Dear Founder,
Are you surprised when your team sometimes does things or behaves in ways that are diametrically opposed to what you believe or hope that they will do? When you see this, do you think that they should have known better since you’ve overtly communicated the expected behavior in such circumstances—maybe even several times?
When I was at eBay, I had a rock star executive who worked for me. She always got her deliverables done, but she left a lot of broken glass around her. She did things like having 1:1s at midnight, which was insensitive to people’s time and out of character for how we wanted to treat people. I addressed this time and time again with her. Since it never changed, I was worried that I wasn’t being overt enough. Apparently, in this case, I was. She said, “I hear you, I just choose to do things differently.” This eventually led to a parting of ways.
But other times, people aren’t making their own choice; they simply aren’t aware that their behavior isn’t in step with your expectations. I was at an offsite for one of my boards recently, and there was discussion centered on how their manager scores had dropped from year to year on the “best places to work” score. In researching why, the company discovered that although everyone thought that managers were doing the basics such as having 1:1s, holding staff meetings, and giving feedback, many managers had actually not been doing them. The reason? It had been assumed, but never overtly stated. No one told the managers they had to engage in these practices and do them effectively. Managers weren’t doing it simply because it hadn’t been conveyed to them that it was important. Upon realizing this, the company fixed it fast by stating the importance of these tools in everyone’s plan and making sure every manager understood it was a priority.
I’ve been guilty of making the same “assumption” mistake. Not long ago I received a complaint at WIN that we didn’t get back to a company with a response. I was surprised as this is totally out of phase with our values and how we want to treat people. Having said that, I had to take a step back. I realized that I hadn’t reiterated the importance of this behavior in a long time. I thought it was in muscle memory. But I learned I couldn’t rely on that. This situation reminded me of the importance of constantly reiterating the message. The mistake provided a good chance to refresh the team on the importance of this behavior in an overt manner and I’m confident it won’t happen again.
In a recent WIN dinner with Meg Whitman, she mentioned how she felt that when it comes to values, if you think you’re reciting them too much, it’s still probably not enough. Information gets lost in complex organizations, and as the founder, one of your roles is to ensure the core messages of what you’re doing, and what matters, are understood and echoed by everyone in your organization.
When behavior is at odds with expectations, do the following:
- Decide whether the expectations of behavior have been communicated clearly and recently. There is always a lot going on, and the most important things need periodic reinforcement.
- If communication hasn’t been done, now is a good time to start doing so. Approach this calmly and professionally.
- If communication has been done, figure out what’s causing the split between your desires and the actual behavior. Expectations may be unrealistic at times, but the behavior may have deviated from expectations either because the expectation wasn’t ingrained or because it was consciously disregarded.
When there’s a disconnect—regardless of the root cause—it’s still up to you to correct it. Own your part to ensure that communication will be done effectively and continuously. Take steps to make the expectations overt and hold people accountable.
Also, be realistic. Understand that you can’t make EVERYTHING matter. If you try to be overt on everything, you’ll pummel the team to death. Instead, decide what trumps what. Let everything else go, and be overt about what matters most.
All the best,
Maynard