Ever had to take part in a lynching?

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MRGALT2U I never had much luck in "rehabbing" nonperforming employees. Losers continued to be losers and winners continued to be winners. JG

If you had no effect on their performance, didn't that ever make you wonder why you were designated as their leader?

[retire@40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords If you had no effect on their performance, didn't that ever make you wonder why you were designated as their leader?

A good leader sometimes does influence others by understanding what makes that person tick and offering the right reward or the right punishment for an action.

However, some people get it and some people don't.* Some people will continue to be losers and some will continue to be winners, no matter how hard you try to rehab them.

It happens in school, at work, and in life in general.

The only time people go from "not getting it" to "getting it" is when THEY decide for themselves.

[wabmester]

My guess is that leadership in a military setting with a bunch of average 18-year-old kids has almost nothing in common with leadership in a company where you get to hand-pick demonstrably bright and talented folk. I was lucky in that all I had to do was grant lots of autonomy, enforce lots of accountability, and use a light hand to "direct." Executive leadership is a cake walk (and the compensation is completely out of wack with the challenge). You just hire well, focus on the big picture, and take credit for the efforts of your worker bees.

Anybody who has never had to fire a worker has probably never been involved in an acquisition or merger. In my experience, mergers of companies with radically different cultures virtually guarantee that many heads will roll. Integration has got to be the most difficult management task, and most managers aren't up to it. If you own stock in a company that's about to merge, sell!

[MRGALT2U]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wab My guess is that leadership in a military setting with a bunch of average 18-year-old kids has almost nothing in common with leadership in a company where you get to hand-pick demonstrably bright and talented folk.* *I was lucky in that all I had to do was grant lots of autonomy, enforce lots of accountability, and use a light hand to "direct."* * Executive leadership is a cake walk (and the compensation is completely out of wack with the challenge).* *You just hire well, focus on the big picture, and take credit for the efforts of your worker bees. Anybody who has never had to fire a worker has probably never been involved in an acquisition or merger.* *In my experience, mergers of companies with radically different cultures virtually guarantee that many heads will roll.* *Integration has got to be the most difficult management task, and most managers aren't up to it.* *If you own stock in a company that's about to merge, sell!

This is a good one. I did a bunch of smaller M and A deals. The human
fallout can be widespread. Once I sold off a whole division which the buyer
moved from Michigan to Chicago. Not a long distance but I don't think
they took any of the workers (maybe one??). An aside. While I was
negotiating with a serious buyer, a former prospective buyer resurfaced
and informed me they would take my last offer (previously rejected).
Since the acceptance date was still running I was bound to accept.
When my current prospects came back from lunch to resume negotiations,
I had to tell them that in the hour they were gone the division was sold (they had been working
the deal for some time). They left pretty fast but not before making
several comments about me, my mother and my sexual preferences

Hey Martha, I have a thousand of these stories (some with sex involved).
Should I write a book?

JG

[MRGALT2U]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords If you had no effect on their performance, didn't that ever make you wonder why you were designated as their leader?

Nope!

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wab My guess is that leadership in a military setting with a bunch of average 18-year-old kids has almost nothing in common with leadership in a company where you get to hand-pick demonstrably bright and talented folk.* *

Yup, same guess here. *We're equally ignorant of both sides of the question. *Although I wonder how much discretion most mid-level managers have over who joins their team. *When the choice is (1) take what you're given or (2) wait for your turn to come up again, I suspect you choose #1 no matter how much the candidate resembles a Dilbert character.

FWIW most of the sailors I worked with on sea duty were in their 20s. *Nukes & other tech types are the norm on a submarine and "unskilled" labor was only about 15% of the crew. *While you could join as young as 16, most joined after high school (17-18) and spent at least 8-24 months in the training pipeline. *Shore duty implied that most of the staff had been on at least one sea tour, so they were in their mid-20s or older. *

Quote:

Originally Posted by wab I was lucky in that all I had to do was grant lots of autonomy, enforce lots of accountability, and use a light hand to "direct."

Me too! *I felt that most of my time was spent defending my troops from the "bright ideas" shining down from above.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wab Executive leadership is a cake walk (and the compensation is completely out of wack with the challenge). * You just hire well, focus on the big picture, and take credit for the efforts of your worker bees.

Yeah, I frequently felt that my compensation was out of whack with the challenge. *The overtime rate was particularly deficient...

I was extremely fortunate to work with people who volunteered to join the Navy (no draft) and then volunteered again for submarines. *Those who did it for the money quickly concluded that it wasn't worth the price and left (usually for aviation). *Those with flawed characters or a lack of teamwork were usually weeded out pretty quickly by the crew in a vicious Darwinian process. *I was so spoiled with good hires that it took me a long time to realize that a very small minority could be alcoholics, drug addicts, liars, cheaters, or thieves. *Luckily those were few & far between because they occupied 95% of my time for weeks. *We tended to get "polarized performers"-- those at both ends of the bell curve with very few near the median.

I never got as far as "executive", but any executive officer who took credit for the accomplishments of his troops was laughed at by all ranks. *XOs get credit for building the team and setting the schedule. *COs get credit for being accountable, training everyone, setting the priorities & missions, making the really nasty decisions, and keeping as many people alive when possible. *But the credit for the accomplishments goes to the troops. *Anyone can give orders, but someone's gotta want to follow them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wab Anybody who has never had to fire a worker...

Firing was regarded as a leadership failure. *If someone wasn't doing (or didn't want to do) their job then they had to be trained. *Then followed corrective training. *Then followed a loss of liberty & other privileges pending improvement. *But the onus was on the leadership to make sure that these people knew what was expected of them and were given enough rope support to be able to do it.

If you had to put someone on report and send them to mast, it was an acknowledgment that either you'd failed at your leadership job or they'd committed a felony.

The Navy has been chronically undermanned for the last quarter-century and I doubt that'll change. *If you "fired" a sailor (heaven forbid you should fire an officer, that was even more painful for all concerned) then you'd have to cope with a "gapped billet" until some newbie reported aboard. *Even the most delinquent & incompetent sailor was usually able to provide some labor to a crew, but a newbie was an absolute black hole for at least a month. *A sub that was hard on their people and "throwing them away" to shore duty would suddenly be 25% undermanned-- and then the transfer requests would start rolling in from the rest of the crew. *Assignment officers knew which boats were "troubled" and gave them no special favors unless commodores or flag officers fixed the leadership problems first. *

In retrospect much of my career seemed to be spent rehabilitating troubled youths, and I'm sure that my first XO felt the same way. *And just when I'd think that my officers were making progress, we'd run into problems with the troops!

Quote:

Originally Posted by MRGALT2U Nope!

Uhm, JG, that was a rhetorical question... I would have suspected that the "wondering" was more common among the people who hired YOU.

[laurence]

From the flip side, my favorite managers have been those that gave me the requirements and the deadlines and left me alone. If I needed help, they were approachable, and really knew their stuff. Just an occasional, "how's the Smith project going?" would be as far as micromanagement went. I was given plenty of room to succeed and fail on my own merits, no question was stupid, not asking was. Hire the right staff, and I think management would be easy.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

An odd concept that "bad" employees cant be "fixed" or that never firing someone is somehow also "bad".

I fired exactly one guy in my entire management career. I think thats something like .01%.

You see, while he was a good employee, he was commuting almost 2 hours each way to work and one of our customers wanted to hire him very badly, for more money. The clincher was they were a 10 minute drive from his house.

But our customer contract prohibited hiring away our employees.

He had the biggest **** eating grin on his face as he walked out the door after the termination.

My hiring record was pretty good. Many of my hires went on to become senior individual contributors or managers. A lot of folks wanted me in on their interview loops. The best interview questions? Asking someone first to describe their greatest success and what they learned from it, then their greatest failure. A surprising number of people seemed at a loss to come up with their biggest screw up, and a surprising number of people who came up with one struggled to explain what they learned from it. I didnt hire any of them. Want to see a interviewees true face? Ask them to describe their best manager ever and why they liked that person, then their worst manager and what they didnt like. For some reason, even the best poker faces have trouble holding back when describing the manager they hated. You also learn a lot about what kind of manager works or doesnt work for them.

I also "inherited" a lot of problem employees, and even a good number of problem groups. Made hay out of that by turning them around.

Most of the "problems" with "problem" employees are readily solvable. If they feel like their boss "gets" them, is willing to stand behind them, gets them fun work to do at least time to time, gives them enough leash to run and gets them credit for their successes...a lot of "problems" stop being "problematic". In other cases, you have people trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Find a dang square hole and put them in it.

Laurence...I dont know all the details, but my advice would be to let these guys do their own dirty work. Be brief and factual in answering their questions and leave it at that. Unless you've been directly supervising her daily activities, it'll be hard for you to do more than that anyhow. There is little upside for you in this task and you may end up with some poor peer perception as a result.

[wabmester]

(), I don't want to push your buttons (right now), but let me ask you something. Was this "find a square for the square peg" management style sort of a cultural thing at your company? I only ask because I used to interact with several different groups there, and I got a sense that they had too many people and not a lot of that "agile, mobile, and hostile" kind of attitude. I suspect it was cultural, and you'd kind of expect that from a monopoly with a fast-growing cash-cow product.

Really, I'm not trying to disparage your company or your job. I'm just curious about the management culture there.

[TargaDave]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ((^+^)) SG Oh, I see. It is better to be clueless and inefficient when hiring. Plus the legal risk of rapid hiring and firing is a "good thing" (as Martha might say). Your comments about entrepenuers are very interesting to me. I work 1/4 time for a start-up company now and surprisingly, these people are even more cautious about hiring decisions than the fortune 500 companies where I worked most of my career. They feel like they can't afford to make any hiring mistakes. In fact, the first company I ever worked for was a mid-sized (about 2000 people) company that was still run by the founders (who had started the company in a garage). The two founders still personnaly interviewed every engineer candidate and were very selective. I don't doubt that you and JG have a different experience than I do related to hiring practices. But I do find it difficult to believe that any rational and truely successful business person would believe that quick, haphazard hiring and firing to fill a position is better than learning how to do it right the first time. Maybe that's just me.

I can only speak for myself. Perhaps an unlucky string of bad hires is cause to go back and rethink the hiring process, but your comment about JG deserving to be fired along with your comment below just came across as pretty arrogant. Then there was the bit about helping to get your CEO fired but I won't go there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ((^+^)) SG I never had to confront someone I chose to hire with a performance problem.

I don't know anyone who has done any quantity of hiring, be able to make that claim. I've done megacorps, startups through IPO's, brother&brother, one man government contractor, and for last 6 years sweating out my own startup company. I know all about being ultra-cautious with new hires, carefully screening and watching cashflow like a hawk. Startups sometimes have to act quick in hiring just to keep the operation going. Sometimes you have to delegate part of the hiring process to someone in your company you trust, especially in fields you are weak in. Sometimes hiring for out-of-state positions (we have several) requires a different strategy. Sometimes you can't afford to hire the person that is perfect for the job, or even be able to afford relocation expenses. Sometimes people with a big company background just don't fit in with the startup mentality. Sometimes you have to hire a personality type that is somewhat anti-social (programmers are a great example and no offense meant to the many talented programmers on this site). Almost all the people you bring in must be highly motivated self starters since there is very little time-resources for training when everyone is focused on sales-support-development. I have brought several people in under contract before I even offered them a full time spot.

My turnover rate is extremely low because I pay well once people prove out, I never micromanage, the numbers are transparent, we have a lot of fun inbetween the madness, I never take the big office or put myself above the dirty work, and I am always happy to say "I don't know the answer". We would never survive otherwise. But I have had to let a couple of people go (quickly) and I have had to keep a couple of people in line personality wise. I've even smacked myself upside the head a couple of times since there is no one to smack me. I get better as time goes on but I would never ever claim that every person I hired not only wasn't fired but never had a performance issue. I would never have made that "firing" comment to JG just from what I know of his posts. When you really live and survive in that world you get a much better appreciation for those who have gone before you and you tend to cut them some slack because it is one tough, imperfect world where you never get it exactly right the first time.

Too much said. SG, You can have the last dig if you want it. (BTW, the three laughin smilies are gettin kind-of old, try something new.)

A quote from Teddy Roosevelt: "Those who aren't making mistakes usually aren't making anything."

[sgeeeee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TargaDave I can only speak for myself. Perhaps an unlucky string of bad hires is cause to go back and rethink the hiring process, but your comment about JG deserving to be fired along with your comment below just came across as pretty arrogant.* Then there was the bit about helping to get your CEO fired but I won't go there. I don't know anyone who has done any quantity of hiring, be able to make that claim.* I've done megacorps, startups through IPO's, brother&brother, one man government contractor, and for last 6 years sweating out my own startup company.* I know all about* being ultra-cautious with new hires, carefully screening and watching cashflow like a hawk.* *Startups sometimes have to act quick in hiring just to keep the operation going. Sometimes you have to delegate part of the hiring process to someone in your company you trust, especially in fields you are weak in.* Sometimes hiring for out-of-state positions (we have several) requires a different strategy.* Sometimes you can't afford to hire the person that is perfect for the job, or even be able to afford relocation expenses.* Sometimes people with a big company background just don't fit in with the startup mentality.* Sometimes you have to hire a personality type that is somewhat anti-social (programmers are a great example and no offense meant to the many talented programmers on this site). Almost all the people you bring in must be highly motivated self starters since there is very little time-resources for training when everyone is focused on sales-support-development.* I have brought several people in under contract before I even offered them a full time spot. My turnover rate is extremely low because I pay well once people prove out, I never micromanage, the numbers are transparent, we have a lot of fun inbetween the madness, I never take the big office or put myself above the dirty work, and I am always happy to say "I don't know the answer".* We would never survive otherwise.* But I have had to let a couple of people go (quickly) and I have had to keep a couple of people in line personality wise.* I've even smacked myself upside the head a couple of times since there is no one to smack me.* *I get better as time goes on but I would never ever claim that every person I hired not only wasn't fired but never had a performance issue.* I would never have made that "firing" comment to JG just from what I know of his posts.* When you really live and survive in that world you get a much better appreciation for those who have gone before you and you tend to cut them some slack because it is one tough, imperfect world where you never get it exactly right the first time. Too much said.* SG, You can have the last dig if you want it.* (BTW, the three laughin smilies are gettin kind-of old, try something new.) A quote from Teddy Roosevelt:* "Those who aren't making mistakes usually aren't making anything."

How about four?

[sgeeeee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TargaDave I can only speak for myself. Perhaps an unlucky string of bad hires is cause to go back and rethink the hiring process, but your comment about JG deserving to be fired along with your comment below just came across as pretty arrogant.* Then there was the bit about helping to get your CEO fired but I won't go there.

When I was working full-time I hired several dozen people over the years. A couple of times I changed jobs and hired several of them a second time. I inherited groups as large as 100 people on a couple of occassions, but I don't consider that as hiring. I also served on merger teams and helped coordinate the reorganization efforts required for that. ()'s description of managing and hiring rings pretty true to me. Nord's observations about the cost of training vs hiring also sound right.

I'm not sure what bothers you about my efforts that led to the ouster of the CEO. I neither hired or fired him, but the company is far better off without him. The fallout from that exposure of corporate research fraud has done that company a world of good (think American cell phone company).

Quote:

Originally Posted by TargaDave I don't know anyone who has done any quantity of hiring, be able to make that claim.* I've done megacorps, startups through IPO's, brother&brother, one man government contractor, and for last 6 years sweating out my own startup company.* I know all about* being ultra-cautious with new hires, carefully screening and watching cashflow like a hawk.* *Startups sometimes have to act quick in hiring just to keep the operation going. Sometimes you have to delegate part of the hiring process to someone in your company you trust, especially in fields you are weak in.* Sometimes hiring for out-of-state positions (we have several) requires a different strategy.* Sometimes you can't afford to hire the person that is perfect for the job, or even be able to afford relocation expenses.* Sometimes people with a big company background just don't fit in with the startup mentality.* Sometimes you have to hire a personality type that is somewhat anti-social (programmers are a great example and no offense meant to the many talented programmers on this site). Almost all the people you bring in must be highly motivated self starters since there is very little time-resources for training when everyone is focused on sales-support-development.* I have brought several people in under contract before I even offered them a full time spot.

Like I said, I've hired several dozen people over the years and inherited hundreds of employees through reorganizations and advancements. One thing that may be different about my experience is that I always worked in research and development organizations. I tended to be hiring top technical talent -- often people who were familiar with me professionally and with published accounts of our work before they even applied. I did have to hire support staff too, but most of my hiring was of highly skilled professionals.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TargaDave . . . When you really live and survive in that world you get a much better appreciation for those who have gone before you and you tend to cut them some slack because it is one tough, imperfect world where you never get it exactly right the first time.

I find this comment condescending. You assume my experience is somehow inferior to yours -- that I haven't really lived and survived. I stand by my claims that company's I have worked for would never tolerate the rapid hire and fire of three people to fill one position. Furthermore, I am convinced that companies are right to hold this attitude. Good supervisors hire the right people and motivate them to excel. That's their job. If they can't do that, they don't belong as supervisors.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TargaDave A quote from Teddy Roosevelt:* "Those who aren't making mistakes usually aren't making anything."

While I believe this to be true, it doesn not imply that the more mistakes you make, the more productive you are.

[wabmester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ((^+^)) SG Good supervisors hire the right people and motivate them to excel.* That's their job.* If they can't do that, they don't belong as supervisors.

Uh huh.* *Maybe you could give us an example of your toughest case.

I'll give you one of mine.* *West coast company acquired a small company in Utah.* *I've never seen such an inbred culture.* *About 20 engineers, but two of them were "Prima Donnas."* *They "owned" important parts of the software architecture, and they consciously kept everything to themselves for job security and control.* *No documentation, critical components, inbred culture, xenophobic, threatened by the idea of losing control to acquiring company, etc, etc.

Long story short.* *Two managers before me went down in flames trying to get things in shape.* *So, I started the process of migrating their technology to our west coast office, ostensibly to mirror the services for* redundancy.* * Obviously, this required that we be able to build and maintain the system locally, so I looped the Prima Donnas into the migration effort, which they fought every step of the way.* * I gave them important responsibilities with clear milestones.* *Offered them lots of autonomy in planning the migration.* *And when they failed, I fired them, and we essentially reverse engineered their spaghetti code and built a new system from scratch.

What would you have done to "motivate them to excel?"

[MRGALT2U]

My last post on this thread.

With all of the people I hired/fired over my 25+ years in
management, I can't recall even one instance where my choice
(of who to hire or fire) caused me any criticism or censure
from those above me (when I had someone above me).
I think the key here is they were looking to get the job done
and for me to solve the problems (which I did), even if some of the problems
were caused by my own hiring. Maybe I worked in a different culture.

JG

[sgeeeee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wab . . .What would you have done to "motivate them to excel?"

I assume this is a rhetorical question.

But this is a different case than we have been discussing here, wab. The discussion was started with JG telling us how he hired and fired two people very rapidly before hiring the third for a position. He was making the point that firing people was easy for him. I pointed out that this just made it sound like he was an incompetent hiring manager. I stand by that position.

In your case, you didn't hire these guys. They did not choose to work for you. And they probably did not share the same corporate goals as you. If you had interviewed these people, not been able to figure out that they were the wrong folks for the job, not been able to make your requirements so clear that they didn't want the job, and then you hired them anyway -- I would call that incompetent.

Not everyone is right for every job; and interviewing and hiring is an expensive and risky proposition. That's why a hiring manager needs to learn how to interview effectively.

Hiring the right people to work with you and managing them is a whole lot easier than managing a group that you did not choose. Their goal may actually be to make you fail. You can't let that happen. I also mentioned one of my experiences in this thread where I was forced to expose a group of researcher managers who were invloved in research fraud. They ultimately lost their jobs. While they were not my direct reports in this case, the only difference in the outcome had they been my direct reports is that I would have fired them sooner and been less generous with their severance agreements. I don't believe they could have been rehabilitated to become good corporate citizens, and even if they could, it would have sent the wrong message to the troops and been a costly rehabilitation.

[wabmester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ((^+^)) SG But this is a different case than we have been discussing here, wab.

Oh, sorry. For a minute there I thought you were boasting to be one of those super-human managers who could fit square pegs into round holes regardless of whether you hired them or inherited them. So, I think we agree -- some people just need to have their butts canned. And if you fail to can them, you are failing to do your job as a manager.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by retire@40 A good leader sometimes does influence others by understanding what makes that person tick and offering the right reward or the right punishment for an action. However, some people get it and some people don't. Some people will continue to be losers and some will continue to be winners, no matter how hard you try to rehab them. It happens in school, at work, and in life in general. The only time people go from "not getting it" to "getting it" is when THEY decide for themselves.

The most 'freeing' management article I ever read was one that encompassed the above viewpoint. You rarely can motivate someone that is not self-motivated. What you CAN do, as a manager, is provide a great environment for the motivated employees, so they can do their best. If you generally hire good people, and then work to create a great working environment, things will tend to go well.

ERD50

[laurence]

Well, for the record, I'm out of the loop on that now, thank goodness. Now I have returned from Hawaii to find my current boss battling my future boss to keep me. It's gotten a little bit ugly. I'm gone, there is nothing he can do about it, but I just didn't want hard feelings to come out of it. Not a bridge burner. Still, it's nice to be wanted.

Interesting thread we've got going here, as I've never had direct reports, I can contribute nothing further. I will remember try to remember this thread for the day that I do.

[TargaDave]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ((^+^)) SG How about four?

Egadz! Settle down cowboy.

[vic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TargaDave My turnover rate is extremely low because I pay well once people prove out, I never micromanage, the numbers are transparent, we have a lot of fun inbetween the madness, I never take the big office or put myself above the dirty work, and I am always happy to say "I don't know the answer".

You are so right. In my experience the #1 happiness factor in megacorp was a good direct boss, and I like what you described above. In my little world at megacorp, upper management, company direction etc. were insignificant factors in my daily cube life compared to the effect of my direct supervisor and some colleagues. A happy employee is a productive employee. For one year I absolutely loved going to work. I also ranked as the top performer. The vast majority of bosses I worked for were absolutely not quallified to manage others. The result is entire groups that are highly unproductive. Without any doubt, there are some people that do not want to work but I think the number of essentially 'bad' people is very limited.

Vicky