Micromanagement - Breakfast Club Style

I watched The Breakfast Club this past weekend for the first time in 20 years. I first saw it when I was 12 or so, right in the heart of the 80's when all it meant to me was teenage rebellion. While this theme is still predominant in the movie, I couldn't help looking this time at Mr Vernon - the lame duck vice principal - through the lens of managing a business.

Here is my analogy:

An arrogant and micromanaging boss is charged with an underperforming division comprised of uniquely talented, but uninspired employees who dislike each other. (it actually sounds like something out of Pat Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team)

The boss views the staff with disdain and believes they should automatically respect him because he is, well, the boss ("Bender, I make $31,000 a year and I have a home and I'm not about to throw it all away on some punk like you.").

The boss comes in intermittently (monthly performance review?) and berates the team for goofing off and continually letting the company down. The boss becomes enemy #1 and the staff bond over their dislike of him, along with other people's unreasonable expectations of them (parents, teachers), and how no one seems to care about what they really think. In search of therapy and a solution, they smoke pot, dance in the library, run around the school's halls, cry and laugh together. The end result is that this motley crew comes to trust and respect one another. They bond and collectively solve the problem that their boss forced them to address at the beginning - how were they going to become better people?

To use an analogy - if the deliquent teenagers can be seen as employees, then there is no question that Mr Vernon can be seen as the ineffective manager, the kind of person who has nothing better to do than micromanage his team to generate results. (my other favourite micromanager is Bill Lumbergh from Office Space).

Yes, I have had my Lumberghian-Vernonian moments of micromanaging in my business. It's not easy to let go and let your team thrive without your constant input. Employees are human beings and they will inevitably make mistakes, much to the chagrin of a demanding boss. But, as a few smart people have told me before, managing is all about letting go and giving the people around you the freedom to do amazing things. Figuratively, this is what happened in that library when the students were left to their own devices.

Vernon did not trust his students. Lumbergh did not trust his staff. Both meddled. Both were overpaid and rather useless. The Breakfast Club struck a nerve for disaffacted teens in the 80's just like Office Space struck that same nerve in office workers in the 90's. Both movies were addressing the same issue from the standpoint of how not to lead a team of people.

I love how the Breakfast Club ends - with the students' collective note to Mr. Vernon. It's pretty interesting to see how the group is able to come to terms with their demons and collectively work out the best solution, without the guidance of their leader.

Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it is we did wrong, but we think you're crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out, is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basketcase, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club.

Learnings from this? Train your team well, give them the power to make decisions for themselves, get them to believe in what they are doing, and give them the freedom to make mistakes so they can learn for themselves. I believe the best managers celebrate their teams for being the brain, the athlete, the basketcase, the princess, and the criminal.

The Power of Core Values

In the past, I was never a believer in committing core values to paper. I always knew they were important, and while we certainly abided by a set of core values in our heads and hearts before, I chalked up the actual "writing of them down" as corporate schlock and rhetoric. Did anyone really care? If any of you have seen Office Space, you know what I mean (i.e., big, grey company asking its people "Is this Good for the Company"?)

I have since parked my skepticism as I found the process of committing tried and true values to paper to be liberating. Someone once told me that you know you have nailed a core value when writing it down gives you goose bumps. I mean, it actually has to mean something in order for it to be that powerful. That changed my perspective immediately. What was it that was so exciting about this place when it was just an idea, 1 phone/desk and no clients? Why did the founder wake up one day and declare "I want to start a company". This is the magic that needs to be encapsulated in your value system (the magic elixir, as it were).

For a look at what guides us at Right Sleeve, click here.

I also found that as a business grows, the founder does not have the time they had before to manage individual staff and guide them through every process, customer issue, sales call etc. It is so much easier if everyone is on the same page from day one. The values of a company end up replacing the boss in many ways. If you ever have a question about how something should be done, don't ask the boss ... consult the values. This is so much more empowering for everyone. No one wants to hear the boss drone on more than he/she already does (I speak from experience)!

This also makes your recruiting process much easier. Not everyone is going to agree with your value structure. Fair enough - pass on these candidates, regardless of their skill set. We ask everyone of our job applicants to study our core values so they can draw upon experiences that show they will be the right fit. We have made many interview mistakes in the past ("can you tell me your greatest weakness?"), but we have found that the whole conversation shifts into reality when you hold up your value system to a candidate and ask them to respond. If they lied in the job interview, you will know within 1 week of them starting on the job (at which point they should be shown the door - for everyone's sake).

The same can be said when you pitch clients. While we always want new business, we make a conscious effort to evaluate our clients and measure them against our set of values. No one wants to work with a client that does not value what you stand for. The same goes for partnering with vendors as well.

All great teams have one thing in common - alignment around a common cause. Committing values to paper is a great process to go through (and I sheepishly apologize to anyone with whom I debated this subject in the past).