 Supervising
Effectively Without Swami
By Kathryn E. Jackson
Associate
Response Design Corporation
To be an effective consultant I have to have first hand knowledge
of customer contact, periodically immerse myself “in the
trenches,” and continually return to the customer contact
lab to make sure I understand the constantly evolving customer
landscape.
Last year I returned to the front line when a utility gave me
the opportunity to spend nine months managing its contact center
in which I was responsible to groom supervisors (among other things).
My most poignant lessons were people lessons – generally
supervisory, specifically Tina. Following are several of the insights
I gained from my time in the center and with Tina. Tina and I
learned together what it means to supervise effectively.
Tina (not her real name) was, at one time, one of this company’s
star agents. She had consistently excelled in the organization
and had taken on all new challenges with zeal. Her performance
as an agent was impeccable and the leadership team had considered
her to be a dream employee. Since Tina was always looking for
new challenges, all she could think about was becoming a supervisor
in the contact center. She lobbied hard and everyone knew she
was a shoe-in for the promotion.
I wondered how the previous leadership team evaluated Tina for
the promotion. How did they make that final decision? What guarantees
did they have that Tina would be a successful supervisor? As they
considered her for the supervisor position did they only look
to her characteristic success as an agent?
Stay Focused on the Fundamentals
My first lesson was fundamental. From my experience, I knew that
many first-level supervisors didn’t succeed and were often
the weakest link in the contact center management chain. If my
experience is any indicator, most supervisors have a difficult
time experiencing success and it’s not because they don’t
want to. Rather, most of the time the problem lies with us, the
managers.
As I coached Tina, I found out that she felt like a failure.
Tina and I talked about what she had experienced that made her
feel that way. We concluded that there are two actions managers
can take to help new supervisors succeed. She said that when she
was being considered for the position, the leadership team carefully
evaluated her against the specific knowledge and skills required
to be great supervisor. We applauded Tina’s leadership for
doing this with her. Then, once she was in the job, Tina expected
that her manager would provide the job specific evaluation and
training required for her continued success. This is where Tina’s
previous leadership struggled.
As sophisticated as we would like to think we are in today’s
hiring and training process, Tina and I agreed, we still tend
to forget the fundamentals.
Avoid Swami the Mind Reader
One day Tina turned to me and said, “Will any one ever help
me understand what I need to master in order to be a successful
supervisor? Sometimes I feel like there is a secret club and I
haven’t figured out the code word to get in.” Tina
told me that there were times in the past when she felt that a
prerequisite for being a supervisor was the ability to read minds.
She was sure that her previous leaders wanted her to know what
they expected of her, without them having to tell her (I personally
don’t think that was true – I just think the other
leaders were too busy to communicate and Tina was too afraid to
ask).
When Tina left my office that day I thought more about her “mind
reading” comment. I thought that in some instances Tina
might be right. There are times when managers don’t communicate.
Managers can get so swamped and distracted by the urgent and important
issues of their own over burdened jobs that they end up leaving
supervisors to their own devises without any instruction or guidance.
It’s not that managers are cruel but rather because their
jobs aren’t designed with time enough to mentor a team of
supervisors.
I concluded that very few of us realize when Swami is alive and
well.
Compensate for Competence
Do something for me. Snap your fingers.
Did you have to think about it before you did it? Probably not.
You instinctively put your finger and thumb together with just
the right pressure and SNAP! That’s what’s called
an unconsciously competent skill. A skill you have mastered that
you don’t have to think about to do well.
New supervisors are not usually “unconsciously competent”
workers when it comes to the complexities of contact center management.
It doesn’t matter how skilled a person you hired, he or
she can’t possibly be unconsciously competent in everything
it takes to supervise a contact center well.
Supervisors don’t intuitively know what they have to do
to be successful every day. But we, as their manager do –
or at least we should. A seasoned contact center manager knows
the invisible ropes—create a report for this problem, call
more people in immediately for that problem, and the CFO doesn’t
like to address budget problems piecemeal. We need to teach these
invisible (unconscious) ropes to our charges.
Next, we need to understand that new supervisors may be unconsciously
competent in some skills and consciously incompetent in many others.
When they are consciously incompetent it means that they know
they don’t know what to do and they have to feel their way
through it. If we don’t adjust our mentoring appropriately
to the skills a supervisor has mastered (unconsciously competent)
and the skills they are feeling their way through (consciously
incompetent) we create a whole bunch of frustrated supervisors.
We need to adjust our mentoring to compensate for our supervisors’
level of competence.
Assess Your Readiness to Help
Supervisors can’t enjoy the full breadth and depth of what
it means to supervise effectively without a mentor. Following
are a few characteristics of mentors who are ready to help; see
how you rate.
Can You Slow Down?
You must slow down to help; it can’t be done at your usual
hectic pace. You must invest in a relationship. The foundation
you build takes time and commitment. It is mentoring at its best.
Is Swami Alive?
Have you been thinking all along that the supervisor should intuitively
know what they need to do? Do you believe that if supervisors
really paid attention, they should be able to get it right? Are
you willing to admit that the Swami fairy tale has been alive
in your organization?
Are You Competent?
Which are you? Unconsciously competent (skilled at leading but
not understanding how you do it)? Incompetent (not skilled at
doing it yourself)? Competent, but haven’t taken the time
up to this point to invest?
Whichever you are, are you willing to devise a game plan to overcome
your hurdle so you can mentor your people?
Do You Believe in This Person?
Next, do you believe in the supervisor’s potential to be
a winner? Do you show the supervisor you believe in her through
your actions, motivating her to rise to your high level of expectation?
If you don’t believe in the supervisor, you’ll strip
away her self-esteem along with the desire to think about what’s
important. She’ll become passive and wait for you to tell
her what to do. She’ll become fearful, defensive, and constantly
cover her actions thinking they are going to get her into trouble.
She’ll be afraid to do anything for fear of reprisal.
Make a Plan
Now, if you are ready, make a plan. You can’t mentor “on
the fly.” It takes a plan. Following are some ideas I learned
during my nine months with Tina.
Talk
As a manager, take time to talk about what is important, giving
the supervisor time to listen. Supervisors are not mind readers.
People aren’t born knowing what’s important to succeed.
It is the very act of talking and listening that creates a relationship
and it is ultimately the relationship that constantly builds the
strength of the supervisory success.
Learn
Don’t assume learning. Learning takes effort, it doesn’t
happen by chance. As you converse, learn from each other’s
experiences and interpretations. Don’t preach—your
viewpoint, experience, or opinion may not always be the most appropriate.
Use each other’s insights to see daily supervisory issues
in richer detail. Discuss the supervisory dynamics that created
the specific issues so you both come to a better understanding
of how to proceed. If a problem occurs as a result of an action
that the supervisor took, use it as an opportunity to learn. Perhaps
the supervisor “broke a rule.” You will be amazed
at how many organization and/or department “rules”
are unspoken (until they are broken). Even though we are constantly
irritated when these rules are “broken” we usually
never take the time to really define what they were in the first
place.
Think
Thinking is the place where intelligent action begins. Be sure
that you reclaim time to think and especially take time to think
together. Supervisors learn so much when you take the time to
decide together what action to take.
Throughout the mentoring process, give the supervisors permission
to take time to think apart from you and return to you with their
conclusions. Teach them to integrate what they hear and learn.
As the supervisors move through the process (from unconsciously
incompetent to unconsciously competent), they will learn what
actions to take and where they might have the most influence.
Supervisors must also learn when not to act, when right action
means doing nothing. Applaud them appropriately for not attending
to brush fires.
Supervising Effectively
Tina came into my office after one of our coaching sessions and
plopped down for a few minutes of “quiet time.” I
told her my thoughts about Swami and we both agreed that a mutual
commitment was required for Tina to learn how to supervise effectively.
We had previously agreed to a plan, but Tina said that she now
thought there was a critical element missing. After I gave her
a puzzled look, Tina chuckled, rose from her chair and drew a
picture of Swami on the office white board. Then she took a big,
fat, red marker and added an international symbol for “no”
over the top of Swami. “Now,” she said, “the
plan is complete. Swami isn’t welcome here anymore.”
Dr. Kathryn Jackson is an associate of Response
Design Corporation (RDC), an organization she co-founded in 1989.
Her Masters and Ph.D. are in Business Administration, and she
received the Call Center Pioneer Award in 1997. In October of
2000 Call Center Magazine recognized Kathryn as a leader in her
field by inducting her into their Hall of Fame. She can be reached
at KJackson@ResponseDesign.com
or 609-398-3230.
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