hbr’s must-reads - wict

Included with this collection:

A R T I C L E C O L L E C T I O N

2 Leadership That Gets Results

by Daniel Goleman

18 One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?

by Frederick Herzberg

32 The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome

by Jean-François Manzoni and Jean-Louis Barsoux

48 The Discipline of Teams

by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith

60 Managing Your Boss

by John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter

71 Manager's Toolkit: The 13 Skills Managers Need to Succeed

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Leadership That Gets Results

by Daniel Goleman

Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article:

The Idea in Brief—the core idea

The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work

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Article Summary

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A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further

exploration of the article’s ideas and applications

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Further Reading

New research suggests that the

most effective executives use a

collection of distinct

leadership styles—each in the

right measure, at just the right

time. Such flexibility is tough

to put into action, but it pays

off in performance. And

better yet, it can be learned.

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The Idea in Brief The Idea in Practice

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Many managers mistakenly assume that leadership style is a function of personality rather than strategic choice. Instead of choosing the one style that suits their temperament, they should ask which style best addresses the demands of a particular situation.

Research has shown that the most success-ful leaders have strengths in the following emotional intelligence competencies: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill. There are six basic styles of leadership; each makes use of the key components of emotional intelligence in different combinations. The best leaders don’t know just one style of leadership—they’re skilled at several, and have the flexi-bility to switch between styles as the cir-cumstances dictate.

Managers often fail to appreciate how profoundly the organizational climate can influence fi-nancial results. It can account for nearly a third of financial performance. Organizational climate, in turn, is influenced by leadership style—by the way that managers motivate direct reports, gather and use information, make decisions, manage change initiatives, and handle crises. There are six basic leadership styles. Each derives from different emotional intelligence competencies, works best in particular situations, and affects the organizational climate in different ways.

1. The coercive style. This “Do what I say” ap-proach can be very effective in a turnaround situation, a natural disaster, or when working with problem employees. But in most situa-tions, coercive leadership inhibits the organi-zation’s flexibility and dampens employees’ motivation.

2. The authoritative style. An authoritative leader takes a “Come with me” approach: she states the overall goal but gives people the freedom to choose their own means of achieving it. This style works especially well when a business is adrift. It is less effective when the leader is working with a team of ex-perts who are more experienced than he is.

3. The affiliative style. The hallmark of the af-filiative leader is a “People come first” attitude. This style is particularly useful for building team harmony or increasing morale. But its exclusive focus on praise can allow poor per-formance to go uncorrected. Also, affiliative leaders rarely offer advice, which often leaves employees in a quandary.

4. The democratic style. This style’s impact on organizational climate is not as high as you might imagine. By giving workers a voice in decisions, democratic leaders build organiza-tional flexibility and responsibility and help generate fresh ideas. But sometimes the price is endless meetings and confused employees who feel leaderless.

5. The pacesetting style. A leader who sets high performance standards and exemplifies them himself has a very positive impact on employees who are self-motivated and highly competent. But other employees tend to feel overwhelmed by such a leader’s demands for excellence—and to resent his tendency to take over a situation.

6. The coaching style. This style focuses more on personal development than on im-mediate work-related tasks. It works well when employees are already aware of their weaknesses and want to improve, but not when they are resistant to changing their ways.

The more styles a leader has mastered, the better. In particular, being able to switch among the authoritative, affiliative, demo-cratic, and coaching styles as conditions dic-tate creates the best organizational climate and optimizes business performance.

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by Daniel Goleman

harvard business review • march–april 2000

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New research suggests that the most effective executives use a collection

of distinct leadership styles—each in the right measure, at just the right

time. Such flexibility is tough to put into action, but it pays off in

performance. And better yet, it can be learned.

Ask any group of businesspeople the question“What do effective leaders do?” and you’llhear a sweep of answers. Leaders set strategy;they motivate; they create a mission; theybuild a culture. Then ask “What should leadersdo?” If the group is seasoned, you’ll likely hearone response: the leader’s singular job is toget results.

But how? The mystery of what leaders canand ought to do in order to spark the best per-formance from their people is age-old. In re-cent years, that mystery has spawned an entirecottage industry: literally thousands of “leader-ship experts” have made careers of testing andcoaching executives, all in pursuit of creatingbusinesspeople who can turn bold objectives—be they strategic, financial, organizational, orall three—into reality.

Still, effective leadership eludes many peo-ple and organizations. One reason is that untilrecently, virtually no quantitative researchhas demonstrated which precise leadershipbehaviors yield positive results. Leadershipexperts proffer advice based on inference, ex-

perience, and instinct. Sometimes that adviceis which precise leadership behaviors yieldpositive results. Leadership experts proffer ad-vice based on inference, experience, and in-stinct. Sometimes that advice is right on tar-get; sometimes it’s not.

But new research by the consulting firmHay/McBer, which draws on a random sampleof 3,871 executives selected from a database ofmore than 20,000 executives worldwide,takes much of the mystery out of effectiveleadership. The research found six distinctleadership styles, each springing from differ-ent components of emotional intelligence.The styles, taken individually, appear to havea direct and unique impact on the working at-mosphere of a company, division, or team,and in turn, on its financial performance. Andperhaps most important, the research indi-cates that leaders with the best results do notrely on only one leadership style; they usemost of them in a given week—seamlesslyand in different measure—depending on thebusiness situation. Imagine the styles, then, as

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the array of clubs in a golf pro’s bag. Over thecourse of a game, the pro picks and choosesclubs based on the demands of the shot.Sometimes he has to ponder his selection, butusually it is automatic. The pro senses thechallenge ahead, swiftly pulls out the righttool, and elegantly puts it to work. That’s howhigh-impact leaders operate, too.

What are the six styles of leadership? Nonewill shock workplace veterans. Indeed, eachstyle, by name and brief description alone,will likely resonate with anyone who leads, isled, or as is the case with most of us, doesboth. Coercive leaders demand immediatecompliance. Authoritative leaders mobilizepeople toward a vision. Affiliative leaders cre-ate emotional bonds and harmony. Demo-cratic leaders build consensus through partici-pation. Pacesetting leaders expect excellenceand self-direction. And coaching leaders developpeople for the future.

Close your eyes and you can surely imaginea colleague who uses any one of these styles.You most likely use at least one yourself. Whatis new in this research, then, is its implicationsfor action. First, it offers a fine-grained under-standing of how different leadership styles af-fect performance and results. Second, it offersclear guidance on when a manager shouldswitch between them. It also strongly suggeststhat switching flexibly is well advised. New,too, is the research’s finding that each leader-ship style springs from different componentsof emotional intelligence.

Measuring Leadership’s Impact

It has been more than a decade since researchfirst linked aspects of emotional intelligenceto business results. The late David McClelland,a noted Harvard University psychologist,found that leaders with strengths in a criticalmass of six or more emotional intelligencecompetencies were far more effective thanpeers who lacked such strengths. For instance,when he analyzed the performance of divisionheads at a global food and beverage company,he found that among leaders with this criticalmass of competence, 87% placed in the topthird for annual salary bonuses based on theirbusiness performance. More telling, their divi-sions on average outperformed yearly revenuetargets by 15% to 20%. Those executives wholacked emotional intelligence were rarelyrated as outstanding in their annual perfor-

mance reviews, and their divisions underper-formed by an average of almost 20%.

Our research set out to gain a more molecu-lar view of the links among leadership andemotional intelligence, and climate and per-formance. A team of McClelland’s colleaguesheaded by Mary Fontaine and Ruth Jacobsfrom Hay/McBer studied data about or ob-served thousands of executives, noting spe-cific behaviors and their impact on climate.

1

How did each individual motivate direct re-ports? Manage change initiatives? Handle cri-ses? It was in a later phase of the researchthat we identified which emotional intelli-gence capabilities drive the six leadershipstyles. How does he rate in terms of self-control and social skill? Does a leader showhigh or low levels of empathy?

The team tested each executive’s immediatesphere of influence for its climate. “Climate” isnot an amorphous term. First defined by psy-chologists George Litwin and Richard Stringerand later refined by McClelland and his col-leagues, it refers to six key factors that influ-ence an organization’s working environment:its flexibility—that is, how free employees feelto innovate unencumbered by red tape; theirsense of responsibility to the organization; thelevel of standards that people set; the sense ofaccuracy about performance feedback and apt-ness of rewards; the clarity people have aboutmission and values; and finally, the level ofcommitment to a common purpose.

We found that all six leadership styles have ameasurable effect on each aspect of climate.(For details, see the exhibit “Getting Molecular:The Impact of Leadership Styles on Drivers ofClimate.”) Further, when we looked at the im-pact of climate on financial results—such as re-turn on sales, revenue growth, efficiency, andprofitability—we found a direct correlation be-tween the two. Leaders who used styles thatpositively affected the climate had decidedlybetter financial results than those who did not.That is not to say that organizational climate isthe only driver of performance. Economic con-ditions and competitive dynamics matter enor-mously. But our analysis strongly suggests thatclimate accounts for nearly a third of results.And that’s simply too much of an impact to ig-nore.

The Styles in Detail

Executives use six leadership styles, but only

Daniel Goleman

is the author of

Emotional Intelligence

(Bantam, 1995) and Working with Emotional Intelligence (Bantam, 1998). He is cochairman of the Consortium for Research on Emo-tional Intelligence in Organizations, which is based at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied Psycholo-gy in Piscataway, New Jersey. His article “What Makes a Leader?” appeared in the November–December 1998 issue of HBR. He can be reached at [email protected].

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four of the six consistently have a positive ef-fect on climate and results. Let’s look then ateach style of leadership in detail. (For a sum-mary of the material that follows, see thechart “The Six Leadership Styles at a Glance.”)

The Coercive Style. The computer companywas in crisis mode—its sales and profits werefalling, its stock was losing value precipitously,and its shareholders were in an uproar. Theboard brought in a new CEO with a reputationas a turnaround artist. He set to work chop-ping jobs, selling off divisions, and making thetough decisions that should have been exe-cuted years before. The company was saved, atleast in the short-term.

From the start, though, the CEO created areign of terror, bullying and demeaning his ex-ecutives, roaring his displeasure at the slightestmisstep. The company’s top echelons were dec-imated not just by his erratic firings but also bydefections. The CEO’s direct reports, fright-ened by his tendency to blame the bearer ofbad news, stopped bringing him any news atall. Morale was at an all-time low—a fact re-flected in another downturn in the business

after the short-term recovery. The CEO waseventually fired by the board of directors.

It’s easy to understand why of all the lead-ership styles, the coercive one is the least ef-fective in most situations. Consider what thestyle does to an organization’s climate. Flexi-bility is the hardest hit. The leader’s extremetop-down decision making kills new ideas onthe vine. People feel so disrespected that theythink, “I won’t even bring my ideas up—they’ll only be shot down.” Likewise, people’ssense of responsibility evaporates: unable toact on their own initiative, they lose theirsense of ownership and feel little accountabil-ity for their performance. Some become so re-sentful they adopt the attitude, “I’m not goingto help this bastard.”

Coercive leadership also has a damagingeffect on the rewards system. Most high-performing workers are motivated by morethan money—they seek the satisfaction ofwork well done. The coercive style erodessuch pride. And finally, the style underminesone of the leader’s prime tools—motivatingpeople by showing them how their job fits

Self-Management? Self-control: the ability to

keep disruptive emotionsand impulses under control.

? Trustworthiness: a consistent display of honesty and integrity.

? Conscientiousness: the abili-ty to manage yourself andyour responsibilities.

? Adaptability: skill at adjust-ing to changing situationsand overcoming obstacles.

? Achievement orientation:the drive to meet an inter-nal standard of excellence.

? Initiative: a readiness to seize opportunities.

Self-Awareness? Emotional self-awareness:

the ability to read andunderstand your emo-tions as well as recognizetheir impact on workperformance, relation-ships, and the like.

? Accurate self-assessment:a realistic evaluation of your strengths andlimitations.

? Self-confidence: a strongand positive sense of self-worth.

Emotional Intelligence: A PrimerEmotional intelligence – the ability to manage ourselves and our relationships effectively –consists of four fundamental capabilities: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness,and social skill. Each capability, in turn, is composed of specific sets of competencies. Belowis a list of the capabilities and their corresponding traits.

Social Awareness? Empathy: skill at sensing

other people’s emotions, understanding their perspective, and taking an active interest in their concerns.

? Organizational awareness:the ability to read the currents of organizationallife, build decision net-works, and navigate politics.

? Service orientation: the ability to recognize and meet customers’ needs.

Social Skill? Visionary leadership: the ability to take charge

and inspire with a compelling vision.

? Influence: the ability to wield a range of persuasive tactics.

? Developing others: the propensity to bolster the abilities of others through feedback and guidance.

? Communication: skill at listening and at sendingclear, convincing, and well-tuned messages.

? Change catalyst: proficiency in initiating newideas and leading people in a new direction.

? Conflict management: the ability to de-escalatedisagreements and orchestrate resolutions.

? Building bonds: proficiency at cultivating andmaintaining a web of relationships.

? Teamwork and collaboration: competence at promoting cooperation and building teams.

page 6



into a grand, shared mission. Such a loss,measured in terms of diminished clarity andcommitment, leaves people alienated fromtheir own jobs, wondering, “How does any ofthis matter?”

Given the impact of the coercive style, youmight assume it should never be applied. Ourresearch, however, uncovered a few occasionswhen it worked masterfully. Take the case of adivision president who was brought in tochange the direction of a food company thatwas losing money. His first act was to have theexecutive conference room demolished. To him,the room—with its long marble table that lookedlike “the deck of the Starship Enterprise”—symbolized the tradition-bound formality thatwas paralyzing the company. The destructionof the room, and the subsequent move to asmaller, more informal setting, sent a messageno one could miss, and the division’s culturechanged quickly in its wake.

That said, the coercive style should be usedonly with extreme caution and in the few situa-tions when it is absolutely imperative, such as

during a turnaround or when a hostile take-over is looming. In those cases, the coercivestyle can break failed business habits and shockpeople into new ways of working. It is alwaysappropriate during a genuine emergency, likein the aftermath of an earthquake or a fire.And it can work with problem employees withwhom all else has failed. But if a leader reliessolely on this style or continues to use it oncethe emergency passes, the long-term impact ofhis insensitivity to the morale and feelings ofthose he leads will be ruinous.

The Authoritative Style. Tom was the vicepresident of marketing at a floundering na-tional restaurant chain that specialized inpizza. Needless to say, the company’s poorperformance troubled the senior managers,but they were at a loss for what to do. EveryMonday, they met to review recent sales,struggling to come up with fixes. To Tom, theapproach didn’t make sense. “We were al-ways trying to figure out why our sales weredown last week. We had the whole companylooking backward instead of figuring out

Getting Molecular: The Impact of Leadership Styles on Drivers of Climate

Our research investigated how each leadership style affected the six drivers of climate, or working atmosphere. The figures below show the correlation between each leadership style and each aspect of cli-mate. So, for instance, if we look at the climate driver of flexibility, we see that the coercive style has a -.28 correlation while the democratic style has a .28 correlation, equally strong in the opposite direction. Focusing on the authoritative leadership style, we find that it has a .54 correlation with rewards—strongly positive—and a .21 correlation with responsibility—positive, but not as strong. In other words, the style’s

correlation with rewards was more than twice that with responsibility.According to the data, the authoritative leadership style has the most

positive effect on climate, but three others—affiliative, democratic, and coaching—follow close behind. That said, the research indicates that no style should be relied on exclusively, and all have at least short-term uses.

Flexibility

Responsibility

Standards

Rewards

Clarity

Commitment

Overall impacton climate

Coercive

-. 28

-. 37

. 02

-. 18

-. 11

-. 13

-. 26

Authoritative

. 32

. 21

. 38

. 54

. 44

. 35

.54

Affiliative

. 27

. 16

. 31

. 48

. 37

. 34

.46

Democratic

. 28

. 23

. 22

. 42

. 35

. 26

.43

Pacesetting

-. 07

. 04

-. 27

-. 29

-. 28

-. 20

-. 25

Coaching

. 17

. 08

. 39

. 43

. 38

. 27

.42

page 7



what we had to do tomorrow.”Tom saw an opportunity to change people’s

way of thinking at an off-site strategy meeting.There, the conversation began with stale tru-isms: the company had to drive up shareholderwealth and increase return on assets. Tom be-lieved those concepts didn’t have the power toinspire a restaurant manager to be innovativeor to do better than a good-enough job.

So Tom made a bold move. In the middle of ameeting, he made an impassioned plea for hiscolleagues to think from the customer’s per-spective. Customers want convenience, he said.The company was not in the restaurant busi-ness, it was in the business of distributing high-quality, convenient-to-get pizza. That notion—and nothing else—should drive everything thecompany did.

With his vibrant enthusiasm and clearvision—the hallmarks of the authoritativestyle—Tom filled a leadership vacuum at thecompany. Indeed, his concept became thecore of the new mission statement. But thisconceptual breakthrough was just the begin-ning. Tom made sure that the mission state-ment was built into the company’s strategicplanning process as the designated driver ofgrowth. And he ensured that the vision wasarticulated so that local restaurant managersunderstood they were the key to the com-pany’s success and were free to find newways to distribute pizza.

Changes came quickly. Within weeks, manylocal managers started guaranteeing fast, newdelivery times. Even better, they started to actlike entrepreneurs, finding ingenious locationsto open new branches: kiosks on busy streetcorners and in bus and train stations, evenfrom carts in airports and hotel lobbies.

Tom’s success was no fluke. Our researchindicates that of the six leadership styles,the authoritative one is most effective, driv-ing up every aspect of climate. Take clarity.The authoritative leader is a visionary; hemotivates people by making clear to themhow their work fits into a larger vision forthe organization. People who work for suchleaders understand that what they do mat-ters and why. Authoritative leadership alsomaximizes commitment to the organiza-tion’s goals and strategy. By framing the in-dividual tasks within a grand vision, the au-thoritative leader defines standards thatrevolve around that vision. When he gives

performance feedback—whether positive ornegative—the singular criterion is whetheror not that performance furthers the vision.The standards for success are clear to all, asare the rewards. Finally, consider the style’simpact on flexibility. An authoritativeleader states the end but generally givespeople plenty of leeway to devise their ownmeans. Authoritative leaders give peoplethe freedom to innovate, experiment, andtake calculated risks.

Because of its positive impact, the authorita-tive style works well in almost any business sit-uation. But it is particularly effective when abusiness is adrift. An authoritative leadercharts a new course and sells his people on afresh long-term vision.

The authoritative style, powerful though itmay be, will not work in every situation. Theapproach fails, for instance, when a leader isworking with a team of experts or peers whoare more experienced than he is; they may seethe leader as pompous or out-of-touch. An-other limitation: if a manager trying to be au-thoritative becomes overbearing, he can un-dermine the egalitarian spirit of an effectiveteam. Yet even with such caveats, leaderswould be wise to grab for the authoritative“club” more often than not. It may not guar-antee a hole in one, but it certainly helps withthe long drive.

The Affiliative Style. If the coercive leaderdemands, “Do what I say,” and the authorita-tive urges, “Come with me,” the affiliativeleader says, “People come first.” This leader-ship style revolves around people—its propo-nents value individuals and their emotionsmore than tasks and goals. The affiliativeleader strives to keep employees happy and tocreate harmony among them. He manages bybuilding strong emotional bonds and thenreaping the benefits of such an approach,namely fierce loyalty. The style also has amarkedly positive effect on communication.People who like one another a lot talk a lot.They share ideas; they share inspiration. Andthe style drives up flexibility; friends trust oneanother, allowing habitual innovation and risktaking. Flexibility also rises because the affilia-tive leader, like a parent who adjusts house-hold rules for a maturing adolescent, doesn’timpose unnecessary strictures on how em-ployees get their work done. They give peoplethe freedom to do their job in the way they

An authoritative leader

states the end but gives

people their own means.

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think is most effective.As for a sense of recognition and reward for

work well done, the affiliative leader offersample positive feedback. Such feedback hasspecial potency in the workplace because it isall too rare: outside of an annual review, mostpeople usually get no feedback on their day-to-day efforts—or only negative feedback. Thatmakes the affiliative leader’s positive words allthe more motivating. Finally, affiliative lead-ers are masters at building a sense of belong-ing. They are, for instance, likely to take theirdirect reports out for a meal or a drink, one-on-one, to see how they’re doing. They will bringin a cake to celebrate a group accomplishment.They are natural relationship builders.

Joe Torre, the heart and soul of the NewYork Yankees, is a classic affiliative leader. Dur-ing the 1999 World Series, Torre tended ably tothe psyches of his players as they endured theemotional pressure cooker of a pennant race.All season long, he made a special point topraise Scott Brosius, whose father had diedduring the season, for staying committed evenas he mourned. At the celebration party afterthe team’s final game, Torre specifically soughtout right fielder Paul O’Neill. Although he hadreceived the news of his father’s death thatmorning, O’Neill chose to play in the decisivegame—and he burst into tears the moment itended. Torre made a point of acknowledgingO’Neill’s personal struggle, calling him a “war-rior.” Torre also used the spotlight of the vic-

tory celebration to praise two players whose re-turn the following year was threatened bycontract disputes. In doing so, he sent a clearmessage to the team and to the club’s ownerthat he valued the players immensely—toomuch to lose them.

Along with ministering to the emotions ofhis people, an affiliative leader may also tendto his own emotions openly. The year Torre’sbrother was near death awaiting a heart trans-plant, he shared his worries with his players.He also spoke candidly with the team abouthis treatment for prostate cancer.

The affiliative style’s generally positive im-pact makes it a good all-weather approach, butleaders should employ it particularly when try-ing to build team harmony, increase morale,improve communication, or repair brokentrust. For instance, one executive in our studywas hired to replace a ruthless team leader.The former leader had taken credit for his em-ployees’ work and had attempted to pit themagainst one another. His efforts ultimatelyfailed, but the team he left behind was suspi-cious and weary. The new executive managedto mend the situation by unstintingly showingemotional honesty and rebuilding ties. Severalmonths in, her leadership had created a re-newed sense of commitment and energy.

Despite its benefits, the affiliative styleshould not be used alone. Its exclusive focuson praise can allow poor performance to gouncorrected; employees may perceive that

The leader’s modus operandi

The style in a phrase

Underlying emotionalintelligence competencies

When the style works best

Overall impact on climate

Coercive

Demands immediatecompliance

“Do what I tell you.”

Drive to achieve, initiative,self-control

In a crisis, to kick start aturnaround, or with problememployees

Negative

Authoritative

Mobilizes people toward a vision

“Come with me.”

Self-confidence, empathy,change catalyst

When changes require a new vision, or when a cleardirection is needed

Most strongly positive

Our research found that leaders use six styles,each springingfrom different compo-nents of emotional intelligence.Here is asummary of the styles,their origin,when theywork best,and their impact on an organiza-tion’s climate and thus its performance.

The Six Leadership Styles at a Glance

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mediocrity is tolerated. And because affilia-tive leaders rarely offer constructive adviceon how to improve, employees must figureout how to do so on their own. When peopleneed clear directives to navigate throughcomplex challenges, the affiliative styleleaves them rudderless. Indeed, if overly re-lied on, this style can actually steer a groupto failure. Perhaps that is why many affilia-tive leaders, including Torre, use this style inclose conjunction with the authoritativestyle. Authoritative leaders state a vision, setstandards, and let people know how theirwork is furthering the group’s goals. Alter-nate that with the caring, nurturing ap-proach of the affiliative leader, and you havea potent combination.

The Democratic Style. Sister Mary ran aCatholic school system in a large metropolitanarea. One of the schools—the only privateschool in an impoverished neighborhood—had been losing money for years, and the arch-diocese could no longer afford to keep it open.When Sister Mary eventually got the order toshut it down, she didn’t just lock the doors.She called a meeting of all the teachers andstaff at the school and explained to them thedetails of the financial crisis—the first timeanyone working at the school had been in-cluded in the business side of the institution.She asked for their ideas on ways to keep theschool open and on how to handle the closing,should it come to that. Sister Mary spent

much of her time at the meeting just listening.She did the same at later meetings for

school parents and for the community and dur-ing a successive series of meetings for theschool’s teachers and staff. After two monthsof meetings, the consensus was clear: theschool would have to close. A plan was madeto transfer students to other schools in theCatholic system.

The final outcome was no different than ifSister Mary had gone ahead and closed theschool the day she was told to. But by allowingthe school’s constituents to reach that decisioncollectively, Sister Mary received none of thebacklash that would have accompanied such amove. People mourned the loss of the school,but they understood its inevitability. Virtuallyno one objected.

Compare that with the experiences of apriest in our research who headed anotherCatholic school. He, too, was told to shut itdown. And he did—by fiat. The result was di-sastrous: parents filed lawsuits, teachers andparents picketed, and local newspapers ran edi-torials attacking his decision. It took a year toresolve the disputes before he could finally goahead and close the school.

Sister Mary exemplifies the democraticstyle in action—and its benefits. By spendingtime getting people’s ideas and buy-in, aleader builds trust, respect, and commitment.By letting workers themselves have a say indecisions that affect their goals and how they

Affiliative

Creates harmony and buildsemotional bonds

“People come first.”

Empathy, buildingrelationships, communication

To heal rifts in a team or to motivate people duringstressful circumstances

Positive

Democratic

Forges consensus throughparticipation

“What do you think?”

Collaboration, teamleadership, communication

To build buy-in orconsensus, or to get inputfrom valuable employees

Positive

Pacesetting

Sets high standards forperformance

“Do as I do, now.”

Conscientiousness, drive to achieve, initiative

To get quick results from a highly motivated andcompetent team

Negative

Coaching

Develops people for the future

“Try this.”

Developing others, empathy,self-awareness

To help an employeeimprove performance ordevelop long-term strengths

Positive

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do their work, the democratic leader drivesup flexibility and responsibility. And by listen-ing to employees’ concerns, the democraticleader learns what to do to keep morale high.Finally, because they have a say in settingtheir goals and the standards for evaluatingsuccess, people operating in a democratic sys-tem tend to be very realistic about what canand cannot be accomplished.

However, the democratic style has its draw-backs, which is why its impact on climate is notas high as some of the other styles. One of itsmore exasperating consequences can be end-less meetings where ideas are mulled over, con-sensus remains elusive, and the only visible re-sult is scheduling more meetings. Somedemocratic leaders use the style to put offmaking crucial decisions, hoping that enoughthrashing things out will eventually yield ablinding insight. In reality, their people end upfeeling confused and leaderless. Such an ap-proach can even escalate conflicts.

When does the style work best? This ap-proach is ideal when a leader is himself uncer-tain about the best direction to take and needsideas and guidance from able employees. Andeven if a leader has a strong vision, the demo-cratic style works well to generate fresh ideasfor executing that vision.

The democratic style, of course, makesmuch less sense when employees are not com-petent or informed enough to offer sound ad-vice. And it almost goes without saying thatbuilding consensus is wrongheaded in timesof crisis. Take the case of a CEO whose com-puter company was severely threatened bychanges in the market. He always sought con-sensus about what to do. As competitors stolecustomers and customers’ needs changed, hekept appointing committees to consider thesituation. When the market made a suddenshift because of a new technology, the CEOfroze in his tracks. The board replaced himbefore he could appoint yet another taskforce to consider the situation. The new CEO,while occasionally democratic and affiliative,relied heavily on the authoritative style, espe-cially in his first months.

The Pacesetting Style. Like the coercivestyle, the pacesetting style has its place in theleader’s repertory, but it should be used spar-ingly. That’s not what we expected to find.After all, the hallmarks of the pacesetting stylesound admirable. The leader sets extremely

high performance standards and exemplifiesthem himself. He is obsessive about doingthings better and faster, and he asks the sameof everyone around him. He quickly pinpointspoor performers and demands more fromthem. If they don’t rise to the occasion, he re-places them with people who can. You wouldthink such an approach would improve re-sults, but it doesn’t.

In fact, the pacesetting style destroys cli-mate. Many employees feel overwhelmed bythe pacesetter’s demands for excellence, andtheir morale drops. Guidelines for workingmay be clear in the leader’s head, but shedoes not state them clearly; she expects peo-ple to know what to do and even thinks, “If Ihave to tell you, you’re the wrong person forthe job.” Work becomes not a matter of doingone’s best along a clear course so much as second-guessing what the leader wants. At the sametime, people often feel that the pacesetterdoesn’t trust them to work in their own wayor to take initiative. Flexibility and responsi-bility evaporate; work becomes so task fo-cused and routinized it’s boring.

As for rewards, the pacesetter either gives nofeedback on how people are doing or jumps into take over when he thinks they’re lagging.And if the leader should leave, people feeldirectionless—they’re so used to “the expert”setting the rules. Finally, commitment dwin-dles under the regime of a pacesetting leaderbecause people have no sense of how their per-sonal efforts fit into the big picture.

For an example of the pacesetting style,take the case of Sam, a biochemist in R&D ata large pharmaceutical company. Sam’s su-perb technical expertise made him an earlystar: he was the one everyone turned to whenthey needed help. Soon he was promoted tohead of a team developing a new product.The other scientists on the team were as com-petent and self-motivated as Sam; his métieras team leader became offering himself as amodel of how to do first-class scientific workunder tremendous deadline pressure, pitch-ing in when needed. His team completed itstask in record time.

But then came a new assignment: Sam wasput in charge of R&D for his entire division. Ashis tasks expanded and he had to articulate avision, coordinate projects, delegate responsi-bility, and help develop others, Sam began toslip. Not trusting that his subordinates were as

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capable as he was, he became a micromanager,obsessed with details and taking over for oth-ers when their performance slackened. Insteadof trusting them to improve with guidance anddevelopment, Sam found himself workingnights and weekends after stepping in to takeover for the head of a floundering researchteam. Finally, his own boss suggested, to his re-lief, that he return to his old job as head of aproduct development team.

Although Sam faltered, the pacesettingstyle isn’t always a disaster. The approach workswell when all employees are self-motivated,highly competent, and need little direction orcoordination—for example, it can work forleaders of highly skilled and self-motivatedprofessionals, like R&D groups or legal teams.And, given a talented team to lead, pace-setting does exactly that: gets work done ontime or even ahead of schedule. Yet like anyleadership style, pacesetting should never beused by itself.

The Coaching Style. A product unit at a glo-bal computer company had seen sales plum-met from twice as much as its competitors toonly half as much. So Lawrence, the presidentof the manufacturing division, decided toclose the unit and reassign its people andproducts. Upon hearing the news, James, thehead of the doomed unit, decided to go overhis boss’s head and plead his case to the CEO.

What did Lawrence do? Instead of blowingup at James, he sat down with his rebellious di-rect report and talked over not just the deci-sion to close the division but also James’s fu-ture. He explained to James how moving toanother division would help him develop newskills. It would make him a better leader andteach him more about the company’s business.

Lawrence acted more like a counselor than atraditional boss. He listened to James’s con-cerns and hopes, and he shared his own. Hesaid he believed James had grown stale in hiscurrent job; it was, after all, the only place he’dworked in the company. He predicted thatJames would blossom in a new role.

The conversation then took a practical turn.James had not yet had his meeting with theCEO—the one he had impetuously demandedwhen he heard of his division’s closing. Know-ing this—and also knowing that the CEO un-waveringly supported the closing—Lawrencetook the time to coach James on how topresent his case in that meeting. “You don’t get

an audience with the CEO very often,” henoted, “let’s make sure you impress him withyour thoughtfulness.” He advised James not toplead his personal case but to focus on thebusiness unit: “If he thinks you’re in there foryour own glory, he’ll throw you out faster thanyou walked through the door.” And he urgedhim to put his ideas in writing; the CEO alwaysappreciated that.

Lawrence’s reason for coaching instead ofscolding? “James is a good guy, very talentedand promising,” the executive explained to us,“and I don’t want this to derail his career. Iwant him to stay with the company, I wanthim to work out, I want him to learn, I wanthim to benefit and grow. Just because hescrewed up doesn’t mean he’s terrible.”

Lawrence’s actions illustrate the coachingstyle par excellence. Coaching leaders help em-ployees identify their unique strengths andweaknesses and tie them to their personal andcareer aspirations. They encourage employeesto establish long-term development goals andhelp them conceptualize a plan for attainingthem. They make agreements with their em-ployees about their role and responsibilities inenacting development plans, and they giveplentiful instruction and feedback. Coachingleaders excel at delegating; they give employ-ees challenging assignments, even if thatmeans the tasks won’t be accomplishedquickly. In other words, these leaders are will-ing to put up with short-term failure if it fur-thers long-term learning.

Of the six styles, our research found thatthe coaching style is used least often. Manyleaders told us they don’t have the time inthis high-pressure economy for the slow andtedious work of teaching people and helpingthem grow. But after a first session, it takeslittle or no extra time. Leaders who ignorethis style are passing up a powerful tool: itsimpact on climate and performance aremarkedly positive.

Admittedly, there is a paradox in coaching’spositive effect on business performance be-cause coaching focuses primarily on personaldevelopment, not on immediate work-relatedtasks. Even so, coaching improves results. Thereason: it requires constant dialogue, and thatdialogue has a way of pushing up every driverof climate. Take flexibility. When an employeeknows his boss watches him and cares aboutwhat he does, he feels free to experiment.

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After all, he’s sure to get quick and construc-tive feedback. Similarly, the ongoing dialogueof coaching guarantees that people know whatis expected of them and how their work fitsinto a larger vision or strategy. That affects re-sponsibility and clarity. As for commitment,coaching helps there, too, because the style’simplicit message is, “I believe in you, I’m in-vesting in you, and I expect your best efforts.”Employees very often rise to that challengewith their heart, mind, and soul.

The coaching style works well in many busi-ness situations, but it is perhaps most effectivewhen people on the receiving end are “up forit.” For instance, the coaching style works par-ticularly well when employees are alreadyaware of their weaknesses and would like toimprove their performance. Similarly, the styleworks well when employees realize how culti-vating new abilities can help them advance. Inshort, it works best with employees who wantto be coached.

By contrast, the coaching style makes littlesense when employees, for whatever reason,are resistant to learning or changing theirways. And it flops if the leader lacks the exper-tise to help the employee along. The fact is,many managers are unfamiliar with or simplyinept at coaching, particularly when it comesto giving ongoing performance feedback thatmotivates rather than creates fear or apathy.Some companies have realized the positive im-pact of the style and are trying to make it acore competence. At some companies, a signifi-cant portion of annual bonuses are tied to anexecutive’s development of his or her direct re-ports. But many organizations have yet to takefull advantage of this leadership style. Al-though the coaching style may not scream“bottom-line results,” it delivers them.

Leaders Need Many Styles

Many studies, including this one, have shownthat the more styles a leader exhibits, the bet-ter. Leaders who have mastered four ormore—especially the authoritative, demo-cratic, affiliative, and coaching styles—havethe very best climate and business perfor-mance. And the most effective leaders switchflexibly among the leadership styles asneeded. Although that may sound daunting,we witnessed it more often than you mightguess, at both large corporations and tinystart-ups, by seasoned veterans who could ex-

plain exactly how and why they lead and byentrepreneurs who claim to lead by gut alone.

Such leaders don’t mechanically match theirstyle to fit a checklist of situations—they arefar more fluid. They are exquisitely sensitive tothe impact they are having on others andseamlessly adjust their style to get the best re-sults. These are leaders, for example, who canread in the first minutes of conversation that atalented but underperforming employee hasbeen demoralized by an unsympathetic, do-it-the-way-I-tell-you manager and needs to be in-spired through a reminder of why her workmatters. Or that leader might choose to reener-gize the employee by asking her about herdreams and aspirations and finding ways tomake her job more challenging. Or that initialconversation might signal that the employeeneeds an ultimatum: improve or leave.

For an example of fluid leadership in action,consider Joan, the general manager of a majordivision at a global food and beverage com-pany. Joan was appointed to her job while thedivision was in a deep crisis. It had not madeits profit targets for six years; in the most re-cent year, it had missed by $50 million. Moraleamong the top management team was misera-ble; mistrust and resentments were rampant.Joan’s directive from above was clear: turn thedivision around.

Joan did so with a nimbleness in switchingamong leadership styles that is rare. From thestart, she realized she had a short window todemonstrate effective leadership and to estab-lish rapport and trust. She also knew that sheurgently needed to be informed about whatwas not working, so her first task was to listento key people.

Her first week on the job she had lunch anddinner meetings with each member of themanagement team. Joan sought to get eachperson’s understanding of the current situa-tion. But her focus was not so much on learn-ing how each person diagnosed the problem ason getting to know each manager as a person.Here Joan employed the affiliative style: sheexplored their lives, dreams, and aspirations.

She also stepped into the coaching role,looking for ways she could help the teammembers achieve what they wanted in theircareers. For instance, one manager who hadbeen getting feedback that he was a poor teamplayer confided his worries to her. He thoughthe was a good team member, but he was

Leaders who have

mastered four or more—

especially the

authoritative,

democratic, affiliative,

and coaching styles—

have the best climate and

business performance.

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plagued by persistent complaints. Recognizingthat he was a talented executive and a valuableasset to the company, Joan made an agreementwith him to point out (in private) when his ac-tions undermined his goal of being seen as ateam player.

She followed the one-on-one conversationswith a three-day off-site meeting. Her goalhere was team building, so that everyonewould own whatever solution for the businessproblems emerged. Her initial stance at the off-site meeting was that of a democratic leader.She encouraged everyone to express freelytheir frustrations and complaints.

The next day, Joan had the group focus onsolutions: each person made three specific pro-posals about what needed to be done. As Joanclustered the suggestions, a natural consensusemerged about priorities for the business, suchas cutting costs. As the group came up withspecific action plans, Joan got the commitmentand buy-in she sought.

With that vision in place, Joan shifted intothe authoritative style, assigning accountabilityfor each follow-up step to specific executivesand holding them responsible for their accom-plishment. For example, the division had beendropping prices on products without increas-ing its volume. One obvious solution was toraise prices, but the previous VP of sales haddithered and had let the problem fester. Thenew VP of sales now had responsibility to ad-just the price points to fix the problem.

Over the following months, Joan’s mainstance was authoritative. She continually artic-ulated the group’s new vision in a way that re-minded each member of how his or her rolewas crucial to achieving these goals. And, espe-cially during the first few weeks of the plan’simplementation, Joan felt that the urgency ofthe business crisis justified an occasional shiftinto the coercive style should someone fail tomeet his or her responsibility. As she put it, “Ihad to be brutal about this follow-up and makesure this stuff happened. It was going to takediscipline and focus.”

The results? Every aspect of climate im-proved. People were innovating. They weretalking about the division’s vision and crowingabout their commitment to new, clear goals.The ultimate proof of Joan’s fluid leadershipstyle is written in black ink: after only sevenmonths, her division exceeded its yearly profittarget by $5 million.

Expanding Your Repertory

Few leaders, of course, have all six styles intheir repertory, and even fewer know whenand how to use them. In fact, as we havebrought the findings of our research intomany organizations, the most common re-sponses have been, “But I have only two ofthose!” and, “I can’t use all those styles. Itwouldn’t be natural.”

Such feelings are understandable, and insome cases, the antidote is relatively simple.The leader can build a team with memberswho employ styles she lacks. Take the case of aVP for manufacturing. She successfully ran aglobal factory system largely by using the affili-ative style. She was on the road constantly,meeting with plant managers, attending totheir pressing concerns, and letting them knowhow much she cared about them personally.She left the division’s strategy—extremeefficiency—to a trusted lieutenant with a keenunderstanding of technology, and she dele-gated its performance standards to a colleaguewho was adept at the authoritative approach.She also had a pacesetter on her team who al-ways visited the plants with her.

An alternative approach, and one I wouldrecommend more, is for leaders to expandtheir own style repertories. To do so, leadersmust first understand which emotional intelli-gence competencies underlie the leadershipstyles they are lacking. They can then work as-siduously to increase their quotient of them.

For instance, an affiliative leader hasstrengths in three emotional intelligence com-petencies: in empathy, in building relation-ships, and in communication. Empathy—sensing how people are feeling in the moment—allows the affiliative leader to respond toemployees in a way that is highly congruentwith that person’s emotions, thus buildingrapport. The affiliative leader also displays anatural ease in forming new relationships,getting to know someone as a person, andcultivating a bond. Finally, the outstandingaffiliative leader has mastered the art of in-terpersonal communication, particularlyin saying just the right thing or making theapt symbolic gesture at just the right mo-ment.

So if you are primarily a pacesetting leaderwho wants to be able to use the affiliativestyle more often, you would need to improveyour level of empathy and, perhaps, your

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skills at building relationships or communi-cating effectively. As another example, an au-thoritative leader who wants to add thedemocratic style to his repertory might needto work on the capabilities of collaborationand communication. Such advice about add-ing capabilities may seem simplistic—“Gochange yourself”—but enhancing emo-tional intelligence is entirely possible withpractice. (For more on how to improve emo-

tional intelligence, see the sidebar “GrowingYour Emotional Intelligence.”)

More Science, Less Art

Like parenthood, leadership will never bean exact science. But neither should it be acomplete mystery to those who practice it.In recent years, research has helped parentsunderstand the genetic, psychological, andbehavioral components that affect their

Growing Your Emotional Intelligence

Unlike IQ, which is largely genetic—it changes little from childhood—the skills of emotional intelligence can be learned at any age. It’s not easy, however. Growing your emotional intelligence takes practice and commitment. But the payoffs are well worth the investment.

Consider the case of a marketing director for a division of a global food company. Jack, as I’ll call him, was a classic pacesetter: high-energy, always striving to find better ways to get things done, and too eager to step in and take over when, say, someone seemed about to miss a deadline. Worse, Jack was prone to pounce on anyone who didn’t seem to meet his standards, flying off the handle if a person merely deviated from completing a job in the order Jack thought best.

Jack’s leadership style had a predictably di-sastrous impact on climate and business re-sults. After two years of stagnant performance, Jack’s boss suggested he seek out a coach. Jack wasn’t pleased but, realizing his own job was on the line, he complied.

The coach, an expert in teaching people how to increase their emotional intelligence, began with a 360-degree evaluation of Jack. A diagnosis from multiple viewpoints is essen-tial in improving emotional intelligence be-cause those who need the most help usually have blind spots. In fact, our research found that top-performing leaders overestimate their strengths on, at most, one emotional in-telligence ability, whereas poor performers overrate themselves on four or more. Jack was not that far off, but he did rate himself more glowingly than his direct reports, who gave him especially low grades on emotional self-control and empathy.

Initially, Jack had some trouble accepting

the feedback data. But when his coach showed him how those weaknesses were tied to his in-ability to display leadership styles dependent on those competencies—especially the au-thoritative, affiliative, and coaching styles—Jack realized he had to improve if he wanted to advance in the company. Making such a connection is essential. The reason: improving emotional intelligence isn’t done in a weekend or during a seminar—it takes diligent practice on the job, over several months. If people do not see the value of the change, they will not make that effort.

Once Jack zeroed in on areas for improve-ment and committed himself to making the effort, he and his coach worked up a plan to turn his day-to-day job into a learning labora-tory. For instance, Jack discovered he was em-pathetic when things were calm, but in a cri-sis, he tuned out others. This tendency hampered his ability to listen to what people were telling him in the very moments he most needed to do so. Jack’s plan required him to focus on his behavior during tough situations. As soon as he felt himself tensing up, his job was to immediately step back, let the other person speak, and then ask clarifying ques-tions. The point was to not act judgmental or hostile under pressure.

The change didn’t come easily, but with practice Jack learned to defuse his flare-ups by entering into a dialogue instead of launching a harangue. Although he didn’t always agree with them, at least he gave people a chance to make their case. At the same time, Jack also practiced giving his direct reports more posi-tive feedback and reminding them of how their work contributed to the group’s mission. And he restrained himself from microman-aging them.

Jack met with his coach every week or two to review his progress and get advice on specific problems. For instance, occasionally Jack would find himself falling back on his old pacesetting tactics—cutting people off, jumping in to take over, and blowing up in a rage. Almost imme-diately, he would regret it. So he and his coach dissected those relapses to figure out what triggered the old ways and what to do the next time a similar moment arose. Such “relapse prevention” measures inoculate people against future lapses or just giving up. Over a six-month period, Jack made real improve-ment. His own records showed he had re-duced the number of flare-ups from one or more a day at the beginning to just one or two a month. The climate had improved sharply, and the division’s numbers were starting to creep upward.

Why does improving an emotional intelli-gence competence take months rather than days? Because the emotional centers of the brain, not just the neocortex, are involved. The neocortex, the thinking brain that learns tech-nical skills and purely cognitive abilities, gains knowledge very quickly, but the emotional brain does not. To master a new behavior, the emotional centers need repetition and prac-tice. Improving your emotional intelligence, then, is akin to changing your habits. Brain circuits that carry leadership habits have to unlearn the old ones and replace them with the new. The more often a behavioral se-quence is repeated, the stronger the underly-ing brain circuits become. At some point, the new neural pathways become the brain’s de-fault option. When that happened, Jack was able to go through the paces of leadership ef-fortlessly, using styles that worked for him—and the whole company.

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“job performance.” With our new research,leaders, too, can get a clearer picture ofwhat it takes to lead effectively. And per-haps as important, they can see how theycan make that happen.

The business environment is continuallychanging, and a leader must respond in kind.Hour to hour, day to day, week to week, execu-tives must play their leadership styles like a pro—using the right one at just the right time and in

the right measure. The payoff is in the results.

1. Daniel Goleman consults with Hay/McBeron leadership development.

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Further Reading

A R T I C L E S

What Makes a Leader?

by Daniel Goleman


November–December 1998Product no. R0401H

“Leadership That Gets Results” is Goleman’s follow-up to this article. A study of 200 global companies reveals that soft skills have a lot to do with emotional intelligence, which, Goleman argues, is the key component of leadership. Emotional intelligence com-prises self-awareness, self-regulation, motiva-tion, empathy, and social skill. In the work-place, it manifests itself not simply in the ability to control your temper or get along with others. Rather, it involves knowing your own and your colleagues’ emotional makeup well enough to be able to move people in di-rections that help accomplish company goals. Emotional intelligence isn’t just an in-nate talent, Goleman insists—it can be mea-sured, learned, and developed.

The Ways Chief Executive Officers Lead

by Charles M. Farkas and Suzy Wetlaufer


May–June 1996Product no. 96303

Goleman pinpoints emotional intelligence as the key element of successful leadership; Far-kas and Wetlaufer zero in on the leader’s fo-cus. Whereas Goleman emphasizes matching the leadership style to a particular business situation, Farkas and Wetlaufer concentrate on the particular approach that leaders choose. The authors interviewed 160 CEOs around the world, inquiring about their atti-tudes, activities, and perspectives. Instead of uncovering 160 different leadership styles, they found only five, each with a singular fo-cus: strategy, people, expertise, controls, or change. For example, CEOs who focus on strategy “believe that their most important job is to create, test, and design the imple-mentation of long-term strategy.” CEOs who

use the “box approach” believe “they can add the most value in their organizations by cre-ating, communicating, and monitoring an explicit set of controls—financial, cultural, or both—that ensure uniform, predictable be-haviors for customers and employees.”

What Effective General Managers Really Do

by John P. Kotter


March–April 1999Product no. 99208

Managers who carefully control their time and work within highly structured environ-ments may be undermining their effective-ness. Kotter demonstrates how such seem-ingly wasteful activities as chatting in hallways and holding impromptu meetings can actually be a very efficient way of man-aging. When he describes the two funda-mental challenges managers face—figuring out what to do in the midst of an enormous amount of potentially relevant information and getting things done through a large and diverse set of people, most of whom the manager has no direct control over—Kotter shows some awareness of the emo-tional intelligence these challenges call for. But his primary point is about managers tak-ing a strategic approach to the tactical issue of handling their schedules and interac-tions. He advises managers to develop flexi-ble agendas and broad networks of people. Flexible agendas enable managers to react opportunistically to the flow of events around them. And with broad networks, even quick and pointed conversations can help extend managers’ reach well beyond their formal chain of command.

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One More Time

How Do You Motivate Employees?


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One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?



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Further Reading

Forget praise. Forget

punishment. Forget cash. You

need to make their jobs more

interesting.

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Imagine your workforce so motivated that employees relish more hours of work, not fewer, initiate increased responsibility them-selves, and boast about their challenging work, not their paychecks or bonuses.

An impossible dream? Not if you under-stand the counterintuitive force behind motivation—and the ineffectiveness of most performance incentives. Despite media attention to the contrary, motivation does not come from perks, plush offices, or even promotions or pay. These extrinsic incentives may stimulate people to put their noses to the grindstone—but they’ll likely perform only as long as it takes to get that next raise or promotion.

The truth? You and your organization have only limited power to motivate employees. Yes, unfair salaries may damage morale. But when you do offer fat paychecks and other extrinsic incentives, people won’t necessarily work harder or smarter.

Why? Most of us are motivated by intrinsic rewards: interesting, challenging work, and the opportunity to achieve and grow into greater responsibility.

Of course, you have to provide some extrinsic incentives. After all, few of us can afford to work for no salary. But the real key to motivating your employees is enabling them to activate their own internal genera-tors. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck trying to recharge their batteries yourself—again and again.

How do you help employees charge them-selves up? Enrich their jobs by applying these principles:

• Increase individuals’ accountability for their work by removing some controls.

• Give people responsibility for a complete process or unit of work.

• Make information available directly to employees rather than sending it through their managers first.

• Enable people to take on new, more diffi-cult tasks they haven’t handled before.

• Assign individuals specialized tasks that allow them to become experts.

The payoff? Employees gain an enhanced sense of responsibility and achievement, along with new opportunities to learn and grow—continually.

Example:A large firm began enriching stockholder correspondents’ jobs by appointing subject-matter experts within each unit—then encouraging other unit members to consult with them before seeking supervisory help. It also held correspondents person-ally responsible for their communications’ quality and quantity. Supervisors who had proofread and signed all letters now checked only 10% of them. And rather than harping on production quotas, supervisors no longer discussed daily quantities.

These deceptively modest changes paid big dividends: Within six months, the correspondents’ motivation soared—as measured by their answers to questions such as “How many opportunities do you feel you have in your job for making worthwhile contributions?” Equally valuable, their performance noticeably improved, as measured by their commu-

nications’ quality and accuracy, and their speed of response to stockholders.

Job enrichment isn’t easy. Managers may initially fear that they’ll no longer be needed once their direct reports take on more responsibility. Employees will likely re-quire time to master new tasks and challenges.

But managers will eventually rediscover their real functions, for example, developing staff rather than simply checking their work. And employees’ enthusiasm and commitment will ultimately rise—along with your company’s overall performance.

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Forget praise. Forget punishment. Forget cash. You need to make their

jobs more interesting.

When Frederick Herzberg researched the sources of employee motivation during the 1950s and 1960s, he discovered a dichotomy that stills in-trigues (and baffles) managers: The things that make people satisfied and motivated on the job are different in kind from the things that make them dissatisfied.

Ask workers what makes them unhappy at work, and you’ll hear about an annoying boss, a low salary, an uncomfortable work space, or stu-pid rules. Managed badly, environmental factors make people miserable, and they can certainly be demotivating. But even if managed brilliantly, they don’t motivate anybody to work much harder or smarter. People are motivated, in-stead, by interesting work, challenge, and in-creasing responsibility. These intrinsic factors answer people’s deep-seated need for growth and achievement.

Herzberg’s work influenced a generation of scholars and managers—but his conclusions don’t seem to have fully penetrated the American workplace, if the extraordinary attention still paid to compensation and incentive packages is any indication.

How many articles, books, speeches, andworkshops have pleaded plaintively, “How doI get an employee to do what I want?”

The psychology of motivation is tremen-dously complex, and what has been unraveledwith any degree of assurance is small in-deed. But the dismal ratio of knowledge tospeculation has not dampened the enthusiasmfor new forms of snake oil that are constantlycoming on the market, many of them withacademic testimonials. Doubtless this arti-cle will have no depressing impact on themarket for snake oil, but since the ideasexpressed in it have been tested in manycorporations and other organizations, it willhelp—I hope—to redress the imbalance inthe aforementioned ratio.

“Motivating” with KITA

In lectures to industry on the problem, I havefound that the audiences are usually anxiousfor quick and practical answers, so I will beginwith a straightforward, practical formula formoving people.

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What is the simplest, surest, and most di-rect way of getting someone to do some-thing? Ask? But if the person responds thathe or she does not want to do it, then thatcalls for psychological consultation to deter-mine the reason for such obstinacy. Tell theperson? The response shows that he or shedoes not understand you, and now an expertin communication methods has to bebrought in to show you how to get through.Give the person a monetary incentive? I donot need to remind the reader of the complexityand difficulty involved in setting up andadministering an incentive system. Show theperson? This means a costly training program.We need a simple way.

Every audience contains the “direct action”manager who shouts, “Kick the person!” Andthis type of manager is right. The surest andleast circumlocuted way of getting someone todo something is to administer a kick in thepants—to give what might be called the KITA.

There are various forms of KITA, and hereare some of them:

Negative Physical KITA. This is a literalapplication of the term and was frequentlyused in the past. It has, however, three majordrawbacks: 1) It is inelegant; 2) it contradictsthe precious image of benevolence that mostorganizations cherish; and 3) since it is aphysical attack, it directly stimulates the auto-nomic nervous system, and this often resultsin negative feedback—the employee may justkick you in return. These factors give rise tocertain taboos against negative physical KITA.

In uncovering infinite sources of psycho-logical vulnerabilities and the appropriatemethods to play tunes on them, psycholo-gists have come to the rescue of those whoare no longer permitted to use negativephysical KITA. “He took my rug away”; “Iwonder what she meant by that”; “The boss isalways going around me”—these symptomaticexpressions of ego sores that have beenrubbed raw are the result of application of:

Negative Psychological KITA. This has sev-eral advantages over negative physical KITA.First, the cruelty is not visible; the bleeding isinternal and comes much later. Second, sinceit affects the higher cortical centers of thebrain with its inhibitory powers, it reducesthe possibility of physical backlash. Third,since the number of psychological pains thata person can feel is almost infinite, the direc-

tion and site possibilities of the KITA areincreased many times. Fourth, the personadministering the kick can manage to beabove it all and let the system accomplish thedirty work. Fifth, those who practice it receivesome ego satisfaction (one-upmanship),whereas they would find drawing bloodabhorrent. Finally, if the employee does com-plain, he or she can always be accused ofbeing paranoid; there is no tangible evidenceof an actual attack.

Now, what does negative KITA accomplish?If I kick you in the rear (physically or psycho-logically), who is motivated? I am motivated;you move! Negative KITA does not lead tomotivation, but to movement. So:

Positive KITA. Let us consider motivation.If I say to you, “Do this for me or the com-pany, and in return I will give you a reward,an incentive, more status, a promotion, allthe quid pro quos that exist in the industrialorganization,” am I motivating you? Theoverwhelming opinion I receive from man-agement people is, “Yes, this is motivation.”

I have a year-old schnauzer. When it was asmall puppy and I wanted it to move, I kickedit in the rear and it moved. Now that I havefinished its obedience training, I hold up adog biscuit when I want the schnauzer tomove. In this instance, who is motivated—I orthe dog? The dog wants the biscuit, but it is Iwho want it to move. Again, I am the onewho is motivated, and the dog is the one whomoves. In this instance all I did was applyKITA frontally; I exerted a pull instead of apush. When industry wishes to use such posi-tive KITAs, it has available an incredible num-ber and variety of dog biscuits (jelly beans forhumans) to wave in front of employees to getthem to jump.

Myths About Motivation

Why is KITA not motivation? If I kick my dog(from the front or the back), he will move.And when I want him to move again, whatmust I do? I must kick him again. Similarly, Ican charge a person’s battery, and then re-charge it, and recharge it again. But it is onlywhen one has a generator of one’s own that wecan talk about motivation. One then needs nooutside stimulation. One wants to do it.

With this in mind, we can review somepositive KITA personnel practices that weredeveloped as attempts to instill “motivation”:

Frederick Herzberg,

Distinguished Professor of Management at the Uni-versity of Utah in Salt Lake City, was head of the department of psychology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland when he wrote this article. His writings include the book Work and the Nature of Man (World, 1966).

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1. Reducing Time Spent at Work.

This rep-resents a marvelous way of motivating peo-ple to work—getting them off the job! Wehave reduced (formally and informally) thetime spent on the job over the last 50 or 60years until we are finally on the way to the“6-day weekend.” An interesting variant ofthis approach is the development of off-hourrecreation programs. The philosophy hereseems to be that those who play to-gether, work together. The fact is that mo-tivated people seek more hours of work, notfewer.

2. Spiraling Wages. Have these motivatedpeople? Yes, to seek the next wage increase.Some medievalists still can be heard to saythat a good depression will get employeesmoving. They feel that if rising wages don’t orwon’t do the job, reducing them will.

3. Fringe Benefits. Industry has outdonethe most welfare-minded of welfare states indispensing cradle-to-the-grave succor. Onecompany I know of had an informal “fringebenefit of the month club” going for a while.The cost of fringe benefits in this country hasreached approximately 25% of the wagedollar, and we still cry for motivation.

People spend less time working for moremoney and more security than ever before,and the trend cannot be reversed. These bene-fits are no longer rewards; they are rights. A6-day week is inhuman, a 10-hour day isexploitation, extended medical coverage is abasic decency, and stock options are thesalvation of American initiative. Unless theante is continuously raised, the psychologicalreaction of employees is that the company isturning back the clock.

When industry began to realize that boththe economic nerve and the lazy nerve oftheir employees had insatiable appetites, itstarted to listen to the behavioral scientistswho, more out of a humanist tradition thanfrom scientific study, criticized managementfor not knowing how to deal with people.The next KITA easily followed.

4. Human Relations Training. More than30 years of teaching and, in many instances,of practicing psychological approaches tohandling people have resulted in costlyhuman relations programs and, in the end,the same question: How do you motivateworkers? Here, too, escalations have takenplace. Thirty years ago it was necessary to

request, “Please don’t spit on the floor.”Today the same admonition requires three“pleases” before the employee feels that asuperior has demonstrated the psychologi-cally proper attitude.

The failure of human relations training toproduce motivation led to the conclusionthat supervisors or managers themselveswere not psychologically true to themselvesin their practice of interpersonal decency. Soan advanced form of human relations KITA,sensitivity training, was unfolded.

5. Sensitivity Training. Do you really, reallyunderstand yourself? Do you really, really,really trust other people? Do you really, really,really, really cooperate? The failure of sensitivitytraining is now being explained, by those whohave become opportunistic exploiters of thetechnique, as a failure to really (five times)conduct proper sensitivity training courses.

With the realization that there are only tem-porary gains from comfort and economic andinterpersonal KITA, personnel managers con-cluded that the fault lay not in what they weredoing, but in the employee’s failure to appreci-ate what they were doing. This opened upthe field of communications, a new area of“scientifically” sanctioned KITA.

6. Communications. The professor of com-munications was invited to join the faculty ofmanagement training programs and help inmaking employees understand what manage-ment was doing for them. House organs,briefing sessions, supervisory instruction onthe importance of communication, and allsorts of propaganda have proliferated untiltoday there is even an International Councilof Industrial Editors. But no motivationresulted, and the obvious thought occurredthat perhaps management was not hearingwhat the employees were saying. That led tothe next KITA.

7. Two-Way Communication. Managementordered morale surveys, suggestion plans,and group participation programs. Then bothmanagement and employees were communi-cating and listening to each other morethan ever, but without much improvementin motivation.

The behavioral scientists began to takeanother look at their conceptions and theirdata, and they took human relations one stepfurther. A glimmer of truth was beginning toshow through in the writings of the so-called

Have spiraling wages

motivated people? Yes, to

seek the next wage

increase.

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higher-order-need psychologists. People, sothey said, want to actualize themselves.Unfortunately, the “actualizing” psycholo-gists got mixed up with the human relationspsychologists, and a new KITA emerged.

8. Job Participation. Though it may nothave been the theoretical intention, jobparticipation often became a “give them thebig picture” approach. For example, if a manis tightening 10,000 nuts a day on an assem-bly line with a torque wrench, tell him he isbuilding a Chevrolet. Another approach hadthe goal of giving employees a “feeling” thatthey are determining, in some measure, whatthey do on the job. The goal was to provide asense of achievement rather than a substantiveachievement in the task. Real achievement,of course, requires a task that makes it possible.

But still there was no motivation. This led tothe inevitable conclusion that the employeesmust be sick, and therefore to the next KITA.

9. Employee Counseling. The initial use ofthis form of KITA in a systematic fashion canbe credited to the Hawthorne experiment ofthe Western Electric Company during theearly 1930s. At that time, it was found thatthe employees harbored irrational feelingsthat were interfering with the rational opera-tion of the factory. Counseling in this in-stance was a means of letting the employeesunburden themselves by talking to someoneabout their problems. Although the counsel-ing techniques were primitive, the programwas large indeed.

The counseling approach suffered as a resultof experiences during World War II, whenthe programs themselves were found to beinterfering with the operation of the organi-zations; the counselors had forgotten theirrole of benevolent listeners and were attempt-ing to do something about the problems thatthey heard about. Psychological counseling,however, has managed to survive the nega-tive impact of World War II experiences andtoday is beginning to flourish with renewedsophistication. But, alas, many of these pro-grams, like all the others, do not seem tohave lessened the pressure of demands tofind out how to motivate workers.

Since KITA results only in short-termmovement, it is safe to predict that the costof these programs will increase steadily andnew varieties will be developed as old posi-tive KITAs reach their satiation points.

Hygiene vs. Motivators

Let me rephrase the perennial question thisway: How do you install a generator in anemployee? A brief review of my motivation-hygiene theory of job attitudes is requiredbefore theoretical and practical suggestionscan be offered. The theory was first drawnfrom an examination of events in the lives ofengineers and accountants. At least 16 otherinvestigations, using a wide variety of popu-lations (including some in the Communistcountries), have since been completed, makingthe original research one of the most repli-cated studies in the field of job attitudes.

The findings of these studies, along withcorroboration from many other investigationsusing different procedures, suggest that thefactors involved in producing job satisfaction(and motivation) are separate and distinctfrom the factors that lead to job dissatisfac-tion. (See Exhibit 1, which is further explainedbelow.) Since separate factors need to be con-sidered, depending on whether job satisfac-tion or job dissatisfaction is being examined,it follows that these two feelings are notopposites of each other. The opposite of jobsatisfaction is not job dissatisfaction but,rather, no job satisfaction; and similarly, theopposite of job dissatisfaction is not job satis-faction, but no job dissatisfaction.

Stating the concept presents a problem insemantics, for we normally think of satisfac-tion and dissatisfaction as opposites; i.e., whatis not satisfying must be dissatisfying, andvice versa. But when it comes to understand-ing the behavior of people in their jobs, morethan a play on words is involved.

Two different needs of human beings are in-volved here. One set of needs can be thoughtof as stemming from humankind’s animalnature—the built-in drive to avoid pain fromthe environment, plus all the learned drivesthat become conditioned to the basic biologi-cal needs. For example, hunger, a basic biologi-cal drive, makes it necessary to earn money,and then money becomes a specific drive. Theother set of needs relates to that uniquehuman characteristic, the ability to achieveand, through achievement, to experience psy-chological growth. The stimuli for the growthneeds are tasks that induce growth; in the in-dustrial setting, they are the job content. Con-trariwise, the stimuli inducing pain-avoidancebehavior are found in the job environment.

The opposite of job

dissatisfaction is not job

satisfaction, but no job

dissatisfaction.

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Percentagefrequency

0201 04 %0503001020304%05

Hyg

ien

e f

acto

rsIn

trin

sic

mot

ivat

ors

achievement

recognition

work itself

responsibility

advancement

growth

company policyand administration

supervision

relationship with supervisor

work conditions

salary

relationship with peers

personal life

relationship with subordinates

status

security

Factors characterizing ,844 events on the jobthat led to extreme dissatisfaction

Exhibit 1

Factors affecting job attitudes as reported in 12 investigations

Factors characterizing ,753 events on the jobthat led to extreme satisfaction

Hygiene 1969

Motivators 8131

Total of all factors contributing to job

dissatisfaction

Total of all factors contributing to job

satisfaction

Percentage frequency

02 04 06 %08020406%08 0

11

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The growth or

motivator

factors that areintrinsic to the job are: achievement, recog-nition for achievement, the work itself, re-sponsibility, and growth or advancement.The dissatisfaction-avoidance or hygiene (KITA)factors that are extrinsic to the job include:company policy and administration, supervi-sion, interpersonal relationships, workingconditions, salary, status, and security.

A composite of the factors that are in-volved in causing job satisfaction and job dis-satisfaction, drawn from samples of 1,685employees, is shown in Exhibit 1. The resultsindicate that motivators were the primarycause of satisfaction, and hygiene factors theprimary cause of unhappiness on the job.The employees, studied in 12 different inves-tigations, included lower level supervisors,professional women, agricultural administra-tors, men about to retire from managementpositions, hospital maintenance personnel,manufacturing supervisors, nurses, food han-dlers, military officers, engineers, scientists,housekeepers, teachers, technicians, femaleassemblers, accountants, Finnish foremen,and Hungarian engineers.

They were asked what job events hadoccurred in their work that had led to ex-treme satisfaction or extreme dissatisfactionon their part. Their responses are brokendown in the exhibit into percentages of total“positive” job events and of total “negative”job events. (The figures total more than 100%on both the “hygiene” and “motivators” sidesbecause often at least two factors can beattributed to a single event; advancement,for instance, often accompanies assumptionof responsibility.)

To illustrate, a typical response involvingachievement that had a negative effect forthe employee was, “I was unhappy because Ididn’t do the job successfully.” A typical re-sponse in the small number of positive jobevents in the company policy and adminis-tration grouping was, “I was happy becausethe company reorganized the section so thatI didn’t report any longer to the guy I didn’tget along with.”

As the lower right-hand part of the exhibitshows, of all the factors contributing to jobsatisfaction, 81% were motivators. And of allthe factors contributing to the employees’dissatisfaction over their work, 69% involvedhygiene elements.

Eternal Triangle. There are three generalphilosophies of personnel management. Thefirst is based on organizational theory, thesecond on industrial engineering, and thethird on behavioral science.

Organizational theorists believe that humanneeds are either so irrational or so varied andadjustable to specific situations that the majorfunction of personnel management is to be aspragmatic as the occasion demands. If jobs areorganized in a proper manner, they reason, theresult will be the most efficient job structure,and the most favorable job attitudes will followas a matter of course.

Industrial engineers hold that humankindis mechanistically oriented and economicallymotivated and that human needs are bestmet by attuning the individual to the mostefficient work process. The goal of personnelmanagement therefore should be to concoctthe most appropriate incentive system and todesign the specific working conditions in away that facilitates the most efficient use ofthe human machine. By structuring jobs in amanner that leads to the most efficient opera-tion, engineers believe that they can obtainthe optimal organization of work and theproper work attitudes.

Behavioral scientists focus on group senti-ments, attitudes of individual employees, andthe organization’s social and psychologicalclimate. This persuasion emphasizes one ormore of the various hygiene and motivatorneeds. Its approach to personnel manage-ment is generally to emphasize some form ofhuman relations education, in the hope of in-stilling healthy employee attitudes and an or-ganizational climate that is considered to befelicitous to human values. The belief is thatproper attitudes will lead to efficient job andorganizational structure.

There is always a lively debate concerningthe overall effectiveness of the approaches oforganizational theorists and industrial engi-neers. Manifestly, both have achieved much.But the nagging question for behavioral sci-entists has been: What is the cost in humanproblems that eventually cause more ex-pense to the organization—for instance,turnover, absenteeism, errors, violation ofsafety rules, strikes, restriction of output,higher wages, and greater fringe benefits?On the other hand, behavioral scientists arehard put to document much manifest im-

In attempting to enrich

certain jobs,

management often

reduces the personal

contribution of

employees rather than

giving them

opportunities for growth.

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provement in personnel management, usingtheir approach.

The motivation-hygiene theory suggeststhat work be enriched to bring about effectiveutilization of personnel. Such a systematicattempt to motivate employees by manipulat-ing the motivator factors is just beginning. Theterm job enrichment describes this embryonicmovement. An older term, job enlargement,should be avoided because it is associatedwith past failures stemming from a misunder-standing of the problem. Job enrichmentprovides the opportunity for the employee’spsychological growth, while job enlargementmerely makes a job structurally bigger. Sincescientific job enrichment is very new, thisarticle only suggests the principles and practicalsteps that have recently emerged from severalsuccessful experiments in industry.

Job Loading. In attempting to enrich cer-tain jobs, management often reduces the per-sonal contribution of employees rather thangiving them opportunities for growth in theiraccustomed jobs. Such endeavors, which Ishall call horizontal job loading (as opposedto vertical loading, or providing motivatorfactors), have been the problem of earlier jobenlargement programs. Job loading merelyenlarges the meaninglessness of the job.

Some examples of this approach, and theireffect, are:

• Challenging the employee by increasingthe amount of production expected. If eachtightens 10,000 bolts a day, see if each cantighten 20,000 bolts a day. The arithmetic in-volved shows that multiplying zero by zero stillequals zero.

• Adding another meaningless task to theexisting one, usually some routine clericalactivity. The arithmetic here is adding zeroto zero.

• Rotating the assignments of a number ofjobs that need to be enriched. This meanswashing dishes for a while, then washing silver-ware. The arithmetic is substituting one zerofor another zero.

• Removing the most difficult parts of theassignment in order to free the worker to ac-complish more of the less challenging assign-ments. This traditional industrial engineeringapproach amounts to subtraction in the hopeof accomplishing addition.

These are common forms of horizontal load-ing that frequently come up in preliminarybrainstorming sessions of job enrichment. Theprinciples of vertical loading have not all beenworked out as yet, and they remain rathergeneral, but I have furnished seven useful

Exhibit 2

Principles of vertical job loading

Principle

A. Removing some controls while retaining accountability

B. Increasing the accountability of individualsfor own work

C. Giving a person a complete natural unit of work (module, division, area, and so on)

D. Granting additional authority to employeesin their activity; job freedom

E. Making periodic reports directly availableto the workers themselves rather than tosupervisors

F. Introducing new and more difficult tasks not previously handled

G. Assigning individuals specific or specializedtasks, enabling them to become experts

Motivators involved

Responsibility and personal achievement

Responsibility and recognition

Responsibility, achievement,and recognition

Responsibility, achievement,and recognition

Internal recognition

Growth and learning

Responsibility, growth,and advancement

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starting points for consideration in Exhibit 2.

A Successful Application.

An example froma highly successful job enrichment experi-ment can illustrate the distinction betweenhorizontal and vertical loading of a job. Thesubjects of this study were the stockholdercorrespondents employed by a very largecorporation. Seemingly, the task required ofthese carefully selected and highly trainedcorrespondents was quite complex andchallenging. But almost all indexes of perfor-mance and job attitudes were low, and exitinterviewing confirmed that the challenge ofthe job existed merely as words.

A job enrichment project was initiated inthe form of an experiment with one group,designated as an achieving unit, having its jobenriched by the principles described in Exhibit2. A control group continued to do its job inthe traditional way. (There were also two “un-committed” groups of correspondents formedto measure the so-called Hawthorne effect—

that is, to gauge whether productivity and atti-tudes toward the job changed artificiallymerely because employees sensed that thecompany was paying more attention to themin doing something different or novel. Theresults for these groups were substantially thesame as for the control group, and for the sakeof simplicity I do not deal with them in thissummary.) No changes in hygiene were intro-duced for either group other than those thatwould have been made anyway, such asnormal pay increases.

The changes for the achieving unit wereintroduced in the first two months, averag-ing one per week of the seven motivatorslisted in Exhibit 2. At the end of six monthsthe members of the achieving unit werefound to be outperforming their counter-parts in the control group and, in addition,indicated a marked increase in their likingfor their jobs. Other results showed that theachieving group had lower absenteeism and,subsequently, a much higher rate of promotion.

Exhibit 3 illustrates the changes in perfor-mance, measured in February and March,before the study period began, and at theend of each month of the study period. Theshareholder service index represents qualityof letters, including accuracy of information,and speed of response to stockholders’ let-ters of inquiry. The index of a current monthwas averaged into the average of the twoprior months, which means that improve-ment was harder to obtain if the indexes ofthe previous months were low. The “achievers”were performing less well before the six-month period started, and their perfor-mance service index continued to declineafter the introduction of the motivators,evidently because of uncertainty after theirnewly granted responsibilities. In the thirdmonth, however, performance improved,and soon the members of this group hadreached a high level of accomplishment.

Exhibit 4 shows the two groups’ attitudestoward their job, measured at the end ofMarch, just before the first motivator was in-troduced, and again at the end of September.The correspondents were asked 16 questions,all involving motivation. A typical one was,“As you see it, how many opportunities doyou feel that you have in your job for makingworthwhile contributions?” The answerswere scaled from 1 to 5, with 80 as the maxi-

achieving

control

Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept

Six-month study period

100

80

60

40

20

0

Exhibit 3

Employee performancein company experimentThree-month cumulative average

Shar

ehol

der

serv

ice

inde

x

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Exhibit 4

Change in attitudes toward tasks in company experimentMean scores at begining and end of six-month period

Job

reac

tion

mea

n s

core

60

55

50

45

40

35

■ achieving

■ control

March September

mum possible score. The achievers becamemuch more positive about their job, while theattitude of the control unit remained aboutthe same (the drop is not statistically significant).

How was the job of these correspondentsrestructured? Exhibit 5 lists the suggestionsmade that were deemed to be horizontalloading, and the actual vertical loadingchanges that were incorporated in the jobof the achieving unit. The capital lettersunder “Principle” after “Vertical Loading”refer to the corresponding letters in Exhibit2. The reader will note that the rejectedforms of horizontal loading correspondclosely to the list of common manifestationsI mentioned earlier.

Steps for Job Enrichment

Now that the motivator idea has been de-scribed in practice, here are the steps thatmanagers should take in instituting theprinciple with their employees:

1. Select those jobs in which a) the invest-ment in industrial engineering does not makechanges too costly, b) attitudes are poor, c)hygiene is becoming very costly, and d) moti-vation will make a difference in performance.

2. Approach these jobs with the conviction

that they can be changed. Years of traditionhave led managers to believe that job contentis sacrosanct and the only scope of action thatthey have is in ways of stimulating people.

3. Brainstorm a list of changes that may enrichthe jobs, without concern for their practicality.

4. Screen the list to eliminate suggestions thatinvolve hygiene, rather than actual motivation.

5. Screen the list for generalities, such as“give them more responsibility,” that arerarely followed in practice. This might seemobvious, but the motivator words have neverleft industry; the substance has just beenrationalized and organized out. Words like“responsibility,” “growth,” “achievement,” and“challenge,” for example, have been elevatedto the lyrics of the patriotic anthem for allorganizations. It is the old problem typified bythe pledge of allegiance to the flag beingmore important than contributions to thecountry—of following the form, rather thanthe substance.

6. Screen the list to eliminate any horizontalloading suggestions.

7. Avoid direct participation by the employ-ees whose jobs are to be enriched. Ideas theyhave expressed previously certainly constitutea valuable source for recommended changes,but their direct involvement contaminatesthe process with human relations hygiene and,more specifically, gives them only a sense ofmaking a contribution. The job is to bechanged, and it is the content that will pro-duce the motivation, not attitudes aboutbeing involved or the challenge inherent insetting up a job. That process will be overshortly, and it is what the employees will bedoing from then on that will determine theirmotivation. A sense of participation will resultonly in short-term movement.

8. In the initial attempts at job enrichment,set up a controlled experiment. At least twoequivalent groups should be chosen, one anexperimental unit in which the motivators aresystematically introduced over a period oftime, and the other one a control group inwhich no changes are made. For both groups,hygiene should be allowed to follow its natu-ral course for the duration of the experiment.Pre- and post-installation tests of performanceand job attitudes are necessary to evaluatethe effectiveness of the job enrichment pro-gram. The attitude test must be limited tomotivator items in order to divorce employ-

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ees’ views of the jobs they are given from allthe surrounding hygiene feelings that theymight have.

9. Be prepared for a drop in performance inthe experimental group the first few weeks.The changeover to a new job may lead to atemporary reduction in efficiency.

10. Expect your first-line supervisors to ex-perience some anxiety and hostility over thechanges you are making. The anxiety comesfrom their fear that the changes will result inpoorer performance for their unit. Hostilitywill arise when the employees start assumingwhat the supervisors regard as their own re-sponsibility for performance. The supervisorwithout checking duties to perform may thenbe left with little to do.

After successful experiment, however, the su-pervisors usually discover the supervisory andmanagerial functions they have neglected, orwhich were never theirs because all their timewas given over to checking the work of theirsubordinates. For example, in the R&D divisionof one large chemical company I know of, thesupervisors of the laboratory assistants weretheoretically responsible for their training andevaluation. These functions, however, had cometo be performed in a routine, unsubstantialfashion. After the job enrichment program,during which the supervisors were not merelypassive observers of the assistants’ perfor-mance, the supervisors actually were de-voting their time to reviewing performanceand administering thorough training.

What has been called an employee-centeredstyle of supervision will come about notthrough education of supervisors, but bychanging the jobs that they do.

• • •

Job enrichment will not be a one-time proposi-tion, but a continuous management function.The initial changes should last for a very longperiod of time. There are a number of reasonsfor this:

• The changes should bring the job up to thelevel of challenge commensurate with the skillthat was hired.

• Those who have still more ability eventu-ally will be able to demonstrate it better andwin promotion to higher level jobs.

• The very nature of motivators, as opposedto hygiene factors, is that they have a muchlonger-term effect on employees’ attitudes. It ispossible that the job will have to be enriched

Exhibit 5

Enlargement vs. enrichment of correspondents’ tasksin company experiment

Horizontal loading suggestions rejected

Firm quotas could be set for letters to be answered each day, usinga rate that would be hard to reach.

The secretaries could type the letters themselves, as well as composethem, or take on any other clerical functions.

All difficult or complex inquiries could be channeled to a few secretaries so that the remainder could achieve high rates of output.These jobs could be exchanged from time to time.

The secretaries could be rotated through units handling different customers and then sent back to their own units.

elpicnirPdetpoda snoitseggus gnidaol lacitreV

Subject matter experts were appointed within each unit Gfor other members of the unit to consult before seeking supervisory help. (The supervisor had been answering all specialized and difficult questions.)

Correspondents signed their own names on letters. B(The supervisor had been signing all letters.)

The work of the more experienced correspondents was proofread Aless frequently by supervisors and was done at the correspondents’desks, dropping verification from 100% to 10%. (Previously, all correspondents’ letters had been checked by the supervisor.)

Production was discussed, but only in terms such as “a full day’s Dwork is expected.” As time went on, this was no longer mentioned.(Before, the group had been constantly reminded of the numberof letters that needed to be answered.)

Outgoing mail went directly to the mailroom without going over Asupervisors’ desks. (The letters had always been routed throughthe supervisors.)

Correspondents were encouraged to answer letters in a more Cpersonalized way. (Reliance on the form-letter approach had been standard practice.)

Each correspondent was held personally responsible for the B, Equality and accuracy of letters. (This responsibility had been the province of the supervisor and the verifier.)

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again, but this will not occur as frequently asthe need for hygiene.

Not all jobs can be enriched, nor do alljobs need to be enriched. If only a small per-centage of the time and money that is nowdevoted to hygiene, however, were given tojob enrichment efforts, the return in humansatisfaction and economic gain would be oneof the largest dividends that industry andsociety have ever reaped through their effortsat better personnel management.

The argument for job enrichment can be

summed up quite simply: If you have em-ployees on a job, use them. If you can’t usethem on the job, get rid of them, either viaautomation or by selecting someone withlesser ability. If you can’t use them and youcan’t get rid of them, you will have a motiva-tion problem.

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Further ReadingA R T I C L E SSix Dangerous Myths About Payby Jeffrey PfefferHarvard Business ReviewMay–June 1998Product no. 6773

Pfeffer restricts his considerations in this article to pay, whereas Herzberg discusses pay as one of many factors that fail to motivate. Like Herzberg, Pfeffer marshals evidence to show that pay, the manager’s favorite motiva-tional mechanism, undermines performance. He lists and discusses six myths about pay. Among them: Individual incentive pay im-proves performance, and people work prima-rily for money. These myths are dangerous, says Pfeffer, because “they absorb vast amounts of management time and make everybody unhappy.”

Rethinking Rewardsby Alfie KohnHarvard Business ReviewNovember–December 1993Product no. 93610

In this follow-up to Kohn’s earlier HBR article, “Why Incentive Plans Cannot Work,” nine ex-perts from business, academia, and research blast away at Kohn’s contention that “incen-tive plans must fail, because they are based on a patently inadequate theory of motivation.” Kohn responds with a commentary that is clearly aligned with Herzberg’s assertions in “One More Time,” rejecting claims that extrinsic factors do anything but harm motivation and advocating intrinsic motivators to spur innovation and excellence.

Job Sculpting: The Art of Retaining Your Best Peopleby Timothy Butler and James WaldroopHarvard Business ReviewSeptember–October 1999Product no. 4282

If better pay, promotions, and honors aren’t enough to keep top performers happy, what is? Work that addresses their deepest interests. “Deeply embedded life interests” are more than hobbies or enthusiasm for certain subjects—they are long-held, emotionally driven passions that bubble beneath the surface like geothermal pools. These interests don’t determine what people are good at; they drive the kinds of activities that make people happy. A manager can help uncover an employee’s life interests by listening carefully, asking more questions, and observing. The manager and employee can then customize work with “job sculpting”—a process that matches the employee to a job that allows her to express her deeply held interests.

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www.hbr.org

The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome




article:



33

Article Summary

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47

Further Reading

How bosses create their own

poor performers.

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That darned employee! His performance keeps deteriorating—

despite

your close monitoring. What’s going on?

Brace yourself:

You

may be at fault, by un-knowingly triggering the

set-up-to-fail syndrome

. Employees whom you (perhaps falsely) view as weak performers live

down

to your expectations. Here’s how:

1. You start with a positive relationship.

2. Something—a missed deadline, a lost client—makes you question the em-ployee’s performance. You begin micro-managing him.

3. Suspecting your reduced confidence, the employee starts doubting

himself

. He stops giving his best, responds mechanically to your controls, and avoids decisions.

4. You view his new behavior as additional proof of mediocrity—and tighten the screws further.

Why not just fire him? Because you’re likely to repeat the pattern with others. Better to

reverse

the dynamic instead. Unwinding the set-up-to-fail spiral actually pays big divi-dends: Your company gets the best from your employees—and from you.

HOW SET-UP-TO-FAIL STARTS

A manager categorizes employees as “in” or “out,” based on:

•

early

perceptions

of employees’ motivation, initiative, creativity, strategic perspectives;

•

previous bosses’ impressions;

•

an early mishap; and

•

boss-subordinate incompatibility.

The manager then notices

only

evidence supporting his categorization, while dismiss-ing contradictory evidence. The boss also treats the groups differently:

•

“In” groups get autonomy, feedback, and expressions of confidence.

•

“Out” groups get controlling, formal man-agement emphasizing rules.

THE COSTS OF SET-UP-TO-FAIL

This syndrome hurts everyone:

•

Employees

stop volunteering ideas and information and asking for help, avoid contact with bosses, or grow defensive.

•

The

organization

fails to get the most from employees.

•

The

boss

loses energy to attend to other activities. His reputation suffers as other employees deem him unfair.

•

Team spirit

wilts as targeted performers are alienated and strong performers are overburdened.

HOW TO REVERSE SET-UP-TO-FAIL

If the syndrome hasn’t started, prevent it:

•

Establish expectations with new employ-ees early. Loosen the reins as they master their jobs.

•

Regularly challenge your own assumptions. Ask: “What are the

facts

regarding this em-ployee’s performance?” “Is he really that bad?”

•

Convey openness, letting employees chal-lenge your opinions. They’ll feel comfortable discussing their performance and relation-ship with you.

If the syndrome has already erupted, discuss the dynamic with the employee:

1. Choose a neutral, nonthreatening location; use affirming language (“Let’s discuss our relationship and roles”); and acknowledge your part in the tension.

2. Agree on the employee’s weaknesses and strengths. Support assessments with facts, not feelings.

3. Unearth causes of the weaknesses. Do you disagree on priorities? Does your employee lack specific knowledge or skills? Ask: “How is my behavior making things worse for you?”

4. Identify ways to boost performance. Train-ing? New experiences? Decide the quantity and type of supervision you’ll provide. Affirm your desire to improve matters.

5. Agree to communicate more openly: “Next time I do something that communi-cates low expectations, can you let me know immediately?”

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How bosses create their own poor performers.

When an employee fails—or even just per-forms poorly—managers typically do notblame themselves. The employee doesn’tunderstand the work, a manager might con-tend. Or the employee isn’t driven to succeed,can’t set priorities, or won’t take direction.Whatever the reason, the problem is assumedto be the employee’s fault—and the em-ployee’s responsibility.

But is it? Sometimes, of course, the answeris yes. Some employees are not up to theirassigned tasks and never will be, for lack ofknowledge, skill, or simple desire. But some-times—and we would venture to say often—an employee’s poor performance can beblamed largely on his boss.

Perhaps “blamed” is too strong a word, butit is directionally correct. In fact, our researchstrongly suggests that bosses—albeit acciden-tally and usually with the best intentions—are often complicit in an employee’s lack ofsuccess. (See the insert “About the Re-search.”) How? By creating and reinforcing adynamic that essentially sets up perceived

underperformers to fail. If the Pygmalioneffect describes the dynamic in which an indi-vidual lives up to great expectations, the set-up-to-fail syndrome explains the opposite. Itdescribes a dynamic in which employees per-ceived to be mediocre or weak performerslive down to the low expectations their man-agers have for them. The result is that theyoften end up leaving the organization—eitherof their own volition or not.

The syndrome usually begins surrepti-tiously. The initial impetus can be perfor-mance related, such as when an employeeloses a client, undershoots a target, or missesa deadline. Often, however, the trigger is lessspecific. An employee is transferred into adivision with a lukewarm recommendationfrom a previous boss. Or perhaps the boss andthe employee don’t really get along on apersonal basis—several studies have indeedshown that compatibility between boss andsubordinate, based on similarity of attitudes,values, or social characteristics, can have asignificant impact on a boss’s impressions. In

page 34



any case, the syndrome is set in motion whenthe boss begins to worry that the employee’sperformance is not up to par.

The boss then takes what seems like the ob-vious action in light of the subordinate’s per-ceived shortcomings: he increases the timeand attention he focuses on the employee. Herequires the employee to get approval beforemaking decisions, asks to see more paperworkdocumenting those decisions, or watches theemployee at meetings more closely and cri-tiques his comments more intensely.

These actions are intended to boost perfor-mance and prevent the subordinate frommaking errors. Unfortunately, however, subor-dinates often interpret the heightened supervi-sion as a lack of trust and confidence. In time,because of low expectations, they come todoubt their own thinking and ability, and theylose the motivation to make autonomousdecisions or to take any action at all. The boss,they figure, will just question everything theydo—or do it himself anyway.

Ironically, the boss sees the subordinate’swithdrawal as proof that the subordinate isindeed a poor performer. The subordinate,after all, isn’t contributing his ideas or energyto the organization. So what does the bossdo? He increases his pressure and supervisionagain—watching, questioning, and double-checking everything the subordinate does.Eventually, the subordinate gives up on hisdreams of making a meaningful contribu-tion. Boss and subordinate typically settle intoa routine that is not really satisfactory but,aside from periodic clashes, is otherwise bear-able for them. In the worst-case scenario, theboss’s intense intervention and scrutiny endup paralyzing the employee into inactionand consume so much of the boss’s time thatthe employee quits or is fired. (For an illus-tration of the set-up-to-fail syndrome, see theexhibit “The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome: NoHarm Intended—A Relationship Spirals fromBad to Worse.”)

Perhaps the most daunting aspect of theset-up-to-fail syndrome is that it is self-fulfillingand self-reinforcing—it is the quintessen-tial vicious circle. The process is self-fulfillingbecause the boss’s actions contribute to thevery behavior that is expected from weakperformers. It is self-reinforcing because theboss’s low expectations, in being fulfilled byhis subordinates, trigger more of the same

behavior on his part, which in turn triggersmore of the same behavior on the part of sub-ordinates. And on and on, unintentionally,the relationship spirals downward.

A case in point is the story of Steve, a manu-facturing supervisor for a

Fortune

100 company.When we first met Steve, he came across ashighly motivated, energetic, and enterprising.He was on top of his operation, monitoringproblems and addressing them quickly. Hisboss expressed great confidence in him andgave him an excellent performance rating.Because of his high performance, Steve waschosen to lead a new production line consid-ered essential to the plant’s future.

In his new job, Steve reported to Jeff, whohad just been promoted to a senior manage-ment position at the plant. In the first fewweeks of the relationship, Jeff periodicallyasked Steve to write up short analyses of signif-icant quality-control rejections. Although Jeffdidn’t really explain this to Steve at the time,his request had two major objectives: to gener-ate information that would help both of themlearn the new production process, and to helpSteve develop the habit of systematicallyperforming root cause analysis of quality-related problems. Also, being new on the jobhimself, Jeff wanted to show his own boss thathe was on top of the operation.

Unaware of Jeff’s motives, Steve balked.Why, he wondered, should he submit reportson information he understood and monitoredhimself? Partly due to lack of time, partlyin response to what he considered interferencefrom his boss, Steve invested little energyin the reports. Their tardiness and below-average quality annoyed Jeff, who began tosuspect that Steve was not a particularly proac-tive manager. When he asked for the reportsagain, he was more forceful. For Steve, thismerely confirmed that Jeff did not trust him.He withdrew more and more from interac-tion with him, meeting his demands withincreased passive resistance. Before long, Jeffbecame convinced that Steve was not effectiveenough and couldn’t handle his job withouthelp. He started to supervise Steve’s everymove—to Steve’s predictable dismay. One yearafter excitedly taking on the new produc-tion line, Steve was so dispirited he wasthinking of quitting.

How can managers break the set-up-to-failsyndrome? Before answering that question,

Jean-François Manzoni

is an assis-tant professor of accounting and control at INSEAD, in Fontainebleau, France. His research and consulting work focus on management control and the management of change at both the individual and organization-al levels.

Jean-Louis Barsoux

is a re-search fellow at INSEAD, where he specializes in organizational behavior. He is the coauthor with Susan C. Schneider of

Managing Across Cultures

(Prentice-Hall, 1997).

page 35



let’s take a closer look at the dynamics thatset the syndrome in motion and keep it going.

Deconstructing the Syndrome

We said earlier that the set-up-to-fail syn-drome usually starts surreptitiously—that is, itis a dynamic that usually creeps up on the bossand the subordinate until suddenly both ofthem realize that the relationship has gonesour. But underlying the syndrome are severalassumptions about weaker performers thatbosses appear to accept uniformly. Our re-search shows, in fact, that executives typicallycompare weaker performers with strongerperformers using the following descriptors:

• less motivated, less energetic, and lesslikely to go beyond the call of duty;

• more passive when it comes to takingcharge of problems or projects;

• less aggressive about anticipating prob-lems;

• less innovative and less likely to suggestideas;

• more parochial in their vision and strate-gic perspective;

• more prone to hoard information andassert their authority, making them poorbosses to their own subordinates.

It is not surprising that on the basis of theseassumptions, bosses tend to treat weaker andstronger performers very differently. Indeed,numerous studies have shown that up to 90%of all managers treat some subordinates asthough they were members of an in-group,while they consign others to membership inan out-group. Members of the in-group areconsidered the trusted collaborators andtherefore receive more autonomy, feedback,and expressions of confidence from theirbosses. The boss-subordinate relationship for

this group is one of mutual trust and recipro-cal influence. Members of the out-group, onthe other hand, are regarded more as hiredhands and are managed in a more formal, lesspersonal way, with more emphasis on rules,policies, and authority. (For more on howbosses treat weaker and stronger performersdifferently, see the chart “In with the InCrowd, Out with the Out.”)

Why do managers categorize subordinatesinto either in-groups or out-groups? For thesame reason that we tend to typecast our fam-ily, friends, and acquaintances: it makes lifeeasier. Labeling is something we all do, be-cause it allows us to function more efficiently.It saves time by providing rough-and-readyguides for interpreting events and interactingwith others. Managers, for instance, use cate-gorical thinking to figure out quickly whoshould get what tasks. That’s the good news.

The downside of categorical thinking is thatin organizations it leads to premature closure.Having made up his mind about a subordi-nate’s limited ability and poor motivation, amanager is likely to notice supporting evi-dence while selectively dismissing contraryevidence. (For example, a manager might in-terpret a terrific new product idea from anout-group subordinate as a lucky onetimeevent.) Unfortunately for some subordinates,several studies show that bosses tend to makedecisions about in-groups and out-groupseven as early as five days into their relation-ships with employees.

Are bosses aware of this sorting process andof their different approaches to “in” and “out”employees? Definitely. In fact, the bosses wehave studied, regardless of nationality, com-pany, or personal background, were usuallyquite conscious of behaving in a more control-ling way with perceived weaker performers.Some of them preferred to label this approachas “supportive and helpful.” Many of them alsoacknowledged that—although they tried notto—they tended to become impatient withweaker performers more easily than withstronger performers. By and large, however,managers are aware of the controlling natureof their behavior toward perceived weaker per-formers. For them, this behavior is not an errorin implementation; it is intentional.

What bosses typically do

not

realize is thattheir tight controls end up hurting subordi-nates’ performance by undermining their

About the Research

This article is based on two studies de-signed to understand better the causal relationship between leadership style and subordinate performance—in other words, to explore how bosses and subor-dinates mutually influence each other’s behavior. The first study, which com-prised surveys, interviews, and obser-vations, involved 50 boss-subordinate pairs in four manufacturing operations

in

Fortune

100 companies. The second study, involving an informal survey of about 850 senior managers attending INSEAD executive-development pro-grams over the last three years, was done to test and refine the findings generated by the first study. The execu-tives in the second study represented a wide diversity of nationalities, indus-tries, and personal backgrounds.

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Before the set-up-to-fail syndrome begins, the boss and the subordinate are typically engaged

in a positive, or at least neutral, relationship.

The triggering event in the set-up-to-failsyndrome is often minor or surreptitious.

The subordinate may miss a deadline, lose a client,or submit a subpar report. In other cases, the syndrome’s genesis is the boss, who distances himself from the subordinate for personal or socialreasons unrelated to performance.

Reacting to the triggering event, the bossincreases his supervision of the subordinate,

gives more specific instructions, and wrangleslonger over courses of action.

The subordinate responds by beginning to suspect a lack of confidence and senses he’s

not part of the boss’s in-group anymore.He starts to withdraw emotionally from the boss

and from work. He may also fight to change theboss’s image of him, reaching too high or runningtoo fast to be effective.

ThE SET-UP-TO-FAIL SYNDROMENo Harm Intended – A Relationship Spirals from Bad to Worse

21

43

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When the set-up-to-fail syndrome is in fullswing, the boss pressures and controls the sub-

ordinate during interactions. Otherwise, he avoidscontact and gives the subordinate routine assign-ments only.

For his part, the subordinate shuts down orleaves, either in dismay, frustration, or anger.

The boss interprets this problem-hoarding,overreaching, or tentativeness as signs that the

subordinate has poor judgment and weak capabili-ties. If the subordinate does perform well, the bossdoes not acknowledge it or considers it a lucky“one off.”

He limits the subordinate’s discretion, withholdssocial contact, and shows, with increasing open-ness, his lack of confidence in and frustration withthe subordinate.

The subordinate feels boxed in and under-appreciated. He increasingly withdraws from

his boss and from work. He may even resort to ignoring instructions, openly disputing the boss,and occasionally lashing out because of feelings ofrejection.

In general, he performs his job mechanically anddevotes more energy to self-protection. Moreover,he refers all nonroutine decisions to the boss oravoids contact with him.

The boss feels increasingly frustrated and is now convinced that the subordinate cannot

perform without intense oversight. He makes thisknown by his words and deeds, further under-mining the subordinate’s confidence and promptinginaction.

65

87

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motivation in two ways: first, by depriving sub-ordinates of autonomy on the job and, second,by making them feel undervalued. Tight con-trols are an indication that the boss assumesthe subordinate can’t perform well withoutstrict guidelines. When the subordinate sensesthese low expectations, it can undermine hisself-confidence. This is particularly problem-atic because numerous studies confirm thatpeople perform up or down to the levels theirbosses expect from them or, indeed, to thelevels they expect from themselves.

1

Of course, executives often tell us, “Oh, butI’m very careful about this issue of expecta-tions. I exert more control over my underper-formers, but I make sure that it does not comeacross as a lack of trust or confidence in their

ability.” We believe what these executives tellus. That is, we believe that they do try hard todisguise their intentions. When we talk to theirsubordinates, however, we find that these ef-forts are for the most part futile. In fact, our re-search shows that most employees can—anddo—“read their boss’s mind.” In particular,they know full well whether they fit into theirboss’s in-group or out-group. All they haveto do is compare how they are treated withhow their more highly regarded colleaguesare treated.

Just as the boss’s assumptions about weakerperformers and the right way to managethem explains his complicity in the set-up-to-fail syndrome, the subordinate’s assump-tions about what the boss is thinking explain

In with the In Crowd, out with the Out

Boss’s behavior toward perceivedweaker performers

Is directive when discussing tasks and goals.Focuses on what needs get done as well as how itshould get done.

Pays close attention to unfavorable variances,mistakes, or incorrect judgments.

Makes himself available to subordinate on a need-to-see basis. Bases conversations primarily onwork-related topics.

Pays little interest to subordinate’s comments orsuggestions about how and why work is done.

Reluctantly gives subordinate anything butroutine assignments. When handing outassignments, gives subordinate little choice.Monitors subordinate heavily.

Rarely asks subordinate for input aboutorganizational or work-related matters.

Usually imposes own views in disagreements.

Emphasizes what the subordinate is doing poorly.

Boss’s behavior toward perceivedstronger performers

Discusses project objectives, with a limited focuson project implementation. Gives subordinate thefreedom to choose his own approach to solvingproblems or reaching goals.

Treats unfavorable variances, mistakes, orincorrect judgments as learning opportunities.

Makes himself available, as in “Let me know if Ican help.” Initiates casual and personalconversations.

Is open to subordinate’s suggestions and discussesthem with interest.

Gives subordinate interesting and challengingstretch assignments. Often allows subordinate tochoose his own assignments.

Solicits opinions from subordinate onorganizational strategy, execution, policy, andprocedures.

Often defers to subordinate’s opinion indisagreements.

Praises subordinate for work well done.

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his own complicity. The reason? When peopleperceive disapproval, criticism, or simply a lackof confidence and appreciation, they tend toshut down—a behavioral phenomenon thatmanifests itself in several ways.

Primarily, shutting down means discon-necting intellectually and emotionally. Sub-ordinates simply stop giving their best. Theygrow tired of being overruled, and they losethe will to fight for their ideas. As one subor-dinate put it, “My boss tells me how to exe-cute every detail. Rather than arguing withhim, I’ve ended up wanting to say, ‘Comeon, just tell me what you want me to do, andI’ll go do it.’ You become a robot.” Anotherperceived weak performer explained, “Whenmy boss tells me to do something, I just doit mechanically.”

Shutting down also involves disengagingpersonally—essentially reducing contact withthe boss. Partly, this disengagement is moti-vated by the nature of previous exchangesthat have tended to be negative in tone. Asone subordinate admitted, “I used to initiatemuch more contact with my boss until theonly thing I received was negative feedback;then I started shying away.”

Besides the risk of a negative reaction, per-ceived weaker performers are concerned withnot tainting their images further. Followingthe often-heard aphorism “Better to keep quietand look like a fool than to open your mouthand prove it,” they avoid asking for help forfear of further exposing their limitations. Theyalso tend to volunteer less information—asimple “heads up” from a perceived under-performer can cause the boss to overreact andjump into action when none is required. Asone perceived weak performer recalled, “I justwanted to let my boss know about a small mat-ter, only slightly out of the routine, but as soonas I mentioned it, he was all over my case. Ishould have kept my mouth closed. I do now.”

Finally, shutting down can mean becomingdefensive. Many perceived underperformersstart devoting more energy to self-justification.Anticipating that they will be personallyblamed for failures, they seek to find excusesearly. They end up spending a lot of timelooking in the rearview mirror and less timelooking at the road ahead. In some cases—as in the case of Steve, the manufacturing su-pervisor described earlier—this defensivenesscan lead to noncompliance or even systematic

opposition to the boss’s views. While this ideaof a weak subordinate going head to headwith his boss may seem irrational, it may re-flect what Albert Camus once observed:“When deprived of choice, the only freedomleft is the freedom to say no.”

The Syndrome Is Costly

There are two obvious costs of the set-up-to-fail syndrome: the emotional cost paid by thesubordinate and the organizational cost asso-ciated with the company’s failure to get thebest out of an employee. Yet there are othercosts to consider, some of them indirect andlong term.

The boss pays for the syndrome in severalways. First, uneasy relationships with per-ceived low performers often sap the boss’semotional and physical energy. It can be quitea strain to keep up a facade of courtesy andpretend everything is fine when both partiesknow it is not. In addition, the energy devotedto trying to fix these relationships or improvethe subordinate’s performance through in-creased supervision prevents the boss fromattending to other activities—which oftenfrustrates or even angers the boss.

Furthermore, the syndrome can take its tollon the boss’s reputation, as other employeesin the organization observe his behavior to-ward weaker performers. If the boss’s treat-ment of a subordinate is deemed unfair orunsupportive, observers will be quick to drawtheir lessons. One outstanding performercommented on his boss’s controlling andhypercritical behavior toward another subor-dinate: “It made us all feel like we’re expend-able.” As organizations increasingly espousethe virtues of learning and empowerment,managers must cultivate their reputations ascoaches, as well as get results.

The set-up-to-fail syndrome also has seriousconsequences for any team. A lack of faith inperceived weaker performers can temptbosses to overload those whom they considersuperior performers; bosses want to entrustcritical assignments to those who can becounted on to deliver reliably and quickly andto those who will go beyond the call of dutybecause of their strong sense of shared fate.As one boss half-jokingly said, “Rule numberone: if you want something done, give it tosomeone who’s busy—there’s a reason why thatperson is busy.”

One strong performer

said of his boss’s

hypercritical behavior

toward another

employee: “It made us all

feel like we’re

expendable.”

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An increased workload may help per-ceived superior performers learn to managetheir time better, especially as they start todelegate to their own subordinates more ef-fectively. In many cases, however, these per-formers simply absorb the greater load andhigher stress which, over time, takes a per-sonal toll and decreases the attention theycan devote to other dimensions of their jobs,particularly those yielding longer-term bene-fits. In the worst-case scenario, overburden-ing strong performers can lead to burnout.

Team spirit can also suffer from the pro-gressive alienation of one or more perceivedlow performers. Great teams share a sense ofenthusiasm and commitment to a commonmission. Even when members of the boss’sout-group try to keep their pain to them-selves, other team members feel the strain.One manager recalled the discomfort experi-enced by the whole team as they watchedtheir boss grill one of their peers every week.As he explained, “A team is like a functioningorganism. If one member is suffering, thewhole team feels that pain.”

In addition, alienated subordinates oftendo not keep their suffering to themselves. Inthe corridors or over lunch, they seek outsympathetic ears to vent their recriminationsand complaints, not only wasting their owntime but also pulling their colleagues awayfrom productive work. Instead of focusing onthe team’s mission, valuable time and energyis diverted to the discussion of internal poli-tics and dynamics.

Finally, the set-up-to-fail syndrome hasconsequences for the subordinates of theperceived weak performers. Consider theweakest kid in the school yard who gets pum-meled by a bully. The abused child often goeshome and pummels his smaller, weaker sib-lings. So it is with the people who are in theboss’s out-group. When they have to managetheir own employees, they frequently replicatethe behavior that their bosses show to them.They fail to recognize good results or, moreoften, supervise their employees excessively.

Breaking Out Is Hard to Do

The set-up-to-fail syndrome is not irreversible.Subordinates can break out of it, but we havefound that to be rare. The subordinate mustconsistently deliver such superior results thatthe boss is forced to change the employee

from out-group to in-group status—a phenom-enon made difficult by the context in whichthese subordinates operate. It is hard for sub-ordinates to impress their bosses when theymust work on unchallenging tasks, with no au-tonomy and limited resources; it is also hardfor them to persist and maintain high stan-dards when they receive little encouragementfrom their bosses.

Furthermore, even if the subordinateachieves better results, it may take some timefor them to register with the boss because ofhis selective observation and recall. Indeed,research shows that bosses tend to attributethe good things that happen to weaker per-formers to external factors rather than totheir efforts and ability (while the opposite istrue for perceived high performers: successestend to be seen as theirs, and failures tend tobe attributed to external uncontrollable fac-tors). The subordinate will therefore need toachieve a string of successes in order to havethe boss even contemplate revising the initialcategorization. Clearly, it takes a special kindof courage, self-confidence, competence, andpersistence on the part of the subordinate tobreak out of the syndrome.

Instead, what often happens is that mem-bers of the out-group set excessively ambi-tious goals for themselves to impress the bossquickly and powerfully—promising to hit adeadline three weeks early, for instance, orattacking six projects at the same time, or sim-ply attempting to handle a large problemwithout help. Sadly, such superhuman effortsare usually just that. And in setting goals sohigh that they are bound to fail, the subordi-nates also come across as having had verypoor judgment in the first place.

The set-up-to-fail syndrome is not re-stricted to incompetent bosses. We have seenit happen to people perceived within theirorganizations to be excellent bosses. Theirmismanagement of some subordinates neednot prevent them from achieving success,particularly when they and the perceivedsuperior performers achieve high levels of in-dividual performance. However, those bossescould be even more successful to the team,the organization, and themselves if theycould break the syndrome.

Getting It Right

As a general rule, the first step in solving a prob-

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lem is recognizing that one exists. This observa-tion is especially relevant to the set-up-to-failsyndrome because of its self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing nature. Interrupting the syndromerequires that a manager understand the dy-namic and, particularly, that he accept the pos-sibility that his own behavior may be contribut-ing to a subordinate’s underperformance. Thenext step toward cracking the syndrome,however, is more difficult: it requires a care-fully planned and structured intervention thattakes the form of one (or several) candid con-versations meant to bring to the surface anduntangle the unhealthy dynamics that definethe boss and the subordinate’s relationship.The goal of such an intervention is to bringabout a sustainable increase in the subordi-nate’s performance while progressively re-ducing the boss’s involvement.

It would be difficult—and indeed, detri-mental—to provide a detailed script of whatthis kind of conversation should sound like.A boss who rigidly plans for this conversa-tion with a subordinate will not be able toengage in real dialogue with him, becausereal dialogue requires flexibility. As a guid-ing framework, however, we offer fivecomponents that characterize effective in-terventions. Although they are not strictlysequential steps, all five components shouldbe part of these interventions.

First, the boss must create the right con-text for the discussion.

He must, for instance,select a time and place to conduct the meetingso that it presents as little threat as possible tothe subordinate. A neutral location may bemore conducive to open dialogue than anoffice where previous and perhaps unpleasantconversations have taken place. The boss mustalso use affirming language when asking thesubordinate to meet with him. The sessionshould not be billed as “feedback,” becausesuch terms may suggest baggage from thepast. “Feedback” could also be taken to meanthat the conversation will be one-directional,a monologue delivered by the boss to thesubordinate. Instead, the intervention shouldbe described as a meeting to discuss theperformance of the subordinate, the role ofthe boss, and the relationship between thesubordinate and the boss. The boss might evenacknowledge that he feels tension in the rela-tionship and wants to use the conversation asa way to decrease it.

Finally, in setting the context, the bossshould tell the perceived weaker performerthat he would genuinely like the interactionto be an open dialogue. In particular, heshould acknowledge that he may be partiallyresponsible for the situation and that hisown behavior toward the subordinate is fairgame for discussion.

Second, the boss and the subordinatemust use the intervention process to cometo an agreement on the symptoms of theproblem.

Few employees are ineffective inall aspects of their performance. And few—ifany—employees desire to do poorly on thejob. Therefore, it is critical that the interven-tion result in a mutual understanding of thespecific job responsibilities in which the sub-ordinate is weak. In the case of Steve and Jeff,for instance, an exhaustive sorting of the evi-dence might have led to an agreement thatSteve’s underperformance was not universalbut instead largely confined to the quality ofthe reports he submitted (or failed to sub-mit). In another situation, it might be agreedthat a purchasing manager was weak when itcame to finding off-shore suppliers and tovoicing his ideas in meetings. Or a new invest-ment professional and his boss might come toagree that his performance was subpar whenit came to timing the sales and purchase ofstocks, but they might also agree that his fi-nancial analysis of stocks was quite strong.The idea here is that before working to im-prove performance or reduce tension in a re-lationship, an agreement must be reachedabout what areas of performance contributeto the contentiousness.

We used the word “evidence” above indiscussing the case of Steve and Jeff. That isbecause a boss needs to back up his perfor-mance assessments with facts and data—that is, if the intervention is to be useful.They cannot be based on feelings—as in Jefftelling Steve, “I just have the feeling you’renot putting enough energy into the reports.”Instead, Jeff needs to describe what a goodreport should look like and the ways inwhich Steve’s reports fall short. Likewise,the subordinate must be allowed—indeed,encouraged—to defend his performance,compare it with colleagues’ work, and pointout areas in which he is strong. After all, justbecause it is the boss’s opinion does notmake it a fact.

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Third, the boss and the subordinate shouldarrive at a common understanding of whatmight be causing the weak performance incertain areas.

Once the areas of weak perfor-mance have been identified, it is time to un-earth the reasons for those weaknesses. Doesthe subordinate have limited skills in organiz-ing work, managing his time, or working withothers? Is he lacking knowledge or capabilities?Do the boss and the subordinate agree on theirpriorities? Maybe the subordinate has beenpaying less attention to a particular dimensionof his work because he does not realize itsimportance to the boss. Does the subordi-nate become less effective under pressure?Does he have lower standards for performancethan the boss does?

It is also critical in the intervention that theboss bring up the subject of his own behaviortoward the subordinate and how this affectsthe subordinate’s performance. The boss mighteven try to describe the dynamics of the set-up-to-fail syndrome. “Does my behavior towardyou make things worse for you?” he might ask,or, “What am I doing that is leading you to feelthat I am putting too much pressure on you?”

This component of the discussion alsoneeds to make explicit the assumptions thatthe boss and the subordinate have thus farbeen making about each other’s intentions.Many misunderstandings start with untestedassumptions. For example, Jeff might havesaid, “When you did not supply me with thereports I asked for, I came to the conclusionthat you were not very proactive.” That wouldhave allowed Steve to bring his buried as-sumptions into the open. “No,” he might haveanswered, “I just reacted negatively becauseyou asked for the reports in writing, which Itook as a sign of excessive control.”

Fourth, the boss and the subordinateshould arrive at an agreement about theirperformance objectives and on their desire tohave the relationship move forward.

In medi-cine, a course of treatment follows the diagno-sis of an illness. Things are a bit more complexwhen repairing organizational dysfunction,since modifying behavior and developingcomplex skills can be more difficult than tak-ing a few pills. Still, the principle that appliesto medicine also applies to business: boss andsubordinate must use the intervention to plota course of treatment regarding the root prob-lems they have jointly identified.

The contract between boss and subordinateshould identify the ways they can improve ontheir skills, knowledge, experience, or per-sonal relationship. It should also include anexplicit discussion of how much and whattype of future supervision the boss will have.No boss, of course, should suddenly abdicatehis involvement; it is legitimate for bosses tomonitor subordinates’ work, particularlywhen a subordinate has shown limited abili-ties in one or more facets of his job. From thesubordinate’s point of view, however, suchinvolvement by the boss is more likely to beaccepted, and possibly even welcomed, if thegoal is to help the subordinate develop andimprove over time. Most subordinates canaccept temporary involvement that is meantto decrease as their performance improves.The problem is intense monitoring thatnever seems to go away.

Fifth, the boss and the subordinate shouldagree to communicate more openly in thefuture.

The boss could say, “Next time I dosomething that communicates low expecta-tions, can you let me know immediately?” Andthe subordinate might say, or be encouragedto say, “Next time I do something that aggra-vates you or that you do not understand, canyou also let me know right away?” Those sim-ple requests can open the door to a morehonest relationship almost instantly.

No Easy Answer

Our research suggests that interventions ofthis type do not take place very often. Face-to-face discussions about a subordinate’s per-formance tend to come high on the list ofworkplace situations people would ratheravoid, because such conversations have thepotential to make both parties feel threat-ened or embarrassed. Subordinates are reluc-tant to trigger the discussion because they areworried about coming across as thin-skinnedor whiny. Bosses tend to avoid initiatingthese talks because they are concerned aboutthe way the subordinate might react; the dis-cussion could force the boss to make explicithis lack of confidence in the subordinate, inturn putting the subordinate on the defen-sive and making the situation worse.

2

As a result, bosses who observe the dynam-ics of the set-up-to-fail syndrome being playedout may be tempted to avoid an explicit dis-cussion. Instead, they will proceed tacitly by

As part of the

intervention, the boss

should bring up the

subject of how his own

behavior may affect the

subordinate’s

performance.

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trying to encourage their perceived weakperformers. That approach has the short-term benefit of bypassing the discomfort ofan open discussion, but it has three majordisadvantages.

First, a one-sided approach on the part ofthe boss is less likely to lead to lasting im-provement because it focuses on only onesymptom of the problem—the boss’s behav-ior. It does not address the subordinate’srole in the underperformance.

Second, even if the boss’s encouragementwere successful in improving the employee’sperformance, a unilateral approach wouldlimit what both he and the subordinate couldotherwise learn from a more up-front handlingof the problem. The subordinate, in particular,would not have the benefit of observing andlearning from how his boss handled the diffi-culties in their relationship—problems thesubordinate may come across someday withthe people he manages.

Finally, bosses trying to modify their behav-ior in a unilateral way often end up goingoverboard; they suddenly give the subordi-nate more autonomy and responsibility thanhe can handle productively. Predictably, thesubordinate fails to deliver to the boss’s satis-faction, which leaves the boss even more frus-trated and convinced that the subordinatecannot function without intense supervision.

We are not saying that intervention is al-ways the best course of action. Sometimes,intervention is not possible or desirable.There may be, for instance, overwhelmingevidence that the subordinate is not capableof doing his job. He was a hiring or promotionmistake, which is best handled by removinghim from the position. In other cases, therelationship between the boss and the subor-dinate is too far gone—too much damage hasoccurred to repair it. And finally, sometimesbosses are too busy and under too muchpressure to invest the kind of resources thatintervention involves.

Yet often the biggest obstacle to effectiveintervention is the boss’s mind-set. When aboss believes that a subordinate is a weak per-former and, on top of everything else, thatperson also aggravates him, he is not going tobe able to cover up his feelings with words;his underlying convictions will come out inthe meeting. That is why preparation for theintervention is crucial. Before even deciding

to have a meeting, the boss must separateemotion from reality. Was the situation al-ways as bad as it is now? Is the subordinatereally as bad as I think he is? What is the hardevidence I have for that belief? Could therebe other factors, aside from performance, thathave led me to label this subordinate a weakperformer? Aren’t there a few things that hedoes well? He must have displayed above-average qualifications when we decided tohire him. Did these qualifications evaporateall of a sudden?

The boss might even want to mentally playout part of the conversation beforehand. If Isay this to the subordinate, what might he an-swer? Yes, sure, he would say that it was not hisfault and that the customer was unreasonable.Those excuses—are they really without merit?Could he have a point? Could it be that, underother circumstances, I might have looked morefavorably upon them? And if I still believe I’mright, how can I help the subordinate seethings more clearly?

The boss must also mentally prepare himselfto be open to the subordinate’s views, even ifthe subordinate challenges him about anyevidence regarding his poor performance. Itwill be easier for the boss to be open if, whenpreparing for the meeting, he has already chal-lenged his own preconceptions.

Even when well prepared, bosses typicallyexperience some degree of discomfort duringintervention meetings. That is not all bad.The subordinate will probably be somewhatuncomfortable as well, and it is reassuring forhim to see that his boss is a human being, too.

Calculating Costs and Benefits

As we’ve said, an intervention is not alwaysadvisable. But when it is, it results in a range ofoutcomes that are uniformly better than thealternative—that is, continued underperfor-mance and tension. After all, bosses who sys-tematically choose either to ignore their sub-ordinates’ underperformance or to opt for themore expedient solution of simply removingperceived weak performers are condemned tokeep repeating the same mistakes. Findingand training replacements for perceived weakperformers is a costly and recurrent expense.So is monitoring and controlling the deterio-rating performance of a disenchanted subor-dinate. Getting results

in spite of

one’s staff isnot a sustainable solution. In other words, it

The boss must separate

emotion from reality: Is

the subordinate really as

bad as I think he is?

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makes sense to think of the intervention asan investment, not an expense—with the pay-back likely to be high.

How high that payback will be and whatform it will take obviously depend on theoutcome of the intervention, which will it-self depend not only on the quality of theintervention but also on several key contex-tual factors: How long has that relationshipbeen spiraling downward? Does the subordi-nate have the intellectual and emotionalresources to make the effort that will berequired? Does the boss have enough timeand energy to do his part?

We have observed outcomes that can beclustered into three categories. In the best-casescenario, the intervention leads to a mixture ofcoaching, training, job redesign, and a clearingof the air; as a result, the relationship and thesubordinate’s performance improve, and thecosts associated with the syndrome go away or,at least, decrease measurably.

In the second-best scenario, the subordi-nate’s performance improves only margin-ally, but because the subordinate received anhonest and open hearing from the boss, therelationship between the two becomes moreproductive. Boss and subordinate develop abetter understanding of those job dimensionsthe subordinate can do well and those hestruggles with. This improved understandingleads the boss and the subordinate to explore

together

how they can develop a better fitbetween the job and the subordinate’sstrengths and weaknesses. That improved fitcan be achieved by significantly modifyingthe subordinate’s existing job or by transfer-ring the subordinate to another job withinthe company. It may even result in the subor-dinate’s choosing to leave the company.

While that outcome is not as successful asthe first one, it is still productive; a more hon-est relationship eases the strain on both theboss and the subordinate, and in turn on thesubordinate’s subordinates. If the subordinatemoves to a new job within the organizationthat better suits him, he will likely become astronger performer. His relocation may alsoopen up a spot in his old job for a betterperformer. The key point is that, having beentreated fairly, the subordinate is much morelikely to accept the outcome of the process.Indeed, recent studies show that the per-ceived fairness of a process has a major impact

on employees’ reactions to its outcomes. (See“Fair Process: Managing in the KnowledgeEconomy,” by W. Chan Kim and RenéeMauborgne, HBR July–August 1997.)

Such fairness is a benefit even in the caseswhere, despite the boss’s best efforts, neitherthe subordinate’s performance nor his relation-ship with his boss improves significantly. Some-times this happens: the subordinate truly lacksthe ability to meet the job requirements, hehas no interest in making the effort to im-prove, and the boss and the subordinate haveboth professional and personal differencesthat are irreconcilable. In those cases, how-ever, the intervention still yields indirect bene-fits because, even if termination follows, otheremployees within the company are less likelyto feel expendable or betrayed when they seethat the subordinate received fair treatment.

Prevention Is the Best Medicine

The set-up-to-fail syndrome is not an organiza-tional fait accompli. It can be unwound. Thefirst step is for the boss to become aware of itsexistence and acknowledge the possibility thathe might be part of the problem. The secondstep requires that the boss initiate a clear,focused intervention. Such an interventiondemands an open exchange between the bossand the subordinate based on the evidence ofpoor performance, its underlying causes, andtheir joint responsibilities—culminating in ajoint decision on how to work toward eliminat-ing the syndrome itself.

Reversing the syndrome requires managersto challenge their own assumptions. It also de-mands that they have the courage to lookwithin themselves for causes and solutionsbefore placing the burden of responsibilitywhere it does not fully belong. Prevention of thesyndrome, however, is clearly the best option.

In our current research, we examine pre-vention directly. Our results are still prelimi-nary, but it appears that bosses who manageto consistently avoid the set-up-to-fail syn-drome have several traits in common. Theydo not, interestingly, behave the same waywith all subordinates. They are more involvedwith some subordinates than others—theyeven monitor some subordinates more thanothers. However, they do so without disem-powering and discouraging subordinates.

How? One answer is that those managersbegin by being actively involved with all their

The set-up-to-fail

syndrome can be

unwound. Reversing it

requires managers to

challenge their own

assumptions.

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employees, gradually reducing their involve-ment based on improved performance. Earlyguidance is not threatening to subordinates,because it is not triggered by performanceshortcomings; it is systematic and meant tohelp set the conditions for future success.Frequent contact in the beginning of the rela-tionship gives the boss ample opportunity tocommunicate with subordinates about priori-ties, performance measures, time allocation,and even expectations of the type and fre-quency of communication. That kind of clar-ity goes a long way toward preventing thedynamic of the set-up-to-fail syndrome,which is so often fueled by unstated expecta-tions and a lack of clarity about priorities.

For example, in the case of Steve and Jeff,Jeff could have made explicit very early onthat he wanted Steve to set up a system thatwould analyze the root causes of quality con-trol rejections systematically. He could haveexplained the benefits of establishing such asystem during the initial stages of setting upthe new production line, and he might haveexpressed his intention to be actively involvedin the system’s design and early operation. Hisfuture involvement might then have de-creased in such a way that could have beenjointly agreed on at that stage.

Another way managers appear to avoidthe set-up-to-fail syndrome is by challengingtheir own assumptions and attitudes aboutemployees on an ongoing basis. They workhard at resisting the temptation to catego-rize employees in simplistic ways. They alsomonitor their own reasoning. For example,when feeling frustrated about a subordi-nate’s performance, they ask themselves,“What are the facts?” They examine whetherthey are expecting things from the employeethat have not been articulated, and they tryto be objective about how often and to whatextent the employee has really failed. Inother words, these bosses delve into theirown assumptions and behavior before theyinitiate a full-blown intervention.

Finally, managers avoid the set-up-to-failsyndrome by creating an environment inwhich employees feel comfortable discussingtheir performance and their relationships withthe boss. Such an environment is a function ofseveral factors: the boss’s openness, his comfortlevel with having his own opinions challenged,even his sense of humor. The net result is thatthe boss and the subordinate feel free to com-municate frequently and to ask one anotherquestions about their respective behaviorsbefore problems mushroom or ossify.

The methods used to head off the set-up-to-fail syndrome do, admittedly, involve a greatdeal of emotional investment from bosses—just as interventions do. We believe, however,that this higher emotional involvement is thekey to getting subordinates to work to theirfull potential. As with most things in life, youcan only expect to get a lot back if you put alot in. As a senior executive once said to us,“The respect you give is the respect you get.”We concur. If you want—indeed, need—thepeople in your organization to devote theirwhole hearts and minds to their work, thenyou must, too.

1. The influence of expectations on performancehas been observed in numerous experiments byDov Eden and his colleagues. See Dov Eden,“Leadership and Expectations: Pygmalion Ef-fects and Other Self-fulfilling Prophecies inOrganizations,”

Leadership Quarterly,

Winter1992, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 271–305.2. Chris Argyris has written extensively on howand why people tend to behave unproduc-tively in situations they see as threatening orembarrassing. See, for example,

Knowledge forAction: A Guide to Overcoming Barriers toOrganizational Change

(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993).

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To Order

For






Further Reading

A R T I C L E S

Pygmalion in Management

by J. Sterling Livingston


September–October 1988Product no. 88509

Livingston would agree with Manzoni and Barsoux that managers’ expectations and perceptions strongly shape their subordi-nates’ performance and productivity. Indeed, high expectations on the part of managers spur the development of a “superstaff.” Low expectations—and the resulting damaged egos—prompt employees to behave in ways that only increase the probability that they’ll fail.

But Livingston also believes that a person’s first boss plays a crucial role during the criti-cal learning period in which an employee’s self-image emerges. If companies can pro-duce effective first-line managers who treat their subordinates in ways that prompt high performance and career satisfaction, they can lay the foundation for a talented work-force in the future.

Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance

by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee


December 2001Product no. 8296

Your expectations aren’t the only things that strongly influence employee performance. Your moods have an equally powerful impact. In fact, they can either energize

or

deflate your entire organization.

Drawing on cutting-edge research on the impact of emotional intelligence, these au-thors show how a leader’s emotions drive his company’s success—or failure—through a neurological process known as

mood contagion

. The article also describes a pro-cess of self-discovery through which leaders

can gauge their own moods, assess their impact on employees and peers within the organization, and project the positive energy that will inspire others to excel.

The authors make it clear that any leader can “rewire” his brain for greater emotional intelligence—and his organization for greater success.

Taking the Stress out of Stressful Conversations

by Holly Weeks


July–August 2001Product no. 9403

Having a frank discussion about the set-up-to-fail syndrome with an employee is no easy task. Many managers find the very idea of admitting that they may be contrib-uting to a worker’s performance problem difficult enough; the prospect of talking about it openly is virtually unbearable. Weeks acknowledges that stressful conversations of any kind carry a heavy emotional load. Yet avoiding them can be even more costly, as problems deepen and relationships sour further.

The author describes three of the most common stressful conversations in the work-place: the delivering of bad news, the erup-tion of unexpected conflict, and personal attacks and political manipulation. She then explains how to prepare for a stressful con-versation and how to manage the interper-sonal dynamics during the conversation. By conversing in new ways, people can resolve workplace problems—without damaging their company in the process.

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Article Summary

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Further Reading

What makes the difference

between a team that performs

and one that doesn’t?

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The word

team

gets bandied about so loosely that many managers are oblivious to its real meaning—or its true potential. With a run-of-the-mill working group, per-formance is a function of what the mem-bers do as individuals. A team’s perfor-mance, by contrast, calls for both individual and mutual accountability.

Though it may not seem like anything spe-cial, mutual accountability can lead to as-tonishing results. It enables a team to achieve performance levels that are far greater than the individual bests of the team’s members. To achieve these benefits, team members must do more than listen, respond constructively, and provide sup-port to one another. In addition to sharing these team-building values, they must share an essential

discipline

.

A team’s essential discipline comprises five characteristics:

1. A meaningful common purpose that the team has helped shape.

Most teams are re-sponding to an initial mandate from outside the team. But to be successful, the team must “own” this purpose, develop its own spin on it.

2. Specific performance goals that flow from the common purpose.

For example, getting a new product to market in less than half the normal time. Compelling goals inspire and challenge a team, give it a sense of urgency. They also have a leveling effect, requiring members to focus on the collective effort necessary rather than any differences in title or status.

3. A mix of complementary skills.

These include technical or functional expertise, problem-solving and decision-making skills, and interpersonal skills. Successful teams rarely have all the needed skills at the out-set—they develop them as they learn what the challenge requires.

4. A strong commitment to how the work gets done.

Teams must agree on who will do what jobs, how schedules will be estab-lished and honored, and how decisions will be made and modified. On a genuine team, each member does equivalent amounts of real work; all members, the leader included, contribute in concrete ways to the team’s collective work-products.

5. Mutual accountability.

Trust and commit-ment cannot be coerced. The process of agreeing upon appropriate goals serves as the crucible in which members forge their accountability to each other—not just to the leader.

Once the essential discipline has been estab-lished, a team is free to concentrate on the critical challenges it faces:

•

For a team whose purpose is to make rec-ommendations, that means making a fast and constructive start and providing a clean handoff to those who will implement the recommendations.

•

For a team that makes or does things, it’s keeping the specific performance goals in sharp focus.

•

For a team that runs things, the primary task is distinguishing the challenges that re-quire a real team approach from those that don’t.

If a task doesn’t demand joint work-products, a working group can be the more effective option. Team opportunities are usually those in which hierarchy or organizational bound-aries inhibit the skills and perspectives needed for optimal results. Little wonder, then, that teams have become the primary units of productivity in high-performance organizations.

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What makes the difference between a team that performs and one that

doesn’t?

It won’t surprise anyone to find an article on teams by Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith figuring into an issue devoted to high performance. While Peter Drucker may have been the first to point out that a team-based organization can be highly effective, Katzenbach and Smith’s work made it possible for companies to implement the idea.

In this groundbreaking 1993 article, the authors say that if managers want to make better decisions about teams, they must be clear about what a team is. They define a team as “a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” That definition lays down the disci-pline that teams must share to be effective.

Katzenbach and Smith discuss the four ele-ments—common commitment and purpose, per-formance goals, complementary skills, and mu-tual accountability—that make teams function. They also classify teams into three varieties—teams that recommend things, teams that make or do things, and teams that run things—and de-scribe how each type faces different challenges.

Early in the 1980s, Bill Greenwood and a smallband of rebel railroaders took on most of thetop management of Burlington Northern andcreated a multibillion-dollar business in “piggy-backing” rail services despite widespread resis-tance, even resentment, within the company.The Medical Products Group at Hewlett-Packard owes most of its leading performanceto the remarkable efforts of Dean Morton, LewPlatt, Ben Holmes, Dick Alberding, and a hand-ful of their colleagues who revitalized a healthcare business that most others had written off.At Knight Ridder, Jim Batten’s “customer obses-sion” vision took root at the

Tallahassee Demo-crat

when 14 frontline enthusiasts turned acharter to eliminate errors into a mission ofmajor change and took the entire paper alongwith them.

Such are the stories and the work of teams—real teams that perform, not amorphous groupsthat we call teams because we think that thelabel is motivating and energizing. The differ-ence between teams that perform and othergroups that don’t is a subject to which most of us

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pay far too little attention. Part of the problem isthat “team” is a word and concept so familiar toeveryone. (See the exhibit “Not All Groups AreTeams: How to Tell the Difference.”)

Or at least that’s what we thought when weset out to do research for our book

The Wisdomof Teams

(HarperBusiness, 1993). We wanted todiscover what differentiates various levels ofteam performance, where and how teamswork best, and what top management can doto enhance their effectiveness. We talkedwith hundreds of people on more than 50different teams in 30 companies and beyond,from Motorola and Hewlett-Packard to Opera-tion Desert Storm and the Girl Scouts.

We found that there is a basic discipline thatmakes teams work. We also found that teamsand good performance are inseparable: Youcannot have one without the other. But peopleuse the word “team” so loosely that it gets inthe way of learning and applying the disciplinethat leads to good performance. For managersto make better decisions about whether, when,or how to encourage and use teams, it is im-portant to be more precise about what a teamis and what it isn’t.

Most executives advocate teamwork. Andthey should. Teamwork represents a set of val-ues that encourage listening and respondingconstructively to views expressed by others,giving others the benefit of the doubt, provid-ing support, and recognizing the interests andachievements of others. Such values helpteams perform, and they also promote indi-vidual performance as well as the perfor-mance of an entire organization. But team-work values by themselves are not exclusiveto teams, nor are they enough to ensure teamperformance. (See the sidebar “Building TeamPerformance.”)

Nor is a team just any group working to-gether. Committees, councils, and task forcesare not necessarily teams. Groups do not be-come teams simply because that is what some-one calls them. The entire workforce of anylarge and complex organization is

never

ateam, but think about how often that platitudeis offered up.

To understand how teams deliver extra per-formance, we must distinguish between teamsand other forms of working groups. That dis-tinction turns on performance results. A work-ing group’s performance is a function of whatits members do as individuals. A team’s perfor-

mance includes both individual results andwhat we call “collective work products.” A col-lective work product is what two or moremembers must work on together, such as inter-views, surveys, or experiments. Whatever it is,a collective work product reflects the joint, realcontribution of team members.

Working groups are both prevalent and ef-fective in large organizations where individ-ual accountability is most important. The bestworking groups come together to share infor-mation, perspectives, and insights; to makedecisions that help each person do his or herjob better; and to reinforce individual perfor-mance standards. But the focus is always onindividual goals and accountabilities. Working-group members don’t take responsibility forresults other than their own. Nor do they tryto develop incremental performance contri-butions requiring the combined work of twoor more members.

Teams differ fundamentally from workinggroups because they require both individualand mutual accountability. Teams rely onmore than group discussion, debate, and deci-sion, on more than sharing information andbest-practice performance standards. Teamsproduce discrete work products through thejoint contributions of their members. This iswhat makes possible performance levelsgreater than the sum of all the individualbests of team members. Simply stated, a teamis more than the sum of its parts.

The first step in developing a disciplined ap-proach to team management is to think aboutteams as discrete units of performance and notjust as positive sets of values. Having observedand worked with scores of teams in action,both successes and failures, we offer the fol-lowing. Think of it as a working definition or,better still, an essential discipline that realteams share:

A team is a small number of peoplewith complementary skills who are committed toa common purpose, set of performance goals,and approach for which they hold themselvesmutually accountable.

The essence of a team is common commit-ment. Without it, groups perform as individu-als; with it, they become a powerful unit of col-lective performance. This kind of commitmentrequires a purpose in which team memberscan believe. Whether the purpose is to “trans-form the contributions of suppliers into thesatisfaction of customers,” to “make our com-

Jon R. Katzenbach

is a founder and senior partner of Katzenbach Part-ners, a strategic and organizational consulting firm, and a former director of McKinsey & Company. His most re-cent book is

Why Pride Matters More Than Money: The Power of the World’s Greatest Motivational Force

(Crown Business, 2003).

Douglas K. Smith

is an organizational consultant and a former partner at McKinsey & Com-pany. His most recent book is

On Value and Values: Thinking Differently About We in an Age of Me

(Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2004).

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pany one we can be proud of again,” or to“prove that all children can learn,” credibleteam purposes have an element related to win-ning, being first, revolutionizing, or being onthe cutting edge.

Teams develop direction, momentum, andcommitment by working to shape a meaning-ful purpose. Building ownership and commit-ment to team purpose, however, is not incom-patible with taking initial direction fromoutside the team. The often-asserted assump-tion that a team cannot “own” its purpose un-less management leaves it alone actually con-fuses more potential teams than it helps. Infact, it is the exceptional case—for example,entrepreneurial situations—when a team cre-ates a purpose entirely on its own.

Most successful teams shape their purposesin response to a demand or opportunity put intheir path, usually by higher management.This helps teams get started by broadly fram-ing the company’s performance expectation.Management is responsible for clarifying thecharter, rationale, and performance challengefor the team, but management must also leaveenough flexibility for the team to develop com-mitment around its own spin on that purpose,set of specific goals, timing, and approach.

The best teams invest a tremendous amountof time and effort exploring, shaping, andagreeing on a purpose that belongs to themboth collectively and individually. This “pur-posing” activity continues throughout the lifeof the team. By contrast, failed teams rarely de-velop a common purpose. For whatever rea-

son—an insufficient focus on performance,lack of effort, poor leadership—they do not co-alesce around a challenging aspiration.

The best teams also translate their commonpurpose into specific performance goals, suchas reducing the reject rate from suppliers by50% or increasing the math scores of graduatesfrom 40% to 95%. Indeed, if a team fails to es-tablish specific performance goals or if thosegoals do not relate directly to the team’s over-all purpose, team members become confused,pull apart, and revert to mediocre perfor-mance. By contrast, when purposes and goalsbuild on one another and are combined withteam commitment, they become a powerfulengine of performance.

Transforming broad directives into specificand measurable performance goals is the sur-est first step for a team trying to shape a pur-pose meaningful to its members. Specificgoals, such as getting a new product to marketin less than half the normal time, respondingto all customers within 24 hours, or achieving azero-defect rate while simultaneously cuttingcosts by 40%, all provide firm footholds forteams. There are several reasons:

• Specific team-performance goals help de-fine a set of work products that are differentboth from an organization-wide mission andfrom individual job objectives. As a result, suchwork products require the collective effort ofteam members to make something specifichappen that, in and of itself, adds real value toresults. By contrast, simply gathering from timeto time to make decisions will not sustain teamperformance.

• The specificity of performance objectivesfacilitates clear communication and construc-tive conflict within the team. When a plant-level team, for example, sets a goal of reducingaverage machine changeover time to twohours, the clarity of the goal forces the team toconcentrate on what it would take either toachieve or to reconsider the goal. When suchgoals are clear, discussions can focus on how topursue them or whether to change them; whengoals are ambiguous or nonexistent, such dis-cussions are much less productive.

• The attainability of specific goals helpsteams maintain their focus on getting results. Aproduct-development team at Eli Lilly’s Periph-eral Systems Division set definite yardsticks forthe market introduction of an ultrasonic probeto help doctors locate deep veins and arteries.

Not All Groups Are Teams: How to Tell the Difference

Working Group

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Strong, clearly focused leader

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Individual accountability

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The group’s purpose is the same as the broader organizational mission

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Individual work products

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Runs efficient meetings

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Measures its effectiveness indirectly by its influence on others (such as financial performance of the business)

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Discusses, decides, and delegates

Team

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Shared leadership roles

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Individual and mutual accountability

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Specific team purpose that the team itself delivers

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Collective work products

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Encourages open-ended discussion and active problem-solving meetings

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Measures performance directly by assessing collective work products

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Discusses, decides, and does real work together

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Building Team Performance

Although there is no guaranteed how-to recipe for building team performance, we observed a number of approaches shared by many successful teams.

Establish urgency, demanding per-

formance standards, and direction.

All team members need to believe the team has urgent and worthwhile pur-poses, and they want to know what the expectations are. Indeed, the more ur-gent and meaningful the rationale, the more likely it is that the team will live up to its performance potential, as was the case for a customer-service team that was told that further growth for the entire company would be impossible without major improvements in that area. Teams work best in a compelling context. That is why companies with strong performance ethics usually form teams readily.

Select members for skill and skill

potential, not personality.

No team succeeds without all the skills needed to meet its purpose and performance goals. Yet most teams figure out the skills they will need after they are formed. The wise manager will choose people for their existing skills and their potential to improve existing skills and learn new ones.

Pay particular attention to first

meetings and actions. Initial impres-

sions always mean a great deal.

When potential teams first gather, everyone monitors the signals given by others to confirm, suspend, or dispel assumptions and concerns. They pay particular atten-tion to those in authority: the team leader and any executives who set up, oversee, or otherwise influence the team. And, as always, what such leaders do is more important than what they say. If a senior executive leaves the team kickoff to take a phone call ten minutes after the session has begun and he never returns, people get the message.

Set some clear rules of behavior.

All effective teams develop rules of conduct at the outset to help them achieve their purpose and perfor-mance goals. The most critical initial rules pertain to attendance (for exam-ple, “no interruptions to take phone calls”), discussion (“no sacred cows”), confidentiality (“the only things to leave this room are what we agree on”), analytic approach (“facts are friendly”), end-product orientation (“everyone gets assignments and does them”), constructive confrontation (“no finger pointing”), and, often the most important, contributions (“every-one does real work”).

Set and seize upon a few immedi-

ate performance-oriented tasks and

goals.

Most effective teams trace their advancement to key performance-oriented events. Such events can be set in motion by immediately estab-lishing a few challenging goals that can be reached early on. There is no such thing as a real team without performance results, so the sooner such results occur, the sooner the team congeals.

Challenge the group regularly

with fresh facts and information.

New information causes a team to re-define and enrich its understanding of the performance challenge, thereby helping the team shape a common purpose, set clearer goals, and im-prove its common approach. A plant quality improvement team knew the cost of poor quality was high, but it wasn’t until they researched the differ-ent types of defects and put a price tag on each one that they knew where to go next. Conversely, teams err when

they assume that all the information needed exists in the collective experi-ence and knowledge of their members.

Spend lots of time together.

Com-mon sense tells us that team members must spend a lot of time together, scheduled and unscheduled, especially in the beginning. Indeed, creative in-sights as well as personal bonding re-quire impromptu and casual interac-tions just as much as analyzing spreadsheets and interviewing cus-tomers. Busy executives and managers too often intentionally minimize the time they spend together. The success-ful teams we’ve observed all gave themselves the time to learn to be a team. This time need not always be spent together physically; electronic, fax, and phone time can also count as time spent together.

Exploit the power of positive feed-

back, recognition, and reward.

Posi-tive reinforcement works as well in a team context as elsewhere. Giving out “gold stars” helps shape new behaviors critical to team performance. If people in the group, for example, are alert to a shy person’s initial efforts to speak up and contribute, they can give the hon-est positive reinforcement that encour-ages continued contributions. There are many ways to recognize and re-ward team performance beyond direct compensation, from having a senior executive speak directly to the team about the urgency of its mission to using awards to recognize contribu-tions. Ultimately, however, the satisfac-tion shared by a team in its own per-formance becomes the most cherished reward.

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The probe had to have an audible signalthrough a specified depth of tissue, be capableof being manufactured at a rate of 100 per day,and have a unit cost less than a preestablishedamount. Because the team could measure itsprogress against each of these specific objec-tives, the team knew throughout the develop-ment process where it stood. Either it hadachieved its goals or not.

• As Outward Bound and other team-buildingprograms illustrate, specific objectives have aleveling effect conducive to team behavior.When a small group of people challenge them-selves to get over a wall or to reduce cycle timeby 50%, their respective titles, perks, and otherstripes fade into the background. The teamsthat succeed evaluate what and how each indi-vidual can best contribute to the team’s goaland, more important, do so in terms of the per-formance objective itself rather than a person’sstatus or personality.

• Specific goals allow a team to achievesmall wins as it pursues its broader purpose.These small wins are invaluable to buildingcommitment and overcoming the inevitableobstacles that get in the way of a long-term pur-pose. For example, the Knight Ridder teammentioned at the outset turned a narrow goalto eliminate errors into a compelling customerservice purpose.

• Performance goals are compelling. Theyare symbols of accomplishment that motivateand energize. They challenge the people on ateam to commit themselves, as a team, to makea difference. Drama, urgency, and a healthyfear of failure combine to drive teams that havetheir collective eye on an attainable, but chal-lenging, goal. Nobody but the team can make ithappen. It’s their challenge.

The combination of purpose and specificgoals is essential to performance. Each de-pends on the other to remain relevant and vi-tal. Clear performance goals help a team keeptrack of progress and hold itself accountable;the broader, even nobler, aspirations in ateam’s purpose supply both meaning and emo-tional energy.

Virtually all effective teams we have met,read or heard about, or been members of haveranged between two and 25 people. For exam-ple, the Burlington Northern piggybackingteam had seven members, and the Knight Rid-der newspaper team had 14. The majority ofthem have numbered less than ten. Small size

is admittedly more of a pragmatic guide thanan absolute necessity for success. A large num-ber of people, say 50 or more, can theoreticallybecome a team. But groups of such size aremore likely to break into subteams rather thanfunction as a single unit.

Why? Large numbers of people have trou-ble interacting constructively as a group, muchless doing real work together. Ten people arefar more likely than 50 to work through theirindividual, functional, and hierarchical differ-ences toward a common plan and to holdthemselves jointly accountable for the results.

Large groups also face logistical issues,such as finding enough physical space andtime to meet. And they confront more com-plex constraints, like crowd or herd behaviors,which prevent the intense sharing of view-points needed to build a team. As a result,when they try to develop a common purpose,they usually produce only superficial “mis-sions” and well-meaning intentions that can-not be translated into concrete objectives.They tend fairly quickly to reach a pointwhen meetings become a chore, a clear signthat most of the people in the group are un-certain why they have gathered, beyond somenotion of getting along better. Anyone whohas been through one of these exercises un-derstands how frustrating it can be. This kindof failure tends to foster cynicism, which getsin the way of future team efforts.

In addition to finding the right size, teamsmust develop the right mix of skills; that is,each of the complementary skills necessary todo the team’s job. As obvious as it sounds, it isa common failing in potential teams. Skill re-quirements fall into three fairly self-evidentcategories.

Technical or Functional Expertise.

It wouldmake little sense for a group of doctors to liti-gate an employment discrimination case in acourt of law. Yet teams of doctors and lawyersoften try medical malpractice or personal in-jury cases. Similarly, product developmentgroups that include only marketers or engi-neers are less likely to succeed than those withthe complementary skills of both.

Problem-Solving and Decision-MakingSkills.

Teams must be able to identify theproblems and opportunities they face, evalu-ate the options they have for moving forward,and then make necessary trade-offs and deci-sions about how to proceed. Most teams need

People use the word

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some members with these skills to begin with,although many will develop them best on thejob.

Interpersonal Skills.

Common understand-ing and purpose cannot arise without effectivecommunication and constructive conflict, whichin turn depend on interpersonal skills. These skillsinclude risk taking, helpful criticism, objectivity,active listening, giving the benefit of the doubt,and recognizing the interests and achievementsof others.

Obviously, a team cannot get started with-out some minimum complement of skills, es-pecially technical and functional ones. Still,think about how often you’ve been part of ateam whose members were chosen primarilyon the basis of personal compatibility or for-mal position in the organization, and in whichthe skill mix of its members wasn’t given muchthought.

It is equally common to overemphasizeskills in team selection. Yet in all the successfulteams we’ve encountered, not one had all theneeded skills at the outset. The BurlingtonNorthern team, for example, initially had nomembers who were skilled marketers despitethe fact that their performance challenge wasa marketing one. In fact, we discovered thatteams are powerful vehicles for developing theskills needed to meet the team’s performancechallenge. Accordingly, team member selec-tion ought to ride as much on skill potential ason skills already proven.

Effective teams develop strong commitmentto a common approach; that is, to how theywill work together to accomplish their pur-pose. Team members must agree on who willdo particular jobs, how schedules will be setand adhered to, what skills need to be devel-oped, how continuing membership in theteam is to be earned, and how the group willmake and modify decisions. This element ofcommitment is as important to team perfor-mance as the team’s commitment to its pur-pose and goals.

Agreeing on the specifics of work and howthey fit together to integrate individual skillsand advance team performance lies at theheart of shaping a common approach. It is per-haps self-evident that an approach that dele-gates all the real work to a few members (orstaff outsiders) and thus relies on reviews andmeetings for its only “work together” aspects,cannot sustain a real team. Every member of a

successful team does equivalent amounts ofreal work; all members, including the teamleader, contribute in concrete ways to theteam’s work product. This is a very importantelement of the emotional logic that drivesteam performance.

When individuals approach a team situa-tion, especially in a business setting, each haspreexisting job assignments as well asstrengths and weaknesses reflecting a varietyof talents, backgrounds, personalities, andprejudices. Only through the mutual discov-ery and understanding of how to apply all itshuman resources to a common purpose can ateam develop and agree on the best approachto achieve its goals. At the heart of such longand, at times, difficult interactions lies acommitment-building process in which theteam candidly explores who is best suited toeach task as well as how individual roles willcome together. In effect, the team establishesa social contract among members that relatesto their purpose and guides and obligateshow they must work together.

No group ever becomes a team until it canhold itself accountable as a team. Like com-mon purpose and approach, mutual account-ability is a stiff test. Think, for example, aboutthe subtle but critical difference between “theboss holds me accountable” and “we hold our-selves accountable.” The first case can lead tothe second, but without the second, there canbe no team.

Companies like Hewlett-Packard and Mo-torola have an ingrained performance ethicthat enables teams to form organically when-ever there is a clear performance challenge re-quiring collective rather than individual effort.In these companies, the factor of mutual ac-countability is commonplace. “Being in theboat together” is how their performance gameis played.

At its core, team accountability is about thesincere promises we make to ourselves andothers, promises that underpin two critical as-pects of effective teams: commitment andtrust. Most of us enter a potential team situa-tion cautiously because ingrained individual-ism and experience discourage us from puttingour fates in the hands of others or accepting re-sponsibility for others. Teams do not succeedby ignoring or wishing away such behavior.

Mutual accountability cannot be coercedany more than people can be made to trust

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one another. But when a team shares a com-mon purpose, goals, and approach, mutual ac-countability grows as a natural counterpart.Accountability arises from and reinforces thetime, energy, and action invested in figuringout what the team is trying to accomplish andhow best to get it done.

When people work together toward a com-mon objective, trust and commitment follow.Consequently, teams enjoying a strong com-mon purpose and approach inevitably holdthemselves responsible, both as individualsand as a team, for the team’s performance.This sense of mutual accountability also pro-duces the rich rewards of mutual achievementin which all members share. What we heardover and over from members of effectiveteams is that they found the experience ener-gizing and motivating in ways that their “nor-mal” jobs never could match.

On the other hand, groups established pri-marily for the sake of becoming a team or forjob enhancement, communication, organiza-tional effectiveness, or excellence rarely be-come effective teams, as demonstrated by thebad feelings left in many companies after ex-perimenting with quality circles that nevertranslated “quality” into specific goals. Onlywhen appropriate performance goals are setdoes the process of discussing the goals andthe approaches to them give team members aclearer and clearer choice: They can disagreewith a goal and the path that the team selectsand, in effect, opt out, or they can pitch inand become accountable with and to theirteammates.

The discipline of teams we’ve outlined iscritical to the success of all teams. Yet it is alsouseful to go one step further. Most teams canbe classified in one of three ways: teams thatrecommend things, teams that make or dothings, and teams that run things. In our expe-rience, each type faces a characteristic set ofchallenges.

Teams That Recommend Things.

Theseteams include task forces; project groups; andaudit, quality, or safety groups asked to studyand solve particular problems. Teams that rec-ommend things almost always have predeter-mined completion dates. Two critical issuesare unique to such teams: getting off to a fastand constructive start and dealing with the ul-timate handoff that’s required to get recom-mendations implemented.

The key to the first issue lies in the clarity ofthe team’s charter and the composition of itsmembership. In addition to wanting to knowwhy and how their efforts are important, taskforces need a clear definition of whom man-agement expects to participate and the timecommitment required. Management can helpby ensuring that the team includes peoplewith the skills and influence necessary forcrafting practical recommendations that willcarry weight throughout the organization.Moreover, management can help the team getthe necessary cooperation by opening doorsand dealing with political obstacles.

Missing the handoff is almost always theproblem that stymies teams that recommendthings. To avoid this, the transfer of responsibil-ity for recommendations to those who must im-plement them demands top management’stime and attention. The more top managers as-sume that recommendations will “just happen,”the less likely it is that they will. The more in-volvement task force members have in imple-menting their recommendations, the morelikely they are to get implemented.

To the extent that people outside the taskforce will have to carry the ball, it is critical toinvolve them in the process early and often,certainly well before recommendations are fi-nalized. Such involvement may take manyforms, including participating in interviews,helping with analyses, contributing and cri-tiquing ideas, and conducting experiments andtrials. At a minimum, anyone responsible forimplementation should receive a briefing onthe task force’s purpose, approach, and objec-tives at the beginning of the effort as well asregular reviews of progress.

Teams That Make or Do Things.

Theseteams include people at or near the front lineswho are responsible for doing the basic manu-facturing, development, operations, market-ing, sales, service, and other value-adding ac-tivities of a business. With some exceptions,such as new-product development or processdesign teams, teams that make or do thingstend to have no set completion dates becausetheir activities are ongoing.

In deciding where team performance mighthave the greatest impact, top managementshould concentrate on what we call the com-pany’s “critical delivery points”—that is, placesin the organization where the cost and value ofthe company’s products and services are most

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directly determined. Such critical deliverypoints might include where accounts get man-aged, customer service performed, productsdesigned, and productivity determined. If per-formance at critical delivery points depends oncombining multiple skills, perspectives, andjudgments in real time, then the team option isthe smartest one.

When an organization does require a signifi-cant number of teams at these points, thesheer challenge of maximizing the perfor-mance of so many groups will demand a care-fully constructed and performance-focused setof management processes. The issue here fortop management is how to build the necessarysystems and process supports without fallinginto the trap of appearing to promote teamsfor their own sake.

The imperative here, returning to our ear-lier discussion of the basic discipline of teams,is a relentless focus on performance. If man-agement fails to pay persistent attention to thelink between teams and performance, the or-ganization becomes convinced that “this year,we are doing ‘teams’.” Top management canhelp by instituting processes like pay schemesand training for teams responsive to their realtime needs, but more than anything else, topmanagement must make clear and compellingdemands on the teams themselves and thenpay constant attention to their progress withrespect to both team basics and performanceresults. This means focusing on specific teamsand specific performance challenges. Other-wise “performance,” like “team,” will become acliché.

Teams That Run Things.

Despite the factthat many leaders refer to the group reportingto them as a team, few groups really are. Andgroups that become real teams seldom thinkof themselves as a team because they are sofocused on performance results. Yet the op-portunity for such teams includes groups fromthe top of the enterprise down through the di-visional or functional level. Whether it is incharge of thousands of people or just a hand-ful, as long as the group oversees some busi-ness, ongoing program, or significant func-tional activity, it is a team that runs things.

The main issue these teams face is deter-mining whether a real team approach is theright one. Many groups that run things can bemore effective as working groups than asteams. The key judgment is whether the sum

of individual bests will suffice for the perfor-mance challenge at hand or whether the groupmust deliver substantial incremental perfor-mance requiring real joint work products. Al-though the team option promises greater per-formance, it also brings more risk, andmanagers must be brutally honest in assessingthe trade-offs.

Members may have to overcome a naturalreluctance to trust their fate to others. Theprice of faking the team approach is high: Atbest, members get diverted from their individ-ual goals, costs outweigh benefits, and peopleresent the imposition on their time and priori-ties. At worst, serious animosities develop thatundercut even the potential personal bests ofthe working-group approach.

Working groups present fewer risks. Effectiveworking groups need little time to shape theirpurpose, since the leader usually establishes it.Meetings are run against well-prioritized agen-das. And decisions are implemented throughspecific individual assignments and accountabil-ities. Most of the time, therefore, if performanceaspirations can be met through individualsdoing their respective jobs well, the working-group approach is more comfortable, less risky,and less disruptive than trying for more elusiveteam performance levels. Indeed, if there is noperformance need for the team approach, ef-forts spent to improve the effectiveness of theworking group make much more sense thanfloundering around trying to become a team.

Having said that, we believe the extra levelof performance teams can achieve is becomingcritical for a growing number of companies, es-pecially as they move through major changesduring which company performance dependson broad-based behavioral change. When topmanagement uses teams to run things, itshould make sure the team succeeds in identi-fying specific purposes and goals.

This is a second major issue for teams thatrun things. Too often, such teams confuse thebroad mission of the total organization withthe specific purpose of their small group at thetop. The discipline of teams tells us that for areal team to form, there must be a team pur-pose that is distinctive and specific to the smallgroup and that requires its members to roll uptheir sleeves and accomplish something be-yond individual end products. If a group ofmanagers looks only at the economic perfor-mance of the part of the organization it runs to

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assess overall effectiveness, the group will nothave any team performance goals of its own.

While the basic discipline of teams does notdiffer for them, teams at the top are certainlythe most difficult. The complexities of long-term challenges, heavy demands on executivetime, and the deep-seated individualism of se-nior people conspire against teams at the top.At the same time, teams at the top are themost powerful. At first we thought such teamswere nearly impossible. That is because wewere looking at the teams as defined by theformal organizational structure; that is, theleader and all his or her direct reports equalsthe team. Then we discovered that real teamsat the top were often smaller and less formal-ized: Whitehead and Weinberg at Goldman Sa-chs; Hewlett and Packard at HP; Krasnoff, Pall,and Hardy at Pall Corporation; Kendall, Pear-son, and Calloway at Pepsi; Haas and Haas atLevi Strauss; Batten and Ridder at Knight Rid-der. They were mostly twos and threes, with anoccasional fourth.

Nonetheless, real teams at the top of large,complex organizations are still few and far be-tween. Far too many groups at the top of largecorporations needlessly constrain themselvesfrom achieving real team levels of perfor-mance because they assume that all direct re-ports must be on the team, that team goalsmust be identical to corporate goals, that theteam members’ positions rather than skills de-termine their respective roles, that a teammust be a team all the time, and that the teamleader is above doing real work.

As understandable as these assumptionsmay be, most of them are unwarranted. Theydo not apply to the teams at the top we haveobserved, and when replaced with more realis-tic and flexible assumptions that permit theteam discipline to be applied, real team perfor-

mance at the top can and does occur. More-over, as more and more companies are con-fronted with the need to manage majorchange across their organizations, we will seemore real teams at the top.

We believe that teams will become the pri-mary unit of performance in high-performanceorganizations. But that does not mean thatteams will crowd out individual opportunity orformal hierarchy and process. Rather, teams willenhance existing structures without replacingthem. A team opportunity exists anywhere hier-archy or organizational boundaries inhibit theskills and perspectives needed for optimal re-sults. Thus, new-product innovation requirespreserving functional excellence through struc-ture while eradicating functional bias throughteams. And frontline productivity requires pre-serving direction and guidance through hierar-chy while drawing on energy and flexibilitythrough self-managing teams.

We are convinced that every company facesspecific performance challenges for whichteams are the most practical and powerful ve-hicle at top management’s disposal. The criti-cal role for senior managers, therefore, is toworry about company performance and thekinds of teams that can deliver it. This meanstop management must recognize a team’sunique potential to deliver results, deployteams strategically when they are the best toolfor the job, and foster the basic discipline ofteams that will make them effective. By doingso, top management creates the kind of envi-ronment that enables team as well as individ-ual and organizational performance.

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Further ReadingA R T I C L E SHow Management Teams Can Have a Good Fightby Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Jean L. Kahwajy, and L. J. Bourgeois IIIHarvard Business ReviewJuly–August 1997Product no. 97402

Teams whose members challenge one an-other’s thinking can create more options and ultimately make better decisions. But without the kind of discipline advocated by Katzenbach and Smith, such friction can be-come unproductive or downright ugly in-stead of creative. In this article, the authors identify six tactics that bring discipline to team decision making: Acquire as much infor-mation as possible and focus on facts. De-velop as many options as possible and evalu-ate them jointly. Agree sincerely on common goals. Encourage humor. Ensure a balance of power among team members. And in cases where agreement cannot be reached, have the most relevant person make the decision based on input from the group.

How the Right Measures Help Teams Excelby Christopher MeyerHarvard Business ReviewMay–June 1994Product no. 94305

For multifunctional teams to fulfill their prom-ise, performance-measurement systems must be modified so that they adequately capture cross-functional work. Meyer offers four guid-ing principles for building measurement sys-tems that promote team members’ mutual commitment to specified goals. First, the sys-tem should help the team, rather than top managers, gauge its progress. Second, the team must play the lead in designing its own measurement system. Third, the team needs to devise measures of the process by which it delivers value. (Knowing that there’s been an 8% drop in quarterly profits with a 10% rise in

service costs doesn’t tell a customer-service team what to do differently. But knowing that the average time spent per service call rose 15%, and that late calls consequently rose 10%, helps the team understand the prob-lem.) And fourth, no more than a handful of measures should be used.

B O O KTeam Talk: The Power of Language in Team Dynamicsby Anne DonnellonHarvard Business School Press1996Product no. 619X

Donnellon takes a sociolinguistic perspective on why so many teams underperform—that is, she examines how teams talk for clues about why teams fail to meet expecta-tions. Her definition of team—a group of people who are necessary to accomplish a task that requires the continuous integration of the expertise distributed among them—is consonant with the notion of mutuality that Katzenbach and Smith describe. Talk, Donnellon explains, is how teams achieve in-tegration and mutuality. The work of most teams involves constructing new meanings, whether it’s in the form of new product devel-opments or enhanced processes. And that work is essentially linguistic.

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Managing Your Boss



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Further Reading

If you forge ties with your boss

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Managing our

bosses

? Isn’t that merely ma-nipulation? Corporate cozying up? Out-and-out apple polishing? In fact, we manage our bosses for very good reasons: to get re-sources to do the best job, not only for our-selves, but for our bosses and our companies as well. We actively pursue a healthy and pro-ductive working relationship based on mutual respect and understanding—understanding our own and our bosses’ strengths, weak-nesses, goals, work styles, and needs. Here’s what can happen when we don’t:

Example:

A new president with a formal work style replaced someone who’d been looser, more intuitive. The new president preferred written reports and structured meetings. One of his managers found this too con-trolling. He seldom sent background infor-mation, and was often blindsided by un-anticipated questions. His boss found their meetings inefficient and frustrating. The manager had to resign.

In contrast, here’s how another manager’s sen-sitivity to this same boss’s style really paid off:

Example:

This manager identified the kinds and fre-quency of information the president wanted. He sent ahead background re-ports and discussion agendas. The result? Highly productive meetings and even more innovative problem solving than with his previous boss.

Managers often don’t realize how much their bosses depend on them. They need cooperation, reliability, and honesty from their direct reports. Many managers also don’t realize how much they depend on their bosses—for links to the rest of the orga-nization, for setting priorities, and for obtain-ing critical resources.

Recognizing this mutual dependence, effec-tive managers seek out information about the boss’s concerns and are sensitive to his work style. They also understand how their own attitudes toward authority can sabo-tage the relationship. Some see the boss as the enemy and fight him at every turn; oth-ers are overly compliant, viewing the boss as an all-wise parent.

You can benefit from this mutual dependence and develop a very productive relationship with your boss by focusing on:

• compatible work styles. Bosses process in-formation differently. “Listeners” prefer to be briefed in person so they can ask questions. “Readers” want to process written informa-tion first, and then meet to discuss.

Decision-making styles also vary. Some bosses are highly involved. Touch base with them fre-quently. Others prefer to delegate. Inform them about important decisions you’ve al-ready made.

• mutual expectations. Don’t passively as-sume you know what the boss expects. Find out. With some bosses, write detailed outlines of your work for their approval. With others, carefully planned discussions are key.

Also, communicate your expectations to find out if they are realistic. Persuade the boss to accept the most important ones.

• information flow. Managers typically under-estimate what their bosses need to know—and what they do know. Keep the boss in-formed through processes that fit his style. Be forthright about both good and bad news.

• dependability and honesty. Trustworthy subordinates only make promises they can keep and don’t shade the truth or play down difficult issues.

• good use of time and resources. Don’t waste your boss’s time with trivial issues. Se-lectively draw on his time and resources to meet the most important goals—yours, his, and the company’s.

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If you forge ties with your boss based on mutual respect and

understanding, both of you will be more effective.

A quarter-century ago, John Gabarro and John Kotter introduced a powerful new lens through which to view the manager–boss relationship: one that recognized the mutual dependence of the participants.

The fact is, bosses need cooperation, reliabil-ity, and honesty from their direct reports. Man-agers, for their part, rely on bosses for making connections with the rest of the company, for setting priorities, and for obtaining critical re-sources. If the relationship between you and your boss is rocky, then it is you who must begin to manage it. When you take the time to cultivate a productive working relationship—by understanding your boss’s strengths and weaknesses, priorities, and work style—every-one wins.

In the 25 years since it was published, this ar-ticle has truly improved the practice of manage-ment. Its simple yet powerful advice has changed the way people work, enhanced count-less manager–boss relationships, and improved the performance of corporations in ways that show up on the bottom line. Over the years, it

has become a staple at business schools and cor-porate training programs worldwide.

To many people, the phrase “managing yourboss” may sound unusual or suspicious. Be-cause of the traditional top-down emphasis inmost organizations, it is not obvious whyyou need to manage relationships upward—unless, of course, you would do so for personalor political reasons. But we are not referringto political maneuvering or to apple polishing.We are using the term to mean the process ofconsciously working with your superior to ob-tain the best possible results for you, yourboss, and the company.

Recent studies suggest that effective manag-ers take time and effort to manage not only re-lationships with their subordinates but alsothose with their bosses. These studies alsoshow that this essential aspect of managementis sometimes ignored by otherwise talentedand aggressive managers. Indeed, some man-agers who actively and effectively supervisesubordinates, products, markets, and technolo-

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gies assume an almost passively reactive stancevis-à-vis their bosses. Such a stance almost al-ways hurts them and their companies.

If you doubt the importance of managingyour relationship with your boss or how diffi-cult it is to do so effectively, consider for a mo-ment the following sad but telling story:

Frank Gibbons was an acknowledged manu-facturing genius in his industry and, by anyprofitability standard, a very effective execu-tive. In 1973, his strengths propelled him intothe position of vice president of manufactur-ing for the second largest and most profitablecompany in its industry. Gibbons was not,however, a good manager of people. He knewthis, as did others in his company and his in-dustry. Recognizing this weakness, the presi-dent made sure that those who reported toGibbons were good at working with peopleand could compensate for his limitations. Thearrangement worked well.

In 1975, Philip Bonnevie was promotedinto a position reporting to Gibbons. Inkeeping with the previous pattern, the presi-dent selected Bonnevie because he had anexcellent track record and a reputation forbeing good with people. In making that se-lection, however, the president neglected tonotice that, in his rapid rise through the or-ganization, Bonnevie had always had good-to-excellent bosses. He had never beenforced to manage a relationship with a diffi-cult boss. In retrospect, Bonnevie admits hehad never thought that managing his bosswas a part of his job.

Fourteen months after he started workingfor Gibbons, Bonnevie was fired. During thatsame quarter, the company reported a net lossfor the first time in seven years. Many of thosewho were close to these events say that theydon’t really understand what happened. Thismuch is known, however: While the companywas bringing out a major new product—aprocess that required sales, engineering, andmanufacturing groups to coordinate decisionsvery carefully—a whole series of misunder-standings and bad feelings developed betweenGibbons and Bonnevie.

For example, Bonnevie claims Gibbons wasaware of and had accepted Bonnevie’s decisionto use a new type of machinery to make thenew product; Gibbons swears he did not. Fur-thermore, Gibbons claims he made it clear toBonnevie that the introduction of the product

was too important to the company in the shortrun to take any major risks.

As a result of such misunderstandings, plan-ning went awry: A new manufacturing plantwas built that could not produce the new prod-uct designed by engineering, in the volumedesired by sales, at a cost agreed on by the ex-ecutive committee. Gibbons blamed Bonneviefor the mistake. Bonnevie blamed Gibbons.

Of course, one could argue that the problemhere was caused by Gibbons’s inability to man-age his subordinates. But one can make just asstrong a case that the problem was related toBonnevie’s inability to manage his boss. Re-member, Gibbons was not having difficultywith any other subordinates. Moreover, giventhe personal price paid by Bonnevie (beingfired and having his reputation within the in-dustry severely tarnished), there was littleconsolation in saying the problem was thatGibbons was poor at managing subordinates.Everyone already knew that.

We believe that the situation could haveturned out differently had Bonnevie beenmore adept at understanding Gibbons and atmanaging his relationship with him. In thiscase, an inability to manage upward was un-usually costly. The company lost $2 million to$5 million, and Bonnevie’s career was, at leasttemporarily, disrupted. Many less costly casessimilar to this probably occur regularly in allmajor corporations, and the cumulative effectcan be very destructive.

Misreading the Boss–Subordinate Relationship

People often dismiss stories like the one wejust related as being merely cases of personal-ity conflict. Because two people can on occa-sion be psychologically or temperamentallyincapable of working together, this can be anapt description. But more often, we havefound, a personality conflict is only a part ofthe problem—sometimes a very small part.

Bonnevie did not just have a different per-sonality from Gibbons, he also made or hadunrealistic assumptions and expectations aboutthe very nature of boss–subordinate relation-ships. Specifically, he did not recognize that hisrelationship to Gibbons involved mutual de-pendence between two fallible human beings.Failing to recognize this, a manager typicallyeither avoids trying to manage his or her rela-tionship with a boss or manages it ineffectively.

John J. Gabarro

is the UPS Founda-tion Professor of Human Resource Management at Harvard Business School in Boston. Now retired, John P. Kotter was the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School.

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Some people behave as if their bosses werenot very dependent on them. They fail to seehow much the boss needs their help and co-operation to do his or her job effectively.These people refuse to acknowledge that theboss can be severely hurt by their actions andneeds cooperation, dependability, and hon-esty from them.

Some people see themselves as not very de-pendent on their bosses. They gloss over howmuch help and information they need fromthe boss in order to perform their own jobswell. This superficial view is particularly dam-aging when a manager’s job and decisions af-fect other parts of the organization, as was thecase in Bonnevie’s situation. A manager’s im-mediate boss can play a critical role in linkingthe manager to the rest of the organization,making sure the manager’s priorities are con-sistent with organizational needs, and in secur-ing the resources the manager needs to per-form well. Yet some managers need to seethemselves as practically self-sufficient, as notneeding the critical information and resourcesa boss can supply.

Many managers, like Bonnevie, assumethat the boss will magically know what infor-mation or help their subordinates need andprovide it to them. Certainly, some bosses doan excellent job of caring for their subordi-nates in this way, but for a manager to expectthat from all bosses is dangerously unrealistic.A more reasonable expectation for managersto have is that modest help will be forthcom-ing. After all, bosses are only human. Most re-ally effective managers accept this fact andassume primary responsibility for their owncareers and development. They make a pointof seeking the information and help theyneed to do a job instead of waiting for theirbosses to provide it.

In light of the foregoing, it seems to us thatmanaging a situation of mutual depen-dence among fallible human beings requiresthe following:

1. You have a good understanding of theother person and yourself, especially regardingstrengths, weaknesses, work styles, and needs.

2. You use this information to develop andmanage a healthy working relationship—onethat is compatible with both people’s workstyles and assets, is characterized by mutual ex-pectations, and meets the most critical needsof the other person.

This combination is essentially what wehave found highly effective managers doing.

Understanding the Boss

Managing your boss requires that you gain anunderstanding of the boss and his or her con-text, as well as your own situation. All manag-ers do this to some degree, but many are notthorough enough.

At a minimum, you need to appreciate yourboss’s goals and pressures, his or her strengthsand weaknesses. What are your boss’s organi-zational and personal objectives, and what arehis or her pressures, especially those from hisor her own boss and others at the same level?What are your boss’s long suits and blindspots? What is the preferred style of working?Does your boss like to get information throughmemos, formal meetings, or phone calls? Doeshe or she thrive on conflict or try to minimizeit? Without this information, a manager is fly-ing blind when dealing with the boss, and un-necessary conflicts, misunderstandings, andproblems are inevitable.

In one situation we studied, a top-notchmarketing manager with a superior perfor-mance record was hired into a company as avice president “to straighten out the market-ing and sales problems.” The company, whichwas having financial difficulties, had recentlybeen acquired by a larger corporation. Thepresident was eager to turn it around andgave the new marketing vice president freerein—at least initially. Based on his previousexperience, the new vice president correctlydiagnosed that greater market share wasneeded for the company and that strong prod-uct management was required to bring thatabout. Following that logic, he made a num-ber of pricing decisions aimed at increasinghigh-volume business.

When margins declined and the financialsituation did not improve, however, the presi-dent increased pressure on the new vice presi-dent. Believing that the situation would even-tually correct itself as the company gainedback market share, the vice president resistedthe pressure.

When by the second quarter, margins andprofits had still failed to improve, the presi-dent took direct control over all pricing deci-sions and put all items on a set level of mar-gin, regardless of volume. The new vicepresident began to find himself shut out by

At a minimum, you need

to appreciate your boss’s

goals and pressures.

Without this

information, you are

flying blind, and

problems are inevitable.

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the president, and their relationship deterio-rated. In fact, the vice president found thepresident’s behavior bizarre. Unfortunately,the president’s new pricing scheme also failedto increase margins, and by the fourth quar-ter, both the president and the vice presidentwere fired.

What the new vice president had notknown until it was too late was that improv-ing marketing and sales had been only one ofthe president’s goals. His most immediategoal had been to make the company moreprofitable—quickly.

Nor had the new vice president known thathis boss was invested in this short-term priorityfor personal as well as business reasons. Thepresident had been a strong advocate of the ac-quisition within the parent company, and hispersonal credibility was at stake.

The vice president made three basic er-rors. He took information supplied to him atface value, he made assumptions in areaswhere he had no information, and—whatwas most damaging—he never actively tried toclarify what his boss’s objectives were. As aresult, he ended up taking actions that wereactually at odds with the president’s priori-ties and objectives.

Managers who work effectively with theirbosses do not behave this way. They seek outinformation about the boss’s goals and prob-lems and pressures. They are alert for opportu-nities to question the boss and others aroundhim or her to test their assumptions. They payattention to clues in the boss’s behavior. Al-though it is imperative that they do this espe-cially when they begin working with a newboss, effective managers also do this on an on-going basis because they recognize that priori-ties and concerns change.

Being sensitive to a boss’s work style can becrucial, especially when the boss is new. Forexample, a new president who was organizedand formal in his approach replaced a manwho was informal and intuitive. The newpresident worked best when he had writtenreports. He also preferred formal meetingswith set agendas.

One of his division managers realized thisneed and worked with the new president toidentify the kinds and frequency of informa-tion and reports that the president wanted.This manager also made a point of sendingbackground information and brief agendas

ahead of time for their discussions. He foundthat with this type of preparation their meet-ings were very useful. Another interesting re-sult was, he found that with adequate prepara-tion his new boss was even more effective atbrainstorming problems than his more infor-mal and intuitive predecessor had been.

In contrast, another division manager neverfully understood how the new boss’s work stylediffered from that of his predecessor. To the de-gree that he did sense it, he experienced it astoo much control. As a result, he seldom sentthe new president the background informationhe needed, and the president never felt fullyprepared for meetings with the manager. Infact, the president spent much of the timewhen they met trying to get information thathe felt he should have had earlier. The boss ex-perienced these meetings as frustrating and in-efficient, and the subordinate often found him-self thrown off guard by the questions that thepresident asked. Ultimately, this division man-ager resigned.

The difference between the two divisionmanagers just described was not so much oneof ability or even adaptability. Rather, one ofthe men was more sensitive to his boss’s workstyle and to the implications of his boss’s needsthan the other was.

Understanding Yourself

The boss is only one-half of the relationship.You are the other half, as well as the part overwhich you have more direct control. Develop-ing an effective working relationship requires,then, that you know your own needs, strengthsand weaknesses, and personal style.

You are not going to change either yourbasic personality structure or that of your boss.But you can become aware of what it is aboutyou that impedes or facilitates working with yourboss and, with that awareness, take actionsthat make the relationship more effective.

For example, in one case we observed, amanager and his superior ran into problemswhenever they disagreed. The boss’s typical re-sponse was to harden his position and over-state it. The manager’s reaction was then toraise the ante and intensify the forcefulness ofhis argument. In doing this, he channeled hisanger into sharpening his attacks on the logicalfallacies he saw in his boss’s assumptions. Hisboss in turn would become even more ada-mant about holding his original position. Pre-

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dictably, this escalating cycle resulted in thesubordinate avoiding whenever possible anytopic of potential conflict with his boss.

In discussing this problem with his peers, themanager discovered that his reaction to theboss was typical of how he generally reacted tocounterarguments—but with a difference. Hisresponse would overwhelm his peers but nothis boss. Because his attempts to discuss thisproblem with his boss were unsuccessful, heconcluded that the only way to change the sit-uation was to deal with his own instinctive re-actions. Whenever the two reached an im-passe, he would check his own impatience andsuggest that they break up and think about itbefore getting together again. Usually whenthey renewed their discussion, they had di-gested their differences and were more able towork them through.

Gaining this level of self-awareness and act-ing on it are difficult but not impossible. Forexample, by reflecting over his past experi-ences, a young manager learned that he wasnot very good at dealing with difficult andemotional issues where people were involved.Because he disliked those issues and realizedthat his instinctive responses to them were sel-dom very good, he developed a habit of touch-ing base with his boss whenever such a prob-lem arose. Their discussions always surfacedideas and approaches the manager had notconsidered. In many cases, they also identifiedspecific actions the boss could take to help.

Although a superior–subordinate relation-ship is one of mutual dependence, it is also onein which the subordinate is typically more de-pendent on the boss than the other wayaround. This dependence inevitably results inthe subordinate feeling a certain degree offrustration, sometimes anger, when his actionsor options are constrained by his boss’s deci-sions. This is a normal part of life and occurs inthe best of relationships. The way in which amanager handles these frustrations largely de-pends on his or her predisposition toward de-pendence on authority figures.

Some people’s instinctive reaction underthese circumstances is to resent the boss’s au-thority and to rebel against the boss’s deci-sions. Sometimes a person will escalate a con-flict beyond what is appropriate. Seeing theboss almost as an institutional enemy, this typeof manager will often, without being consciousof it, fight with the boss just for the sake of

fighting. The subordinate’s reactions to beingconstrained are usually strong and sometimesimpulsive. He or she sees the boss as someonewho, by virtue of the role, is a hindrance toprogress, an obstacle to be circumvented or atbest tolerated.

Psychologists call this pattern of reactionscounterdependent behavior. Although a coun-terdependent person is difficult for most supe-riors to manage and usually has a history ofstrained relationships with superiors, this sortof manager is apt to have even more troublewith a boss who tends to be directive or au-thoritarian. When the manager acts on his orher negative feelings, often in subtle and non-verbal ways, the boss sometimes does becomethe enemy. Sensing the subordinate’s latenthostility, the boss will lose trust in the subordi-nate or his or her judgment and then behaveeven less openly.

Paradoxically, a manager with this type ofpredisposition is often a good manager of hisor her own people. He or she will many timesgo out of the way to get support for them andwill not hesitate to go to bat for them.

At the other extreme are managers whoswallow their anger and behave in a very com-pliant fashion when the boss makes what theyknow to be a poor decision. These managerswill agree with the boss even when a disagree-ment might be welcome or when the bosswould easily alter a decision if given more in-formation. Because they bear no relationshipto the specific situation at hand, their re-sponses are as much an overreaction as thoseof counterdependent managers. Instead of see-ing the boss as an enemy, these people denytheir anger—the other extreme—and tend tosee the boss as if he or she were an all-wise par-ent who should know best, should take respon-sibility for their careers, train them in all theyneed to know, and protect them from overlyambitious peers.

Both counterdependence and overdepen-dence lead managers to hold unrealistic viewsof what a boss is. Both views ignore that bosses,like everyone else, are imperfect and fallible.They don’t have unlimited time, encyclopedicknowledge, or extrasensory perception; nor arethey evil enemies. They have their own pres-sures and concerns that are sometimes at oddswith the wishes of the subordinate—and oftenfor good reason.

Altering predispositions toward authority,

Bosses, like everyone else,

are imperfect and

fallible. They don’t have

unlimited time,

encyclopedic knowledge,

or extrasensory

perception; nor are they

evil enemies.

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especially at the extremes, is almost impossiblewithout intensive psychotherapy (psychoana-lytic theory and research suggest that such pre-dispositions are deeply rooted in a person’spersonality and upbringing). However, anawareness of these extremes and the range be-tween them can be very useful in understand-ing where your own predispositions fall andwhat the implications are for how you tend tobehave in relation to your boss.

If you believe, on the one hand, that youhave some tendencies toward counterdepen-dence, you can understand and even predictwhat your reactions and overreactions arelikely to be. If, on the other hand, you believeyou have some tendencies toward overdepen-dence, you might question the extent to whichyour overcompliance or inability to confrontreal differences may be making both you andyour boss less effective.

Developing and Managing the Relationship

With a clear understanding of both your boss

and yourself, you can usually establish a way ofworking together that fits both of you, that ischaracterized by unambiguous mutual expec-tations, and that helps you both be more pro-ductive and effective. The “Checklist for Man-aging Your Boss” summarizes some thingssuch a relationship consists of. Following are afew more.

Compatible Work Styles. Above all else, agood working relationship with a boss accom-modates differences in work style. For exam-ple, in one situation we studied, a manager(who had a relatively good relationship withhis superior) realized that during meetings hisboss would often become inattentive andsometimes brusque. The subordinate’s ownstyle tended to be discursive and exploratory.He would often digress from the topic at handto deal with background factors, alternativeapproaches, and so forth. His boss preferred todiscuss problems with a minimum of back-ground detail and became impatient and dis-tracted whenever his subordinate digressedfrom the immediate issue.

Recognizing this difference in style, themanager became terser and more direct dur-ing meetings with his boss. To help himself dothis, before meetings, he would develop briefagendas that he used as a guide. Whenever hefelt that a digression was needed, he explainedwhy. This small shift in his own style madethese meetings more effective and far less frus-trating for both of them.

Subordinates can adjust their styles in re-sponse to their bosses’ preferred method forreceiving information. Peter Drucker dividesbosses into “listeners” and “readers.” Somebosses like to get information in report formso they can read and study it. Others workbetter with information and reports pre-sented in person so they can ask questions. AsDrucker points out, the implications are obvi-ous. If your boss is a listener, you brief him orher in person, then follow it up with a memo.If your boss is a reader, you cover importantitems or proposals in a memo or report, thendiscuss them.

Other adjustments can be made according toa boss’s decision-making style. Some bossesprefer to be involved in decisions and prob-lems as they arise. These are high-involvementmanagers who like to keep their hands on thepulse of the operation. Usually their needs(and your own) are best satisfied if you touch

Checklist for ManagingYour BossMake sure you understand your bossand his or her context, including:

❑ Goals and objectives

❑ Pressures

❑ Strengths, weaknesses, blind spots

❑ Preferred work style

Assess yourself and your needs,including:

❑ Strengths and weaknesses

❑ Personal style

❑ Predisposition toward dependence on authority figures

Develop and maintain a relationship that:

❑ Fits both your needs and styles

❑ Is characterized by mutual expectations

❑ Keeps your boss informed

❑ Is based on dependability and honesty

❑ Selectively uses your boss’s time and resources

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base with them on an ad hoc basis. A boss whohas a need to be involved will become involvedone way or another, so there are advantages toincluding him or her at your initiative. Otherbosses prefer to delegate—they don’t want tobe involved. They expect you to come to themwith major problems and inform them aboutany important changes.

Creating a compatible relationship also in-volves drawing on each other’s strengths andmaking up for each other’s weaknesses. Be-cause he knew that the boss—the vice presi-dent of engineering—was not very good atmonitoring his employees’ problems, one man-ager we studied made a point of doing it him-self. The stakes were high: The engineers andtechnicians were all union members, the com-pany worked on a customer-contract basis, andthe company had recently experienced a seri-ous strike.

The manager worked closely with his boss,along with people in the scheduling depart-ment and the personnel office, to make surethat potential problems were avoided. He alsodeveloped an informal arrangement throughwhich his boss would review with him any pro-posed changes in personnel or assignment pol-icies before taking action. The boss valued hisadvice and credited his subordinate for im-proving both the performance of the divisionand the labor–management climate.

Mutual Expectations. The subordinate whopassively assumes that he or she knows whatthe boss expects is in for trouble. Of course,some superiors will spell out their expecta-tions very explicitly and in great detail. Butmost do not. And although many corporationshave systems that provide a basis for commu-nicating expectations (such as formal planningprocesses, career planning reviews, and perfor-mance appraisal reviews), these systems neverwork perfectly. Also, between these formal re-views, expectations invariably change.

Ultimately, the burden falls on the subordi-nate to find out what the boss’s expectationsare. They can be both broad (such as whatkinds of problems the boss wishes to be in-formed about and when) as well as very spe-cific (such things as when a particular projectshould be completed and what kinds of infor-mation the boss needs in the interim).

Getting a boss who tends to be vague or notexplicit to express expectations can be difficult.But effective managers find ways to get that in-

formation. Some will draft a detailed memocovering key aspects of their work and thensend it to their boss for approval. They thenfollow this up with a face-to-face discussion inwhich they go over each item in the memo. Adiscussion like this will often surface virtuallyall of the boss’s expectations.

Other effective managers will deal with aninexplicit boss by initiating an ongoing seriesof informal discussions about “good manage-ment” and “our objectives.” Still others finduseful information more indirectly throughthose who used to work for the boss andthrough the formal planning systems in whichthe boss makes commitments to his or her ownsuperior. Which approach you choose, ofcourse, should depend on your understandingof your boss’s style.

Developing a workable set of mutual expec-tations also requires that you communicateyour own expectations to the boss, find out ifthey are realistic, and influence the boss to ac-cept the ones that are important to you. Beingable to influence the boss to value your expec-tations can be particularly important if theboss is an overachiever. Such a boss will oftenset unrealistically high standards that need tobe brought into line with reality.

A Flow of Information. How much informa-tion a boss needs about what a subordinate isdoing will vary significantly depending on theboss’s style, the situation he or she is in, andthe confidence the boss has in the subordi-nate. But it is not uncommon for a boss toneed more information than the subordinatewould naturally supply or for the subordinateto think the boss knows more than he or shereally does. Effective managers recognize thatthey probably underestimate what theirbosses need to know and make sure they findways to keep them informed through pro-cesses that fit their styles.

Managing the flow of information upward isparticularly difficult if the boss does not like tohear about problems. Although many peoplewould deny it, bosses often give off signals thatthey want to hear only good news. They showgreat displeasure—usually nonverbally—whensomeone tells them about a problem. Ignoringindividual achievement, they may even evalu-ate more favorably subordinates who do notbring problems to them.

Nevertheless, for the good of the organiza-tion, the boss, and the subordinate, a superior

Some superiors spell out

their expectations very

explicitly. But most do

not. Ultimately, the

burden falls on the

subordinate to find out

what the boss’s

expectations are.

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needs to hear about failures as well as suc-cesses. Some subordinates deal with a good-news-only boss by finding indirect ways to getthe necessary information to him or her, suchas a management information system. Otherssee to it that potential problems, whether inthe form of good surprises or bad news, arecommunicated immediately.

Dependability and Honesty. Few things aremore disabling to a boss than a subordinate onwhom he cannot depend, whose work he can-not trust. Almost no one is intentionally unde-pendable, but many managers are inadvert-ently so because of oversight or uncertaintyabout the boss’s priorities. A commitment to anoptimistic delivery date may please a superiorin the short term but become a source of dis-pleasure if not honored. It’s difficult for a bossto rely on a subordinate who repeatedly slipsdeadlines. As one president (describing a subor-dinate) put it: “I’d rather he be more consistenteven if he delivered fewer peak successes—atleast I could rely on him.”

Nor are many managers intentionally dis-honest with their bosses. But it is easy to shadethe truth and play down issues. Current con-cerns often become future surprise problems.It’s almost impossible for bosses to work effec-tively if they cannot rely on a fairly accuratereading from their subordinates. Because it un-dermines credibility, dishonesty is perhaps themost troubling trait a subordinate can have.Without a basic level of trust, a boss feels com-pelled to check all of a subordinate’s decisions,which makes it difficult to delegate.

Good Use of Time and Resources. Your boss

is probably as limited in his or her store oftime, energy, and influence as you are. Everyrequest you make of your boss uses up some ofthese resources, so it’s wise to draw on theseresources selectively. This may sound obvious,but many managers use up their boss’s time(and some of their own credibility) over rela-tively trivial issues.

One vice president went to great lengths toget his boss to fire a meddlesome secretary inanother department. His boss had to use con-siderable influence to do it. Understandably,the head of the other department was notpleased. Later, when the vice president wantedto tackle more important problems, he ran intotrouble. By using up blue chips on a relativelytrivial issue, he had made it difficult for himand his boss to meet more important goals.

No doubt, some subordinates will resentthat on top of all their other duties, they alsoneed to take time and energy to manage theirrelationships with their bosses. Such manag-ers fail to realize the importance of this activityand how it can simplify their jobs by eliminat-ing potentially severe problems. Effective man-agers recognize that this part of their work islegitimate. Seeing themselves as ultimately re-sponsible for what they achieve in an organiza-tion, they know they need to establish andmanage relationships with everyone on whomthey depend—and that includes the boss.

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Managing Your Boss

To Order

For






Further Reading

A R T I C L E S

The Subordinate’s Predicaments

by Eric H. Neilsen and Jan Gypen


September–October 1979Product no. 79507

This article provides the psychological back-drop for “Managing Your Boss,” stressing again how important it is to be an effective subordinate—just as important as being an effective supervisor. “Managing Your Boss” presents the concept primarily from the sub-ordinate’s perspective; this article includes the boss’s as well.

It stresses that the supervisor’s power drives the subordinate to adopt self-protective be-haviors that undermine performance. Draw-ing upon the ideas of psychologist Erik Erik-son, the authors describe eight dilemmas subordinates must resolve in dealing with su-pervisors. They also suggest how supervisors can help, using introspection, empathy, and preparedness.

The Manager: Master and Servant of Power

by Fernando Bartolomé and André Laurent


November–December 1986Product no. 86603

This article, like “The Subordinate’s Predica-ments,” focuses both on the boss and the di-rect report—the “master” and the “servant” in work relationships. It highlights this irony: while most managers function as both super-visors and subordinates, they often are unable to put themselves in the others’ shoes. This ex-acerbates the conflicts and misunderstand-ings that arise because of power differences. But there are steps managers can take to har-monize these often opposing perspectives. The key is to link the two roles to draw on the insights gained from working with those from above as well as those from below them in the organizational hierarchy. The article rein-

forces the concepts of “Managing Your Boss” by making specific suggestions for how direct reports can strengthen their relationships with higher-ups.


by Jean-François Manzoni andJean-Louis BarsouxHarvard Business ReviewMarch–April 1998Product no. 861X

This article expands the repertoire of ways to pursue healthy and productive work relation-ships based on mutual respect and under-standing, as stressed in “Managing Your Boss.” It puts the focus on the manager and the role he plays in employees’ poor performance. When an employee performs poorly, manag-ers typically assume that the fault lies entirely with the employee. The authors take a differ-ent view. In a reversal of the Pygmalion effect, they argue, employees perceived as weak per-formers proceed to live down to their man-ager’s low expectations for them. This costly syndrome, however, is neither irreversible nor inevitable. The authors describe an interven-tion to break the pattern and suggest how managers can avoid setting up their employ-ees to fail in the first place.

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s u m m a r y c r e a t e d b y

Focus Take-Aways

• New managers must master certain basic tools and skills.

• Use goal setting to help your team align with the overall organization.

• Learn to delegate. It will help you manage your time more effectively, and build talent and trust within your team.

• Use teams to accomplish time-limited tasks with well-defi ned company goals.

• Your hiring and fi ring decisions shape your team’s effectiveness.

• Follow dismissal procedures to the letter to avoid costly, disruptive lawsuits.

• The best way to handle a crisis is anticipation and prevention. When a crisis happens, be decisive, act quickly and communicate well.

• A supportive, well-connected mentor will help your career develop.

• A strategy is a means to making a profi t. When it stops being effective, replace it.

• Master the fi nancial tools that all organizations use.

Manager’s Toolkit

The 13 Skills Managers Need to Succeed

by Harvard Business Essentials

Communication

Finance & Accounting

Global Business

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Leadership & Managing People

Organizational Development

Sales & Marketing

Strategy & Execution

Technology & Operations

HBP Product # 4920ES

To purchase personal subscriptions or corporate solutions, visit www.getAbstract.com or www.harvardbusiness.org. To buy a

copy of the book, go to http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/relay.jhtml?name=itemdetail&id=2896&referral=2340.

getAbstract is a knowledge rating service and publisher of book abstracts. getAbstract maintains complete editorial responsibility

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prior written permission of getAbstract Ltd (Switzerland) and Harvard Business School Publishing. Copyright 2004 Bain &

Company, Inc. Summary Copyright 2007 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation and getAbstract Ltd (Switzerland). All

rights reserved. ISBN-13: 978-1-4221-4919-5

A HARVARD BUSINESS PRESS BOOK SUMMARY

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Manager’s Toolkit © Copyright 2007 getAbstract and Harvard Business School Publishing

Relevance

What You Will LearnIn this Abstract, you will learn 1) Why hiring the right people makes a vital contribution to your team’s performance; 2) Why you should learn to delegate; 3) How a great mentor can help your career; and 4) Why basic fi nancial concepts need to be part of your intellectual repertoire.

OverviewMost young managers were outstanding individual performers before promotion to management, and many get the bulk of their basic management training on the job. This handbook from the Harvard Business Essentials series covers the basic skills managers need to know. Authors Richard Luecke and Christopher Bartlett divide the book into three sections – learning the basics, reaching the next level and mastering the fi nancial tools a manager needs – with the key topics listed at the beginning of each chapter. It explains how to set goals, how to hire people, how to delegate and how to understand balance sheets, income statements and cash fl ow statements.

Abstract

Basic Management SkillsTo get your team moving in the right direction, fi rst involve it in setting goals that are aligned with the organization’s objectives and that energize team members by involving them in that larger vision. Whether you set goals from the top down, or the bottom up or somewhere in between, inspire your team with goals it owns and feels it can strive to exceed. Goals must be clear and well-defi ned to be achievable.

Concentrate on goals that focus the team in the direction set by the enterprise. Decide which goals are the most important and let the others go. Break a goal down into its component tasks and take an organized approach to execution. Make sure the team understands the resources it needs, and ascertain that they are available and allocated. The remaining step is to put the plan into action. However, never confuse activity with the goal’s objective. It is the result that matters. Activity without a result is useless, so agree on ways to measure and reward progress. Celebrate when your team accomplishes a goal. Use the celebration to build confi dence and unity.

Hiring the best people available is one of the surest ways to cultivate team effectiveness. To identify the best person for a job, you need a clear set of requirements. Make sure everyone involved in the hiring decision agrees on a very specifi c defi nition of the job and the ideal candidate. Skills and experience are important, but personality and attitude matter just as much. Your method of recruiting can defi ne and constrain your pool of qualifi ed candidates. Emphasize quality rather than quantity, and check all references and academic achievements. When interviewing, delve into the candidates’ soft skills as well as their hard skills, such as job-related abilities.

Every team experiences changes from staff turnover, but keep as many of your best people as possible. Begin the retention process with the way you hire someone, what kind of orientation you provide, and his or her experiences on the fi rst day. Retaining

“Developing your own career begins with self-knowledge – one’s passions, values and strengths.”

“Delegating improves the level of trust between you and your staff. To get trust, you must fi rst give trust.”


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people keeps vital talent, energy and knowledge within the team, and enhances its chances of success. Ensure that employees feel appreciated and that they follow through on their commitments. Demonstrate that you understand their value and recognize the importance of their life outside work. Compensation is important, but by the time it becomes an issue, problems in other areas may have been festering for some time. Simply paying more salary will just delay the separation.

Most fi rst-time managers began as successful individual contributors. They tend to see every assignment as a personal task. However, if you try to do too much as a new manager, you will hurt the team’s performance, damage your relationships with team members and risk burnout. The answer is effective delegation. Giving tasks to team members builds their sense of belonging, develops their skills and leaves you free to work on the jobs that are appropriate only for you. Delegate in face-to-face meetings, and clearly defi ne each assignment’s goals, dates and resource commitments. Afterward, meet to discuss how and when the task was fulfi lled.

Be sure that goals and priorities drive the way you allocate your time. Plan each day’s activities, allowing for the tasks you must address and building in some fl exibility for emergencies. Make the best use of each hour by delegating, resisting procrastination, scrapping pointless meetings and focusing on your highest priorities.

Higher-Level SkillsTask-oriented teams can achieve goals set by their managers, but such tasks should align with the company’s goals and have strong corporate support. Select team members for the help they can provide on the task and make the team as small as is feasible. Monitor the team leader’s effi ciency, because this is a pivotal role. Replace him or her if necessary. Recognize and reward the team’s effort throughout the process rather than at the end. The way you balance compensation between team performance and individual contributions depends on your circumstances, but it should refl ect the realities of the task.

Managers too often delay the process of employee appraisal or they handle it perfunctorily, but it can become an opportunity to bond with your employees and set goals. You can discuss pay during this process or leave it for another discussion. Do not use the time you spend with an employee as an opportunity for a monologue. Use it to coach by selecting a point to discuss, listening to the employee’s point of view and working together to make an action plan.

The appraisal process goes through eight steps:

1. Preparing.2. Holding the appraisal meeting.3. Identifying gaps between actual and expected performance.4. Finding the causes of the gaps.5. Planning how to close the gaps.6. Re-evaluating goals.7. Documenting the meeting.8. Following up.

Dealing with problem employees is a diffi cult, sensitive task for a manager. Showing concern, and giving staffers help, support and interesting, challenging assignments will

“Effective goals must be recognized as important, clear, specifi c, measurable, aligned with strategy, achievable but challenging, and supported by appropriate rewards.”

“Leave room in your schedule for unanticipated events. If those events don’t happen, use that time for other priorities.”

“Retention matters because high turnover creates high replacement costs and is clearly associated with low levels of customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and lost revenues.”

“Teams can do wonders, but they can also be impediments to real progress if they are not properly designed, staffed and operated.”


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often get them back on track. Some of those staffers the manager tries to help will resist and continue to cause diffi culties. Try to keep diffi cult employees from having a negative infl uence on the rest of the team. Dismissing an employee is a sensitive undertaking. You must involve the human resources department and be fully aware of the relevant employment laws.

Surprise events can reach into any manager’s carefully planned day and throw everything to the wind. How do you deal with such a crisis? The best way is prevention. Spend some time anticipating disruptive events and developing a plan of action. Documenting an action plan will help you resolve a crisis much more quickly than waiting to see what might happen and then improvising a reaction. If an emergency occurs, look at it clearly, and do not make careless assumptions or try to avoid the situation.

Be decisive once you understand the nature and scope of the situation at an actionable level. Base your actions on facts, but don’t wait until everything is clear. At times, you will have to act when many factors are still in fl ux. Communicate clearly and often with the stakeholders who have an interest in the crisis; explain what you are doing to handle it and correct it. After it is over, conduct a postmortem to examine the causes and what could have been done better.

Moving up the LadderAs a successful manager, eventually you will want to move up to new, more challenging assignments. The fi rst step in this process is an honest examination of your performance and qualifi cations; a desire to advance is simply not enough. Where do your true interests lie? Can you contribute productively to a new project and meet the demands of the workload?

A mentor is a wonderful resource. The best mentors are not only able to give advice, but can offer access to additional avenues for advancement. A well-connected mentor can open doors, but you will still have to earn the promotion and perform well once the opportunity comes. Do not forget to return favors. As a young manager, try to become a mentor who links other young, talented people to corporate resources. This can plant seeds that will grow into connections and friendships that will be valuable over time.

A young manager can become a true leader. Demonstrate leadership qualities by caring for those who report to you as much as for those to whom you report. Most real-life situations do not have well-defi ned borders or binary choices, so learn to handle the ambiguity of reality. Others will notice your tenacity. To lead, you need to know how to negotiate, understand the politics of any situation and handle them sensitively, use humor appropriately, and maintain an even temperament despite the extremes of a situation. Even when given accountability without authority, demonstrate your leadership abilities.

At a certain point in a manager’s career, strategic considerations become more important than the day-to-day task of tactical operations. Strategy is less about execution, and more about what to do and why. When formulating strategy, look for external threats and for opportunities yet unseen. Look hard for internal resources, capabilities and practices that you can exploit. Many strategic options are short-lived. Never get too attached to one approach. Measure the positive results that a given strategy provides. When it stops working, be ready to replace it with another tactic.

“Just remember that effective coaching requires mutual agreement. The other person must want to do better and must welcome your help.”

“If you’re considering a dismissal, familiarize yourself with employment laws. Slipping up during a dismissal could result in a lawsuit.”

“Communication in times of crisis is the strongest tool at the manager’s disposal. Communication must extend from the crisis-management team to all stakeholders.”

“Operational effi ciency is about doing things right; strategy is about doing the right things. Don’t confuse them.”


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Basics of FinanceAs a manager, you will almost certainly become involved in all or part of the budget process. You must coordinate your team’s fi scal plan with the budgets of other groups in your division, and mesh the division’s plans with the priorities of the larger corporation. This is usually an iterative process that takes months of work. As the budget is executed, communicate constantly about fi nancial compliance and exceptions. Commonly, companies adjust the budget as the year progresses. Larger concerns usually enforce the monitoring process systematically, but it may be less formal in smaller entrepreneurial organizations. The budget not only allocates fi nancial resources for your department’s work, it also sets a fi nancial expectation of what your group will generate for the company.

The company will expect you to be able to read and understand the meaning of its annual reports and of the three principal fi nancial statements – a balance sheet, income statement and cash fl ow statement. The balance sheet is essentially a snapshot of the company’s fi nancial state at a given moment. It lists all the company’s assets, liabilities and shareholder equity. Total assets must equal the sum of the total liabilities and the equity of the fi rm. The income statement communicates the fi rm’s profi tability. It states the total revenues and shows the costs that have a claim on those revenues. The bottom line is the net income. The cash fl ow statement indicates the amount of cash that came in and from where, and what cash went out and to where.

Since most projects involve investing money today for a revenue stream that will continue into the future, an organization has to evaluate profi tability and take into account that money on hand now is worth more than money that is likely to be received at some point down the road. Organizations normally use two methods of calculating cash fl ows:

1. Net Present Value (NPV) – This calculates the series of cash fl ows a given project will generate, and uses a selected discount factor to bring all the values into a present value. Positive NPV cash fl ows indicate a profi table project.

2. Internal Rate of Return (IRR) – This calculates the return of a series of cash fl ows. The return that sets the NPV of the cash fl ows to zero is the annual return of the project to the company. Firms usually set a minimum IRR that projects need to receive a green light.

Managers should know how to calculate a breakeven analysis – that is how much the company will need to sell to pay for a given expense or investment. This analysis involves two categories of expenses: fi xed costs and variable costs. The fi rst are items that incur expense independent of the activity of a business, such as utility bills or rent. The second are those costs associated with producing and selling goods, such as the cost of materials. Contribution margin is the amount of money that each unit sold is able to contribute to fi xed costs. The breakeven volume is calculated by dividing the fi xed costs by the unit contribution margin. These basic fi nancial concepts belong in every manager’s intellectual repertoire.

About the Authors

The Harvard Business Essentials series, which began in 2002, provides advice, personal coaching, background information and guidance on relevant topics in business. Drawing on content from Harvard Business School Publishing and other sources, these guides provide a practical resource for readers in 17 different areas and skills. To assure quality and accuracy, a specialized content adviser closely reviews each volume.

“One advantage of participatory budgeting is that the people closest to the line activities – people who presumably have the best information – make the budget decisions.”

“The cash fl ow statement tells where the company’s cash came from and where it went – in other words, the fl ow of cash in, through and out of the company.”


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