I Am a One in Twelve Point Five*

(*with apologies to UB40)

“There are two types of people in this world: those that group people into two distinct categories, and those that don’t. I sit firmly in the latter.” – Stephen Fry

The 8% Rule

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Frankenstein Structures . These are organisational structures that have evolved piece-by-piece, with additions and adjustments made along the way without any over-arching strategy. Each small change is made for a valid reason, but due to the lack of a bigger plan, the result is a Frankenstein structure – when you step back and view it from a wider perspective it’s not pretty!

Type 1 vs Type Managers: Where Do You Stand?

Another thing that I have repeatedly observed in businesses that don’t consider a strategic approach to organisation design is the two differing viewpoints that exist on managing people. It goes something like this:

·???????? Type 1 managers are usually people who move into managerial roles from specialist roles. They can be at any level in the organisation from first-time manager to a senior role. These Types 1’s see the job-related tasks that they have to do as their first priority, and their team as their second priority. By this, I don’t mean that they don’t care about their team. I mean that when they allocate their time, the task work is first and the people are secondary. In the words of Stephen Covey, their tasks are their big rocks.

·???????? Type 2 managers, on the other hand, are correct! These managers prioritise their reports and wider team first, and their tasks second. Again, it’s not about the tasks being unimportant, it’s about their people being more important.

These managers prioritise their reports and wider team first, and their tasks second

So, how do you know if you’re doing the right thing? And if you’re not, how can you deliberately make the shift from Type 1 to Type 2?

A quick test for whether you are Type 1 or Type 2 is to check your diary. For example:

·???????? What activities take precedence?

·???????? What appointments do you cancel or move to do other things?

·???????? Are your team one-to-ones set in stone with other work filling the spaces around it? Or do you happily and regularly postpone these team sessions to get ‘urgent’ work done?

Moving Forward: The 8% Rule

A way to move forward is to use the 8% Rule. It’s more a rule-of-thumb than a hard and fast rule, but it states that you need to allocate 8% of your time for each of your direct reports. In practice, this means that if you have 5 direct reports then 40% of your time should apportioned to focussing on your people.

it states that you need to allocate 8% of your time for each of your direct reports

This isn’t necessarily 40% of your time spent directly with them. It includes the thinking, preparation, consideration of their development and all the other work that goes with leading and motivating a team. This, then, would leave you with only 60% of your time for all of the other stuff that you have to do, so you will need to pick and choose wisely how you allocate this.

And those people responsible for designing structures and job descriptions should factor this in.

I said that the 8% rule was more of a guide than a hard and fast rule. It will need to flex up and down. And it does depend on the type of team you have – a team of the same or similar roles will reduce this 8% to something a bit lower; a team of very varied and specialised roles might increase it. But 8% is a helpful guide.

Are you ready to try the 8% rule in your management routine? Let me know how it transforms your approach.

Model of the Week - The Beachball Theory

I learned about this theory way back in 1990 when I started working with TGI Fridays . It's a great model for making sure that you get a balanced perspective.

Imagine a giant beachball with three people standing around it. The first person claims that the ball is red. The second that it is blue. And the third that it is yellow.

As the person responsible for making the decision you can either decide that two of the people are not telling the truth or are mistaken - or you can decide that the beachball is red, blue AND yellow.

Life is rarely as clear-cut as we would like it to be. It is nuanced. Use the Beachball Theory to cut through this bias.

Top Tips - Put Away Your Moral Compass

When it comes to solving problems, one of the best ways to start is by putting away your moral compass.

This advice comes from Freakonomics author Stephen J Dubner who says;

“So, if you are an environmentalist, and you believe that one of the biggest tragedies of the last 100 years is people despoiling the environment, the minute you hear about an issue that kind of abuts the environment…your immediate moral position is, ‘well, I know exactly what the cause of that is. It’s caused by people being stupid and careless and greedy’ and so on.

“Now that may be true, but it also may not be true. Our point is, if you try to approach every problem with your moral compass, first and foremost, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes.”

Other Stuff

• A big family celebration weekend is coming up. It's my nephew's 18th, my auntie's 75th and our wedding anniversary. Thankfully Monday is a bank holiday!
• I had a another great group on last week's Working Genius webinar. The next FREE session is on 29th September. Click here to register.
• Congratulations to Spain for a deserved World Cup win. The Lionesses did amazingly well but were ultimately outplayed. What a day of emotions for Olga Carmona - she captains the winning team, scores the winning goal and learns of her father's death.

Contemplative Cartoon