Budgets Set Expectations, Provide Feedback, and Allocate Resources

February 2008

Many years ago, I was hired by Dell to facilitate management trainings. The trainings were centered around a model developed by some Ivy League brainiacs. What I learned from that model has affected my whole life. Every time I run into a snag, I run the snag through the six-step model that I learned at Dell and ask myself if the problem is my fault before I blame the other party. This model will help us budget, but first I ask you to hang in with me through a more personal story of its application.

I am on my second marriage. Another way to say that is that I failed in my first marriage and I learned plenty about what NOT to do and what patterns NOT to start. (I told you I was going to get personal… hang in there!)

So when I run into problems with my second husband, I think before I speak (mostly J). So here is a mild little problem that I kept mild by following the wisdom of the six-step model: Because of work schedules and my constant travel, my husband is the one who dresses my two girls in the morning. Back when they were two and four, they were unable to choose their own clothes. Another relevant fact… Daddy is color blind. See any problems here?

I’d see them later in the day and be appalled at how wacky their outfits were. A lavender shirt with red pants, pink socks, and white sandals. WHAT!?! My mother always told me that kids that are dressed well get treated better, so I want my kids to look nice; not Shirley-Temple-cutie-pie nice, but I at least want their clothes to match.

In my first marriage, I would have probably snipped at my husband and accused him of just not caring about the girls or about me because he was so sloppy about their clothes. We would have had a knock-down, drag-out fight and I would have had to dress the kids myself from then on because he would have stopped dressing them—period. If I didn’t appreciate what he was doing, he’d just stop doing it.

So instead of starting a stupid argument, I decided to talk to my husband later, during dinner about the clothes thing. I started by saying that I noticed something that was bothering me and that I wanted to resolve it together. I told him what my mother had said. I also promised to set out little outfits for the girls—with matching tops, bottoms, and socks so that he could just pick a pile and go with it. He agreed that that arrangement would be a lot easier for him and that I would probably be happier with their outfits.

This system worked great until my youngest had the inevitable accident and hubby had to find her new bottoms. When I came home that night, baby was wearing a pastel polka-dot top and primary colored bottoms because Dad pillaged bottoms from another outfit stack.

So, again, I did not freak out. Later we had a talk about how if one piece of the outfit changes, the entire outfit needs to change. “No problem,” he said. And now the girls wear matching clothes and I avoided an unnecessary conflict.

So how does this relate to what I learned at Dell and relate to budgeting?

Well, at Dell I learned that as a manager, you need to look at yourself first before you blame the other person. You must ask if you are setting your folks up for success before you start blaming them for problems or underperformance. First, as a manager, you should look at:

• Whether you set clear EXPECTATIONS with your team so that they know what to do
• Whether you have given them relevant FEEDBACK that tells them whether they are meeting expectations
• And then make sure you have provided the RESOURCES necessary for them to do their jobs

These are all things you need to do in order to set your folks up for success. But what we tend to do blame the employees by questioning their:

• JOB ASSIGNMENT—you wonder if the person is even capable of doing the job
• TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT—you wonder if the person would benefit from a few seminars or furthering their education, because they obviously don’t ‘get it’
• MOTIVATION—you accuse the person of just having a bad attitude about their work – and if they’d just get their head in the game and have some appreciation, they would be so much better to work with.

But these last three things are the last things you should worry about as a manager and as a spouse.

I always jumped to the bottom of the list and thought such destructive thoughts about my first husband that I am surprised my marriage lasted as long as it did. “Because he can’t get the kids dressed correctly, I obviously made a bad choice in husbands.” —a job selection concern. Or “Maybe if we went to counseling he would understand how to treat me,” —a training and development issue. Or “He just doesn’t care about me!” —a motivation issue. Aren’t you glad to hear we didn’t have children together?

At Dell, and through facilitating trainings where we go over this reasoning sequence, I found that I am not alone in the blame game. It is much easier to look at someone else than to look at how you contributed to the problem.

So the six steps to setting folks up for success are:

• Expectations
• Feedback
• Resources
• Job assignment
• Training and development
• Motivation

See what I learned? I learned to:

• Set clear expectations— “I’d like the girls’ clothes to match,”
• Provide the resources to make it happen by setting out clothes in color coordinated groups
• Give a little corrective (but friendly) feedback when things weren’t working.

All without heartache, argument, or accusations. Very effective indeed.

This is exactly what a budget does, if you think about it. A budget that is linked to the plan, that is.

A budget sets clear expectations, and then through monitoring gives you feedback as to whether or not you are meeting expectations. Remember the concept of the alarm clock from last month’s newsletter? And, obviously, the budget allocates the resources necessary to meet the expectations. Very interesting. Expectations, feedback, resources.

Is your budget doing all of this for you? Are you setting your folks up for success? Or are you pointing fingers? More on the qualities of a good budget next month.