The Business Sensei

Chasing the Ball

My son is eight years old. Like a lot of kids his age, he’s into baseball and plays in the kids’ Little League every spring. Watching a bunch of little kids playing baseball can be very entertaining. When someone on the other team scores a hit, most of the kids go chasing after the ball. When one of the kids finally catches up to it, they’ll usually throw it in the general direction of first base. Unfortunately, this is of limited use since the first baseman is usually part of the crowd that’s chasing the ball. That’s actually not a problem, however, since the two teams tend to pretty well matched in skills. In other words, having hit the ball, the runner might go the wrong direction, lap another runner, or forget to bear left at the base: he, and it is usually he, just keeps running in a straight line, sometimes into the game taking place on the next field over.

There are lessons to be learned from this. No, it’s not that the typical employee acts like an eight year old. Why would you think that?

What we can learn are some important lessons about workplace behavior. What we’re seeing with the kids is that they don’t really understand how baseball works. Sure, the rules were explained to them. As simple as they may seem to us today, to an eight year old, they are confusing. Perhaps more to the point, without context they are relatively meaningless. What does it mean to “round a base?” How about “steal a base and run home?” In one of my daughter’s favorite stories, Amelia Bedelia took that advice extremely literally: she gathered up each base and ran off the field and back home.

So how does this tie in to office behavior?

Structured goal setting is one of the most effective means of creating a productive work force. Despite this fact, it quite frequently fails to work. Goals are set but they are not successfully accomplished. The problem is one of context: just as the rules of baseball don’t initially make much sense to eight year olds because they lack sufficient context, so too do goals often lack context for newer employees, or on new projects, or when someone is on a new team, or when the team has a new manager. The more “new” in the mix, the greater the probability that the goals will be confusing. Moreover, most people won’t want to admit that they don’t really understand their goals. Indeed, the more the organization views asking for help as a sign of weakness, the less likely people will ask questions when their goals don’t make sense.  Even when the organization doesn’t have that little problem, it can still be difficult to get people to ask questions. Therefore, as a manager, you might have to have some questions prepared so that you can prime the metaphorical pump.

Another issue is recognizing something those kids do not: baseball is about playing your position. The second baseman doesn’t go running off randomly. He stays at second and waits for the ball to come to him, rather than running after the ball and slamming into the outfielder who is also trying to catch that ball. When that happens, rather than hitting a glove, the ball hits the ground. A big part of what makes a team member dependable is that they are where they should be when they should be there. When they are not, the system breaks down. We examples of that on both sides in the World Series. The Sox won in the end in large part because they were better at being where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.

Similarly, in an office, people need to know what they are supposed to be doing and, to a lesser extent, not doing. For example, in software development, it’s not uncommon for a problem in one part of the code to trigger an “all hands on deck” callout. Everyone is expected to help solve the problem, whether they have anything to do with that piece of the code or not. Sure, it can be tempting to call everyone out to solve the problem, but in reality the people who know that part of the system best are the ones you want to have working on it. Adding unnecessary people to the mix only risks a metaphorical collision and a dropped ball.

Unfortunately, if you reward people for chasing the ball instead of playing their position, pretty soon you’ll have an entire team that goes chasing after every ball. The net result is that no one will be in the right spot at the right time, and your team will waste a lot of time and energy. It will also generate a lot of headaches. It can be difficult to not respond to every ball that goes by, but sometimes that’s what it takes.

In the end, baseball is about learning the context in which the rules and goals make sense and playing your position. The office is really not all that different.

The Difference Between Leaders and Managers? Less Than You Think!

This article originally appeared in Corp! Magazine.

The world is full of classic face-offs:

Red Sox vs. Yankees

King Kong vs. Godzilla

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla

Dracula vs. Frankenstein

Kirk vs. Picard

They’re all pikers! Nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the big one: Leaders vs. Managers. As important as any of these other matchups might be in some circles, none of them have ever generated the sheer volume, passion, and press as the eternal debate over the difference between leaders and managers. Classic arguments in the leader vs. manager debate include such pearls of wisdom as, “Managers take you safely along the map, leaders take you off the map;” Peter Drucker’s classic, “Managers do what’s right, leader’s do the right thing;” and so on.

If there is a fairly consistent theme in the leader vs. manager debate it’s that leaders are somehow innately superior to the poor manager. Managers are relegated to the role of also-ran or minor functionary. While I hate to disagree with Drucker, not only is this unfair to managers, it’s also inaccurate.

The fact is no one can single-handedly lead a large organization. A skilled, charismatic leader might be able to individually lead 10 or twenty people, although even that is probably pushing it. By the time your organization is up to 100, 1000, or 10,000 members, it’s too big for one person. There are too many moving parts, too many specialized groups. Each of those groups needs to know how they fit into the overall mission and strategy of the organization; how does the corporate mission apply to them and why are they important? Let’s face it, groups and individuals who are seen as not important to the success of the organization don’t stick around. Either they get fired because they aren’t producing or they leave because they don’t feel connected and involved.

That overall leader needs lieutenants, essentially “sub leaders,” whose job it is to communicate the leader’s vision to their individual groups. Those lieutenants, better known as managers, are the conduits through which the overall vision and strategy is brought home to individuals and small groups. It is up to them to provide the underlying support that enables the CEO to lead. The CEO of a company can speak in terms of broad and exciting visions, but the managers need to make it specific to each individual team member, and then enable each team member to contribute to the vision.

By individualizing the vision, managers enable individuals to contribute to the vision and help bring it to life. The best managers recognize that one of the most important things they can do is bring out the best in each person, hone their strengths so that they can become enthusiastic contributors to the organization; they don’t try to put in what isn’t there. The CEO is too far removed from the individual team members to see each person’s strengths and weaknesses and figure out how to make the best use of them. The individual managers, on the other hand, are perfectly positioned to do that. Just as the overall leader of an organization must identify and build the strengths of the business, so the leader of each team must help each individual develop his or her own individual strengths. Just as the CEO must weave together the differing strengths of each part of the organization into a cohesive whole, the manager must weave together the differing strengths of each individual team member to produce a high performance team. Mediocre managers focus on “fixing” weaknesses; great managers focus on building strengths. It’s not an easy task, however, which is why so many managers, and CEOs, fail to do it.

So what then is the real difference between leaders and managers? It comes down to scope: While the leader may set the overall vision and direction for the organization, the managers then bring it to life within their particular areas. People who cannot do that should not be managers… or leaders. In the end, managers and leaders really are not all that different!

Organizational Psychology for Managers is phenomenal. Just as his talks at conferences are captivating to his audience, Steve’s book will captivate his readers. In my opinion, this book should be required reading in MBA programs, military leadership courses, and needs to be on the bookshelf of every Fortune 1000 VP of Human Resources. Steve Balzac is the 21^st century’s Tom Peters.

Stephen R Guendert, PhD

CMG Director of Publications

Stephen Balzac is an expert on leadership and organizational development. A consultant, author, and professional speaker, he is president of 7 Steps Ahead, an organizational development firm focused on helping businesses get unstuck. Steve is the author of “The 36-Hour Course in Organizational Development,” published by McGraw-Hill, and a contributing author to volume one of “Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values Through Play.” Steve’s latest book, “Organizational Psychology for Managers,” is due out from Springer in late 2013. For more information, or to sign up for Steve’s monthly newsletter, visit www.7stepsahead.com. You can also contact Steve at 978-298-5189 or steve@7stepsahead.com.