After a sea change moment many years ago, I came to realize that having positive, affirming and appreciative relationships with my colleagues would produce consistently excellent results. I talked the other day with someone who worked at Goldman Sachs for over a decade and he talked about the great performance of his group based on teamwork, backing each other up, valuing the customer, and building strong long-term relationships.
Clearly Goldman Sachs is a high-performing organization with great outcomes. And City Harvest experienced phenomenal growth in the 11 years I was Executive Director.
I wasn’t always focused on relationships. I was focused on results, getting things done, delivering deliverables, meeting deadlines come hell or high water. I pushed my people hard. I didn’t care if they were unhappy – we had things to do! And I was often frustrated and angry when my staff didn’t produce what I wanted, when I wanted it.
So what changed?
One Friday afternoon years ago, I sat with my Administrative Assistant and told her there were some areas of her performance I wanted her to improve. Charlotte, being a wonderful human being, felt terrible and vowed she would work on those areas. We parted on good terms.
Monday morning, I arrived at work and was greeted by the news that Charlotte had suffered an asthma attack, was in a coma, and not expected to survive. I was struck as if by a locomotive by the realization that my last conscious interaction with Charlotte was one where I criticized her, and caused her distress.
Did I contribute to the asthma attack? Probably I did, along with the cats, dogs, and ferret she lived with, as well as her occasional cigarette smoking. I loved Charlotte and valued her tremendously. Yet that did not come across to her in our last meeting. I was more concerned with her stepping up so we could get more things done.
At the time, I worked for the City of New York as an Associate Commissioner in the now-defunct Department of Employment. I took my orders and cues from the Commissioner, who took hers from the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Mayor Dinkins. The focus was on quick turnarounds, getting things done as efficiently – if not always as effectively – as possible. My colleagues and I were required to act and report on a request from the Mayor within 24 hours. And there were many other deadlines for contracts, reporting, RFPs, personnel matters, planning…you name it.
I was just 30 and a fairly inexperienced manager, although I thought I was quite capable. I followed the cues from above, and passed on the stress of the deadlines to my staff. I felt responsible for getting things done. And I expected my staff to keep up and deliver on time. I didn’t really care about whether they had personal issues or that obstacles arose, sometimes from their own colleagues. I felt enormous stress and passed it on to my staff. It was not fun to work for me.
After learning about Charlotte’s coma, I immediately underwent a sea change in my attitude. I was chagrined, dismayed, upset that my last interaction with Charlotte had been fairly negative, that she didn’t know how much I valued and loved her, that all she knew was my frustration over her not getting things done. I determined then and there that I would focus more on the quality of my relationships with other people instead of on getting things done. In a flash of understanding, I realized that if I had good relationships with other people, we would get things done.
Evidence that I really had changed came a year later, when I neared one of my team members talking to a new intern. I heard Susan say “yes, Julie used to be hard to work for, but she’s really changed over the past year and now it’s great. We really work together.” I joined them, so pleased that Susan felt comfortable enough with me to say that, knowing I would hear, and confident not only that I wouldn’t get upset but that I would validate her statement, as I did saying “yes, I used to be a real hardass and it just didn’t work. We have much more fun now.”
Did we get things done? You better believe it! My division, Public/Private Initiatives, developed and managed many innovative projects that steered publicly-funded job training programs toward collaboration with the private sector. We issued RFPs, worked on collaborative planning projects, developed new structures where public and private sector groups could interact, focused on workplace literacy, and laid the groundwork for including workforce development in economic development strategies.
More than that, my division became a magnet for other staff who were not being fully utilized or engaged. I wanted people to enjoy their work, believing that when we enjoy our work, we do great work. So I worked to match assignments with people’s skill sets. If someone suggested a project, I gave them the go-ahead to investigate it, and then the go-ahead to pursue it once we’d discussed and improved the proposal. Staff had ownership of their work.
Rather than pass on stress, I became a buffer between my team and the stress that continued to pour down from the higher echelons. I became aware of their health and family issues. One woman got Lyme disease and another had breast cancer. They didn’t need undue stress. I helped prioritize their work, and went to bat for them with the Commissioner to revise the schedule for certain deliverables. People began to confide in me and also to volunteer to help me with projects they saw me struggling with. We began to function as a team.
There were some downsides to my new approach. My peers did not appreciate that some of their more talented staff wanted to work in my division, so there were some slings and arrows pointed my way. And absorbing stress wasn’t great for my health and well-being, which propelled me to seek other employment. In my next gig, I determined that I wanted to create a workplace where I wanted to go to work every day and enjoyed my work, and that’s what I built at City Harvest.
While at City Harvest, I led a team that produced a nine-fold increase in pounds of food rescued and distributed, and in numbers of people served every week; and a five-fold increase in funds raised. Our visibility went through the roof. That team made City Harvest the household name it now is throughout much of New York City. We focused on our relationships and had confidence that we would get things done, and done well, when we had positive relationships. And we did.
Today, I am witnessing an organization implode because it is more focused on getting things done than on the quality of relationships among its staff. Pressure from funders and a Board full of people from the financial services sector is causing enormous stress among the staff, many of whom are ready to bolt. Due to pressure to expand quickly, the organization grew too fast and without proper attention to developing the clear structure, stable infrastructure, and culture that is required to have a high-performing organization. As it is, there is no feedback system, no training for managers, and no performance management. There is no regard for people’s desire to have some work-life balance, and in fact, it is spouses who are fighting back against the leader’s demands that people work almost around the clock and on weekends.
At that organization, there seems to be an expectation that people will sacrifice and work hard simply because things have to get done. But that expectation is not going to be met, because people are not automatons who simply produce on demand. They are tired and feel unappreciated, invisible, not valued. They are tired of performing without acknowledgement, recognition, and thanks.
Could the organization have succeeded if the leader paid more attention to her staff, treating them with respect and appreciation? Perhaps. If the leader listened to staff who had trepidation about the ambitious plans, perhaps they could have been scaled back. But the leader was under pressure from her Board, many of whom are from financial services where immediate results are expected and even demanded.
Reaching goals, delivering results, measuring effectiveness, building and spreading replicable models, proving impact – these characterize the new focus in philanthropy, a focus on getting things done. Few and far between are philanthropies that recognize the essential role of strong, trusting human relationships in getting things done well. Quality relationships take time to develop, and don’t produce results in a quarter or even in the 3 year time horizon of much philanthropic giving.
To state the obvious, people have their own feelings, needs, wants, preferences and motivations – all of which come into play in every organization. High-performing organizations are characterized by their attention to their people. Sometimes they put equal emphasis on people and getting things done. But I’m not aware of a high-performing organization that can sustain its performance without emphasizing the quality of relationships in the organization – the culture, values and behavior that foster excellence.
Taking the time to pay attention to people’s needs and wants ends up paying off in their loyalty, dedication and hard work – and great results, because people will put their hearts into their work when they feel valued. When people’s hearts are in their work, they do great work and take pride in it. While it may take longer, the results will be more permanent and long-lasting.
