L.L. here, remembering my rocking days. I’m talking about first grade. Me and old Mrs. Serafin.
I don’t know why this teacher did what she did. Maybe she sensed I came from a difficult place, mile by mile over country roads, slowly finding my school face on the way– a smile to say everything’s okay. It wasn’t. Did Mrs. Serafin know?
Or maybe she liked to recall moments of her own parenthood. Or maybe she didn’t even have children, but she found who she wanted in a little girl she could fit on her broad lap and rock.
To my recollection, Mrs. Serafin did this every day– take me in her arms and sing “Rock-a-Bye Baby” and rock me in front of the class. I am probably making up the frequency part. I am not making up the rocking and singing. When we were finally grown, my lifelong best girlfriend told me she was absolutely overcome with jealousy when Mrs. Serafin rocked me. I felt bad about that, but not bad enough to wish away the past– a comforting teacher who seemed to be playing favorites.
Some of us have strong feelings about the idea of playing favorites. It seems, well, just so unfair. But Buckingham and Coffman note that the best managers spend more time and energy on certain employees– their top performers.
They assert, “If love is not the opposite of hate, then surely indifference is the opposite of both. If you spend the most time with your worst performers, the message you are sending your employees is that ‘the better your performance becomes, the less time and attention you will receive from me.’”
“So spend the most time with your top performers,” they conclude. “Pay attention to them. Be fair to the right people.” In this way, a manager is more likely to learn from the best people and reach excellence regarding objectives. The idea is also to continue to free these top performers to stretch and achieve.
It may seem counterintuitive to spend less time with strugglers and more time with top performers, but that’s what great managers do. I confess I would be hard pressed to single out top performers on my own team. It’s a great team, each person bringing his or her unique talents to build up the whole.
And as long as I don’t have to sing “Rock-a-Bye-Baby,” that’s a comfort.
Doors photo by Amy Lynas. Used with permission. Post by L.L. Barkat, as part of a continuing series on the book First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
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this is intriguing… I’m wondering, though, how it plays into Jesus’ command that The Last Shall Be First? or his wish that we love on our enemies?
Great advice. Always greasing the squeeky wheels, we might miss the fact that the engine’s not running properly.
Wouldn’t it be great if we never had to ignore a single person? That time could be found helping every person uncover what he or she excels at? That each person who excels and performs at the top would as a matter of course, unbidden, offer to mentor someone less capable so that all could enjoy the fruits of cooperative labor, of achieving something meaningful together?
Some parents favor one child over another. (It’s a dynamic in many very large families, including my own.) In groups of friends, there’s always at least one who’s “the favorite”. Sadly, lots of laws have been enacted for the workplace to ensure managers don’t “play favorites”; by another name, it’s known as discrimination.
Theoretically, what Buckingham and Coffman suggest makes sense. But to be discriminating can be both good and bad, no matter how wonderful a manager you are and regardless of intention. Having worked in employment law publishing for almost 25 years, I saw every kind of case imaginable. The message in many of them: Ignore the poor performers to your peril.
I’ve heard this articulated by others — that if you spend all your time with the “problem” employees, you’ll eventually lose your better performers.
One problem with doing that is that organizations are usualyl pretty lousy at addressing problem employees — they prefer to transfer them (making them someone else’s problem) or ignore them and and let the problems fester. You have to deal with the problems when they happen — or you’ll end up spending all your time working on them.
I remember my first grade teacher, too. She was right out of college and had a lot of no-nonsense ideas about children, like telling us right before Christmas that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. The entire class, me included, went home in tears. My mother was not impressed.
Most of the time in my life, I’ve been the GOlden child. At home. In School. In the military. At work. I admit it.
But when I have worked for a tough boss who has called me out to help me improve, I didnt like it. “That’s no way to treat your Golden Child.” But without a little bit of ‘fairness’ in the workplace, I’ll never improve. I’ll never get ready. I’ll never learn humility.
In the Hush, I’m thinking it is more a business than a personal strategy. In other words, as Christians we’re to love and respect people regardless of their performance. But when it comes to dividing our time strategically at work we want to remember not to only work with the strugglers (a natural tendency in almost any situation).
Tony, it’s an art, yes? To deal with the squeaks but also to not let them rule our professional day?
Maureen, I think B&C would probably say yes it is a form of “discrimination” but not in the legal sense of purposely passing over some people who are qualified and performing for others who we just happen to like better for gender, ethnic, age or whatever-else bias reasons. I’m thinking they would say we need to be discriminating about how we spend our time. But hey, like I said in the article, I’m so glad to have a team who are all top performers in their own unique ways!
Now, on another note, I am wondering if you could expand on that final sentence (ignore… to peril).
Glynn, I’m all for dealing with problems as they come. Working intensively for a time to fix things seems better than ending up with a chronically entangled and disintegrating situation. Btw, I hope you are feeling better about Santa now?
(The mother sidenote made me laugh.)
Wow. My first grade teacher was vertically challenged and like to grab kids by the shoulders (right at her eye level) and shake them violently. She was really nice, just had an anger control problem.
This sounds a lot like the psychological principle of reinforcing the desired behaviors and ignoring the undesired.
It works.
Hmmm…something to think about.
I know when I worked for the public service, the best performers were rewarded with more work, more stress and unachievable timelines. This led to my own burnout (and I was the assistant director!) I would of loved people spending time to appreciate me and recognize my contributions, but I became known as the problem-solver…so guess what happened when I had a problem? There was no one there to support me.
I think the deceit is thinking you can actually manage people – you can’t. You can manage expectations, workloads and the work environment…but you will always have those who perform and those who won’t. The key is to remember who your performers are and to make sure they are valued, recognized and respected. Otherwise, your bright stars will go supernova and fizzle out.
Sadly, this is more the exception than the rule. Most people I know crave significant time with their bosses/leaders.
Such a powerful example of favorite, and getting what you needed during that time in your life. I’m celebrating Mrs. Serafin’s (is that her real name or did you change it to be nearly angelic?) wisdom in choosing you to rock, nurture and love.
I seem to preface everything with my lack of work experience – but there you have it. I do find all of this very interesting though. It is difficult, I think, to take your emotions out of managing people. We seem always to want to embrace and encourage those who are struggling. However, I can see that in the workplace that probably would be counter-productive.
I think in our homes, we need to do it a little differently.
I’ve been toying with this question too… of whether or not we need to do it differently at home. I’m thinking that maybe part of the problem at home is that we load personal expectations on family members (wanting them to shine in ways that they might not be cut out for) and then we pressure them in that direction and they “struggle” and we try to help and it’s just a cycle we might better step out of…
Just thinking out loud. And I love that you brought in the family angle. We need to manage home life too!
Laura… um, she was really nice? I’m scratching my head over that.
Glad I had the rocker teacher. 
Sherri, I’m glad you brought that up! I like to occasionally ask everybody how their workload feels and how processes seem to be going (whether things are easing or burdening their work). Then we adjust as need be. Nothing worse than burning people out.
Cheryl, how funny. I didn’t even notice the angel in her name. The name was real. And so was the angel part.
Call me jaded, I guess.
Managers with problem employees have to spend a great deal of time documenting performance and behaviors. To document, you must observe and then you have to try to remediate and correct, then reappraise and follow up, sometimes going so far to requiring so-called “last chance” agreements (these exist even in nonunion workplaces). Performance appraisals need to be done and they need to be honest. It all takes so much time. The number of cases we reported and the number of interviews I did with attorneys who cited the need for and lack of proper documentation was huge. Add a union into the mix and I can tell you, management isn’t going to come out well and often doesn’t, and the problem employee knows it from the outset.
I agree completely that managers need to be discriminating in use of time, with whom to spend it, etc. Discrimination need not be illegal to dust up a problem, however. People, being human, make assumptions, have expectations, begin to feel slighted, wonder why they’re not getting the attention, etc. In some ways, the non-illegal forms of discrimination can be as undermining. When everyone on a team is a “top performer”, what becomes the basis for singling out any one for particular attention?
We need laws that protect management. There’s so much entitlement with employees. Anyone who feels the least bit slighted seems to get what they want, but the hard worker tends to get the raw deal so management can protect themselves from a lawsuit. Our state tried to pass a law to ban frivilous lawsuits, but the lawyers came together lied about what was in the bill and since alot of voters would rather believe a television ad than read it themselves, the law didn’t pass. It was close, I think. It’s been a couple of years since that vote. I wish our state would reintroduce the bill.
Maureen, you’re absolutely right. And I think one of thing parts of the problem-employee documentation process was that the need to document made me on the lookout for the documentable issue. That is, waiting and watching for the person to screw up, rather than searching out and celebrating all the good. Would that we could hire right in the first place and have the right folks in the right places.
Lyla, in fact B&C emphasize this as one of their major points… if we hire the right people for the right jobs, everyone ends up being “talented” and more likely to perform at optimal levels.
Such an interesting question about the basis. Like I said, in my own practice I don’t single anyone out. I’m in contact with people fairly frequently just because I enjoy being in contact.
That said, some people prefer less contact and some prefer more. For me, the takeaway from B&C is not so much to give undue attention to top performers as it is to make sure we don’t leave them alone just because they seem fine without us (and strugglers seem to need us).
Funny, I never anticipated the direction this conversation would go, though of course I should have. It’s just that we have so much fun here at HCB that I forget (and hope I always will) to think in a protectionist fashion.
I had a journalism teacher in HIGH SCHOOL who would ruffle my hair every time she passed my desk. She singled me out and made me the first freshman in the history of the school to be on the school paper. I gloried in that title.
Now older and wiser, I excelled at it, but I frequently struggled with deadlines and struggled in my other classes. Boy, if I could go back…LOL.
I think you are right on with this blog.
)
P.S. The ruffling the hair kind of creeped me out.
Yeah, that kinda creeped me out too!
It is good to see the possibility in people and cultivate their talents! And fun, I think, also. I’m glad that teacher found the talent in you.
Oh, I’ve always loved the strugglers.-
I guess that applies to many different situations, but my heart is always with those who can be more than the see themselves to be.
This is a fascinating discussion. It seems inherently unfair to play favorites. And yet, the tone of what you are saying, LL, makes so much sense. It actually seems more like a correction of going in the wrong direction rather than taking a different direction.
There was a minister in my life who had a profound impact on me that did just what you are explaining in your post. He didn’t ignore the poor performers, but he definately gave much more time to those who were truly sacrificing for the kingdom. The unspoken message was, ‘I love you but if you want more of my attention, you must give more of yourself to the work of the kingdom.’ For me, this approach worked. I became much better in my ministry job that I ever would have had this minister pampered me instead of inspiring me to good works the way he did.
Wondering about the very first comment?
Can our personal and strategic work goals be separated? Should our spiritual compass not be the basis for both and should there not be continuity?
I do this with my own team, but this post has me thinking whether it is right to do so?
So true… this applies personally as well. We often so hyper-focus on our weaknesses that we ignore our strengths. So our strengths get weaker and our weaknesses are often amplified.
Great post!
hmm… what about raising up and bringing in those less than top performers who just need a little training or attention to highlight their talents? I understand your point, why reward bad behavior and punish good ala the attention we give. I guess I feel like it isn’t a black and white issue. A good leader knows when to give the lesser guy a shot and when to nurture his star quarterback.
Immediately I think Jacob v.Esau and how it is a human tendency to favor. Jesus had the 12, but had ones closer to him that he shared more with. Favorites– it caused problems back then too but it was still done.
Nichole — I automatically thought about the night of the Last Supper, and Jesus just gets done breaking the bread and lifting the cup of the new covenant … and it’s a huge moment and history. And then comes this:
“A dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be the greatest.”
Jesus responded that he was among them as one who serves.
I think it can feel incredibly challenging to lead in the workplace as Jesus taught. His upside-down Kingdom is so counter-culture. It takes great resolve and perseverance to lead like that in our workplaces — as servants rather than as bosses who lord over others.
My comment here is probably a bit off-topic, but I’m just so fascinated by the many different directions of this conversation.
Great post, L.L.
Interesting! I always have wondered about this in the situations where I’m teaching. Some students welcome extra attention because of their own positive responses, where others almost demand the attention because of their bad behavior. There must be a middle ground in business and in life because of that off-chance that some encouragement might help a “low-performer” improve, right? Either way, thanks for sharing!