Why did Hillary Clinton fail?

In an appearance on CNN, news commentator David Gergen was asked “what was the one big mistake that Hilary Clinton made in her 2008 presidential campaign?”  Gergen explained that to win a political campaign "you need to do a dozen or more things well, and any one item could cause you to fall short". 

Look at the whole job. 

At work your management role is no different.  Your personal success depends on multiple factors--managing people is a multi-faceted job.  You need to become competent and capable across the whole job, and take a holistic approach to connect the parts work together.

Looking for a Silver Bullet

People often look for one single item to work on to meet today's problems. So you think that if you could give better feedback, you'd be successful in your managing role today.  We want to push the “It’s Easy” button and get a quick fix for today’s leadership
problems.  We feel bogged down with broad analysis or multi-faceted problems.  So we look for the "silver bullet".  

But as it often works out, you’re back at work and things don't look so simple.  That's because there are always multiple factors influencing the result.  Real changes come about only when we look at the total job and how the parts work together. 

The Magic is in the System

Suppose you tried to give Jamie, one of your employees, feedback on some aspect of his performance.  The feedback session does not go well, and you wonder what happened?  To take a holistic approach, you'd want to take a broad look at the problem:

• Would you need to go through this feedback drama if you gave clear expectations and directions at the front end?
• Clear expectations are meaningful when you invest upfront planning to make sure that your team is prepared and ready for the work at hand. 
• Instead of depending on one-on-one corrective feedback after the fact, why not use team norms and positive affirmation to teach what you want to happen?
• You could use team norms and positive affirmation along the way to reinforce what you want to happen.    

• All this assumes that Jamie is listening to you—does he respect your authority? 
• Is Jamie even the right person for the job?  If you hire the right person you’ll need less hand-holding and micromanaging.

Do you see how the parts work together?  Mastery comes from looking at the whole picture and working on the whole managing job.  

How do you use this?

Noone likes to work for manager who is throwing things together and shooting from the hip.  We want to work for someone who looks at the details and controls all of the working parts.  That's the reason you're in this position--you are able to step back and see a bigger picture

We created The Story Board to show you a big picture view of all elements of everyday managing.  Everyone on your team should know what are the essential parts to getting work done: plans, expectations, feedback, recognition, right people, etc.

You need a "pre-flight checklist" where you can mentally run through the items to make sure they are in order.  Have you planned
and set up the work?  Did you make the expectations clear?  Did you discuss in advance how we’ll share feedback?  In time, these key parts will become second nature for you, and also for your employees. 

You can also include your employees in this systematic approach.  One senior executive posted The Story Board on the wall outside his office, sharing with his team, “here is how I intend to manage you.”  So his employees began to take the initiative, "So, how will I get feedback" or "Have we planned this work out?"    

Build your managing approach

Develop a mentality that you want to work at mastering the art of managing people.  Set a one-year goal to work your way through everything on The Story Board.  We show you how to do this in our All-In-One Workshop. 

It's a different way of thinking: set your goal to develop “above-average” skills in all areas of managing people—interviewing, giving feedback, dealing with employee problems, setting goals, whatever.  We want you to play the whole board.