Teaching Lame Crows to Walk

“In your arsenal, do you have anything that teaches lame crows to walk?”

My initial days as an independent consultant. I was in a potential client company with the sales manager discussing training opportunities. This company had once been a market leader but had slipped way down over time. As a result the sales manager had been fired for poor performance and a new one appointed in his place. The new sales manager, who I was having a conversation with, was supposed to be the miracle man with a reputation of turning things around.

“What do you mean, teaching lame crows to walk?”

 “I have inherited a useless team”, he replied. “The morale is down, they don’t have the necessary drive to push sales and they have no impact in the market. They haven’t earned their sales commission in over a year and don’t seem interested in doing anything about it. They hop when they are supposed to be running. The only reason they are still here in this company is because no one else will take them. And the only reason I cannot throw them out is because I can’t get replacements. No one wants to join such a dejected team.”

 “Ok”, I said. “I understand about the lame part. But why crows?”

 “Just a figure of speech”, he replied. “Don’t take it literally”.

 Wow! Calling his team members crows… Maybe a topic of interest for some psychiatrist. But I had other things to worry about.

“So what exactly are you looking for?”

“I need a training workshop that will transform the team,” He replied. “I want them to be up and running. I want a highly charged and motivated team that will conquer the market. I want fighters!”

I went back to my office with a load of questions in my mind. In my conversation with the Sales Head, the impression I had got was that the sales team was the main culprit for all the woes that the organization suffered. But were the sales people really responsible for state of affairs or were there larger organizational issues. Even if they were responsible, what had caused it? And finally, how do you convert so called losers into fighters? 

The next day, I met an old colleague of mine who I shall call Mr. A. He had spent his entire working life in the HR function. Now retired, he still kept in touch with people in the HR community.

 I explained my problem to him, and the conversation that followed was not only interesting, but for me an eye opener.

Mr. A: I have heard you. Now tell me what exactly is your problem?

Me: I don’t know who is responsible for their state of affairs, so I don’t know how to tackle the issue.
Mr A: State of affairs of that company is the problem of people who run that company. What is your problem?
Me: If I don’t know the core issue, how can I address it?
Mr. A: You have been given an issue. You have to teach lame crows to walk.
Me: But I don’t know what has caused them to become lame!
Mr. A: Ok… That’s a constraint. Now what are the possibilities?
Me: The only possibility that I see is that I will not be able to come up with anything concrete, and so will not get this project.
Mr. A: Look around you. What do you see in this room?
Me: I don’t understand…
Mr. A: Tell me what all do you see in this room. Everything…
Me: Ok… I see furniture, books, papers, a computer and you and me. I also see tea cups on the table, some pictures on the wall, a carpet on the floor, curtains, fan……………
Mr. A: Now if we were to remove everything from this room, what will be left?
Me: Everything?
Mr. A: Yes… Each and everything, including you and me. Then what will be left?
Me: Let’s see… The walls of this room…
Mr. A: What else?
Me: The air in this room…
Mr. A: That’s good. What else?
Me: Maybe the echoes of our conversation…?
Mr. A:  Ah! We are now moving to the esoteric stuff… I will accept that. Anything else?
Me: No, I can’t think of anything else.

(I strongly recommend readers to do this exercise before reading further. Make a list of what would be left if all the things are removed from the room you are in)

Mr. A: Interesting how the human mind works… It first thinks of constraints, but it refuses to think of possibilities
Me: I don’t understand…
Mr. A: You saw the walls, but you couldn’t see the door…?

I was silent. The door had not even come to my mind.

Mr. A: Not your fault. That’s how we operate. We think of constraints almost instantly, but cannot see the opportunities. You have to force yourself to stop thinking of why things cannot be done before you can focus on how they can be done. Not an easy thing, but with practice you will be able to do that.

My mind was still reeling. Why did the door not come to my mind?

Mr. A: You are a consultant now. An external person. So you will not get every piece of information that you need at all times. You have to make do with what you have and do your best. For that you have to change your attitude from looking for constraints to searching for possibilities.

Me: So what possibility do you see here?
Mr. A: That’s so simple. You don’t have to teach lame crows to walk. They don’t have to walk. They have to fly…. So teach them to fly.

 The next week we made a presentation to the Sales Head. When he asked, “So have you figured out how to make these lame crows walk?” I replied, “No, but I am going to talk about how to make lame crows to fly.”

It worked. We got the project.

 

 

 

The training that did not happen

“I don’t want managers in my organization, I want leaders”! I had heard this many times. In fact this was a kind of joke we had laughed about. Only this time I was not laughing. When the managing director of your company says it, looking pointedly at you, it is no longer a laughing matter.

 I had joined this company about a year back as head of HR and Training. The occasion was the six-monthly business review. All the business and functional heads were attending. In spite of difficult economic and business conditions, we had managed to achieve 87% of our targets. So the mood was quite upbeat, although there would be some recriminations from the managing director (Why only 87%... why not 100%). But that was ok. After all that was his job.

 Normally the HR function had almost no role to play in the review meetings. Unless some business head wanted to use the function as a scapegoat for non-performance (They did not give us the right manpower at the right time) or for moral support (Our competitors are paying better incentives… ask HR, they have collected the relevant data), my contribution was negligent. But since the convention was that all business and functional heads should attend, it also fell on me to be an almost silent spectator in the day-long sessions twice a year.

 The meeting began in the usual fashion. The Finance Head presented his array of spread sheets giving data about the (non) performance in the last six months, the business heads started readying their PPTs and arguments and I settled down to a long and slightly boring day.

 But this time it was not to be the usual manner. After the Finance Head finished his presentation, the bombshell dropped. The managing director, who, normally would remain silent throughout the meeting except when asking those uncomfortable questions suddenly butted in. “I am aware of the economic conditions and difficulties that we are going through. And I know that all of you will give this as the main reason for not achieving targets. So let’s not waste time. What I want to talk about is what can we do different to make sure we achieve targets in spite of the conditions. I don’t want to go through your presentations. I want us to discuss this one issue.”

 You could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed. No one was prepared for this. One of the business managers tried to get the meeting back on track. “Sir, if we analyse businesswise monthly regional performance, we may be able to understand what we can do better”. But the managing director cut him short. “Don’t waste our time. I will tell you where the problem is. Our team heads behave like managers and not like leaders. We have too many managers in the company and not enough leaders”. Then looking pointedly at me, “I don’t want managers in my organization, I want leaders. And Nitin, being the head of training, it is your responsibility to create leaders in this company. Please interact with all business heads and come up with a plan. I am also available for any discussion, if you feel the need.”

 With that he stood up and walked out. The meeting had ended. The rest of us just sat as if paralysed. After some time, one of the business heads looked at me and smiled, “Good luck to you”, and walked out. Another one tried to be helpful. “Perhaps this is a passing fad. Give it some time. Something else will come up and this will be forgotten”. One by one they all walked out leaving me with my own confusion.

 Managers to leaders? What did that mean? And what’s wrong with being a manager? Even if we are, by some miracle, able to convert all managers into leaders, what would happen then? How would it impact business? And what would they do differently if we began calling them leaders instead of managers? And just because I happened to be the training head, how was it my responsibility to convert managers into leaders? Well actually the answer to this last question was easy – because the managing director thought so!

 I sat there alone for quite some time. All I was getting was more questions and confusion. I had to do something. Perhaps the best way was to talk to the business heads. That might give me some clue.

 I met the first business head. “What do you think is the difference between a manager and a leader”? I began. “I don’t know. Isn’t it your job to find out”?

 I tried another opening. “What if instead of managers in your team, you had leaders”? “Why do I want leaders in my team”? He replied. “I am the leader of my team. The rest have just to do what I tell them to do.”

 Another business head revealed his thoughts. “A leader has to do all the thinking. If we have too many leaders in a team, it will lead to disaster. Everyone will be thinking and no one will be doing.”

 Yet another had this nugget, “A leader leads and a manager manages. There can be only one leader, which in our case is the managing director. The rest of us are managers”.

 It wasn’t helping. Perhaps the managing director would be able to help. After all this was his great idea. So I took an appointment and finally met him. I have tried to pen down the ensuing conversation verbatim:

 Me: Sir, I need to get your perspective about the difference between manager and leader.

Managing Director (MD): There are no different perspectives. Everyone knows the difference between the two

Dangerous grounds. I could not show my ignorance, and at the same time I needed answers.

Me: Yes Sir, but your verbalizing will help me understand it better in our organizational context.

 Lame, but that’s the best I could do at that moment

MD: Well leadership is about leading. It is about giving direction, about motivating people to give their best, about achieving results.

Me: And a manager is not capable of doing that?
MD: If a manager is able to do that, then he becomes a leader.
Me: And what is being a manager all about?
MD: It’s about managing. It’s about making sure that things happen as they should and nothing is out of place. It’s about planning and organizing and executing.
Me: Isn’t a leader supposed to do all these things also?
MD: Of course he does, but he also needs to lead his team members
Me: And isn’t a manger, in order to make sure that things happen as they should, supposed to give direction and push his people to do their best?
MD: To an extent, yes…
Me: Sir, then, I still don’t get the difference between the two.
MD (Now a bit exasperated): Well the main difference is that a leader will always achieve his targets while a manager will not!
Me: Aah, I understand now. Then sir, you will be glad to know that nine out of our twenty six managers are already leaders, because they have achieved their targets.

 A long pause, where both of us were just looking at each other.

MD: I have another meeting coming. So we will carry on with our discussion at another time.
Me: Sure sir. Do let me know when you are free so we can conclude our discussion.

 I walked out of the managing director’s office. Something caught my eye on his secretary’s table. I paused to take a look. It was a brochure for a talk by a motivational speaker entitled ‘Leaders deliver results, Managers don’t’.

The meeting to conclude our discussion never happened.