Leading Your Team: Be The Human Crapshield
(This is Part 5 of Leadership Principles)
“So what exactly do you do Mike?” The question was posited by the snarkiest of my direct reports during my staff meeting (a subject I’ll opine on some time in the future). My job was to direct “the business.” Theirs was to run their respective business units.
“Well, I set direction for you guys, set aggressive goals, coach, recruit, and mentor team members. Most importantly though, I act as a Human Crapshield for you guys.” Puzzled looks all around.
“A Human Crapshield? Give me a break.”
“Look – you really never want to know the volume of crap I shield you guys from so you can focus on your job rather than dealing with the crap.”
“Yeah, I’m sure the crap is unbearable. Sounds to me like you’re justifying your role as useless corporate overhead.” Ouch. I’d hate to know what it would be like if my team members didn’t like me…
Middle managers and junior executives often find themselves in a pickle. They’re no longer the front-line “doers” nor are they the high up muckety mucks who make the big decisions and the big bucks. They find themselves in the purgatory between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in an uncomfortably undefined role. Yes, they’re responsible for all the items I list above (and then some) but the one role they might be unaware of and underestimate the importance of is the role of Human Crapshield.
A Human Crapshield? What exactly does that mean?
I’m glad you asked.I had a great company commander back when I was a young platoon leader (which was 15 years and 15 pounds ago). I had a penchant for running slightly amok on the “battlefield” in training sessions. I would occasionally change the plan and do something different for, as they say in the army “no plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Needless to say, I sometimes made boo boos during my overly zealous charges into the jaws of “enemy” forces.
What my commander taught me was that no matter how badly I messed up (unless it was an issue of safety or ethics), he would take the heat from “higher.” He thought it best to learn from mistakes and he understood he was ultimately responsible for everything that happened or failed to happen in his unit. After witnessing him suffer a blistering dressing down for one of my “battlefield decisions” I asked him why he didn’t implicate me.
“Because your job is to fight the best fight you know how. My job is to create the environment where you feel safe doing that and taking appropriate risks to win. Think of me as your Human Crapshield. I shield you from the crap raining down from above so you can do your job.”
That gem stuck with me and I resolved to do the same for my people regardless of the organization I belonged to. In my view, being a good Human Crapshield means:
- Forcing “higher” to prioritize work and initiatives so my team doesn’t get overloaded or run into the ground
- Eliminating worthless meetings, email threads and reporting requests (if the answer to the question doesn’t change what we’re doing, don’t answer the question – just get back to work)
- Minimizing flip-flopping of strategic direction or hasty focus on short term metrics to buffet my team from getting whipsawed due to knee-jerk overreactions
- Saying “no” to requests from higher if they won’t meaningfully affect business performance (everyone knows when they’re doing busy work – my job is to kill busy work before it happens)
- Protecting my people by accurately and objectively representing them in discussions with senior personnel (senior folks get far fewer interactions with my team than I do and sometimes can come to hasty or inaccurate conclusions about a person’s performance based on limited data). My job is to present a balanced case for my people to ensure they’re not harmed by inaccurate perceptions about their performance.
Sure – you can’t put “be a good Human Crapshield” on your annual goal setting form. It’s hard to measure. It’s one of those “you know it when you see it” things. But it’s one of those leadership “intangibles” people always talk about but never explain. Hopefully the role is somewhat clearer now.
As a post-script, I had occasion to take a two week long vacation shortly after the aforementioned staff meeting. During that time, my direct reports attended my boss’ staff meetings in my stead. When I returned sporting a wonderful tan, my snarky subordinate commented “I’m so glad you’re back. I had no idea the amount of crap you protect us from. Thanks. I’m going to go get some work done now…”
– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC
@Rick – thanks for the thoughts. I agree. If your people are going elsewhere for clarity, you have a communications problem. Additionally, if you’re not filtering (but filtering only the BS, not the critical stuff) you’re only going to enable and foster confusion on your team.
This is an important concept, and I wonder how many managers give this any thought on a daily basis. We have all seen managers who do the exact opposite — who, when a business’s strategic direction is confused, pass along all this confusion to their subordinates and toss in some of their own confusion while they’re at it.
A warning sign you might look for: If your subordinates talk to your boss and come away saying, “Oh. Now I get what we’re trying to do,” it’s a sign that you might not be adding the clarity you could be adding to your area of the business.
I had a boss like this once and i always appreciated and respected him as a reliable trustworthy leader.
But i never knew how great I had it ’til i left to ‘follow my dream/goals’ etc and took a job, for less pay, under a manager who was essentially incompetent. I became the reliable ‘outstanding’ and highly regarded worker who was her right hand and to my face, i was appreciated and showered with praise. Behind my back, i became the crapshield for all her mistakes and misdeeds; eventually (via workplace bullying and mobbing) I was considered the CAUSE of all ills, lowered morale and just about anything else she could think of to shift the blame my way. This manager singlehandedly manipulated so many people, higherups and peers, that I, the once ‘outstanding’ and ‘impossible to replace’ employee, became the pariah and was ousted from my job, hated by all. It is called workplace bullying and mobbing, when managers do the opposite and choose a subordinate to scapegoat as the human crapshield. I served as crapshield for a long time as the subordinate, unbeknownst to me. Then when i figured it out, it was already too far gone. Unable to escape the defamation so widespread (from a source so covert) i had to leave on unpaid FMLA and now in a few weeks I will be terminated. I have to accept my career is over and damage irreparable to my credibility, as well as my health. I endured the opposite of what you do for employees, and it destroyed me. It is so good to hear there are still managers like you who care about their subordinates and see it as a part of their role to shield and protect them, rather than use/misuse power to divert the blame to the subordinate (the subordinate who is not at the meeting where the crap is being diverted thus has no voice to negate lies; the ones who must trust and rely upon superiors who abuse that role all too often, and take advantage to scapegoat the ones they should be protecting…
Thanks for sharing this piece of encouragement and a sorely needed reminder (as i crumble) that humanity does indeed still exist and people (well, most) are inherently good.