Author: Jason Scriven

Ace the Keeper Test

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On the Netflix corporate culture site, it describes the Keeper Test that managers use to put together what Netflix refers to as Dream Teams:  

If one of the members of the team was thinking of leaving for another firm, would the manager try hard to keep them from leaving?  Those who do not pass the keeper test (i.e. their manager would not fight to keep them) are promptly and respectfully given a generous severance package so we can find someone for that position that makes us an even better dream team

That’s a load of pressure on you, the supervisor or manager who has to make that decision.  You know that “cutting” a player from your team will impact them emotionally, psychologically, and financially. 

As much as the Netflix credo is “we are a team, not a family” you have likely grown close to people on your team as you push each other to be better.  

You also know that how you handle that situation will reflect on your own Keeper Test, where someone else will decide if you should be on the managerial dream team.  

As a new leader at Netflix, how can you make the most of the Keeper Test and still treat your team like family?

The key is using it early, before they’ve attended a single meeting, written their first line of code, or pitched the next big TV series.

If you don’t do it already, make the Keeper Test part of the hiring process. Change the question and make the hiring panel answer the question “Would you fight to ensure this candidate gets hired?”  This is a great question for other team members on the panel as it recognizes their expertise and makes them feel accountable for that new hire once they join the team.  Once they join the team, ask it frequently and often, looking for toxic behavior or a poor fit that was missed in the interview.


If you are coming into an existing team at Netflix as a new leader, you can also put the Keeper Test on the table right away.  With each team member, you can outline the regular informal performance reviews you will have to ensure that goals and expectations are clear.  Netflix even references this process on the same page:

Given our dream team orientation, it is very important that managers communicate frequently with each of their team members about where they stand so surprises are rare.

In other words, by the time you get to a formal review process and employ the Keeper Test, it should be no surprise to the team member when they are shown the door. And this is how you can still treat someone like family.  Give them every chance to perform better and be clear on expectations and deadlines.  Give them Netflix acceptable, tools, time, and coaching to improve.  Be soft on them as people while staying hard on the facts.  


And finally, don’t do it alone.  Work with other managers who have gone through it or a coach who can provide advice and perspective.


Yes, it’s better for Netflix to be a team and not a family.  

But it's better for you to lead a team that you treat like family.


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Are you a first time people manager who feels lost, overwhelmed, or like an imposter in your role?   

I am Jason Scriven and I am a coach who works with first time people managers or managers in new positions.  I will help you turn your insecurity about people management into a personal strength that gets you promoted into your dream job.  Email me at jason@theaccidentalmgr.com to discuss how.

Silence from the Black Box

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It’s easier to remain silent.

We learn this  in our earliest and most foundational relationships:

  • Don’t talk back to your father (child/parent)
  • Don’t talk in class (student/teacher)
  • It’s my way or the highway (athlete/coach)

This socialization, combined with the wiring in our brains that makes us highly tuned to how other people feel about us, make it easier to remain silent.  More so in hierarchical environments, like the workplace, where many people feel vulnerable to the whims of their boss or team leader.  Despite their experience and training, the default is usually acquiescence.  After all, no one ever got fired for staying silent.

But what if you worked somewhere that silence could lead to death?  Like in the cockpit of an airplane.  The recent news of Boeing 737 crashes has reminded me that silence, deference or deafness in the cockpit is a leading cause of preventable airline crashes.  In this article from 2018, a retired airline captain reviews some of the crashes that lead to the creation of Crew Resource Management (CRM), a set of training procedures for use in environments where human error can have a devastating effect.

Learn more about Crew Resource Management

In describing two crashes from the late 1970’s he states “Neither accident should have happened because some of the crewmembers knew things were going wrong but could not persuade the captain.”  Now CRM, is a major component of every airline safety program.

Every pilot is taught the skills of leadership, followership and effective communication

Followership might not be a word in the English dictionary that we are familiar with, but it should be a skill that every manager tries to master.  It starts by giving a voice to everyone on the team and communicating with them in a style that works for them.  Some are extroverts, comfortable in large groups and are OK talking over each other in a meeting.  Others will need time to think, consider the options and craft a complete and thorough response.  It’s a manager’s job to hear them all and eliminate the silence that kills.

We are all working to the same goal – whether that be landing a plane safely, completing an open heart surgery or making our revenue targets – and everyone is responsible for that goal. If we learn from the CRM playbook, we can still be the captains of our team at the same time we are being responsible to the concerns and needs of our fellow crewmembers.

If you’d like to discuss your followership, click here to Pick My Brain for free.

 

 

The Drive Thru Manager

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This week my daughter’s class at school watched a Ted Talk by Jamie Oliver about obesity.  Her big takeaway was that there are many people who have never learned how to cook and because of their socio-economic position eat all their meals from fast food restaurants.  One generation to another, overall health is declining because they never learned how to cook and simply use the drive thru.

A similar decline happens in business, on a much more immediate timeline, due to a drive-thru, fast food type of people management.

There are managers everywhere who have never known anything except the fast, easy way to manage people – from a hierarchical position of authority, with a heavy dose of telling and directing.  Like poor eating, It’s an easy habit to get into.

Too much work and not enough time for your team leads to shortcuts when it comes to people management.   Busy work takes the place of important work – the most important work you will do as a people manager.  Instead of personal meetings driven by the manager where you are truly listening, you say my “my door is always open” leaving it up to them.  When they do come in, they don’t get all your attention, and since they are only likely coming to you for a decision, that’s all they will get.  That’s drive-thru managing.  Fast food, when they deserve something fresh and home cooked.  Wouldn’t you?

Read more about when to close your open door here.

If this behavior continues unabated, then it becomes accepted, then it becomes expected, then it gets rewarded with promotions.  Then it’s modeled for the people down the chain, and as they are promoted, it’s the only way they know, too.  Before you know it, the health of the company declines as every manager is giving direction instead of engaging.

There are two easy changes you can make if you find yourself headed to McDonald’s,  First, making your own food takes time, so plan to spend 50% of your time (at least) on your people.  Think about and plan your interactions with the team and each individual ahead of time.  Prioritize this work before doing your own busy work.  Second, eliminate the drive-thru.  By creating regular interactions with your team, there will be less need for pop in meetings.  Give them more autonomy and ask for an email update after instead of them asking permission before.

Now get in the kitchen and whip something up!

If you’d like to Pick My Brain about your recipe for being a better people manager, click here and schedule a free call.

Labels Change a Manager’s Expectations

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Tall people in basketball can’t dribble.  I laugh when I heard this because it was a label that I heard all through high school as a tall guy playing on a good high school team.  While in my case it was true and I was better off playing down low with my back to the basket, I can see how this belief from a coach could limit the reps and take away the practice time of a player who wanted to be a better ball handler.  Magic Johnson is 6’9″ (pretty tall) and was a hall of fame point guard, so tall guys can dribble the basketball at an elite level.

Take this use of labels and apply it to the business world and we can see how labels change the expectation of the manager and the employee and have a big impact on the growth and development of our teams.

As a teenager, I worked at McDonald’s and from the first day, I worked in the kitchen.  Frying burgers and loading supplies from the storeroom – he is tall and strong and male, so keep him in the back. Had they asked, I would have chosen to work the counter and been in front of people all day.  I would have been awesome.  The label they applied put me in a storeroom with no way out.

Here is a discussion on the negative impact of labels, in this Train Ugly podcast on the Pygmalion effect with great examples from science, business, education, sports, and the military.

Consider these workplace labels (and their built-in limits to growth):

  • They are not a people person (so we won’t put them in front of the customer)
  • They are a quant (so they won’t be asked about theory)
  • They don’t know the new development language (so they can only maintain the old system, not build the new one)
  • They come from accounting (so they can’t be on the product team)
  • They are a star (so the sky is the limit)

These labels changed the manager’s expectation of an employee’s performance – limiting the growth of some team members and making special opportunities available to the star.  In the workplace, people are treated more favorably if their manager has higher performance expectations. 

You’ve heard the expression “I expect more from you” – which means I am treating you differently because I have higher expectations. 

Someone else on the team who has been labeled a “B” player or underachiever is not expected to behave or perform at the same high level.  As a manager, you are doing yourself and your team a disservice if you label too quickly.

I challenge you right now to review your team one by one and identify how you have “labeled” each person.  How would you treat that person differently if you replace the label with “star”?

Everyone is capable of growing and should be given the reps – an opportunity to practice the skills –  to become better.

Click here if you’d like to Pick My Brain for free about the impact of labeling in your team.

From People Manager to Results Coach Using ROWE

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In the past week, I have begun receiving updates from 30hourjobs.com and enjoyed their recent link to this article on ROWE, or Results Only Work Environment.  In summary, it’s an organizational philosophy that is not concerned how, or where the work gets done, as long as it gets done.

ROWE gives everyone 100 percent autonomy and 100 percent accountability –  no results, no job.

That’s pretty scary if you are a manager as it sounds like it eliminates a large part of your job.  You no longer have to organize when people arrive, leave, take vacations, go for lunch, or attend meetings.  You don’t have to give direction.  They will do all those things on their own around the requirement to get the job done.  It blows up the traditional source of a manager’s power.  What does a manager manage if they don’t manage people?

Results.

What I like about a ROWE environment is that the traditional manager becomes a results coach, and I think most managers would like that better, too.

And when it’s all about results, you get a highly motivated team.  The drivers of motivation that Susan Fowler describes – Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competency – are off the charts in ROWE.  We would all be motivated to work for a company that:

  • Did not tell us how, but rather expected us to choose how to get the job done (Autonomy)
  • Did not care who worked the most hours or had the bigger office, but was full of people all focused on results (Relatedness)
  • Did not reward tenure or attendance, but instead recognized performance (Competence)

I think it can apply to any work environment, too. Taking the bus in Vancouver last week, I observed many drivers who knew their passengers by name, were helpful with new riders and drove skillfully and smoothly through big city traffic to arrive safely on time at each stop.  In an environment where they could just be counting the hours, driving in silence, ignoring the passengers and other drivers, they took ownership of the results.  It was their bus, their passengers and they were 100% accountable for arriving on time.

A ROWE is a serious thing when it comes to the consequences of not delivering the results you promised. If that bus driver is frequently late getting to stops or gets into accidents, what happens?  In a ROWE, that driver would lose their job.  Brunt and brutal?  Sure, but what if they agreed to those terms ahead of time?  Now it’s not brutal, it’s just about performance.

If you’d like to Pick My Brain on being more Results Oriented in your current role, click here to book a free call with me.

When Scratch is Not Good Enough

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The best amateur golfer that I ever played with had an official handicap of zero (0) – also know as a scratch golfer.  We only played once, paired together at a charity tournament and when I asked how many rounds he played a year he admitted that he played more than 90.  If I played that much golf, my boss would wonder how much time I was actually in the office and it turns out his boss was the federal government and he worked from home or on the road, giving him plenty of time for golf.

Like we all do when paired with a great player, I wondered whether he was good enough to play professionally.  He was young enough and a good enough athlete – what would it take?

3 less strokes per round – at least.

I arrived at this number by checking the handicap of the best Canadian professional golfer that I have ever played with – Adam Cornelson from Langley, BC.  Adam has an official handicap of +2.8. and won for the first time on tour in 2016, his fourth year as a pro, and earned a spot in the Web.com Tour which is the next closest level to the PGA tour. And he did this by playing on much harder, longer courses than an amateur scratch golfer.

And in the world of professional golf, 3 shots a round is a huge number.  On the PGA Tour, the difference between a top 10 player and the player at number 125, just barely holding on, is 1 shot per round.  And most players feel lucky if they can improve their game a half a shot per round per year.  At that rate, the scratch golfer may just be ready for the first level of pro golf in 6 years and making a living playing golf 6 years after that.

Like these golf pros, good managers should be trying to get incrementally better every year.

Similarily, success as a manager is not something that comes easy.  There are no great leaps forward into a better understanding of how to manage people, yourself or your boss.  It’s all incremental.  One inch at a time.  One performance review, one project schedule, one hiring session, one team meeting and one little thing to make someone happy that adds up to being a good manager.

I’ve been lucky to work in a sales environment at many good companies,  and in each one sales success is all about the incremental .  What revenue are you going to bring in that is new for us this year?  You did great in 2015 with $1 million in sales and we gave you a nice bonus to recognize it, but that was last year.  How are you going to get better this year?  What new industry are you going to develop as a sales channel?  What new product line are you going to upsell into your best accounts?  What are you going to do differently to push that huge, game-changing account across the finish line after 3 years of pitches?

In managing, what one new thing have you added to your repertoire, or what existing skill have you improved or what knowledge have you gained to make you a better manager than you were a year ago?

In golf, the magic elixir for most amateur players is to improve your short game – chipping and putting as they represent 50% of the shots you take every round.  If your regular score is 90 and you can make a 10% improvement in the 45 shots you take with a wedge or a putter by chipping it closer to the hole and holing more putts – you can drop 5 strokes pretty easy.

For a manager, the short game equivalent to improve as a manager is to Become a Better People Mgr.  

Your ability to make things happen on your own is finite – there is only one of you and only so many hours in a day.  But once you begin to see yourself as a people manager first and a “doer” second, then the possibilities are infinite.  Recruiting, developing, managing and promoting people is the easiest path to successful projects, departments, companies and careers.

Start with owning the fact that your primary job is as a people manager and spend a larger percentage of your time each month on managing your team as opposed to “doing” your own work.  An incremental change of one additional hour per week “managing” can make a huge difference between now and this time next year.  I’m writing this in October and if you started now and added one hour per week each  month, you’d increase your managing time by 10% before Christmas.  Think your team would notice?  They’d wonder what the heck was happening and then just roll with the new you – and you’ll be thrilled with the results.

When you take small steps like that over time, one day you will look up and find that you are a pretty good manager.  And like golf, where there are new courses, new equipment, and new teaching methods, you can always get better.  Your situation  is always changing – new projects, new people, new companies, new customers – the dynamic is never the same and you have the opportunity to learn over and over again in order to be just a little better today than you were yesterday.

Take One for the Team

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It’s a phrase I heard quite a bit when I played baseball in college  –  “Take One for the Team”.  Players were expected to make a physical sacrifice for the good of the team and it was often painful.  A catcher who blocked the plate with 200lbs of runner charging down the third base line trying to score the winning run.  The middle infielder who keeps his nose down on a rocket one-hopper on a bad infield, risking a solid shot to his chest or face to keep the ball in front of him.  The shortstop who doesn’t step away from the runner sliding into second with his cleats high to ensure the double play is turned.  The pitcher who throws more innings than he should in a lopsided game who sacrifices his arm and his stats to provide rest for other pitchers who will play the next day.  Or most often, the batter who crowds the plate on a hard throwing pitcher, willing to wear one in the ribs or in the back to get the tying run on base late in the game.  These acts are universally well respected by teammates as serving the good of the team ahead of your personal accomplishments.

A good Manager should also know when to take one for the team.

When a project goes sideways and an important date is not met by your team, whether the reasons for going off the rails were within their control or a Force Majeure, you the manager have to take the heat from the big boss.

When an irate customer wants someone’s head on a platter for a late delivery or a botched installation by your team, you the manager have to put your head in the guillotine.

When you ask a member of your team to do things a little different, you the manager have to calm the waters with all the others who object to something new and make sure they know it was your idea.

Taking bullets like these are part of the job for a good manager with training and experience and selflessness acting as body armor.  What made you a good manager protects you, so you can protect them.  Your team doesn’t need to take fire for a mistake twice, once from you and once from an outsider (and yes the big boss is an outsider as far as your team goes).  Whether their failure was small or large, they will have already paid the price and seen their professional self-perception wounded within the team and behind the closed door when you reviewed the situation with them.  And hopefully, they will have taken the correction and criticism personally and learned from it for the future.

When a manager recognizes that a situation requires him to step in between his team and a problem , he must be willing to do so for the long-term benefit of the company. It won’t be as physically painful as getting a fastball in the ribs, but you will likely take some heat from a vendor, a key customer or the big boss.  The personal sting will last a couple of days but the respect from your team will more than compensate for the short-term discomfort.

And earning the trust of your team is the hallmark of a Good Manager.

Managing from One Foot Away

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A recent interaction with another coach affirmed for me the wisdom of “Praise in Public, Correct in Private” and confirmed for me how personal an experience it is for anyone to receive criticism, correction or discipline from a leader, manager, coach or in this case a fitness instructor.

It’s this simple, when I’m corrected in public I feel rebuked and when it’s done one-to-one I feel encouraged.

As part of my belief in Training Ugly and getting out of my comfort zone, I take a weekly TRX class at the local rec centre.  TRX stands for Total Resistance eXercise and it’s a suspension training system that relies entirely on your own body weight to provide resistance. It’s not easy to master and after a year of classes, it continues to challenge my limits each week.

Our instructor preaches form over speed and corrects posture and position as she walks through the room.  With music playing and many other bodies planking, pulling and squatting, sometimes that correction comes in a shout from across the room and sometimes it comes from 1 foot away.

It’s amazing how the correction from afar feels like stinging, personal criticism.  It’s the affect of the audience.  Most people are OK with an expert correcting us, but not OK with other people knowing our weaknesses.  Like the first tee in golf, we feel like everyone is watching and critiquing us.  They are not, of course, and are likely too focused on their own posture or position to be worried about the tall guy in the corner not lunging correctly.

While correction stings from long distance, from 1 foot it feels collaborative and inspirational.  Like we are working toward a common goal and the small correction is a missing piece.  Many of my personal “Aha” moments in the weekly TRX class are from the softly spoken comment, suggestion or correction. From one foot I am thinking about the message and not how it was delivered or perceived in the room.

The same applies for managers that are delivering feedback.

If you can create an environment where the receiver feels the information is being shared with collaborative intent for their benefit, it’s more likely the message will be understood and acted upon.

Even disciplinary meetings should be delivered in this way.  The higher the stakes for the individual on your team – and a meeting that could lead to termination is as high as it gets – the more important it is for the manager to create a safe and personal environment.  This gives you the best chance for the message and proposed corrective action to be heard and not get lost in the emotion that the person is feeling.

So move a little closer, don’t be shy.

Can You Manage Your Kids Like You Manage Your Team?

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A friend recently told me that she had called an all-hands meeting with her kids and was laying out a new incentive program to get them to engage more in their tasks around the house.  I wonder if that works?  If it did, I know it would be best seller material for every manager out there who is the master of their work domain but to whom the mix of teenagers, communication and chores remain a mystery.

Maybe they seem like a mystery, compared to your team at work, because you don’t spend 8 hours a day with them.

Taking our kids to the office on a regular basis might not be feasible, but can we apply the same basics of being a good manager to parenting and get better engaged kids as the end result?  Let’s see…

From my experience – two children aged 12 and 18 – being an engaged parent does not become an issue until middle school.  Babies, infants, and toddlers dominate our every waking and sleeping moment and as new parents, we cannot help but be overwhelmed by the newness of childraising and importance of keeping another human being alive and well.

Apply this Management Lesson:  During this period, like the start-up period for a new company that we are trying to keep alive and well, a one week vacation from our children every year from ages 2-5 can be a sanity, marriage, and life saver.

Related Post:  Vacation Days Are Not the Answer

Once in elementary school, parents still play a meaningful part in a child’s day. They are still young enough to need a ride or an accompanied walk to school.  The school itself still needs parents involved in classroom activities or field trips. There is plenty of time for interaction and for getting to know who your child is in their non-home environments.  You know their friends and the other parents and it can be a very social, happy time.

Apply this Management Lesson: This is a great period for you to focus on Know, Like and Trust with your kids. Pay attention to them as individuals.  Listen to what they have to say. Care about what they care about – even if it’s Justin Bieber.

Read More Posts Related to Know Like and Trust

Middle school is where your involvement in your child’s life and their development changes.  It’s summarized nicely by the Coaching Association of Canada:

Up until now, you’ve most likely been directly involved — helping your child learn movement skills, for example, or starting them out in a sport you enjoy. But in the Training to Train stage, your children are more independent, you’re less likely to do sports with them, and your role is more an advisory one. The focus from here on is on things you need to know as opposed to things you can do.

From middle school on, you are less directly involved in your kids lives.  They walk to school with friends or take the bus.  Teachers don’t want your help.  If they play sports, they are likely playing for a trained coach, not you and another parent.   They are going through puberty.  Their need for independence is high but their  confidence and motivation may be low.

Apply this Management Lesson: Move from a focus on Directing your child to Supporting them. The Situational Leadership II framework uses  words such as reassuring, appreciating and facilitating to describe how a manager works with a team member who is moderately competent, but not highly confident.

The ability to match your parenting/leadership style to the needs of your kids comes full circle with high school aged teenagers, who have the confidence and the competency in most walks of life but still rely on you for key resources.  Resources like money or a car or tuition for school.

Apply this Management Lesson:  Like a member of your team at work who has flourished under your leadership, it is now time to let them fly on their own.  Not by running their own project or leading their own team but by leaving home for university,  choosing a career or travelling in a foreign country without you.

Through it all, parenting and managing are both Service oriented roles that require a major commitment of our time and focus.  Like we challenge managers to spend at leats 50% of their time Managing, Not Doing at work – we should accept the same challenge at home, to spend at least 50% of our time Parenting, Not Doing.

I Got Promoted, Now I Feel Like an Imposter

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I’m new and so there are a lot of things that I don’t know.  I’ve just been promoted out of the rank and file into a supervisory position, so I must know what I am doing, and yet every day I feel like a fraud. Like they are going to find me out and send me back to the floor and take away my office.

I used to have a safety net in my job – it was my supervisor.  They could help me in a tight spot, connect me with the right person, suggest a course of action or pull in other resources to get the job done.  Now I am supposed to be that safety net and I am scared that the wire walkers on my team are going to hit the cement hard because I don’t know how to catch them.

This is a situation that many managers have experienced and there’s even a formal name for it – The Imposter Syndrome.  In some people, it can get so bad that despite years of external evidence of their success they still cannot internalize and take credit for their own accomplishments.  For managers, this leads to a constant feeling of unease with their boss and their team and creates pressure to “perform” in the way that got them the promotion.  It was my seniority in the company.  It was my charm.  It was affirmative action.  My dad is the boss’ best friend.  It was anything except their own experience, skills, and performance.  This self-deception only amplifies a managers feeling of being a phony and this circle of doubt could hang around their neck for years.

Fortunately for most managers, the Imposter feeling is entirely predictable and manageable.

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Predictable as it almost always appears a short time after they get recognized for their prior performance with a new position, project or team.  Not right away mind you.  In the early days of something new, a manager will be riding on the high of recognition, promotion, and bigger compensation.  They will be excited about the new challenge and like a new President, ready to make a difference in the first 90 days.

One of the most taught management training models in the world, Situational Leadership II, describes this manager as the Enthusiastic Beginner – low on competence and job knowledge but high on commitment.

SLII-Color-Model-Exp_inpr

The Developing or D1 manager in the chart above “doesn’t know what they don’t know” and it’s only when they “know what they don’t know” that the feeling of being an Imposter starts to enter the picture.  The D2 manager is the “Disillusioned Leader” who not only doubts their competence but doesn’t feel the same commitment to the job, company or position.

While the Imposter does show up among experienced managers making an upward move in the same company from one management job to another, it is far more prevalent in the following situations:

  • The first move from the shop floor or the accounts payable office or the sales territory or the developers den into a supervisor position.
  • Being a manager who defies demographics in a particular unit or company,  such as a woman in a tech company or a Millennial in a union shop.
  • A new executive recruited into a conservative company that typically recruits from within.

In each of these situations, the environment magnifies an already uneasy transition.  The new supervisor has 10 other developers wondering why they weren’t promoted.  The young manager in a union shop has an experienced staff that feels they have seen and done it all.  The outsider has to learn the culture of the new company and learn to manage at the same time.

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This Imposter phase can last a lot longer than any manager wants it to, but it’s as manageable as it is predictable.

A good manager takes on the Imposter within by being authentic to themselves and by serving the people they manage.

A good manager focuses on the basics  – working hard, being on time, listening, building relationships, and serving the team while they sort out the environment and knowledge they need to develop as a manager.  The team will understand that you are new and for awhile at least, will give you a break based on your newness, as long as you are taking care of their needs in a consistent and fair manner.

At the same time, a good manager also seeks out or creates a routine of personal affirmation to ward off the Imposter.  This can be done by using a daily affirmation journal where you list all the good moments in the day whether it’s people related or business related.  A reminder that your skills, ideas and leadership made a difference.  Ideally, it would also involve your boss, where every week you can outline the good and bad and they can provide the praise, encouragement and guidance that a new manager needs.

And part of that encouragement should be to continue to be the person you were before you got promoted – the authentic you.  Not an imposter.

Read more posts about Managing Not Doing or How a Mgr Finds a Friend.