COO

A chief operations officer, COO, who would never give a performance review.
regards,
Dwika


New Tip #6 for being an Exceptional Technical Professional!
Tip #6: "Leadership Like A Partner"
by: Steven Cerri

In this e-zine/newsletter I'm writing about the sixth trait of an exceptional technical professional. It's the third of the "Group Traits" that lead to Exceptional Individual Performance. This third group trait is titled, "Leadership: Leading Like a Partner."

Last month I mentioned that teamwork is a term that is often thrown around as if we all know what it means. Leadership falls into the same category. If you ask most people if they know what leadership is they will quickly answer "Sure." If you give them five or six different real-world examples of people behaving in the general form of management or leadership, you'll have as many definitions of what the examples represent as there are people observing. Leadership is, to some extent, in the eye of the beholder.

For example, some books put forth the idea that everyone is capable of being a leader. Others will tell us that leaders are born, while others will tell us that leaders are "forged in the crucible of adverse circumstances." I won't even tell you what I think about these various self-serving interpretations and the five-word quips.

I'm not very concerned about the title or even the definition of leadership. I'm more focused on the behaviors and the results of those behaviors. When you are an individual contributor, (i.e., a technical professional) you often don't have the "official" authority to be a leader. You don't have positional authority nor do you have assigned authority.

Therefore, if you are going to move a group in a specific direction, (which is a sufficient definition of leadership for this e-zine/newsletter) then the question becomes how do you move a group in a specific direction when you don't have any authority or power to make them follow?

The answer of course, is to lead as if you are not leading but rather in a way that allows you to show up as a partner. Leading like a partner is a behavior that you can learn and it appears to others as if you are not leading at all.

Here's a quick example. Bob (not his real name) was an engineering manager at a successful printer company. He was often oriented to solving problems and looked for them most of the time. He thought his reason for being was to solve problems. This led Bob to be perceived as always coming from a negative, the "sky is falling" position. After some time, other managers didn't want to invite Bob to their meetings or to decision-making sessions. It was just too difficult dealing with Bob's negativity and his constant search for what could go wrong. Bob was definitely not leading anyone toward a solution.

Bob knew things were not going well and so he asked me to coach him. Within a month Bob began to turn around his interaction with others. It wasn't just changing his perspective away from the negative, but I taught him the skills that allowed him to interject himself into a discussion, point and move it in a specific direction, and then turn it back over to the meeting leader as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. After a couple of months of this behavior, Bob even began to be invited to meetings in which he had no vested interest. He became so adept at leading like a partner and facilitating movement of a group, that other managers wanted him to help them with their meetings. Within 9 months, Bob was promoted to Director... true story!

This ability to lead like a partner, even when you don't have authority, is an important trait for your advancement in your career.

New Tip #6 for becoming a Technical Manager/Leader

Tip #6: "Don't Think Systemically"

I know I'm starting this off from the negative, "Don't" position which is something I'm not prone to do. However, it makes sense. Many technical professionals fail to think systemically when they make their transition to management. The next question is, "What does thinking systemically" mean?

Thinking systemically means that a person takes into account all the possible effects a decision can have. Here's an example.

Tom (not his true name) was a procurement manager at a very successful printer company (actually the same company at which Bob worked in the example above.) Tom was paid a salary as well as a year-end bonus. His bonus was based on the percent reduction his procurement department achieved in the "cost" of raw materials that went into the company's printers. Therefore, if he reduced the annual cost of the raw materials that went into the printers by a certain amount he would receive a specific bonus amount.

Tom found he could procure a certain type of screw used in the manufacture a specific printer line at a cost that was 1 cent per screw less than the current vendor's price. That may not seem like much but this company produced a lot of printers, used a lot of screws and therefore, Tom could reduce the raw materials cost and increase his bonus.

Tom decided to accept the new screws from a new vendor based on a written description of the new screws. This is not standard practice; usually a drawing is required as well as a test of the actual product. But Tom wasn't thinking systemically. He didn't think beyond his own department. It wasn't just his interest in his bonus. He could still have been driven by his desire for more money and thought systemically. Instead, the new vendor said they could deliver the new screws based on the written description and Tom gave the go-ahead.

The new screws arrived... tens of thousands of them. Within 1 hour the manufacturing line came to a screeching halt. What went wrong?

It turned out that the new screws had a flange at the tip that was left-over material from the screw manufacturing process, and therefore, not included in the written specification call-out. The flange made the screws too long and therefore, they wouldn't work in the plastic printers. Tom's company lost a days' production, the screws had to be returned, the previous vendor had to be reinstated, and nerves had to be calmed all around.

The issue was that Tom had not thought "systemically." He had not thought beyond his immediate area of interest. He had not thought about anything outside his procurement area and his potential bonus.

Had he thought systemically he would have given the vendor a drawing completing the specification. He would have received a hundred screws, attempted to have then installed in the printers and tested how the printers functioned with the new screws. (Had he done this he would never had purchased the screws because he would have determined that they didn't work.) The point is that he would have asked the all important systemic question, "Who can be impacted by the purchase of these new screws and how do I find out what that impact might be?" The generalized form of this question is: "Who can be impacted by the decision I'm about to make?"

Thinking systemically is about thinking about how the decisions you make can and will affect other areas of the company beyond your own immediate area.

Your successful transition from technologist to manager will require that you begin to think systemically, that you take into account a much bigger, broader perspective.
New Tip #6 for Technical Managers

Tip #6: "Control Your Emotional State"

This is the Sixth of Six Functions of Successful Executives©. It's simple to talk about and difficult to implement. It goes far beyond EQ, Emotional Quotient. It is not based on being emotionally mature, it's about being emotionally effective. It's about using and controlling your emotional state, about using your emotional state to be successful in your roll as manager or leader.

Many managers and leaders never learn this capability. They think it's about controlling ones temper or being respectful or about being "cool under fire." Frankly I think that's the easy part.

Often more importantly, managers and leaders who fail, do so because they are emotionally weak in certain areas where they need to be emotionally strong. This is not about staying cool when you're hot. It's about doing something when you emotionally don't want to.

How many managers and leaders avoid "difficult decisions or discussions?" How many managers and leaders use avoidance strategies because they can't control their emotional state? Their fearful. They avoid the uncomfortable situations. They tense up when they have to address a certain issue. They "over compensate" when they get nervous about something they'd rather not do.

Emotional maturity is about being appropriate in given situations. On the other hand, controlling you emotional state is about using your emotions so you are effective.

Here's an example. I knew a chief operations officer, COO, who would never give a performance review. For four years he never gave a performance review. It was not that he had a low EQ. He was very professional at all times. He was very mature. He was well liked and well respected. By all accounts he seemed the perfect COO. And yet, an emotional weakness, an inability to get into a discussion with a direct report that might lead to suggestions of improvement, that might lead to hurt feelings, that might lead to conflict, shut this COO down. If he had learned to control his emotional state in this regard, he would have been able to perform one of the important tasks that all his direct reports wish he would have done. I ought to know, I worked for this COO early in my career and all of his direct reports talked about and disliked that he wouldn't give us our annual reviews.

Controlling your emotional state is not just about avoiding inappropriate behavior. Its also about being able TO DO appropriate and necessary behaviors. These are the distinctions that make truly great managers and leaders.