Managers often ask us, “How can I suddenly raise my standards and start holding people accountable when I haven’t been doing that all these years?”
To answer that question, this is a story about a manager in a research laboratory, Debbie. Most of the researchers Debbie managed worked in the lab before she got there and were used to working independently under very little daily supervision. They were not in the habit of answering to anybody but themselves.
When Debbie first took over the lab, she eased into her role gently, not wanting to upset the status quo. Four years later, the lab was running much as it did the day she took over, and things were not going well.
“People pretty much came and went as they pleased,” Debbie told us. “The lab was a mess, literally. Supplies were not properly labeled and shelved. Safety procedures were not being followed. Experiments were not being documented. People didn’t clean up after themselves. Some of them did good work because they were self-motivated, but there was no accountability.”
Even then, Debbie didn’t take charge. “I felt like it wasn’t my lab. These people were here before me, and I sort of missed my chance to impose order when I first arrived. The longer I accepted the situation, the less I felt justified in making big changes.”
So, what changed?
“I finally got fed up with the situation and decided I had to start holding people accountable. I called a team meeting and told people that the situation was unacceptable and that I wasn’t going to tolerate it anymore,” Debbie said. “I told them I was going to make a lot of changes. I wasn’t going to make up any new rules. I was just going to start insisting that the established rules be followed. People complained, ‘But we’ve always done it this way. You’ve been here for four years and you’ve never enforced these rules.’
“I didn’t blame them. I blamed myself,” Debbie continued. “It was so liberating to take responsibility for that failure. It was all my fault. Not theirs. I just said, ‘You are absolutely right! I have been lax. Not anymore!’ I told them that I was sorry for being a weak manager and that I was going to be a much better manager moving forward. I went over the rules in detail, over all the standard operating procedures that we’d been ignoring. I explained that I was absolutely going to start enforcing those rules, and I explained how I was going to do that.”
When Debbie began holding her team accountable, Gus, who had a positive paper trail from his years in the company, really pushed back, saying, “This is my company, too, and I’ve done things my way for some time and I’ve been successful.”
What did Debbie do?
“I just kept communicating the old rules and my new policy. I was communicating the rules vividly and relentlessly.” Gus thought that he would get Debbie to back down. He figured his track record in the organization would protect him from any adverse consequences Debbie might try to impose.
And he was right…at least for a while.
Some time later, Debbie sent us an email. The subject line read: A NEW DAY has dawned! She wrote, “I knew a lot of the researchers didn’t believe that I would follow through. But I stuck with it, and they finally got the message. These changes are not going away. The lab is already so much cleaner than it ever was before. We are actually following procedures for the first time since I’ve been here. Researchers are signing in and out the way they are supposed to and following safety procedures. We’ve gotten more work done in this lab in the last two weeks than we did in the entire year before.”
Even Gus? “I think Gus realized I wasn’t going to back down…so he started looking for another manager. He moved upstairs to a new job today!”
Here’s what other managers can learn from Debbie’s approach:
As Debbie herself put it: “I just needed the guts to take charge. I only wish I had done this on day one.”
Improving the quality of your leadership, no matter your role, is one of the best career investments you can make: