my job with it.

Conclusion

Leadership might be (partially) about heroic victories, but a prudent manager knows to assess risks before sending their team off to achieve “mission impossible.”  Make sure to carefully lay out the major risks in any project or program – too many “news” or too extreme “stretch goals” and you would be well advised to take a pass.  34.2

Other Recent Posts:

• They Don’t Call it “The Bleeding Edge” for Nothing
• Dying By the Sword
• It’s Your Money, Not Theirs
• Foretelling the Future
• Fighting Back
• Control Your Contempt, Sir! – Part 2
• Control Your Contempt, Sir! – Part 1

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My Linkedin profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, and EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

To the right is the cover of LEVERAGE.  This novel explores the theft of sensitive DOD designs from a Minneapolis Tech Company, and the dangers associated with digging too deeply into the surrounding mystery.  The tale features first level manager, Mark Carson, and the struggle he experiences as he finds the resources of the corporation aligned against him.  Its sequel, PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES, was released in May of 2014.  A third book in the series, OUTSOURCED, is in the works.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

They Don’t Call it “The Bleeding Edge” for Nothing

I know that sexy new technology is tempting.  Believe me, I’ve been right there.  Ever hear of the Coleco Adam computer?  Yeah, I thought not.  I was an “early adopter” on that one.  How about Betamax?  Or Digital Audio Tape?  Or, more recently, QR codes?

These were all great ideas that failed to succeed – many because of problems in early roll-out and/or execution.  There are plenty of additional examples in the world of consumer electronics.  Apple Newton PDA, DIVX disposable discs, Intellivision, Laserdiscs – these are just a few examples.

The workplace abounds with similar scenarios, they just don’t get the same kind of press.  Some of the early point-and-click ERP systems are a prime example, where the system response rates became so slow that useability was virtually zero.

Warning:  A Blatant Plug.  You can pre-order the Kindle version of my latest Novel EMPOWERED now for delivery on October 12, 2014 (my birthday!)

Early can be good, but “first” rarely is

As a manager, you’ll be tempted by new technologies over and over again.  Salespeople will tell you how their new widget will transform your life, improve your team’s productivity, and make you a hero with the higher-ups.

Which is all probably true – if the widget works flawlessly.

Unfortunately, if this is the first application that is rarely the case.

Back in the early 80’s I worked on an automation project utilizing early versions of machine (computer) visions systems.  At the time, computing power was barely at the point where digital images could be acquired and processed fast enough to keep up with high-speed, automated production lines.

But it was clunky, to say the least.  Basic problems with image-processing techniques meant that it was difficult to exclude visual noise and tricky to find edges.  In addition, the devices were programmed in an arcane language that was hard to learn and even harder to debug.

I spent weeks trying to get the system to recognize the outside edges of a radiator core, and then pass dimensional information to a robot.  The idea was to pick up the radiator and deposit it to a conveyor with the high degree of accuracy needed for the next process step (soldering).  Eventually, I was able to simulate the operation off-line, but it was still glitchy.  Eventually, the senior engineer on the project (wisely) found another way to skin this cat – one that didn’t involve machine vision systems.

An early version of the "Empowered" Cover.

Had we stuck with the original solution, sexy though it might be, I would have had to move my desk to the control panel for a good year to solve all the problems that would have come up.

Bigger risks equal bigger successes – and failures

One of my employers had an automated production line that was the envy of the industry.  It produced a large variety of products using the least expensive materials, and did so with a very small amount of labor.

The line, the envy of the industry, was someone’s amazing success from many years ago.  When I began digging into the production line’s history however, in its early years it was anything but the resounding “win” it ultimately became.  Those early years were plagued by tooling breakage, alignment problems, material inconsistencies, inadequate inspection techniques, and a host of reliability problems.  All of these had roots in a project that was on the bleeding edge of technology in several areas.

I’m sure (although I never confirmed) there were careers wrecked on the rocks of this project.

Of course, by the time I was studying the line, it was considered the key to our success.  The problem was that it covered only the smallest end of our product size range.  The middle and large sized product was produced exactly the same way as our competitors did it, and as a result was relatively unattractive.

I smelled an opportunity to change the game, moving the basic principles of the small product production facility into the midsized (and perhaps later, large) product offerings.  It would provide us a competitive advantage that would shift share our direction.  And it would pay for itself in short order.

Unfortunately, we needed significant changes to the manufacturing process – the old process couldn’t be scaled up in several areas, particularly the welding process.  After searching around, one of my engineers found a new-ish welding technique used in shipbuilding, one we thought was the perfect solution.

The problem was it had never been used in the way we proposed.  It required nearly perfect presentation of the parts to the welding equipment – theoretically possible, but challenging to do with such large parts.

In short, it was on the bleeding edge.

To make a long story short, the new welding process was initially a disaster.  Delivery was seriously delayed, and when the equipment was finally installed, the process had major problems.  We spent months diagnosing issues and altering tooling, equipment, and processing methods, making baby steps with each change.

Another "Empowered" Cover Candidate.

What have you done for me lately?

Alas, most corporations have limited patience when it comes to implementation of such projects.  Because I’d failed to properly anticipate the added time and expense of bleeding edge technology, the project fell far behind schedule, ran significantly over budget, and wasn’t even close to its productivity targets.

It became a major contributor to me losing that job.

Five years later, the line actually runs at close to the originally expected speeds, with good quality and acceptable labor and maintenance costs.  In another five years, I expect it will be viewed just like the small product analog – a major asset and a key part of the company’s competitive advantage.

Conclusion

You might be able to introduce bleeding edge technology, but do so only if senior management understands the risks and has the patience to bear the ups and downs of implementation.  A safer plan is simply to let others pioneer things, adopting them quickly once the bugs have been worked out.  You can make sure you aren’t on the bleeding edge by meticulously checking references and/or running a smaller scale “demonstration” project prior to going for the goal line.  34.1

Other Recent Posts:

• Dying By the Sword
• It’s Your Money, Not Theirs
• Foretelling the Future
• Fighting Back
• Control Your Contempt, Sir! – Part 2
• Control Your Contempt, Sir! – Part 1
• They Aren’t Really Your Friends

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My Linkedin profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, and PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

Here is the Black & White version of the cover for my latest novel, EMPOWERED, which will be released in Kindle and paperback versions on October 12, 2014.  EMPOWERED is the story of newly hired division president Colin Jensen, and his investigation into unexplained performance problems in the shipping department of TruePhase Chemicals division.  The story is set in Indianapolis during a blizzard, and takes its inspiration from the television series Undercover Boss.  As always, there are a few plot twists that I hope will surprise and entertain the reader.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations.

Dying By the Sword

Poetic justice.  It’s the stuff of films and legends.  We all love to see the killer killed, the con-man conned, and the thief ripped-off.  And this attitude carries over into our careers as well.  Who doesn’t cheer when the embezzler gets arrested, the coaster (finally) gets fired?

Or when the aggressive corporate politician is taken out by another company shark?

We’ve all witnessed it.  We’ve all stood on the sidelines and alternately cheered when the obnoxious political manipulator takes the “walk of shame.”  And I’ll bet we’ve rarely (if ever) felt sorry for them.

When you enter into your employer’s political life, you’re setting yourself up to be on the receiving end of political tactics.  The more vicious the tactics in which you engage, the more likely you are to be on the receiving end of a nasty political ploy (roll images of observers cheering on your aggressor from a safe distance.)

He who lives by the sword, dies by it… right?

Click on the image to see how you can get a copy of this business politics primer

Sitting on the sidelines?

I’ve gone over the classification of political orientations in my white paper “Power and Politics in Corporations” as well as in my book “NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS,” so this is an abbreviated overview.

Many people think (hope?) that they can escape involvement in the politics swirling through their employer’s organizations – and to a degree, they can.  I call these people “Avoiders” because they try to avoid political entanglements and seem to assume that by staying out, the company’s aggressive politicians will leave them alone.

In my experience it’s just a matter of time before they are impacted by some kind of political games-playing.  Politicians see Avoiders as “pawns,” and if a pawn stands between them and something they want, most aggressive politicians won’t hesitate to throw them under the bus.  Avoiders are typically oblivious of the risks until such an incident occurs, and afterward they feel victimized.

I guess they shoulda armed themselves

Political “Neutrals” at least understand what is going on, and are willing to play some form of political “defense.”  They tend to be survivors, flourishing in individual-contributor and lower managerial jobs.  Political power players tend to avoid a well-equipped Neutral, if they can get what they want by rolling over an Avoider.

The ones we like to see “get theirs” are the “Power Players.”  These politicians aggressively use political tactics to get what they want, and often don’t seem at all bothered by how they injure others.  Being a Power Player can definitely help you climb the ladder.  In fact, most of the senior managers and all the CEOs I’ve known fall into this category (some being much more aggressive than others.)

When you join the Power Player ranks, you also have to expect to be targeted.  And if you’re out-maneuvered don’t expect any mourning.  Poetic Justice, after all.

A major Power Player takes a fall

Late in my career, I was ambushed by one of the most adept Power Players I’ve ever come across.  He arranged to embarrass me during a difficult group presentation, and once he had me on the ropes I didn’t get a breather for more than two hours.

I was offended.  I felt wronged.  I was livid and was looking for sympathy and comfort.

I didn’t get any, and I didn’t really expect it.

I was deeply enough into political games-playing that most of the attendees at the meeting probably felt like I was getting what I deserved.  You know the old saying:  Play with fire and you’re likely to get burned.  It was a hard reality to face – being victimized and having the situation seen as “just deserts” – but one that kind of comes with the territory when you engage in politics above the Neutral level.

A year or two later, that particular Power Player made his biggest play to date – he put an ultimatum in front of the CEO.

It was his undoing.  He was engaging in a political ploy with high stakes, and he lost.  Within a few months, he had left the company and was “Pursuing Other Opportunities.”

Other than a few employees that were riding the Power Player’s updraft, there seemed to be little sadness over his departure.  No one threatened to quit if he wasn’t reinstated (nor was there any actual quitting).  In discussions I had with his subordinates, no one seemed upset that he was gone.

They saw it as Poetic Justice.

Conclusion

When you play political games, you are much more likely to become the victim of a political ploy.  When you suffer consequences as a result, you can’t expect people to be outraged or saddened on your behalf.  33.6

Other Recent Posts:

• It’s Your Money, Not Theirs
• Foretelling the Future
• Fighting Back
• Control Your Contempt, Sir! – Part 2
• Control Your Contempt, Sir! – Part 1
• They Aren’t Really Your Friends
• Dangerous (Inside) Competition

To find other blog posts, type a keyword into this search box, or check my Blog Index…

My Linkedin profile is open for your connection.  Click here and request to connect.  www.linkedin.com/in/tspears/

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in my blog posts, check out some of my other writing.

Novels:  LEVERAGE, INCENTIVIZE, DELIVERABLES, HEIR APPARENT, and PURSUING OTHER OPPORTUNITIES.  Coming on October 12, 2014:  EMPOWERED.

Non-Fiction:  NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS

Shown here is the cover of NAVIGATING CORPORATE POLITICS my non-fiction primer on the nature of politics in large corporations, and the management of your career in such an environment.  This is my best-selling book.  Chocked full of practical advice, I've had many managers and executives say they wished they'd read it early in their career.

My novels are based on extensions of 27 years of personal experience as a senior manager in public corporations