“How do you see morale on the team right now?” Paul asked.
“It’s not where I want it to be, but that is to be expected in the middle of a transition. That’s why I’ve already started a recognition program to thank employees for reaching major milestones. I take the supplier leads out to lunch when they reach a level of quality that I’ve publicized to everyone. As a manager, my style is to push hard to accomplish our team objectives but to then recognize people when they succeed. Too many leaders just push people to get the work done but forget to say thank you, and any time you are trying to promote a change, it’s important to celebrate the small wins,” Jared said. “You asked me to think of specific examples of where misunderstanding could have occurred. I think my first attempt at recognition may have rubbed some people the wrong way, but when other team members reach their milestones, I will recognize them, too. It will take time for everyone to buy in to the change.”
“Tell me about team meetings and how you interact with the team,” Paul inquired.
“I think our team meetings are very productive. It’s a light atmosphere, we joke around, and yet we also get the work done. I have regular one-on-one meetings each week with each member of the team, and these are really their time to bring up personal concerns, get career advice or coaching, or get feedback. I’m a strong believer in constructive feedback and coaching. A manager should praise in public and critique in private, so if I have direct feedback about an area that is an opportunity for improvement for someone on the team, I will wait to tell them that in a private setting,” Jared explained. “I also try to coach employees as much as I can. I want them to know that they are in charge of their own careers, and I can help them grow their skills and experience so when they are ready to tackle the next challenge in their careers, they can set themselves apart.”
“I have heard from Tom about some of the feedback the team has had, but I’d like to hear your perspective on that as well. Can you share with me what you have heard and what you think needs to be done?” Paul asked.
“Some of the complaints are about the workload and how strapped people are for time. I get that. I’m not entirely going to apologize for trying to push the team a little, but I also work hard to find additional resources when I can. So when someone is having trouble on a project, I try to create an environment where people want to help each other out. A great example of that comes from a recent meeting with Beth. She was struggling with her workload, so I asked other team members to jump in. Collaboration across a team is one of the most important factors in a team’s success, and I believe that we succeed as a team or fail as a team,” Jared said.
“Have you taken any action so far?” Paul asked.
“Yes. One comment Tom shared was that people felt like I was not recognizing the fact that they were skilled professionals. Recently I wanted to commend a real superstar on the team, Nadia. She had done an exceptional supplier review that caught a number of errors that would have been very upsetting to our customers. I sent a note to the team to showcase Nadia’s work so that everyone would know of the importance of conducting high-quality reviews and how thorough she was,” Jared noted.
“What needs to be done, in your view?” Paul concluded.
“I am at a loss. But I will commit to listening to every piece of feedback that I need to hear, and to doing what is needed,” Jared said firmly. “I have no doubt that we all probably need to take action, and I want everyone to know that they can give me any direct feedback that they want. No one but Tom has mentioned anything to me directly, so I hope you can help.”
“I’m going to talk to the team next, and then I will be better prepared to share specific thoughts with you about our next steps,” Paul said.
Excerpts From Meetings With Jared’s Team
“You wanted a specific example, so I found one that illustrates a common scenario,” Beth explained. “I’m sure he’s told you about the initiatives that he assigned us to. Well, we have weekly project reviews to share our progress on each initiative. I’m one of the team leads for Supplier Quality, but I also have six suppliers of my own to manage on a regular basis outside of the initiative. Last week we had an initiative review with Jared, but there honestly wasn’t much to share. One of my suppliers had a huge problem that required me to spend the entire week sorting out why they were not able to get us enough products in time for us to make our customer shipments. Customers have to be our top priority. I had no time to spend on the initiative since I was prioritizing my time on the supplier problem. So in this week’s review, I told Jared that we didn’t make as much progress as I would have liked. His first response was, ‘What have you been doing all week? I wish I had that much free time,’ and then immediately sent an e-mail to the entire team that read, ‘Beth obviously needs help on her project since she was unable to make any progress this week. Please volunteer to help her immediately.’ There was no recognition that I was doing other critical work, and it was offensive to point me out in front of my peers like that.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard about our first employee meeting with Jared,” Luke pointed out. “He told us how he looks at employee performance. He told us, ‘You need to set yourself apart from the others if you want to succeed around here.’ That’s a direct quote. Then he took a few people out to lunch when we had all helped them succeed, so we quickly learned that it wasn’t worth helping out our peers. It’s hard to get a raise or a promotion in this company, so everybody has started competing with each other a little. You have to be on Jared’s good side. If you’re one of his favorites, it is clear that you’ll be taken care of.”
“You asked me if I have ever given Jared direct feedback,” Mia said. “The answer is yes. Let me tell you how that went. I lead the team initiative on reporting where we are trying to organize a standard set of supplier reports so everyone has access to accurate data on a weekly basis. In one of our meetings, Jared said that he wanted to have a dashboard display different data than what we were planning. In fact, he was proposing changing the standard calculations that we have used for years. What he was proposing didn’t make any sense, and no one spoke up. In my next one on one with him, he asked me if I had any feedback for him about how the project was going, so I told him. I said that his calculations could cause us a lot of problems. He immediately got defensive and told me that he was in charge and that if I didn’t like that I could find a job somewhere else. I learned that whatever Jared says is the right answer. It’s just not worth it to argue with him.”
“Our team meetings? I would say that they are like going to the principal’s office,” Nick said. “Initially we just acted like we did with Brad. Everyone spoke up, and we had free-flowing discussions. But then Jared started getting really serious. He brought charts showing how poorly we were performing as a team, and he started calling out certain people by name who he felt weren’t performing up to his expectations. A bunch of us think that is ironic considering how we are more productive as a team than we have ever been. It just got really negative, and we all feel like we’re a bunch of losers who can’t get anything done. Now we just all stare down at our papers and take notes.”
“I’ll tell you what happens when we try to be resourceful and innovative,” Olivia said. “I am on the initiative team that is redesigning our new product supplier process. Basically this is how we start to work with new suppliers for our newest products. Our team had the idea to start participating in some of the marketing product meetings so that we would have advance notice of any new work coming to our group. If we had one person responsible for monitoring new products, we could get ahead of the curve and plan our work more accurately. We went to the head of marketing and got invited to the next meeting. At the meeting, everyone was really enthusiastic about this partnership and we all agreed it would be a huge time saver for everyone. Well, I was really proud of what we had done, and I made the mistake of telling Jared about this hugely successful