An Elevator Speech for Bosses
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Bud leaned toward me. We were sitting in his kitchen at one of those porcelain-topped tables with chrome legs that you hardly see anymore. I had just asked him how he went about his work as one of the best supervisors in his company.
It wasn't an idle question. Over the years, I've worked to identify those leaders who get star ratings from their bosses, their subordinates and their peers. Bud was one of them.
"Everybody who works for me knows I have three rules." He put his hand up between us, with the back toward me. Then he ticked off his three points rocking his hand gently toward me with each point.
He stuck up his thumb. "Show up on time and ready to work."
Index finger. "Pitch in to help us get the job done."
Middle finger. "Ask for help you if need it."
It was my turn, "That's it?"
"That's all I need."
Bud's three rules didn't hang on a wall anyplace, like his company's statement of visions and values. But his people knew his those rules.
And they really weren't all there was. Bud did the things that the great supervisors do and that we talk about in the Working Supervisor's Support Kit. He showed up a lot. He talked to people a lot. He made lots of small corrections.
Marketing consultants talk about their "elevator speech," a brief statement of their key marketing points. Bud's three rules were his elevator speech.
Almost all the great supervisors I studied had something similar. Many had a list of points, like Bud. Three was the most popular number, but one supervisor had five.
Others had a sentence or two. All those statements packed a lot of expectation in a short, understandable package.
Boss's Bottom Line
Boil your expectations down to a short, supervisory elevator speech. Then use it to tell some people and remind others what you think is most important.
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
Categories: supervision,Management,Leadership
Tags: Supervision Management Leadership
Awesome, Wally! Does not get much more basic than that. And I bet he holds people accountable for all three.
Bret
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Thanks, Bret. Yes, he did hold them accountable. The beauty of it was that his rules were simple and memorable, so they would often catch themselves doing something wrong, correct, and reference a rule.
I remember one team member who came late on a day when I was on the floor. He bolted out of the locker, shouting at Bud, "I know. I know. Rule number 1!"
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Wally,
You have a true gift for writing that simplifies the complex. Thanks for sharing this great example; I suspect it will be helpful to many who read it.
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Thank you for that, Mary Jo.
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This is such great advice. I am a big fan of a "few simple rules" - it is a great way to stay focused on what really matters. I'm with Mary Jo - you do have knack for simplifying things.
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Thank you Susan. As I think about the comment that you and Mary Jo made, I realized that one of the things that the great bosses do is simplify. The concentrate on Juran's "vital few." Their messages are simple, in the sense of understandable. So are their values. My great joy is that I've gotten to hang out with men and women like that for a quarter century.
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The nice thing about this is it forces you to think through your own expectations as well as communicate them. So often problems start with miss-understood expectations.
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Good point, Fred. We often think we understand and concentrate on what's important. Putting it into an elevator speech forces us to distill what we believe into words and then test them in communication.
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Here's a similar story I have made sure to remember.
http://www.execupundit.com/2007/05/quote-of-day_31.html
As a young firefighter, [I] worked for such a company officer. He was smart, tough, and nice. He was Chairman of the Board of the business of our company and he minded that business. He had a crew cut and on one arm (very big) he had "U.S.M.C." and on the other "Mom." (Those tats provided a quick and accurate snapshot of him.) He hadn't gone to graduate school, so he talked in nice, short, understandable sentences. If he liked what you were doing, he told you to keep doing it. If he wanted you to start doing something, he told you to start. If he wanted you to stop doing something, he told you to stop. He listened to his crew, took care of us, and brought out the best in everyone. He was very patient with mistakes as long as they were new ones. Virtually everyone who worked for him got promoted (or else).
- Alan Brunacini
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Thanks for bringing that to us, Tim. I'd be remiss if I didn't note that the Execupundit site where the quote is found is one of the great online sources of distilled wisdom.
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Wally,
I just found your blog today via Twitter. This is a fantastic story. Thank you for sharing. By having those three simple rules as the basis for holding his people accountable, but himself as well.
I'm also a big fan of servant leadership - or never delegate work out that you're not willing to complete on your own if necessary.
Again, thank you for sharing.
-Brad Pendleton
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Thanks for stopping by and sharing that, Brad. I hope we'll see you again. What's called servant leadership today was embodied for me in the Marine Corps mantra that "Officers eat last."
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I like this idea of managers and supervisors having their own "mission statement". Some of the great leaders use this technique very effectively. It's a great way of using underpinning philosophy to overcome any specific or practical problems. You can't go wrong if you always remember ...... etc.
Of course, any marketer would say that ensuring mutual benefit in products or services requires research, and the same applies when managing people. So, just as it's important for managers to express the basics of what they expect, they should also be aware of their employees' basic expectations. Here are a couple of examples:
"Evidence suggests very clearly that managers make the critical difference in organizations. When employees are asked why they leave companies, time and again they cite their manager as the main reason. To answer the question "what makes a good manager?" perhaps we should ask: what do employees expect from, and hope for in their managers? Extensive research from Gallup suggests that good management-staff relationships rest on four foundations. Employees would like:
# Managers who show care, interest and concern for their staff;
# To know what is expected of them;
# A role which fits their abilities;
# Positive feedback and recognition regularly for work well done."
http://www.the-happy-manager.com/what-makes-a-good-manager.html
"Between 2001 and 2004, David Sirota, Louis Mischkind and Michael Meltzer conducted an exhaustive research project. After surveying around 1.2 million employees, from 52 Fortune 1000 companies, they summarized their findings with this authoritative conclusion:
"The great majority of employees are quite enthusiastic when they start a new job. But in about 85 percent of companies, our research finds, employees' morale sharply declines after their first six months-and continues to deteriorate for years afterward." Sirota, Mischkind and Meltzer encapsulated their research into a "Three Factor Theory of Human Motivation in the Workplace". The evidence suggests that most employees seek three things from their work:
1 - to feel they are achieving something worthwhile;
2 - to enjoy a sense of camaraderie whilst at work;
3 - and to be treated with equity."
http://www.the-happy-manager.com/employee-motivation-program.html
So one of my favourite quotes brings these two ideas together nicely. The value of a simply stated philosphy, and the importance of considering the employees perspective when managing. Peter Drucker told a story about once asking the former head of a very large, world wide organisation:
“What do you look for in placing the right people into the right places in an organisation?”
The old man, who had been famous for doing just that replied:
“I always ask myself, would I want one of my sons to work under that person?”
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Thanks for that thorough comment. You're right that we know what our team members want when they come to work. I've phrased it slightly differently in my post on "8 Characteristics of Highly Effective Workplaces." And you're right that your supervisor is the key. People join companies, but leave bosses. Drucker's comment sums it up nicely.
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Interesting stuff Wally. Were the other supervisors you spoke to saying a similar thing to Bud? Coming up with the same sort of criteria for what makes them a success in their job?
It would be interesting to flip things around and ask their team what three things made them good supervisors.
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I never looked for something like this when I was originally spending time with great supervisors. I only saw it later, when I reviewed the notes. The ones I had made notes on had different things that were important. In other words nobody had the exact same list or phrase. And in different workplaces, there might be different priorities.
That was the long answer. The short answer is that there was a lot of overlap on topics and not nearly as much in wording or in style.
I never asked team members the exact question that you suggest. Over more than a quarter century, though, used a class exercise where we defined a great place to work as the core of my training. It's also the core of my Working Supervisor's Support Kit. You can find my expression of what they told me in "8 Characteristics of a Highly Effective Workplaces."
Also, be sure to check out Phil's comment. He outlines Gallup and Sirota research that come to the same basic conclusions.
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Howdy Wally,
The "elevator speech" definently does have application to leaders. While I am still developing mine, one of the principles that I have had (and enforced) is that there are "no honorary positions" in any organization that I lead.
What do I mean by that? Well, I just spent the last four years in leadership positions in volunteer organizations. Alot of people would come in, "Get the t-shirt" so to speak, and then not do anything else. And yet, these were the same people who'd play off of all of the hard work that 20% of the entire organization was doing to make the organization great.
So, I, much like Bud's second principle, demanded that people actually pitched in and helped. I'm sure if I thought about it I'd have some more principles to add to my elevator speech, but I really feel that this one was one of the things that enabled the success that we had my last year there.
Enjoyed the post,
-Kyle
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Thanks, Kyle. I'm sure you'll take a bit from Bud and from other places and come up with your own, "Kyle-specific" version of an elevator speech.
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