We are all a product of what we've learned. Sometimes the learning was intentional, i.e. a course we took. Sometimes the learning was accidental, for example my first word was 'hot' after a touched a stove as a toddler.

Learning is not automatically correlated with time or money. You can learn more in five minutes than you can in two days, depending on what is learned. You can learn more from a mentor for free, than you can from an expensive college degree.

I have published several stories about the years I spent in California operating restaurants and what I learned, mostly the hard way. This story is about a strategy that was developed to simply reduce the length and intensity of verbal beatings, but turned out to be a lesson that has helped me, for real, in understanding what leaders want when performance doesn't meet expectations.

One of the intrinsic theories of leadership is that we often do the opposite of what was done to us by bad leaders. This isn’t always a good idea, but a lot of our individual ‘styles’ are a result of styles that we operated under and didn’t like, so we avoid similar tactics or approaches.

In my long career of employment, I’ve worked for my share of idiots and learned first-hand what the impact of poor leadership can do to morale, productivity and performance.

This weblog is about one of the times when the leadership style of the C-Suite was so bad that I learned coping lessons that still benefit me today. 

Due to the cutbacks in my legal department, I don’t name names of either the individuals or companies.

Many years ago, when working in California, the leadership team of the company did Quarterly MBO Meetings: "Management by Objectives," and they were brutal. B-R-U-T-A-L. 

The team members of the region I was with were mostly transplants from the East Coast by design because the C-Suite guys (some of whom came over from Howard Johnson’s) thought that the work ethic of people from that side of the country was better than other parts, and their master plan was to abuse the heck out of us, I mean jack up the productivity of the field teams.

Their goals were lofty, their methods questionable, and the turnover of field leadership was incredible. Somehow, I managed to survive in the rough and tumble environment, but I’m still not completely sure how.

When people asked me why I stayed in the brutal environment, my answer was simple: I was learning. I’ve often stated that in my few years of living and working in southern California, I got back about ten years’ worth of experience. Here is an example of one of the things that I received.

The team I belonged to held weekly regional meetings in our Santa Barbara office, and there were eight of us at the table: two Regional Operations Managers, two Regional Recruiters, two Regional Food Production Managers and two administrative people. 

The six non-administrative ‘field’ people were required to put the keys to their company cars on the conference table in front of them at the start of each weekly meeting.

If the RVP liked your numbers and/or your story, you could stay. If he did not, he’d tell one of us to drive you home because you were finished. I was 3,000 miles from home, as most of us were, and the thought of being unemployed in Southern California was very, very scary. If the same practice took place in New England, I would have told the leadership to shove it and moved on, but I had no such option during the first nine months when I worked in an environment like that.

After I had observed the first couple of people being fired from the regional meeting conference table, I was designated as what we called the ‘death car’ driver. I would bring the fired person to their home, using their former company car, leave them there, and bring the car back to the office for their replacement to eventually take over. Talk about management by intimidation!

Later on, I realized that I had the job in the market because the guy before me was fired this way while I was in training, and I took over his beautiful Cutlass Supreme and his screwed-up region consisting of 56 locations.

Eventually, I also drove the ‘death car’ for that original Regional Vice President when he was fired by the Corporate Office. That made me the last one standing or sitting at the table. I was the newest field person when I started, and six months later, I was the senior field person in terms of longevity. Sounds like a fun environment, eh?

After experiencing this type of management for a couple of months, I remember calling my dad and telling him that I was befuddled because they had a different way of doing business at this company and/or in California.

How, what, and why they were using this leadership style was really alien to me.

But it got worse, and the lessons got more valuable, although I didn’t realize it at the time. 

The weekly regional meetings were a cakewalk compared to the Management by Objective meetings which were an experience in themselves.

I attended one of these during my first month (and was held blameless for not reaching the objectives because it was my first month). Before the next quarter, I developed a strategy based on what I observed, that I guess was partially responsible for my survival until a new leadership team eventually took over.

The disrespect for employees was almost something you could taste. What do I mean? The Chairman of the Board attended these meetings and would frequently read the Wall Street Journal while the VPs did the questioning. Every now and then he’d put the paper down and slam you, apparently for more fun. 

Leadership clearly believed that fear and intimidation were vital management tools, and referencing the first paragraph of this Weblog: they convinced me that fear and intimidation were NOT vital management tools.

There was a cafeteria downstairs from the executive suite at the corporate office. Teams would wait there (or shake there) until called upstairs to answer questions about their published objectives. 

As the aforementioned ‘senior’ member of the team just a few months after starting, but before our RVP was fired, here’s what I decided to do and say when planning to go upstairs and handle getting chewed out.  

You could call it a ‘beating reduction’ plan.

I realized that there were only three answers to give, regardless of the performance issue the leaders pounded you about. 

This needed to be an excuse-free grilling and an explanation-free grilling. Either of those made the verbal abuse worse. When you sat down across the table from the company's leadership, YOU were 100% responsible for every number. Not them, not the corporate office, not their mistakes or their mismanagement: it was YOU.

Instead of going in there to argue, I went in there to be productive. Strange thought, I agree.

Here’s the solution I advocated for the team, and we ran with it. I will honestly tell you that the original motivation was simply to reduce the expected verbal abuse and maybe save my job, or in other words, to 'Fake It.'

But the strategy turned into a valuable tool for the future because buried in the answers were real principles of accountability and it helped me, in other words, to 'Make It.'

I learned that every time every leader is disappointed in results, they only want to hear one of the following three answers:

1. I eff’ed Up.
2. I’m on my way.
3. I eff’ed up, and I’m on my way.

That’s it. It is that simple. 

Now some leaders may not consciously think those are the answers they are looking for, and if you are a leader, you may not agree that those are the answers you are looking for, but they were, and maybe are, the best answers for conveying accountability. 

And, in those days, these three answers stopped the attacks. Here's why.

Answer One:

I Eff’ed Up: Leaders Want Accountability

This answer was the one they wanted you to say to acknowledge that it is, in fact, your responsibility that the numbers or other results are not where they are supposed to be. No excuses, no shifting the blame, it is all on you. 

• When this response is given, what does the leader say? What can they say? I guess they can say ‘you’re fired’ or something similar if the gap is huge, but otherwise this comment changes the temperature of the room and the direction of the conversation. To be honest with you in the hostile environment I’ve described, sometimes this answer was, let’s say, less than sincere? But it worked, and hearing the words from your own lips does increase a sense of accountability.

• When you are the leader and the results aren’t there, would you rather listen to excuses than for someone to take accountability? I don’t think so. We all want people to take accountability for their results. I learned this in a very hostile atmosphere on the other side of the country. 

• When I was being verbally attacked if my results weren’t there in the three MBO meetings that I experienced under that management team, I acknowledged that I could have or should have done more or better and (partially) believed that. I wasn’t only just blowing smoke as they say. 

• The natural follow up question to the answer is ‘why?’ or ‘what?’ and I was always prepared with something I could have done or should have done better that might have changed the outcome. I took accountability for my results, and in some cases for others results, but that is another subject.

Answer Two: I’m On My Way:

Leaders Want Urgency. 

In fact, leaders want to know if you’ve already taken action or if a plan is in progress to correct the performance, even though it doesn’t specifically acknowledge accountability. 

• Leaders often can only ‘see’ the results and aren’t certain of why they are what they are and rarely know exactly what to tell you to do to improve the results. That’s why the expression, “I’m on my way” can be so effective. The phrase can help change the one-way critique to a two-way conversation about fixing things.

• When you are the leader and you are having a problem discussion, don’t you want to know that the person accountable has thought about what to do to fix the problem? I think so. 

• When I was being verbally attacked and indicated I was ‘on my way’ to a particular store or market, the conversation did shift and in many cases the jerks on the other side of the table made helpful suggestions or at least gave me more details of what they expected to happen. 

• It is always good when you know what the leadership wants to happen, because you can focus your energies on those things as a priority.

Answer Three: I Eff'ed Up, and I'm On My Way

Leaders Want Urgency and Action

This was reserved for the most serious metrics misses. Leaders want to know that you have a plan that you are putting in action to correct ‘it’ whatever ‘it’ might be. This answer not only reflects accountability, but action: a combination that every leader wants to see.

• Leaders who are very disappointed in results want more than lip service; they want accountability and action. When both answers are combined, the conversation has to turn to the future, and what was learned from the past, rather than simply just the past.

• When you are the leader and someone significantly misses the target, don’t you want to know that there is accountability, and a plan started quickly to correct the deficiency? I think so. 

When I was being verbally attacked and indicated that not only was it my responsibility, but I was urgently working on a solution, even if they were pounding me for fun, they still had to acknowledge that I was doing exactly what they would tell me to do.

While I developed those answers in response to a very tough situation, I quickly realized that the three answers apply to almost every situation where goals or objectives are not met. 

Obviously stating them sincerely and believing in them is better than BS’ing someone. But, as they say, sometimes you have to fake it before you make it.

In polite language the three answers might be rephrased as:

• Answer 1: I am accountable
• Answer 2: I am already taking action or preparing a solution
• Answer 3: I am accountable and already taking action or preparing a solution

Not as colorful, but just as accurate.