a mistaken quality

Mistake happen, we know this is a given.

As we have discussed before there is a value in anticipating the fact that mistakes will happen. This allows us to think about how we will recover. And this is important to excellence in execution. But there is another part of mistakes that we need to observe that is vital to our improvement

And that is to look at the quality of our mistake. There will be mistakes and we will learn from them. We need to review not only if we missed the target, but by how much? In sports the professionals are not the ones who never make mistakes but those who make mistakes that they can recover from much easier. The measure of a great performer is not only the quality of their successes but the quality of the mistakes. Call it a margin of error, or in sports terms a “good miss”; but no matter what you call it the key idea is to really observe your mistakes and see if they are getting better. This is the measure of a champion and this kind of observation is a champion’s skill.

So next time you make a mistake (and odds are I will make one before you!) take the time to acknowledge

1) that it happened
2) why it happened
3) how far off target were we

So the next time we make a similar mistake (and yes that will happen too!) we will look over everything again and see how much we are improving. If we can see improvement even when we have erred than you know that real change is happening. When our margins of error decrease we know that we are improving quality at every level. It is a wonderful lesson and learning moment if we are tuned in to observe it.

No one is perfect and no mistake is a total loss. We must train ourselves to take the opportunity from every challenge and the success from every mistake.

Drive vs. Driven

The other day someone asked me a question about management. I drew them a picture similar to the one above. As leaders we often think of ourselves as the main gear that does much of the work. In mechanical terms that larger gear (the one to the right) is called the “driven gear” and it does in fact directly generate the force that gets the mechanical work done. The smaller gear to the left is called the “drive gear” and it is that gear that allows the larger gear to work. Its placement and size dictate the effort and output of the larger “driven gear”. And of course the “drive gear” represents what management is all about.

When you look at your work over the next few days make sure you are asking yourself this, “is this something I should be directly doing, or making sure that it happens through my team?”. I would even suggest take one thing that you regularly do yourself, and see what happens if you put that work out to your team to do as opposed to yourself. It is a good exercise of delegation and follow-up; and key to the idea of helping work happen as opposed to doing the work. Often we talk about management as the practice of “almost doing the work” and this is a great exercise to practice that idea. So take one task that you handle directly and see if you can move it from the "doing the work” column to the “almost doing the work” column this week.

Our feedback and behavior dictates the effort and output of our team much like the “drive gear” does to the “driven gear”. The larger gear has the strength to get the work done, but it needs the direction and structure of the smaller gear to make it happen. The more you can be the “drive gear” the better your management and your team will be.

Micro-Managing

This week I just wanted to share a point that has come up in discussion a couple of times this week. People have used the phrase “I do not want to be a micro-manager”.

No one who is fully engaged and giving it their all at a job has ever complained about being “micro-managed”. Think back to your life (whether you were managing or being managed) and remember when people (including ourselves) have used the phrase. It almost never (if ever) refers to a manager who is telling an individual which hand they should hold the screw driver in or how to hold a pencil. It almost always involves someone coming back and checking on work assigned.

The person who gets antsy about this is not the person who is doing great and knocking it out of the park. The people who use this line (and I have been one in the past) are people who know they are not where they need to be and do not want to be caught in that situation. I know that is where I have always been when I griped about being “micro-managed”. When I am on top of my work and doing great stuff it never matters who comes by to check me out, the attitude is always “come on! Let me show you where we are!”. Same manager, same follow up, but a different performer has a completely different response. We should remember that as we lead our team.

Following up on work assigned regularly is not “micro-managing”, checking someone’s progress in the middle of a project or task is not “micro-managing”, in fact most things we call (or have been called out for) “micro-managing” is not “micro-managing”. Simply put, most actions people call “micro-managing” have a much more common name… managing.

Something to think about the next time we hear or think about that phrase.