Bill Gallagher explains why managers keep doing their reports' work and offers a five-step fix: apologize for overstepping, state the desired outcome as a KPI, post it visibly, review it regularly, and let your team own the leading indicators and actions.
Hi there. Bill Gallagher here. And I want to talk to you today about a conversation that I recently had with the CEO and a member of his leadership team that felt a little bit like Whack a Mole. I don't know. Do you know the game Whack a Mole? Whack a Mole is that game in like an arcade or a circus where a mole pops up out of the hole and you take the mallet and you smack it down and then another one pops up. Right. So another one, another one. And I think a lot of times in as leaders of the business, we feel like that with our team, and our leaders in turn, feel like that with their teams. So here's what I'm talking about. In this case, the leader was talking and trying to be helpful with the member of their leadership team in dealing with a problem, and they were offering suggestions. And one after another, those suggestions were rebuffed by this other member leadership team. And it kept going around and I couldn't quite get my hands on how to interrupt it or how to make a difference in the conversation for a while. But after some time, I realized that we were playing Whack a Mole. In fact, the issue was that the CEO was trying to do the job of the operations manager. So everything that he was offering or saying, the the operations manager had an issue with. Right. The problem was he was trying to do his job. And so what there is to do in a case like this is to recognize the condition that you're playing Whack a Mole and it's time to stop playing it. Your suggestions, your ideas are not helpful and the person is rebuffing them. What there is to do is to apologize, first of all, for doing their job and for holding them in a diminished way in your relationship, so relating to them as needing help so much when they didn't ask for it, or so on, and then to go to what you really need to accomplish at the end, what you're going for. In this case, it was achieving higher profitability and maximizing cash in a seasonal fluctuation. So we apologize for trying to do their job for them, and then we tell them what we really need, like what's the big outcome that you're out for? In this case, it was the operating profit within the unit and the cash burn rate. So you give them the big outgoing number. It could be the dollars spent for the period or something like that. Whatever it is, the gross profit, the net profit, whatever, you give them the ultimate lagging KPI. The outcome key, performance indicator that you're looking for. So we give them that number and we say, great, here's what I need you to do. And if you need any help or want to brainstorm any ideas, I'm all ears. For you obviously care about it, but you know how to do your job. So do what you need to do and figure out. Then you take that KPI and you add it to your dashboard. Now, your dashboard could be something complex or automated or whatever, or it could be as simple as a whiteboard where you note it. So you establish the KPI that you're really driving for the top leading ultimate outcome that this person needs to deal with. And then you put that somewhere visible like a dashboard. Then you add it to your rhythm. So whatever you're doing, your weekly meeting, your daily huddle, whatever kind of meeting you're doing, you want to add the checking back on how that's doing into the dashboard. Now a very powerful thing is also to let them establish some leading indicator of their activity or actions that are going to drive that so that you have certainty that they're going to hit that number. But you want to let them do their job and think that through a little bit. So that's really what there is. If you find yourself playing whack a mole, you're probably trying to do someone's job for them. So apologize for doing that job for them or trying to do that job. Tell them what you're trying to get to. Ultimately, in the end, give them the number that you're going for. Post that somewhere and then check back on it regularly. The key thing is to focus on a few things that you really care about and that really matter to you. All right, that's it. Hope it's helpful. If it is, please use it. Please send me a note on how you used it or what difference it made. Like it Share this if you think it would benefit someone else, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, YouTube.combillgallagher you can also find our podcast with weekly in depth discussions with thought leaders, CEOs, other coaches, authors, and so on. That's scaling up business podcasts you'll find in itunes or wherever you get yours. And scalingupbusiness.com is where you'll get more information on us. Thanks again.
