4
Working on Objectives
Debra found that she was looking forward to seeing Johann, her mentor (it still sounded strange to her ears), again. She felt that she had prepared well and was excited to get help on fixing the things that were stopping her from getting the job she wanted next.
Johann, too, was excited about his day. His mentoring days were the ones he most looked forward to. Although often the problems didn't have just one “right” answer and were mostly messy, “human” problems, he enjoyed helping his mentees navigate the workplace and get results. He had been pleased to see that Debra had asked for an hour and had provided him with her documents. He'd found time to look through and make some notes but, although he had a number of thoughts, he was aware of the need not to have too many pre-conceived notions and to let the mentee decide on the direction. As long as, of course, the objectives were work related and within the agreed parameters.
There was a knock on the door and Debra poked her head through, “still ok to meet?” Johann stood up and moved around the desk to greet her warmly. They sat and made small talk until Johann suggested they get to work. “I've had a chance to look at the documents. I thought they were interesting. What were your thoughts?”
As they discussed the documents Johann challenged Debra to see if she felt any of the “critical” comments could, if true, explain why she didn't get the job (the reason they were meeting today).
“I don't know, I don't think so.”
“OK. So just in the context of you not getting the promotion for now, given the feedback you had from HR – if you look at the two of them together do you see anything?” Johann asked.
Debra remembered the comment she had dismissed and a positive comment about being straightforward – “maybe the hiring manager was afraid that I'd cause too much trouble?”
“OK. Was he right? Would you have done?”
Debra laughed. “I can see how he might have thought that given some things I did in the dim and distant past, but I really have learned a lot and had a detailed plan of attack – I mean I really had worked out exactly how to fix the problems of that department.”
“Great. What didn't he like about the plan?”
“I never told him what it was…”
“Why not?”
Debra smiled ruefully. “He never asked?”
“Hmmm. OK. Any more? As you look over all the comments about you in these documents and, most importantly, think about them in the context of the list of situations in which you didn't get what you want, do you see any themes? Are people saying the same thing in different ways and with different examples?”
Over the next few minutes Debra looked at the comments and started to identify some themes. For example “Debra doesn't always give enough attention to the things that can't be explained in a spreadsheet” and “Debra needs to ‘synthesize her ideas’” could, in some lights, be seen as the same thing. “And could be something that stops me getting what I want,” she thought.
Noticing that she had identified a number of themes Johann interrupted. “That's great. Don't worry about them being fair or even relevant to you. In fact, forget that these ‘themes’ apply to you and just imagine that a candidate – another person – showed some or all of them. Could you imagine how they might make a recruiting manager think twice?
Debra considered. “Sure,” she said. “Of course.”
“OK. So here's the hard part. Look at the list and choose the things that you most believe apply to you.” Johann paused as Debra did this.
“Might any of these explain some reluctance to give you the role you wanted?”
“Ouch. I preferred thinking that it was all somebody else's fault I didn't get the job!” Debra laughed but Johann was guessing that a little part of that statement was true.
“Maybe, let's think about that. Sometimes it is someone else's fault. But it's very hard to change other people – look how hard it is to change ourselves! It might also be that the other guy is out to get us. And this is sometimes true but it's mostly not the case. More often it's a mixture of several different factors and the only thing we can really control is ourselves!”
Johann brought the conversation back to the objective Debra had set for the first session – to think about what she wanted to work on so that she would get the next job she went for. Asking a number of different questions rapidly to keep the session high-paced and to put Debra under some pressure he continued.
“For now, let's assume that the people making the hiring decision were paragons of all the virtues and wanted nothing more than to find the right person for the job regardless of any other factors. If these super-human beings still decided not to give it to you, what might have been their reasons? What might they have been worried about? Concerned about? Freaked out about?”
“I guess I'd be most worried about my ability to work across different geographies.”
“Why? What makes it hard to work across different geographies?”
“Well, you can't see people so it's harder to know what's going on. And to get to know them. You don't know what they care about and how to handle them. You may not understand some of the cultural issues I suppose…”
“OK. Great. So you have a clear understanding of the issues. How did you address these in your CV and interview?”
“Well, I suppose I didn't. And I don't know why – I absolutely have experience of dealing with all of those things successfully!”
Debra and Johann looked at each other.
“Could we spend a few minutes thinking about other things that might have concerned them and whether or not I addressed them?” Debra asked.
When they had finished Johann asked Debra to look at the list of situations where she had not got the results she wanted and asked her to identify any trends in her own behaviour. After a little while, Debra looked up.
“I think the ‘not thinking enough about the other person’ comes up again and again, for example when trying to get people to do what I want. I try to do it but under stress that good intent disappears and as a result I don't get what I want. And I don't think I am at my best in ambiguous situations. You know, where it's not clear who does what, when and for whom?”
Johann nodded. “Interesting. You didn't know this, of course, but you have just spoken directly to my theory that a lot of the problems we face come from working in a matrix environment. Almost all of the people I see have matrix problems. Of course these exist in any complex environment and the matrix is certainly one of those. And, of course, not every individual or, indeed, organization will have all of these problems but if the following things sound familiar I'll lay money that you work in a matrix organization!
“Does any of this sound familiar? Because you work across functions and geographies you interact with people who have different values, attitudes and expectations. There are crazy amounts of information you can't possibly keep up with because you seem to have to be involved in everything and not just what your job description might suggest. You don't know why you have to attend two of your regular meetings and there are many more where the presence of at least one other person in the room is a complete mystery. You are pulled in two or more directions and sometimes you seem to have completely contradictory objectives or targets. You, and many of your colleagues, aren't clear on exactly what their job is and where to go to get something done or approved. Decisions can take months to get approved by all the ‘necessary’ people.
“The matrix often brings multiple and complex reporting lines, confusion over accountability, competing geographical and functional targets, lack of clearly defined roles, too many people involved in the decision-making process, lack of support from senior managers, and the politics and conflicts arising from continual organizational restructuring.
“Poorly defined management roles lead to turf wars or lack of accountability, which means everyone is too busy playing games internally to win externally. There's room to ‘slip between the cracks’ – if a person wants to take advantage of any confusion over managing performance, or if they can't make the necessary transition to self-management.
“In other words it's a disaster and then, to make it worse, we call the only skills likely to make it work ‘soft’ skills and don't consistently make helping people to get better at these part of all managers’ (even the most senior) jobs!”
Johann took a breath. “Sorry,” he grinned. “I guess there's nothing like the passion of a convert! I've been fascinated by this stuff ever since I read this article by Mayer and Salovey on emotional intelligence and I get a little carried away sometimes. Let's look at your LIFO® report before we finish up.”
Debra explained the instrument to Johann who had never seen it before and, as she talked him through what it said about her, he encouraged her to give specific examples of when she had displayed the behaviours described.
As she finished, he interjected: “It's all very interesting. So, thinking back to our objective today, what are your thoughts now on why you didn't get the job? Apart from the panel being out to get you of course!?”
Debra smiled. “Look, I still think politics is important. Who you know and all that.”
“Agreed. And that's never going to go away and we should talk about that again but, for now, let's say that's a percentage of the reason you didn't get the job – how big a percentage would it be? At most?”
“Forty per cent,” she guessed.
“OK. So let's say that's true, would it be worthwhile spending time on the 60 per cent that we know we can change and leaving the 40 per cent for the moment?”
“Yes,” Debra nodded.
“So to sum up, what do you think now were the most important reasons you didn't get the job?”
“They might have not known some of the great things I've done because I like to talk about the team and not get involved in playing politics or blowing my own trumpet. They might think I'm too focused on the results and am not afraid to knock a few heads together or upset people to get where and what I want.”
Johann smiled. “With your permission, I'd like to share my thoughts so far. Would that be OK?” He paused to acknowledge her agreement.
“I agree with everything you say and I believe that improving your emotional intelligence would go a long way in helping you to do what you need to so that you are comfortable taking credit and can effectively use the tools available to convince, negotiate and, dare I say it, ‘sell’ to other people – whether it's selling you for a new role or a client on a new product or process.
“These are just my thoughts and, please do bear in mind that I believe, with the passion of a convert, that the matrix either creates or exacerbates a lot of the stress and strange behaviours that we experience in the workplace. I think that ‘soft’ skills are the most important set of skills to develop and strengthen for surviving and even thriving in the matrix. These soft skills are the behaviours that ‘hang off’ the four ‘branches’ of EI or emotional intelligence and so I think it's essential to work on emotional intelligence as part of any of the work we do.”
Johann paused as he felt he'd noticed Debra's face tighten. “You aren't convinced?” he guessed.
Debra was surprised. She prided herself on her blank demeanour. “I suppose I am surprised to hear a senior manager talk about emotions. I was always taught business was about the bottom line. And the bottom line for me is getting that promotion so I'd like to focus on that.”
“OK. I agree. In essence, what you're saying is that you want to get promoted – you're not into this ‘soft’ stuff? Is that right?”
Debra nodded.
“My point is, in order to do that, to make sure we have the skills and are seen to have the skills of leadership, we need to improve our emotional intelligence. But look, we are out of time, I tell you what – as I've said before you get to decide what these sessions will be about and I guarantee you that we'll work on whatever you want next session – either the things we noted down earlier or any new ideas that come to you as you ‘percolate’. I hope that you found today useful at least?”
Debra agreed that the session had helped her get clarity on her role in not getting the promotion and consequently some things she'd like to work on.
Johann continued, “One thing really would help and that's if you could be as specific as possible in what you want to work on and why. By ‘why’ I mean ‘why is this important to you?’ and ‘why do you think you need to work on it – how do you know there's a gap between where you are and where you want to be?’. I'd also like you to spend some time thinking about EI or emotional intelligence before the next session. Have a bit of a Google and read a couple of articles that I'm going to have Janet send you and if after that you don't want to spend time on EI then that is absolutely fine with me.” Johann's voice rose at the end of the sentence as he sought and got acceptance from Debra for this idea.
Smiling, Johann got up and shook Debra's hand warmly as he walked her to the door.
“Looking forward to seeing you soon – give me a call if there's anything urgent in the meantime!”
He turned and, sitting down, quickly made a few notes, in particular covering what Debra had identified as the areas she wanted to work on. He realized that they hadn't moved forward in solving any of the issues she had identified yet but felt that the time spent helping Debra come to her own conclusions on what these were was time well spent. She was now engaged with the process and motivated to make some changes.
It was a little disappointing she didn't seem too interested in building her emotional intelligence but he knew from past experience that, as the poet said, “a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still,” so he was prepared to wait.
Johann turned his attention to his screen again and confirmed that his next mentee should be waiting outside. Sure enough, there was a knock on the door. “Karim,” Johann said as, once again, he moved from behind his desk.
Key Takeaways