Listen for warning bells as tasks progress

The following is based on one of The Covenant Group’s clients. All of the names and telling details have been changed.

Robin’s financials showed that significant growth in life and disability insurance masked an alarming reality. Isolated, the investment line revealed an erratic curve: respectable in a couple of months, but low most everywhere else, and trending lower in the last couple of months. Robin immediately called Jamie, her investments specialist, into her office.

“Your investment numbers are atrocious.”

Jamie recoiled at the shock of Robin’s temper.

“Well, what’s your excuse? I hired you to increase our investment side, not whittle it away.”

“I’m working on a number of things, but they probably won’t come through for a month or so.”

“Like what?”

“Well, the Landers case. It’s taking a while—”

“Landers! I don’t want you working on Landers. That’s not the type of business I’m looking for. What about Peterson? Johnson? Warren?”

“Peterson and Johnson are in the middle of a merger, and they’ve been hard to get a hold of—”

“I don’t want excuses, I want results.”

Later in the day, Robin apologized profusely to Jamie for snapping at him, but she was still deeply concerned about the business and not sure how to solve her problem. That’s when she called in our VP Organization Effectiveness, Herb Koplowitz.

When Robin met with Herb later in the week, Robin explained, “Jamie had agreed to increase our investments under management by 30% this fiscal year. With only a couple of months to go, I find out he’s nowhere near that figure. I think I did the wrong thing giving up control of my business to my specialists. I feel frustrated and extremely vulnerable.”

Herb knew that Robin’s handling of Jamie betrayed deeper problems in the business. He’d get to that, but for now, he needed to probe on the matter at hand.

“First of all,” Herb began, “let’s not forget that putting the life and disability side of your business in the hands of specialists has significantly grown your business. But with Jamie, I can sympathize with your frustration. However, there’s no reason you should feel out of control. As a manager, you need to be in control. Applying best practices of management will enable you to take control. In fact, one of those practices will solve the problem you’re facing right now with Jamie. But before we go there, we need to confirm that we’ve got a problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you asked Jamie to increase investments this fiscal year by 30%. That’s a year-long task, and the year’s not over, so theoretically Jamie could still reach his target.”

“Jamie knows he’s not going to reach his target.”

“But do you believe it? Sometimes employees panic. They see disaster looming when things are fine. You may have experiences that Jamie hasn’t that tell you things will turn around. Or you may be able to coach him through to reaching the target.”

“Even with the so-called deals Jamie’s working on, there’s no way. Those are the wrong deals anyway.”

“Okay, before we go there, let’s accept the conclusion that Jamie won’t complete his task.”

“So what do I do now?”

“Simple. Reassign the task.”

“I don’t want to reassign the task. I want it done. Jamie agreed to the task, and my goals for the agency depend on his reaching his target.”

“Yes,” agreed Herb, “he did agree to that target, but you yourself just said he won’t reach the target. Do you gain anything by pretending he will?”

“So how do I reassign the task?”

“You could reassign the task to the dustbin. Or you could change the parameters of the task and reassign it to Jamie or to someone else. The parameters of the task are quantity, quality, time and resources. You can change any one of those or all of those. For example, you could extend the timeline; you could ask for a 30% increase by the end of next year’s first quarter, instead of fiscal yearend. Or you might add resources to the task, get someone to help Jamie with the investments, and still try to reach the original deadline.

“The way to reassign the task is to examine what went wrong. A number of things could explain why Jamie’s behind. Our environment is always changing. A task that seems reasonable today could, in a week, be impossible to reach or ridiculously easy. Unexpected obstacles can always occur – new competitors, good clients going bankrupt, good suppliers suddenly producing lower quality work. You can’t program a computer to handle the unforeseen, so we need people to do the work of overcoming obstacles. If the environment isn’t the issue, maybe it’s Jamie. Maybe Jamie isn’t right for the job, or maybe he’s right for the job, but not right now and needs coaching to bring him up to the level you need. Jamie says there are reasons for his poor results. Let me ask you this, given what you pay him, is it fair for you to expect him to have been able to overcome those obstacles?”

“The big problem is Jamie’s going after the wrong clients. He’s chasing Landers, but Landers is small time. I want him going after bigger business, better business. But he’s reluctant to do it. He’s not comfortable in the higher end market.”

“Do you think Jamie’s not cut out for the high-end market, or do you think he could get there with some coaching?”

“Jamie lacks experience, but I still believe in him — I wouldn’t have hired him if I didn’t. I think with coaching, he could do it.”

“I think we’re getting somewhere, but there’s one thing I want to address before we move forward. By the time you noticed there was a problem with Jamie, you were quite far along.”

“I should have looked at the numbers earlier, but I was too busy. I regret that.”

“That might have helped, but what I’m talking about is creating an environment where your employees come to you at the first sign of trouble. Let me ask you, how would you have reacted if Jamie had come into your office two months ago and told you that he was not going to produce the results you expected?”

“I would have been angry at him.”

“If in future you don’t want to be surprised again, you’ll have to change that behaviour. You’ll have to thank him for bringing you the warning.”

Robin nodded.

“Okay, so what would you like to do with Jamie’s task?”

“Actually, I’d like to still try to reach the target on time, but with more resources for Jamie. I’ll coach him, and I’d like Jamie to use Chris, our disability specialist as a resource. Chris has lots of experience in the high-end market.”

Over the next couple of months, Robin worked closely with Jamie, coaching him on how to approach and deal with high-end business clients, helping him develop proposals and solutions and even joining him on appointments. With Robin’s help, they were able to close a few big deals before the fiscal yearend. At the end of the year, investments increased 23%. Close enough for Robin, and certainly far better than a decrease of 20 or 25%, which is what Robin figured would have happened without the task reassignment.

Lessons Learned

A number of factors can affect the outcome of a task. Sometimes the factors are external and out of your control; others are internal and completely within your control. As the manager of your business, you need to constantly be on the alert for tasks that are going astray so that you can reassign them and ultimately reposition your company to achieve your vision. Part of the trick is simply creating an environment where your employees feel they can come to you as soon as things get difficult. This gives you the best lead-time for dealing with a problem. Your next step is to diagnose what went wrong. Knowing what went wrong helps you find the best solution. In Robin’s case, though she understood external issues affected Jamie’s task, she knew that Jamie was out of his element. Robin felt that Jamie could ultimately do the job, but not on his own. She offered herself as coach and Chris as a resource. Thus, Robin reassigned the task, changing the resources available. Reassigning the task gave Robin the best chance of meeting the company targets and achieving the vision for her business.

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