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How to Make Your Feedback Better with 19 Words — And How This Relates to Justification by Faith Alone

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This is a great, short video by Dan Pink on how to make your feedback better.

What’s the answer? I’ll give it away (but be sure to still watch the video): Tell the person:

I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.

Why is this?

Because high expectations — and believing that people can meet them — motivate performance. High expectations but not believing people can meet them actually decreases and sabotages performance. As do low expectations.

This is incredibly well-backed by research. It’s called the “Pygmalion Effect.” I actually did a presentation on it in college, because I thought the name was funny. We all got a good laugh. I had no idea that it is actually one of the most powerful forces for human motivation that there is.

So don’t miss it — use it in your management and life. Not just because it works, but because it is respectful and the right way to treat people. Belief in people motivates. So does acceptance. If you say “you must earn my trust and acceptance by first performing,” you will diminish performance.

Last thing. For the theological folks (like me): There are echoes of the doctrine of justification by faith alone here. If God were to say to us “you must work hard and then you might earn my approval,” we would be sunk. We would never know when is enough, or if the goal post will keep changing. This uncertainty would make it too risky to engage in the hard work — as it may not pay off. And if it does pay off, we would be able to boast before God — thus putting ourselves at the center.

But because he says “I accept you through faith alone in Christ (Ephesians 2:8-10),” we are actually motivated to excel precisely because we know we already belong to him. We know we cannot fail to have his acceptance through faith, and that makes us want to serve him because we are secure.

If we aren’t sure we belong to Christ, we will fear our good works will never be enough, and at the end of the day, that kills motivation.

It is interesting that good management practice echoes good theology.

Why “Hire Slow, Fire Fast” is Wrong

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You often hear people say “hire slow, and fire fast.” Further, firing quickly is often presented as a “loving” thing to do, because then the person is freed up to pursue what might be a better fit.

This advice needs to be fired. It has problems on both sides of the equation. For one thing, there are times when you should actually hire fast. But more than that, saying that one should fire fast ignores very important distinctions that can lead to very bad decisions and harm to both the person and organization.

The distinction is between firing due to ability issues and character issues. 

If someone is abusive, causing harm in the organization, and acting against the values, then firing needs to happen fast.

But when the problem is ability issues — that is, the person wants to do good work but is struggling — then you fire slow. The aim is, in fact, not to have to fire at all. Instead, you discuss the issue with the person and coach them as much as possible to help overcome the ability issue.

If it cannot be overcome, and a change to a different role that is a better fit is not possible, then letting them go may be the right course of action. But only after defining the problem and helping the person overcome it.

Joseph Grenny, author of four New York Times bestsellers, including Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High, explains this very simply in this two-minute video from the Global Leadership Summit.

 

Good-to-Great Organizations Do Not Rely on Lay-offs as a Strategy

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Important words from Jim Collins in Good to Great:

The good-to-great leaders were rigorous, not ruthless, in people decisions. They did not rely on layoffs and restructuring as a primary strategy for improving performance. The comparison companies used layoffs to a much greater extent.

I’ve heard some people say that Jim Collins’ metaphor of “get the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off the bus” is advocating lay-offs as a central tool the managers strategy. That is an utter and complete misunderstanding. A careful reading of his chapter on “First Who, Then What” in Good to Great reveals the exact opposite. (Note: This misunderstanding does not just, or even mainly, reside with folks that are trigger-happy with layoffs; it also comes from sincere people that I’ve heard express concern about business ideas being wrongly used in the church. The great news here is that this is a misunderstanding of Jim Collins’ metaphor, and his teaching coheres with and upholds a biblical view.)

Further, and just as importantly, you need to correctly define who exactly are the people that need to be sent off the bus. It’s not people that are in a department you might be downsizing (which is a bad strategy most of the time in itself, but sometimes happens), for he says “If you sell off your problems, don’t sell off your best people.” (Translation: If you do have to close a department or division, keep the talented people who were working in that department, and are committed to the vision.)

The people you fling off the bus are the people that are not on board with the values of the organization. The people that are passionate for what the organization stands for are to be kept at all costs. You simply cannot have enough of such people.

Yet, so many organizations do the reverse. Their leaders see people, including those most passionate for the vision, as expendable based on how they as leaders are seeking to conceive of the strategy. They have failed to grasped Jim Collins’ core point: first who, then what. That is, you get the right people on the bus first (that is, the people who love the mission and values of the organization) and then, through an empowering management model (rather than top-down approach), you decide where to go.

Or, as John Wooden, one of the best coaches in history, had to say: you move from the people to the plays—not the reverse.

Lay-offs and top-down leadership are absolutely contrary to good to great management.

You Probably Need to Hire More People Than You Think

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My wife and I were talking about gardening the other day. We had driven by some nice flowers that the city we were in had planted and was watering, and my wife commented on how planting those flowers (and others throughout the city) meant they also had to have people to take care of them. Someone needed to water them, obviously, but also do many other things–plant them initially, keep them weeded (an ongoing thing, apparently), fertilize them if desired, and so forth.

I thought that was interesting, because I’ve always taken those nice flower displays for granted. Turns out my wife had a job in college taking care of the flowers on our campus, so she knows all about it.

Which leads to the most interesting thing for me: It took a team of 7 people to keep the flowers planted, watered, weeded, fertilized, and in order on our campus. The university we went to had about 15,000 people, so the campus wasn’t super small, but it wasn’t incredibly large, either.

The reason this is interesting to me is because I’m just the type of person who would have been crazy enough to put “water flowers” in my repeating task list every other day and “fertilize flowers” every 6 weeks and think he could take care of the flowers all by himself. But in reality, it took a team of seven people.

I know that the standard notion is that most organizations have too many people. Or, that seems to be the standard notion at least among some consultants and executives. My thinking is the opposite of this, especially when it comes to ministries.

Caring for the flowers on a college campus, or for a city, is super important. If it takes seven people simply to do that, how much more should ministries make sure they have enough people devoted to their all-important task of teaching and spreading biblical truth?

Seven people for an internet team, for example, probably sounds like a lot for most ministries. But if my college that served 15,000 students had seven people taking care of its flowers, how much more important do you think it is for a ministry that serves 3 million people a month (or many more) to have a team of 7 expert, knowledgable people tend to its website and make it the best it can possibly be?

And so forth with every other area of ministry.

Enough with overworking people, or skimping on having the necessary people for the work of the ministry. If this is the most important work in the world, let’s act like it.

“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more cloth you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:30).

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38).

On Criticism

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Good words from Marcus Buckingham. Completely right:

Criticism has the power to do good when there is something that must be destroyed, dissolved or reduced, but it is capable only of harm when there is something to be built.

Here’s one application of this: If an employee (or family member!) comes to you with an idea, you don’t first ask yourself “what’s wrong with this?” You first focus on what’s right.

Even when there is something to be dissolved, criticism still has dangers. For example, in his book In Search of Excellence, Tom Peters talks about how studies showed that if employees in a call center were criticized on how they handled customers, the result was not better customer service. Rather, the employees sought to avoid customers (that, is their job!) altogether. 

The point: criticism typically creates unpredictable and strange behavior. It rarely does good, and frequently backfires and undoes the very thing that ought to have been built up.

This is especially worth remembering if you have the “gift of criticism.” If you have that talent, go, bury it right now, as fast as you can. That’s one gift the Lord does not want you to steward for his glory.

The Dilemma of the Difficult Employee

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From Patrick Lencioni’s latest newsletter:

It’s a simple but painful problem that has plagued business people since the beginning of time, I’m sure. From shopkeepers in ancient Rome to English factory supervisors during the Industrial Revolution to software engineering managers in modern Silicon Valley, leaders have always struggled with the question of what to do about a difficult employee. And the dilemma is almost always seen the same way: should I continue to tolerate this person or let them go?

The first step toward solving this simple and painful problem is coming to the realization that it is a false dilemma. The decision should not boil down to keeping or firing a difficult employee. In fact, the manager should avoid engaging in this line of thinking in the first place. The real question a manager needs to ask is “have I done everything I can to help the difficult employee?” Based on my work with leaders in all types of organizations and at all levels, the answer to that question is usually a resounding ‘no.’ Here’s what I mean.

Read the whole thing.

Swap Control for Accountability

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This is from a Gallup Management Journal interview that I recently came across in some of my notes. It’s right on, and is applicable to all organizations of any type, not just government organizations (which is the immediate context):

GMJ: How can government begin engaging the minds of all its employees, managers included?

Mears: The answer begins with swapping control for accountability — and accountability requires ensuring that employees understand the outcomes that are expected of them. When employees understand desired outcomes and have simple metrics to track them, you have accountability.

Employees also should be empowered to think about better ways to reach those outcomes. They can experiment and make appropriate local improvements as long as outcomes are reached. This helps eliminate some of the busywork that builds up when people don’t understand the big picture. Accountability works better than control.

On Layoffs

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Tim Sanders has a great post from the other day called Layoffs: Unless Required for Survival, a Horrible Act.

I chickened out in titling my post here, opting for the ultra-safe “On Layoffs” because I have some more thinking to finalize in my mind on this subject. But Sander’s post is excellent. Here is the bulk of it:

I think it’s socially irresponsible to hire too many people during good times, only to lay them off when the business cycle goes South.  It happens all the time, I’ve seen it firsthand.  Today, many firms use layoffs as a way of telling Wall Street that they are being responsible – and frequently they get a short lived bounce in the stock price.  Note the phrase ‘short lived’.

In my view, socially responsible companies don’t need layoffs when they are still viable or making money. It is not an expense reduction strategy with an upside.  It should be a strategy of last resort, recognizing the pain and suffering that layoffs bring to its victims.

I would only want to add that lay-offs may also be necessary if a business legitimately needs to “prune” because of an intentional, well-conceived change in strategy and the way they are doing business.

But the fundamental point remains: It is really, really bad practice to hire too many people simply because “times are good.” You shouldn’t let your hiring — or spending — be dictated simply by the fact that resources are abundant.

This point is worth emphasizing in relation to expenditures especially: If something is a wasteful expenditure in bad times, it is probably also a wasteful expenditure in good times. Good times do not make wasteful expenditures less wasteful. There are no times for wasteful expenditures. This is not only right in itself, but if this were implemented more, there would be less need to cut expenses and lay people off when times get rough.

But the corollary of this is just as important to me (more important): If an expense or program is strategic, it is worth continuing in lean times just as much as in abundant times. Some things that are often viewed as “nice but not necessary if times get tough” are often in fact critical to long-term growth and success. Lean times should not be a justification for short-sighted cost-cutting. The book Profitable Growth Is Everyone’s Business: 10 Tools You Can Use Monday Morning does an excellent job making this point, especially in relation to marketing and promotion.

But there is a nuance here to my above comments. There are many more good and important things to do than there are resources. So sometimes good ideas cannot implemented because of real financial constraints. But then when the economy is doing well, the opportunity is created to do some of those things that could not have been afforded in leaner times. If those things can’t gain sustainable traction before a recession hits, sometimes there is no choice but to scale them back (unfortunately).

So I do believe that there are expenses that should be undertaken in good times that wouldn’t have been undertaken in leaner times. But the ultimate principle remains: Wasteful spending, or unnecessary hiring, is not justified simply because times are good. Likewise, don’t cut strategic, effective spending and strategic positions because times are tough.

The initiatives that are right to do are usually right in lean times as well as good times (see above paragraph for the nuances), and the initiatives and expenses that are ineffective to do are the wrong thing to do whether times are lean or abundant.

In good times, make decisions that can withstand the bad times; in bad times, don’t make decisions that you will regret when things recover — they will, in fact, likely delay your recovery and position you poorly when things do turn.

Update: Also see my post “Employees Are Not Overhead.”