Reward the Right Disasters

Years ago, when I was working for another company, we sent one of our team leaders to one of the big annual conferences for our industry. We would do this periodically to give our team leaders a broader perspective on the business and maybe pick up a few new ideas.

This particular team leader, let’s call her Rosie, came back from the conference very enthusiastic about a program she had heard about there. A company had presented a seminar that was basically a sales pitch for their program and she thought it could increase our quality while decreasing our costs.

We agreed it seemed promising and put her in charge of implementing the program at our company. (I’ll have to talk more about this particular technique for rewarding initiative and testing leadership potential in a future post.)

Long story short, it was a huge disaster. Customers hated it. Didn’t save us any money. Generated massive negative publicity. Some people were so angry they complained about it to the Governor. I'm not kidding.

So we promoted Rosie to a higher-level management job. In fact, we created a brand new managerial position for her with responsibility for a number of critical company functions.

Were we crazy? Why would we promote someone whose first pet project turned out to be such a flop?

Lots of good reasons, actually:

• Initiative. We had sent lots of team leaders to conferences. Rosie was the first one to come back with a project proposal.
• Effectiveness. Rosie was very effective at guiding the implementation of a complex program, which included coordinating the work of multiple external and internal players.
• Responsibility. The fact that the program went bad was not really Rosie’s fault. We all thought the vendor seemed good and the program looked promising. Only with 20/20 hindsight we could see the flaws that led to the disaster. But Rosie accepted full responsibility for the consequences and never tried to point the finger at anyone else.
• Composure. However bad it got, Rosie never lost her temper or got down in the dumps. She dealt with the situation professionally, recognized early that the situation was not salvageable, conducted effective damage control, and wrapped up the program promptly.

Hmm. Someone who takes initiative, implements new programs effectively, accepts responsibility, and keeps her composure in difficult times.

Sounds like a good manager to me.

And she was. Rosie thrived in her new job. She had been an okay front line employee and a pretty decent team leader. But with this promotion she hit her true level. She was a terrific manager.

So here’s the tip: look past the consequences at the actions. A good result doesn’t always mean the leader was good and bad result doesn’t always mean the leader was bad. Promote people whose demonstrated habits of thought, emotion, and behavior mark them as potential leaders.

Comments

[Carl Evans]

While embracing change is promoted heavily in all business organizations only the effective ones allow for the inherent cost of process re-engineering and possible failure. The walls may be decorated with inspirational art but the the halls are littered with the bodies of those that spent the company time and money and failed. Setting examples like that described in this article eliminates the fear most employees have of leaving a comfort zone of well established although marginally effective processes.

[Reagan]

Carl, this is an excellent point. In fact, I wish I'd thought to put in my post! Companies that use fear as a management tool pay a terrible cost, but it is an invisible cost so they never have to confront it. Having challenging goals to meet is motivating in a well-managed company, but going to work every day feeling fearful is crippling. Not only does it feel terrible, it also inhibits performance.