Calibrate Your managers

By Going Deep (see last week) you’ll learn more about a specific project and make a more informed decision. That’s important: but not as important as using the process to Calibrate your Managers. You will gain invaluable insights on your managers to use in The Personnel Matrix (published in March, and graphically displayed to the left).

As you travel down the decision chain in the organization, you can assess the inputs, observation skills, biases, hidden agendas and conclusions each of your managers employed on this specific project. You will gain firsthand knowledge on what questions were asked, how each processed the inputs, how each analyzed gathered information, and whether their recommendation and decisions processes were valid. Did he provide exacting due diligence? Did she accurately report findings regardless of whether they were negative or positive? Did his biases or desires show up in the analysis? Were the organization’s best interests paramount? You’ll find stuff fairly or significantly different than what was presented. It should be relatively easy to determine whether the variance was (a): simply a varying point of view or a difference caused by new information that developed after the project was presented, (b) sloppy or haphazard analysis from laziness or lack of training, or (c) a conscious decision to make the project come out his or her way potentially in conflict with the organization's best interests. 

Now you can, in a highly informed way, answer these two questions that will feed into, and achieve clarity in the use of, the Personnel Matrix:

• Is the person capable, or not, of doing his/her specific job?
• Is their attitude appropriate, or not?

Comments

[Nicholas Vakkur]

The information in the most recent posts is quite impressive. I am confident that the information presented here- as needed to successfully run a business- is more comprehensive, analytical, and probably useful than that presented at Harvard Business School. I am very impressed at the comprehensive nature of the analytics and the clear presentation.

At the same time, in reading the material it seem apparent that the amount of time and energy required to run a successful company is enormous, and even then is still probably insufficient. (Hence, the stereotypical workaholic CEO who is married to his job). I am amazed by the detailed analystics and calculations offering invaluable insight into the firm and its operations. It seems like a good manager must also be an excellent detective, sort of like Sherlocke Holmes sneaking around incognito to find out what is 'really' going on in the firm.

I also have several questions as follows: a) To the degree that this is true, how does a responsible manager know what information to trust and what requires personal investigation? Is there a fine line between the two alternatives, or is it apparent? b) It seems that in calculating firm specific ratios it is relatively easy to be objective and unbiased. However, in my experience- probably due to a lack of skill on my behalf- evaluating people is much more difficult, since we are now dealing with a human being. How can one learn the skills of becoming an effective manager in terms of dealing with subordinates (e.g. making effective, unbiased and informed personnel decisions/judgements as required for the organization to succeed)?

EXCELLENT INFORMATION. Thanks Tom!!