A good manager

I am writing this blog, now, over a year. Every time, looking at another aspect, another issue concerning management, trying to highlight it for myself, as well as for the readers. Doing so, I find myself wondering: If we collect all the written literature, here, in other blogs and over the web, in hundreds and thousands of management books, it seems as if, the list of skills required for being, what is called, a "good manager" are...endless.
I feel as if anyone who wishes to fulfill this list and turn into a good manager, should be a superman; some virtuoso that is a and b and c, and so on.

It is important, I believe, to discuss the issue, for two complementary reasons:
The first, as a tool for examining myself, seeking where I should focus my efforts on improving; the second, in order to better choose the subordinate managers and help them develop better, so they best manage their employees.

If I would have to choose five and only five skills of a good manager, I believe I would choose the following list:

A manager is a person who knows to take decisions. To listen, to understand, to ask; to agree, to disagree. But at the end of the day- to take a decision. And to know, that I am responsible and later on, I will not blame my partners nor my employees; not my customers and in no way shall I blame the weather. To take decisions and to be responsible for these decisions.

A manager is a person who knows how to motivate people. Motivate people to act; motivate people to act effectively; motivate people to work with sparkles in their eyes and enthusiasm in their hearts. Motivating people is important in a stable environment of work, however it is much more critical in a changing market as we are experiencing, now, in the 21st century. The changing market causes us to check and recheck our decisions, to refine or even change them due to the circumstances, and to motivate people to act upon these changes.
A manager is a person with a presence; a person, that people actually want to listen to what he or she says, and to follow.

A manager is a person who acts. This has several aspects: Acts- does not find it undignified to work, and to even to perform some dirty jobs. Acts- is connected to the field and continues to deal, even though less, but deals, with the professional discipline, in which the company specializes. Acts- analyzing the past and bringing the future.

A good manager is somewhat different. Creative, knowing how to think out-of-the-box, sometimes thinking otherwise than other people think. Your employees do not expect you to think exactly as they do; the organization needs you to think somewhat different in order to burst out and lead. Moreover, you have to find the right way to proceed, however not always the trivial one. Willing to take risks, and knowing that sometimes we will pay for taking them. Innovative.

A good manager is a person. Empathic, attentive, laughing sometimes, other times angry. Also, having weaknesses. Externalize the person whom you are.
Some of the readers may ask: Does humanity (us being people) compensates for professionalism, for the skills of taking decisions, etc.? The answer is, definitely, no; with no doubts. Being human, and even externalizing it, resembles the attitude to the aero digit. A zero, if it comes before a number (01, 079, 013456), adds nothing. However, a zero digit, added after a number (10,790, 134560) adds a magnitude. It multiplies by factor 10. I believe that humanity acts in a similar way: Without the other skills, it is useless. When it comes above them, its what makes the difference.
Be human. Teach your employees whom you manage, to do the same.

If I succeed to stick even only to this list of skills, I hope and believe that I can be in a situation where I navigate the ship, in the right speed, having smiling sailors on my deck.

I surely try.

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Motivation

Shaye Feingboum, a known Israeli Football couch, once explained the reporters: "People say I am a 'motivator'; that means someone who injects motivation to his players".
No doubt, that in every profession, starting from football and reaching teachers, through manufacturing, medical cares and art, the worker's motivation is an essential factor of his or her productivity. No doubt, that motivation cannot be purchased, by a check any manager is willing to sign.

There are many theories that speak about motivation that triggers activity, and hopefully, assists in achieving desired goals. Two of the more famous related theories are Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and John Adam's equity theory. Maslow defined a pyramid of needs, starting with physiological needs, through safety needs, love/belonging needs, esteems' needs and up to self-actualization needs. The individual's behavior is influenced from all. In order to achieve motivation, we should fulfill all five levels of the individual's needs. The lowest level of unfulfilled needs will be the one to block the individual's motivation. For example, if an individual will not feel safe in the place he or she work, then they can be respected thoroughly (esteems' level), yet will not feel motivated. And vice versa; The more we invest in supplying the necessities of the individual, in more levels, our chances to gain motivation of our worker, will rise.

Adams speaks about another aspect: equity. In order to achieve job motivation, the individual wants fair treatment. Fair is defined by comparing what the person invests in the organization, to what he or she receives; and fairness is defined by comparing what the specific person receives comparing it to what other colleagues receive, the near colleagues (in the same team / place of work) and the more far defined colleagues (working in the same profession / friends, etc.). The Adams theory enables us to better implement Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory: Also, when we give the workers a partial answer for their needs, if they feel that what they receive is relatively fair, these partial answers may be enough for triggering motivation. Even if the business is experiencing difficulties (economical or others), what is important is the relative answer we give to the individual rather than the absolute one.

Above all these wise and important theories, I use various tools in order to motivate people:
First, I understand that there cannot be a uniform level of motivation for all employees and for each employee every day in the year. Motivation is triggered also from character, and people are different one another. Motivation is also influenced by external factors, factors that we cannot control: Coming angry to work, someone in the family sick, separation, etc. We have to be empathic to our employees and compare each one of them only to himself and to no one else. If we feel a motivation decrease, we should give it place, and watch in order to learn if it is an external passing problem, or a trend teaching us there is a motivation problem of the employee in the organization.


On the individual level:
I try to delegate authority. When a person knows that he or she are trusted, motivation increases. Of course, we have to prevent them from feeling "suckers" or helpless. Delegating authority must be accompanied with guiding, and should be conducted in an atmosphere of "big thinking"; not abuse.
I try to challenge my people. Challenges draw motivation;
I try to fit part of the assignments to things I know the person to fill it relates to, or likes to do. I try to highlight these aspects in existing activities;
Moreover, I try to respect and thank. Cherishing people for successful activities and good results is the fuel for motivation in the next activity to come.

On the personal level I try to show people how motivated I am, as much as possible. I try to show a good example, to serve as a role modeler. If we, as managers, are motivated, and if we are out there with sparkles in our eyes, we enhance the chances of our people to be motivated; and vice versa.

On the organizational level:
Two related tips;
First, a good organizational climate; the second, Share the employees in what is happening.
There are only few things better than causing our employees to want to come every morning to work, smiling and with motivation to work. In the company I manage, we held, a few months ago, our yearly satisfaction review. Naturally, the people included criticism too, and naturally, even though the "big picture" was good, these comments turned me sad. The day after we published results, one of the employees knocked on my door. He said: "I want you to know, that even though people included also less favorable comments, I come to work every day, smiling; I like to come to work; and I certainly am not the only one that feels that way". We cannot always have people only say good things and thank us. People tend to want better, and that is a good thing, because it turns the organization into a better one. Yet, we have to remember, to see that the climate is good, that the atmosphere is positive. We have to see to that, that our employees are happy to work in our organization, and happy to start their day with us.

What has it to do with sharing the employees? Employees that are shared in what is happening, feel more safe and less threatened (rumors are a recipe for trouble) and feel more belonging to the organization. Safety and belonging drive motivation. Did we mention, by any chance, Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory?

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Words

"Life and death are in the power of the tongue", said King Solomon, in the Bible (Proverbs 18:21). Sages of blessed memory added: "silence is a fence for wisdom". Not always, speaking is the right thing to do. Not in all cases, using words, adds.

No doubt, that words are significant. They always had. However, it seems, that regarding to work, the power of words turns to more powerful. Why is it so? For two reasons:
First, in the reality that existed one hundred years ago, the employee had less interaction with his manager. Therefore, also if words were powerful, there were fewer opportunities for using them, when speaking about employee-manager communication. Secondly, the relationship between the manager and the employee have turned in the last years, in some aspects to be symmetric, and in others not. This lack of balance drives the word said or written to have much more influence. I will explain:
Today, employment is symmetric. This issue has been dealt in previous posts, but I wish to return to it and explain its consequences on use of words. In the past, a place to work was a choice for life. Today, people are regular to move on every few years, changing their employment. The initiative for such a change could be the manager, but could come also from the worker. This is the symmetry. If, as a manager, you have said something non-positive to an employee, or even you have been understood that way, it is easy for the employee to remember and turn angry and bitter. These can be translated, within time, to people not wishing to stay in work. It is not easy to know about such things. As in other aspects of life, it is easier to rune than to fix. In the former situation, also if such feelings would exist, their influence on the employees stay was minimal. As employees know that they are staying for many years, they knew how to ignore, not to take every issue and empower it. It resembles the relationships between a married couple. We know that the relationship is important; we know we want it to last. So we learn, as adults, not to get insulted from every said by the other. It is obvious that two grown people cannot see everything in the same way, yet it is not worthwhile heart breaking. The fact, that we see a specific place of work as a stage only, eases its breaking.
Yet, there is the a-symmetric part of the manager-employee relationship that was and is to stay: The word of a manager has more power. It has more influence. It flies far.

The combination of these two factors, the symmetric and the a-symmetric, makes life non-balanced. Make the power of the word more significant.

A few things I have learnt, part of them, the hard way:

Beware what you write to your employees. Especially when using email. Formal documents are in most cases professional, and rarely serve as part of the communication between a manager and his or her employee. When we speak with our employee face to face, we see them, hear them and sense them. It is easier to fix mistakes, if we failed in choosing our words. If we write a mail, backing off and rephrasing is much more complicated. Emails tend to be one dimensional, and the employee's impression is not supported by our facial expression, by the tone we use when we speak and by all our body language, which are, as researchers claim, the main part of what we understand in any message.
The use of email in the 21st century flattens the organization in some aspects, and should be considered as a blessing, yet it has potential faults as well. The flattening enables a channel of communication between various levels in the organization, communication that does not exist in other channels. The impact of every written word empowers, as it is not supported by the frame of all other accompanying channels, leaving the communication manly one channel, with one dimension only. Therefore, be careful! Even though it is tempting to write short and straightforward, when writing emails, consider every word and write what you decide- in more than in one way. That way, the chances of misunderstanding, decrease. Of course, we should memorize, time after time, that many issues should not be dealt by mail at all.

When you talk, and even more important, when you write, consider avoiding criticizing together with giving compliments. It is possible, but we should take in mind, as managers, that in many cases the compliment turns transparent. Nobody notices it, even if it was the major part. It does not matter if the complement precedes the critics or comes after. One time after another, I have learnt that people are selective in what they decide to catch. What do I recommend? To decide what is more important in each case, and stick to it, without adding the other part; or, take the risk, those things will be disregarded.

This is the place, before continuing, for an important tip. It is somehow natural for us to criticize, less natural to appreciate and value good things done. Appreciate your employees! When someone does a good job, do not treat it as obvious. Tell him or her, what you think, even better in writing. Even a short mail will do the work. It does not cost, but it is worth, and a lot. You would not believe as how much our employees are yearning to hear something good from us; how important it is to them. They deserve it, so give it! Say something good.

However, do not exaggerate. Write and say only the truth. The words we use, their value is subjective. If we reuse to much the term "excellent", for example, its value, as to the listener, will decrease drastically. If we do not give a complement every day, on every thing, we drive a situation, that when we do complement, its value amazingly is high. That way, it is also easy for us to give it, to say a good word, as we feel inside our hearts, that the people deserve it; that it is significant.

One last thing: When we want to pass an important message, it is best to pass it three times. Use more than one mail, or use more than one communication channel. We were born that way as people. In order to achieve more than hearing, also listening; more than reading, also heart and mind understanding, we must return and say it repeatedly.

Maybe, not in all situations, "Life and death are in the power of the tongue", but in all cases, the words are truly significant. For the better and for the worse.
On that, Sages of blessed memory said: "Wise people, beware what you say".

Yours,
Moria

to the Hebrew version

Planning

A few weeks ago, I was invited to some big event. Many ceremonies take place around the country, as Israel is celebrating these days 60 years of independence. This event was a military event that was aimed to saluting a large group of technical people. Usually those people are in the shadow, servicing the others, and therefore, the uniqueness of this event was in putting them in the lights and thanking them for their significant activity that donates to the complete success and security.
Thousands of people were invited to the event and most of them did show up. Unfortunately, an hour before the ceremony started, somewhere else in Israel, two soldiers were killed in a training accident. After waiting a while, the event was canceled. Five thousand people were sent back home, with no party. We are a family, the commander said, explaining the cancellation, after every one had already arrived. A family, in good times and in sad times. Today is one of the sad times. We cannot joy and celebrate.

Can we plan anything? Is there any meaning to planning? I am sure that the brigadier general that set the event in motion, and worked diligently on turning it into reality for six month, did not imagine that the event would end the way it did. I am convinced, that the families of the killed soldiers, that send their beloved ones to another day of operation, did not think that they will never see them again.

Even when we deal with less important events, we plan and not always success to stick to the original plan. In the beginning of my way, as a consultant, I remember that I received a purchase order from a client, after several months working on the lead. Two weeks later, the company was merged into some other company. I was left with an order in my hand, yet with an organization in change that was not in the suitable situation to execute the activity. The button line: zero revenue.

I have many more examples. We plan, and agree on some things, together with an employee, customer or a partner but reality is stronger than any plan. Time is an issue, something else is urgent and our activity is being postponed; replacement of managers and our plan is being canceled. In some case, activity starts and an external constraint prevents its completion. The list of reasons why plans are not fulfilled is very long.

Should we conclude not to plan? This shall we deal with changes affecting our plans?

I will start from the ending point. At "Alice in wonderland", Alice asked the cat, as she reached the intersection: "Which way I should choose?" "Where do you want to get to?" She was asked. "I don’t know". "If so", she was replied, "Any road will lead you there".

We need to plan. Planning serves us in defining the direction we want to get to; designing, the long-term direction, as well as the intermediate stations (the tasks) that will help us get there.
Planning assists us to get much further;
Planning assists us to estimate the required sources (time, expense and other sources);
Moreover, planning assists us to notice the risks, so we can prepare ourselves in the best way possible.

Yet, planning is only an introduction to life, and therefore it may be considered as a baseline for changes. I do believe that we should not stick to the original plan at every case, and never give up. It is necessary to work according to a plan, but yet to know when this plan turns to be only a plan and not anything beyond.

We should be more careful not to turn the planning and the work plans to be a target rather than an aid. Many times, I have seen over occupation on plans and their details. Updating that recurs repeatedly, drawing all management attention to it. We are limited in our ability to dedicate management sources at the same time to too many tasks. We need to remember that the goal of a work plan is to help us and it is not the project or the activity itself. It is possible that the best solution, in case of a need in change, is only the indication of a new layout without dismantling it to a repaired work plan. In other cases, it is possible that the solution include changes of a work plan without getting into details. It is possible that we will ensure a full work plan but we will guide an employee below us to deal with the details, and we, as managers, will not be involved ourselves in this assignment. We have a wide range of solutions. All we have to do is decide that we are willing to compromise. The rest is simple.

However, primarily we need to know not to trust the planning as a promise under no circumstance. You are not a start up or a futuristic project of R&D? So do not act as if you are. If there is a certain forecast of revenue, do not spend it all in advance, as if the Excels are reality. Not before we see the revenues actually in our bank account. Not as a regular expense and not as an investment. My recommendation is to remember the difference between plans and reality.

I have learned, reading Goldratt's management theories, an interesting perception: at any work plan, we save reserves, for time of crises. Reserves of time, reserve of money. In actual life, we burn them all, even if there is no major problem standing in the way. There is more time left? Let us add more features and capabilities to the built appliance, or invest more at the finishes. There is money? We use more equipment and parts, and as before, there are no reserves left out.
The situation resembles our attitude to our personal salary: If it turns higher, most of us get used to higher consuming. We fit our self to existing resources.
Planning triggers resource consuming, even if they were planned for a rainy day.
How can we improve our planning? Goldratt suggests saving all the reserves in a special bank, leaving it at the end; as a separate section, the "reserves" section. We will allow using it only when there is a real problem and additional resource is truly required. That way, we will ensure that the work plan will converge, usually sticking closer to the average need without using the reserves, part of them or all. Those, stay to the end, in the separate section. It is too easy to spend them and this technique helps managing the reserves and controls the use of them.
I make efforts to build my work plan this way. Minimal, but with flexibility. It saves money to me and its saves money for the customers.

The management of the twenty century has made us a bit technocratic, with all management control tools. In the 21 century, I believe, we are required to remember that we have to be much more flexible and creative, in many aspects. Even in planning and in work plans.

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Empowerment

I admit that the first time that I ran into the concept of empowerment was five years ago. Before. I was did not recognize the term. I remember, we worked on a project for some customer in the education sector. If I try to analyze the customer's organization, without too much generalization, I can say that they were afraid of computers. Some of them were terrified. Building a website and knowledge sharing was a very different process of what we recognized and experienced in other places. As part of trying to make things easier for them, we used many techniques; for example, we left many blank areas on each page, so that it would look less threatening. In addition, all graphic art was planned accordingly.
On the contrary, the home page of this website included many terms describing main values of the organization. It included terms as democracy, autonomy, activism, enrichment and more. Of course, empowerment was one of the values.

The truth must be said; I did not relate to those ideas at all; it seemed to me as if the ideas were taken from the ivory tower and was not joint in our day-to-day conception. I wondered on the polarity of my reflection to those ideas versus my reflections to computers and using it as a sharing tool. I admit that I misunderstood the importance of those ideas, being a person that defines herself as rational and practical.
I grew up; I have changed. Also today, I try to reline on the conception of practice; yet I learned the influence of the empowerment and its capability.

Dr. Elishava Sadan defines empowerment as a process that is impact is passing from a situation of manliness, to a situation of relatively control in life, fate and surroundings. This shift can be expressed by improving the sense of capability to control or by improving the real capability to set in motion this control.
The original meaning of the idea is a way of power of attorney -approval to work in the name of the company, kind of delegacy of authority in the social plane that been given to a certain one. There are four categories of empowerment: individual, community based, cooperative and professional. What is not surprising, and of course most positive, is that empowerment in one category usually affects the other categories, and they improve too.
In my terminology, empowerment is a process of development; individual/ community/ collective/ professional strengthening and handing over abilities and skills so that the empowered person could utilize his or her potential in different aspects.


How is empowerment relevant to us as managers?
One of our main roles of managers, as I see it, is empowering the managers in the scale below us and empowering the employees. I personally dedicate to this activity a main percentage of my time, management efforts and resources. Naturally, I concentrate in professional empowerment mostly, and on that I intent to write and share in this post. As one may already understand, I did not always deal with professional empowerment in the same intensity. I assume that in my first years as a manager I felt the need to be on the front stage; I concentrated on guiding workers and advancing their skills. However as a manager I thought that I need to be in front of them. I thought that it the right way to lead them forward, is by giving a good example and shouting "after me".


It is hard to invest hours, time and energy in empowerment. The goal of most of the organizations is to create or to give service. We always have missions to complete; we always have activities regarding some product, service or customer. Usually, their due date is yesterday (or in good cases, tomorrow). To stop and to invest in empowerment it is not a simple challenge. It is so too easy to postpone the important issues as we see the urgent ones.

How do I reduce the chances that it will happen?
In two ways:

First, I remind myself repeatedly of the importance of staff empowerment.
Second, I nominate workers to be responsible for empowerment, and define resources for doing so (mainly time). It is not enough to cover all the aspects of empowerment, yet it is enough to constantly and significantly advance.

I know that it is fashionable today to talk about talent management. Locating a small percent of workers with an exceptional potential and investing more in their empowerment. I am in favor of the opposite method: empowerment of all workers. From my point of view they are all talented. It is clear to me that since the resources are always limited, it means less investment in each one.
As I see it, there is a moral say here about my faith in each one of my workers; there is a say here about my faith in us as an organization. We hired talented people. They are all talented. They all have potential to be even more talented. That is what empowerment is about.


It is very important to communicate the workers how important is to us to empower them, and how important it is to us that they actually will be empowered.

There are two aspects here:
The first one is to encourage the workers to grow; to give them the legitimization to take over new territory at their work.
The second is a message to workers that we believe that they have a great potential. A person's belief in him self is the key of his or her empowerment success.

Above the formally empowerment frame, it is worthwhile to take advantage of opportunities that enable us to strength empowerment.
Recently I was ill. I was absent from work for a long time. It is unfortunate, but it was an excellent opportunity to empower workers and managers. My absence from the office gave the managers under me more place to express them selves, in different terms, that in other circumstances I would have been involved in. A simple example to that is lecturing in conferences. In many places, organizers of conferences prefer the senior person, and naturally I am the one that been invited to lecture and present. My absence required others' participation instead of my self, and suddenly they turned more known in their seniority. They moved to the front stage.


In my first years as a manager, I thought that to be a manager is to be in the front stage, to set good examples and see that people follow me. Today I know that it is right to begin this way, but the wisdom is in the next stage. To be wise enough to move aside or even to the back, and concentrate on removing all stones and obstacles, allowing the managers and the workers below me to run and lead.
This is essence of empowerment. Today I know that it is more difficult to lead when you are behind, but that way you get much further.

Yours
Moria


To the Hebrew version

Risk Management

Albert Einstein has said that only those who take risks and go far find out how far they can go. As human beings and managers, we differ also by the level we tend to be cautious or tend to take risks. The truth must be said, we are even more complicated: I can say for myself, and for some close people who I know, that on some issues we are careful and others, take risks; so it is also a matter of issue, not only person.

In work, whether we wish or not, we are exposed to risks: We start selling something that seems "sure", but the market changes; we start developing a project and we have no guarantee that we end it in tine, cost or quality we planned, or be even sure that we reach its ending point. We work with a staff of employees, and someone decides to leave; we receive a large order for monthly service from a customer (working by hours), to find out a few months later that the customer does not have the time and we cannot work even close to the capacity (and income) we counted on. The list is endless. Everybody in work is exposed to risks, managers and workers, but there is a different: We as managers have to take carry the burden. We have to be responsible to the organization, to work, to workers, and to ourselves.

I can say for myself, that at work I tend not to take risks, as far as I can control it. No matter what I do, I know many surprises come with life without me asking, and as I carry the burden also for others, I tend to be cautious. Situations in which I may take risks are those where the main one to loose is me, and not the employees or customers. I know that with risks come opportunities and chances for success, but I hate it as I it means I am to risk other people. That is why I am not built to any start-up; there you must think risk-wise.

Yet, there always are and will be risks, some tips I can share from my own experience:
First, scatter the risks; do not put all eggs in one basket. Prefer several small customers among one big one. I remember, since I was a young girl, a working place, which I was exposed to, and was dependent on one large customer. I remember the day when the connection with this customer came to an ending. When I set up a business, and got my first large customer, it implied a significant growth of my company (from two to five employees). That was the day when I stopped sleeping at night. I started seeking for other customers; I was almost in panic. It took time, almost too much, until I stabilized another large activity, in the same dimensions. The same month, the first big customer collapsed and our work there almost vanished. It is very tempting to work with a significant customer, but we should be sure, that this customer is not 50% of the income, of course not more than that. If the company grows larger, the percentage has to decrease. The same goes for other risks: It is better to have a few small projects than one large one, several products, etc. See what is happening for example with the Crocks company (who sold shoes, until people got tired of them, with on real reason at all).

The risks should be managed, but do not over manage them. We must make priorities what risks we manage, and what we leave out. We must remember that we want to manage and work, not only manage risks about work. We have to decide what the right frequency to manage these risks is. As a rule of thumb, I would say that once a month is a good ratio, but if we are managing a crisis, we manage the risks on a daily basis, or even several times a day, if necessary.

It is important to decide how to manage the risk. As much as it sounds difficult, data and information should be collected, wherever possible, and used in order to manage the risk. Relying on facts and data will help us be more objective and decrease the risk. Sometimes, we think it is not worth seeking, as we probably will not find information or data that will help us anyhow. Yet, it is worthwhile trying. The Business Intelligence is based on involvement of three types: Monitoring (What is happening), analyzing (Why did things happen) and Planning (What can happen in the future). One of the main targets of planning is risk management of the future. It turns, that most of the best performance organizations manage their risks, and do so using Business Intelligence (BI).

However, as we all know, life is more than quantified numbers. It consists of many qualified, intangible facts and assumptions. We have to use other management mechanisms, above the BI ones, in order to decide upon the level of the risk (how likely is it to occur); upon its severity (if it indeed occurs); and on ways of preventing the risk or minimizing its impact.

What do I do?
Try hearing other people who naturally see reality, every one from his or her point of view;
Wherever possible, consult someone external, not emotionally involved who can see the big picture;
Finally yet importantly, do not hesitate. At the end of the day, we as managers have to decide; to cut things down. It is our decision as it is our responsibility.

We will fail. I fail in some risk I take, or are forced to manage (because of external influences). Nevertheless, with some I succeed.

At these times, I try to remember that after all, only those who take risks and go far find out how far they can go.

I wish us all to succeed wherever we are, and specifically, to succeed in managing our risks and failing less.

Yours,
Moria

To the Hebrew version

Competing

My brother in-law is a pilot that serves in the army. More than once, I have heard stories from him, how he and his fellow pilots, serving in the same squadron, succeeded in fooling the pilots from the other squadron in the same base. One may think, that this behavior may suit the youth only, but there is something deeper into it. This is a competition; the same competition that can be observed between departments in an organization, between units in the army, between scientists in universities.

Competition develops; it urges us; it inflames our imagination and drives our motivation. No manager suspects his or her employees that these do not want to work, and will not work if we do not urge them to do so. They are responsible. Managers understand that competition is a partial answer to the endless routine, and competition can, from time to time, increase production.

Nevertheless, competition and compensation have, besides their benefits, some disadvantages.

The first disadvantage, which I experienced, has to do with how it is observed by the employees. "Don't you trust us", they may ask, "that we give the best we can, also without being rewarded by success?"
The second disadvantage, relates with our difficulty to set the right parameters for rewarding the competition; with our limitations in affecting success. We drive people to compete, sometimes against others, sometimes against themselves, and reward them as to pre-defined desired results. Yet, these results depend on various parameters, some external, not being influenced by us, no matter how we act. This may not be a problem if someone was rewarded, relying also on luck; nevertheless, when the opposite occurs, frustration can take place. The more people expect the more disappointment.
The third disadvantage has to do with negative influence experienced while the competition takes place. As it has been reported, in many management books, people want to win, and tend to make figures look better, or at least give their subjective interpretation to results. We do not have to go far to extreme examples as Enron; each one of us has seen many examples of his own.
Another disadvantage has to do with the effect of the competition on other activities of our knowledge workers. These can be someone neglected, while competing. Management focus on a specific issue enables allocating fewer resources, both of the employees and their managers, as to all other issues.
And the last disadvantage, which I experienced, is a result of most competitions being a zero-sum competition. What does that mean? If one department wins, necessarily, another has to lose. And, as in many cases, there are several departments expecting to win, we have more losers than winners. The consequence is that we not also benefit from this process.

What do I suggest? To prevent competitions? Not at all. Some recommendations, based on my experience:
Competition that is not zero-summed is preferred. Two ways of implementation-
A competition in which, every time, a different amount of people win, as regarding to their own achievements. I draw-up, every month, a competition, in which an employee is rewarded as to his or her achievements. In most cases, one employee wins the glory, but not every time. In some cases, a team is rewards, as to their mutual work; in others, more than one employee may win. It all depends on special achievements, not always to do with results that were observed in the ending month. The amount and the definition are not strict. This way, the "good word" reward is never on expense someone else. If you deserve it, and the manager knows it, you will get it, no matter what did the others.
Another "good" competition is competition outside the organization. Every organization has another organization which it competes. Incentive of people to be better of the competitors, thinking how activities can be performed in a higher level than anyone other, surely brings into the organization all the energies that we experience with inside competition. Let us invest our energies in winning others, not ourselves. Of course, we have to be careful, not to cross the lines; not to exaggerate. We have to remain dignified, and more than that, to be honest and fair. Not to find ourselves nearing the edge, enabling the target justify unwanted activities. Our inside differentiation, consolidates us; it makes us a team. This is the rational of the competition between army units. Fighting the others, makes you more connected with your teammates. It has really nothing to do with youth, just another way to compete; another way to crystallize us, just without the disadvantages of inside organization competition.

We just have to be sure we do it right; without crossing any line; without rolling down professional quality; without disrupting human behavior.

I hope we succeed.

Yours,
Moria