"Hire Balls, Beware of Storing Boxes"

People; The Most Invaluable Resource

Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) all have something in common. They don’t have the luxury of the enormous resources often enjoyed by large enterprises. However, no matter the size of the organization, something that remains constant that have gone through the era of scientific calculators, displaywriters, desktop computers, mainframes, automation, robotics, Internet, cloud computing, and Internet of All Things (IOT) is “people”. Every individual that you have in the organization is a resource, an invaluable talent.

For SMEs, every individual talent counts as you only have a skeletal team to depend upon. When you worked in a large enterprise, you have the luxury of having a higher tolerance for a bigger spread of performance amongst the team. Putting salaries aside, one way of looking at talents can be metaphorically represented by “balls” and “boxes”. The challenge is to hire and keep your balls but beware of storing boxes.

The organization working environment and culture can be very conducive, conducive, status quo, or a toxic environment.  We can represent the working environment as a straight plane. If the plane has more than 10 degrees incline downwards, that would be a very conducive environment to work in. If you have an incline that goes upwards, it represents a toxic environment. I would say that majority of organizations ideally have a healthy working environment with more than 0 to 5 degrees incline downwards.

Balls

Let’s start with balls! In the SME environment, it is rare that you will hire a flawless round pearl. A round pearl does not require any external energy as it will naturally roll down the incline. They don’t need any extrinsic motivation. In fact, sometimes the “flawless” ball rolls down the incline too fast that you have to get a “net” to slow the individual down!

At the SME level, you need to also worry about those balls that are the only ones rolling down the incline. Your alarm bells should be going off when you don’t get to see the rest of the team. These are the ones who would usually front their function in all the key events, and it is so easy for most of their supervisors to mistaken them as “top performers”. 

Publicly, they will tell others that they are grooming their team, but in reality it is so far from the truth. Some of the supervisors failed to realize that these individuals are not willing to groom their No. 2. They harped all the glory, glamour and key responsibilities for themselves. They are unwilling to groom another subordinate. By doing so, they continue to remain indispensable. 

By and large most people in the organizations would look more like “golf balls”. When you look closely at a golf ball, it has dimples on the entire surface. In fact, with a steady hand, you can actually stacked up two or more balls on top of each other. 

When you exert energy on a dimpled ball on an incline, the ball will start to roll, and as it does, gravity and momentum takes over. You no longer have to push the ball, it takes off on its own. The only time where you need to intervene is when the ball is either going too fast and/or veering down the wrong direction. 

Boxes

Boxes on the other hand is entirely different. You exert pressure, the box will start to move. In an incline position, it does not take much energy but still some level of effort is needed for the box to move. What happens when you remove the energy, the box immediately stop moving. It awaits for the next “push” before it starts to move again.

Know the difference between having “balls” and “boxes”. I’ve seen far too many supervisors making mistakes of spending too much time training and coaching a box and hoping that miraculously it will turn into a ball someday. Sometimes, they inadvertently started doing the work of what their “boxes” should be doing. When they start to do the boxes’ job, they don’t realized that they no longer doing their own job. Worse, they don’t spend their time doing “one level up”, i.e. making their supervisor successful. 

I have even come across Managers who would spend over two to three years painstakingly spending a lot of time encouraging, motivating and coaching their staff. A good litmus test to check whether you are really wasting your time:

·        How many times can you recall this subordinate coming to you to say that he has something interesting to discuss with you about work (and they are genuinely excited about it)?

·        How many times have they surprise you that they are not only “on top of things” but doing more than what you expect?

The problem with most boxes is that they are only willing to focus on “where they land”. It is just not in their genetic make-up to look beyond where they are resting. They are just contented in doing what they have been doing, and unless an external push comes along, don’t expect them to move an inch.

One of the most common mistakes that most supervisors make is taking “character” and personality in determining whether they have a ball or a box. Most supervisors will say that they have a “ball”. When you probed further in how they arrived to this conclusion, the supervisors will tell you that their subordinate has a very pleasant character, gets things done when you assigned them, and gets along with everyone. When you asked this supervisor how has this individual year-on-year demonstrated an interest to learn more things and/or taken initiatives to come up with new ideas, you get a “blank” look on their faces.

Most supervisors don’t know that having boxes in their team takes up a lot of their energy. In a long run, it is also detrimental to their own career progression. Most boxes get sad and/or upset when they learnt that they supervisor is either been assessed as a non-performer, and in the extreme case, being asked to leave the organization. Most boxes do not realize they have indirectly or directly caused the failure of their supervisor.  They never asked themselves, “How did I contribute to the failure of my supervisor”?

They don’t realize that they enjoyed getting their supervisors to spend a lot of time with them, that their supervisor’s did not have time to do their own job, and worse delivering to their own supervisors. As far as possible, boxes relish that their supervisor is thinking for them and creating work for them to do. 

Moral of the Story

The morale of the story is that if you have a good supervisor that cares about you, challenges you and care about your personal growth, be a “ball” to ensure that he or she continues to be successful. How many “boxes” actually spare a thought about making their supervisors successful? Most prefer to spend their time waiting for their next set of instructions. 

As a supervisor, you need to continue to hire and retain your balls. You need to observe carefully that you are not storing boxes. 

Raymund Chua is the Managing Director for Heraeus Materials Singapore Pte Ltd, General Manager of Heraeus Photovoltaic Singapore, Head of Regional Center for Heraeus Asia Pacific Holding as well as Head of HR, Asia Pacific for Heraeus Asia Pacific Holding.  His experiences spans across multiple disciplines: business strategy, culture, leadership, organizational design, human resource, and HR. Ray is an advocate of “communities of practices”. Ray is also the inventor of the HRGame as well as a coach. Ray can be contacted via Linkedin or [email protected]

?Disclaimer: This is a personal linkedin blog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.