Who's court is that ball in? Or, that ain't my job, man.

Who's court is that ball in? Or, that ain't my job, man.

You want to be recognized for your contribution. You may not even mind a critique when you don't live to your aims. But you don't want to be blamed for someone else's shortcomings. The people who work with you feel the same way. This article points out how to manage, to keep the responsibility lines straight.  

There are at least two major features to the monitoring of responsibility. One is the mechanics of the system itself, not a simple topic. The second is the fact that credit or blame which arises from responsibility raises emotions; feelings of pride or dejection; a sense that an action is valid or unfair; envy or self worth; superiority or inferiority. I'm an engineer and will have my hands full with the mechanics of the system and so will not consider emotions, but be aware that they exist.

1. Clear lines of responsibility, prioritized

Define, talk about, write down the specific responsibility that a person has in advance and continually. A job description may be enough but it is probably written to cover a multitude of actions with no sense of the present or of the relative priorities of today's activity.

2. Measurable performance

As an engineer I don't even want to talk about some goal that is subjective and not measurable; works and plays well with others. Express that as "no more than two duels or fistfights", I may go along with it.

The work of organizations is expressed in numbers. A situation that is better or worse is expressed in percent change. Give a person a specific quantified objective, performance, or improvement, timing perhaps, dollars or units or percent.

An employee should be able to measure his standing, how he is doing. (I know this applies to women and men equally, please allow me to substitute his for his / hers.) This injunction is true even for factory workers and incentive systems; people will learn how to understand the arithmetic that affects their pay.

Let me get just a bit esoteric here, and state that an employee who avoids a negative variance may be a success, if a "normal" performance would have lost money. The accountants will hate this idea. Such a case it usually hard to define in advance or even afterward, but may well be worth the effort to sort out.  

3. Ability to affect results

An employee must be able to affect results in order to be responsible; that statement seems too obvious for inclusion. But financial systems are often used to generate measurable data, and financial systems are not usually targeted at individual responsibility. For instance a department supervisor may be measured against his department's results. But what about a supervisor on another shift? What about labor rate, which will be in the cost but beyond the control of a supervisor? What about volume, and product mix, and their effect on performance? What about overhead, probably smeared and allocated in some manner and not an actual cost, particularly not a cost that a supervisor can control?   

Most efforts in organizations are related; progress depends to some degree on the actions of someone else. It is not an acceptable excuse to claim "he didn't give it to me". Nevertheless we rely on others. One boss can usually sort out the claims of subordinates, but interdepartmental issues may be more complicated. Watch carefully the measurements applied, and how they are constituted, to understand employee control.

4. Outside the lines

Employees who work with other departments or facilities are difficult to measure directly. Even if their project work has a measureable result, was it because of or despite them? This short article will not guide you much for these people, except to suggest a coordinated appraisal with all of the involved entities, and frank, transparent, timely followup and judgment.

5. Accurate recordkeeping

Recordkeeping is another obvious requirement of an objective appraisal. But it too is subject to interpretation. What is more important, cost results or timing of results? Quality or inventory? The guidance is to choose in advance the units of measure that most accurately reflect the results, and organization, desired. Then collect the data carefully.  

6. Timing

Make appraisals as an umpire does, be on top of the action and call it fast. Then hang around to allow discussion. While the ump doesn't change, you will have to decide whether to reconsider or not.

7. Change

Organizations constantly change, so all features of their work change as well. Assignments, priorities, resources, timing, strategy and tactics are different over time. Responsibilities are usually not difficult to modify in the short term; "Mary, give this job priority and then pick up that one when you are done."

Remember to keep your paperwork up to date when you modify assignments and priorities. What judgments you implement intelligently in the heat of the effort, make a note of for the record. Then review the record later on when the time for review comes. This attention to detail will be useful as you manage through the year, and later on as you add up the results.

8. Bonus, profit sharing, stock incentives

There are several financial mechanisms to quantify management's pleasure with your performance, but they are not my focus here. Suffice it to say that when monetary values are attached to an evaluation of yourself, or of others, they tend to elevate any feeling of unfairness that may arise, even if you only read about it in the newspaper.    

Thanks for your attention; I'm happy to add to your perspective of industrial engineering and productivity.