How To Survive Your Promotion: 85 Sure-fire Ways To Prove They Were Right To Hire You! 2rc3u

How to Survive Your Promotion 85 Sure-Fire Ways to Prove They Were Right to Hire You!

Edward J. Lopatin

Copyright © 2012 by Edward J. Lopatin.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012918109 ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4797-2445-1 Softcover 978-1-4797-2444-4 Ebook 978-1-4797-2446-8

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 Your Timetable for Professional Success

Chapter 2 Dress for the Job

Chapter 3 Behave Ethically and Ask for Help When Needed

Chapter 4 Take Bold, Risky, and Innovative Steps

Chapter 5 Build Political Alliances and Relationships

Chapter 6 Manage Your Time More Effectively

Chapter 7 Using Communication and Interpersonal Skills to Improve Your Likelihood of Success

Chapter 8 Give the Staff an Opportunity to Shine

Chapter 9 Hire the Best Assistants Money Can Buy

Chapter 10 Don’t Dismiss the Rumor Mill But Don’t Let It Mow You Down

Chapter 11 Know Your Strengths and Use Them to Your Advantage

Chapter 12 Don’t Do What You Know You Can’t Do Well

Chapter 13 Time Can Be Your Friend or Your Enemy

Chapter 14 Make Sure You Don’t Hire or Retain Staff Who Are Not Motivated to Succeed

Chapter 15 Remain Focused by Keeping Healthy and Your Personal Life Stable

Chapter 16

Final Thoughts

About the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department during the Time I Was There

Your Timetable for Surviving Your Promotion and Realizing Professional Success

Summary of the Eighty-Five Surefire Ways to Prove They Were Right to Hire You

About the Author

Dedication I dedicate this book to all of the people who worked hard, got promoted, and found themselves in a job that was or what they thought was “over their head.” To all of you, I offer you messages of empowerment and encouragement, and I tell you that you can overcome your hesitations, trepidations, and succeed.

I also dedicate this book to all of the people who want a high-level professional or executive position and want to build a long-term plan for getting there. To all of you, I tell you that your professional goals can be realized. To get the job that you want, you should obtain the proper education and accreditation, utilize informed mentors, apply for the right positions, be prepared to work harder than you ever imagined, be prepared to think “out of the box,” and become as flexible and open-minded as possible.

Preface

In the summer of 2000, I was promoted from assistant director of Finance and istration in the San Francisco City and County (City) Juvenile Probation Department to director of Finance and istration in that same city department. Going into the higher-level position, I was afraid that that I was heading into a position that might be “over my head” because of the very wide range of responsibilities the position would require of me and because it required me to manage an extremely diverse and entrenched employee workforce of forty-five persons. For the thirteen and a half years preceding my ing the Juvenile Probation Department, I was an audit manager in the city’s Controller’s Office. For the time I was an audit manager, I only managed auditors. All of the auditors had closely similar educational and professional backgrounds to mine, and all of the auditors performed generic auditing functions that I fully understood and which I had performed myself in earlier years. When I headed to the assistant director of Finance and istration position at Juvenile Probation in 1997, I was heading into another position with limited supervisory responsibilities. As assistant director of Finance and istration, I directly supervised only two staff and indirectly supervised another half-dozen staff. When I ed the Juvenile Probation Department in 1997, my predecessor had just recently been hired and found the division totally out of control. Together, she and I tackled and overcame a very dysfunctional operating environment. For example, we found piles of very old s payable bills stacked in one employee’s desk, we discovered employees regularly using city vehicles for personal purposes, and we learned that the department’s resources (including food and automobile supplies) were commonly pilfered and that many employees were paid for working a full day but came in late and left early. We also found many financial and operating internal controls not in place or not adhered to. For most of my time as an assistant director of Finance and istration, I

assisted the director of Finance and istration prepare the department’s budget, perform a diverse range of professional tasks, directly supervise the department’s purchasing and cashier functions, and indirectly supervise the ing and s payable units. Although the job was demanding, I was clearly well qualified and able to serve competently in that position. Three years after assuming the assistant director of Finance and istration position, the department’s director of Finance and istration retired; and the department head, the chief probation officer, offered me the director of Finance and istration position. Initially, I thought I was well prepared to be director. For example, I thought I knew all I needed to know about management and about being a manager because I had completed a master’s degree in public istration. However, once I became a director, I realized that the graduate-level management education didn’t help me all that much because most of this management education was theoretical and not hands-on. I also thought I was prepared to be director because I had worked very closely with my predecessor and thought that I knew all of the ins and outs of the position and knew where the “skeletons” were buried. However, when I assumed the director position, I learned that my predecessor had not told me about all of the “skeletons” that were stored and hidden away in the finance director’s “closet.” Many, if not most, of these “skeletons” had been buried for years, and no one had known about them, including my immediate predecessor. Unfortunately for me, many of these skeletons “bared their ugly heads” as soon as I entered the director’s office on my first day. Nevertheless, I thought that I would be a good director because I had already established a good working relationship with my department’s chief probation officer and with the department’s assistant chief probation officer. I was also on good with all of the department’s executive staff. I also knew many, if not most, of the department’s professional, clerical, and staff. I also felt I had an advantage as a longtime city employee with many s in the Controller’s Office (where I came from before my time at Juvenile Probation) and in the many other city departments that my department worked with on a day-to-day basis. Additionally, I was a longtime resident of San

Francisco and knew and understood how the city’s unique political environment worked. However, once I assumed the director position, I found that all of these players in the Juvenile Probation Department and elsewhere in the city government treated me differently than when I worked with them as the Juvenile Probation assistant director or as an audit manager years before. I was now directly and solely responsible for operations that affected their ability to function professionally. The other players in my department and elsewhere now made many more demands on my time than they did before. These people now were more open with their criticisms of my work when my staff or I didn’t deliver. I knew the director of Finance and istration position was considered one of the toughest chief financial officer positions in city government. Other than the director whom I succeeded, previous Juvenile Probation Department Finance and istration directors left the department because of undue stress or health problems, and one left following a major scandal in which thousands of dollars were misappropriated. Additionally, the Juvenile Probation Department was underfunded compared with similar San Francisco city departments. The department had the oldest and least functional furniture, computer equipment, and supplies; and it was housed in an old and dilapidated building. To make matters worse, the facility was located on top of one of the highest hills in San Francisco and was always immersed in fog and high-speed westerly winds. On my first day as director, I listing all of the outstanding issues, deadlines, employee challenges, and issues requiring my immediate attention; and I discovered that I had so much to do in so many areas that I could not imagine my being able to take control and handle the position. I was also apprehensive about the new position because I was now going to be an executive and not a staff professional. My work was going to be unpredictable, not routine, and would involve longer working days. Finally, I had never worked in an “as needed” employee classification, which meant that my employer could terminate my employment at any given time, without cause and without reason. I no longer had civil service or bargaining unit protections as a security blanket to protect me if I made more than a few

mistakes or if I upset or annoyed the wrong political figures. I had no protection to assure me that the mayor or my department head or a commission member would arrange to have me replaced with someone with more direct and personal political connections than I had. When I accepted the director position, I knew I was taking a risk and feared the worst would happen to me, but I was optimistic that I could ultimately handle the job and make my organization more effectively managed and nurtured than anyone had achieved before. I am writing this book because I know that I am not the first person to feel “over my head” heading into a highly responsible executive position. Although most of the personal experiences I speak about in this book are related to my position in a financial management setting in a municipal government environment, I know that professionals in many other fields have experienced what I had. During my career, I met or heard of very competent nurses who were promoted to nursing management positions and found that their nursing skills didn’t help them manage nurses. I met or heard of engineers, architects, ants, scientists, and many others who also were promoted into much higher-level positions, including management positions managing others, and felt unprepared for those management roles. Unfortunately, for many professionals, promotional opportunities often mean moves into very responsible positions that require different skills than the skills needed to be successful as entry-level or midlevel professionals. I wrote this book because I want you to have the confidence, skills, and political acumen to successfully overcome your fears and the obstacles in your way to succeed in the high-level management position you want to occupy. I believe that you will benefit from my experience and what I learned to enable me to succeed. I offer personal insights and descriptions of the most difficult and interesting challenges that I experienced as a director. I also offer personal insights ed on to me by mentors, friends, and professional s. From my mistakes, discoveries, and using common sense, I offer you eighty-five surefire ways to prove they were right to hire you. I know that some of these surefire suggestions may appear to be simple and common sense. However, I found that when you

are stressed and faced with more challenges that you can juggle, you make bad decisions, are more accident-prone, and are more likely to make mistakes. I am hoping that my suggestions help you avoid making some of the bad decisions and mistakes that I made when I became the director. I am also writing this book to remind you that you are not alone. You are not the only person who was ever promoted into a position that you believed was over your head and one you were not qualified to perform. Additionally, I remind you that you were selected for this position over all other applicants because you were deemed the most qualified and able to do the work. I also remind you throughout this book that your concerns and fears are common to many people promoted into high-level management positions and that with the right attitude, strategies, and commitment, you can overcome your fears and succeed. Although I worked as an executive in a government setting, the lessons I learned are applicable to persons assuming more responsible leadership positions in the corporate world, in the small business community, in nonprofit organizations, and in all-volunteer organizations.

Acknowledgments

It is a decade since I retired from the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department as its director of Finance and istration. However, my work experiences and memories as a director in a highly volatile and often dysfunctional environment remain with me today. Because I ultimately flourished as an executive, I thank many institutions and people for ing and encouraging me to do my best. To begin with, I thank the University of New York at Albany for the graduatelevel public istration education I received many years ago. Without that education, I never would have had the confidence and foundation for planning a long-term public sector career to be capped with a high-level executive position. I particularly want to thank all of my public istration professors, who imparted their wisdom, confidence, and advice. Without this graduate-level education, I don’t think I would have had the moxie and spunk to attempt to master the high-level executive position I assumed in the year 2000. I want to thank Toastmasters International (Toastmasters) for helping me speak extemporaneously and to prepare and deliver prepared speeches. Toastmasters also helped me learn how to better evaluate the performance of others, how to manage meetings, how to work as a team player, and how to assume responsibility. Without Toastmasters, I am not sure I would have had the communication skills needed to master a management position in a challenging work environment. I thank Young Choi, the Controller’s Department audits director, who hired me into San Francisco City service in 1984. Young mentored me during my years in the Audits Division and in the years since he left city service in 1991. Young Choi gave me excellent on my strengths and weaknesses and offered me advice on how best to achieve professional success in a challenging public service sector environment. I am also particularly grateful to the following persons, some of whom worked at Juvenile Probation during the five-year period when I worked there.

I thank Sandra “Sandy” Brown Richardson, my immediate predecessor as Juvenile Probation director. Sandy hired me as her senior analyst, a position that functioned as the assistant director of Finance and istration. In this assistant director role, I developed a comprehensive understanding of the department, how to manage low-performing employees, and how to prioritize competing operating requirements. During the years I served as her assistant director, Sandy also taught me how to manage stress in a stressful environment and taught me to have trusted assistants to back me up if I was out of the office for any reason. I also thank Sandy for grooming me as her successor and for strongly ing my application for the director position as she prepared to vacate the position. I thank Jesse E. Williams Jr., the department’s chief probation officer and my boss, for offering me the Finance and istration director position and for giving me the opportunity and time to learn how to survive and cope in a very challenging position. I also thank Jesse for showing me how to have a broader vision of the position I occupied and how to navigate my way through a sometimes-hostile political environment. I thank Gwendolyn “Gwen” Tucker, the department’s assistant chief probation officer, for teaching me the importance of teamwork and for giving me great advice on managing difficult people and for prioritizing work. I also thank Gwen for giving me frank and uncensored assessments of how my staff and operating units were performing. I thank Mark Lui, my assistant director of Finance and istration, who assumed more than his fair share of the workload and for giving me and counsel when I faced my most significant operating challenges. I also thank Mark for helping me gain perspectives and a sense of humor on the most difficult workdays and for filling in for me when I was out if the office or on vacation. I also thank Mark for taking on my position after I retired. Mark continued to improve operating controls, provided a more transparent budget process, and survived in the position five years after I left until he left the department to assume a management position elsewhere in the city government. I thank Myrna Lopez, my primary with the San Francisco Mayor’s

Budget Office during the last year of my tenure as director. Myrna assisted me and the Juvenile Probation Department get additional funds to ensure the department could achieve its stated mission. I also thank Myrna for providing me targeted information about how to ask for additional budgetary resources. I thank my Juvenile Probation Department secretary, Debra Reed, for serving as my secretary during the two years I served as a director. Debra stood as a buffer between me and the many people who wanted my time when I was busiest. This enabled me to better focus on my work. Debra also gave me inside information about what my staff was doing. I appreciated Debra’s sense of humor and for me on those days when my job seemed most demanding and over my head. I thank all of the San Francisco city government staff, almost all of them unnamed in this book, who worked for me and with me and over me over the years and who did their very best to help me serve the organizations we all worked for. Finally, I thank Judith Weigle for reviewing the first draft of this book and for providing me strategic advice on how to best reformat and reorganize this book.

Chapter 1

Your Timetable for Professional Success

A certificate does not make you certified. Attitude, performance, commitment to self and team—these and a certificate make you certified. —Author unknown

Finding professional success is not about flubbing in your high-level istrative, professional, or executive position and then cleaning up your mess. Finding professional success is all about planning a deliberative and focused strategy for accumulating the knowledge, skills, and confidence for professional success and applying those skills once you occupy the position that you always wanted to occupy. Some of your strategies for realizing success begin ten to twenty years or more before you assume your high-level professional or leadership position. Other strategic moves take place just before and just after you assume your desired position. Finally, some strategic moves take place a year after and longer, after you begin work in that high-ranking position.

Build a Long-Term Professional Goal and Plan

I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacation with better care than they do their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change. —Jim Rohm

Your long-term strategy for success begins with your vision of what you want to be when you grow up. In other words, you will probably be thinking about your career and what you want to do for a working livelihood as you work your way through high school and through college. For most people, long-term planning starts during their earlier years. For others, long-term career planning starts later on in their lives. And for others, major career advancements happen without planning. Whatever your age, gender, location, aptitudes, and personal situation, planning a career should begin as soon as possible because completing all of the necessary tasks to get you where you want to be may take a long time. In some instances, you may need an education and/or professional accreditation that will take a decade or more to obtain. In some instances, a move to another part of the country or other important life-changing events will have to happen to position yourself for advancement. In my case, I was always interested in government, politics, and public service. However, I didn’t have a road map or final professional destination in mind when I went to college. Additionally, I did not seek out career counseling in college. However, I took all of the history, political science, rhetoric and communication, and management courses I could take to prepare me for a leadership role in government later in my professional life. My career moves and professional achievements in my early professional career were made on a hitor-miss basis. I wish I had focused more time on building a career plan earlier on in my life. Looking back, I think I would have accomplished more and achieved it earlier had I been more focused and more knowing of what I wanted to accomplish.

Seek and Obtain Applicable Business Degrees

It is virtually impossible to compete in today’s global economy without a college degree.

—Bobby Scott

If you plan on seeking a management position, enroll in the applicable business management courses, and if possible, obtain a business management degree. Having the applicable business education will help you understand the dimensions and scope of the position you may one day occupy and will give you some of the skills you will need to perform the work you wish to perform. I always knew that I wanted to be a high-ranking public sector executive. My professional goal was based on my interest in political science, American history, public affairs, and community service. Accordingly, as a college undergraduate, I majored in political science and history. As a graduate student, I majored in public istration. Having this policy driven and managementoriented education gave me a professional focus to help me shape my career. In the earlier years of my career, having the advanced management degree didn’t help me all that much because I was applying for nonmanagerial professional positions and not high-level management positions. It wasn’t until many years later that my advanced management degree gave me an added advantage when I was seeking higher-level executive positions. Had I not obtained the management education earlier in my life, it would have been a lot more difficult to finish my classes and complete management degree later on. Had I waited, work and personal commitments, and financial constraints would have made it more difficult to obtain the degree.

Obtain Professional Accreditation in Your Field

Don’t waste time learning the tricks of the trade. Instead, learn the trade. —Attributed to both James Charlton and H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Wherever and whenever possible, obtain professional accreditation in your chosen field. Having professional accreditation will give you added status and standing in your chosen field, and will give you a leg up in all job interviews. Professional accreditation will also give you more confidence to compete and to perform a job in your chosen field. As an internal auditor and as an audit manager, I never obtained a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) designation from the Institute of Internal Auditors. I regretted not obtaining that designation because it hindered my ability for promotion opportunities in the audit profession. Many audit management positions require either CIA designation, or a Certified Public ant (A) certification. I obtained neither of these certifications, and as a result, had difficulty moving up in the audit field. On the other hand, my compatriot, Michael, just out of college and working as a junior-level auditor, earned a CIA and was soon promoted to an audit supervisory position, and soon after that to an audit manager position. Having the professional accreditation gave Michael a leg up in his job interviews, and also gave him the confidence to reach for professional opportunities that those of us who were not accredited did not have the confidence to reach for. Even without the CIA, I eventually became an audit manager, a public sector position that enabled me to realize some of my professional goals. I participated in the analysis of public programs, and provided political leaders with substantive recommendations for improving program results. As an audit manager, I managed a limited number of audit staff. However, the audit manager position did not provide me with the self-esteem and professional status I thought I needed to be a high-level department executive in an operating environment. I felt that the longer I worked in a stafforiented and low-stress audit environment, the less likely I would be able to obtain the higher-level line department executive position that I wanted. Accordingly, I planned out a pathway to where I wanted to go. Part of that pathway included professional certification. The year before I left the audit manager position, I obtained a certification from the Association of Government ants as a certified government financial manager (CGFM). The certification meant that I had the proficiency to serve as a high-level government finance manager. Applying for high-level government finance management

positions became a lot easier with this certification. Having this professional certification also gave me added self-confidence that I could handle almost any high-level executive position that came my way.

Reject Dead-End or Insurmountable Promotional Opportunities

The thought of being president frightens me and I do not think I want the job. —Ronald Reagan

As you navigate your professional career, you will have many more job interviews than you will have job offers. In my long professional career, I had eight professional positions, but it took thirty job interviews to get there. I learned that job interviews are a two-way street. Your prospective employers are interested in knowing whether you are the best and most qualified for the position they are filling. Concurrently, I also learned that job interviews are opportunities for me, the applicant, to determine if this is most optimal position to help me realize my long-term professional goals. The most important lesson learned from my job interviews and from the jobs I have had is that it is acceptable and appropriate for me to turn down a position if I think it is not a good position for me if I think I cannot handle the position, or if I think the position would lead me to a dead-end. Elsewhere in the book, I speak about turning down a position, in the (San Francisco) city’s Department of Public Health. My professional acquaintances, who knew more about that position, told me that the position was not clearly defined with respect to responsibilities and reporting relationships. Wanting to what I had heard about the position, I went in for a follow-up interview after I was offered the position. At the follow-up interview, I realized that my inside information was correct, and to the bewilderment of my prospective employer, I declined the offer. I was glad I turned down the position because a better offer was waiting for me a couple of months later.

In retrospect, I realize that had I accepted that health department position, I might have been professionally lost with the lack of position clarity. Without position clarity, I might have been deemed inept and ineffective, and my professional career would have hit a “brick wall.”

Build Yourself a Network of Professional s and Mentors

Alexander the Great valued learning so highly that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his father Philip for life. —Samuel Smiles

Professional s and mentors will help you make the right decisions about your professional pathway, about how to choose positions to apply for, and about how to navigate your way through a challenging business environment once you are hired in the premier position you want to occupy. If you want to be a high-level private sector or public sector professional or executive, a well-connected and knowledgeable professional mentor will help you determine where your personality and strengths should take you. A good mentor will also help you map your strategy for obtaining the best mix of skills, experiences, and s to help you be at the right place at the right time to get the right position for you. One professional mentor is great to have. However, having multiple professional mentors is even better. Every successful professional maintains a “rolodex” of professional mentors. These professional mentors should include a mix of people you worked with or worked for or met in professional settings. Your mentors will be able to give you information about possible job openings, about who is good and not so good to work for, and about how to navigate your way through the employment market. When the assistant Finance and istration director position opened up at

Juvenile Probation, my mentors throughout the city government told me about how dysfunctional and tumultuous the Juvenile Probation Department was. However, everyone who spoke to me about the position told me that the director I would be working for was a solid professional to work with and would help me succeed. Everyone I spoke with also told me that I had the political savvy and communication skills to survive, and that if I did, I could be in line for the finance director position when that position opened up down the road. Every successful high-level professional and executive can tell you about the men and women who mentored them throughout their career. Mentors provide successful professionals with information about how to plan and implement a successful strategy for achieving success, for moving up through organizations, and for resolving complex problems. Very often, mentors remain ive throughout your career and take pride in your accomplishments, in part because they see themselves as navigators of your successful career path. During my career, I attribute my success to three or four men and women who trusted my instincts, and ability to achieve. With the advice, counsel, and inputs of these men and women, I was given the confidence to apply for the executive position I write about in this book and to succeed. For example, when I was in my twenties and an employee in private sector corporations, my immediate supervisor taught me how to be patient, not make demands of my employers, and how to maintain a sense of humor at work. When I was an audit manager in the San Francisco Controller’s Office, Audits Division, my first immediate supervisor, the audits director, taught me how to look at the bigger picture, how to map out a management career, and the importance of treating subordinate employees with respect and dignity. The audits director there also taught me how to be confident as a professional and how to look at the bigger picture when mapping out a career. With the of the audit director, I helped to elevate the importance of financial and performance audits, building innovative audit strategies and recommendations. When I first started working at San Francisco Juvenile Probation, as the assistant director of finance, my immediate supervisor, the finance director, taught me how to better manage and work with entry-level employees, how to manage a complex and unwieldy working environment, and how to command the respect of those you supervise. The director also taught me how to utilize my strongest

skills to compensate for those skills that were not as fully developed. With the of the Juvenile Probation finance director, I developed the confidence and skills to feel more confident moving into the director position later on.

Prepare a High-Quality Résumé

Résumé: a written exaggeration of only the good things a person has done in the past, as well as a wish list of the qualities a person would like to have. —Bo Bennett

Prepare a job résumé that not only talks about what you were responsible for in each of your past positions, but also talks about what you accomplished in your career, including a statement about the position you wish to occupy, and what you want to accomplish in that position. A résumé that states your career goals provides prospective employers a sense of your interest and ability to perform in the position you wish to apply for. My old friend, John, was frustrated in his many attempts to move up the corporate ladder. After failing in a dozen attempts for promotion, he asked a few of his mentors about what was wrong and why he was always ed over. One of John’s mentors asked John for a copy of his (John’s) résumé, and discovered several possible problems for John’s professional bottleneck. Apparently, John’s résumé had a few grammatical and spelling errors, spoke about his job responsibilities and not about his accomplishments, and included too much information about prior positions and not enough about what he was doing in the present time. John met with a professional counselor who helped him update his résumé. John’s new résumé was grammatically correct, focused on John’s accomplishments, and stated what kind of position John was looking for. The updated résumé was reformatted to have a more professional appearance.

To no one’s surprise, with a new résumé in hand, John finally was offered a promotion within his company and has been promoted twice since then.

Know What You Are Applying for Before You Apply for It

No man ever listened himself out of a job. —Calvin Coolidge

Be very selective when choosing your next promotion. Choose a position that will afford you the best opportunity to use the skills and knowledge that you already have. Also choose a position that will afford you the opportunities to accomplish your personal goals, to grow professionally, and to be successful. The best way to avoid failure and to ensure professional success is to not apply for a job that you are certain and sure is above and beyond your capabilities. If you apply for a job that you later absolutely realize is more than you can realistically handle, you should not accept it if it is offered to you. Make sure you know all about the job position and the organization it is in before you apply for it. Talk to persons who already work in the organization you are targeting and, if possible, talk to the person who is currently in the job you are looking at or talk to persons who have occupied the position it in the past. One of my former auditor associates, Nancy, was looking for a budget or financial analyst job with a midlevel city government. When a management assistant job opened in the city manager’s office of a nearby medium-sized city, she jumped on the opportunity and applied for the job. What Nancy didn’t know was that over the past ten years, more than a half-dozen other professionals occupied and left that management assistant job. Nancy also didn’t know that the high turnover of staff in that office was due to the overdemanding city manager that required his staff to work long hours.

Nancy was offered the job, and she accepted it without asking too many questions. She was delighted to have the job, which was a career upgrade and significant salary improvement for her. Unfortunately, within a few weeks, Nancy realized that the position did not accommodate her need to be home by 6:00 p.m. to be with her young son. Within a year, Nancy was working somewhere else. Had Nancy researched the job more carefully, she would have discovered the pitfalls of the job and the office, and she would not have applied for or accepted it.

Take Vacation Time before Starting a New Job

Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. —Henry Ward Beecher

Before starting any high-level professional or executive position, take some vacation time to reflect on your ensuing employment challenges, to de-stress. Taking time off to reflect on your professional challenge will enable you to get emotionally prepared to take on a position that will take more of your time and energy than any position you have occupied in the past. Jamie was a hard-working financial analyst at a medium-sized company. After obtaining a major promotion within his corporation, he decided to take a month of vacation between job assignments. Although there was a lot of pressure from his new boss to move into his new position as soon as possible, Jamie decided to take some time off and reflect. During the next month, Jamie and his family took a two-week trip to Europe, spent some quality time with his family while on vacation, and mentally prepared for the new job. Knowing that the new job would be stressful, Jamie reflected on this stress and contemplated how he would counter that stress once he was on the job.

Jamie was delighted that he had taken the time off between job assignments because the new job was even more stressful and challenging than he ever anticipated. Now that Jamie has been in his new position for several years, he reflects on the value of his time off between jobs and counsels his junior-level employees to take time off before they move into higher-level positions.

, They Only Fire “Blanks” in the Office

If you have a job without any aggravations, you don’t have a job. —Malcolm Forbes

As an executive, you will probably be given more vacation time than most of the employees you manage. Vacation time is an excellent time to de-stress, to become invigorated and to help you put all of the outstanding issues at work in perspective. Gaining a better perspective on your work will enable you to work more efficiently and ultimately get more done. Plan and take your vacations even if you may be inclined to not take them in order to stay on top of your work. Just before I moved into the director’s position, I had a nightmare one night about sitting in my office surrounded by new staff, my new boss, the mayor, the controller, and a host of other city officials. Each person had a rifle pointed to my head, and each told me about what I was doing wrong, or about what I had to do immediately, or about what they needed yesterday. Luckily, my predecessor suggested I take a month off between jobs to get myself mentally and physically ready to assume the very tough work assignment I was heading into and to get over the nightmare about being shot in the line of duty. Realizing that I might not be able to take much time off once I was a director, I eagerly accepted this advice and I planned a trip to Israel. Once I was in Israel, I visited the well-known Israeli religious sites and museums. Following my time in Israel, I booked a four-day trip to Jordan. The

tour included visits to the Jordanian capital city of Amman and a journey to and through Petra, the lost city built into the rocks in a hidden valley. After the four-day trip to Jordan, we began our journey back to Israel. On this journey, we ed through an Israeli immigration and customs checkpoint located on the border between Jordan and the West Bank, land formerly held by Jordan, and now held by Israel and populated mostly with Palestinians. As the tour group and I got off the tour bus to though the immigration control station, terrorists in the Jordanian hills behind us began shooting at all of us. The Israeli soldiers at the control station immediately left their stations and returned the gunfire. All of the civilians, including my tour group , were told to take cover and protect ourselves from the gunfire. To make a long story short, the terrorist incident was short lived, and no lives were lost and no one was injured. I returned to Jerusalem that day, and a few days later returned to the United States. Several weeks later, I began my position as director. For the next two years, every time anyone made my work more difficult, or criticized me, or challenged my authorities, I thought about that day at the Israel control station. I reflected upon the professional fire I was battling in the office and realized that the professional fire was tame compared with the gunfire the soldiers on the Israeli front were handling that day I returned to Jerusalem. I realized that the rifles used to shoot at me in the office only fired blanks and that I would walk out of the office every day alive, physically uninjured, and ready to go another day. Taking that one-month vacation to a turbulent Middle Eastern location enabled me to put the challenges of my new job into perspective.

Use a Personal Diary to Chronicle Anxieties, Challenges, and Accomplishments

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now, and a make a brand new ending. —Carl Bard

Once you are offered a high-level staff or management job, begin preparing a diary chronicling your anxieties and challenges. Maintain the diary chronicling your experiences, before and on the job, for at least two years following your first day on the job. Your journal will probably document that your anxiety levels leveling off over time, and will also probably show that your coping skills are improving, over time. I kept a personal diary of my experiences on the job. The diary included the status reports I sent to my boss, copies of memos commending or criticizing my work from the boss, employees working for me, and others. The diary also included summaries of my emotions at the end of that business day Taking the time to maintain my personal thoughts and keeping all of the status reports were an eye-opener for me after a year on the job. After one year, I went back to read what I had written a year earlier, and was overwhelmed that what bothered me a year earlier didn’t bother me anymore. I found that my status report to my boss were shorter, and more confident. I found that fewer problems were getting under my skin.

Request a Follow-up Interview before You Accept a Position

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. —Sally Ber

Once you are offered a high-level professional or executive position, ask for a follow-up interview with your prospective superiors before you formally accept the position. This follow-up interview will afford you the opportunity to determine if this is the position you want and will be able to perform. Because you have already been offered the position, you will be in a better position to assess whether accepting this job is what you want to do.

When I was offered the assistant finance director position at the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department, I insisted on a second interview. I wanted to know how I could work in what others called the worst-managed department in the city. I also wanted to know if I could work well with the finance director who would be my immediate supervisor. I also wanted to know how the position would help me in my long-term goal to become a department finance director. The finance director who offered me the position assured me that she and I together would “clean up” the department’s weak internal controls, would build a more able budget system, and would build quality istrative services to the rest of the department. Hearing this and realizing that the director and I would work well, I accepted the position. I believe the second interview demonstrated my interest in the position, and provided me the assurances that the position was a good step for me. Following the second interview, I eagerly accepted the position.

Choose a Career that Matches Up to Your Personal Interests

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. —Confucius

As you start to think about your career, it makes sense to think about your hobbies and about all those things you like to do when you have free time. If you can have a job that allows you to have fun, you will put more focus and time into your work, and you will be more successful. In my case, I was and continue to be a political junkie. I loved to read about politics, I was active in political clubs and loved to hang out with friends who also liked to talk about politics. When I had the opportunity to work in a highly political urban government, I jumped at the opportunity.

For all of the years I was an audit manager, I worked with city operating managers to help them build operations that were more effective, more efficient, and better controlled. I relished this opportunity to make government more meaningful and effective, and had fun at work most of the time. For the years I was a finance director and assistant finance director at Juvenile Probation, I helped to streamline my department’s budget and worked hard to obtain more resources to make our department better able to meet its operating mission. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent at Juvenile Probation. I also felt that my interest in the accompanying public policies made me a more effective manager and helped propel me to an executive position.

Chapter 2

Dress for the Job

Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others. —Benjamin Franklin

Before I became an executive, I was never a fashionable dresser and never spent a lot of money on the clothes that I wore to work. I never invested a lot of my time shopping for clothes. For the nearly fourteen years I was an audit manager and for the three years I was the assistant finance director, I almost always wore a shirt and tie, a sports jacket and casual pants to work. Although my clothes were always clean, they weren’t always pressed and crisp looking, were rarely fashionable, and almost never new. Because my wardrobe was relatively limited, I was often seen wearing the same sports jacket, tie, and shoes more than once a week. Occasionally, I would wear a recently pressed suit, freshly polished shoes, and a designer tie if I were scheduled to appear before a commission or had an important meeting or a job interview. Upscale, designer clothing was not a priority for me at work or in my personal life.

Be Willing to Spend Money on Quality Clothing

Shopping tip: You can get shoes for 85 cents at the bowling alley. —Author Unknown

When I was promoted to the director position, a good friend of mine advised me to notch up my working attire because I was now an executive, and had to look the part. I was advised that I should look well dressed and better dressed than any of the people who reported to me, as well dressed or better dressed than my colleagues, and as well dressed as my boss. I was also advised that an upgraded wardrobe wouldn’t cost me the bank. Given the significant pay increase I was about to receive, buying an upgraded wardrobe was something I could easily afford. I decided to accept my friend’s advice to upgrade my work clothes. To upgrade my wardrobe, I knew that I had to invest money and time to obtain the new clothes. Paying for the new clothes was not the problem I feared the most. I was more afraid that I would spend a lot of money buying new clothes that would not fit me right and would not look appropriate for the position I was about to assume.

Find Someone with Fashion Sense to Help You Buy Work Clothes

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. —Mark Twain

To ameliorate my concerns about buying a lot of new and expensive clothing for my new job, I knew that I had to find someone to help me select my new work clothing. I realized that I needed clothing selection advice because I didn’t feel confident that I would make the right clothing purchasing decisions. I didn’t have a partner or good friend with fashion sense to help me make prudent clothing purchasing decisions. I knew that I needed someone who would be objective and willing to tell what me what clothing looked good on me and what clothing didn’t look good on me. I discovered that many large department stores provide personal shopping services at no charge. The personal shoppers help you find clothing that fits you

well and which is appropriate for your workplace. The personal shoppers may also find you well fit and fashionable clothing not available in the store, and they may obtain discounts for the clothing that you cannot obtain without their . Accordingly, I set up an appointment with a personal shopper at one of the larger department stores in San Francisco. Several friends of mine who had used the services of this particular personal shopper told me that she would help me choose clothes that fit me well, and would help me choose shoes, ties, belts, shirts, and other accessories to better match up with the new suits and sport jackets I was purchasing. As I expected, the personal shopper helped me select the appropriate clothes and accessories for work. As my friends told me, I spent a good sum of money on my new clothing, but everything I purchased through the personal shopper fit me well and made me look great, and helped me look like the executive I wanted to be. Personal shoppers are not the only ones with an inside track to help you find a better wardrobe. On rare occasions, professional mentors will help you upgrade your work clothes. When I was still working in the private sector, one of my cohorts, Rhonda, a midlevel manager, was promoted to a vice president position. Soon after Rhonda’s promotion was announced, the company’s senior vice president and Rhonda’s mentor took Rhonda shopping to several of the high-end clothing stores in San Francisco’s Union Square area. Rhonda completed the shopping tour with a wardrobe of very professional looking dresses and suits, and, as a result, dramatically changed her appearance and professional outlook. Rhonda did very well in her new position, and has been very successful in her career ever since. Having a professional wardrobe didn’t guarantee Rhonda’s success, but it helped establish her professional status and elevated her image from that of a midlevel professional to an executive.

Send Your Expensive New Work Clothes to the Dry Cleaner

We act the way we dress. Neglected and untidy clothes reflect a neglected and untidy mind. —Unknown Source

Once I upgraded my wardrobe, I stopped washing or ironing any of my shirts, pants, or outerwear at home and began to send all of my work clothes to the neighborhood dry cleaner after I wore them once to work. The dry cleaning expense was significant, but well worth it because it helped me look my best and to look professional. After I upgraded my clothes, I also started to polish my shoes more frequently and made sure I kept my lunch off my ties and shirts. Taking my work clothes to the dry cleaner also helped me cut down the amount of time I needed to do my laundry, and it saved me the time I would otherwise be ironing work clothes. Saving time on laundry and ironing was a big help to me on the days when I worked long hours and couldn’t be bothered managing my wardrobe.

Keep an Extra Set of Clothes in the Office

Your business clothes are naturally attracted to staining liquids. This attraction is strongest just before an important meeting. —Scott Adams

Although I updated my work attire, I didn’t always to wear my fancier and more appropriate work clothes to work every single workday. I one particular Tuesday when I wore very informal and older clothes to work. I paid the price that Tuesday for not dressing like an executive every single day of the week.

On that particular morning, I received a phone call from one of the mayor’s staff telling me that I was to testify later that morning before a board of supervisors subcommittee about a financial matter that I did not fully understood. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to go home to change my clothes. Also, I didn’t have a change of clothing at the office to upgrade my appearance before I left for the hearing. Unfortunately, I had to go the hearing dressed as I was. Because I was unprepared for the meeting and because the chair of that particular committee had ongoing disagreements with my department on a number of related and unrelated policy matters, I was ostracized by that committee subcommittee chair for not being able to answer his questions to his satisfaction. Leaving that committee meeting that morning, I felt inept, unprofessional, humiliated, and incompetent. After leaving the hearing room, I immediately felt that had I worn clothing fitting for the occasion, I would have felt more confident about myself and about my work, and would have answered the questions directed to me better than I did. I also thought that I would have been treated more professionally had I looked more professional and looked more like a department executive who knew what he was talking about. The following morning, I brought in a designer suit, shirt, and tie to hang in my office closet just in case some day I would again be underdressed and called into an important meeting. I also brought in the extra clothing in case I stained my clothing or ripped my clothing and needed to change. Although I learned my lesson and would be more careful about what I wore to work every day from that day forward, I would always have a change of clothing in case I had to upgrade my look for an unexpected meeting. On at least a half-dozen occasions, the change of clothing came in handy, particularly when I was called downtown to meet with the mayor’s staff about my department’s requested budget.

Improve Your Physique so Your New Clothes Look Even Better

She was a large woman who seemed not so much dressed as upholstered.

—Sir James Matthew Barrie

Over time, I learned that a better wardrobe is a more viable tool for promoting a professional image if I had the physique to make the clothing I wore to work even more distinctive and appealing. As an executive, I was offered an employee cafeteria benefit plan, allowing me to choose a handful of employee benefits including health club hip, personal training expenses, and athletic equipment. To complement the new clothes that I purchased after I began my new position, I elected to have my employer pay for part of my health club hip and a personal trainer to help me lose some weight and get into better physical shape. Within two months after starting up with the personal trainer. I lost about ten pounds, reduced my waist size by an inch or two, and looked and felt much better than I had before I started working with a personal trainer. I also realized that over time, the new work clothes looked even better on me. More significantly, over time, I felt more competitive in the workplace because I was starting to look better in my clothes than most of my colleagues and persons that I worked with and did business with every day. I felt more like an executive coming into the office than just another worker going into work. After updating and improving my wardrobe, I felt more competitive at business meetings and at meetings with all of my subordinates.

Accompany Your New Work Clothes with a Smile and Good Posture

People seldom notice old clothes if you wear a big smile. —Lee Mildon

A new wardrobe with expensive and stylish clothing is not worth very much if you don’t accompany your new duds with a smile and good posture. Positive

facial expressions and good posture portray a positive and can-do attitude and help to promote the perception that you are a confident and effective professional and executive. I learned that my smile was part of my overall appearance, and I began to be conscious of how my facial gestures appeared to the people I worked with. Because I knew that a smile would make me look more approachable and professional, I began to smile more. Not surprisingly, as I smiled more at people, I found more people smiling back at me. Additionally, my new personal trainer told me that my posture needed to be buffed up in addition to improving the shape of my abdominals and deltoids. She told me that good posture would make me look taller, more in command of who I was, and more like the executive I wanted to be. Accordingly, I worked on my posture, learning that if I was more upright, I exuded more self-confidence.

Dress Better than Those You Manage

Great men are seldom over scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire. —Charles Dickens

As noted earlier, one of my mentors told me that I should dress better than the employees I supervised, dress as well or better than my executive colleagues, and as well as my boss. Dressing well, he told me, would send a message that I considered myself a highly respected professional and deserved respect. I one meeting a few months into my two-year time as a director. I was sitting at a meeting of division directors, selected department managers, and with the department’s chief and assistant chief. I looking around the room. The chief and assistant chief were well dressed as always. One or two of the other managers were not dressed for the occasion. I also noticed that some of the others were slouched in their chairs, weren’t smiling, appeared to be grumpy, and appeared to want to be somewhere else.

Because I was better dressed than some of my peers and as well dressed as my superiors, and because I was sitting there with a smile and good posture and demeanor, I felt that my contribution to the meeting’s discussion was more significant and better received.

Keep Your Hairstyle Appropriate for the Position

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of my mentors also advised me to keep my hairstyle and hair color appropriate to the position I was about to occupy. Out-of-the-ordinary hairstyles and hair colors might be fun and hip, she told me, but they would distract me from feeling like and being perceived as a high-ranking professional in the workplace. Before I became director, I used to have my hair colored to hide my gray hair, and to make me look hipper and younger. Sometimes, I would streak my hair with blond highlights. When I became a director, I continued to color my hair, and in fact, went more radical with variations on the blonde color streaks. I didn’t think the blonde hair was a detriment to my overall appearance until one fateful extended Friday lunch hour. On that day, I scheduled a haircut and hair coloring at my hairstylist’s salon across the street from the office. My hairdresser miscalculated the chemicals used to color my hair and I became a redhead. My hairdresser had other commitments that Friday afternoon and could not resolve the hair color disaster there and then. My hairdresser promised to change the bad hair color job the following Tuesday. I worked in the office that Friday afternoon and all day Monday as a redhead. With a radically different and out-of-character hair color, I felt as if my radically different appearance distracted me from my work and made me look and feel less like the executive I wanted to feel like. From that day forward, I vowed to

go conservative with all future haircuts and to eliminate the less than conservative color highlights.

Always Wear Clothes Appropriate for the Office

Know first who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly. —Euripides

Always wear clothing appropriate for the office or job site you work in. For example, if you work in a prison, detention center, sanitation plant, or factory you probably should not wear stylish Armani suits as they may not be appropriate for that type of working environment. Certainly, if you are a woman, platform shoes are a major hazard if you are working in an industrial setting with irregular flooring. Concurrently, if you work in a financial services center or insurance company and have many s with customers, regulators, and professional clients, it is not appropriate to wear jeans, running shoes, and sporty looking shirts, even on Fridays if your company has a “casual Friday policy.” However, the rules for how you should dress vary by geography, industry, and weather. For example, when my friend Angela took an executive-level position in a large entertainment-related company in Hollywood, she was surprised to find out that the women executives there wore jeans to work, but also wore fashionable jackets, high-end shoes, and lots of jewelry. Had Angela worn a traditional business suit, she would have been dressed inappropriately for the office, and would have looked and probably felt out of place. Getting ready for the new job includes getting your work wardrobe in shape for the position you are heading. Speaking with you new boss on this topic area and walking through the offices before you start work are prudent steps to help you get your wardrobe ready.

Chapter 3

Behave Ethically and Ask for Help When Needed

When we make mistakes, they call it evil. When God makes mistakes, they call it nature! —Jack Nicholson, in The Witches of Eastwick

President Richard Nixon was not forced out of the presidency because of the Watergate break-in. He was forced out of the presidency because of his involvement in the Watergate cover-up. Had President Nixon reported the scope of the wrongdoing committed by the staff that planned and executed the breakin, he might have remained in office and might have been recognized by historians as a competent president. Because President Nixon did not behave ethically, he was forced to resign his office and lived most of his remaining years in disgrace. You worked very hard and to obtain the high-level position you now or will occupy. You hope that after you leave your position you will be long ed for the successes you provided the organization and not for the mistakes you made. You hope to be ed as an ethical and well-meaning professional who did the right thing when things went wrong, and not for what you did to cover your tracks or for blaming others for what went wrong on your watch. Early in my career, I learned I was going to make many mistakes, many of which would be considered minor and forgettable. On the other hand, some mistakes would be major and consequential, and could potentially, seriously compromise the viability of my organization, and impact the security of my position. I also learned that how I responded to my mistakes and errors would significantly

define my time in office. To this day, I still lose some sleep over the mistakes I made at Juvenile Probation as director of Finance and istration, and in the years before that, as the assistant director of Finance and istration. To this day, I debate whether I took the right remedial steps to resolve what I did or didn’t do. The following three episodes highlight some of the challenges I faced on the job, and how I responded to these challenges. Ironically, I am glad I made the following mistakes. By experiencing and living these mistakes, I learned more about how I reacted to crises, and about how I could react to challenging events in a more viable and reasonable manner.

Utilize Legal Staff before You Take Action

Anybody who thinks talk is cheap should get some legal advice. —Franklin P. Jones

Utilize the of your organization’s legal staff before you take action against a department client, vendor, or constituent who allegedly committed an improper activity. Within weeks of my assuming the director position, I was advised by my purchasing staff that one of the department’s clothing vendors had been paid for a significant volume of clothes, but had not delivered the clothes to the department. I was told that the clothing vendor held the clothing items because the department had over ordered clothing supplies and did not have the warehouse capacity to store the clothing. My purchasing staff told me that the vendor had agreed with a former department-purchasing manager to hold the clothing until the department had the capacity to receive the goods. Unfortunately, the written documents outlining

this agreement were confusing, incomplete, and inconclusive. I was not familiar with these documents because the arrangement with the clothing vendor was without my knowledge at about the time I came to the department. Soon after I became director, my purchasing staff tried to access the clothing items we had ordered and paid for. The clothing vendor then advised my purchasing staff that he had delivered everything we had purchased, and that he was not holding any clothing materials for us. Without consulting with my boss or with the city attorney assigned to my department, or with any of the players who would have provided me more insight into this alleged contractual agreement, I wrote the clothing vendor a letter asking that the clothing items we had paid for and that he was holding for us be delivered to us. A week later, I learned that the clothing vendor wrote a response letter directly to the San Francisco mayor’s office and city attorney threatening to sue the city for defamation of character. The vendor’s response letter refuted any suggestion that he warehoused excess clothing items purchased by my department. After consulting with my department’s assigned city attorney, I immediately sent another letter retracting my first letter, apologized for the inconvenience that my letter may have caused, and the matter was dropped. The department never received the clothing that we allegedly had paid for and did not receive. My first mistake in this matter was not triple-checking the veracity of information given to me by my purchasing staff about the clothing purchase. My second mistake was not setting up a meeting with the vendor to iron out the issue and come to an amicable resolution before I wrote a letter to him or to anyone else. My third and most serious mistake was not including others, including my boss, the city attorney assigned to my department, and the city’s purchasing department to determine how to address this problem. Once this particular episode was over, I told my boss that I would never repeat a mistake of this magnitude, and that I had learned my lessons very well. I also told my boss that I assumed all responsibility for the mistake, and did not blame anyone else but myself for what happened. Because I fessed up to my mistakes in a timely manner and presented a humbled demeanor, I never received any onishment for how I handled this matter.

Get All Human Resource Department Opinions in Writing

Write what should not be forgotten. —Isabel Allende

Another mistake that was not handled well or resolved quickly haunts me to this day. When I was the assistant director (almost two and a half years before I became director), I offered an entry-level management position to a young woman from outside of the city government. Because I wanted to ensure my offer of employment was accepted, I asked my personnel staff if I could offer the applicant a starting salary above the stated entry-level wage for that position. My department’s personnel staff researched this matter. My personnel staff consulted with the citywide Human Resources Department (HRD) that oversees all personnel activities in all of the city departments, and then told me, verbally, that I could make the higher than entry-level salary offer. Because my personnel staff reported to me that the above minimum salary offering was acceptable and conformed to city guidelines, I made the offer to the young woman, and the young woman began work two weeks later at an above entrylevel pay grade. A year after this new employee started working, we were advised by HRD that the above entry-level salary for this employee was not allowable. HRD also told us and that we would have to begin paying this employee the entry-level prescribed starting salary. Unfortunately, we were not able to reverse the HRD decision that the original employee offer was not justified and allowable. Accordingly, the employee filed a grievance with her employee union. Although I was ultimately able to obtain a significant position upgrade for this employee, resulting in a significantly higher salary for her, the matter of the

earlier salary discrepancy never disappeared. For years, from the day HRD decried our salary offer and payments to the day I retired, and beyond, this issue perused. On many occasions, the employee union representing the employee called me and called my successor after I retired to ask how we were going to resolve this matter With respect to this matter, I made two mistakes. My first mistake was that I took the word of my personnel staff that the unusual above entry-level salary amount was allowable without getting the decision put into writing and verified from HRD in writing. From that point forward, I always asked for verifications of salary changes and deviations in writing, and that those verifications had to be approved by the HRD staff in writing. My second mistake was that I ignored and overlooked the unhappiness and disappointment of this employee regarding this salary matter. In retrospect, I wish I had put more energy into resolving a matter that never got fully resolved. At a minimum, I wish I had found a way to minimize or end the union’s continuing involvement in this matter because I think it was distracting to the employee. Additionally, this matter distracted me from working on more pressing and higher priority matters, and impacted my work effectiveness.

Bring in Experts to Help You Transform Your Organization

We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles, but for the grace to transform them. —Simone Weil

Do not hesitate to request internal auditors, management consultants, and other outsiders to help you determine weak internal controls, opportunities for improving operations, and for new strategies to maximize revenues and decrease expenses within your organization.

Additionally, when you are held able for a problem in your organization, even if it is not a problem within your direct control, you should play a leading and very direct role in developing strategies for resolutions. the old adage: “if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” As finance director, I was indirectly able for how all five of my department’s operating divisions were managing their budgetary resources. Although I had no direct managerial opportunity to hire or fire staff in the four operating divisions other than my own, I had to to the mayor’s budget staff and to the controller’s staff why expenses in any particular budget line, anywhere in my department, were over the budget. When the department was over the budget, the mayor’s staff and controller’s staff limited our department’s ability to hire replacement staff, purchase supplies, and obtain other needed resources to force the department to keep within its overall budget. When the other division directors were stopped from hiring staff and purchasing equipment because of their out-of-control budgets, these division directors asked me to cajole the mayor’s staff and controller’s staff to release the needed funds. In other words, I was caught between the powers in city hall and the other executives in my department During all of the years I was the assistant director and then as a director, the approximately one hundred Juvenile Hall counselors utilized much more staff overtime than the division was budgeted, sometimes as much as a million dollars a year. While I was finance director, I was continually asked to explain to the mayor’s staff, controller’s staff, and to our commission why the juvenile hall overtime expenses were so high. Every year I served as director, I spent many, many hours negotiating and cajoling the mayor’s staff and controller’s staff for the release of funds to hire new Juvenile Hall counselors and equipment I wish I had played a more active role analyzing the underlying conditions for Juvenile Hall counselor overtime. I accepted the excuses for the overtime use from my department’s Juvenile Hall management staff, even when it appeared to me that the assignments were unjustified. I then forwarded the excuses to the mayor’s staff and controller’s staff as my own even when I didn’t believe most of what I was saying.

I wish I had requested the city controller’s staff, or some well-known local management-consulting firm to perform a more comprehensive and complete management review of the juvenile hall overtime condition. After I left the department, the city controller’s staff was invited to perform the management review that I wish I had obtained when I was in office. The controller’s staff performed a good analysis and offered recommendations that ultimately helped to reduce Juvenile Hall overtime.

Identify and then Report Egregious Errors to the Proper Authorities, If Appropriate

Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law. —Louis D. Brandeis

As an executive, one of your jobs is to monitor your operations closely enough to detect unusual spending patterns, misuse of assets, and inappropriate use of organizational human resources. If inappropriate and potentially illegal activities are suspected, you should follow up as appropriate. Inappropriate patterns can be detected through the use of an internal audit department, from staff, and by keeping your eyes and ears open at all times. Finding and resolving unusual operating activities is part of your job. Not attending to the detection of fraud and abuse can lead to your downfall. One particular executive who didn’t follow up on unusual operating conditions was the man who had held my finance director position immediately before my predecessor took over. During this man’s tenure, one of the department’s ants managed to steal thousands of dollars through the department’s petty cash fund. The ant then went to a nearby racetrack on work time in a city vehicle and lost most or all of the money there.

After the incident was fully reported in the press, the finance director stated that he did not notice the unusual activity, and to my knowledge, did not have anyone reporting to him that there was something he needed to question. However, years later, I learned that several of the department staff knew there was something amiss and some staff reported to me that they reported their concerns to management, although they were not able to tell me exactly who they reported their suspicions to. By the time the theft was detected, the ant had his port in hand and was out of the country. To my knowledge, the ant has not been apprehended. The finance director was ultimately held able for the misuse of city funds and for not detecting the unusual patterns in time to stop the theft of city resources. Had the finance director been more astute in knowing what was happening in his office and investigated the matter before the ant left the country, he might have been able to salvage some of the missing money and he might have been able to salvage his job. The finance director left city service soon after the theft was detected.

Assume Blame for Errors on Your Watch

I accept that responsibility and ask only that I be judged by my performance as its chief executive. —Jane Byrne

I can count on three hands the number of times I have witnessed executives publically blaming those who worked for them for the mistakes or bad work products produced by their organization. The executives stated that the mistakes of the staff resulted in loss or embarrassment to their organizations, and as a result the responsible staff was reassigned or dismissed.

To this day, I have always thought that top-level executives should treat those they supervise with respect, and always speak of the successes and failures of the organization as a team effort. I have always believed that singling out wellmeaning and conscientious employees in a public setting for their mistakes leads others within the organization to believe that they could be next for public scorn. Nobody, especially the most qualified staff and the staff best able to obtain employment elsewhere, want to be publically singled out for an error. It is human nature to blame others, including your predecessors or assistants, for your mistakes or for the mistakes of those you supervise. However, assuming primary blame for the mistakes of subordinates, predecessors, or for what you have done establishes you as a team player and establishes your willingness to be able and reliable. Always that everyone, including very qualified and conscientious staff people make serious mistakes form time to time. As a manager, it will be your responsibility to foster an environment where employees learn from their mistakes. Be sympathetic to other staff , including those who report to you when they make significant mistakes, particularly when they inform you of their mistakes expeditiously. My friend, Michael, worked for a large government-operated social services agency and managed several istrative functions, including a cashier’s desk. When one of the cashiers made an istrative error that resulted in the loss of a substantial sum for one of the department’s clients, Michael assumed istrative responsibility for the istrative error. Following up on the istrative error, Michael lobbied the agency’s financial controller to reimburse the client who experienced the loss. In his plea to the controller, Michael acknowledged the staffing error, but stated that the department’s procedures were insufficient resulting in the confusion that led to the employee’s mistake. The cashier was grateful to Michael for his standing up for her and for acknowledging that the istrative error was shared. From that point forward, the cashier was a model employee, made fewer istrative mistakes, and became a much better team player.

Don’t Behave Unethically, Even If It Leads You to Professional Success

Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won’t taste good. —Joe Paterno

I learned that behaving unethically, even if it results in short-term financial gain and professional advancement, is not worth the loss of sleep and is counterproductive in the long term. In the work world, organizations want staff, especially managers, whom they can rely on, trust, and believe in. Professionals who build patterns of unethical behavior, misrepresentations of work, and outright lying may continue those patterns and become less employable and more likely to be fired. When Ronald was offered a midlevel analyst job at a large West Coast company, he was told that the job offer was dependent on his willingness to lie. The job Ronald applied for would involve the accumulation of performance-related information summarizing the company’s performance. The performance-related information would be sent to the national association that established minimum performance standards for the companies in the association, including the company Ronald would work for. Ronald was told that the company did not believe the national performance standards standardized by the national association were applicable and relevant to companies in the western part of the country. Ronald was also told that if he didn’t agree to the misreporting of information, he would not be considered for the job. Wanting the job, Ronald agreed to the unethical conditions of employment. During the three years of Ronald’s employment at this company, Ronald discreetly convinced management of the need to meet national performance standards. Additionally, Ronald worked with operating management to help them better understand operating deficiencies and worked with them to help them meet national standards. By the end of his employment with this company,

the performance data submitted to the association was, in fact, the real performance data as corporate performance had improved due in part to Ronald’s effort to motivate corporate operating managers to improve performance. Ronald lost a lot of sleep during the three years he worked at this company, knowing what he agreed to do on the job was wrong. He also knew that the national association might someday detect the misrepresentation of information and that his professional reputation could be tarnished as a result. Ronald ultimately left the company and found a job where his integrity and professionalism would not be compromised. Although he took a small pay decrease with the job change, knowing that he would be able to look himself in the mirror every morning made him a more confident professional.

Always Ask for

I want everyone to tell me the truth, even if it costs him his job. —Samuel Goldwyn When Ed Koch was Mayor of New York City, he often walked the streets and asked residents how he was doing. The mayor was not afraid to hear citizen complaints, and was willing to change policy as a result of what he heard on the streets. Because the New York City mayor was concerned about how he was perceived by the public, he remained a popular mayor for most of his two fouryear in office and in the more than twenty years since he left office. When I became director, I learned that what I didn’t know could hurt me more than what I did know. I learned that if anyone on the staff was disappointed or not satisfied with the work of my division, I should know this information and try to resolve the conditions as soon as possible. I learned that it was better to ask for , even if it was negative, than to not ask for and to receive negative complaints later.

I specifically asking of my department’s executive team if they felt my janitorial staff was properly cleaning the department’s bathrooms. When I learned that there were concerns with the level of cleanliness, I worked with my buildings superintendent and custodial supervisors to resolve the problems. I’m glad I asked the question about janitorial service levels because I think the issue would have remained dormant, but would have emerged as a major department issue later on had the problem not been resolved earlier on. I also asked of the executive team about whether they were satisfied with the service levels provided by my staff providing purchasing, payroll, personnel, data processing, and s payable services. In most instances, the other directors were surprised that I wasn’t defensive about what my staff was doing, and they were happy to share their frustrations of poor service levels. I also found that by asking my peer directors about the service levels provided by my staff to their divisions made it easier for me to complain to them about the service levels provided by their staffs to my division. One of my good friends, Janet, a finance director in a Chicago area Fortune 500 company, tells me that she occasionally takes clerical staff employees and executive secretaries to lunch and talks to these employees about work at lunch. She finds that the clerical staff employees and executive secretaries, when offered a free lunch, will tell her how the employees in the company feel that she (my friend, Janet) is perceived and whether most other employees feel that she is competent and well regarded. Although Janet generally relies on more reliable sources of information for on her job performance, she finds that more she receives, the better she knows how she is performing and how she is perceived.

Chapter 4

Take Bold, Risky, and Innovative Steps

Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the work —John D. Rockefeller

Successful executives are people who envision what is possible and know how to make the impossible come true. Executives willing to take bold, risky, and innovative risks to achieve improved operating success are more likely to succeed, command respect, and move up professionally. Concurrently, executives who are afraid to take risks, fearful of change, and not willing to make “waves” are less likely to make the grade and succeed. When I became a director of Finance and istration in a relatively dysfunctional environment, I was encouraged by my new immediate supervisor to think out of the box and to be as creative as possible. During my first few months on the job, instead of envisioning what could be, I found myself besieged by a battery of crises situations that took most of my time, and which kept me from thinking about how I could be different and better than any of my predecessors. During those early months, I considered and tried to emulate the work of Cheyenne, our department’s former director of community services, who left the department several months before I became director. Cheyenne left the department because of poor health. But when she left she was ed for helping to change the department’s reputation in the community, and for building a framework for the department’s funding of relevant and effective communitybased programs. In earlier years, the Juvenile Probation Department had a relatively poor

reputation in the community, especially in those neighborhoods where most of our detained youth came from. The department was sometimes considered uninvolved and uninterested in the community, and in building programs that were focused on community and family. Our Juvenile Hall counselors (the men and women who guarded our detained youth) and probation officers were considered by some to be distant and uninterested. Most of the department’s focus was on what we could do in the office, and not on how we could better relate to the problems facing youth in the real world. Cheyenne had a vision of a department that worked in partnership with the community. Her vision also included a viable dialogue between department leaders and leaders in the community. Cheyenne was encouraged to complete her vision by our new chief probation officer and by a newly engaged Juvenile Probation Commission. Additionally, the federal government had released millions of dollars to the department for the creation of family-focused, community-based programs. Cheyenne saw how she could use the federal monies to realize her vision and to improve the department’s presence in the community. Over a one-year period, Cheyenne put in long hours preparing requests for proposals from community-based social service agencies. She worked feverishly encouraging community leaders to file proposals, and spent many hours evaluating proposals and selecting successful bidders. Along the way, Cheyenne motivated her staff, impressed our department’s executive team, and made a distinguishing difference in how the department was perceived in the community. Knowing how Cheyenne converted her dreams and vision into reality was ample incentive for me to be bold and innovative as I went into work those first few months as director.

Don’t Be Afraid of Failure

I have failed over and over again. That is why I succeeded

—Michael Jordan

I learned early on that what separates those who get promoted and those who don’t and those who succeed in management positions from those who don’t are the abilities of those who succeed to overcome the fear of failure. Persons who are afraid of failing and are unwilling to take risks as a result don’t take risks, and concurrently do not differentiate themselves from those willing to try new ways of working. Two years before I became director, my department was awarded an ongoing three million-dollar-a-year federal grant for providing family-focused, counseling-oriented, and case-specific services in a community setting. The good news was that the grant gave the department money to develop and implement many additional community-based programs, a goal that the department had wanted to realize for many years. In the preceding paragraphs, I spoke about the work Cheyenne did to build these community programs. The bad news was that we realized it would take time to identify communitybased agencies capable of providing these services, and that we would be unable to get these agencies on board for the first year of the grant. Because most of the department’s work with youth at risk was associated with detention and probation services, there was no apparent way to identify department work that enabled us to apply for these funds and to reimburse us for work performed by the department. As a result, we faced the possibility of not being able to access much of the grant the first year. My boss, the Finance and istration director (my predecessor), assigned me the task of thinking outside the box and coming up with a way to access the available funds. To accomplish this task, I ed my peers in comparable probation departments in other California counties to determine how they were claiming this federal money for their jurisdiction. Along the way, I learned that my department could claim this money if my department claimed that familyfocused, counseling-oriented services were provided in our juvenile hall. After conferring with my department’s juvenile hall director, I learned that much of the work performed by juvenile hall counselors was family-focused and counseling-oriented, but there was no way to document that fact.

After brainstorming this predicament with the chief and the finance director, and with a selected core of department staff, I proposed that we implement a time study of Juvenile Hall counselors. The time study would document how much time counselors were providing family-focused, counseling-oriented work. Providing this information would permit us to claim the available funds. Unfortunately, I soon learned that the juvenile hall counselor union shop steward refused to allow us to survey the juvenile hall counselors, fearing that the results would be used to harass staff and to justify staff reductions. At that point, I realize I was facing an almost insurmountable task and that I might fail at realizing success in this venture. However, I realized I had no other option. To counter this bottleneck, I called a meeting with the shop steward, the juvenile hall director, my boss, and the department’s chief. I assured the shop steward that I would be the only staff member to examine the time studies. I also explained that the results could be used to justify upgrading the counselor position because it would document that the counselors performed more than detention work. With these assurances, the shop steward relented and agreed to help me implement the study. The time studies were performed for the balance of that fiscal year, my department received all of the federal monies it was eligible for, and I was one step closer to receiving a promotion if and when my boss, the finance director, retired.

Chapter 5

Build Political Alliances and Relationships

You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don’t seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together. —Henry Ford

Once I became the finance director, I soon realized that performing my job responsibilities weren’t enough to survive in my position. I no longer had civil service protections, and could be terminated by my boss at any time, and without cause. In order to survive in a heightened political environment, I had to build political alliances to ensure I had allies and friends in a variety of locations. I had to remain visible and had to be seen as politically connected so that I would have a better opportunity to survive. My department reported to and was governed by the Juvenile Probation Commission. Commission were political appointees appointed by the mayor. A month after I was appointed to my new executive position, I had to appear before my commission. The finance committee chair grilled me relentlessly on a number of financial matters, including budget overruns in the juvenile hall division, and unusual spending patterns elsewhere in the department. The finance committee chair also grilled me on a number of nonfinancial matters that I was not prepared to address at that time. I did not have the answers to many of the questions posed by the finance committee chair, and as a result, looked unprepared and uninformed. Unfortunately, I had not built a personal relationship with this finance committee chair, and so the relentless

questioning and criticism was easier for her to lash out and more difficult for me to bear. A few months later, a newly appointed commission member was appointed as finance chair. A few days later, I was advised by the commission chairman and by my boss to befriend this new commission chair. I was also advised to make sure the new finance committee chair understood the pressures and challenges in my work, and to get her . Because the mayor appointed the commissioner, having her and encouragement would help to insulate me from criticism from the mayor’s office, controller’s staff, and others. Luckily, the new committee finance chair was an affable and personable young woman, and over time, she and I established an amiable professional relationship. To cement our professional relationship, we went to lunch a few times and developed a rapport. During my years as finance director, I scheduled more than the required number of finance committee meetings, meeting with all of the of the commission’s finance committee so that financial questions, possible irregularities, and staffing problems could be discussed with finance committee in a comfortable and nonthreatening manner. Because I built a rapport with the finance committee chair and with the rest of the commission’s finance committee, and because I resolved all possibly embarrassing questions before the full commission meeting, I was never grilled or criticized at commission meetings about my department’s finances or about any of the istrative areas under my control. As the chief financial officer of my department, I was repeatedly able for over the budget conditions, and was called on the carpet by representatives of the mayor’s office and Controller’s Office on many occasions. I one particular time when I invited my commission’s finance committee chair to me at one of these meetings. Because the finance committee chair was a direct appointee of the mayor, that particular meeting was not as acrimonious as it could have been. I was able to obtain approvals from the Controller’s Office to hire staff and to buy equipment at that meeting that I might not have otherwise obtained. I know that I would not have realized this success without inviting my politically connected commission member with me.

Soon after assuming the director position, my boss suggested that I find myself office space in city hall. He offered this suggestion because our department was a distance from city hall, and as a result, far removed from the decision makers our department worked with such as the mayor’s office, board of supervisors staff, Controller’s Office, and the city’s Human Resources Department. Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain office space in city hall because no department would give me a desk without charging my department a corresponding fee. There was no money in my department’s budget to obtain office space in city hall, and there was no way I could use other department funds to obtain city hall office space. However, I managed to maximize my exposure, visibility, and s with other department executives by attending retirement dinners and holiday parties in other departments and by schmoozing wherever and whenever it was possible. I also maximized my exposure by attending and participating in meetings held by the professional association representing citywide executives and by staying in touch with staff from the Controller’s Office with whom I had worked before moving on to Juvenile Probation. Many of my former associates from the Controller’s Office had become financial executives in other city department, and over time, knowing them proved to be invaluable.

Walk Your Organization’s Political Tightrope

Virtue has its own reward, but no sale at the box office. —Mae West

Every organization has its own unique political environment, whether that organization is in the private sector, in the nonprofit environment, or is a part of a government agency. As a high-level professional or executive, you will have to understand your organization’s unique environment and figure how to navigate your way through it to make sure you do not alienate those in power. You will

also learn how to navigate the political environment to maximize your influence and to utilize it to help secure and protect your future there. In my case, I worked in one of the most political and interesting work environments: San Francisco (City) government. The city has a strong civil service system that protects and defends most employees from management. With a strong civil service system and the many strong unions that represent civil service employees, most employees are relatively immune from dismissal for poor performance, and certainly from incorrect political activity outside of the office. However, as noted earlier in this chapter, most high-level executive positions are exempt from civil service protections and are classified as “at will” positions. “At will” employees are appointed and serve at the pleasure of the person or commission that appointed him or her. For the most part, the mayor or commissions appoint department heads, and the department heads appoint the department division heads. San Francisco is a Democratic bastion. There are few, if any, Republicans elected to positions in city government. As a ed and sometimes activist Republican, I kept my political preferences to myself, and in the long term my partisan affiliation never came back to haunt me. However, as director, I was very careful not to say anything or reveal anything to my boss to indicate I was not an enthusiastic er of the mayor and the of the board of supervisors, all who were Democrats or Democratic Party leaners at the time I served as a finance director. Because almost all elected officials were Democrats, and the major citywide elections were all nonpartisan, the elections were all about selecting either liberal or left-leaning progressive Democratic candidates in the elections and in the election run-offs. Even though the elections were nonpartisan, few, if any ed Republicans were on the ballot for citywide positions. For those positions, the elections were all also about selecting one of the many Democrats running for nonpartisan offices. During the time I was director, there were several tightly contested and highly visible elections where my candidate preference, if widely known, could have made a difference one way or another to my job security. For example, there was

a highly contested and close election for San Francisco public defender during the time I served as director. One of the two leading candidates was a woman d with the traditional Democratic Party machine who was well-known, liked, and respected in my department because of her prior role as director of the Mayor’s Criminal Justice Council. The mayor appointed this woman following the departure of the previously elected public defender. One evening, one of the Juvenile Probation Commission held a “meet and greet” reception for the incumbent at the commissioner’s home. I was advised by several of my executive team colleagues that it would be politically wise for me to attend that political function and to be seen backing the incumbent. Although I was not openly committed to the incumbent or her challenger, I attended the function and spoke to everyone there as if I were on board with the campaign and the candidate. The incumbent candidate lost the election, but I won a few brownie points with several of my commission and with my department’s executive team by appearing to back the candidate favored by one commissioner, by the mayor, and by most of the executives in my department. The year before I became director, the city experienced a tightly fought race for mayor. The incumbent, Willie Brown, was locked into a close election with Tom Ammiano, a nationally known community activist, former comedian, and member of the board of supervisors, who I did not agree with on many policy matters. At the time, I was not yet familiar with how effective a mayor Willie Brown was. Therefore, I did not endorse, work for, or contribute to either of the campaigns. Ultimately, I voted for the mayor’s reelection. Luckily, I did not work for the mayor’s opponent because the mayor handily won reelection, and soon after the election I became the Juvenile Probation Finance and istration director and fell into a politically appointed, “atwill” position. Because I was directly appointed by the chief probation officer, my political affiliation and past political activity was not of much interest to Mayor Brown. However, had I been active in the mayor’s opponent’s campaign and had that political activity been well known to my superiors, my smooth sailing into the director’s slot might have been compromised. As an aside, during the next two years, I met with Mayor Brown several times on budget request matters and found him engaging, knowledgeable, and an in-

charge manager. Over this period of time, I also found the mayor more in command and better for the city than the three previous mayors that I had met and worked with.

Carefully Build Social Relationships at Work

When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves. —Arthur Ward

Every year, the woman who preceded me as finance director had at least one large party at her home for all division staff and for other staff within the department. Wives, husbands, and significant others were invited to these parties; and sometimes as many as fifty staff and family attended. I always believed that my predecessor was well liked and respected in part by the staff because she gave up her free time and her home to entertain them and their families. I believe that by inviting staff into her home, she made herself more accessible to the staff, and this accessibility carried forward into the office. After I became finance director, I never replicated the parties that my predecessor held at her home because I lived in an 830-square-foot high-rise condominium in the city and could not accommodate fifty or more people in my home. My predecessor had a large three-bedroom home in the suburbs. But over the five years I served as assistant director and director, I invited selected staff to my home for smaller social gatherings. When I retired, I invited all of the nearly one hundred people going to my retirement party to a party event at my home before the main event. Approximately thirty of the retirement party attendees were able to make it to the party at my home. I found that when I invited staff to my home, some of the staff would reciprocate and invite me to their home, and I would go to their homes. Additionally, when I

could, I would go with groups of staff to lunch. Nevertheless, I learned that as the director, I walked a fine line with the staff. It was a good thing to build a rapport with staff during off-duty hours and even better when it carried forth into the workplace. However, I also discovered that sometimes staff utilized this rapport as part of a strategy to do less at work, thinking that if we were friends outside of work, I would let them get away with things at work I would not let them get away with otherwise. There was one particular instance where one of my staff took me out to lunch. Within weeks after that lunch, through the grapevine, I learned that the staff member might have been misusing department facilities. Luckily, that employee left the department soon after, and I didn’t have to follow up or initiate discipline.

Participate in Professional Organizations

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now. —Martin Luther King Jr.

Become an active and engaged participant in the professional organizations that speak for and represent your executive position. As an active member in these organizations, you will feel more like the high-level professional you are. Additionally, your image and reputation in your organization as a valued resource to your organization will be enhanced. As a chief financial officer (CFO) in a county probation office, I had ample opportunities to meet with and confer with my CFO colleagues in the other California probation departments. The California Probation Managers Association (MA) provided probation department finance managers opportunities to meet with and confer with their California probation CFO colleagues. The MA met annually and sometimes more often to discuss

prevailing trends, federal and state mandates, and other issues of interest to the group . Because California is a large state, MA meetings often involved travel to the other end of the state, resulting in three or four days out of the office each year to attend the MA meetings. Although the MA meetings were expensive for my department because of the travel and took me out of the office, I always felt more like an executive and more important to my organization every time I returned back to my department after these meetings. As a member of this professional organization, my sense of my importance to the department was energized, and my specialized skills and education became more apparent to me. I also felt that these meetings energized me because I was able to communicate my frustrations and slow learning curve doldrums with my colleagues who expressed similar experiences. As a result, I realized that my challenges becoming a competent executive in a turbulent probation environment was a shared experience, that I was not alone, and that there was hope for a more confident future for me as a director. As a member of the MA, I participated in several projects and reports that were widely distributed, including to my boss and others in my department. As a result, my credibility as a probation manager and as authority in my field was enhanced.

Maintain Quality Communications with Union Representatives

If any man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar. If any man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool. —Abraham Lincoln

Maintain quality communications with the union representatives that represent the employees in your organization. Establishing quality relationships with those that represent your employees will help you resolved issues and grievances in a more amicable and time efficient manner. During my time at Juvenile Probation, I learned that the employee unions could and were powerful advocates for the employees they spoke represented. Over time, I had many phone calls and meetings with union representatives about working conditions for the staff, about employee compensation disputes, and about personnel matters including employee hiring and discipline. Because I managed a diverse range of professional, clerical, and technical staff, I had to contend with more than a half-dozen different employee unions. Luckily, almost all salary scales and working condition agreements were negotiated citywide, and I just merely worked with the citywide agreements. I found that building personal and professional relationships with the employee union representatives was an important buffer in ameliorating tensions with the staff over the grievance matters. I also found that addressing union concerns in a timely manner gave the union representatives a sense of empowerment and accomplishment. I my buildings superintendent filed an extraordinary and complex request for back pay for work that he had performed during nonbusiness hours and for out-of-position class procedures. I wasn’t aware of the time my buildings superintendent worked during nonbusiness hours, and was caught off guard with the request. Because I worked closely with the representatives of my building superintendent’s bargaining unit, I diffused what could have been an embarrassing confrontation with my building superintendent and his union representative.

Use Your Coffee Breaks and Lunch Hour to Your Advantage

No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee’s frothy goodness.

—Sheik Abd-al-Kadir

Lunchtime is an excellent opportunity to build alliances to your organization and your executive position. Most people are more relaxed and more open to get give you advice, counsel, and in an out-of-theworkplace setting. Go to lunch with the power brokers who have with or make decisions that impact your organization. Also, go to lunch with your immediate superiors and with the people who supervise them. In addition, go to lunch with the people you supervise. Working on top of San Francisco’s remote Twin Peaks area, I found it difficult to get out of the office and meet with power brokers in the civic center area. However, shortly after I started work as a director, my boss encouraged me to have coffee or lunch with the power brokers downtown. My boss thought and told me that building a personal relationship with those in power might give me a leg up during the budget season and when I sought approvals to fill vacant position and to purchase goods and services. I followed through on my boss’s suggestion that I go to coffee or to lunch with power brokers. At least once every two weeks, I went to coffee or lunch with somebody that had some power or influence over my department. For example, I went to coffee or lunch with the mayor’s budget analyst who evaluated my department’s proposed budget. I went to lunch with the budget analysts who worked for the board of supervisors knowing that these analysts would evaluate and attempt to cut my department’s budget. I also went to lunch with fellow city department finance directors who provided services to my department and were in a position to make those services more effective and less costly. However, I found the most valuable coffee and lunchtime meetings were those with my boss, his assistant, and with the other department executives that I had to work with. I found that building personal relationships with these people buffered me from personal criticisms of my work down the line. I found that if the ones who supervise me like me, they are more likely to protect my back when the going gets tough.

Stay in Touch with Mentors and Fellow Employees When You or They Leave

A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you, than you see in yourself, and helps bring it out of you. —Bob Proctor

Maintain s with your mentors, supervisors, and fellow employees after you leave, or they leave the organization in which you both work. Your colleagues today may be among those that will hire you, or give you a reference, or assist you succeed as an executive in the future, somewhere else. You never know when you will need a reference, or when you will need information about a new job, or if you want to get on a major career move. The man who hired me into San Francisco City service almost thirty years ago became a friend and mentor, in addition to serving as my immediate supervisor. To this day, I seek advice and counsel, even though we see each other no more than once every couple of years. Just recently, I applied for a position with a southern California city where he worked after he left San Francisco. With my mentor’s knowledge of the position and the players involved, I feel an advantage, especially if I become a leading candidate and if I need a local reference.

Chapter 6

Manage Your Time More Effectively

By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day. —Robert Frost

As a highly paid professional or as an executive, you and your organization are responsible for many work-related deadlines. You also have conflicting and changing operating priorities. Managing a workforce in such an environment is much more challenging than being a professional with a single major project or assignment. When I became director, I calculated that I needed at least one hundred hours a week to get all of my work assignments and projects completed. Although I was willing to work up to fifty hours a week, or perhaps fifty-five hours a week, working one hundred hours a week was out of the question. Although I was willing to work weekend days, here and there, I was not willing to work seven days every week for the duration. Although I was willing to work long hours, I was not willing to eliminate vacation time, avoid lunch hours, or lose the time that I wanted to spend in the gym. To effectively handle my position, I realized that I had to effectively allocate my time to my highest work priorities, and that I had to delegate work responsibilities, where possible. I also learned that I had to work smarter, accomplishing more in the time I had available. I also learned that I had to determine which work assignments and projects could be delayed or ignored. A few months after starting in the director position, the entire department executive team was sent to a two-day time management software class. All of us

found the time management software to be cumbersome and difficult to master, and I don’t think any of us ever used the time management software to improve our long-term project planning capabilities. However, over time, I learned that common sense solutions to managing my time ultimately helped me better utilize the available time that I had to compete more of my work that I ever imagined I could handle. I also found that with time, with more experience, more confidence, and more professional s, I could finish my work in less time than I could in the first months after I took the office.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success: leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. —Stephen R. Covey

There is no need to “reinvent the wheel.” Whenever you have challenging questions about how to organize or manage your operation, your peers in comparable organizations about what has worked for them, and determine if you can customize what they have accomplished for your own organization. Over time, I realized that with more than sixty operating departments in the city government, there were at least sixty persons in Finance and istration director positions similar to mine. Additionally, with fifty-seven counties in California, and with each California county having one or more probation departments, I had many opportunities to talk with others who had some of the same operating challenges that I had. I learned that whenever I had questions about how to implement a new federally required program, about how best to staff and organize an istrative

function, or about how best to request additional budget funds, I could other finance directors in San Francisco city government or in the other California probation departments for assistance. I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel every time I had a new project or quandary about how to manage a challenging assignment. For example, when the federal government issued probation departments TANF funds for family-focused and preventive probation programs, most of the California probation departments weren’t sure how to access these funds and didn’t know what kinds of programs to initiate or to charge to the program. In the ensuing months following the federal government’s announcement of the TANF funds, I worked closely with the financial managers that I had met from other California counties to more clearly understand the federal guidelines, how to access the newly available federal funds, and how to maximize benefits to our departments. Had my department and I not reviewed and compared these options collectively, I would have been at a disadvantage and would not have access to as much money as expeditiously as we did.

Utilize Quiet Time in the Office and Outside of the Office

A quiet mind cureth all. —Robert Burton

Over the years, I realized that the best time to accomplish tasks that did not involve meetings or discussions with staff were before and after business hours and on weekends. After hour times, before hour times, and weekends provided me with times that were not interrupted with phone calls, employees at the door, unnecessary meetings, and unanticipated crises situations. On a typical workday, I got to work at about 7:15 a.m., about forty-five minutes to an hour before most other staff came into the office. In that early

morning hour, I was able to work on confidential correspondence, return e-mails and prepare myself for meetings and project endeavors. That early morning quiet time also allowed me to gear my emotions for the day and to get ready for the emergencies that I knew were waiting for me once everybody was in the building. I also found that the quiet time after everybody left the office was the best time to catch up with the chief and the assistant chief, and with selected staff I knew stayed late. It was also a time of the day when I could catch up with the confidential projects and e-mail correspondence that I could not work on during the day because of the constant interruptions. Although I regularly came into the office before most everyone else, and left after most everyone else, I sometimes managed to work a normal eight-hour day by allowing myself a longer lunch hour, particularly if the lunch was with a city hall power broker, with one of my many s in city government, or with a colleague in another department. I also allowed myself longer lunch hours if I was taking one of my immediate staff to lunch or if I went to lunch with a department colleague, knowing that we would be discussing work-related matters at lunch. During the budget season, which lasted almost half a year from January through June, I often came into the office on Saturdays and or Sundays. The weekend times enabled me to complete more than twice the amount of detailed number crunching projects, budget reconciliations, budget justification reports, narratives and analyses than I could complete during the workdays. I also found that completing the detailed number crunching work and paperwork on weekends afforded me more time to deal with the more challenging staffing matters during the busy work hours. When I was in the office on weekends, I worked in my more comfortable jeans and sweaters, and found the more comfortable environment reduced my stress levels and allowed me to be more productive. On occasion, I took work home so that I could have quiet time away from the office. However, I found that having office paper, supplies, equipment, and anxieties in my home were unsettling and distracting, and stressed me at home. Over time, I preferred to go into the office early and stay late, or go into the office on weekend than to clutter my personal life with my work life.

Ironically, I found some of my most productive time was when I was on vacation in Palm Springs, working on my tan, laying by the pool, and not worrying about the next urgent phone call or about the next distressed employee at my office door. I specifically the year I was negotiating proposed budget cuts to my department, on the phone with a board of supervisor’s budget analyst. The budget analyst was in foggy San Francisco, where it was raining that day, and I was in sunny Palm Springs by the pool, wearing a Speedo and holding my department’s ground with the analyst who wanted to cut a dozen positions from my budget.

Delegate Time-Consuming Work to Employees

I’ve already felt that I want to direct. Being an executive producer is the best job in the world because you make all these executive decisions and then you leave the money to other people. You don’t have to be on the set counting beans —Robbie Coltrane

that as a manager, you must give your priority time to management functions that require your presence at meetings, and handling difficult management challenges and problem employees. As a result, you will need to delegate the time-consuming, but less difficult work assignments and less stressful assignments to the applicable staff. Well-educated and detail-oriented professionals are naturally inclined to perform the work that they were trained to do as effectively, and as completely as possible. From my vantage point, I’ve seen ants, engineers, architects, lawyers, nurses, and other professionals working with the minutia of their work, perfecting their work and not missing details but missing the big picture.

As an auditor and then as an analyst, I wasn’t subject to the same deadlines, crises phone calls, and immediate calls for my time that became commonplace for me once I became a finance director. In order to be an effective manager, I realized that I had to delegate timeconsuming work to the applicable staff. I also delegated other time-consuming, but not management tasks such as preparing low-level management reports, follow-ups on less consequential bottlenecks and other less important topic areas. It took me a while to learn how to delegate the work that I used to complete all by myself, but once I got the knack, delegating work became one of the easiest things I did as an executive. Not all of my fellow finance director colleagues learned to delegate work as easily and as quickly as I did. Norman, a fellow employee from a previous job, assumed a finance director position in a comparably sized government department at about the same time as I started my financial director position at Juvenile Probation. Norman was great at detail work, good at organizing his thoughts, and a competent writer, but not as outgoing or willing to take risks as me. To Norman’s detriment, he preferred the detail minutia of budget work to the deal-making and negotiating embodied in the budget process. Norman’s reluctance to delegate work made his transition to an executive position tentative. I wasn’t surprised when I learned that Norman transferred back to the lower-paying, but less stressful job he came from a year after he became a finance director.

Prioritize Work and Learn to Multitask

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. —Peter Drucker

Learn how to better prioritize your work. Also learn to multitask assignments to better manage your time and to accomplish more work than if all of your work is handled one task at a time Managing your executive position workload is more complicated than just emptying your in basket and completing each task as it comes in. As an executive, you have to prioritize your work and have to multitask to get the most important work completed first and comprehensively. As you complete the highest priority work, you must also initiate and start work in other areas so that the deadlines for those projects can be completed as well. As director, I learned that the most important projects were the ones that had the strictest and tightest deadlines, the ones with high visibility and importance to my boss, and the ones that most clearly affected the people who worked for me. During the months of January through May, budget preparation efforts for the following fiscal year were the highest priority projects for me given the importance of preparing a comprehensive plan and strategy for obtaining the most resources possible for the next year. During the months of July and August, the close of the prior fiscal year’s budget was a priority. At other times of the year, other priorities were in play. I leaned that the months of September and October were the slowest months in the office and the time of the year when I could most easily take vacations. There were no opportunities for taking vacation during the budget season.

Reduce Paper Clutter in Your Office

What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork. —Pearl Bailey

Work with your closest aides and/or secretary to keep your work desk, paper files, and online files well organized to enable you, your secretary, or trusted staff to find important documents. Keeping a clean and organized office and desk will enable you to track important documents, and will eliminate lost time due to searching for missing paperwork and recreating reports that are missing. Maintaining a well-organized office will also lead your superiors, peers, and subordinates to conclude that you are a well-organized professional. I was never good at managing paperwork. For as long as I was a professional in the workplace, my desk always looked disorganized and disheveled. I always had a problem finding the paper files that I had placed on my desk at some earlier time. Although Donald Trump, a very successful executive, recently said that a messy desk is a sign of a good executive, I believe the opposite. I believe that a clean and tidy desk symbolizes a capability to better manage your thoughts and your priorities. I also believe that a clean and tidy desk symbolizes that you are confident in your work and that you know how to finish projects and throw away accompanying paperwork. I also strongly believe that having a clean and tidy desk and office is a timesaver. During the time I was director, despite the offers of help from my secretary, I was never able to keep my office organized. Sometimes, the paper files and important documents on my desk were stacked as high as six or seven inches. Sometimes I kept paper files and documents on the floor and on top of file cabinets because there was nowhere else to put them. With the disorganization, I sometimes would spend a lot of time looking for this file or that file, and sometimes I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Hours were lost looking for paper documents that were right in front of me, and hours were spent recreating information that I could not find and which was not saved on my office computer. My secretary tried to help me better organize my files and desk, but I almost always declined her offers because I always thought she didn’t know enough about what I was doing to really help me. I was also afraid that she would misplace the paper files and documents and that I would spend even more time trying to find files that she misfiled.

In retrospect, I should have briefed my secretary more about the work my division was performing. Perhaps I was defensive about the mess I had created on my desk. Perhaps I didn’t believe anyone, no matter how competent and able they were, could help me better manage my desk than I could. Perhaps I didn’t trust my secretary to understand what I was doing and what the paper documents contained. I learned my paper management mistakes too late and wasn’t surprised when the assistant chief reassigned my secretary to her office for part of the workday every day because it appeared that my secretary didn’t have much to do for me, and that I really didn’t need a secretary. In retrospect, I also learned that it is not always necessary to maintain paper files that are also available online. Online reports can always be printed if needed. Additionally, I also learned that it is not necessary to print more copies of any given report or memo than is absolutely needed. Additionally, I learned that it is not necessary to print copies of every memo and report that is submitted to me online. Had I realized all of these paper saving techniques, I would have been less frustrated with the mess in my office, I might have been more efficient in my work and accomplished more, and I could have saved a tree or two along the way.

Do Not Leave the Office before Employees Leave

I like that kind of frantic schedule. It makes me feel like I have a purpose. —Sara Gilbert

Try not to leave the office before your staff goes home. Leaving after everyone else goes home leaves the impression that you work long hours and are committed to your job. Leaving after everyone else leaves also gives the impression that you are working on very important, time-consuming projects that require quiet time and focused attention. Additionally, leaving early leaves

the impression that you are not working as hard as the staff, and that you may have personal priorities that are more important than work priorities. Although I very often left the office after most employees went home at the end of the workday, over time, I realized that I wasn’t putting in many more hours than the staff who worked for me. Because I was the boss, I sometimes came into work a little bit late, without having to worry about somebody telling me that I was late. I also found myself sometimes taking longer lunches and telling everyone that I was having power lunches with important people downtown. I also found myself going to many afternoon business meetings at city hall, going home from there, and not returning to the office. Working late made me look like I was working many more hours than my staff, but in fact, I wasn’t working as hard or as long as I thought I would be going into the position.

Make Sure Your Closest Assistants Know Where You Are

Every story was being made up. My true friends weren’t the ones speaking. It was people who never knew me, making up stories. Even my local paper put a $1,000 bounty out for information about my whereabouts. —Marla Maples

Always make sure your secretary or someone else in the office you trust knows where you are at all times during the business day. Unexpected crises may require your time and attention immediately. Additionally, your boss or someone else important may want to see you, and you don’t want to be considered missing in action. Many years ago, when I was an audit manager, my audit staff and I uncovered and reported on a major financial scandal in the city’s homeless program. Following the publication of the audit report summarizing the results of the

audit, my boss (the audit director) and I along with the city controller were scheduled for a press conference with Mayor Dianne Feinstein to discuss the audit results and to address how the scandalous conditions would be resolved. My boss and I were asked to await the press conference in a conference room just outside of the Controller’s Office. Because of a delay in getting the press conference started, and without knowing when that conference would actually start, my boss and I agreed that the two of us should return back to our office and return when we learned when the press conference would start. However, neither of us alerted the controller or his secretary that we left city hall, and we didn’t tell anyone where we were going. Needless to say, as soon as we left, the mayor’s office called for the three of us to come up, but my boss and I were nowhere to be found, and no one knew where we had gone. Because cell phones were not yet commonly used in the United States then, no one could reach us as we headed back to our office from city hall. Mayor Feinstein’s staff was unwilling to delay the press conference until my boss and I were found. The press conference was held with the mayor and controller, but without my boss or me attending. Because the controller didn’t know much about the details in the audit report, he wasn’t able to adequately answer some of the reporters’ questions about the scandal or about the audit report details. As a result, the controller was not happy with me and with my boss. My boss and I were sent to the “woodshed” that day because we hadn’t told anyone where we were or where we were going. As a result of our absence, I missed the press conference and a golden opportunity for me to establish myself with the press as an accomplished audit manager.

Chapter 7

Using Communication and Interpersonal Skills to Improve Your Likelihood of Success

Years ago, I tried to top everybody, but I don’t anymore. I realized that it was killing conversation. When you are trying for a topper, you aren’t really listening. It ruins communications. —Groucho Marx

No matter how good your managerial and professional skills, without effective communication and interpersonal skills, you won’t be an effective leader. If you don’t have effective written communication skills, you will have a tough time submitting writing samples if they are requested and you will have difficulty writing a cover letter explaining why you want a responsible position. If you don’t have effective speaking skills, you will have a tough time getting through your job interview. If you don’t have effective interpersonal skills, you will likely not get along with anyone after you are on the job, and that will be the beginning of the end for you in that job. Even if you manage to survive in your new job, without interpersonal skills, many of your staff and many of your associates will not like you, will not understand who you are, and what you want of them, making your job as a leader all that much more difficult. Not all of us are born with the capability for building effective communications and rapport with almost anybody. However, almost all of us have the ability to improve upon these skills.

Build Written Communication Skills at an Early Age

You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere. —Lee Iacocca

Perhaps the most challenging communication skill to master is the skill to convey thoughts on paper. Learning how to write well is a skill generally mastered by professionals at an early age. Improving written communication skills as an adult is a challenging effort. My experience as a manager tells me that most adults over the age of thirty cannot improve this skill appreciably, even with significant coaching, and even with additional training. As a manager in several organizations, I learned that only twenty to thirty percent of all professionals can effectively prepare memos and reports that are grammatically correct, well organized, concise, address the issues at hand, and easy to read. As an audit manager for over thirteen years, one of my major job requirements was editing audit reports prepared by junior staff . I was perennially frustrated with the staff, offering my recommendations for improvement, and finding the staff unable to accept my recommendations and produce an updated draft that was up to standard. Luckily, I mastered the written communication medium as a college student and thereafter, as a graduate student. As a professional, I furthered my written communication skills with practice and with valuable . As an audit manager, my audit reports were considered among the best in my department. Because I was a good writer, my performance evaluations always included praise for my ability to write well and to complete my reports expeditiously. When I was the assistant director at Juvenile Probation, I was asked to compile

an organizational evaluation of the department’s clerical work force. After completing interviews with relevant staff, compiling, distributing, and reviewing questionnaires, comparing clerical organization in our department to clerical organizations incomparable departments, I prepared a report summarizing my report. The report included recommendations for reorganization clerical staff within the department and steps for improving clerical staff productivity and work satisfaction. Although few of the recommendations outlined in the clerical study ever got implemented, the chief probation officer stated that the report was extremely well written, and completely addressed all of the problems with the clerical work force that the department outlined before the study was initiated. Years later, the clerical study report was ed more for its clarity and well-written format than for the contents of the report. I credit my promotion from assistant director of Finance and istration to director of Finance and istration for many reasons, one of them being my ability to write well and certainly better than most anyone else on staff or anyone who wanted to be the director. When I became director of Finance and istration at San Francisco Juvenile Probation, I learned that written communication skills were not as keys in an operating department as they were in a staff department. Operating departments are judged by how well they complete their operating mission, while staff departments, particularly audit departments, are judged by how well they convey a message summarizing the results of their reviews. However, as an executive at Juvenile Probation, I realized that my above average written communication skills would differentiate me from my colleagues at the department and elevated my status as somebody who appeared to be in command of his message. I also realized that my above average written communication skills would help me promote my department as I requested budget resources and as I negotiated arrangements with other city departments. Shortly after I became director, I realized that I had to demonstrate above average management skills in some areas to neutralize other skills that were lacking. Having strong written communication skills allowed me to demonstrate that I was an asset to the organization.

Over the next two years, I used my written communication skills to make strong arguments for new department positions, for capital equipment including automobiles, trucks, and computers. I also used my strong written communication skills when writing memos to the decision makers in the mayor’s office, when conveying my division work to the Juvenile Probation Commission, and when communicating to staff. I cannot overemphasize the importance of written communication skills. Without them, promotion opportunities are few and far between. My friend, Karen, a financial analyst working for a midsized corporation, doesn’t know how to compose a well-written and focused memo. Fortunately, most financial analysis does not require innovative and creative business writing skills, and as a result, Karen is a successful financial analyst professional because she works hard at what she does. Unfortunately, Karen was recently denied a promotion at her company because she didn’t write as well as her competitors for the position. Other attempts for management position at other companies and in other industries have also been unsuccessful for Karen because she lacks this essential skill.

Build Verbal Communication Skills

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. —Rudyard Kipling

With a master’s degree in hand, I thought I had excellent communication skills and didn’t realize that my speaking skills had a lot to be desired My first employer after completing graduate school was with the city of Phoenix. I was a systems and procedures analyst with the city’s data processing department. The department director at the time was a strong believer in the

Toastmaster International program and was then serving as an area governor, overseeing four or five clubs in the downtown Phoenix area. My department director was also an active member of the Phoenix City Municipal Toastmaster Club that met in the department’s conference room every Tuesday at 6:30 a.m. before work. My director strongly encouraged me to his Toastmaster club as part of an overall strategy for improving my ability to speak before groups, to think extemporaneously, to evaluate the work of others, to practice leadership skills, to learn better meeting management skills, and finally to work as part of a management team. The director also told me that my verbal communication skills were marginal and that I needed to improve my capabilities for communicating to groups of people. I ed the club to obtain the benefits of the Toastmaster program and to be in the good graces of my department director. Immediately after ing the club, I was elected club Sergeant of Arms, and was responsible for buying the donuts and preparing the coffee for the very early morning meetings. A year after ing my first Toastmaster Club in Arizona, I was offered a position with a private sector company in Oakland, California. After moving to California, I continued with a company-sponsored Toastmaster club at my jobsite. Three years later, I accepted a position at another private sector company in the Bay Area and ed the company-sponsored Toastmaster club there. When I accepted a position with the city of San Francisco, I found that the city did not sponsor a club, so I started a San Francisco city government club. I remained a member of the San Francisco City Hall Toastmaster Club for several years. Because there were conflicts with my work schedule, I left the City Hall Toastmaster Club two years later. As the director of Finance and istration at Juvenile Probation, I was required to speak before the board of supervisors and board of supervisor committees frequently about financial and budget matters. I also had to speak at the Juvenile Probation Commission meetings and at the commission finance committee meetings. Additionally, my job required that I speak to several community groups and to professional groups as well. Having extensive public speaking experience and education served me well in

presenting an organized, coherent, and well-articulated message to all of the public figures and the groups I spoke before during the time I was director. I also believe that because I was a confident speaker, my message was better accepted, and as a result, my reputation and credibility as an executive was enhanced. I also believe that mastering the art of verbal communications enabled me to better organize my thoughts, and afforded me a better opportunity to prepare more focused written reports. I also found that improving my verbal communication skills helped me better manage meetings, to better evaluate the performance of others, to improve my capability for delegating work, and for promoting organizational cohesion and solidarity.

Be Familiar with Different Ethnic Backgrounds of Staff in Your Organization

What we have to do . . . is to find a way to celebrate our diversity and debate our differences without fracturing our communities. —Hillary Clinton

Be familiar with the different ethnic cultures and heritages in your organization’s staff. Understanding the differing values, priorities, customs, and histories of the people in your office will help you better communicate with and manage everyone, and will make you more approachable. Communication experts tell us that more than eighty percent of communications are nonverbal, and are embodied in eye , body proximity to those we communicate with, hand gestures, body movements, the clothes and the accessories we wear, handshakes, and other nonverbal cues. The Toastmaster International communication and leadership program taught me how to be aware of and to utilize my knowledge of nonverbal cues to improve my speeches, presentations, and one-on-one communications.

I found the public protection environment at Juvenile Probation very different from the environment at the Controller’s Office. I also found the physical cues in the two offices differed because of the radically different type of work involved. The physical cues that worked at the Controller’s Office did not work or conveyed different messages than the physical cues at Juvenile Probation. At Juvenile Probation, physical cues and nonverbal messages were more dramatic, physical, immediate, and “in your face.” At the Controller’s Office, nonverbal physical cues were subtle, restrained, and often time delayed. When I moved from the Controller’s Office to the Juvenile Probation Office, some of the Juvenile Probation Department staff told me in confidence that I appeared to be a little distant, nonconfrontational when needed, and quiet. I was also told that I didn’t look my adversaries in the eyes when needed, that I didn’t immediately acknowledge the smiles, eye s, and greetings of others, and that my handshakes were not aggressive enough. Within three months after becoming director, one of the department secretaries pulled me aside and asked me why I never smiled at her in the office, in the hallways, or anywhere else. She also asked me if I thought she wasn’t worth speaking to because she was a secretary and I was a director, and that I might think I was better than her. This secretary also told me that when I walked through the building, I looked overly focused, too serious and distracted, and uninterested in anyone else in the hallway, except for other directors or other managerial staff . Initially, I was annoyed with this confrontation and thought these comments to me were out of place and inappropriate. But after some time, I realized that the comments were probably on target, and that my demeanor conveyed a message of elitism that clearly affected my reputation and image within the department. Over time, I was grateful for the and changed my demeanor and appearance whenever I walked through the building, and when I was in the presence of clerical, maintenance, and semiprofessional staff . It took me some time to adjust my nonverbal communication cues, adjusting form one organizational environment to another that was very different. With a more aggressive physical stance, more direct s, and more aggressive and physical stances, I found that the criticism of my demeanor minimized over time and I became more effective in communicating instructions, criticisms, and other

messages of importance.

Encourage Your Employees to Improve Interpersonal Skills

Leadership at one time meant muscle. Today it means getting along with people. —Indira Gandhi

Encourage your employees to improve their interpersonal skills. Employees with stronger interpersonal skills have stronger leadership skills and are better able to take initiatives. Additionally, your employees will also establish better working relationships with the clients your company or agency works most closely with. When I was an audit manager, several years before I became a director at Juvenile Probation, one of the auditors assigned to my staff did not maintain viable interpersonal communications with the clients we audited. On several occasions, audit clients called me to complain about this auditor’s language and unprofessional attitude and comments. Although I founded a Toastmaster club for city employees several years earlier, I left the club because I could not find the time to regularly attend meetings. Nevertheless, I found the Toastmaster club an invaluable place to send employees with verbal communication and interpersonal problems. I offered my employee the opportunity to attend the Toastmaster club, giving him time off to attend the meetings. I even obtained city funding to pay for his Toastmaster club hip expenses. To my surprise, this employee agreed to attend the Toastmaster club meetings. I noted that over time, this employee’s communication, interpersonal and leadership skills improved. Additionally, this employee was less confrontational with the audit clients he worked with every day. The employee also had a better attitude with respect to receiving and

accepting constructive criticism.

Build Collegial Relationships with Your Colleagues

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships. —Michael Jordan

Very often, becoming a high-level employee especially an executive employee means that you become a team member of a diverse executive team with common organizational objectives. As an executive of one division, you may have to work with your colleagues to achieve results that benefit both of your divisions and the total organization as a whole. In some instances, common objectives may benefit one division more than it benefits another division. Before I came to work at Juvenile Probation, the department’s finance directors prepared the department’s budgets without the input of the other department divisions, and very often without the input of the department head, the chief probation officer, and without the input of the Juvenile Probation Commission which governed the department. Executive team reported to me and to my predecessor that the prior finance directors would sit in their offices with their doors closed and would never share with anyone information about the department-wide budget they were submitting to city hall, and rarely reported the results of their budget negotiations with the mayor and board of supervisors. Without interactive input from the other executive team , previous finance directors had not as complete an understanding of the budgetary needs for the other Juvenile Probation Department operating divisions for the following years. To some extent, the lack of team budgeting and the lack of an activist finance director was a factor in inability of the department to speak with one strong voice with the Mayor’s budget staff with the board of supervisors finance

committee and with the community as a whole. Without a focused and strong fiscal officer, the department was unable to secure the additional budgetary resources it was entitled to.

Build “People” Skills

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end. —Immanuel Kant

Most management consultants and management coaches will tell you that a successful executive has to have “people” skills in addition to the all of the technical, leadership, and organization skills required for executive positions. However, the management consultants and coaches disagree on exactly what “people” skills are and how they can make or break an aspiring executive. When I was about to succeed my predecessor as director, my predecessor offered me excellent advice, which I agreed with and tried to put into place. My predecessor advised me to that I was going to be managing people and not abstract producers of work products. My predecessor also reminded me that my staff would all have emotions, feelings, and personal needs to attend to; medial challenges that they might not want to disclose; and personal priorities other than work. For the two years as director, I worked hard to master my “people” by ing the good advice I was given and by applying these skills on a person-to-person basis. For example, I directly and indirectly supervised many women who had young children at home. To understand what motivated these women, I took an added interest in their stories about their children, including s about how these children were doing in school and how these children were spending their

summer vacations. I also became more sympathetic and understanding when these employees called in sick because of child-rearing challenges at home. I also became more sensitive to employees when they called in sick because they needed to wait for the refrigerator repairman, the cable installer, and others needed to keep their homes and families intact. As an executive trying to master my “people” skills, I became more cognizant of the professional aspirations of my staff. I realized that to motivate staff to perform more effectively, I tried to assign the staff work that would help them develop the skills to make them more competitive for professional advancement. I also was more realistic and accepting when my better staff applied for promotions in other departments. I also defined “people” skills as treating everybody fairly, equally, and with respect. For example, when one of the janitors who reported through my buildings and grounds unit came to me to discuss family and medical problems and challenges working for her supervisor, I listened to the janitor and helped her develop a plan for coping with these issues in the workplace. I learned that by working with, listening to, and respecting staff as equals, I fostered a more loyal workforce, a workforce that was less prone to absenteeism, and a workforce more willing to work a little bit harder.

Chapter 8

Give the Staff an Opportunity to Shine

I praise loudly. I blame softly. —Catherine the Great (1729-1786)

As a high-level professional or as an executive with staff reporting to you, and with other staff reporting to your direct reports, you are directly or indirectly responsible for motivating your employees to do a good job. You are also responsible for looking out for their best interests, to take care of their interpersonal needs when appropriate, and to recognize them when they have achieved above-anticipated success. I learned that as an executive, having a happy, motivated, and cared-for staff gave me a staff that worked hard and realized results. I also learned that a demotivated staff that felt I didn’t care about their needs and accomplishments didn’t work as hard and didn’t produce the work products that I wanted to see.

Upgrade and Promote Employees If They Do a Good Job

Make your top managers rich and they will make you rich. —Robert H. Johnson

Most of my staff worked hard and were fairly compensated for the

work they performed. However, I recognized that some of my employees performed more complex tasks and more challenging tasks than their employee classifications called for, and as a result were underpaid. During the five years I worked at Juvenile Probation, including the last two years as director, I dedicated a disproportionate amount of my time to getting as many of my hardest working staff upgraded and/or promoted, resulting in corresponding pay increases. Upgrading staff into higher position classifications involved time-consuming research of position descriptions, and endless write-ups of the employee assignments. Upgrading staff positions also included many hours working with my department’s personnel staff (who reported to me) with the city’s human resource department and with the mayor’s budget analyst assigned to work with my department. During the five years I worked at the department, I successfully upgraded a dozen positions, including the position I occupied as assistant director. Additionally, I promoted several of the staff persons in my division and I created several new positions within my division, providing more to an istrative team I found overworked and overstressed. The employees whose positions were upgraded or promoted because of my efforts to justify such actions were perennially grateful and became more loyal to me and more productive employees. These employees also stayed with the department longer than I anticipated, saving me significant time and resources to replace them had they left. Because the department’s personnel unit reported to me, I also provided to the other division directors who wanted to upgrade or promote their division staff. I worked almost as hard in helping the other division directors upgrade and promote their staff as I did for my own staff. Luckily, I was a director during an era of economic expansion and a widening government involvement in urban affairs. During the years I was the director we expanded the number of employees, purchased additional supplies, and obtained grants to replace the aging juvenile hall building. In the years since I left the department, economic conditions deteriorated and the department experienced significant position reductions, budget cuts, and reduced access to grants and new resources. My successor had to lay off some of the staff

that I brought on board, promoted, or upgraded. To my surprise and to the surprise of many, I learned that the division’s productivity and output in the years after I left did not suffer as much as I might have anticipated as a result. Some of the lesser-performing division employees left the department or were laid off and were not replaced; and the ones who remained worked harder to demonstrate their value to the department so that they would not be let go in a future layoff.

Give Employee Opportunities to Represent Your Organization

I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can be very often traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great energies and talents of its people. —Thomas J. Watson Jr.

Every three months, my department’s executive team and supervisory staff held an all day, out-of-the-office retreat to discuss department priorities, operational challenges facing the department, and the status of the department’s budget. Generally, nonexecutive staff were not invited to the retreat, and, as a result, many of the nonexecutive team considered the retreats as boondoggles and an opportunity for the supervisors and executives to party and have the day off. I the day when the assistant chief and training coordinator asked me to suggest agenda items for the next four management retreats. I suggested to my colleagues that we utilize staff and not executive team to present overviews of their respective divisions. I thought that giving staff an opportunity to present division overviews would help the respective staff improve their communication skills, would enhance their of the department’s mission, and would demystify the management retreat to the nonmanagerial staff, reducing the “us versus them” feeling among department

nonmanagerial staff. Over the next year, staff from four of the department’s divisions presented division overviews, highlighting their respective division mission, goals, operating programs, and logistical challenges. The staff provided a unique perspective and look at department operations, procedures, and challenges that the department supervisors, managers, and executives had not considered in the past. Because the staff employees were given an opportunity to participate in the management retreat and to express issues not known to management, the use of the staff at the retreat helped to bridge the divide between management and the staff. Another example of my giving staff an opportunity to participate in the management process happened just prior to my becoming director. The department was required to participate in a comprehensive citywide survey of women in city government positions. The survey was comprehensive, timeconsuming, and with a very short time span given for completing the survey. Because the survey was considered politically important, my boss, the outgoing finance director, was given the leading role in completing the survey. As second in command, I was given the leading role in managing subsections of the survey, including accumulating staff perceptions and opinions regarding women in the workplace. Because there was no readily apparent means for gauging employee opinions, I offered to conduct a number of focus groups of staff, and summarize results for the survey. The idea was welcomed as out-of-the-box and innovative, and I proceeded to get the focus groups started. Over the next two weeks, I conducted ten focus groups of randomly selected staff throughout the department. Each group included approximately six or seven employees, including men and women. The focus groups allowed staff to freely express opinions about the workplace, and as a result, the results were far-reaching and mind-opening. Because the employees were surprised and very pleased to be asked their opinions about the workplace and that the entire executive team would consider their ideas, I felt that the focus groups were a public relations win for the department’s executive

team.

Find Opportunities to Compliment Staff

Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. —Stephen Covey

As finance director, I had limited capabilities for rewarding superior performance with additional compensation. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, I was able to upgrade and promote a dozen or more employees during my fiveyear term at the department. However, for most employees, I could not increase compensation levels, no matter how well the employees performed their job. Additionally, I had no authority to grant additional time off or to provide additional creature comforts such as a better workstation or upgraded equipment. However, I found that there were other ways to reward employees for superior performance and for accomplishments. For example, I found that complimenting staff at staff meetings, referencing employee work on status reports to management, and sending thank you e-mails helped to acknowledge superior staff performance. On some occasions, I took high-performing staff out to lunch and thanked the staff at lunch. However, I also learned not to single out staff with free lunches too often because it was sometimes not construed as fair and equal to those staff not invited to lunch. On a half-dozen occasions, as directors, I prepared letters of commendation to select employees who had performed significant work, and who had realized out-of-the-box accomplishments. The employees who received these letters of commendation were most appreciative and often attached these letters to job applications for positions within our organization or to positions in other city

departments or outside of city service. When I was a manager in the Controller’s Office, superior performance was often acknowledged by declaring the employee with the most significant performance as employee of the month. To this day, I the thrill of receiving the employee of the month designation, particularly when the announcement was made in a well-attended staff meeting with all of my audit colleagues and peers attending.

Take Care of Your Employee Creature Comforts

We treat our people like royalty. If you honor and serve the people who work for you, they will honor and serve you. —Mary Kay Ash

We spend more of our daytime hours in the office and working than we spend at home. As a result, the creature comforts at work, such as the design of our workspace, accessibility to modern computer and cell phone equipment, the availability of lounge areas, the accessibility to food, the availability of parking spaces, and environmental factors such as room temperature are nearly as important to all of us as the work assignments we are asked to perform. When I became finance director, I became responsibility for providing a comfortable and hospitable environment for the forty-five employees who worked for me. Because the building engineers, janitors, purchasing staff worked for me, and because I managed the department’s budget, I also held some of the responsibility for providing a comfortable work environment for the more than 320 people who worked for the entire department. I never imagined that much or even any of my time as director would be involved in attending to and improving workplace infrastructure issues, but I was wrong. For example, my financial management team, including staff in the

ing, s payable, and payroll staff worked in offices that were particularly dilapidated. These financial management staff were assigned to offices with very old furniture, dirty walls, and outdated computer equipment. Realizing that these staff weren’t happy with their working environment and probably didn’t work as hard as a result, I dispatched my purchasing manager and my building superintendent to resolve these unsatisfactory working conditions. Although budgetary resources available for this work were limited, I thought the corresponding improvement in staff productivity would justify the infrastructure work. To accommodate the needed workspace upgrades, I juggled some of the available resources to make the upgrades possible. Over the next month, my purchasing manager found furniture wholesalers who offered us workstations and industrial carpeting for a steep discount. The building engineer staff painted the offices and several of my management staff and I procured a microwave oven for staff use. Additionally, my information technology manager was able to procure new computers for many of these staff. The ing staff was grateful for their improved facilities and workplace amenities, and as result their work productivity and attitudes changes for the better. For the two-year period before the office upgrades, the ing staff turned over almost 100 percent. To my knowledge, there has been limited turnover in the ing staff in the ten years since the office upgrade. After the ing unit office upgrades were installed, probation officers, clerical staff, and other staff throughout the department, most of whom were in other department divisions, told their division directors that they also needed upgraded working environment. My boss and the directors of the other divisions castigated me because I utilized department resources to upgrade the workspace for some of my staff and had not made provisions to do the same for other department staff. My boss and the other division directors were particularly upset with me that I had not conferred with them before I initiated the changes. To resolve this conundrum, I sought the advice of my istrative staff, and we came up with what appeared to be a remarkably creative resolution to resolve

the feelings of inequity of workplace conditions. At about the time I was being pressured to find low cost or no cost furniture for staff in the other divisions, one of my analysts found out that the Port of San Francisco (port), one of the several city departments with its own revenue sources had ample budgetary resources to redecorate and upgrade all of its offices. We also found out that the port had ordered new office furnishings that were to be delivered shortly. The port wanted to get rid of hundreds of chairs, desks, couches, and file cabinets; and we learned that they would be willing to give the furniture to our department. I called the port’s finance director and arranged to choose those furniture items I wanted, and the port agreed to arrange the move of furniture from the port offices to Juvenile Probation offices, about six miles away. The day we moved furnishings from the port to the Juvenile Probation Department offices, more than three dozen probation officers and clerical staff claimed furniture arriving at our department loading dock. My department’s warehouse staff and the building maintenance staff moved the furniture off the moving van, onto our department’s loading dock, and into the probation services and istrative services offices where the furniture was most needed and wanted. For the two years after my staff and I brought in all of this new furniture, I was treated a little bit better by the staff that obtained some of the port’s used furniture. From that point forward, some of the probation officers and istrative staff who wouldn’t give me the time of day now smiled at me and wished me a good day when they saw me in the hallways.

Provide Staff Downtime during the Holidays and on Special Occasions

A business organization whose employees are happy is more productive, has a higher morale, and has a lower turnover. —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Most staff work hard during normally scheduled work hours. As part of your overall strategy to recognize their hard work, I found it appropriate to provide staff with downtime and times to bond with other employees. The best times to provide times to relax and enjoy each other are during the holiday seasons, on employee birthdays, and on other special occasions that may be appropriate to your organization. At Juvenile Probation, the executive team provided staff with a large holiday party at the end of each year. At these holiday parties, gifts and recognitions of appreciation were given to all staff . Additionally, during the year, birthday parties were planned in clusters, recognizing the birthdays of department employees. I always found that my staff returned to work from these specialty events with a better work attitude and feeling of inclusion, all of which resulted in higher productivity.

Be Familiar with the Complexity and Challenges Associated with the Work Performed by Your Staff

I insist that we continually ask our staff for any suggestions they might have, and I try my hand at their jobs. —Richard Branson

When I was director of Finance and istration, nothing embarrassed me more than being asked about the work performed by my staff, my not knowing enough about what these staff were doing and not being able to sufficiently answer the questions about my staff’s work. For example, I managed the engineers who maintained the physical

infrastructure of the aging physical plant. When questioned by my superiors about inadequate restroom facilities, unsafe stairwells, upgrades to electrical systems, and the maintenance of wastewater systems, I could not always give a reasonable response to a question. I managed the personnel unit, but was at a loss when I was queried about my department’s inadequate response to out-ofcontrol worker compensation claims. In retrospect, I realized that no one expected me to be on top of and fully familiar with all of the technical details of the work performed by my staff. However, I also realized that I needed to at least have a working knowledge of what the staff was responsible for managing. In order to become more proficient, I needed to invest more time with the engineers, personnel staff, and all the others I managed. As I look back upon this issue, I realize I could have done better, and at least looked more confident and less defensive about what I didn’t know or what staff activities and responsibilities I wasn’t on top of.

Do Not Promise Upgrades and Promotions Not Obtainable

We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot. —Abraham Lincoln

In an era of economic downturn, promises and efforts to upgrade positions and to increase salaries are less viable strategies for improving productivity than they are when budgetary resources are plentiful. Do not promise promotions, employee upgrades, or improvements in working conditions that are not realistically obtainable. Do not promise your employees an employee upgrade, promotion, or change in an assignment that you are not prepared to work for and fight for. If you promise an employee an improved salary or working condition and do not deliver, you will have an unhappy and less productive and less loyal employee on your staff.

During the first year I was director, I was lucky to have obtained upgrades and promotions for almost all of the staff I wanted to reward with above average performance and work attitude. During that year, the city’s financial position and budget was relatively stable, enabling the upgrades and promotions to be budgeted and approved. However, the second year I was director, the city’s financial position deteriorated, and almost all of the upgrades and promotions that I had promised good performing staff were denied. The staff who I had agreed to help were angry at me and performed less effectively, and some of them transferred to positions in other city departments.

Provide Opportunities for Staff to Socialize and to Relax during and after Company Hours

An employee’s motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager. —Bob Nelson

Staff spend as much time with each other, sometimes more than the amount of time they spend with their spouses, significant others, children, and extended families. Because of this time together and close proximity, it’s inevitable that your staff will want to socialize with each other and want to get to know each other better. I found that enabling staff to socialize at the appropriate times helped to make them more productive, more willing to come to work, and more loyal to me and to the organization. I never found fault with staff taking a portion of their day to talk with each other about their lives outside of work or to gossip about what was happening in the office. I believed that giving the staff time off from the very busy and stressful work gave them added incentive to complete projects and to do even better. Some of the most productive time I spent building stronger bonds with my staff

was out of the office and during nonbusiness hours. On more than several occasions, I went out for drinks and socialized with staff or with other people in the department. On one particular occasion, I went out drinking with a few probation officers on a Friday afternoon after work. Although I didn’t supervise any of these probation officers, I found that building a rapport with these staff made it easier for me to build credibility in the department as someone who was genuine and cared about what he was doing.

Chapter 9

Hire the Best Assistants Money Can Buy

But it must not be thought that I say this out of personal experience; for in the many years that I have been before the public my secret methods have been steadily shielded by the strict integrity of my assistants, most of who have been with me for years. —Harry Houdini

When I assumed the director of Finance and istration position, I was without a secretary because the secretary who worked for my predecessor vacated her position to assume a position in another city department. Additionally, the assistant director position that I had previously occupied was vacant and needed to be filled. Additionally, there were several other key positions that were vacant and which I knew I had the opportunity to fill in the next couple of months. I knew that having an inner circle of trusted staff would help me survive my promotion. An inner circle of trusted staff would help me identify problems and to develop strategies for success. Having trustworthy assistants would also give me more confidence and would help me feel that my success. Although I never expected it, over the next two years, the most important decisions I made and the most valuable time I gave to my work was the time I spent hiring qualified professionals for the positions in my inner circle. I learned that my secretary, my assistant director, my management assistants, and several of my other key staff became family to me. I trusted all of my workplace family

, knowing we were “all for one and one for all.” Had I not had that key and backup, I don’t know if I could have survived my time as director.

Hire Assistants You Can Trust and That Can Perform

If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings —and put compensation as a carrier behind it—you almost don’t have to manage them. —Jack Welch

I wanted a secretary and assistant director who would protect my back and serve as my advocates when necessary, ing me wherever possible. When I considered what kind of person I wanted as my assistant director of Finance and istration, I wanted somebody I could trust and somebody I had a personal history with. I wanted someone I could trust with confidential department information, including information about selected staff employees. I didn’t want an assistant anything like the management assistant who briefly worked with me before I was promoted the director position. This management assistant frequently called in sick, was more concerned for his creature comforts in the office than he was in the work, and was argumentative and unreliable. There was no way that particular management assistant or anyone like him would help me manage the division. In thinking of the kind of assistant I wanted, I immediately thought about a former internal auditor who had worked for me fifteen years earlier in the Controller’s Office. This auditor was a highly motivated professional. The two of us had maintained over the years. On occasion, I provided my prior employee with recommendations and employment advice. My former employee was looking for a job in San Francisco and was an ideal match for the position, given his background, educational, and willingness to work in a turbulent and

challenging environment. Unfortunately, the city’s civil service guidelines required me to post the opening and accept applications from all persons interested in the position. Once the applications were received and examined, my department’s personnel manager invited the five most qualified applicants, including my past employee, to the interviews. All of the five most qualified applicants for the position were interviewed by an objective , and to my delight, my former workmate clearly outshined all of the other applicants and scored the highest grade on the oral exam. I offered my prior employee the position and he accepted the challenge For the next two years, my new assistant was a hard-working and conscientious assistant. During this time, he supervised the purchasing, ing, s payable, and warehouse units, and backed me up on managing the budget and a myriad of other areas. My assistant was also my sounding board for many of the initiatives I took over the next two years. He was an objective observer of our working environment and gave me excellent perspective and advice. With his counsel, I never felt like a lone ranger, and as a result, was more confident in performing my job. After I became a director, I also had to find a new secretary. Because my predecessor did not need a full-time secretary, she shared a secretary with the probation division director. Moving forward, the probation director and I agreed to share the secretary and to find a secretary who would serve both of us. When the probation director and I interviewed the five finalist candidates for the secretary position, I looked for somebody with an affable personality and somebody with a personality that hinted that he or she could manage working in a highly volatile working environment. I wanted a secretary I could trust, who would cover my back in a bind, and most importantly would be able to hold confidential information to herself. I wanted a secretary who was street-smart, and would be handle minor crises situations, with confidence and authority without my direct supervision. I didn’t want a secretary who needed direct and constant supervision. Nor did I want a secretary who would wander the halls and gossip the day away as did some of the other clerical staff in the department.

Because my secretary would be a reflection of my office, I did not want a secretary who would bring discredit and embarrassment to my office. I didn’t want a secretary anything like the secretary who worked in another division director’s office who was so accident-prone that one day she got her left arm stuck in a photocopy machine, and had to wait until two other clerical staff helped her to pull her arm out of the machine. I did not want to be ed for how my secretary embarrassed me, or my office.

Mentor Employees

The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work. —Agha Hasan Abedi

As you assume high-level professional and executive position, look for the staff you want to as a part of your plan to build a team of loyal and hard-working staff, and as part of your professional network. I learned that sometimes those that you mentor will eventually be your mentors at some future time. During my years as director and during the many years before I became director, I mentored approximately a dozen staff , providing advice, encouragement, and information about career opportunities that these young men and women might be interested in pursuing. One of those staff that I mentored was my assistant director that I spoke about earlier in this chapter. Upon my retirement, my assistant director and mentee assumed my position and stayed with the department as director for another five years. Other staff that I mentored worked their way through San Francisco city service and assumed high-level executive positions. Some of the people I mentored including staff persons who worked for me eventually became executives in positions much higher and paid much more than the director

position I had at Juvenile Probation. Reflecting back during my professional career, I believe some of my most significant professional success stories were the professional success and advancement of those employees that I mentored, particularly those who appreciated, acknowledged, and thanked me for the help that I had given them. Mentoring junior-level employees was part of my tribute to those who mentored me. Additionally, mentoring junior-level employees was part of my strategy for building my own legacy as a “people” person and as someone who rewarded loyalty with inside information about how to realize professional success.

Always Watch Your Back: Sometimes Those You Help Become Your Enemies

The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided. —Casey Stengel

I dedicated much of my time to upgrading or promoting staff that reported to me, and in some cases, I worked hard to upgrade staff that reported to other division directors. In one particular instance, I worked with another division director to upgrade a high-level istrative assistant who did not work for me. Although I did not have significant work interactions with this particular istrative assistant, I committed my time and attention to this matter because this istrative assistant that was a longtime department employee, and was politically connected. After six months of negotiating this particular upgrade with the citywide Human Resources Department and obtaining budget approval for the upgrade, the istrative assistant obtained his upgrade and an accompanying significant pay increase.

Needless to say, I was disappointed to hear that after I obtained the upgrade and pay increase for this istrative assistant, I didn’t receive an acknowledgment or thank you from this person for the work I had performed on his behalf. Additionally, I was disappointed to hear the istrative assistant telling some of the staff that worked for me and to one or two Juvenile Probation commissioners that I really didn’t do any work and that he could manage my director of Finance and istration position better than I could. I never followed up or refuted the disparaging remarks from the istrative assistant to the commissioners or anyone else that I thought had heard the remarks.

Hire an istrative Assistant or Secretary that Will Maintain Confidential Information

Precision of communication is important, more important, more important than ever, in our era of hair trigger balances, when a false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act. —James Thurber

Hire an istrative assistant or secretary who will help you organize and manage your desk, your office, and paper files, so that the information you need is readily accessible and available on short notice. Make sure that the istrative assistant or secretary you hire is capable and willing to learn the scope and office mission, so that she or he is better able to help you manage program-related information and files. Your istrative assistant or secretary should also be someone who will willingly and effectively filter phone calls, visitors, and staff to enable you to focus and spend time on the more important priority matters that are essential for

you to accomplish your most important work objectives. This employee must also be able to maintain confidential information and records, be trustworthy and dependable, and present a professional appearance. One of my professional mentors, Jonathan, also a San Francisco City government finance director, told me about Marsha, an istrative assistant who worked for him. Marsha was a competent employee, but could not be trusted with confidential information. Marsha fulfilled almost of the other expectations of her position. She was also clean and sober, came into work when she was supposed to, and had years and years of seniority, and as a result could not be fired or easily transferred. Marsha was known as the department gossip. If you ever wanted to know what was going on in the department, you went to Marsha. Marsha had her nose in everybody’s business, and was not reluctant to talk about what she knew at coffee breaks, at lunch, or at her desk, if you had a few minutes of your time to listen to what she had to say. Jonathan told me that he was interested in knowing what Marsha knew as much as anyone else, but learned the hard way that he had to have an istrative assistant nothing like Marsha. During the budget season, while Jonathan was preparing his department’s requested budget, he asked Marsha to help him prepare documents ing the budget request, including information about which positions in the department might be cut. Within days after the information about the budget cuts leaked out to all of Marsha’s friends, Jonathan was embarrassed, put on the spot and furious. Jonathan and the rest of the department’s executive team had to alleviate staff concerns about the proposed position cuts, and Jonathan’s boss onished him for allowing this confidential information to get out. Soon after this incident, Jonathan lucked out when Marsha told him that she was promoted to another position in another city department and that she would be moving on in two weeks. Jonathan learned a hard lesson about hiring staff that could be trusted with confidential information, and has been more careful about hiring staff that can be trusted. He is now more careful about what information he shares with his

trusted aides and he is more careful about who he hires into positions of trust. Luckily for me, Jonathan shared his experiences with his istrative assistant, Marsha, shortly before I assumed the finance director position. As a result, I was more attuned to the need for staff able to maintain confidential information. I was more careful about selecting a personal secretary I could trust with confidential information. I was also more careful about securing sensitive information, and sharing that information only as needed. Luckily, as finance director, I never had any of my staff breach the confidentiality of any information I gave them.

Chapter 10

Don’t Dismiss the Rumor Mill But Don’t Let It Mow You Down

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. —Oscar Wilde

As finance director, I attempted to establish viable formal and routinized communication links with my staff, with the other directors in the department, with my boss, with the mayor’s staff, with the board of supervisors, and with the outside community. However, during my years as a director, I learned that occasionally informal lines of communications were just as valuable a source of learning what was happening within the operating units that reported to me, and within the entire department. I always thought that I was not a purveyor of gossip, but, I learned that sometimes subordinate staff, familiar with wrongdoing or inappropriate work activity talk among themselves and do not share their knowledge of this activity with management in fear of retribution from their counterparts. Sometimes, water cooler chatter is just that, chatter that is nonconsequential and frivolous. However, sometimes water cooler chatter is right on, and should be listened to and considered.

Follow Up on Rumors and Allegations

In the business world, an executive knows something about everything, a technician knows everything about something, and the switchboard operator knows everything. —Harold Coffin

In several other sections of this book, I speak about how one of the department’s ants siphoned thousands of dollars from the department’s petty cash fund, known to city fiscal managers as the department’s revolving fund. The siphoning took place over an extended period of time. Years later, I learned that some staff in my department and in the Controller’s Office (that monitored the revolving fund) thought something was wrong, but that these suspicions were never shared with management in my department or with the controller. As a result, the siphoning continued until somebody in a position of authority realized there was a problem, investigated the matter, and reported the suspected wrongdoing to the proper authorities. Had the finance director in office during the time this ant was siphoning all of this money listened to the grapevine and paid more attention to office gossip, this scandal might have been detected earlier, and the amount of money stolen might have been much less. During the time I was the director, I made sure that I kept my eyes and ears open to ensure I wasn’t caught with my pants down like my predecessor’s predecessor did years earlier. During the time I was in the director, I heard gossip about automobile supply items and office equipment taken from our department’s offices, department positions being sold by managers, and about department vehicles used frequently for personal purposes. I also heard about large quantities of food items taken from the juvenile hall and Log Cabin kitchen facilities. Additionally, I heard about employees coming in late and going home early, and I heard about unit supervisors manipulating timesheets so that favored employees would be paid more than they deserved, As director, I learned that more often than not, office gossip was incoherent, inaccurate and vindictive in nature. I vividly the sight of the department staff , including professionals, clerical staff, custodial staff,

and others huddling in the hallways, restrooms, conference rooms, and offices exchanging tidbits of information about any and all others who were not anywhere within hearing distance. However, I also learned that sometimes the gossip exchanged in the hallways and elsewhere was based on factual information. As a result, when gossip came to my attention, I listened to it, screened it, did a little bit of follow-up research, or I assigned one of my staff to investigate the obtained information, and to report back to me the results of their review. For example, my purchasing staff heard rumors from counselors working at our remote Log Cabin Ranch detention facility that the Log Cabin kitchen staff and were taking food home, including turkeys, cases of canned goods, and box loads of baked goods. I assigned one of my staff to investigate and the results confirmed that the pilfering was probable. My staff determined that over the prior year, the census of juveniles assigned to this remote facility decreased by almost 50 percent, but that food costs at the ranch were up by more than 25 percent. I shared this information with the director of the Log Cabin Ranch, and he promised to look into it and follow up with me on this matter. Miraculously, over the next year, food costs at the ranch facility tapered off, and then declined significantly.

Minimize Personal Use of Company Computers and Cell Phones

I cannot imagine any other country in the world where the opposition would seek, and chief executive would allow, the dissemination of his most private and personal conversations with his staff, which to be honest, do not exactly confer sainthood on anyone concerned. —Gerald R. Ford

Be careful about the nature of intimate and relationship-oriented personal information about yourself that you share with your professional associates at the office. Sharing intimate and personal information with some staff will ultimately result in that intimate information being shared with everyone in the organization, and could come back to haunt you and be used against you. During my five years at the Juvenile Probation Department, I often came into work early, worked late, and worked weekends. Sometimes, during the time I was alone in the office, I used my city-issued computer to check on my personal e-mail and to surf the Internet. Additionally, sometimes, as director, I used my city-issued cell phone to make and receive personal phone calls when I could have just as easily used my personal cell phone. About a year after I became director, my department’s information technology (IT) manager, who worked for me, informed me that one of my staff was surfing the Internet during off hours. My IT manager reminded me that the city’s mayor had recently issued a memo prohibiting personal use of city computers and cell phones, and that repeated personal use of city computer equipment and cell phones was a cause for suspension or termination. It took me a few days to connect the dots to realize that my IT staff must have been familiar with the inappropriate use of city-issued computers and cell phones of all department employees, including me. As a result, I stopped surfing the web indiscriminately and accessing nonbusiness-related web sites on my work computer immediately. I also stopped using my city-issued cell phone for personal purposes. I also sent a memo to all of my staff reminding them of the city’s policy on personal use of city-owned computer equipment and cell phones. I was disturbed that my IT staff probably knew who I was talking to online and where I was surfing online. However, there is no evidence that the IT staff ever shared what they learned about my personal surfing website preferences with anyone else in the department. Years ago, one of my neighbors, who also worked in San Francisco City government, told me about how she was caught improperly using city phones for political purposes. Apparently, one of the employees working for my neighbor sent an anonymous letter to the San Francisco mayor about her use of city telephone on city time for the advancement of a political event she was organizing.

The anonymous letter fairly reported what my neighbor was doing at work. My friend was politically active at the time and was helping to organize a fundraising event for a political organization she was d with. She received and made several calls at the office, including calls from a representative of the U.S. senator who was to be the guest speaker at the event. My neighbor suspected the employee who sent the anonymous letter overheard the conversations she had over the telephone about the political event and wanted to use that information to get her into trouble. Shortly after the mayor received the anonymous letter reporting my neighbor’s alleged misuse of city equipment, the mayor dispatched one of his assistants to investigate the matter. To make a long story short, my friend was able to talk her way out of the allegation of improper political activity at work. Luckily, the mayor and my neighbor’s supervisor at work never onished her for the political activity that she did not deny had happened. Nevertheless, from that day forward, my neighbor (almost) never used city equipment or supplies for personal or political activities. After ing my neighbor’s story from years before and after discussing the matter with my mentors, I learned how essential it was to separate my life outside of work from my life in the office. From that day forward, I learned never to let subordinate employees know enough of my personal business to permit them to use such information against me. As a Juvenile Probation Department executive, I shared details of my personal life to the staff I considered my friends. For the rest of the staff, I wanted and remained a private person because I didn’t want the staff knowing who I was voting for, who I was spending my time with outside of work, and how I was spending my money.

Don’t Let the Rumor Mill Run You Out of Town

The pessimist sees danger in every opportunity: the optimist sees opportunity in every danger.

—Winston Churchill

As I noted earlier, every organization has a formalized communication system, including corporate and employee newsletters, information outlined in human resource memos, and discussions at staff meetings. However, every organization also has informal communication systems that are unsupervised, unregulated, and sometimes out of control. The informal communication systems generally contain information that is provocative, trivial, and incorrect. However, sometimes, the information that is communicated informally is on target, and may include messages of impending promotions, lay-offs, and corporate mergers, which can impact many people in the organization. As an executive, I learned not to dismiss the informal communication system or rumor mill. I learned that information about employee wrongdoing, about slackers off, and about what was about to happen was sometimes true. I also learned that it was to my benefit to know what the staff was talking about by the water coolers and on their coffee and lunch breaks. To find out what the staff was talking about, I had my secretary and most trusted assistants listen to what was being said out there, and report back to me what they heard. Although the rumor mill is mostly irrelevant and inconsequential, and sometimes is on target and worth listening to, I also learned that sometimes the mill is destructive and should be challenged. I vividly a close friend of mine, Michael, a midlevel manager who left a medium-sized company because of rumors about his personal life outside of the office. The company my friend worked for was merging with a comparably sized company. The staff was instructed not to converse with or trade notes with their peers at the other company to minimize rumors. However, the communications between staff at the two companies never ceased, with stories abounding about who was going to be laid off, who was going to replace whom, and how the new consolidate organization would be organized. During the heat of the merger, Michael heard from more than a dozen of the management staff at his company that he (Michael) was ‘allegedly’ having an affair with one of the vice presidents at the other company. Although the rumor was totally fabricated, some of the senior executives at his company assumed

that the rumor was true and that Michael was using the vice president of the other company to save his job. Although Michael’s immediate supervisor assured him that his position was safe, Michael still believed his position was at risk. Within a few weeks after this rumor about Michael’s supposed relationship with the other company’s vice president surfaced, Michael found a job at another company where he believed he would not be subject to as much personal scrutiny or harassment. From Michael’s experience, I learned that rumors especially if they are fabricated and untrue, can be damaging if you let them get too far. As an executive, I encouraged staff to refrain from idle gossip, that if they have any questions about what they hear at the water cooler, they could personally discuss their concerns with me.

Establish an Open-Door Policy with Staff

He who wished to secure the good of others has already secured his own. —Confucius

Establish an open-door policy with all of your staff. Letting staff know you are approachable and easy to talk to will increase the likelihood that staff will report undetected irregular activity. Additionally, helping staff resolve individual and personal problems promotes a happier work environment, improved staff productivity, and better interpersonal relations between you and all the staff. Within months after I started working as the assistant director, my predecessor, the finance director, told me that I needed to be more approachable to staff and more willing to listen to their personal problems and issues. The director told me that sometimes I seemed aloof and removed, and out of touch with the people I supervised. I took this advice literally and tried to be more personable and approachable to my staff. I found this advice helpful.

Soon after I received this from my predecessor, I told all of my direct reports that they had free and ready access to me as long as the time they wanted to see me did not conflict with a meeting or pressing deadline. I also advised the staff that they could approach me about anything, including problems with their immediate supervisors or about department policies. Shortly before I became director, Jake, one of the management analysts reporting to me, approached me about his serious and complicated personal issues. Jake asserted that his personal problems interfered with his ability to perform effectively at work and wanted on a strategy to resolve his problems, and to find work in a more comionate, and less turbulent working environment. I counseled Jake, offered him and comion, recommended places where he could go for professional counseling, and let him know that I would work with him to help him to be better at work. Ultimately, Jake found another position in the city government, and transferred out of the department. I learned a few months later that Jake left San Francisco to return his hometown back east. Looking back at the time I opened my office door and invited Jake to pour out his issues, I realize now that I helped Jake, helped me, and helped my department. Jake was given the encouragement and to overcome his personal issues and to seek a job where he was better suited. I was helped because I got what I thought was a problem employee out of my hair.

Chapter 11

Know Your Strengths and Use Them to Your Advantage

It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks. —Helen Keller

As managers, we are expected to have a full complement of skills and abilities if we are to manage our organizations effectively. However, none of us are very good at everything we are expected to do. Some of us have strong analytical skills, others have great “people skills,” and many others have strong organizational skills. I found that my key to managerial success is recognizing my strengths and weaknesses, and using my strengths to my advantage, and finding ways to compensate for those things we do not do as well. It is important to know who where I am, who I am, and who the people around me are if I navigate a pathway to success.

Priorities of Your New Position

Sure it’s a big job: but I don’t know anyone who can do it better than I can. —John F. Kennedy

the priorities of your new position with your boss, peers, and staff to determine if you are all on the same page and that you all have the same vision of success for your work. Agreement of your position responsibilities will contribute to whether you will be considered a successful professional or executive. When I assumed the director of Finance and istration position, I was overwhelmed with the number of tasks that I had to perform, and the number of tasks my staff had to perform for which I had to supervise. After I compiled a list of these tasks, I immediately thought that I would never be able to completely master and understand everything I had to do, no matter how much time and energy I put into my job. I looked at the list of tasks and with the help my boss began to prioritize those things that I had to do and do well, those that could be delegated, shoved aside, or given less attention. I also spoke with my predecessor who had handled a similar workload, had prioritized her work, and completed her tenure successfully. I also discussed the list of outstanding tasks with my direct reports to that my priorities were relevant and viable with their priorities as well. Over time, I learned that the two major priorities of my position were both budget-related. The first priority was managing the department’s thirty-five million-dollar existing fiscal year budget. The second priority was managing the construction of the department’s proposed budget for the following fiscal year. Managing the available fiscal resources and procuring additional budget resources was so important because it helped ensure the department had enough staff , and obtained enough non-staffing resources to ensure the department could perform its mission. Although I handled the lion’s share of budget work, the work required a considerable amount of coordination with my department’s executive team, including my boss and all of the other departments’ division directors. The budget work also required coordination with the mayor’s budget staff, with the Controller’s Office that monitored expenditures throughout the year, and with the commission that governed my department’s work. Over the next two years, I spent approximately fifty percent of my time

managing the budget. Where I could, I delegated the heavy computer entry work to trusted staff. But I performed most of the budget work because it was essential that we have a focused and consolidated budget advocate and manager. One of the proudest days of my two-year tenure was the day I appeared before the board of supervisor’s budget committee the year I left. After reviewing my department’s budget request, one of the of the committee commented that my department submitted budget narratives and summaries that were better written than the narratives in the budgets from any of the other sixty operating city departments. As a result, the budget committee provided my department with more financial resources than we would have garnered with just an ordinary budget proposal.

Know Yourself and Your Management Style before You Accept That Job

I am just a normal professional with a great job and a great life. —Martin Yang

Not all professionals and executive are created equal. Our leadership and management styles are factored by our education, by our cultural and ethnic heritages, by our lifetime experiences, and by a plethora of preferences and environmental factors. Knowing your management style and knowing the management style of your colleagues, staff, and adversaries gives you an advantage as you navigate your way through challenging interpersonal communications and work-related challenges. Just prior to my moving into the director of Finance and istration position, I took the Myers-Briggs management preference test to determine how I focused my attention, how I go about deciding important matters, and how I deal with the outside world.

The test showed that I am an extrovert, and not an introvert. The study also showed that I tend to focus on the present and not on the future, that I base my decisions on personal values and not on logic, and that I like an organized approach to life and not a flexible approach to life. At about the same time I took the Myers-Briggs management preference test, I also took the Strong Interest Inventory to determine my interests and preferences as a professional and as an individual. The Strong Interest Inventory, in summary, showed that I am most interested in public speaking, engaging in political activity, being a military strategist, and have a strong interest in the arts. The study also showed that I have least interest in computer and office activities, that I have little mechanical aptitudes, and that I would not like a career in math or ing. The Myers-Briggs management preference test and Strong Interest Inventory told me that I had more leadership aptitudes that I thought I had, and that my interest in working with details and with numbers, and working at a desk were not as strong as I would assume given my many years as an internal auditor and as an analyst. The studies also showed that I was more personable, more sensitive, and more anxious to communicate and to interact with others than I thought and was accustomed to the job settings I had worked in up until that time. Knowing my management style and personal preferences gave me added confidence in moving into a highly visible management and leadership position in a turbulent and highly political operating environment. Knowing that I liked and would be good at public speaking gave me more confidence as I knew I was going into a position where I would have to speak to major policy makers, have to speak frequently in public, and have to communicate daily with a diverse community of workers. Knowing that I am more extroverted, that I am organized, and that I am focused on the now also told me that I would do well by moving and from a professional position where I essentially worked by myself and in small groups to a position where I would be in charge of many persons and managing a complex organization. Knowing that I did not like to work with numbers and that I did not like time-

consuming projects that involved me working by myself also told me that I would enjoy deferring detailed and time-consuming work to my subordinates, focusing on the bigger picture, and dealing with other executives. Moving into a leadership position from a detail-oriented position would afford me the opportunity to pick and choose which detailed projects I would work on and which detailed projects I would not work on. Knowing more about myself, about my management preferences and my interests helped me navigate my way through the new and very challenging management position I had assumed. Knowing who I was and what I was good at helped me overcome the fears about moving to an executive position that required skills that I had not always used in less demanding positions.

Consider the Management Style of Those That Seek to Work for You

Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine. —David Ogilvey

Consider the management styles and personality preferences of those that seek to work for you in your organization. You want managers who will complement your management style and who will be willing, able, and anxious to assume work that you may not want to perform. Knowing the management profiles and personality of those who worked for you and the persons wanting to work for you in your organization will help you build a more balanced and integrated management team. As I mentioned earlier in the book, when I became director and was searching for an assistant director, I wanted someone who would welcome the opportunity to assume detailed ing and number-crunching work and to be kept out of

the limelight, at least for a while. I wanted someone who would help keep me focused when I missed the bigger picture, and who would attend to other details that disinterested me and which would distract me if I had to give them much time. Although I wasn’t able to give the applicants for the assistant director position the same management and personal inventory tests that I had taken, I was able to gauge the aptitudes of the contenders for the position during the oral board exam for that position. Luckily, I was able to hire an assistant director who met the management type and personality attributes that I was looking for. Over the next two years, every time I hired new staff I thought of how each prospective candidate might score on the two management and personality tests that I had taken several years earlier. I considered how every job applicant would function in the turbulent Juvenile Probation Department environment, how he or she would deal with details in a detail-oriented environment, and how or she would interact with the other personalities on my management team and with others in the department. Over time, I found that considering these factors served me well, and helped me build a stronger management team than I would have had otherwise.

Make Sure Everyone Knows Your Accomplishments

I always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team. —Lee Iacocca

Make sure that your most significant accomplishments are noted by a wide and diverse group of persons within and outside of your organization. Realizing success on a particular project is of limited value if your superiors do not know

about it, and if they don’t realize how that success benefits the organization. Once I became director of Finance and istration, I prepared a periodic status report that I distributed to my boss, to my managers, to the of the department’s executive team, and to the Commission’s Finance chair. The report summarized my major work efforts, my most significant accomplishments, and also outlined my unsuccessful ventures, and plans for the future. I believe that outlining my work accomplishments, plans, and failures gave everyone the knowledge that I was working as hard as I could, that I was honest about what I was doing, and that I was honest about what benchmarks I was able and unable to accomplish. My status reports not only summarized my personal accomplishments, but also outlined the accomplishments of selected staff who performed exceptionally well. For example, I often touted the accomplishments of my assistant director who was perennially loyal, committed to my success, and loyal to the organization. By acknowledging my assistant director’s hard work and accomplishments, I was helping his chances of getting my job if and when I retire or move on to greener pastures. Additionally, in my status reports, I also touted the work of specific staff who performed exceptionally well. For example, when my new s payable clerk reduced the backlog of payments or when one of my management assistants completed an important project, I touted these accomplishments as one of several methods for improving staff morale.

Chapter 12

Don’t Do What You Know You Can’t Do Well

Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work. —H. L. Hunt

During the thirteen years before I went to work at the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department, I managed audit staff performing financial and performance audits of city operations and s. All of my direct reports were ants or professionals with auditing, ing, and effective communication skills. As an audit manager, I knew what my staff were responsible for doing and how their work could be evaluated. When I became director of Finance and istration at Juvenile Probation, I was immediately supervising seven managers whose work I was not familiar with. The IT manager, the personnel director, and the building and grounds superintendent reported to me. Additionally, reporting to the building manager was the chief engineer and the custodian staff. Additionally, my assistant supervised the purchasing staff, s payable and s receivable staff, financial staff, and management analysts. Although I was familiar with the financial management areas, I did not have a complete understanding of what the engineers or data processing staff or custodian staff was up to. Over time, I developed a good working relationship with my building manager, personnel director, and IT director and felt confident that all three were competent and provided me with accurate information about what they were up to. I developed this confidence by working with them to identify performance

goals for each area, by periodically attending staff meetings in these areas, and by providing all of the employees in these units with an open door to my office. The open-door policy would provide disgruntled employees an opportunity to discuss their concerns with me without retaliation from their immediate supervisors. Nevertheless, I never felt confident enough to prepare a performance evaluation for any of these three managers during the two years I was in office. Although the city and department required all operating managers to give their staff an annual evaluation, I never completed an evaluation for any of these staff.

Don’t Promise Anything You Know You Cannot Accomplish

No task is a long one, but the task on which one dare not start. It becomes a nightmare. —Charles Baudelaire

The last year as director, I was asked to prepare a performance evaluation work plan to outline how I would be evaluated at the end of the year. This evaluation work plan was initiated citywide for department executives and not internally within the department. I was asked to identify five specific goals that would be monitored during the year and which would be used at the end of the year to determine my performance grade. One of the five specific goals was a goal that I never should have offered up. I stated that I was going to build stronger communications with the vendors who sold goods and services to the department. As part of that goal, I stated that I would schedule and hold an open house for vendors so that they could come in and talk with me, my purchasing manager, the warehouse staff, the s payable staff, and department staff that regularly used their goods and services. With everything that I was doing with the budget and other high-priority

istrative matters, I never had the time to accomplish this goal. In retrospect, I really didn’t have much interest in meeting with the vendors who sold goods to the department; and therefore, I had little interest in performing this goal and should have identified some other goal to accomplish. When my boss completed my performance evaluation, I was held able for not meeting this particular goal. I wish I had never volunteered this goal as I knew I was not interested in doing the work, and also knew I would not have the time to do it.

No One Expects You to Know All of the Details

Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out. —Ronald Reagan

Although I was a finance director, my entry-level ing skills were marginal at best. For thirteen years I managed internal auditors who performed detail ing procedures, reconciliations, and spreadsheets. Although I supervised these employees, I was not very interested in the work they did, and did not have the interest in doing that work myself. As the director of large department, with many ing processes in play, my natural inclination was to avoid all projects that involved detailed ing work and delegated them to my assistant or to the ants who worked for him. When I was asked today how I could have been a finance director way back when and not have the capability for balancing my own checkbook, I retorted that as director I also managed the engineers and didn’t understand physics or construction terminology. As director, I managed the IT director but didn’t know how to write code and didn’t really understand how computers worked. As I mention in chapter 6, as I stepped into the director’s position, I learned that

my management style and personality preferences were for leading, and not for doing detailed work of any kind, including ing. Becoming the director of Finance and istration afforded me the opportunity to do less of which I was not good at and more at what I was good at. Although the director position required me to perform many hours of detailed budget work, I managed to convert the tedious number-crunching component of this work to a process that was more policy—and mission-oriented, focusing on how the numbers related to the department’s mission and the ability of available staff to accomplish its work. Because I converted my department’s budget process from a singular, numbercrunching effort to a collegial policy-oriented process, I was able to enjoy the budget management work, and according to the chair of the board of supervisor’s finance committee, a better job in preparing my department’s budget and in explaining what the proposed budgeted amounts were all about than all of my CFO colleagues in the more than sixty other city departments.

Be Careful and Seek Help when You onish or Terminate Employees

I don’t even like firing people. I don’t think I’ve ever said, ‘You’re fired’ to anybody. —Martha Stewart

Always consult with and in some instances work closely with your human resource staff if you are uncomfortable with onishing, disciplining, firing, or letting go of staff. All managers are uncomfortable with onishing or terminating employees, but get better at it over time. Having human resources helps you accomplish challenging personal actions in the best and most lawful means possible. When I was an audit manager, I had my share of employee disciplinary

problems, including the retraining of an employee who did not get along with anyone and the dismissal of a probationary employee. However, none of my audit manager personnel and disciplinary experiences prepared me for the tumultuous experiences I was to face as a director at Juvenile Probation. In the years before I came to Juvenile Probation, the Juvenile Probation Department was the “wild west,” an environment with steroid-driven personalities and with more than a usual number of nonperforming employees. Throughout the department, there was a lack of ability and follow-up to bad behavior. Juvenile Probation was also a place where bad behavior was really bad compared with the bad behavior in other city departments. Additionally, bad behavior was not always reported, ed for, or followed up on, and bad behaving employees were not always held able for what they did. To some degree, the lack of control and the bad behavior was due to weak leadership at the top. The weak leadership at the very top started to end at about the time my predecessor and I came to the department, and when a new chief probation officer and a new assistant chief probation officer were brought in to clean the swamp. Luckily, when I was director, I did not have any direct reports to me that I thought were not performing at minimally acceptable performance levels. As a result, I did not know how to deal with onishing any of my staff, or initiating significant disciplinary actions. Nevertheless, on repeated occasions, my colleagues on the executive team and the chief and assistant chief told me they were disappointed in the performance of some of my direct reports. On these occasions, I did my best to research the performance problems and resolve them as expeditiously as I could. Luckily, during the years I was a director, the city’ financial environment was relatively sound. I never had to contend with layoffs and significant cutbacks in services or employee benefits. Additionally, I never had to dismiss any of the employees working for me for bad performance. However, early one Friday morning, my boss called me on the telephone to tell me that he was called out of town, couldn’t come into the office that day, and that he wanted me to fire one of the secretaries in his office. Because this particular secretary’s probationary period ended that day, she had to be

terminated that day or she would be allowed to stay on staff. There were no other executive team coming into the office that day, so the evil deed was mine to perform. Because I had never terminated an employee in this department, I requested the department’s personnel director, who worked for me, to help me with the termination interview. My personnel director and I beckoned the probationary secretary into a conference room, and I informed the secretary that she was being terminated effective that day. Giving notice to this particular employee was a lot easier than I had anticipated. I depersonalized the meeting, making it quick and painless for me, for my personnel director, and for the now terminated probationary secretary.

Be Upfront about Your Shortcomings

Humility is not my forte, and whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people’s characters. —Margaret Halsey

When you apply for an executive position, be upfront with your prospective employer about your professional, interpersonal, and skill strengths and weaknesses. Every employer knows staff , including managers have weaknesses and are willing to work with these employees to help nurture and develop those weaknesses. Having an upfront discussion of this matter may put the overriding responsibility for building a plan for getting you the skills you need on your employer, and not upon you. If you are asked on a job interview whether you have any personal or professional weaknesses you want to talk about, be honest and candid, and outline what you want to work on. More than likely, if you are offered and

accept the position, your employer will work with you by providing training, orientation, and to allow you to grow into the position and overcome your perceived weaknesses. The worst thing you can do is deny the probability that you have some are where you need help, and then have to pretend you have those skill once you are on the job. I did not have to compete for the director of Finance and istration position as I was already serving as the department’s assistant director of Finance and istration, and my work habits and accomplishments were well known. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t had it so easy, and wish I had competition for the position, and wish I had been pressed to talk about my hesitations and asked about my possible shortcomings for the position.

Chapter 13

Time Can Be Your Friend or Your Enemy

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. —Robert Louis Stevenson

The first month or two of a new job is always the worst and most stressful. A new managerial job is particularly stressful if you have never served as a highlevel manager before with a large staff and a wide and diverse range of operating responsibilities. To this day, my friends that during the first two months I served as director I always looked stressed, nervous, irritable, defensive, and somewhat unfocused. One friend tells me that I always looked exhausted no matter how much sleep I had the night before. As I look back at that time of my life, I believe my friends were correct and on target, although I would have denied these observations at the time.

, It Gets Easier with Time

Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy. —Dan Gable

In those first few weeks when I served as director, I assumed the stress level and workload would be as overbearing a year, two years, and five years into the future as they were the first day I walked into the position. Luckily, I found that the director position became easier over time, and that I would become more familiar with the position, with the people, and with whatever it would take to survive in the position. In my earlier days as director almost every assignment I was given was something that I was doing for the first time, and required lots of research and fumbling to get to the right answers. For example, shortly after I became director, my department was offered an outside grant to fund a juvenile hall library. The process was particularly challenging because I had to secure the approval from the mayor’s office and board of supervisors. Because my department had not accepted grant monies of this type before, no one on my staff knew how to handle this assignment, so I took it on myself. I it took me hours and hours to find out how to complete the necessary documents, to secure the necessary approvals, and to cajole the board of supervisors to allow my department to accept outside monies. Once I obtained the necessary approvals, I realized that the entire process was easier than I thought. The next time a similar grant was obtained, I delegated the approval assignment to one of my management assistants, providing guidance and supervision, knowing that the process was easier and less time intensive than I thought earlier. I also found that preparing the department’s budget my first year as director was particularly time-consuming and overbearing. The second year, having the experience of completing the budget and knowing how to be more efficient at getting out the necessary reports made the budget preparation effort a lot easier.

Ignore Urgent Problems If You Suspect They May Go Away

There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections. —Joseph DeMaistre

Most neophyte executives assume that every crises condition remains a crises or even escalates unless he or she takes immediate action to resolve the root causes of the problem at hand. As director, I found that if I used my instincts and judgments, I could determine which crises situations had to be resolved immediately and which crises situations could be ameliorated with a deliberate and less intensive timetable. I also found that some crises situations would resolve themselves with time and without doing very much work. I found that a good executive knows how to triage and address each crisis accordingly. On the very first day as director, I received a phone call from the federal government about an alleged misuse of federal monies by the Juvenile Probation Department. The caller informed me that the department had to repay the federal government $20,000 for improper use of federal grant money received three or four years earlier, and that there was no procedure for appealing this particular demand. Because I was unfamiliar with the alleged incident and corresponding monies, I requested the caller to send me information about the alleged misuse of funds in writing, and that I would then investigate the matter to determine how the department would proceed. Several weeks later, the federal government sent me the information that outlined their assertions that the department improperly used federal monies and needed to be repaid. My investigation and analysis of this matter showed that there was some, but not certain, validation of the government’s claim. Although I realized there could be financial penalties and an onishment for not following up on the repayment demand, I had a hunch that the government might become distracted with some other matter, and that the federal government bureaucrat spearheading this repayment demand might decide to forgo this matter. I followed up on my hunch and suspicion that inaction on my part might be the most prudent way to proceed. My hunch about the federal government forgetting about this matter was right. I

never heard again from anyone about this $20,000 demand, and no one ever asked me why I had not followed up on this alleged urgent matter. In retrospect, I learned on my very first month as an executive to not panic and act impulsively with the arrival of every emergent situation. I learned that if my instincts tell me a problem might go away, it is possible that the problem might, in fact, go away. In another instance, I was able to wait out an uncomfortable working relationship by waiting for another city employee to move to another position. When I was named finance director at Juvenile Probation, the mayor’s chief budget officer was a man who I suspected did not have a high regard for my department, and most of my department’s executive team. My suspicions about the mayor’s chief budget officer were later confirmed by several of the budget analysts who worked with him. During my first several months as director, the mayor’s budget staff denied a disproportionate number of my requests to hire staff for approved positions. At the time, I suspected that it was the budget director who called the shots and shot my department down. The most apparent option for dealing with this challenging working relationship was to meet with this city budget chief, on behalf of my department, and resolve our differences. My other option was to wait it out, and hope that the budget director would move on to a bigger and better position and out of the mayor’s office. Although I knew that my first option was the reasonable and professional way to fight my way out of this conundrum, my hunch was to go with my second option and wait it out. Again, my hunch paid off. Shortly after I became the Finance and istration director, the mayor’s budget officer obtained a major career opportunity and left city employment. The succeeding mayor’s budget director was someone I had worked with before, and was someone more willing to approve my department’s requests. In another instance, delaying a response to an urgent project helped avoid embarrassment to me and to my department. In this particular instance, as I testified before a city board of supervisors subcommittee investigating my department’s use of probation officers in lieu of using our budgetary resources to contract probation-related work to communitybased agencies. I was asked about the work caseload (number of youth assigned

to each probation officer) for my department’s probation officers. This supervisor thought my department’s probation services division was overstaffed, wanted to reduce the number of probation officers, and use the money to fund community-based agencies performing work with troubled youth instead. I was asked to perform a comparison of probation caseload in my department with those in comparable California counties. I was asked to report back at the next meeting of this committee in a month or two. I performed an initial review of probation caseloads and quickly discovered that the supervisor’s suspicions were correct, and that my department’s probation officers had a smaller caseload than the probation officers in the comparable counties. According to the probation management staff in my department, the probation officers in my department provided more intensive counseling services, and as a result, were more effective in helping troubled youth succeed. However, I suspected that telling the board of supervisors that my department’s probation officers worked harder than probation officers in other counties would not be accepted, and that if I were to testify with the information I learned about probation caseload, the board of supervisors might cut several probation officer positions. I was fully able and ready to report these results back to the supervisor and to his committee, but I never was asked to reappear and I did not the supervisor or his committee that I was able to answer their question. In this particular instance, waiting out these embarrassing revelations helped me salvage the two or three probation officer positions the supervisor wanted to cut from my probation services budget.

Don’t Throw Difficult-to-Resolve Problems Under the Carpet

When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that in itself is a choice. —William James

Generally, it is not prudent to “sweep your problems under the carpet.” Additionally, it is not prudent to ignore those istrative matters you do not fully understand. Short-term resolutions of problems that do not fully resolve the underlying conditions of your problems may come back to haunt you in the months and perhaps in the years to come. As finance director, I made many decision every day, including decisions about whether I needed to take immediate action on a given problem or defer the problem and resolution to another time. Normally, I resolved problems immediately or made provisions and a timetable to resolve the problems as soon as I could. As noted in the paragraphs above, sometimes I deferred problems to another day. In some instances, deferring problems paid off and proved to be the prudent pathway to resolution. However, in most instances when I deferred a problem, I did so because there were other priorities or because I didn’t know how to handle the problem. In most instances when I swept a problem under the carpet or deferred the problem to another day without good reasons for delaying the appropriate action, I regretted that decision. For example, I knew almost nothing about the wastewater management issues at the Log Cabin Ranch, and didn’t have the time or energy to get on top of this issue. I trusted my buildings and grounds superintendent to be on top of this issue and hoped that he would resolve any and all wastewater problems at the Log Cabin Ranch without having to bring me into the picture. Unfortunately, my ignorance of this matter blew up in my face when I learned that my building and grounds manager had accrued thousands of very expensive overtime pay dollars to directly manage the Log Cabin wastewater facility when the regularly assigned staff member was not at work. I was even more surprised when I found out there weren’t any staff available to replace my buildings and grounds manager should he be unable to perform this work. I did not know about the lack of a back-up staffing plan until my buildings and grounds manager had an out-of-town family emergency and left town. As a result, my personnel manager and I scrambled to find somebody to handle the work. Luckily, we found an eligible employee on our department staff to do the work. Retrospectively, I realized I should have had a more focused back-up staffing plan to accommodate this scenario, but did not.

Not maintaining wastewater standards was not an option for the department, as an insufficiently maintained wastewater program would have resulted in the shutdown of the entire Log Cabin facility by the County Board of Health. Additionally, I learned never to ignore food vendor demands for immediate payment of their invoices for food used to feed the more than 150 youth detained in the juvenile hall or the thirty or so youth detained at the ranch. Nothing would have been worse to the department’s mission and reputation than to have food supply delivery interruptions to Juvenile Hall and Log Cabin Ranch because of nonpayment or late payments of food supplies. Accordingly, every time I received a threatening phone call from a food vendor who had not been paid for past deliveries, I got on top of the matter and got the payments generated as soon as possible. I could not sweep under the carpet threats of food not being delivered to the department and to the youth we held in detention.

Chapter 14

Make Sure You Don’t Hire or Retain Staff Who Are Not Motivated to Succeed

I hire people brighter than me, and then I get out of their way. —Lee Iacocca

Most of this book is about the period of time just before and after I was promoted from a professional position to an executive position. I speak about my fear of not being able to be a good executive, even though I excelled as a professional. I realized that I could falter as an executive because the skill sets that enabled me to be successful as the assistant director were not the same skills sets that would enable me to be successful as the director. As the director, I learned that one of the most important components of leadership is managing the human resources of the organization that you are put in charge of. It didn’t take me long to realize that the managers and leading staff in my organization had to be uniquely qualified to lead and to work in the Juvenile Probation environment that was more turbulent and unpredictable than the environments in most other city departments. The last thing I wanted to do was to retain and hire staff that was not prepared and able to hold their own and succeed in this challenging environment. I didn’t want an organization filled with managers unable to cope and to manage.

The Brightest Candidate May Not Be the One Most Qualified

When hiring key employees, there are only two qualities to look for: judgment and taste. Almost everything else can be bought by the yard. —John W. Gardner

During my first days at Juvenile Probation when I was still the assistant director, I realized that the department’s purchasing environment had some internal control problems. I heard about equipment and supplies being taken without authorization. I witnessed city automobiles being used for personal purposes, equipment and supplies being ordered in excess and then misplaced, and finding that the staff did not believe they had access to the supplies that they needed to perform their work. When I hired the purchasing staff, including a warehouse supervisor and purchasing manager, I realized that I wanted staff with an ability to perform in this particular operating area. However, even more important, I wanted the staff that would have the personalities to deal with overbearing and fast-talking staff and with the personality and courage to enforce internal controls over inventory items. I wanted staff that would hold their own, stand their ground, and help me build a purchasing environment better controlled and better managed. I didn’t want run-of-the-mill staff that would be conscientious and well-meaning, but unable to contend with the environment to which they were assigned. One of my first istrative responsibilities as an assistant director was to hire a new purchasing staffer. When I interviewed the prospective applicants, I narrowed my selection to two applicants. The first applicant was clearly more knowledgeable of the purchasing function, had a stellar record in prior jobs, and appeared to be more professionally stable. The second applicant seemed better suited to the rough-and-tumble environment of the loading dock where he would be supervising staff. This second applicant also seemed more flexible and more self-confident. I chose the second finalist because he was more suited for the position, although he was not necessarily the most qualified, at least on paper. I hired that second finalist and over time realized my decision was right.

Transfer, Reorient, or Fire Nonperforming Employees

Never try to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time and it annoys the pig. —Paul Dickson

For those senior staff who are not competent for the positions they occupy and cannot be reformed with training or reorientation, consider firing, laying off, or better yet, transferring those employees to another unit where they can be more viable and successful employees. As I assumed the director position at Juvenile Probation, I inherited a diverse and battle-tested management staff. Some of these managers were longtime employees who had navigated their way through the complexities of Juvenile Probation’s somewhat dysfunctional operating environment. Other staff had adjusted less successfully to the Juvenile Probation environment, and as a result were less functional and competent for the positions they occupied. Although all of the staff I inherited were qualified on paper for the positions they occupied, had served the department and other organizations well in the past, I thought some of these staff would be better suited working somewhere else. On several occasions, I counseled and helped employees in my organization to seek promotion opportunities in other city departments. In every case, I led the employees to believe that I was helping them advance and to earn more money. However, in some cases, I knew the employees would be happier, more productive, and more viable in a working environment more suited to their unique management profiles, ways of working, and work priorities. For example, I when Sam, one of my management assistants who worked for me came into my office announcing that he had another job offer and was giving me one week’s notice. Initially, I was angry that Sam was only giving me a week’s notice and not the traditional two-week notice period. However, I considered that Sam was relatively dysfunctional, really wasn’t doing anything

productive, and that the sooner I got him out of the office, the sooner I could find a more viable replacement. I when Joan, another management assistant, announcing her promotion to another department. I was a little teary-eyed when Joan announced her departure because we had built a good rapport and professional relationship. However, I considered that Joan was probably unsuited to our public protection, rough-and-tumble type of department, and was suited to the social service type of department where she received her promotion. I thought that having Joan leave the department would give me an opportunity to find a more appropriate management assistant who would be willing to go to play the rough-and-tumble games we played in my department, when necessary.

Chapter 15

Remain Focused by Keeping Healthy and Your Personal Life Stable

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths. —Etty Hillesum

When you move from a professional, forty hours a week staff position, to a much more challenging staff position or to a high-level, high-stress, and highly demanding management position, you must be able to focus on the new job and not on everything else going on in your life. For as long as it takes to figure out how you are going to handle your job, you do not want to be concerned with health issues, relationship issues, personal financial issues, or anything else that could divert your attention from the new job. In other words, you need to destress before you take on that very stressful job. Before you move into that tough and all-encoming position, you must get all of your baggage behind you. If you don’t resolve these issues, all of those unresolved health and personal issues will come back to haunt you, and will make your transition into the new job more problematic.

Resolve Health Problems before Starting New Job

For he who has health has hope; and he who has hope, has everything. —Owen Arthur

As you prepare to assume a more challenging executive position, make sure you are in good health. Resolve any outstanding health issues. If you haven’t had a routine health examination in the last year, you should schedule that routine exam as soon as possible. As soon as the chief probation officer offered me the director of Finance and istration position, my stress level moved up one or two notches. I was apprehensive about my capacity for handling the new position, and I was concerned about the loss of job security in a noncivil service, “at will” position. Medical science tells us that higher stress levels result in an increased likelihood of stress-related illnesses. Additionally, increased stress levels may activate illnesses or increase the likelihood of illness. In my situation, just after I was offered the director position, but two months before I was to actually start working in the position, a benign bone spur on my left femur mysteriously grew in size, and I was told that the bone spur had to be removed because the mysterious bone growth might be due to a bone cancer malignancy. The bone spur was first noticed and diagnosed thirty years earlier, and did not grow or change in shape during those earlier thirty years. I will never know if the added stress contributed to the growth of the bone spur. However, I do that at that time, I had to get this health issue behind me, and that I wanted to have the bone spur removed and not have this medical challenge interrupt my plans to become an executive. I scheduled the surgery as soon as possible after I was told there might be cancer lurking in my left femur. Luckily, the bone spur was nonmalignant. However, the surgery was more challenging than expected, and I was out of work for six weeks because I needed extensive physical therapy before I was allowed to return to work. I was happy to have had the surgery and physical therapy completed before taking on the new job. Had I waited to have the surgery performed after I started the new job, I would have lost six weeks of work during a time when I really needed to be in the office and working diligently and long hours.

Resolve Family and Personal Issues before Starting New Job

All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why. —James Thurber

If possible, before you assume that more demanding job, resolve family and personal issues that might become a distraction to you once you begin that job and need to be more focused and need possibly to work longer hours. As a newly appointed high-level professional or executive, you will be spending more time in the office than ever before. Even when you are home and not at the office, you will be thinking about the office and what you will be doing at work when you return there. The last thing you need is to worry about your relationships at home, whether or not you will be able to make your mortgage payments, how you will be able to pay for you children’s education, whether or not you are willing to let your mother-in-law move into the house, and how to best manage the contractors working in your home. You will want to resolve any of these and all other outstanding issues and possible issues before you set foot into the office on your first day. Resolving personal life issues will enable you to better focus on what you are doing in the office. About four months before I assumed the finance director position at Juvenile Probation, my mother died, and I had to manage her estate. Knowing that I was heading into a very stressful new job, I determined it was important to dissolve the estate before I started work as director. To the amazement of my attorney, friends, and family, I completed the dissolution of the estate two months before I started work as the director. I knew that finishing off my estate management responsibilities would help me focus on my new job.

Encourage Your Staff to Resolve Their Health and Personal Problems

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. —Mohandas Gandhi

When you are beginning a highly challenging job, you will rely on your staff for help moral , and strategies for operating success. Accordingly, it will also behoove you to want your staff to be healthy and to have their lives in order. The last thing you will want as you assume your position is for your inner circle of workers to be out because of the illnesses that could have been prevented. Accordingly, you may want to advise your staff to get the checkups, follow up on medical symptoms as soon as they appear, and resolve financial and family issues so not to distract them for their work.

Be Sensitive to Health and Personal Issues of Employees

Empathy takes time, and efficiency is for things, not people. —Stephen Covey

Be sensitive to the health and personal issues of your employees. If your subordinate employees are concerned about health issues, family issues, and other personal issues, they may not be focusing on their work, and may not be ing you as well as you need them to be. During the years I was director, Celia, one of my s payable representatives, was frequently out of the office to take care of family

emergencies. Although I was inclined to criticize this pattern of absenteeism particularly when the bills piled up on her desk, I ed that it was city policy for me to accommodate staff persons with family medical problems and challenges. I also ed that in a crunch, Celia worked hard to help us orient new s payable staff, and in a crunch worked late to help alleviate high-workload conditions. Accordingly, I held my criticisms back and found that in the long run, Celia was as productive an s payable representative as I could have wanted.

Do Not Initiate Major Personal Projects as You Assume a New Job

If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up. —J.M. Power

Do not initiate any major home improvement projects, or personal initiatives that might distract you from focusing on the new job responsibilities that will keep you busy enough, at least for the first six months of your new job. I’m reminded of my friend, Joseph, who bought a fixer-upper home just before he was promoted to his position as top attorney at a large utility company on the west coast. Joseph’s new home required roof work, new plumbing, new electricity, and the kitchen and all of the bathrooms had to be redone. Just as he was about to start his new job, he was choosing a general contractor to coordinate the work, and he had to arrange financing for the entire project. Unfortunately, the home construction projects took almost six months to complete, the same amount of time that Joe was on probation for his promotion. The added stress of the home improvement projects made the stress of his new position even more unbearable.

Chapter 16

Build a Legacy of Success for after You Leave the Organization

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving. —Albert Einstein

When you decide to leave the high-level professional or executive position you worked so hard to obtain to enjoy retirement, to assume a comparable position somewhere else, or to pursue a new career, make sure the people in your organization you as a competent and innovative professional. Leaving a positive legacy is important if you want to successfully apply for a comparable or even higher-level position at some future date. Leaving a positive legacy is also important if you want to be ed as a human-oriented professional, who cared for and helped his or her staff achieve professional fulfillment. If you are ed as kind, comionate and caring, that may be just as important or even more important than being ed as being professionally competent and successful. As I prepared to leave, I wanted to be ed as competent and successful for what I accomplished. I also wanted to be ed for being a caring professional who was interested in my staff and my organization. I did not want to be ed for what I didn’t accomplish, or for what I didn’t do well, or for whom I did not get along with.

Leave at the Best Time

The best time to start thinking about your retirement is before the boss does. —Author Unknown

I learned, retrospectively, that time helps you survive in a high-level executive position. Your employer knows that you won’t be able to be the ideal employee until you fully master the job, and that will take time. Accordingly, do not even think about leaving your executive position for at least two years after you assume the position. Leaving an executive position any sooner than two years after you assume that position may indicate to others that you were not able to perform the work and that you were asked to leave. Leaving a high-level position before your two years are up will also decrease the likelihood that you will be able to land a comparable or higher-level position in the future. I didn’t plan to leave after only two years as director, but that is what happened. I bought a new home in Palm Springs, and decided to move there for a variety of personal reasons. As I was about to leave San Francisco and my job, I wanted a retirement shindig that would make all of the anxiety, stress, heartbreak, and feelings of inadequacy at work worth it. I wanted a party that would celebrate my hard work, commitment, and success as a finance director. I also wanted a party to give me the platform for thanking everyone who helped me succeed.

Plan a Going-Away Party that Focuses on Interpersonal Relationships

When a man retires and time is no longer a matter of urgent importance, his colleagues generally present

him with a watch. —R.C. Sheriff

Normally, going-away parties and retirement parties are not well attended, and even if they are well attended, they are boring and forgettable experiences. People generally go to these parties because they are expected to go. I decided that my going-away party would be different. I wanted a retirement party that would be fun and never forgotten. I wanted a retirement party that would memorialize my contribution to the organization and, more importantly, would document the interpersonal relationships I nurtured with my associates, my staff, and the many friends I made during my years with the city government organization. I wanted to honor the friendships I made over the many years of service to the city. I wanted to thank the many mentors and friends who helped me achieve success. I also wanted those that I had helped and mentored to be there to share this time with me and to reflect on what I had given them. As part of my effort to improve attendance and to show my appreciation to those I worked with, I decided to cover most of the cost of the event. Not only did I provide my friends with an open bar before the dinner and free-flowing wine during the dinner, I also provided cocktails and appetizers at my home (the hotel was across the street from my home) before the event. I knew that that my friends and colleagues would thoroughly enjoy the event if they were given an opportunity to “roast” me and to cite humorous episodes in their professional and personal relationships with me. By the time I was “roasted,” most of my guests had plenty to drink, and everyone had plenty to say about me that was funny and/or embarrassing. Some of the stories and testimonies were true, some were exaggerated, and some of them were more personal than they needed to be, but all of the roast remarks were funny and memorable. Some of the roast testimonies recalled some of the most challenging operating bottlenecks and crises situations I overcame and handled during my years in the position. Some of the roast testimonies also speculated why I was fleeing the office and the demands of a tough job for a comfortable life in a resort community. However, most of the testimonies were personal reflections of the

binding relationships I established with them and others. These personal testimonies reminded me that as an executive, I managed and worked with people with feelings, aspirations, fears, and emotions. I was particularly humbled to learn how I had personally affected the lives of those I worked with over the years.

Obtain Written Testimonials of Your Work before You Leave

A gold watch is the most appropriate gift for retirement, as its recipients have given up so many of their golden hours in a lifetime of service. —Harry Mahtar

Your ability to obtain employment, to some extent, is dependent on your ability to obtain personal and professional references from those that worked with you, those that supervised you, and those that were in a position to evaluate your professional impact. When you retire or leave your organization for any other reason, you should not “burn your bridges” because you never know when you will apply for another position and need references from people that you worked with in your past. Leaving positive lasting memories and retaining personal relationships with those you worked with will help ensure that there will be references waiting for you should you need them in future years. That evening, my boss, the chief probation officer, awarded me five special gifts, two of which were particularly meaningful to me. The first gift was a proclamation from Mayor Willie Brown. The proclamation lauded my nearly twenty years of service to the city for my visionary leadership, quality management of staff, about how I helped the city realize significant accomplishments, and about how I was loved and respected by my staff and peers.

The second gift was a certificate of honor from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The award also lauded my many years of service and many accomplishments and contributions during that time. That certificate was signed by all of the supervisors. The supervisor, who lauded my budget management skills at that budget committee meeting several months earlier sponsored that certificate. It is over a decade since that going-away party. However, I am still hearing from some of my friends and former coworkers who attended that party that others are still talking about that party. There is no doubt that I will be ed, if not for the work I did and how I contributed to the organization, but to how I memorialized the time I was there, and made long lasting the impressions from that going-away party. I truly believe that if any of my work associates thought I bungled the director position in any way, liquor and good times at the party might eradicate that memory.

Final Thoughts

It’s a decade since I retired as director of Finance and istration from the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department. As I reflect back on that time as a director at the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department, I realize that I was offered and accepted the most significant professional opportunity of my lifetime. The director position at Juvenile Probation was the culmination of a lifetime in public service, and was a position very close to the position I wanted and worked for through graduate school, and in the earlier years in my career. On paper, I was very qualified to accept the executive position I write about in this book. I had a master’s degree in public istration, I had more than fifteen years of experience in the San Francisco city government, and I had served three years as the assistant director where I had demonstrated strong communication and leadership skills. In addition, I was very interested in public policy and government service, had demonstrated managerial skills and superior written and verbal communication skills. However, in reality, the position I was offered was a sinkhole, which had swallowed up most of my predecessors. The position was known throughout city government as one of the most difficult and challenging finance management positions. Few finance professionals would consider applying for or accepting the position under any circumstances. I on my first day in office thinking and feeling that I was over my head, and that I would fail. I felt as if I had reached my level of incompetence, and that I would have to scramble and quickly figure out how I was going to survive in a very difficult and ever-changing management environment. Over the next two years, I developed an overall strategy for countering my fears of not being able to handle the position. Although my strategy took time to conceptualize, recognize, and implement, it helped me take command of the position, and to do a good job. My strategy included many common sense measures, including hiring and retaining the best possible staff, improving my understanding of the

organizational culture I was working in, dres for the position, better managing my time, and prioritizing my work assignments. My strategy also included nurturing some skills that were never fully developed before assuming the position, including negotiation skills. I am delighted that I’ve had the opportunity to share my story and strategies for success with you. In this book, I proudly offer you eighty-five surefire ways to prove to make your employer know they made the right decision to hire you. All of these recommendations are drawn from my experiences, and from the experiences of others who also were challenged with a tough new job. Some of my suggestions are common sense, and should have been fairly evident to me on day one. However, I realized that in the days just before I became the director and in the months following my first day at work, I was inordinately stressed and did not always rationally and effectively handle and manage stress, I certainly would have appreciated a laundry list of recommendations, like the ones I am offering you, to help me gain a healthy perspective and to make more prudent, sound decisions during my time in office, particularly in the first six months on the job. I am hoping that your consideration and use of strategies for success help you succeed as a high-level professional and as an executive. I also hope that my suggestions help you overcome your fear, real or imagined, of failing. As you consider my book, I hope you that all of our professional experiences are unique, just as my experience is unique to me. Accordingly, I recommend you seek and read other similarly focused books, attend professional seminars on this and related topics, and find really good mentors to provide you a more comprehensive strategy for succeeding in that high-level position. You may need all the help you can get. As I conclude my book, I want to convey to all of the nurses, engineers, ants, attorneys, istrative financial analysts, and first-line supervisors, and others who are contemplating a major promotion in the government sector, in the corporate world, in a nonprofit setting, or anywhere else, that you can succeed. You must always that you were considered by your employer the most qualified applicant to assume that high-level professional or managerial position

and that the job is yours to prove that they were right to hire you. With the right attitude, action plan, and willingness to learn and to grow, I am certain that you will overcome your fears, overcome your professional shortcomings, and be successful.

About the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department during the Time I Was There

The City and County of San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department provides detention facilities for boys and girls arrested by the city and county police for violations of the law. Detained youth are housed in a juvenile hall facility, located behind the department’s istrative offices, for short periods of time, pending court appearances. The juvenile hall is capable of housing approximately 135 youth. Boys detained by the courts for longer periods of up to a year are housed at the Log Cabin Ranch, a remote facility set in a rural setting approximately fifty miles south of the city. The Log Cabin Ranch can accommodate thirty to forty young men. Girls detained for longer periods of time are sent to contracted agencies. Boys and girls detained for periods of over a year are sent to the California Youth Authority detention facilities. Following detention, the young men and women are encouraged and ed for reentry into the community. Probation officers supervise the young men and women, and help to resolve issues, ensuring that the youth do not repeat bad behavior. After arrest and/or detention, the youth also receive from community-based social services agencies. Community-based agencies receive federal, state and city funding through the department to provide family-based and community-focused programming to ensure the underlying causes for bad behavior are addressed and countered. When I worked for the department in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the department had a workforce of approximately 320 persons, with an annual budget of about $35 million. Since I retired in 2002, the size of the department’s staff was reduced because of budget cuts throughout San Francisco (City) government. Additionally, three years after I retired, the construction of the new juvenile hall facility was completed, and now stands behind the department’s istration building. During the time I worked at the San Francisco (City) Juvenile Probation, there were approximately thirty thousand employees citywide in more than sixty city departments, including Juvenile Probation. Juvenile Probation was considered a

midsized department, smaller than the Police Department, Fire Department, Department of Health, Public Works Department, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, but larger than most of the other city departments. During the time I worked at the Juvenile Probation Department, the department was organized into five operating divisions, including one division that oversaw Juvenile Hall detention operations and another division that oversaw the Log Cabin Ranch. A third division coordinated and supervised the work of several dozen community-based agencies; the fourth division oversaw probation services for youth offenders. The fifth division—my division, the Finance and istration Division—oversaw the department’s budget, ing operations, s receivable and s payable functions, the personnel unit, purchasing and warehouse staff, engineering and custodial staff, data processing functions, and almost all istrative functions not assigned to the other divisions. As Finance and istration Division director, I reported to the chief probation officer. The Juvenile Probation Department’s istrative offices and Juvenile Hall are located on top of Twin Peaks in San Francisco, an isolated and fog-ravaged location, about four miles from the San Francisco civic center, where the San Francisco city hall and most city offices are located. The department’s offices and Juvenile Hall reside in a relatively affluent middle-class neighborhood and are miles also miles away from communities from which most of the youth come from who are arrested by the police and detained and served by the department. The juvenile courts that hear and adjudicate most juvenile cases are also housed at the department’s istrative offices.

Your Timetable for Surviving Your Promotion and Realizing Professional Success

Period of Time

Activity Determine what you want to do profe 5-25 Years to Six Months before Assuming Build a long-term professional plan, High-Level Position Obtain the appropriate education and Seek out a trusted mentor. Every year, update your long-term pl Prepare a well-crafted resume. 6 Months before Assuming Position to First Day on Job Focus your job search with respect to Brush up on those skills that you nee Research job market to determine wh Speak to persons in the organizations Update your wardrobe to ensure you Resolve outstanding personal, family Clarify position priorities with super From First Day on Job Hire trusted assistants and staff. to 6 Months Later Organize your office to ensure impor Develop short-term and long-term pe Maintain communications with super Maintain a diary that chronicles stres Seek informal on your perf Obtain comprehensive evaluations of 6 Months after Starting Don’t leave because of temporary fru Job to Two Years after Take vacations to refocus and refresh Starting Job Determine if accepting this particular

Summary of the Eighty-Five Surefire Ways to Prove They Were Right to Hire You

Chapter 1: Your Timetable for Professional Success

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Recommendation Build a Long-Term Professional Goal and Plan Seek and Obtain Professional Accreditation in Your Field Obtain Applicable Business Degrees Reject Dead-End or Insurmountable Promotional Opportunities Build Yourself a Network of Professional s and Mentors Prepare a High-Quality Résumé Know What You Are Applying for before You Apply for It Take Vacation Time before Starting Your New Job , They Only Fire “Blanks” in the Office Use a Personal Diary to Chronicle Anxieties, Challenges, and Accomplishments Request Follow-Up Interview before You Accept a Position Choose a Career That Matches Up to Your Personal Interests

Chapter 2: Dress for the Job

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Recommendation Be Willing to Spend Money on Quality Clothing Find Someone with Fashion Sense to Help You Buy Work Clothes Send Your Expensive New Work Clothes to the Dry Cleaner Keep an Extra Set of Work Clothes in the Office Improve Your Physique so Your New Clothes Look Even Better Accompany Your New Work Clothes with a Smile and Good Posture Dress Better than Those You Manage Keep Your Hairstyle Appropriate for the Position Always Wear Clothes Appropriate for the Office

Chapter 3: Behave Ethically and Ask for Help When Needed

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Recommendations Utilize Legal Staff before You Take Action Get All Human Resource Department Opinions in Writing Bring in Experts to Help Transform Your Organization Identify and then Report Egregious Errors Assure Blame for Errors on Your Watch Don’t Blame Unethically, Even If It Leads You to Professional Success Always Ask for

Chapter 4: Take Bold, Risky, and Innovative Steps

29

Recommendations Don’t Be Afraid of Failure

Chapter 5: Building Political Alliances and Relationships

30 31 32 33 34 35

Recommendation Walk Your Organization’s Political Tightrope Carefully Build Social Relationships at Work Participate in Professional Organizations Maintain Quality Communications with Union Representatives Use Your Coffee Breaks and Lunch Hours to Your Advantage Stay in Touch When Mentors and Fellow Employees When They or You Leave

Chapter 6: Manage Your Time More Efficiently

36 37 38 39 40 41 42

Recommendation Don’t Reinvent the Wheel Utilize Quiet Time in the Office and Outside of the Office Delegate Time-Consuming Work to Employees Prioritize Work and Learn to Multitask Reduce Paper Clutter in Your Office Do Not Leave the Office before Your Employees Leave Make Sure Your Closest Assistants Know Where You Are

Chapter 7: Using Communication and Interpersonal Skills to Improve Your Likelihood of Success

43 44 45 46 47 48

Recommendation Build Written Communication Skills at an Early Age Build Verbal Communication Skills Be Familiar with the Different Ethnic Backgrounds Embodied in Your Organization Encourage Your Employees to Improve Interpersonal Skills Build Collegial Relationships with Your Colleagues Build “People” Skills

Chapter 8: Give the Staff an Opportunity to Shine

49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Recommendation Upgrade and Promote Employees If They Do a Good Job Give Employees Opportunities to Represent Your Organization Find Opportunities to Compliment Staff Take Care of Your Employee Creature Comforts Provide Staff Downtime during the Holidays and on Special Occasions Be Familiar with the Complexity and Challenges Associated with the Work Performed by Do Not Promise Upgrades and Promotions Not Obtainable Provide Opportunities for Staff to Socialize and to Relax during and after Company Hours

Chapter 9: Hire the Best Assistants Money Can Buy

57 58 59 60

Recommendation Hire Assistants You Can Trust and That Can Perform Mentor Employees Always Watch Your Back: Sometimes Those You Help Become Your Enemies Hire an istrative Assistant or Secretary That Will Maintain Confidential Information

Chapter 10: Don’t Dismiss the Rumor Mills and Don’t Let it Mow You Down

61 62 63 64

Recommendation Follow Up on Rumors and Allegations Minimize Personal Use of Your Company Computer and Cell Phone Don’t Let the Rumor Mill Run You Out of Town Establish an Open-Door Policy With Staff

Chapter 11: Know Your Strengths and Use Them to Your Advantage

65 66 67 68

Recommendation Priorities of Your New Position Know Yourself and Your Management Style before You Accept That Job Consider the Management Style of Those That Seek to Work for You Make Sure Everyone Knows Your Accomplishments

Chapter 12: Don’t Do What You Know You Can’t or Won’t Do Well

69 70 71 72

Recommendation Don’t Promise Anything You Know You Cannot Accomplish No One Expects You to Know All the Details Be Careful and Seek Help When You onish or Terminate Employees Be Upfront with Your Shortcomings

Chapter 13: Time Can Be Your Best Friend or Enemy

73 74 75

Recommendation It Gets Easier with Time Ignore Urgent Problems If You Suspect They May Go Away Don’t Throw Difficult-to-Resolve Problems Under the Carpet

Chapter 14: Make Sure You Don’t Hire or Retain Staff Who Demonstrate Peter Principle Attributes

76 77

Recommendation The Brightest Candidate May Not Be the Most Qualified Transfer, Reorient, or Fire Nonperforming Employees

Chapter 15: Remain Focused by Keeping Healthy and Your Personal Life Stable

78 79 80 81 82

Recommendation Resolve Health Problems before Starting New Job Resolve Family and Personal Issues before Starting New Job Encourage Your Staff to Resolve Their Health Problems Be Sensitive to Health and Personal Issues of Employees Do Not Initiate Major Personal Projects as You Assume a New Job

Chapter Sixteen: Build a Legacy of Success for after You Leave the Organization

83 84 85

Recommendation Leave at the Best Time Plan a Going-Away Party That Focuses on Interpersonal Relationships Obtain Written Testimonials of Your Work before You Leave

About the Author

Edward has a master’s in public istration and is a graduate of the Coro Foundation midlevel executive program. He received Toastmasters International’s highest honor, the Distinguished Toastmaster designation, and has won numerous regional speech contests. Most recently, Lopatin served as a Toastmaster division governor. As a Toastmaster district leader, Lopatin helped California prisoners build three successful Toastmaster clubs. Edward also received the Association of Government ant’s Certified Government Finance Managers designation. Edward was director of Finance and istration at San Francisco’s Juvenile Probation. Before that, he was an audit manager in the city’s Controllers Office. Throughout his career, Edward coached dozens of employees, friends, and colleagues to help them realize professional success. During his professional career and in the years since he retired, Lopatin served on a number of community and political boards in San Francisco and in Palm Springs. Lopatin lives in Palm Springs, California, and can be reached at [email protected].