For a couple of years now, I have hosted an event called “Pizza with the Prez.” Once a month or so, I have lunch with a different workgroup without their supervisors being present. This provides an opportunity for me to get unfiltered feedback. It’s one of my favorite activities.
The further you move up the chain-of-command, the less likely it is that you will get the truth. Information is filtered, spun, and managed. People either tell you what they want you to know or think you want to hear.
This is why, for example, Czar Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia, was caught by surprise at the communist revolution. While his generals were brutally suppressing dissent, they were telling him that civil unrest was the result of foreign influence and that his own people loved him. He was caught by surprise when he was forced to abdicate. I’m sure he was even more surprised when the Bolsheviks executed him and his entire family.
This demonstrates the difficulty of getting good information at the top. If you are a supervisor, manager, or executive, you must develop some way of keeping the lines of communication open. You have to provide a pipeline for unfiltered feedback. “Pizza with the Prez” is one of the ways I do this.
Usually, I have ten to twelve people join me for lunch in the boardroom. After a few icebreakers, I always ask them two questions: (1) what do you like about Thomas Nelson and want to see us continue? and (2) what do you not like about Thomas Nelson and want to see us stop doing? Although we only schedule an hour of time together, it’s always a challenge to end on time. I’ve been amazed at how open people are and how many good ideas they have.
I have also noticed a recurring theme: most people’s frustration at work is inflicted by the company’s leaders. Ouch! These workers love their colleagues. They love the company’s mission. They express appreciation for the way communication has improved in the last few years. But they continue to be frustrated by leaders who unwittingly (perhaps) impede their productivity.
Here are the four most common complaints I hear:
- Managers call too many meetings. Many of them are a waste of time. The subject matter could easily be handled by e-mail. Even those that should be called last twice as long as is necessary. This is because they don’t have a clear idea of what they want to accomplish or a specific agenda to get them there.
- Managers are often late to their own meetings. Since they called the meeting, the other attendees can’t start without them. As a result, they waste a lot of time waiting for the leader to show up. This really makes them feel disrespected.
- Managers don’t really understand the work process. They also don’t appreciate the amount of time it takes to complete certain tasks. As a result, they sit on or slow-walk approvals and bog down the whole process. By the time the worker gets a response, they are in crisis mode. If a deadline is missed, they get blamed. This creates a lot of unnecessary stress on everyone.
- Managers are not responsive. They don’t answer their e-mails. They don’t return their voice mail messages. Workers often feel like they are sending e-mails into a black hole. By the time the manager does respond, the issue is resolved or it has escalated to a new level of urgency. Why can’t they just respond more quickly? How in the world did they get promoted!
If you are reading this post, more than likely, you are not guilty of these behaviors. But, if you are, I hope you’ll take a moment and try to see how frustrating this can be to your people. You may not be able to change your boss, but you can change yourself and provide a better environment for the people you are leading.
Technorati Tags: leadership, meetings, productivity
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Unfortunately, I’ve seen all of these frustrations many times.
When I was in the National Guard, the senior leaders would call a meeting to discuss next month’s drill. The meeting was held at the end of the last day (after five) and all non-commissioned officers had to attend. The meeting often ran three hours because it was so disorganized and chaotic. The senior leaders, who were fulltime Guard, never seemed to get that some of the people had to drive three or four hours to get home and then get up at five the next morning to go their regular job.
My brother ran into the same thing at a company he worked for. He ended up showing them how he felt with his feet.
I liked this article and thought it very helpful, for the most part. However, two things come to mind.
1. If you correct something in the day-to-day operation of one of your department heads, will he or she not suspect that you got your information, and the need to make the correction, from the person in his department who attended your “Pizza With the Prez?” Would that not, perhaps, cause a strained relationship between that department head and his worker?
I. In your article HOW TO GET YOUR BOSS’S APPROVAL, January 22, 2007, you stated:
“1. Meet your boss’s needs. This is the first and most important key to getting to ‘yes.’ Everything else in this article is a footnote to this point.”
“Face it: no one cares about your needs. Okay, maybe I’m overstating it. A few people care. But, certainly everyone is more interested in having their needs met than yours. That’s just reality. The sooner you accept it, the faster you will get to ‘yes.’”
2. That seems to be somewhat in conflict with the second paragraph of this blog:
“The further you move up the chain-of-command, the less likely it is that you will get the truth. Information is filtered, spun, and managed. People either tell you what they want you to know or think you want to hear.”
I would like to know your response.
Keep the blogs coming, especially the information on “leadership.” Of course, most of what you have said, that I have read, has to do with some aspect of leadership.
EVERYTHING RISES AND FALLS ON LEADERSHIP – Lee Roberson
Blessings,
Lindsay Terry
Lindsay,
In response to your first question, you are absolutely correct. I have to protect the source of the comment. And, they are not specific about which boss. We don’t name names. We are simply trying to address cultural issues we see and then I can speak to them generally.
With regard to your second comment, I don’t quite understand the conflict you see. Could you elaborate?
Thanks,
Mike
Mike,
I suppose this could get a little complicated, but it seems, according to you comments (“Meet your boss’s needs. This is the first and most important key to getting to ‘yes.’), that if an employee went in to get an approval, he should first of all think,”How will this meet my boss’s need,” and not “How will this further the interest and effectiveness of the company?”
You would think that the two would be synonymous, but unfortunately that is not always the case. There are some employees that seem to have a greater vision for the company, and what is best for the company, than the boss.
If a boss is NOT able to see, after an employee’s very worthy, thoughtful proposal has been made, that “This is not exactly
what will help me, but it will, in fact, help the effective of the company,” then he has hindered the progress of the company.
I think a boss should be able to carefully weigh any proposal, not on the basis of, “First of all, how will this help me?” but, “How will this help or hinder the effectiveness of the company.”
On the other hand, I do agree that any boss wants to feel that his employees want to “help me meet the goals I have set for the company.”
Maybe I have misunderstood your premise, but those are the thoughts I had.
I think it is marvelous that you encourage the exploration of these matters.
Thanks for your time,
Lindsay
Although I am not high up the chain of command, I have worked with people high up the chain of command for a number of years. In my experience, employees sometimes do not communicate problems to their boss or upper-management because they feel that they do not want to bother that person with something which seems insignificant compared to everything else a leader has on his or her plate. Also, they do not want to be seen as a problem-bringer or as someone who always shares bad news with their boss.
And that’s why things get tricky when it comes to communicating annoyances and problems. On the one hand, I think that many bosses may feel that there are certain employees who DO seem to always be bringing trouble to your door (you may inwardly groan when you see an email from them pop up in your Inbox or when they catch you in the hallway). On the other hand, employees who notice issues and are not afraid to call them to their boss’s attention are a great partner to a busy boss, since they are in a position to notice the details that their supervisor may not have the opportunity or time to see.
I sometimes feel frustrated when it seems that employees complain reguarly about something but are unwilling to bring it to anyone’s attention because they feel that it is not important enough to bother their supervisor with. If it’s not that important, why complain about it at all?
There are a number of things that can be resolved quickly if the right people know about them. And that is why I urge people to use their good judgment and escalate the issues that are really bugging them. Often it seems that things are not resolved because the right people don’t know about them, rather than because people are deliberately NOT doing something.
Once an issue has been communicated by an employee, it is then the responsibility of the leadership of a company to explain either the steps they will take to resolve this issue or to explain why resolution is not urgent or possible at this time. Some issues seem to fester because no one is willing to just tell employees, “This is the way things are and they are not going to change. Accept it, and move on.”
As you have mentioned in many of your posts, Mike, it all boils down to effective, two-way communcation.
Lisa,
Great input!
Thanks,
Mike
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