Are You in Leadership Gridlock?

Another recurring theme in Chief Executive Boards International meetings is the difficulty of developing successors and subordinate leaders.


In working with mid-sized businesses over the long term, it's not uncommon to see a syndrome I call "leadership gridlock". This generally happens over a long period of either flat sales or moderate (single-digit %) growth. Symptoms include:

• You have some senior or middle managers below the CEO or owner


• They've been there a long time


• They've succeeded mostly through hard work, knowing the business, and tenacity


• They're undereducated -- they don't have the educational background you'd now require if hiring a new person


• They're doing OK


• They're pretty much "maxed out" as far as performance is concerned


• They're unpromotable -- they don't have the horsepower to take the next step up the organizational chart


• They're not developing their own subordinates as replacements for themselves
  

The toughest part of this situation is that they're actually doing OK -- they're not failing, they're not doing badly, they're just not promotable. And you don't have a good reason to do anything about them.

Or do you? Here's the gridlock part. If you ever want to step away from the day-to-day operation of the business, you're going to need a successor to manage some or most of these managers who are your direct reports (let's call them "senior managers"). Yet none of them are candidates -- you know that. You don't have a need for another Senior Manager (at least not yet), so you don't see it as practical to add a new person at that level.

And you may be in the same position with respect to their subordinates -- the managers or supervisors that report to them. That 's the second half of the syndrome. "Just OK" managers are typically consumed with keeping their own heads above water -- they have neither the time nor the talent to stretch themselves to bring someone else along.

See the "gridlock" part? You've backed yourself into a position of having zero degrees of freedom -- the "just ok" senior managers are, by their very existence on the organizational chart, blocking the promotability of junior managers or supervisors who report to them. So you can't promote anybody. You can't develop anybody. Worse yet, everyone sees that, which actually drives away people of ambition, promise and talent further down the organizational chart. They see the gridlock of non-promotables ahead of themselves and decide to go elsewhere, rather than try to bull their way up through the organization.

I've used the word "gridlock". The obvious metaphor is a large city traffic jam with cars stuck across several adjacent intersections. Nobody can move because nobody can move.

Another metaphor for this condition is that little 4 by 4 puzzle game we used to play in the back seat of the car (my age showing here). I'm sure there's an electronic version, but once upon a time it was a field of little plastic chicklets that you manipulated through the one open square in the 4x4 matrix, until you got all the 15 numbers arranged in order. The key to that game is the open square. Take that away, and the game is unplayable.

The end game of a gridlocked organization isn't pretty. You probably can't grow it, since the key players are already operating at capacity. You can't exit it, either, because you know there isn't anybody in line to succeed you. And what if you suddenly became ill or had an accident that prevented you from running it yourself? Would the business, in fact, survive that situation?

So, what can you do if you find yourself in "leadership gridlock"? First, you must redefine the problem. The problem is breaking up the gridlock, rather than running the company "as is". You have to create an open square. Probably by juggling the organizational chart to make room for someone else. Sometimes this necessitates dropping someone back a level -- perhaps putting a struggling manager back into whatever he was really good at that got him promoted in the first place.

Secondly, you'll have to bite a bullet or two. You have to either replace one of the current players or add a player, dividing up some of the current responsibilities to make a place for him. Granted, adding a manager you don't think you need will be a hit to the profit statement. Perhaps you can teach yourself to look at that as an investment, rather than an expense. And then you have to go find that person, probably engaging some help to do a thorough search for the right player. And then you have to make sure that the existing mediocre players don't convince the new player to slow down to their pace (see: Parable of the Monkeys -- The Persistence of Organizational Culture ).

You don't really have an option -- leadership gridlock is a slow, painful death by a thousand cuts. If this describes your situation, you won't like the result of inaction.

If you find yourself (or have found yourself in the past) in leadership gridlock, click on "Comment" below and let us know how you solved (or are solving) that problem.

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Terry Weaver


CEO
Chief Executive Boards International
http://www.chiefexecutiveboards.com/
TerryWeaver@ChiefExecutiveBoards.com
864 527-5917

Parable of the Monkeys -- The Persistence of Organizational Culture

Do you have a "problem group" of employees? A department, a team, a division that just doesn't conform to the cultural values you're promoting? At a recent Chief Executive Boards International meeting, a member described a small group of employees that had a history of discontent, attitude issues and a general lack of teamwork.

This situation reminded me of the parable of the monkeys -- told first to me by a member of the Chicago CEBI Board. It happened that there were three monkeys in a cage. Suspended at the top if the cage was a bunch of bananas. There was a ladder from the floor of the cage up to the bananas. One of the monkeys who was both clever and agile and also liked bananas, decided to head up the ladder to grab a banana.

Imagine his surprise (not to mention that of the other two monkeys) when suddenly a fire hose washed down the cage, blasting all three monkeys over to one side. Cold and shivering, the 3 monkeys regrouped and thought about what had happened.

Monkeys don't have a real long memory, and after awhile a second monkey thought again about the bananas and headed up the ladder. Same thing -- a fire hose washed all three monkeys over to the side of the cage. They picked themselves up, shook themselves off, and hoped the sun would come out to warm them up.

After another couple of hours, the third monkey couldn't resist, and he went for it. Sure enough, same result -- fire hose, wet monkeys, and another miserable afternoon of drying out.

Finally, all three monkeys became convinced that going for the bananas was a bad idea, and went on with the rest of their lives.

Then the zookeeper drafted one of the monkeys for another exhibit and replaced him with a new monkey. The new monkey arrived, looked up at the bananas, looked over at the ladder and couldn't figure out why the other monkeys hadn't gone for the bananas. He headed for the ladder and got about 1 rung up when the remaining "experienced" monkeys tackled him, dragged him to the floor and pummeled him into submission. He quickly concluded that climbing the ladder wasn't a good idea.

A week later, the zookeeper replaced the second monkey. Monkeys are somewhat single-minded. The new monkey spied the bananas, headed for the ladder, and the remaining two monkeys tackled him and pummeled him into submission.

Finally the third monkey was replaced and, you guessed it, the same thing happened. So life went on among the monkeys and after some time the first of the "new" monkeys was replaced with yet another monkey. Sure enough, the new guy saw the bananas, went for the ladder, and his two peers tackled him and beat him into submission.

Why was that? None of these monkeys knew anything about the fire hose. None of them had ever gotten wet for having climbed the ladder in the quest for bananas. Yet the monkeys had been fully culturalized to know that it was a bad idea. And you could likely go on individually replacing monkeys one at a time forever, and expect the same result.

The only solution to this problem, if it is one, is to replace all the monkeys with those who don't know the existing culture.

Think about it -- isn't organizational culture really a hand-me-down process? New employees come in and are quickly assimilated into the dominant system of beliefs, values and ideals. If those match yours, it's great. If they don't, it's tough to change, and your wishes or hopes won't get you there.

What ideas, assumptions and values are inadvertently communicated to people new to your organization that you'd prefer weren't? What would you have to do to intervene? Replace all the monkeys? Or something equally aggressive to disrupt the status quo? Click "comment" below and let us know your experiences in overcoming persistent organizational culture.


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Terry Weaver


CEO
Chief Executive Boards International
http://www.chiefexecutiveboards.com/
TerryWeaver@ChiefExecutiveBoards.com
864 527-5917

Do You Have Too Many Direct Reports? -- Six Questions to Consider

This is a topic that came up in a recent Chief Executive Boards International meeting. A member said he was just "burned out" by the continuing pressure of "fire fighting" and "having to do everything myself". He said he had trouble "holding managers accountable" and getting his key managers to do handle their responsibilities themselves, rather than delegating them upward to him.

When asked "How many people do you have reporting directly to you?", he answered "Ten". Bingo. Few, if any, managers can manage ten people -- let alone more. And if, in fact, you can manage ten people, what will you do when the company reaches twice its current size -- manage twenty people? If you're having trouble growing your company or seeing too many things falling through the cracks, have a look at the span of control at each layer within your company.

Span of control (how many people report to a given manager or supervisor) varies, inversely with the complexity of the job being supervised. See a great Wikipedia article on this topic here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Span_of_control.

In short, the more diverse (less homogeneous) the functions managed, the fewer people most managers can manage. At the top tier of a mid-sized company, that number should be no more than five or six. Functions like Sales, Finance, Marketing, Operations, HR, etc. are highly diverse -- being a CEO and looking after 8 or 10 such functional managers is a job Superman wouldn't sign up for.

On the other hand, as the jobs being supervised become more homogeneous, such as a group of delivery drivers, machine operators, etc., a span of 10 or 20 is not beyond imagination. The work is routine, the exceptions few, and the "face time" between the supervisor and the work is minimal.

What happened to this CEBI member was that he was trying to manage ten managers, each with substantially different responsibilities -- a span of control beyond most CEOs' abilities & energy levels. This super-human effort caused him to be unable to spend enough "face time" with each to define expectations, and as a result their accountability slipped. To solve that problem, our member found himself fighting fires -- reaching around his managers, making diving catches of things falling through the cracks. A downward spiral, resulting in his feelings of burnout and overload.

He's presently reassessing his organization, considering breaking it up into three or four smaller units, managed by his three or four most capable managers. This strategy repositions him to grow, as well. It's easy to imagine extending this structure to handle double the amount of business by adding 1 or 2 additional managers at the top level and still maintaining a reasonable span of control for himself.

As a quick "check up" on your own organizational chart, look for situations where spans of control exceed six. Are those situations working, and are they explainable, perhaps because those supervisors are managing highly homoegenous jobs? Or is there, in fact, a "superhuman" manager (perhaps yourself) in a position where he's become irreplaceable? Would it be better to break that job into parts that a couple of "ordinary" managers could handle?

Here's a checklist you can use:

1. Is it really clear to each person in my company who they report to?


2. Is it really clear to each person in my company what their direct manager/supervisor expects?


3. Where do I have more than 5 people reporting to a single manager or supervisor?


4. Could he handle twice as many? If not, it's a growth bottleneck that will soon need a second manager to share the load.


5. Do I have more than 5 people reporting to me? If so, what would happen if our business doubled? What do I need to do to plan for that and build my management team's capacity?


6. Do I do lots of fire fighting myself -- catching things "falling through the cracks"? Do I have enough time to hold my key managers accountable, instead of myself?

An always-useful organizational design question is "What would the organizational chart need to look like if our business doubled"? Putting the question this way makes "we'll work harder" an unlikely answer. Yet, if you ask "what would happen if our business increased at 15% per year?", "we'll work harder" is a more-than common answer. At that rate, a business doubles in only 5 years, and generally overwhelms a management team that hasn't planned for it. It takes awhile to grow and develop a management team, and running them at their maximum span of control is a subtle, yet inevitable limitation to growing the business.

Take a hard look at the way your organization is structured and at spans of control at each level. You may discover one of the things that's getting in the way of your growth and perhaps also getting in the way of your own satisfaction with the way the organization works.

These kinds of ideas surface at every meeting of Chief Executive Boards International. If you have an interest in ideas that will accelerate your business and provide you more fulfillment, more wealth and more time to enjoy it, contact me at: terryweaver@chiefexecutiveboards.com

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Terry Weaver

CEO
Chief Executive Boards International
http://www.chiefexecutiveboards.com/
TerryWeaver@ChiefExecutiveBoards.com
864 527-5917