Taking the Place of a Well-Loved Manager

If you have just been hired to replace someone who seemed to have had no faults and was well-liked and respected in the company, it may look like an impossible act to follow. But there are strategies for handling succession issues.

You do have a challenge ahead of you, but by understanding the dynamics, you can plan an entry strategy that will make it easier for yourself. When a well-loved manager leaves, employees may feel abandoned. They are suffering the loss of a leader, perhaps a friend, someone whose management style is familiar and whose expectations, standards, and values are known.

Such employees will find it hard to accept the replacement. If the newcomer arrives soon after the predecessor’s departure, if no separation procedure helped the group to let go, and if the emotional costs to the group of its loss are not really well understood, then everyone will have a hard time with the change. In a way, as the new person, you can never take the place of the favorite who came before. Intuitively you wish that person never existed. However, you should honor that person while making yourself known and carving out your own niche.

Never disparage your predecessor’s accomplishments, your new coworkers shared in and will be proud of them. They also will be more loyal to the person who left than to you, and any undue criticism may brand you as the enemy. If, as a new manager, you are in a position to make changes and wish to do so, invoke the spirit of the respected predecessor. You might suggest that your program “builds” on the work done before and is probably what would have been done if he or she had continued.

On occasion, if it is feasible, you can check the changes with the person who left and thereby receive his or her blessings. The changes you recommend can then bring credit to both of you, preparing your group for transition to your ways of thinking. Use accomplishments of the past as a standard, such as:

“The short time it took you to change the molds on the production line last summer under Smith set a new standard for all of us to meet.” You also can ask, “How would Smith have done it?” Asking for information does not oblige you to do the job in the same way, but it does show that you respect Smith’s competence, as well as the group’s, and that you want to take full advantage of it. You can continue to invent, so that you are not controlled by the past and destined to repeat it, by asking, “Now what can we do to improve? Do we have different circumstances now that we must take into consideration?”

This period of honoring your predecessor also is the time to add your own ideas. By respecting the missing person, you are respecting the other group members, and they are more than likely to react to you respectfully in return.

Most people you meet in the company will put their best foot forward. Tension and difficulties often are concealed or minimized. You will have to be alert to subtle cues of strained relationships, territorialism, cliques, power centers, and the feelings people have about the person you are replacing.

How do you find out what you want to know? Ask questions. Pay attention to the way in which people talk about themselves and others. If you have the opportunity to see people interacting, watch how they treat each other. Here are some questions you may want to ask:

• Tell me about the person I am replacing.

• What was he best known for?

• What were some of the problems?

• How did she deal with them?

Engaging employees keeps them not only involved, but committed to the team. Only then can they become real partners with you.

Copyright © 2013. Natasha Josefowitz. All rights reserved.

Change

On the first of February, the home of my biweekly column, the La Jolla Village News, changed its format and is now called La Jolla Today.

A new name for our paper to be published every two weeks, a new format, a new emphasis for our increasingly sophisticated coastal readers—change. As in any change, there will be those that will welcome the new look, they are the adventurers, those who are willing to give up the familiar and plunge into the unknown. Change entails risk, as with anything new, there are probabilities, possibilities, and unanticipated consequences. Of course, in this case, there will be no risks for the reader, only for the publisher. Then there are those who will be upset, write to the editors, complain that the paper was fine before, why make if different and now unfamiliar: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” These are the risk averse people, who cling to tradition, to the security of the familiar, of the known.

We need both people, those who will seek to improve the status quo, the innovators, the creators, the inventors, the risk takers. These people need to be confident that they will be resilient enough to weather any possible negative fallout.

We also need the risk-averse people, those who will caution against undue experimentation and who will help in making more carefully thought-out decisions whether personal, economic, or political.

Some planned changes are made regularly, like the New Year’s resolutions we all make in January, you know the one: “eat less, move more.” In other words, make intelligent food choices (I plan to practice portion control by using smaller plates) and commit to an exercise routine that includes strength training, aerobics, and flexibility (I plan to be 30 minutes on the tread mill five days a week).

The only risk of not following through is the resultant guiltly feelings and poorer health.

The Hawthorne Effect could be an additional motivation. What is the Hawthorne Effect? In 1924–32, a group of Harvard researchers studying the relationship between productivity and work environment at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company in Cicero, Illinois made a discovery consequently known as the Hawthorne Effect.

What they found was that workers improved their productivity no matter how the environment was manipulated—they did better whether their environment was made brighter or dimmer, as long as they were the subject of a study. In other words, individuals improved their performance due to the attention they received from the researchers, making them feel important, and not from changes to the experimental variables. Even when workers were falsely told that the lights would be brighter (they were unchanged) they improved their performance.

How can you use this effect to reach your self-improvement goals? I suggest having a witness when trying out new behaviors—whether an exercise partner who knows your new fitness goals or someone to eat with who knows you are avoiding sweets. In other words, we need the Hawthorne Effect to stay true to our New Year’s resolution,  we need to be observed doing it right. This is why the weekly weigh-ins at places like Weight Watchers work—there is an observer who monitors, and there are other participants who witness and share. Improving alone is hard, get a friend to help you with your goals.

Change, according to the dictionary, means to transform, to modify, to become different. Change also means flexibility, to reverse a previously held opinion or an earlier decision. The way we react to change is also a personality factor; political stances reflect our propensity to tradition and routine or to innovation and risk. Change, whether by intent or by accident is an inevitable part of our lives. We should be ready to accept change and be aware of our habitual reactions to it. We have control over whether we will fight it or welcome it and with the new year upon us, it is our opportunity to do something differently, to do something better than it was.

So, whether it be a new face lift for our community newspaper or changes in your own business or life, commit to the new you, that healthier, more fit you, the one who has given up on bad habits and who finally will learn Spanish or the piano or enroll in that class or walk on the beach or volunteer for a worthy cause or clean out that closet or…. Write your own plan and share it with someone.

Copyright © 2012. Natasha Josefowitz. All right

Parents and Children Working Together

I often hear from friends who complain about their children who work with them in the family business. I also hear from their children, some of whom are young adults, others are middle-aged, complaining bitterly about over-supervision and a lack of autonomy and trust. One young woman with an MBA told me that her mother checks up on her work more than she does on that of any other employee.

What is going on?

One may well ask whether it is the children who cannot accept any authority from the parent whom they so recently struggled to gain some independence from, or whether, indeed, it is the parents who cannot let go of controlling their child?

Let us examine the dynamics of both possibilities.

One of the major tasks of growing up is growing away from one’s parents. For young people to be able to stand on their own two feet, they must be able to differentiate themselves from their parents. They need to test parental value systems, lifestyles, beliefs, and goals in order to see if these fit their own values and styles. They do this by trying out different beliefs, new ways of living, and by having friends that their parents disapprove of. We call this adolescent rebellion.

Even though the child may be well beyond the so-called “rebellious years,” remnants of this effort to distance oneself may remain. Even when I was in my mid-70s and my mother was in her mid-90s, I still sometimes startled at the strength of my reactions when she criticized me. This is a parent-child dynamic that lasts a lifetime.

So it is no wonder that a child may resist any parental attempt—no matter how legitimate—to control. It may be a helpful suggestion that is taken as criticism or a mild criticism that is perceived as strong disapproval. The push for autonomy from one’s parents is so strong that any supervision is felt as overly controlling.

Children want to please their parents and care so much for what they think that they exaggerate—in their own minds—any parental reaction that is less than absolutely positive. Every child, from infancy through adulthood, wears a little invisible sign around his or her neck that says: “Mom, Dad, please admire me!”

The other possibility, that indeed the parent is a very difficult boss, should also be explored. As children grow older, it is difficult to see them as adults. I still give unsolicited psychological advice to my 62-year-old daughter who has a Ph.D. in psychology and business advice to my 60-year-old son with an MBA from Harvard.

Parents remember all the foolish things their kids used to say and do and still attribute that potential to their grown sons and daughters. They still believe that their own judgment must be better than their child’s.

Parents do tend to over-supervise their own children. Whereas a mother or father may overlook an employee’s minor errors, they would notice every mistake their son or daughter made and overreact. In other words, the expectations of performance are higher for children, thus placing additional burdens on these children who feel under observation all of the time. If children do well, it’s a chip off the old block. If they don’t, then it is perceived as an embarrassing reflection on the parent.

Some parents exaggerate their children’s achievements and give them responsibilities too soon: some parents underrate their children and continue to keep them in subordinate positions longer than is warranted. Either way, it has little to do with reality. Also, other employees often believe that bosses’ children are unfairly given advantages and may resent it, adding to the problem.

Also if the child takes a position different from the parent, that parent may feel betrayed. Family loyalty  and affection get confused with work decisions.

Parents generally have trouble giving up control, and when it’s time to retire many stay on becoming burdens to their children—who would normally pension-off aging employees but cannot because it’s Mom or Dad.

If relationships at work are too fraught with tension, it may be important to the child to prove him- or herself elsewhere, before the parent can accept that child as a valuable member of the team.

There is really only one solution to the problems of parents and children in the same business. It is to talk openly about the one’s need for control and the other’s need for autonomy. There must be constant reassurance about loyalty, commitment, and love. Although these should not be at stake because of a difference of opinion, they often are.

My Mother Complains That

I’ve gained weight

my hair isn’t right

my dress is unbecoming

I wasn’t polite

it matters not

that she complains

what matters

is that it still matters

Copyright © 2012. Natasha Josefowitz. All rights reserved.

Three Approaches to Solving Problems

When faced with a conflict with someone else, people often do not know how to proceed. Having a method to deal with problems can be helpful. Whether there is a problem at work with an employee or a problem at home with spouse or a child, taking one of the following three approaches should result in a more positive outcome. The main difference being that with employees or children you have the ultimate say, but with a spouse you are equal partners, each responding to the needs and wishes of the other.

Let us start with the first method, which I call the preventive approach. The preventive approach deals with picking up early signs that something may be brewing and dealing with the potential conflict before it escalates into a full-blown one. It is difficult to do because we often hope that if nothing is said, the problem will disappear of its own accord, or that it will just happen a few times and that will be it.

The reality is that if a behavior seems to go unnoticed, or at least isn’t talked about, the assumption is that one can continue it. If you don’t want to make a big deal out of a first or second-time dysfunctional behavior, it is possible to say something about it casually: “This is the third time you’re late for work, is anything wrong?” Or to a child: “This is the second time you’ve not finished your homework, what can we do about it?”

In other words, during the preventive stage, you gather information in a non-threatening way. You make it known that you have noticed and are available as a resource, even if only as a sounding board. You make no judgment, you do not evaluate. You are just an impartial, yet concerned, observer.

The therapeutic approach assumes that a problem needs to be dealt with and that the person can be helped. It is important to mention the good points as well as the weak ones, illustrating each with specific examples.

The caveat here is that the person must be willing to acknowledge that there is a problem and also agree to receive some help. In other words, the boss or parent becomes an acceptable resource—pointing out what is wrong, how it can be fixed, and the expected outcome. If it is a spouse or coworker whose behavior causes a problem, one must find out how aware the person is of the behavior and its impact and whether he or she is willing to change.

Knowing that you are there to solve a problem together will allow difficult employees, uncooperative children, and unaware spouses to participate in a discussion. It is important to set a time when you will talk again to check on progress toward mutually agreed-upon goals. This can be the next day, next week, or next month, with specific behaviors that need to be reduced or eliminated and others, which will replace them.

The final approach in punitive. When the therapeutic approach has failed, it is time to threaten. Unless there is improvement, the following consequences are likely to occur: for an employee it can be no opportunity for promotions, a demotion and, of course, being fired. Whatever it is that you threaten with, you must then carry it out. With a child, it is usually taking away some privilege; with a spouse, it is negative changes in your own behavior or even eventual divorce as a response to lack of effort on the part of the spouse.

Sometimes it is actually your unmet expectations of this employee, spouse, or child that creates the problem. They may not understand what is expected, or they may not act appropriately because of inherent limitations, lack of training, or motivation. It is also possible that they are reacting to stress or some other factor which is not directly related to the problem at hand.

It is important for a superior to know the reasons for their employees’ difficulties, for a spouse to understand what goes on in the other person’s mind and heart, and for a parent to know the reasons for a child’s problems. When dealing with others, one must always be observing, gathering information, diagnosing, planning, and evaluating the possible impact. A manager’s, spouse’s, or parent’s job is never done—it is always in process.

Copyright © 2012. Natasha Josefowitz. All rights re