August 12, 2011

Lousy managers try and catch people doing something wrong

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Management by walking around works, depending on what you are walking around look for. 

The worst managers I've ever worked for used my mistakes against me, as leverage.  I felt awful, and gave them my least.  They used my weaknessness or errors to manipulate, dominate and frankly, play with my head.  When a company has too many of these types of managers, the culture goes negative, along with business results.  But there is a better way.

Case in point: At Barton Protective Services, new CEO Tom Ward was determined to change the culture of the company from transactional (what have you done for me lately?) to inspirational (we help improve the world!).  His secret weapon was a simple Friday routine which he called, "Catching someone doing something right!" 

He and his leaders fanned out to the edges of the organization, looking for big and small feats of greatness by employees.  Each week, one popped out the mix: Extra effort, process innovation, bravery, customer-centric behaviors, astute accounting, etc.  He'd announce it during the weekly wrapup, challenging everyone else to make the next week's roundup. 

Within a year, the culture of the company was radically transformed and all the biz-numbers got better: Turnover rates for entry level security guards was cut by more than 50%, satisfaction rates for clients shot up and net profits soared.  He realized through it all, that lousy managers look for mistakes and great leaders seek out excellence.  His example proves out something author Bill Strickland once told me: "If you run your organization like a prison, your people will act like prisoners." 

So get to it, after all it's Catch People Doing Something Right Friday!

 

Posted at 9:49 AM in Business Effectiveness , Leadership  |  Permalink  |  Comments (5)  |  TrackBack (0)

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Posted by: jaiveer56  |  November 11, 2011 at 05:23 AM

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I always say that if you have great managers, you will have a great company! I encourage 'catching kids doing things right as a teacher' and hope that managers of companies would do the same for their staff.

Posted by: Melissa P  |  August 30, 2011 at 09:13 AM

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This is a good and insightful article. I remember working for a company that had several managers who looked for what good you did rather than what bad you did.

I moved to an organization that had the complete opposite view of things. That was a nightmare. they were always focusing on the mistakes and I never go credit for what I did right. As stated in the article, things went very negative.

I think managers can be more productive by inspiring a positive and creative environment.

Posted by: Harv  |  August 19, 2011 at 12:00 PM

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Thanks Tom - good observation. Maybe Barton's Tom Ward learned this from that book.

Posted by: Tim Sanders  |  August 12, 2011 at 01:28 PM

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I first learned of the concept of "catching your people doing something RIGHT" from the 1983 book "The One Minute Manager" by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson.

The authors note that most American Managers follow a practice they call "leave 'em alone > ZAP". They ignore their people until they screw up.

They suggest breaking this "habit" by changing triggers for subordinate discussion to positive topics.

Posted by: Tom L  |  August 12, 2011 at 12:07 PM

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