It's the employees, stupid!

"If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates,' then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny." (Dee Hock, VISA International)

Ever since I read this post over at Kathy Sierra's Creating Passionate Users, I've wanted to put my own spin on the "comma, stupid" subject. For managers, I think the ultimate "comma, stupid" is, "It's the employees, stupid!"

It can be difficult for a manager to take that perspective to heart; but those who can are the most effective leaders. Some managers - particularly as they rise higher through the ranks - can get distracted by what they think are higher priorities than taking care of their personnel. But really, nothing should rank higher than the care and well-being of the people who look to you for guidance, support, and career development.

There are some situations that practically beg managers to do the wrong thing by their employees. I like to call them the Pits of Employee Despair. But just as Westley and Buttercup figured out how to avoid the three terrors of the Fire Swamp, you can avoid these Pits of Employee Despair. Awareness is really the key; if you plan for these situations, you'll be able to skip right around them.

Pit of Employee Despair #1: The Annual Performance Review

First off, let's note that it's called an annual performance review and not annual performance news. The word "review" is the key here; it implies that you will be reviewing feedback that you provided throughout the year. You must never, under any circumstances, write something in a performance review that will be a surprise to the employee. If you make it a habit to hold onto little nuggets of performance issues until review time, then shame on you: you should quit your job and never manage people again. Seriously.

The no-surprise rule is even more critical if your company indulges in the Dilbertian nightmare known as the self-evaluation: if you ask your employee to review himself and then pass his self-assessment to you, it will be demoralizing in the extreme if your final version bears virtually no resemblance to his. And he'll resent you for it - with plenty of justification.

To avoid this pit, keep a dropfile on each employee. When s/he does something great, drop a note in the file. When s/he does something not-so-great, drop a note in the file. After a coaching session on a performance issue, drop a note in the file so you can refer back to it as needed to see if the issue was sufficiently corrected. Now, instead of scratching your head at year-end, trying desperately to remember contributions, stated goals, and problems, you've got it all at your fingertips. And please - don't nitpick here. If you addressed a development need during the year, and the employee made the progress you wanted, it doesn't need to be added to the review (unless it's to mention it as a positive, in that the employee made the necessary improvements).

And another thing: provide reviews in a timely manner. I've worked with people who didn't get their reviews until months after the due dates, and that's just unacceptable. Your employees deserve to know - before they get their first new payroll check - the amount of their merit increases.

For extra credit, give your employees copies of their performance reviews to read a day in advance of your meeting; this gives them the opportunity to note any questions or comments. It also gives them time to get their emotions under control before you meet (particularly important if it's not a great review).

Pit of Employee Despair #2: I'm Not Paying You to Think, Dear

Unless you've been blessed with the most self-motivated and experienced team ever, your employees probably come to you for guidance and direction from time to time (and if my experience is any indication, those requests will always come when you're in the middle of twenty different things). It's very easy, when you're swamped, to simply answer the question and move on. It gives the employee the information s/he needed to move forward, and it gets you back to what you were working on before. Everybody wins, right?

Well, not so much, as it turns out. Have you ever noticed that people will often figure out the answers themselves once they spend a little time talking through an issue? By spoonfeeding the answer (and remember, spoonfeeding is eeeeeeeeevil), you're depriving them of the chance to think for themselves. You're also depriving them of knowing that you trust them to come up with the right answers. And while spoonfeeding may take up less time right now, you'll save loads more time in the long run when your employees can make decisions on their own.

I know how easy it is to fall into this pit - I fight it all the time. In fact, just today one of my direct reports came to me asking for direction on how to approach an issue. I was - as usual - really busy, and my first response was to start giving her the answer. Two sentences in, though, I caught myself, stopped, and said, "What do you think?" She gave me her thoughts, which made perfect sense, so I asked her what she thought the next steps would be. She described a reasonable set of actions, so I then asked her to tell me who needed to take those steps. She identified resources, I told her that it sounded good to me, and off she went to implement her own plan. Whether she felt empowered or not, I can't say; but I'm pretty sure that the next time this particular issue comes up, she'll feel comfortable making the call without my input.

Avoid this pit by taking the time to ask the employee what he thinks; ask him what direction he thinks he should take. Ask him what decision he'd make if it were his call. And then - unless his suggestion is completely unreasonable - let him do it.

Pit of Employee Despair #3: The Incommunicado Effect

Yes, you probably have too much to do. Yes, that's unfair. Yes, it's a pain in the rump to try and keep up with e-mail. True, not every message requires an immediate response. True, you'd get nothing else done if you read every message the second it arrives in your inbox. I get it, believe me. But you can't just ignore messages from your direct reports (or your colleagues, for that matter) for weeks at a time. And if you think I'm exaggerating, think again. There have been messages that I've sent (to peers and, occasionally, superiors) that didn't get responses until several weeks later. When you don't respond to an e-mail in a timely manner, that does not send the message that you're terribly busy. Instead, it sends the following messages:

• You're rude
• You cannot manage your workload
• You don't care about [insert subject of message here]
• The person sending the message isn't important enough for you to care what he has to say

Not good, am I right? So what are you to do when you really are swamped, and can't catch up? How about the Out of Office message? Tailor it to say, "I'm in the office this week, but up to my knees in TPS reports; if your matter is time-sensitive, please call me or stop by my office. Otherwise, I'll get back to you no later than [insert drop-dead date here]." It's not the most elegant solution in the world, but at least then people can't say they were left hanging for a week.

Now, to get rid of the excessive e-mail messages, you have to stop relying on e-mail so much. I know, I know: it's faster than a phone call, it lets you say what you have to say and then you can put the issue aside until you get a response, you want to use it to cover your a$$... I know. But humor me for a moment. If you can get folks into the habit of phoning you (or, heaven forbid, dropping by for a face-to-face), you'll be able to eliminate a lot of e-mail clutter. Really, who needs a chain of 20 e-mail messages when a five-minute conversation would take care of business much more effectively? Note that this will only work if you can be trusted not to change your mind about what you said three days after that phone call.

Pit of Employee Despair #4: We value your contribution to the company... what was your name again?

You need to relate to your employees in a way other than "I, Tarzan; you, Jane." Just as you have a life and interests outside the office (you do have a life and interests outside the office, don't you?), so do your employees. Wouldn't it be nice to know a bit about both? Wouldn't it be helpful to know that Steve is going through a messy divorce, and that's why he's been a bit moody lately? And don't you think that your employees are going to feel much better about working with you if they feel as though you genuinely care about them as individuals rather than just their job descriptions?

Avoid this pit by engaging your employees in conversations about their real lives; take them out to lunch once in a while, and don't talk shop. If you know that someone is having a rough time, offer to let him use your office as a safe place to vent or get away for a few minutes. In other words, act like a human being.

Pit of Employee Despair #5: You screwed something up; I'm not going to tell you what, but you'd better fix it!

Few things bug me more than managers who have what I call vaporxpectations. Vaporxpectations are those undefined, uncommunicated requirements for success in the job. Folks, it's not realistic to tell an employee that her performance is below par if you never told her what par is to begin with. If you hire a new employee, give him no clear definitions of success vs. failure, provide him with no guidance as to what decisions he can make independently vs. what decisions you need to make, and said employee doesn't perform well, it's not his fault; it's yours.

Set clear expectations around performance metrics, target dates, communication, decisionmaking authority, etc. Meet regularly with your employees to fine-tune their performance. Tell them when they're doing well. Tell them when they're not doing well. Give them the very same courtesy you expect from your manager.

And if you should fall into one of the Pits of Employee Despair (and you probably will, sooner or later), then take corrective action. Go to the employee and apologize. Tell her what you did wrong, how you're going to fix it, and what you're going to do to keep from doing it again. Demonstrate the kind of accountability you want from your employees. Remember that you work for them just as much as they work for you - unless you want to be a tyrant, in which case I'd suggest you start watching your back.

Comments

[Anon]

I can one up the surprises on performance reviews. I had gone through the month long back and forth editing cycle with one boss and then minutes before the salary adjustment meeting with the CEO was handed a brand new and much less favorable review (that the CEO had commissioned a week before and kept secret until just before the meeting). Needless to say I didn't stick around that place for long.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anon,

I don't even know what to say; that is beyond rough. And in your shoes, I'd have looked for greener pastures as well. Thanks for commenting, and keep reading.

Kathleen

[Anon]

It was a medium sized startup (50 people). The newly hired CEO was an ex federal prosecutor who turned his "talents" on the employees. I was the first to run and six months later they were down to twenty people (maybe that was why they brought him in? dunno). Five years later they are still in business.

[pierre nb]

its encouraging to see something sensible written on management. its too bad that so many won't internalize any of it...