|
| |
Don't choose procedures over people
Nov 22, 2000
Tim
Landgrave
As technologists, our natural inclination when faced
with a problem is to flowchart it, put a procedure in place, and then monitor
compliance to make sure the problem doesn't happen again. Unfortunately, over
time we build up so many layers of procedures, rules, and "case law" to handle
situations that our people almost lose the ability for independent
thought.
Our most creative employees become shackled by the rules, and
the least-valued ones use the rules to cover their collective derrières. In
consulting with companies who grapple with decisions regarding the
implementation of new technology, I've discovered a corresponding inability to
deal with change based on the institutionalization of years of rules and
procedures.
These companies have experienced an interesting phenomenon
when setting aside their "operations bible" and implementing instead a system of
guiding principles. The CIO of one of these firms likened it to taking up the
carpet in an old home, sanding off the dirt and grime from the wood floor
underneath, and then standing back and appreciating the beautiful hardwood
finish that had been covered over by years of neglect.
In the discussions
on principle versus procedure, three simple principles keep popping up. Let's
look at each in detail.
Principle #1: Fix the
problem, not the blame
Companies waste hundreds of hours each year
attempting to figure out "who did it" instead of trying to figure out "what went
wrong." I'm constantly surprised even in my company—where I preach the "fix the
problem" mentality—by the instinct of managers to start problem resolution by
asking each individual to detail what they did instead of their impression of
what happened, why it happened, and how to prevent it from happening in the
future. Sometimes in our haste to prevent bad things from happening, we just
forget that people make mistakes and must have a chance to learn from
them.
In a prior company I owned, an overzealous employee asked to be
given the responsibility for configuring ISDN connections between a company's
geographically dispersed offices. The ISDN routers were supposed to have been
configured only to make a connection when there was traffic to
transfer.
Unfortunately, the employee also configured NetBIOS on the
routers, forcing all the routers to "ping" each other every 30 seconds. Luckily,
the long distance company called us the Monday after our weekend install to
inform us that all four locations had been making 6-second long distance phone
calls (the most expensive kind) for the entire weekend—for a total bill of
$7,500.
The employee informed me of the problem then went to his desk,
packed up his belongings, and came into my office expecting me to accept his
resignation before "I fired him." I asked him if he knew how to fix the problem,
and he responded that he had already fixed the problem and documented it for
future engineers. I then explained to him that I didn't want a future employer
to get the benefit of the education I had paid for (about $7,500 worth), so he
should go put his things back and get to work.
As word spread about the
company's attitude about fixing problems instead of fixing blame, an amazing
thing happened—people were much more willing to assume responsibility and
initiative. They knew they were allowed to fail and to learn from their
mistakes.
Principle #2: Praise in public, criticize in
private
It's very important to give employees specific feedback about
their successes and failures. But in most cases you do more harm than
good by exposing your employees to criticism in a public forum.
Praise,
on the other hand, is only valuable in public. If you choose only to
praise your people in private, they won't believe that you believe what you're
telling them. Otherwise, why wouldn't you want everyone to know about those
achievements?
You should also note that I chose my words carefully when
imploring you to limit your criticism in a "public forum." In most companies,
the new "public forum" is not the company meeting but the e-mail
message.
I recently worked with a senior manager who chose to fire off
caustic e-mails to people after choosing "Reply All" on e-mail messages. What
the manager didn't realize is that her tone and demeanor in the e-mail messages
didn't communicate her point about the problem. She was simply dismissed as a
"flamer" in e-mail.
Other managers took my advice of sending two
messages—a private message suggesting ways an individual could improve his or
her methods or outcomes and, if warranted, a separate "Reply All" message
praising the individual for their effort, concern for the company, attention to
detail, or some other positive element of their behavior. These managers are
almost universally praised for their personnel management skills. The end
result: People will want to please you if you follow this
principle.
Principle #3: Make rules for the 98
percent of people who do the right thing, not the 2 percent who do the wrong
thing
Whether I'm working with companies to design their public Web
sites or their private human resource systems, I'm constantly amazed at their
interest in preventing fraud at the expense of serving customers or
employees.
You can determine whether a company will be successful over
the long term by placing a simple call to their customer service department and
attempting to return a product. If the company makes you jump through hoops to
return a product you're dissatisfied with, you can be sure that it won't be
around for long. The company's desire to keep "bad customers" from defrauding it
also keeps "good customers" from wanting to do business with it.
All the
company really needs to know is whether it could have done something differently
that would have prevented the return. For example, did the company explain how
the product works in order to ensure that it met the user's anticipated need? I
don't mind giving a company good, solid information about how to minimize
returns and to get additional sales opportunities, as long as there's no doubt
in my mind that the company's going to take back a product I'm not satisfied
with.
Bottom line: Customers will do more business with you if you make
it easy to do so by focusing on serving the majority of customers who want to do
business with you instead of focusing on creating systems to penalize the
minority who will find a way to take advantage of you regardless of what systems
you put in place.
Living on principle
We
all recognize the necessity for procedures and process in areas of the business
that have specific metrics attached to financial performance or technical
requirements. I'm not suggesting that we can't survive with structure. On the
contrary, I believe by freeing people up to make intelligent decisions based on
principle, they will appreciate and abide by the procedures that remain because
they will recognize them as necessary and not arbitrary.
What would you add? |
What principles would you add to Tim Landgrave's list? Send them to us in an e-mail or start a discussion below. |