Stay emotional and physiological state

You should put your attention on what customers were trying to accomplish; get a good product that you could all be proud of into the hands of the customer. You should stay in an emotional and physiological state that allowed you to act in a way to move the team and the product forward.
Be well,
Dwika-ExecuTrain



"Stop complaining. I've had enough of it!"
by: Steven Cerri

Here's the situation.

Imagine you are a product manager. You are in charge of a small team, say five people. Your team is in charge of designing, building, and delivering a commercial, high-tech product to the market.

(For for the sake of this example, that's the situation. But you realize that I could be talking about any product or program manager and any team designing and producing a piece of hardware or software. This could be any team.)

Every Monday morning you meet with your team to discuss the status of the work everyone is doing and what is on schedule for the upcoming week. In this meeting your goal is to find out if any one needs your help for the upcoming week or if anyone needs help from any other team member or any other department. It also gives you visibility if there is anything you should be aware of. (Monday morning team meetings are extremely important and I highly recommend them.)

Your Monday meeting is attended by the following team members: the mechanical engineer, the programmer, the marketing person, the customer service person, and your quality person.

You and your team are getting very close to releasing your first product and you are just gearing up the manufacturing process. So it's going to be a slow and progressive production ramp up.

The team is "on board" and ready.

You begin delivering the first units into the customers hands.

And then... the customers are on the phone complaining to your customer service team member, Tom, that things aren't working as they are supposed to.

Tom is fielding all the customer calls and he's getting an "ear full". Customers are irate. About 10% of the products aren't working as they should.

That 10% are not happy and are complaining to Tom that "This isn't working!"; and "That isn't working!"; and "I thought I could do this and I can't!".

Tom is having a difficult time handling the calls. He has a tendency to take the attacks personally and very seriously, so he is brining the intense complaints of the customers to the Monday morning meetings.

In fact, now that the product is being delivered into the customers waiting hands, and some of the customers are upset, Tom is coming to the Monday morning meetings as upset with your company as are the customers.

That's the set-up. Now I'll tell you what happens.

At every Monday morning meeting, your process is to open the meeting and then ask each team member in turn, how things are going, what they need from you or from others on the team or from others in the company, and what's on their agenda for the upcoming week.

Since product delivery began, when you get to Tom's portion of the meeting, Tom begins his review of the previous week with a tirade about how customers are upset and how it's the company's fault. He says things like:

"Our customers are so upset with us! The hardware doesn't work and the software doesn't do what it's supposed to."

"How could we be delivering a product with so many problems."

"Our company has no integrity if we deliver this type of product."

"How much longer are we going to deliver such a poor product?"

"I'm embarrassed to talk to our customers. We have no integrity as a company."

And on and on he goes, delivering his statements on behalf of the customers with more than enough emotional punch.

Tom is coming to the Monday morning meetings and he is complaining and ranting and raving and getting very emotional. He is not being generally very productive, he is just complaining. And from his point of view he is representing the customers' position.

Your general conclusions are the following.

Tom is exaggerating a little, maybe even a lot. Most of the customers are satisfied. Yet there is no doubt that the product has some problems. Tom is documenting the problems as the customers call and so you know that he is capturing whatever issues the product might have.

As I stated previously, about 10% of the customers are calling Tom and complaining. Your team is working on the problems. The software is being fixed but not fast enough for Tom and his irate customers. The hardware is being modified but, once again, not fast enough for Tom and his irate customers.

So what do you do?

Do you shut Tom down? Do you tell him to stop complaining, the problems will be fixed?

Do you tell Tom to tell the customers that the fixes are in the works? It will be another month before all fixes are released and the customers will get the upgrades then. Meanwhile they'll have to do what they can.

Do you tell Tom to shut up? You are quite aware of the problems and they are being fixed?

Do you tell Tom to have more respect for his team and for the company?

Do you join Tom in complaining about the company?

Do you ignore Tom?

What would you do?

My suggested approach.

Here is my philosophy... my map of the world.

I believe very strongly that a manager and leader has to lead by example. But I don't mean that like most people think of it. I mean that a manager must "model" the behavior they want.

Next, I believe that people's intentions are mostly honorable. That their actions are an attempt to uphold something fundamentally good in them and that my job, as the manager and leader, is to understand what that purpose is and to tap into it and use it to point them in the direction of the desired outcome, the goal.

This is where I put my attention.

I did not put my attention on Tom's irate protestations. I did not put my attention on how Tom was yelling about our company.

I put my attention on what Tom was trying to accomplish; get a good product that we could all be proud of into the hands of the customer.

What was my emotional and physiological state?

I remained calm. I stayed in an emotional and physiological state that allowed me to act in a way to move the team and the product forward.

These were my actions!

My actions were probably very different than many people would expect.

I let Tom continue complaining and protesting and often I didn't say anything. I just listened. I acknowledged what Tom was saying; I acknowledged that the customers were having problems; I acknowledged that we were fixing the problems; and that is all I said.

I did not tell Tom that he was wrong in getting upset on the customers' behalf. I did not tell Tom not to raise his voice.

I let Tom be Tom.

Why these actions?

Why did I pick these behaviors?

Because of two fundamentals values and outcomes I was going for:

1. I wanted all the team members to believe that they could express themselves honestly, openly, and in accord with their own integrity. If I shut Tom down for being passionate about his customers, I'd be sending the message to the other team members that they would not be safe expressing themselves. I knew that whatever message I sent to Tom, I would be sending to the rest of the team as well. By giving Tom the freedom to be Tom, I was sending the message to the whole team that I trusted their "voices".

2. I knew that if Tom felt this way about the problems our customers were having, when the time ultimately came that Tom said, "You know, we really have a good product now", I'd know that we really did have a good product. If we could satisfy Tom we could satisfy all our customers.

What ultimately happened?

About six weeks into product delivery the new software was delivered, the hardware modifications went into products and the complaints from customers dropped to, essentially, zero.

Finally, Tom came into a Monday morning meeting and said, "Well, I think we've done it. We finally have a great product that we can be proud of. Our customers are happy."

Now there was no doubt in my mind that it was so.

(P.S. Throughout our existence as a product development team, our team had the reputation of having the best team relationships and the best response time to product development and product issues of any team in the company.)

What would you have done?

Email me with your suggestions. I'm very interested in your thoughts.


Good luck and be well,

Steven