Employee Development

The Best Methodology for Aligning your Team Probably Surfaced in 1982.

October 23, 2018 Tags: , , , , , Mike Chirveno

Commander’s Intent first appeared in the US Army Field Manual 100-5, Operations in 1982. However, it wasn’t original with them. It was borrowed from the Germans who developed it as they fought Napoleon during the French Revolution. The Germans called it Aftragstaktik.

So, what does this 225 year-old methodology have to do with your organization in 2019? Traditionally, military operations were centrally controlled. High ranking officers would diligently plan troop movements and equipment deployments, carefully orchestrating every skirmish. But, when the first bullet was fired, the plan immediately became outdated. Enemies didn’t respond as anticipated, equipment malfunctioned, soldiers were wounded or killed and couldn’t execute the carefully conceived plans. At that point, troops up and down the chain of command were paralyzed or limited in their ability to respond because they only had the original plan and when it became impractical or impossible to execute, they had to improvise which may or may not have been in the best interest of the mission or in the best interest of their fellow soldiers.

Enter Commander’s Intent. Commander’s Intent succinctly describes what constitutes success for the operation – the final desired end state. At the outset of a mission, the ranking officer would describe to a small group of subordinates the desired end game of a mission. The officer would also define guardrails for these subordinates and give them authority to make decisions within the bounds of these guardrails all pointing towards the successful completion of the mission. These subordinates would then pass the strategic intent of the mission to their small group of subordinates and define for them a more narrow set of guardrails between which they could make independent decisions all while pushing towards the successful completion of the mission. This repeated until the lowest ranking soldier in the fight understood the Commander’s Intent. With the Commander’s Intent well in hand and the span of control understood, officers and soldiers up and down the chain of command could more easily respond to rapidly changing conditions on the battlefield and, with their understanding of the end game, make adjustments that took into account new realities and pushed towards the successful completion of the mission. Paralysis and indecision were replaced by real-time intelligence gathering and mission-appropriate “counter-punching”.

These are probably obvious, but there are a few key ingredients in this process and everyone involved must buy in –

  • Everybody must be crystal-clear on the end game (i.e. the Commander’s Intent). It is the responsibility of superiors to explain it simply and fully and to spell out the “why” behind it. It is the responsibility of subordinates to keep asking questions until they get it and the rationale behind it. Nothing less than full understanding up and down the chain of command will do.
  • Everybody must understand their span of responsibility. The guardrails must be clear so that everyone knows what they control for themselves and their subordinates.
  • This crystal-clear delineation of responsibility must be accompanied by trust. Because subordinates have clear visibility into the thinking of superiors they can see the strategic value of the mission. Because superiors have clearly defined the outcomes and span of control, they can trust the field-level decision making of subordinates knowing they will be aligned with fulfilling the Commander’s Intent.

Your challenge as the boss is to relinquish autocratic control. To make this work, you must embrace your responsibilities as leader, coach and teacher. #CommandersIntent

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The application in your office, factory or farm is apparent now, but let me make one more important point. To make this work, ego must be put in check. Will every downstream decision be perfect? Doubtful. Will there be an expensive mistake from time to time? Probably. But the growth in your team and the improvement in dynamic decision-making skills in your organization will more than make up for it. This is the methodology for building agility in your organization. Your challenge as the boss is to relinquish autocratic control. To make this work, you must embrace your responsibilities as leader, coach and teacher.

Can Digging Ditches be as Rewarding as Working for the Peace Corps?

February 14, 2017 Tags: , , , , , , , , , Mike Chirveno

In my work as a business consultant and grad school adjunct professor, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve invoked Dan Pink’s three-point outline from his brilliant 2009 book, Drive. Employees want three things in their work life –

  • Autonomy – the ability to control what they do, how they do it, when they do it and who they do it with
  • Mastery – doing work that is not too hard, but not too easy.  Growing their skills with the knowledge that their abilities are not finite, but infinitely improvable. Realizing that mastering a task takes determination, effort and on-going practice. And, knowing that no matter how hard they try, they will never fully master their craft – making it perpetually challenging.
  • Purpose – the ability to attach meaning to their work that supersedes the enrichment of investors or employees. Creating opportunities that allow employees to engage in this meaning on their own terms.

 

To be honest, I’ve waxed eloquent on autonomy and mastery many times. They seemed so easy to explain and illustrate. But I can’t say the same about purpose. I’ve struggled to help clients and students understand how to create meaning for employees when their work seems to lack it. Let’s face it, some work, taken at face value, has more intrinsic purpose than others – yes, working for the Peace Corps feels more noble than digging ditches.

Enter the excellent book, Competing Against Luck, by Clayton Christensen. When it comes to attaching purpose to work, it was like someone flipped on the light in a dark room. If you’re unfamiliar with the topic of the book, Jobs Theory, here’s the super abridged version – people hire a person, company or thing to accomplish a “job to be done” – it’s the theoretical framework behind Theodore Levitt’s wonderful quote, “people do not want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter inch hole.” Christensen and his co-authors dig deep into the topic and illustrate it with wonderful real-life examples, but for my purposes here, let me pick out a few gems.

When people have a “job to be done”, it’s generated by circumstances that make their current condition untenable. Some of the circumstances are mildly annoying – “I’m thirsty”, but others demand a solution right now – “I’ve been in an accident, my car is undriveable and I can’t get to work, home or anywhere else”. Hence a job to be done. The job represents progress the potential customer wants to make. The progress might be simple – moving from being thirsty to being hydrated, but many times in the progress is complex – get my wrecked car to the body shop, get all the insurance companies on the same page and get the claim paid, get my car fixed right the first time, in the immediate future get me where in need to go, in the long term get me a rental car to drive and finally don’t cancel my car insurance because of this one accident or raise my premiums through the roof. The person, product or company that delivers on the job to be done in the most complete and frictionless way creates a high-value solution for the customer and creates a probability that they will be hired for that job over and over again.

Towards the end of the book, Christensen explains the amazing transformation that occurs when companies organize, not around products or functions, but around jobs to be done. As I read that, it dawned on me – what could bring more purpose to work than one human being giving their best effort and creativity to do a job that has meaning to another human being. At this point, we can stop asking people to find meaning in accounting, information technology or supply chain management. They don’t even have to find meaning in toasters, hotel stays or a new social network. As we organize our enterprises around jobs to be done, we are connecting the passions and skills of our employees to the heartfelt needs of a customer that has a very-important-to-them job to be done.

 

I first wrote about Drive six years ago. To read that post, click here.

Depreciating Employees

January 4, 2017 Tags: , , , , , , , , Mike Chirveno

Sorry to bring this up, but in just a couple of months it will be tax time. Very soon the Finance folks will be talking with us about deductions, assets, 1099s and more. One of the conversations will likely involve depreciation. Depreciation is the mechanism that allows us to account for the portion of an item’s value we’ve used to create products or services in that year. It’s fairly intuitive – the truck we purchased in 2014 delivered products, picked up materials or made service calls – all allowing us to serve customers and make money. At the same time, the truck is another year older – more wear and tear, more maintenance required and certainly worth less than when we bought it. Even with top-notch maintenance and lots of replacement parts, we’ll not return its value to the original purchase price.

This type of depreciation is unavoidable and, in reality, desirable since it enables our mission and money-making. But there is another type of depreciation that’s damaging and unnecessary. Can employees depreciate? Think about it. You’re most likely handing out raises with those year-end performance reviews. Certainly your benefit costs are going up. So, if you get the same amount of value from those employees this year that you received from them last year, but you’re paying more for them, they are depreciating.

If you get the same value from employees this year that you received from them last year and you’re paying them more, they are depreciating.

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Let me hasten to say, I realize they’re another year smarter with greater experience.  That should allow them to successfully ride the experience curve and add more value to your organization. But what if you could supercharge their growth? Unfortunately, I spent a good portion of my former corporate life focused on projects and processes and not on people. It never dawned on me that I was contributing to employee depreciation, since I was giving more of the company’s money (through yearly raises and benefits) to employees whose development was primarily just what they caught by osmosis over the course of the year.

Fortunately, since my switch to consulting and through my own personal and professional growth, I’ve had the privilege of helping clients create and implement robust employee development plans; plans that make people smarter, give them vital experiences that prepare them for new responsibilities in the organization and equip them with new tools that bring them personal satisfaction and allow them to better meet the needs of the organization’s customers.

It’s just the opposite of employee depreciation. It’s employee appreciation. Each passing month, the value of the employee’s new knowledge, skills, abilities and experiences far surpass the increased compensation. This makes for an organization that’s growing, transforming and competing because its team members are growing and transforming.

To download the initial Employee Development Plan Worksheet that my clients use to start the Employee Development conversation with their employees, click here.

One Shining Moment

March 11, 2011 Tags: , , , , , Mike Chirveno

I love March Madness – three weekends of great college basketball filled with drama, athletic prowess, underdogs and Cinderellas.  Between TV, radio, print and the web, each team’s journey through the NCAA tournament is chronicled hundreds of times.  We learn about universities, individual athletes and coaches.  Often times, these stories propel people into the national spotlight and we never forget them.  I vividly remember Jim Valvano taking North Carolina State to the Championship in 1983, delivering the speech of a lifetime in 1993 and succumbing to cancer just eight short weeks later.  There was “the shot” – Christian Laettner’s last second jump shot to beat Kentucky in the 1992 East Regional finals.  How about UCLA guard Tyus Edney’s coast-to-coast drive with 4.8 seconds left to push them past Missouri and ultimately to the 1995 NCAA title?

In all the flurry of games and fascinating stories, there’s one thing I always look forward to.  At the end of the championship game, CBS plays a compilation video of the championship team’s rise to the top of the college basketball world.  There’s nothing quite like the “One Shining Moment” video.  This year (2011) will mark the twenty-fifth time David Barrett’s “national anthem of college basketball” will immortalize one team’s achievement of the ultimate college basketball dream.  I can’t wait to watch.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about “one shining moment” – not the song, but the fact that so many lives are defined by one of “those” moments – and not just in athletics.  I just finished reading Sully Sullenberger’s book.  His life will forever be defined by the moment he successfully ditched his disabled US Air passenger jet in New York’s Hudson River in January 2009 saving all 155 people aboard.  After being injured on her previous attempt, American gymnast Kerri Strug landed a spectacular vault in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.  After nailing the landing, her ailing ankle gave way and she collapsed on the mat.  Her performance guaranteed the Americans a gold medal.

Around the time of Christ, Seneca, the Roman philosopher, opined that “luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”  That thought has surfaced often as I’ve pondered “one shining moment”.  Was Sully Sullenberger lucky when he piloted the plane to safety in the Hudson?  Was Kerri Strug lucky when she landed her medal-winning vault?  Was Christian Laettner lucky when he hit the game-winning jumper?  I’ve got to think not.  That one life-defining moment was the result of hundreds of hours of sacrifice, study and practice.  While others enjoyed the love of family, the companionship of friends and the enjoyment of recreational activities, these people spent an extra hour in the flight simulator or in the gym.  For these folks, and a relative handful of others down through history, it was obviously worth all of the blood, sweat and tears.  But what about the rest of us?  More than likely, we’ll labor in obscurity until the end of our career or the end of life.

I want to spend the rest of my post putting in a shameless plug for preparation as if your “one shining moment” was guaranteed and was imminent.  If I were to orchestrate life, I’d move from one success to the next, each one building on the previous one.  But I don’t orchestrate life and that’s not the way it works.  Instead we alternate between success and failure, victory and defeat, prosperity and leanness, peace and strife.  The method of the “lucky” is to wring every bit of learning from each of these – continually adding new skills and knowledge to our bag of tricks.  We learn from those who went before us – successfully and unsuccessfully.  When we’ve leveraged everyone of life’s experiences into deeper levels of understanding, we’ll be ready when or if our “one shining moment” comes.

But what if it never comes?  Will all of the work be worth it?  A million times over – and here’s why.

  • The relationships that are strengthened, the wisdom that is gained and the discipline that is built are far more valuable than the fame that comes from the “one shining moment”.
  • In almost every case, “one shining moment” comes looking for us, we don’t go looking for it.  Our only responsibility is to be ready when it come.  The readiness for “one shining moment” makes us ready to tackle with excellence the multiple obscure moments we encounter every day.
  • “One shining moment” almost always comes in the course of carrying out our regular responsibilities.  In the examples I cited earlier, each of these folks experienced their “one shining moment” in the context of something in which they were already involved.  They were just doing their jobs and their “one shining moment” swooped in unannounced.

 

The odds of filling out a perfect NCAA bracket are about 1 in 9 quintillion – a 9 followed by 18 zeroes – and that’s not counting any play-in games, just the main 63.  I don’t know what the odds are that any of us will experience “one shining moment”.  But I do know the odds of getting value from a life of passion, purpose and preparation – they are 1 out of 1.

We can prepare for a public “one shining moment”.  Maybe it will come and maybe it won’t.  We might never be immortalized while David Barrett’s music plays in the background, but we can build value in the people and organizations around us.

First Break All the Rules and Drive

September 30, 2010 Tags: , , , , , , , , Mike Chirveno

It’s not good advice for safe motoring, but it is the name of two exceptional books about workplace performance.  The books were written 10 years apart, but as I recently read both of them, almost back-to-back, I was struck by the complimentary messages.

First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman was the end result of a Gallup study that gathered information from 80,000 managers.  Their quest was to find out what made a great manager.  The book has insight after insight, but the key finding is that great managers create an environment where employees answer these twelve questions in the affirmative (it sounds too simple, but you really need to read the book to appreciate the simplicity) –

  1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
  2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
  3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
  4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
  5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
  6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
  7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
  8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
  9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
  10. Do I have a best friend at work?
  11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
  12. This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

 

Drive by Dan Pink explores motivation in the workplace.  Pink summarizes his book in 100 words, “When it comes to motivation, there’s a gap between what science knows and what business does.  Our current business operating system – which is built around external, carrot-and-stick motivators – doesn’t work and often does harm.  We need an upgrade.  And science shows the way.  This new approach has three essential elements: (1) Autonomy – the desire to direct our own lives;  (2) Mastery – the urge to get better and better at something that matters; and (3) Purpose – the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.”  Pink fleshes out these three elements – Autonomy accords people control over 1) what they do, 2) when they do it, 3) who they do it with and 4) how they do it.  Mastery challenges people with work that is not too hard and not too easy.  It also abides by these three rules – 1) abilities are not finite, but infinitely improvable, 2) mastering a task takes determination, effort,  and on-going practice and 3) no matter how hard you try, you will never fully master your craft.  Purpose manifests itself in the organization by 1) using profit to fund purpose, 2) identifying objectives that supersede just the enrichment of investors or employees and 3) creating opportunities that allow employees to engage in these objectives on their own terms.

As I contrasted the approaches of the two books, I weighed the external focus of Buckingham and Coffman (good managers create an environment that breeds fulfillment and performance) and the internal focus of Pink (external motivation is ineffective in today’s creative work environment and must be replaced by tapping into the intrinsic motivation of each employee).  I believe these authors have identified two sides of the same coin – good managers tap into the internal motivation that each of us possesses.

Notice how 8 of the 12 First, Break All the Rules questions fit nicely under the internal motivations in Drive –

Autonomy

  1. At work, do my opinions seem to count? (what I do, how I do it, when I do it)
  2. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work? (who I do it with)
  3. Do I have a best friend at work? (who I do it with)

Mastery

  1. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? (not too hard, not too easy)
  2. Is there someone at work who encourages my development? (abilities are not finite, but infinitely improvable)
  3. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress? (no matter how hard you try, you’ll never fully master your craft)
  4. This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow? (mastery takes determination, effort and on-going practice)

Purpose

  1. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important? (profit is used to fund purpose, engaging in the purpose on my own terms)

As I see it, 4 questions don’t fit neatly into the 3 internal motivations, but instead give context to these drives in the organization.

  1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
  2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
  3. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
  4. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?

I find it interesting that 2 of the 4 outlier questions deal with being valued and validated (Qs 4 and 5).  Each of us, whether we labor in the spotlight or in the shadows, wants to know we’re doing work that’s important and appreciated.  It’s certainly not as meaningful as being plugged in to our internal motivations, but contributes to a healthy view of work life.

The remaining two questions deal with expectations and equipping.  People, for the most part, want to do a good job and feel pride in their work, but they must know exactly what “doing a good job” looks like.  Finally, employees must be equipped with the talents and resources they need to do what is expected.  Owners, managers and supervisors shouldn’t expect a house when they’ve not provided building materials.

This is my shot at connecting the dots.  I’d love to get your take on the connections between these two excellent books.