Excerpt from HBS Working Knowledge:

Standing up for B players

Managers who are high achievers themselves find it especially difficult to focus on B players. The Achilles’ heel of these A-type managers is that if they can’t do something right the first time, they give up or they manufacture a compelling rationale that explains why it is not worth the effort to improve employee satisfaction.

Furthermore, he said, such managers are afraid of getting labeled. “If you want to threaten a really smart person who is task driven, question his or her competency. That’s the very soul of who they are,” he said. These managers also keep busy schedules and are reluctant to slow down to learn new skills. Sports champions such as Tiger Woods, he said, can do their training out of public view. But managers almost always train on the job.

Managers can take three steps to enhance their company's human capital especially vis-à-vis B players, DeLong said.

Create an agenda. John Kotter’s work on highly successful manager-leaders found that all of them kept very simple agendas, not long to-do lists. Their agendas were divided into three time periods: zero to six months, six to eighteen months, and eighteen months and longer. Have only two or three items on your zero-to-six-month frame for a start, DeLong advised. You need a pattern to the overall agenda, but no more than a total of ten agenda items.

Create a support system. It can consist of close friends or people close to you in your organization who will help you if you stumble. “You need some people who will tell it to you straight, who know where your blind spots are,” he said.

Finally, dare to make a difference. Ask yourself, “Do I make a difference in the lives of other people?”
Managers who bring out the best in B players, DeLong said, are tapping into a wonderful and often well-hidden resource. Organizations—and individuals—are much better for it.

Monday, June 30, 2003 :: posted by TSC team @ 12:25 PM

This is the introductory post for the ThoughtStorm ExoNet blog. It's a place for us to put random thoughts, pointers to webpages, etc., as we're surfing. Intermediate storage until things get moved to sharepoint team website(s).

Saturday, June 28, 2003 :: posted by TSC team @ 2:22 PM