Fred Schindler
IMAGE LICENSED BY INGRAM PUBLISHING
I recently became a grandfather. My new grandchild is indisputably the most adorable being to ever grace the Earth. My friends and colleagues have been subjected to plenty of photographic evidence of my cute grandchild. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve then had to admire, or pretend to admire, photos of their children or grandchildren. While their progeny have generally been quite adorable, they haven’t quite measured up to my new grandchild. It’s a bit of a disappointment that they don’t universally agree with my assessment. I’ve had a bit more luck showing my photos to acquaintances who don’t have children or grandchildren of their own.
Managing a staff or a team has a parallel. In this case, it’s not a matter of how adorable the group is, or it shouldn’t be. It’s a question of how skilled they are. I’ve managed quite a few groups and teams over my career. I’ve managed organizations that included multiple groups and teams.
I’ve never met a manager, myself included, who thought their group was below average. I’m sure such managers exist, just as there will be the occasional individual who will admit that my grandchild is cuter than theirs. Anyone who has led a group of people can identify some individuals who are less qualified or underperformers. But these are outliers, and the role of a manager is to help them improve—or to replace them with more effective contributors.
It obviously isn’t possible for every group in an organization to be above average. It’s possible for some groups to be composed of above-average performers, but then, there must also be groups that perform below average. The manager of the overall organization may recognize this, but the leaders of the individual groups rarely do.
This is in part human nature. We tend to have an affinity for those whom we are closely associated with. But there is also a leadership dimension. It is rare that we find an individual who has exceptional skills and characteristics in every relevant dimension. Most of us are more capable in some areas than others. It is up to a leader to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each member of the team and then have them work on tasks that best align with their strengths.
I recall an engineer who had been a recent new hire. He didn’t have much prior experience, so I assigned him to a derivative product development—taking an existing design, porting it to a new process, and adding a couple of features. He dove right in and did an analysis of the existing product, finding what he considered fundamental flaws. The project manager rebuffed him. The flaw wasn’t an issue for our key customers, the product sold well, and we were at risk of running out of inventory before the replacement product was available. The project manager insisted that he ignore the flaw and finish the project.
Instead of doing that, the engineer escalated and enlightened anyone who would listen to him about the flaw. I had a discussion with him to let him know that if he didn’t finish this project quickly, I would have to assign it to someone else. He reluctantly did. I had similar incidents with him over the next couple of years, and we eventually put him on an improvement plan—if he didn’t improve his job performance, he would be dismissed.
I wish I could take credit for what happened next. I assigned him to an innovative product design where he would work with a very experienced engineer. I was worried about this assignment, given his history. Instead, he flourished. The project suited his mentality. He still questioned everything. The experienced engineer served as a mentor, discussing his concerns, and interesting innovations resulted. It was a successful product, and the engineer made important contributions to its success.
Innovative work suited him well. It matched his strengths. He had a good set of skills, but we hadn’t seen them in his earlier work. With the right assignments, his abilities were apparent. He went from a below-average to an above-average engineer, and it wasn’t because he had changed.
I’ve seen plenty of examples of engineers who were much better at one type of assignment than others. Aren’t we all better at some things than others? Yes, there are a few people who seem to have a broader and deeper set of skills—above-average performers on a wide range of tasks. But for most of us, we are only above-average performers on a limited set of tasks.
So, the trick with a group of employees is to find what work best exploits their knowledge, experience, aptitude, and mindset. In that way, the group of average workers should perform above average. Take a look at your organization. Is everyone being used for their best? Can your group perform better than mine?
What about our children or grandchildren and their strengths? My grandchild is especially skilled at filling his tummy and his diaper. That seems like a standard skill set for his age group, so perhaps he’s not a standout. But he’s definitely the most adorable.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2023.3264343