臨時上陣主持了一個 leadership 問答講座。 雖然我是作答的人，當再讀 meeting minutes 的時候，覺得更多的其實是自己對於 leadership 的反省。
會議記錄裏的 M 是我。
M: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. (It's) my pleasure to hold this leadership Q & A session as part of your retreat on behalf of our Toronto Headquarter. Our CEO sent his regret at the eleventh hour as he has other commitments. I was called in on a short notice. I did not expect there are 40 of you, wow, really?
(Anonymous*): yeah, expect a big bill too (laughter*)
M: (*laughter) Right, right. I understand both UK/HK team will be heading to a party after this, see some impatient already have beer in hands. (laughter*). I promise this session will be concluded within 45 minutes and you all need to promise me not to sleep off your hangover on the floor. (laughter*)
This is a management retreat, (that means) most of you are already a manager or taking a lead role of some sort. Needless to say you are the pillars of this company. Without you, it wouldn’t have been possible for us to get where we are at today. In last a few years I have physically met some of you but not all, hopefully in the near future I will have the privilege to spend some days working side by side with every one of you.
I won’t turn this session into a lecture, might as well cut pleasantries and leave the floor to you. You can ask any leadership related questions. I will try to share opinions to my best efforts. I have approximately 5 minute for each question. Before we start, I will ask managing directors to leave this room now so your underlings do not feel the pressure (laughter*).
Now let’s see who is the first to raise their hand.
S: Hey M, I am the sales manager on UK team, we missed each other last time you visited. I used to work at a much bigger company. When I started this job where the sales team only had 10 people, I constantly found I am lost in terms of managing humans. The main reason is being, I guess, there aren’t comprehensive rules or a strong social context of hierarchy on our team. I get it you want the start-up style here to stay, but I wonder if you can share some thoughts to those who, including me, come from a larger and more structured workplace as to how to make the transition.
M: With small teams, say, of size under 20, I’d say leaders' personal charisma is critical for their own and their teams' success. You first attract people, earn trust from them, then influence them before finally you can lead. For most of us this process is biologically hardwired, for instance, you won’t buy-in for someone’s vision until you find credibility in them, you won’t buy-in for someone’s advise until you trust them. Leaders in our company do not lead by book or title, they lead by character and competence. Books or rules won’t teach you this.
This company was founded as a start-up, from the day one we decided we stay as a start-up no matter how many employees we will have. None of us liked the workplace where politicians run engineers. The middle managers should be given enough authority and freedom such that their creativity can be fully unleashed. We do not like rules, and I do not like rules. We have no intention to change it any time soon.
Managers like you coming from large corps often find themselves puzzled when they switch to smaller shops. You are not alone . My advise is to find ways to establish connections with your team, forget about books and what you learned from business school. You speak to your heart and allow relationship to develop, you work hard to set a good example. You show competence to make others admire you. Every month, every day, every hour, you think of yourself as the foreman leading a group of cowboys to do a rodeo that none of your boys will ever forget that kind of excitement. Then you will find your team gathering closer, and that will be a good start.
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V: Hey M, we briefly met in-person last month. This isn’t necessarily a leadership question per se but I ask anyways. My team will start working more directly with you from next quarter. You were not in charge of the marketing department if I am not wrong (so) none of us really knows you. With all due respect, how do you comment on your own style of managing? (laughter*)
M: Most of the time I am a tooth fairy, sometimes I am a dentist. That’s always my style.
V: If you don’t mind, when would you become the dentist? (laughter*)
M: I am a dentist when I see someone crave for individual glory over the team’s success. I am a bad dentist when I see hidden agendas (are) in conflict with company’s interest. I am a bad and mean dentist when I see someone loses their integrity and good faith during their work.
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H: Hey M, we met earlier this year in HK, good to see you again. I want to get your thoughts on how to quickly grow a new team.
M: I remember you are the senior dev manager heading the dev department. You are a veteran and a coach yourself, why (do you) ask this question?
H: A couple of years ago it was easy to hire good guns. We have unfortunately witnessed a lot (of) talents moving out of the region. Now I barely maintain a team of thirty developers and just a handful (of) top performers. I found struggling to bring them up to where we were at. Frankly this team is nowhere close to the A-team I had in the past.
M: We have to first define what an “A-team” is. In my experience an A-team isn’t an all-star team. I was a semi-professional rower in my previous life, there are eight oarsmen plus a coxswain on a rowing boat. The key to win a competition isn’t about having physically strongest and most intelligent rowers on a boat. It is more about having all rowers on that boat act like one single person. Catching water and pulling through have to be perfectly synchronized between these eight oarsmen. If one person “catch crabs“, which means one person does not time his stroke well, the team’s rhythm is disrupted therefore the boat loses power.
Coming back to your question. I won’t get frustrated but I will take it and build it as managers are catalysts that can create an “A-team” even out of average people. More often it is not team members cannot perform up to our expectation, it is rather they are not put in the right place therefore they haven’t found the right rhythm. It’s your responsibility to help them. Go talk to your team, understand them as a human, learn each individual’s strength and weakness, know their pets' name, be their friends and find chemistry between you and them, last but not least tap into your passion while you are doing these. You will start to develop a good idea of where to place them and what trainings they need. Next step is to teach the team not to “catch crabs“, coach the team move together such that they float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. In this process, you will find your coxswain and stroke oarsman, who will become your lieutenant. Mind you and all others again, in this company we require leaders to create new leaders and that partially decides the size of your year end bonus (laughter*)
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C: Speaking of leaders, KPI aside, what else makes a good leader in this company? You perhaps remember you hired me into the UK office two years ago, good to see you again M.
M: Of course I remember, you were hired as the head of client success team, my memory still serves me well. In fact I remember pretty much everyone I hired because I only hire the most outstanding characters (laughter*) .
KPI is important, there are also other parts are equivalently important, if not more, as far as leadership concerns. Let me ask you all a question, why do people follow you?
(Anonymous*): because they have no choice (laughter*)
M: That is a good one. I make sure your manager leaves no choice with you (laughter*).
I’d say people follow you because they want to, because of the commitments you made for the company and for your team, because you are who you are. At the end of the day, instead of your big title, people remember what you have done for them and for their upbringing. On the day people depart, they will remember they have left part of their life with this company because they have had you as their manager . If these ring the bell, I will call you a good leader.
From the company’s vantage point, good leaders are those who can turn a bad idea into a good one, a good idea into a great(er) one. Managers in my team know this in their heart. From time to time I may have a few stupid or crazy ideas and I do not take no as an answer. I do not appreciate managers telling me they cannot do it, rather I expect them to see through the idea, know the purpose behind, finally use their expertise to turn these ideas into better ones.
To go even further, some of you have heard a few times I said I do not want worker bees in the team. Worker bees might be good fighters but most of them only follow the marching orders. This works for junior positions but this absolutely is not a good trait for leaders. A good leader in this company must have strong characters as I said earlier, this includes courage to break conventional wisdom, integrity and honesty, authenticity to be themselves, audacity to challenge, creativity of a magician, humility to exercise servanthood.
This is a good question, I really have a lot to say about it but I will stop here to take more questions.
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E: Thanks for all the great insights. I often see myself juggling between delivering on time under a tight schedule and watching out for my team such that they won’t get demoralized or burnt out, that’s one of the most challenging aspect(s) in my work.
M: I do not believe we have met, which department (are) you in?
E: No sir, we haven’t met. I am the head of HK product team.
M: There are two sides for you to consider, kind and brutal. I will start with the brutal one. A manager should look after their own people, provided that cannot come at the expense of the commitment that manager has to their own managers. The manager's first team should be their own managers, not their underlings. Your first team will be the managing director in HK office you report to, always. I cannot emphasize this more and I expect everyone of you to remember.
Otherwise it leads confusion, for instance, the inattention to the collective results expected by our business team at higher up. When executive team tells your manager product A needs to be delivered by quarter B, we mean it and we will use all our weapons to hold him to it. I believe he will do the same to you. If, say, we are two third into the project, your manager comes to me trying to explain the HR or technical challenges when his team cannot deliver, I won’t respond well.
Now consider the kind one. To avoid this from happening, a proper planning needs to be exercised by you and your manager. In reality every deliverable come with tight schedules, all too familiar isn’t it? You need to be honest when you sign off the budget sheet and SOW. This is the best way of watching out for your team and I am sure your due diligence at this stage will be highly appreciated. You should make sure your manager give you enough time for this exercise before you commit. Often than not, the deadline is negotiable. Once the delivery day is set, we are in business, the machine starts humming. Any change afterwards can be costly because that ship has sailed. Managers will pay ultimate attention to the progress and result from that point on. If the team needs you to roll up sleeves and jump in the trench, you do it. If more hands are needed, you reach out to your manager for help. Under (the) circumstances of force majeure where you think the delivery can not take place on time, I expect you to come up with a plan or an adequate alternative to minimize the consequence, in that case, I am happy to lend my hand.
Looking at the time here, I will take last question before let you go on with the evening.
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G: Glad to have the honor for this last question. I run the UK engineering team. I’ve got team members from Europe, America, Asia, and Latin America, in fact, that’s perhaps the most diversified team across the board nationality wise. One problem I have been having with this team is the effectiveness of communication. (It’s) partly due to the language barrier, some in my team often come across offensive or difficult to manage. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this.
M: There are possibly two facets of it. The first is how you would manage the communication between your team members and smooth out cultural difference. I cannot comment on what is considered offensive but we are certain feeling offended is subjective. Team communication in a multinational setting presents challenges , Slack or Teams eliminates the social cues, making it even more subtle. It requires frontline managers to be aware of the cultural difference, help our teams to build trust and promote openness that empower the teamwork.
Cultural difference has its deep root in languages. There are 700K words in English but there are only about 150K words in French , what does that tell us? That tells us people from UK have more words to express themselves in a more explicit way than French people do, who would have to use combinations of fewer words to express the same idea. In that sense, British usually mean what they say, French expect you to read between the lines.
In the same vein, same word can mean two different things, depending on the geographic region or culture. An extreme example (is) gift in English means present whereas gift in German means poison. When a Portuguese says “am I understood?”, he is trying to be as polite as possible, while this very same phrase is usually said by a senior to their subordinates in United States. When I say interesting, I perhaps mean I am neutral or even slightly negative about an idea. When a Dutch says the same, they mean they really like the idea.
(Anonymous*): That’s interesting (laughter*)
M: Having that in mind, it’s easy to see miscommunication can happen anytime anywhere. In the context of team building, trust is essentially the confidence between team members that makes everyone to believe each others' good intention, despite of the difference in the way of communicating each individual is used to. Good intention itself won’t do the magic, as the saying goes “the road to hell is paved by all good intentions“. We’ve got let others to see it, that is openness in a workplace. Being open means candor, willingness to be vulnerable, and not being shy to tell others you made a mistake today. With all that, you help yourself to build a place that make people feel safe and secure. Good intention will surface naturally.
The second facet is resolving conflict and leading challenging teammates. This has always been the easiest part in my experience, remember I can be a dentist.
(Anonymous*): (laughter*)
M: From what I hear, you were referring to the negative attitude. There are a few steps we can take. First we need to be very sure we correctly understand the origin of such attitude. Why (is) that person unhappy? Is this because they think they are being under paid, given too much workload, not getting promotion, feeling treated unfairly? You need to have the private conversation with this person and find out their own stories as early as possible before the attitude gets compounded. Having negative attitudes in your team will dishonor you and rest of the team. Winston Churchill said if you were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war. I do not think we will ever have war but that direct confrontation needs to be had. Then you ask yourself this question - whether this person can be changed or whether this person will not change.
If the answer is latter, fire them. The problem is solved once and for all, you will have your peace back.
If the answer if former, I’d find a common ground where that person and I can at least agree on some of their behaviors (that) need to be changed. I will then set out a course of action with frequent check-in points, for example, I will meet with them every four weeks and evaluate together with them the feedback I get from their teammates. During that course, I won’t necessarily make them feel being punished. Instead I will try (to) let them feel I am eager for a positive resolution and they are connected with me. This way, you will find you can turn most people around within 6 months.
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(*wrapping up)
M: It’s 7pm, we are right on time. One last thing I want to say (is) no matter how successful you lead the team as the manager, the credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena. Remember toast to your team. Thanks all again for your hard work, enjoy the party.
July 14th, 2023
