My overall philosophy with respect to managing government employees has developed over many years and has served me well. I have found that having such a philosophy provides both me and the employees with a sense of direction, consistency, and balance. My philosophy comprises a series of beliefs and key learnings that, when properly applied as a whole, greatly contribute to the development of a well-motivated and dedicated workforce that works together toward achieving a government organization’s mission.
This is an extremely important issue that all managers—whether in government or not—must come to grips with. The bottom line is that each of us must decide what we really believe about people. You can’t have it both ways because your approach is a reflection of your core values as a manager. If you have no core values, if you do not have any beliefs to guide you through difficult decisions, you will become a chameleon. That is, you will be forced to change according to the pressures of the day, with no overarching philosophy to guide you in your decision-making process. Without a clear pattern or philosophy, you are unlikely to know where you are going or get where you need to go. You will take a series of steps in a variety of directions with no apparent game plan.
Employees closely watch their managers because they are continuously looking for clues as to what they believe and for indications as to what they will do in the future. The employees all talk to each other on a regular basis and share notes, so they all form opinions about their managers’ beliefs.
Consistency is very important to employees, as everyone wants to work for managers who are relatively predictable. If managers are unpredictable and seem to operate by whim, employees will not understand the rules of behavior and will worry. If they don’t know what they need to do to succeed, or see others punished for minuscule infractions, they will constantly be afraid that they will not get ahead or that action will be taken against them. This kind of fear will undermine the organization because (1) people will be reluctant to share their true feelings; (2) they will become merely compliant and not engaged; and (3) they will do whatever it takes to survive. None of these unintended consequences will help the organization in the long term.
Thus, employees prefer a manager who acts according to a consistent set of core values (even if they don’t agree with them) over a manager who seems to blow with the wind. The manager who does not seem to have any set of beliefs will not be respected, because he or she doesn’t stand for anything. Such a manager will be seen as a caretaker, not as a leader; and once the leader loses the respect of the troops, it’s almost impossible to regain it.
So what do you believe about people? Many managers feel that people cannot be trusted. They believe that people are motivated only by money or by self-preservation, and thus will always place their best interests ahead of the organization. Under this philosophy, people must be controlled in order to prevent them from gaming the system or undermining the organization. This approach is common throughout the government and the private sector and can work reasonably well within limits. It requires many rules and regulations, numerous internal controls, a high degree of oversight, and tight supervision.
The problem with this cynical view is that people don’t feel valued, because they know they are being watched all the time. Under such a system, they will conform to the rules and will attempt to give management what it asks for. However, because this approach is so focused on compliance, and because the employees know they are not trusted, compliance is all that management tends to get. While compliance is important, what management does not get is commitment, nor does it get loyalty, both of which are essential for long-term high performance.
Overall Philosophy
Most People Want to Do a Good Job
The overwhelming majority of people that I’ve met during my career have wanted to do a good job. They are serious people who have come to work with energy and enthusiasm, and they desire to excel. Almost invariably, people begin their careers with excitement, a sense of great pride, and the belief that they will truly make a difference. However, as many of us have learned the hard way, time tends to transform the promise of unbridled youth into the reality of a long and often unfulfilled career. Too often, as their careers progress (or simply stagnate), we see the same people ultimately become cynical, lose their spark, and simply try to hang on.
We as managers want to try and prevent this attitude from pervading our organization. If not, we will spend more and more time trying to control our employees’ hearts and minds so they will do what we want them to do. Naturally, this approach will lead us in a downward cycle, because the more we try to control our employees, the more they will resent us for it. In essence, we will wind up operating with the same philosophy toward people that we described earlier.
If you start with the premise that most people want to do a good job, you still need solid systems and controls. Good management systems are crucial to an organization’s success. They provide stability and consistency and are the glue that holds an organization together and keeps it running smoothly. Internal controls ensure that you have good oversight, that problems are quickly identified and corrected, and that you are able to root out fraud. The difference between the two philosophies regarding your attitude toward people is in the application of the systems and controls. The former approach assumes that you need to constantly inspect what people do, because the people are generally the problem. The latter approach still requires periodic reviews of your employees’ work, but assumes that people are trying to do a good job and that variances in the system(s) (training, workflow, etc.) or poor management account for many of the day-to-day problems that occur.
This book starts and finishes with the premise that most people want to do a good job. This philosophy colors everything within the book. Although the book also spends a good deal of time explaining how to deal with difficult people and the difficult decisions that government managers always seem to face, it is absolutely imperative that the reader not lose sight of the bigger picture—that is, that most people want to do a good job. If you can retain this point of view during the most stressful employee relations issues, you will keep your perspective intact, and your subordinates will recognize that you do have a consistent set of core values. More importantly, they will grow to respect you and will give you their hearts and minds, not just compliance. By contrast, if you allow the relative handful of difficult people that you deal with to make you cynical, it will color your dealings with everyone else, and you will slowly but surely lose them, one way or another.
Accepting that people want to do a good job means that your organization has the potential to strive for greater success than a rival that only wants people to comply, and then hold them accountable. People who feel valued take a much greater degree of interest in their organization’s success and are willing to give much more than the minimum. Thirty-two years of experience in government has taught me that people will give you back whatever you invest in them.
I used to work with an employee who had a lot of personal problems. He was on drugs for many years and had multiple issues to deal with. Although his problems at times manifested themselves at the work, at heart I thought he was a good person who wanted to do a good job. As a result, I went out of my way to treat him well, and to make sure that he knew that I cared about him. He eventually became a very fine employee and was someone we frequently turned to for special projects. When I underwent back surgery, he sent me a card that said, “Stew, I hope this card finds you well and is not too mushy, but I wanted you to know how much you’ve changed my life for the better.” Because I believed in this individual, he wound up paying me back tenfold.
The more you treat people as valued employees who want to do a good job, the more they will do a good job. The more you treat them as replaceable parts, the more frequently they will check out mentally and the more you will have to replace them. In essence, your philosophy regarding your employees becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I choose to believe that employees want to do a good job because (1) that has been my experience; and (2) that is the prophecy I want to fulfill.
Most People Want to Be Part of a Winning Organization
Hand in hand with my philosophy about employees wanting to do a good job is my belief that employees want to be part of a winner. Nobody that I know wants to go to work each day and watch an organization go down the tubes. It is simply too depressing and does not profit anyone.
People associated with poor-performing organizations have a hard time getting ahead, and the fallout can last a long time. Even for people who have worked their whole career for a successful government organization, it’s the most recent assignment that seems to stick most closely. That is why so many people tend to bail out of an organization that is going downhill. If they can’t leave immediately, people will do everything they can to downplay their employer. Since they dread going to work, they will not mention the name of their agency unless asked, they will try and avoid talking about work whenever possible, and they will do everything they can to avoid visitors.
By contrast, people who work for a winning organization have an overwhelming sense of pride. They look forward to going to work, let everyone know whom they work for, take pride in talking about their organization’s accomplishments, and encourage people to visit their workplace. Obviously, since we all spend so much time at work, this is the type of situation we all want.
Last year, I attended a training session where I was one of the instructors. At a dinner prior to the session, I was struck by the fact that one young woman kept telling everyone that her office had achieved every goal during the prior month. It was obvious to all that she was very proud of the fact that she was part of a winning organization.
Since we know that people want to be part of a winner, why not start with that perspective and incorporate it as part of an overall strategy? That is, assume (until proven otherwise) that each person wants to play and wants to win, so give them every opportunity to help the organization become a winner. This means giving them freedom, not controlling them; including them, not excluding them; and providing them with a meaningful role in contributing to the organization’s success.
It’s amazing how this issue comes up time and time again. Look at how successful sports teams deal with it. In his book The Carolina Way: Leadership Lessons From a Life in Coaching, legendary college basketball coach Dean Smith wrote:
Every person on the team was important. There were no exceptions. This included not only the last man on the team but also the student managers, who worked hard on our behalf. They picked up towels, washed uniforms on road trips, made sure equipment got to where it was supposed to be, set up the gym for practice. They came early and stayed late. I told many business friends that if they wanted to hire a great employee, then choose one of our student managers. They would find a hardworking, self-starting, highly organized, dependable individual.1
Smith recognized that every individual associated with the University of North Carolina basketball team wanted to be part of a winning team, and he made sure that each person had a role in the team’s success.
Always Treat People With Respect
You would think this concept would be obvious to all, but it never seems to work out that way. Treating people with respect buys so much goodwill, and yet managers often ignore this approach. When people are not treated respectfully, the damage that occurs is hidden in the short term. However, people talk to each other and share stories about the way they’ve been treated. Over time, the collective stories of disrespect that have been passed from employee to employee tend to pervade the organization’s culture, take on a life of their own, and undermine many of the good things that management is trying to do.
If you think about it, it doesn’t take much work to treat people with respect. One of the best concepts that I’ve heard is to criticize ideas, not people. This means all ideas and concepts on the table are subject to intense scrutiny, but even if an idea is not ultimately accepted, the person putting forth the idea is still valued. This approach encourages new ideas and perspectives while protecting the self-esteem of all.
How often have you been in a meeting where the manager will put someone down in front of the group? Far too often, I suspect. Let’s examine one real-life example.
Several years ago, a management meeting was held wherein a senior manager attempted to illustrate what he perceived to be the flaws in a new policy. During this meeting, he made a presentation wherein he cited a number of statistics to indicate how this new policy was going to adversely affect several offices across the country (he intentionally did not mention the impact on his own office). In the middle of his presentation, one particularly powerful individual, without addressing the statistics cited, remarked, “We know you’re only here to protect your own office.” This personal attack on him had several negative, unintended consequences: (1) The senior manager recognized that if he was going to air his views in public, he would be personally attacked, so he stopped critiquing policy issues, which means that the organization lost a valuable voice in national discussions; and (2) the individual who attacked the senior manager lost a key ally, probably for the rest of his career.
Imagine if that same powerful official had handled the situation differently. What if he first repeated his understanding of the senior manager’s arguments, then explained why he did not agree with that position, citing the information he had at his disposal to support the new policy? If he took this approach, the senior manager might not have liked the final outcome, but he would have (1) at least felt that he had been heard; (2) had a deeper understanding of the rationale behind the policy; and (3) felt that his opinion counted. Moreover, in the future, he would still be inclined to come forth and offer his insight and would likely remain an ally of the powerful official.
People can and should be treated with respect, even in unusually stressful situations. One of the most difficult situations that managers—in and out of government—frequently handle involves employee discipline. These situations by their very nature are tense and can lead to hard feelings on the part of the employee being disciplined. Far too often, the manager handling this situation goes into a cold, “I’m the boss” mode wherein the employee winds up feeling humiliated and looks for passive ways to strike back at management. For example, the supervisor might say something like:
“Ms. Smith, here is a reprimand for your recent unauthorized absence. Continued instances of AWOL could lead to your removal. The reprimand gives you all of your grievance and appeal rights. I have nothing further to say on the matter. If you have any questions, speak to your union representative.”
Under this approach, the employee is likely to take the message that management is the enemy and the only friend she has is the union. In addition, the employee will conclude that management doesn’t want to hear what she has to say, so in the future she will probably make her communications in writing. Lastly, the employee may also decide that management doesn’t care about her and she doesn’t have a future with the organization, so why not become a union official and strike back at management?
What if the same manager handled the situation this way? “Shirley, here is a reprimand for your recent unauthorized absence. This is a serious matter that could eventually lead to your removal if it is not addressed immediately. I’m sure that neither of us wants to see that happen. I want you to know that I am more then willing to work with you to help you improve. Do you have questions or concerns that I could address at this point?”
With this approach, the manager let Shirley know the seriousness of her offense and the possible consequences of continued AWOL. At the same time, he treated her with respect and let her know that he would try and help her. Under this scenario, Shirley is more likely to work with management in order to try and address her shortcomings.
Respect can come (or be perceived) in many forms, ranging from the way we talk to people to the way we write to people to simply our body language. Every day management has a multitude of interactions with employees, and each interaction is an opportunity to send a positive message. If we can leverage these opportunities by sending positive messages to our employees, we will reap the benefits in a variety of ways. For example, employees will be more likely to express their concerns, more likely to share their ideas, and more likely to treat management with the same degree of respect that management treats them with. The bottom line is that by adopting this approach, everyone wins.
Treat others as you want to be treated. This is a simple yet powerful concept that has been endorsed by many religions, and yet far too often, it seems to get lost in the workplace.
When I look back on my career, I realize that many people, both leaders and nonleaders, have touched my life. The ones I look back on in a favorable light have invariably been people who had strong ethics, and who treated me the way I wanted to be treated. That doesn’t mean they always gave me what I wanted, or treated me better than others. It simply means they treated me like an adult, with respect, in a fair and equitable manner. Sometimes they told me I was wrong, and then explained to me why. Those lessons will stay with me forever. Other times they did the exact opposite of what I proposed, and then showed me why they chose the path they took. Sometimes I was right and they were wrong. On those occasions they acknowledged they were wrong and moved on. You see, it wasn’t about ego; it was about doing the right thing, for the right reasons, for the good of the organization.
Applying the Golden Rule in government means carrying over into our careers the same principles that guide most of us in our private life. This approach means that we don’t succumb to the daily pressures and strike back at people the first time we feel threatened. It also means that we always try and carry ourselves with dignity and treat other people with respect (there’s that word again). It further means that when we are in difficult situations, we continue to take the moral high road, and do not sink down to the level of others who have chosen a different path.
Several years ago, I attended an employee meeting in which I was sharing information with employees, listening to their concerns, and answering their questions. Several times during that meeting, our most cynical and contentious employee at the time publicly challenged me by denigrating virtually everything I was saying. Although I often turn the other cheek when I am criticized, it was clear to me that in this instance, his actions were having a strong, adverse impact on the other employees. While my natural inclination was to verbally strike back at this employee, I knew that such an approach would stifle future debate, even if I were attacking an unreasonable employee. Moreover, I knew that if I were in a position wherein I was questioning management, I would not want to be publicly attacked and humiliated. I therefore decided to take a different approach, which yielded far better results than a direct assault might have.
With a smile on my face, I asked him the following question: “Robert (not his real name), who’s the greater fool, the fool or the fool who follows the fool? If you are so unhappy here, why not find another job somewhere else? We would all understand.” He turned red as soon as he heard my response. He realized that he had made a fool of himself, especially since I did not take the bait and attack him in an angry manner. As often happens when a tense situation is effectively defused, he later came back and publicly asked me a question that demonstrated his regret for the earlier outburst. Later on, a large number of employees approached me and apologized for the employee’s remarks. What became clear is that by following the Golden Rule, even in a very difficult situation, I was able to both win the support of the group and make the cynic feel more isolated than ever.
Many (Not All) Problems Are Caused by Management
Too often, when things go wrong, we look to blame someone. Problems develop every day, so someone must be at fault. In today’s culture of accountability, managers often look to blame someone, as if by finding a fall guy, they will somehow right the ship. In actuality, this mentality is often counterproductive because employees generally try and work with management and attempt to meet its demands. Where management builds a culture of blame, employees tend to go underground in order to stay off the radar screen and avoid committing mistakes. This response to management’s actions generally results in the employees’ energy and creativity going down the tubes.
So why are many problems caused by management? The answer is simple. Employees need the proper training, policy guidance, and tools to do their jobs. Moreover, they need to know their agency’s code of conduct as well as its performance expectations. They also need to know how both they and the group are performing and to see that there is a clear set of consequences for exceeding expectations as well as for failing to achieve them. Lastly, communication must be crystal clear regarding changes in the organization’s direction, policies, and/or procedures. Lapses in any of these categories can cause confusion, a diffusion of energy, or situations in which employees unintentionally work at cross-purposes with the organization’s goals.
Problems such as those already described are the responsibility of management. Yet far too often, when they manifest themselves in an employee problem, our natural instinct is to blame the employees. Let’s look at a few examples as to how this can happen.
Vague Policy Guidance. Consider an organization whose mission it is to make decisions on claims for worker’s compensation benefits. Assume that the policy guidance on one type of benefit is extremely vague, resulting in confusion and a lot of erroneous decisions. On a broad scale, the net result of this will be a lower rate of quality than the organization desires. Moreover, some employees will have high error rates that are undeserved, which is likely to trigger retraining, performance-based actions, grievances, EEO complaints, and hard feelings. Many hours will be lost dealing with an issue whose root cause squarely rests in the lap of management. In fact, management should have simply taken a step back and recognized that there was a pattern to the high error rate that was caused by a poorly written policy. Had it done so, it could have avoided both the low quality rate and all of the time wasted in dealing with the performance issues that were in reality caused not by the employees but by management.
Low Leave Balance. Many government organizations have employees with low leave balances. The natural tendency is to blame the employees for taking leave. After all, if they hadn’t requested leave, management would never have granted it. Continuously having many employees on leave is bad, because if employees are not at work, the jobs they are getting paid to perform are not getting done. It’s as simple as that.
So, the question is this: Are low leave balances the fault of the employees or the fault of management? The answer is clearly management. While employees can request leave, in many cases, it is up to management to approve leave. Management sets the rules and it is up to the managers to enforce the same rules.
The simplest issue is annual leave (also known as vacation or personal days). These days are typically set aside for vacations, rest and relaxation, or other personal reasons. They are invariably an entitlement that employees have that is subject to management’s discretion. Employees are encouraged to maintain a reasonable balance at all times because you never know when a personal emergency will occur. Since emergencies do occasionally occur, annual leave or personal leave is intended for that purpose. If the rules are applied fairly and consistently, people will understand them and abide by them. There will be no confusion, and leave will be taken in a manner that is expected and that will promote the efficiency of the government.
In most places, one individual will eventually start testing management by calling in and requesting unscheduled leave—first on an occasional basis and over time on a more frequent basis. The more management approves the leave, the more people will get the message that unscheduled leave is okay. Pretty soon, a second, third, and fourth individual will follow the same pattern. After a while, unscheduled leave will become the norm, not the exception, individual leave balances will decline, and overall attendance will drop. All of this is predictable, but it is a function of poor management, not problem employees. If management had firmly applied the rule that unanticipated absences will be held to a minimum, everyone would have gotten the message that the rule is important and would have complied accordingly.
Heavy-Handed Supervisor. You’ve probably seen a situation arise where a new supervisor comes onto the scene with a desire to shake things up. Typically, this supervisor sees her job as being the tough person, the one who is going to bring order and discipline to the organization by running a very tight ship and making examples of a number of individuals. Granted, there are times when discipline is clearly needed. In fact, this book advocates an approach that emphasizes appropriate responses to poor behavior.
That being said, I am very leery of the tough guy approach, because it relies on a hard-nosed, often overly emotional, egocentric supervisor to mete out punishment. Far too often, this approach demoralizes the employees in the organization because they see people unfairly punished for minor infractions, with the supervisor’s apparent goal being to establish who is “the boss.” Typically, instead of applying the management systems and policies in an even-handed fashion, this type of supervisor often takes action based on emotion. Once this happens, employees quickly conclude that there are no real rules, because they are being enforced selectively. Many will also believe that the supervisor is a tyrant, who is willing to beat up on someone when it’s in the supervisor’s best interest.
This approach may succeed in the short term, because fear can get results, at least for a while. However, in the long term, employees will not support the leader, as they will feel both used and abused. Leave usage will increase, morale will decline, and many people will look to leave the organization. As we all know, excessive leave, poor morale, and high turnover are a formula for disaster—and in this particular situation, management created the disaster.
If we start with the premise that most problems are caused by management, we will look for patterns in the behaviors of our employees that are caused by management’s policies, systems, and actions. By first looking to address these issues before blaming the employees for a specific problem, we will be able to address the problems upstream rather than downstream, where they are far more costly and painful.
Look at Your Management Systems
Although most problems are caused by management’s action or lack of action, sometimes problems arise because of the systems that management has put in place. There’s an old saying that declares, “If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you always got.”2 Relating this to management systems,3 if you continue to utilize the same management systems that are currently in place, you are likely to produce the same results that you’ve been getting. In many cases, the problems that management tries to deal with over and over again are a function of the management systems in place, not the employees themselves.
In a properly designed organization, all of the systems work together in a way that promotes the organization’s goals and objectives. They work together and provide consistent guidance to the employees in a way that directs them and motivates them, and ultimately leads to high performance. This synthesizes all of the employee energy so that they are all working together toward the same goal, and not at cross-purposes.
Top-notch organizations feature systems that complement each other. They hire excellent employees, invest heavily in their training, and promote people based on merit. The employees work in first-class space that is designed to promote the flow of work and build morale. The organizational structure is generally lean, with relatively few layers of management. Tasks are accomplished in an effective and efficient manner that avoids rework to the maximum extent possible. Employees are given the requisite tools to do their jobs, including manuals, computers, job aids, and so on. Information flows smoothly, and decisions are made at the appropriate levels. Rewards are doled out in a fair and equitable manner and in a way that promotes the organization’s goals. Lastly, the organization periodically takes a step back in order to ensure that it is continually learning and renewing itself.
When organizations have properly aligned systems, something unique starts to happen. The systems drive the right behavior rather than management. This means that the supervisors do not have to constantly stay on top of the employees to force them to behave the way management expects. That is because once (1) the systems are properly aligned; (2) the employees receive the necessary training, tools, and information to do their jobs; and (3) the employees see that management takes appropriate action for both outstanding and poor performance/conduct (more on that later), the employees will receive a consistent message, will know what to do, and will try and give management what it wants. Once this happens, management will find that it needs to spend less time “riding herd” over the employees and can spend more time on higher-level tasks such as benchmarking with best-in-class organizations, strategic planning, and so on.
Let’s look at three barriers to effective management systems: physical barriers, ineffective rewards, and inefficiency.
Physical Barriers. We’ve all seen organizations proclaim that they want to have a team environment. Typically, these organizations invest a great deal of time, effort, and money in order to change the culture from one that is typically a top-down, command and control organization to one that is flatter and more team-based. The organization may spend many months utilizing the services of a consultant who will help train both management and the employees on how to function as a team. The training may involve the development of a steering committee, preparing the organization for change, multiple reading assignments, classroom work, group projects, and so on.
Once all of this prework has been completed, the organization moves forward in teams, although inevitably, problems occur because not enough attention is often paid to all of the management systems that are needed to support a team-based environment. As an example, let’s say an organization suddenly converts to teams, but it has high partitions throughout its space that will send a contradictory message to the employees. High partitions allow a lot of privacy, but they tend to inhibit teamwork, as it is very difficult for people to interact when they can’t see their fellow team members. Once the initial excitement of being part of a team wears off, people will spend less and less time with each other because of the artificial barriers created by the partitions, which are part of the organization’s structural system.
Ineffective Rewards. Another area that typically does not receive a lot of detailed attention when an organization converts to teams is the rewards system. Far too often, when an organization converts to teams, the rewards system sends a contradictory message.
For example, if an organization desires teamwork yet rewards only individual accomplishment, what do you think is going to happen? The employees are not going to want to help each other because they recognize that individual accomplishment is what is valued and rewarded. They will focus on delivering the best possible individual performance, but will not be willing to pass on their critical knowledge to others, because the rewards system tells them that this approach is not valued by the organization. The employees who need help will stop seeking it because that is the message they are receiving from their peers. As a result, everyone will focus on his or her own best interests in the short term, at the expense of what’s best for the team and the organization, because this is the message that management’s rewards system is sending.
By the same token, management will notice the lack of teamwork and will become frustrated with the employees. The typical view will be that we supplied these people with all the training they needed to work as a team. Since they are obviously not working together, it must be the fault of the employees!
Inefficiency. I once worked in a government organization whose mission was, in part, to sell foreclosed properties to the public. The more properties that could be sold at a reasonable price, the more cost-effective it would be for the government. However, properties were being sold at a very slow pace for one primary reason: the real estate brokers who were selling these properties were not being paid until at least 120 days after close of escrow. Naturally, as word got out to the real estate community about how long it was taking to get paid, more and more brokers dropped out of this program, which sent it into a downward spiral. So what was the reaction of some members of management? It was to blame the employees, who must have been lazy, untalented, or just poor performers.
In fact, the opposite was the case. The employees were competent, hard-working people who were suffering in a poor system that management had set up. Every time a property was sold, the paperwork needed to pay the broker was so labor intensive that it had to go through many different hands before final payment was issued. The problem was an outdated technical system, not the employees.
The solution was to change the payment system from an assembly-line process to a central location and to make the payment through electronic transfer, enabling the brokers to be paid at the close of escrow. Shortly thereafter, word spread about this change. Many brokers reentered the system, resulting in far more properties being sold and the government actually making a profit on the sales. Had management taken the time much earlier in the game to examine its technical systems, as opposed to blaming the employees, it could have saved an enormous amount of time, energy, and money.
The primary point in this section is that when a human resources problem arises, make sure you are addressing the right issue. There is no doubt that at times, employee performance issues and conduct issues must be addressed firmly and directly. Much of this book is devoted to that very point. However, what I am also advocating is to continually examine both management’s actions and/or its systems. The more these are scrutinized, the more often you will be able to spot trends that, if addressed up front, will prevent the need to take future personnel actions. One of the basic principles of this book is that the more management acts appropriately toward its employees, and the better aligned its systems, the easier it will be to manage the organization’s employees.
Make Sure Your Systems Are Reliably Applied
Once an organization has clear and consistent management systems in place, the next step is to ensure that the systems are applied in a highly reliable manner. To do this properly, management must first ensure that the employees are given all of the tools that they need to succeed. As stated earlier, this means that they all must receive the training required to do their jobs and be provided with the resources to implement that training. In addition, they must be taught the organization’s policies and procedures (both written and unwritten). Lastly, they must be given clear expectations so that they are aware of both the minimum acceptable performance standards and what they need to do to excel.
Once this is accomplished, the burden then shifts to the employees. They are responsible for behaving in a manner that is consistent with the organization’s code of conduct. Moreover, they are responsible for meeting or exceeding the organization’s performance standards. Once the employees are trained and possess the necessary tools, the more reliably the systems are applied, the more reliable will be your employees’ behavior.
This is one of the absolute keys to sound management of government or non-government employees. People want to know the rules, and also want to know that they are being applied fairly, since we all want to play on a level playing field. If some people do not play by the rules and there are no consequences for their misbehavior, problems will invariably occur.
Look at what happened in Major League Baseball. We now know that certain players cheated by using steroids, which gave them an unfair advantage when competing against players who did not take banned substances. The records that were broken are now looked at with suspicion, reputations have been severely damaged, and the U.S. Congress has conducted investigations because it believes that Major League Baseball has been derelict in its duty to enforce the rules of America’s pastime.
The same principle applies at the work site. Once the rules and expectations are set, the employees need to know that management will fairly and consistently take action against people who do not follow the rules and/or meet performance expectations. This especially includes supervisors and managers who do not follow the rules or whose performance falls below par. Conversely, they must also know that management will fairly and consistently reward those employees who go beyond the call of duty and/or exceed performance expectations. It’s that simple.
Let’s look at a few examples of what to do—and what not to do.
Proper Use of Performance Standards. A large government organization has a performance standard where each employee is required to make a certain number of decisions per day. For the sake of this example, we’ll say that the minimum standard is 10 decisions. Three of the employees fail to achieve that standard, so each of their supervisors quickly intervenes by meeting with them. The meetings are an attempt to identify the root cause of the performance problem so they can get each employee up to snuff. In some cases, that is all that is needed to resolve the problem, while in other cases, a more formal plan is put in place to assist the employee.
Occasionally, despite the best efforts of management, an employee will still fail to meet the minimum standard, and action is reluctantly taken to remove that employee from the position. If everyone sees that management is dealing with the bottom performers in a fair and equitable manner, and that its first goal is to assist them, not to fire them, the employees will conclude that management is doing the right thing. Moreover, the employees will conclude that management is serious about the systems being reliably applied, and will act accordingly, resulting in fewer performance actions needing to be taken.
Conversely, if four employees are making 15 decisions or more (and have excellent quality), then they should have a reasonable expectation of being rewarded for their outstanding performance (especially if management has informed the employees in advance what the benchmark is to be rewarded). If management consistently rewards outstanding performance based on preestablished goals, then everyone will perceive the rewards system to be fair, and more and more people will strive to achieve that level of performance. Again, the more reliable the application of the systems, the more reliable will be the employees’ behavior.
Failure to Enforce Performance Standards. A government organization’s leader did not believe in taking performance-based actions against his employees. He came to this conclusion because he believed that taking action was tantamount to organizational capital punishment, and he didn’t believe in capital punishment. As a result, every time a supervisor tried to take action against someone who was failing her performance standard, the leader would always find a reason why he could not sustain the proposed action.
Both the supervisors and the employees got the message that the performance standards did not have to be achieved because management was not serious about applying them on a reliable basis. The net result was that the supervisors stopped wasting their time proposing actions against poor performers, productivity slowly but surely declined over time, and some of the best employees left because they did not want to be part of an organization where poor performers were allowed to continue.
In another case, my organization ended the year with excellent performance. However, when we distributed our individual rewards, the employees went into an uproar because they did not understand the rationale for the distribution of the reward money. Rewards standards had not been published that year, so people did not have a clear sense as to how they were doing with respect to rewards. Moreover, they didn’t receive much feedback, either.
In essence, the employees concluded that we were rewarding our favorites, because they could see no reliable basis for the way we distributed rewards. The result of this debacle was that management’s credibility in the eyes of the employees was severely undermined and performance suffered for months. I vowed to never again use a rewards system whose results were not transparent. An example of a transparent rewards system will be discussed in Chapter 6.
In summation, reliably applying an organization’s systems to its employees in a fair and equitable manner will actually prevent many personnel problems from occurring because people will quickly get the message that this is an organization that is serious about performance. Once the employees recognize that management will take appropriate action if they do not comply with the systems and meet the performance/conduct expectations, and will reward the employees if they exceed expectations, the need for day-to-day supervisory oversight will be greatly reduced, because the employees will conscientiously attempt to deliver the best possible performance.
Always Remember that Your Decisions Affect People’s Lives
It’s important to remember how much power management really has. Every time we make a decision, we affect the lives of countless people. For example, if we make a selection to either hire or promote someone, we affect not only the life of that person, but also the person’s family, as well as the lives of the people who were not selected, and their families as well. If we have to fire someone, the effect on the family can be quite profound. As managers we wield a tremendous amount of power and influence, and it is up to us to use that power wisely. We should not use that power to promote our own agendas, to make ourselves look good, to get back at people, or to settle old scores. We must use that power for the right reason, which means to do the right thing.
Doing the right thing is easier said than done. As managers, we face all kinds of pressure from above and below. We are pressured by political appointees who come into office with a certain agenda, and with relatively little time to accomplish their goals. Our bosses pressure us to do things that make sense to them in the big picture but we may not believe are right. Special interest groups pressure us to select certain classes of individuals. The union often pressures us to do certain things because it receives pressure from its constituency. Other groups that may pressure us include the media, congressional oversight groups, and/or even the Inspector General. The bottom line is that everyone wants a piece of the pie. Unfortunately, there are not enough pieces of the pie to go around, which therefore requires us to make choices.
So how do we go about making these difficult choices? Where do we go for guidance when we know our choices are going to be scrutinized and criticized? For me, the most important thing is to have a core set of values that will guide me through the difficult times. If you truly believe in the values that you espouse, you will have a moral compass to guide you through the darkness. That is absolutely critical.
Far too often, I have seen people who have sacrificed their values for the sake of their career. These individuals made personal decisions to step on other people in order to promote themselves. Some tried to make themselves look good by making others look bad. In essence, they would intentionally paint a bad picture of others to people in power and then set themselves up as the solution. Others did what they thought their bosses wanted them to do even though they knew it was wrong. A few would even take action against people because they wanted to show senior management that they were tough. These individuals made conscious decisions that power was more important than values, and they will have to live with those decisions for the rest of their lives.
That being said, such an approach can work for a period of time. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time . . .” However, as most of us know, power is transitory; it does not last. Even the President of the United States will eventually lose his power. At the end of the day, all that counts are the things we did to make the world a better place. Did we make a difference? Did we help others? When we’re lying on our deathbed, the amount of power we once had will be meaningless, if we did not live our lives according to a principled set of values.
I recognize that the world is not always black and white. Sometimes we have to make real-world decisions that we don’t like. The way I approach that issue is as follows. If someone above me in the organization tells me to do something, I will comply, as long as it is legal. If I disagree, I will state my case, but if I am overruled, I will comply. After all, I work for an organization that needs to know that I will be a team player.
By contrast, if I am put in an uncomfortable position but have the discretion to make a decision, I will do what I believe is the right thing, even though it may personally hurt me.
I was once asked to testify in an EEO case about an issue on which I disagreed with my headquarters. I knew that my superiors would not view my testimony favorably. However, my greater obligation was to what I believed to be the truth, so I testified accordingly. Although I knew that I did not ingratiate myself with anyone above me, I could at least look at myself in the mirror and know that many people would respect me for having the courage of my convictions.
When it actually comes down to making difficult decisions, I use the deathbed approach, which goes like this: If I were looking back at the decision currently before me on my deathbed, what should I have done? Did I try to do the right thing for the right reasons, or did I make my decision based on political expediency or for another spurious reason? If I make the decision for the right reason, even if later information proves me to be wrong, then I am still doing the right thing based on the information before me. This approach, coupled with the continuous use of your core values, is an excellent method of ensuring that you are exercising your power wisely.
The Objective: Performance
In discussing how to manage government employees, it is easy to lose sight of the objective, which is outstanding performance. We tend to see the management of human resources as compliance with a bunch of complex personnel rules and regulations. Although these rules and regulations are important, they are merely a foundation upon which we manage our employees. We can meet every rule and regulation set forth in the personnel manual, we can win every case that goes before a third party, and we can cross every t and dot every i, yet lose sight of the big picture, which is performance.
Early in my career as an inexperienced personnel officer, I dealt with a new group of union officials that were determined to wreak havoc on management. They believed that they had been treated poorly and were determined to make management pay for its sins. They filed numerous grievances and unfair labor practice charges (ULPs) against management, which forced many management officials to devote their energy to rebutting these complaints. From my perspective, we were doing a good job in holding off the union, because third parties did not sustain any of its complaints.
However, this was very narrow thinking on my part, because we were unable to concentrate our energy on the day-to-day work, and our performance clearly suffered. Instead of concentrating on the underlying issue behind the officials’ complaints, which was the way that they and others had been treated by management, I took it personally, developed a bit of a bunker mentality, and simply tried to resist them. In retrospect, we spent too much time fighting the union and not enough time resolving issues that would have allowed us to focus more on performance.
The lesson from this episode was that you should never lose sight of performance. Without a reasonably high level of performance, organizations will slowly lose resources, lose support, and ultimately lose credibility—and that’s exactly what happened to that office.
It is interesting to note that in many organizations, the chief of human resources is left out of the decision-making process, even though every key decision made by management has personnel ramifications. Unfortunately, I think the reason for that is rather simple: Many senior managers do not believe that human resources plays a role in improving performance. Its staff are seen as the custodians of the rules, regulations and personnel records, and not as drivers of performance. Moreover, they are rarely aware of the agency’s metrics and how their advice and assistance affects performance. However, if both senior management and human resources leaders change their view and approach toward people management, in a way similar to what is described in this book, then human resources will inevitably be seen as a key management player, not as merely staff advisors.
As you review and absorb the philosophies, strategies, and tactics contained in this book, recognize that they are always designed to improve performance. The goal is not to have happy employees, nor is it to have as few complaints as possible. It is to manage employees in a way that allows them to flourish, by doing the following:
• Providing them with clear training, guidance, information, expectations, and direction
• Giving them the tools they need to successfully perform their jobs
• Holding them accountable
• Rewarding the top performers
• Sharing information
• Dealing with the wide variety of employee issues that are sure to crop up, in a fair, direct, timely, and even-handed manner
If management can accomplish this in a highly skillful manner, it is on the road to excellent performance.
The Workforce
So far, we’ve talked a lot about my philosophy of dealing with people, as well as systems theory and how to apply it to the workforce. Let’s now turn our attention to workforces in general, as well as tactics for dealing with them in the real world. To some extent, the next two sections will overlap with the earlier section on overall philosophy. However, these sections are intended to build on the broad concepts discussed earlier, with a deeper focus on day-to-day management.
Winning the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Middle 80 Percent
In my experience, virtually every organization has roughly the same distribution of employees. The top performers make up about 10 percent of the workforce, the middle performers make up about 80 percent, and the bottom performers make up the remaining 10 percent. The percentages may vary a bit (Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, says that it is 20%-70%-10%4), but the basic principle is the same. It always seems to work out that way, with the distribution forming a bell curve.
By far, the two most influential groups of employees within the workforce are the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent of the employees. As we all know, their reasons for trying to influence the remaining 80 percent of the workforce are different. In fact, they are so different that they are diametrically opposed to each other.
The top 10 percent of the workforce are your best employees. They are highly motivated and very skilled, and want to see the organization become a great success. They constantly push others to perform at a higher level, because they believe that everyone should strive to achieve his potential. These are the people who always volunteer to take on the tough assignments, because they know that someone has to do it, and they are up to the task. They want to see the organization rise to its potential, and they do everything they can to help achieve it.
By contrast, the bottom 10 percent are the organization’s worst employees. Many are poorly motivated; they generally have a host of personal problems, and their performance is often barely acceptable, or worse. They are the most difficult employees to deal with because of their behavior, and because of the employee protections contained in the government’s rules, regulations, and union contracts.
Some of them are quiet, but more often they are among the loudest employees because they have learned that the more they complain, the more they will be left alone. A number of them will become union officials, and they will use that role to promote their own agenda. Others will file equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaints so that if management takes action against them, they can claim retaliation.
Many are good people, but either they don’t have the ability to do the job, or they’ve simply been corrupted by the most outspoken cynics. The goal of this group is to lower the organization’s standards and to break management’s will, so they will be left alone. Many do not want to succeed; they merely want to survive. They constantly complain about management to other employees because they know there is strength in numbers: The more people who see that things are really bad, the more difficult it will be for management to deal with them as individuals. These individuals constantly admonish other employees to slow down, because if other employees are excelling, they will look even worse by comparison.
The remaining 80 percent of the workforce tend to be a more heterogeneous group. Some of them, of course, have the potential to rise into the top 10 percent, while others have the potential to fall into the bottom 10 percent. This group is generally composed of all types of employees, but for the most part, this group is quieter than the extreme groups, and tends to take a wait-and-see approach to the work. Each is capable of meeting and/or exceeding the performance expectations, and generally does. What characterizes this group is the fact that its members are always looking at both overt and covert messages for guidance as to how they should act. In some cases, they take their cues from management, especially in those organizations that have strong systems and reliable consequences for failing to meet or exceeding expectations. However, since most government organizations do not appear to work with that degree of sophistication, far too often, the employees take their cues from either the top or the bottom 10 percent. Whichever group ultimately wins the battle for the hearts and minds of the middle 80 percent will go a long way in determining the future of the organization.
Let’s look at this more closely. The top 10 percent’s primary goal is outstanding performance. They expect everyone to try and improve and will not accept the bottom 10 percent, since they see that group as working at odds with their vision. What frustrates this group more than anything else is seeing the bottom 10 percent flourish at the worksite; that is, they continue to see the worst employees skate by, doing poor work and poisoning the environment, with virtually no consequences. If this scenario is allowed to continue for an extended period of time, the top 10 percent will continue to get frustrated and will eventually leave. Once that happens, the top 10 percent from the middle 80 percent will become the top 10 percent, and the quality of the organization’s workforce will clearly diminish.
I once worked in an organization that had this exact situation. The prevailing mentality of our organization was that while we were bad, there were good reasons that explained why we were bad, and the people in Washington simply didn’t understand what we were up against. Although it was clearly a tough organization to manage (a high-cost-of-living area without competitive pay, a weak workforce, difficult labor relations, etc.), the organization had stopped trying to cope with its problems. As a result, poor performers thrived, the top performers left, and the organization continued to spiral downward until the top management team was changed.
Jack Welch advocates firing the bottom 10 percent.5 His rationale is that they are nonproducers and that they drain the workforce of energy. Firing the bottom 10 percent of a government organization’s workforce would be extremely difficult to do on a consistent basis, given the rules, regulations, and labor agreements under which we work. It would also be incredibly costly and time consuming. Moreover, from a philosophical standpoint, I do not see the need to remove such a high percentage of the employees. To me, our first goal should be to pull them up and make them productive employees. This is clearly achievable as long as people recognize that (1) we will make a good-faith effort to try and help them improve; and (2) if they do not, then failure to perform and/or misbehavior could lead to their removal.
Earlier in my career, I became the leader of an organization where the bottom 10 percent was clearly winning. Shortly after my arrival, I fired an employee whom virtually everyone considered to be the worst employee on station. Knowing that a removal was highly unusual for that organization, I walked around to gauge the employees’ reaction to the dismissal. To a person, the reaction was the same. “What took you guys so long to fire her?” “It’s about time someone showed some strength in this organization.” The fact of the matter is, most people want to be part of a winning organization and do not want management to tolerate the poor performers.
As word of this removal action spread, positive changes started to occur. For the first time, the bottom 10 percent realized that they could no longer continue to merely get by, and many of them started to improve their performance. They immediately understood that failure to meet the performance standards carried with it negative consequences. The supervisors recognized that senior management would finally support them if they took a well-documented performance-based action, so they became more willing to deal with employee performance issues. The net effect of this one action was to send a powerful message throughout the organization that management was serious about performance.
In contrast to the earlier example where the top 10 percent eventually left the organization, the action of removing that one employee had the opposite effect. Several of the bottom performers eventually were removed, while others got the message that they would not be able to survive, so they left of their own volition. More importantly, many of the marginal low performers decided to improve their performance, because they wanted to stay with the organization and had the ability to perform at a much higher level. The top performers also benefited from this approach because they were pleased that management had finally developed the backbone to deal with its long-standing performance problems. The result of this approach was that the bottom 10 percent either left or moved up, resulting in an organization that performed better with fewer performance problems to deal with.
Winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the middle 80 percent of an organization’s employees is crucial to an organization’s success. The best way to accomplish this is by applying the overall philosophies described in the first section of this chapter, while never forgetting that the ultimate objective is performance.
Avoiding Confrontation with the Bottom 10 Percent
Many supervisors make the classic mistake of beating up on the top 90 percent of the employees in order to avoid dealing with the bottom 10 percent. If you do this, you will play right into the hands of the bottom 10 percent, and will undermine much of the goodwill that comes by following the principles described in the last section. The reason why so many people do this is simple: They want to avoid confrontation. That is not surprising, because in my experience, very few people like confrontation. However, by avoiding confrontation at this stage, you will place yourself in a trap that will sow the seeds for much greater discontent down the road. Let’s look at a typical example of how an inexperienced or poor supervisor might wind up in such a trap.
Confrontation with a Tardy Employee. Several times a week, Employee A arrives later than his starting time. Some days he is only 5 minutes late, while other days he arrives as much as 20 minutes late. His excuses vary, ranging from problems with his car to a broken alarm clock to congested traffic. Every one at the worksite is aware that he is frequently late, and they all look to see what time he will arrive each day. Employee A’s supervisor is also aware of the continuing lateness, and he knows that the other employees are watching, since many of them have commented to him about this.
Finally, the supervisor decides that enough is enough and that he is going to do something about it. He calls a team meeting, wherein he states, “Some of you have been coming to work late. That is not acceptable and will not be tolerated. Effective immediately, the next person who comes to work late will be charged AWOL (absent without official leave) and disciplinary action will be taken.”
From the supervisor’s perspective, he has dealt with the problem, because he has placed the employee (and everyone else) on notice that he will take action against people that are late. From the employees’ perspective, the supervisor is (1) a coward, because he is not dealing directly with the employee who has been late; and (2) beating up on them for a problem that they had nothing to do with. Some of them will actually interpret the supervisor’s message to mean that it is okay to be late because no action has been taken against Employee A. In the battle for the hearts and minds of the middle 80 percent of the employees, the supervisor clearly lost this round.
The supervisor should have handled this situation in a private manner. As soon as he noticed that Employee A was coming to work late, he should have counseled him and put him on notice that continued instances of lateness could lead to AWOL and possibly discipline. If he continued being late, the supervisor should have taken disciplinary action in a manner consistent with the organization’s table of penalties. By doing this, the supervisor would ensure that there were reliable consequences for Employee A’s misbehavior. Although the employee might have complained about the counseling/AWOL/disciplinary action, the supervisor would quickly learn that as long as he had appropriate written documentation for his actions, these cases rarely go to third parties and hardly ever get overturned.
Another benefit of taking the action both promptly and privately is that the proper message will get out to the troops. Once Employee A is put on notice that management is serious about dealing with his behavior, it is likely he will complain to his fellow employees. While they may give him lip service, they will secretly cheer management for dealing with Employee A, and will conclude that management is truly serious about having people come to work on a timely basis. Accordingly, management will win this round for the hearts and minds of the middle 80 percent.
Don’t Rely Only on the Top 10 Percent—Pull Others Up
We’ve talked about how important it is to win the hearts and minds of the middle 80 percent of our employees and how critical it is not to beat up on the vast majority of people. We also have to be careful not to give every critical, time-consuming, and highly pressurized assignment to our top 10 percent. Certainly, these individuals are our stars, our go-to people, and we do want to turn to them when necessary. The challenge is to utilize these individuals when needed, but not overextend them to the point where they become exhausted and lose some of their enthusiasm and effectiveness. The better approach is both to use their talents for special projects and to build additional capacity within the organization so we have even more go-to people to turn to.
Several years ago, I worked for a charismatic leader who was looking to reinvent the national administration that he was charged with leading. He was interested in changing almost every aspect of that administration, ranging from the way it was organized, to the manner in which work was performed, to the way it was measured. Clearly, this was an enormous undertaking. In attempting to accomplish his objectives, he turned to a relatively small inner circle of senior officials he could trust, including myself. We all had multiple assignments and worked incredibly hard to achieve our mission. I flew coast-to-coast virtually every week, while others made similar sacrifices.
Although, collectively, we were able to accomplish many things in the short term, over time, the strain took its toll on the inner circle. I got sick on a number of occasions and also began to experience back pains. The ongoing pressure wore some down, while others simply got tired and lost some of their initial energy. The lesson here was that you can rely on your top people for some things, but eventually you will have to add others to the mix—and that was exactly what happened down the road.
I worked for a different organization that also relied on only a few people. One of the individuals who was not part of the inner circle was a female employee who was anxious to advance. She had bounced around the government in several different positions, but had never made her mark. The fact that she was not a college graduate seemed to hold her back. She later came to work directly for me, and immediately started peppering me with questions.
She was obviously a highly motivated individual who desperately wanted to break into the inner circle. One day, she asked me what she could do to improve. I advised her that she needed to improve her writing skills. Shortly thereafter, she went back to school and took several courses that enhanced her ability to write. This impressed me, and I began spending more time mentoring her. Eventually, she became a trusted member of the inner circle, and was later selected to be an assistant director. By investing time in someone who was part of the middle 80 percent, I was able to add another employee to our top 10 percent.
You would be surprised how many people can improve if given the right opportunity. In fact, sometimes people are in the bottom 10 percent simply because they are in the wrong position or are given a set of tasks that don’t quite fit them.
I once took over an organization and was advised that I would probably have to get rid of our chief of information resources. When I first started working with him, I noted that he was a bit nervous, and was afraid to make any mistakes. I eventually concluded that this was due partly to his personality and partly to the way he had been treated in the past.
I also came to realize that he had exceptional graphic arts skills that had never been utilized. Since I am a big proponent of visual management (see my discussion on this topic in Chapter 3), I began giving him a few assignments that would leverage his unique graphic skills. Immediately, others began to recognize his talent. He was eventually asked to develop a newsletter for the western part of our organization, and later developed a series of posters that were distributed nationally. He went from being someone who was considered to be in the bottom 10 percent to an individual who was nationally recognized for his unique skills. He demonstrated that many people could be pulled up and become exceptional employees if given the chance by management.
Key Points to Remember
• Treat people with respect and keep them in the loop, and they will respond accordingly.
• When your systems are properly aligned, they will drive the right employee behaviors.
• The more your systems are reliably applied, the more reliable will be your employees’ behavior.
• Win the battle for the hearts and minds of the middle 80 percent of your employees, and your organization will succeed.