Are you only delivering on half of what’s expected of you in senior management?
The Right Results Are Only Half of the Equation
As a front-line supervisor, your job was to deliver results. You were measured by and rewarded for performance. No matter what job function you were managing, your priority was to get the job done on time, under budget and in accordance with the quality standards set.
As you ascend the career ladder, you have increasingly greater degrees of responsibility for results.
And, sometimes frustratingly, your continued promotion relies on how you produce results as much as the results themselves.
Once upon a time, your accountability as a crew foreman was to make sure the 6–8 members of your crew performed. That’s a far cry from your role and responsibility now as plant manager. Now you have 6–8 different function heads reporting to you, and each one manages a number of supervisors.
Your responsibility for results is clear — the company’s senior executives and board members review the numbers produced by your plant and hold you accountable.
With the emphasis on results plus the accolades and rewards you’ve received for producing results, you may be singularly focused on the numbers, the volumes, the productivity, and the bottom line.
That’s understandable. But it isn’t the only thing you need to be looking at.
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
As Senior Manager, you may not realize how profoundly your role has shifted.
If you are just doing more of the same thing you did as a Supervisor (driving results, making sure the team gets the right results), you’re operating with a short-term perspective that will have long-term consequences.
The people who assess your performance and consider you for promotions are looking for more than just results. They’re also looking for internalization of company values, taking initiative to improve company culture, and how you use your role as leader to increase and sustain higher productivity levels.
If you want to continue up the ladder, you need to make a shift to thinking about the “right way” as much as you think about the “right results.”
Right Results vs. Right Way
The right results are self-explanatory. They’re clearly defined for you during budgeting, and you are reminded of them with each daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly report you receive.
The right way, however, may be a bit ambiguous. That’s precisely why it requires your attention.
The right way for you and your company depends on your circumstances. In short, it refers to the way business is conducted.
● Business practices
● Demonstration of company values
● How people treat one another in the workplace
And so much more.
Use this box model as a way to think about your job.
When you give equal weight to both dimensions, you can evaluate your current condition. There are only four possibilities, and each one gives you direction about your next steps.
Option A: Right Way + Right Results
Obviously, the box you’d like to be in is the one in the upper right hand corner.
This is getting the right results the right way. The numbers look good. People are representing the company appropriately. Trust is growing and becomes a competitive advantage.
You are building for the future, and it shows on paper today and will show in the future, too, as you are operating from a solid position.
Option B: Wrong Way + Wrong Results
Just as obvious is the lower left hand corner. This is the box you don’t want to be in. Ever.
It’s getting the wrong results and doing business the wrong way. Corporate malfeasance has put many large companies into this box, and we’re all familiar with those scandals.
On a smaller scale, companies find themselves in this box when they treat employees and/or customers poorly and this leads to an erosion of market share.
The other two boxes are where most senior managers end up at some point in their career.
Option C: Right Results + Wrong Way
You may be getting the right results but doing so in a wrong way.
This happens, for example, when a sales team cuts rates and makes deals to get the top line revenue they’re accountable for. They get the right results. But the wrong way of doing so affects the bottom line and conditions buyers to hold out for a discount every time they do business with you.
There’s a short-term gain (results) with a long-term pain.
Option D: Wrong Results + Right Way
Finally, you might be getting the wrong results but doing business in the right way.
Perhaps you’re not hitting target numbers because you invested in production line enhancements to improve ergonomics for your employees. It was not anticipated, but you did it anyway.
You chose what you considered to be the right way because you felt it would drive the right long-term results. Safe and comfortable employees mean fewer worker’s comp claims and higher levels of productivity.
Your values say you care about your employees, so you decided to act in alignment with those values.
The right way ultimately drives the right results.
It makes the right results easier to produce. Forcing the right results the wrong way will affect you, your team, and your career advancement.
Here’s how to make the right way happen:
- Determine, based on your values, what “right way” means to you. This resource page will guide you through a process for doing this.
- Define the “right way” in detail
- Communicate what it is in context
- Set expectations around it
- Encourage those who abide by it
The best way to make sure you’re considered for the next round of promotions? Live and breathe the “right way” while using your focus and drive to laser target the right results.
Practicing what you preach is the shortest path to the top of the ladder.
Which approach have you taken in the past? What has been the cost or the benefit when you’ve prioritized right results? When you’ve prioritized right way? Which one do you think is more important and how does your belief guide your day-to-day decisions? Share your RR/RW story in the comments below.
