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September 06, 2005
"May I be frank" and the power of candor
Sounds a bit like a Harry Potter title, doesn't it. Well, many people who are close to me are well aware how much I hate the common "may I be frank" phrase. Sure, you may be frank; does that mean you did bullsh** me the entire time before? Of course, we all know that this phrase usually introduces something unpleasant, but why not deliver the "bad" news as part of daily communication? It might soften the blow and, who knows, maybe the situation would have resolved itself without any significant confrontation; just because we were “frank” to each other all the time.
Well, the “why not deliver the bad news” part is pretty easy. It’s definitely your Mom's fault! Your Dad and your Grandparents had something to do with it, too. Fact is, we are brought up to be "social”. It's pretty much everybody's standard "programming" to “be nice”. You just don’t tell your Grandma that the VCR she got for your birthday actually sucks, because it’s a BETA and VHS is in fact the new industry standard. You also won’t tell your partner that the jacked he/she is wearing is dreadful, or that the racial joke your friend is cracking is offensive to you. This is not to say that you should blurt out the brutal truth at anytime to anyone and whenever you feel like it. Candor doesn’t mean that you need to be insensitive and it also doesn't make you invincible. It does, however, show that you care.
In my position, usually as founder, chairman, CEO or other high-level exec I know that, most of the time, my position does get in the way of people speaking candidly with me. I know this as I have seen and experienced what effect titles have on folks in organizations of any size. No matter how secure or empowered a co-worker may feel, more often than not I have to “drag” the candor out of him. Even then, I get only some, if any, of what I really need. People keep trying to "impress" me by throwing things at me they believe I would like to hear. What I am looking for, however, are people who don't constantly pad their own shoulder, fish for compliments, are worried about job security, but have the guts to challenge a process and strive for creating something that lasts.
Ah, I hear the doubters: “Wait a minute, who is he kidding? My life is going to be much simpler, if I just avoid candor altogether! Does he really want to be told when he has taken a mistaken course of action? If I would tell him that he'd been insensitive, inept, or cruel, he’s just going to stonewall or be dismissive! Does he really want candor?
The answer is an encouraging ”YES”! Substantiated candor is one of the greatest intellectual gifts you can give someone. It shows itself in forthright counsel and well-informed criticism and I understand perfectly well that it is not an easy gift to neither give nor receive. This is what makes it special.
I am a strong believer in “treat others like you want to be treated. That is why I personally am very candid with the people I work with, live with, and surround myself with. I hope for the same in return. Speak up, if you can’t do or don’t know something. Don’t wait until it is too late before you point out a mistake that was made (on either end). Don't do or say something just to impress everyone, but focus on quality, which, if done right, is impressive in itself. Stand up for your mistakes! Life will go on even if you make the wrong decision every once in a while. Personally I try to be very forthright, whenever I mess something up (which happens quite a bit when you ask my wife, btw). Be candid with yourself and be aware that whenever you point your finger at someone to assign blame, there are at least three other fingers still pointing back at you!
Absence of candor is one of the major obstacles a company needs to overcome to succeed. Overly large bureaucracy and heavy infrastructure causes people to “not speak up”. It is an atmosphere such as this that makes you sluggish and downgrades the effectiveness of your organization. We need to build a business culture that promotes and incentivizes honest feedback. Candor needs to be rewarded as rewards and incentives will reinforce that particularly desired behavior.
In his 2005 book “Winning” GE Mammoth CEO Jack Welch reinforced the “candor in business” strategy by comparing candid performance appraisals to the time we all were in school: "Why are grades OK from the time that you're in fourth grade to the time you're getting your MBA, but not OK once you're an adult? You need to use the same rigor to evaluate your people that you use to evaluate your financial statements." Using a forced ranking system requires this type of discipline.
Jack hits it head on. An effective company needs a powerful and motivated workforce, which drives it forward in a competitive market space. This requires an equally effective performance appraisal system, which relies not only on candid feedback, but also on meaningful segregation among employees. In my companies, even before I knew much of anything about Jack Welch, I was naturally determined to reward the top performers, train and manage up medium and good performance, and phase out the sub-standards and non-performers. Now, I have always taken my share of criticism for this rather hard-line approach, but I found this an extremely effective method of shaping the quality of any workforce. Candid performance measures avoid surprises. People need to know where they stand. I do not want to see a suprised face when someone is being told that are not doing enough to stay with the company. Failing to be candid and differentiate among your employees, and not rewarding your stars while fading out your bottom-tier performers, is actually one of the most vindictive forms of management there is.
A highly effective performance management structure is one of the most powerful human resources mechanism out there and can be responsible for an organization's ultimate success. Think about it. Most critical to any company's performance are its people. The way you select, reward, and develop your team so that highly capable worders, leaders and managers are in the right positions at the proper times.
Except under certain circumstances I do not at all see it as the company's primary responsibility to ensure that its employees attain an appropriate balance between their personal and professional lives. A company should strive to provide great opportunities and, whenever possible, job security for their employees, but it should not be the company's job to figure out one's work-life balance. Employees aren't guaranteed an entitlement to the form of flexibility needed to balance professional and personal demands. Flexibility is a privilege that needs to be earned, not something that is simply handed to you. As in many other aspects of live, if you deliver, you will earn the flexibility to manage competing priorities. The right combination of rewards and recognition, for a company's top performers, fosters a high-performance work environment. Good managers know exactly how and when to motivate each of their employees.
Finding the "right person" might be major challenge, but considering the enormously positive effects the "right person" may have on your organizational performance it’s worth the struggle. If you have the wrong person in the right position you are in deeper trouble than if you would put the right person in the wrong position. Given the opportunity performers will always perform; old habits die hard!
Using some of the examples above I hope to have made a strong case for candidness in virtually any business situation (as always, your "candid" feedback is very welcome). Candor will save you many empty miles, lots of disappointments, even more money and could, last but certainly not least, make the difference between an endless cycle of struggle and failure and a very successful and striving company.
Posted by Ben at September 6, 2005 01:25 AM
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Comments
Gday Ben, 'substantiated candor' describes it perfectly. Yes it does sometimes take a reckless disregard for your career to do it, but I have found it makes you more friends than enemies in management.
In one sense the less your co-workers are candid the more it is to your advantage to be so. But in another sense when you demonstrate it in front of them (and don't have your head lopped off) it's remarkably infectious. I guess it's partly the 'I have been dying to say that.." response.
One last thing (and thankyou for your post). I have found that candor is remarkably disarming. If you are working with someone who is highly critical, or just terribly complicated, it seems to simply demolish all of their carefully constructed arguments and allows you - if you follow up immediately with a positive proposal - to win them over, or at least deflect them from your path long enough for you to get something done.
The only caution I'd put on it is that while candor will be (generally) greeted by your manager, there are (group) circumstances where you being candid with your boss about some third party puts your boss in the impossible position of agreeing with you (or being seen to agree with you)when it currently suits his or her purpose NOT TO BE SEEN to share the view you just expressed. Likewise candidly telling your boss that he/she is incompetent etc might be appreciated by them in a one-on-one scenario, but might be received 'less well' in an open forum.
On the other hand, the bigger the forum where you announce that you (yourself) have failed at something, the more awed respect you'll earn.
Posted by: John McCann at November 10, 2005 09:10 PM