Bill vs. Ted
The inevitable self-defeat of process obsession
This is the story of Bill and Ted, two mid-level managers vying for the same promotion to a senior role. It is based on real events.
Both Bill and Ted are qualified, but only one of them can be selected.
Both Bill and Ted have performed exceptionally well just to be under consideration.
Both have delivered results in the top 10% of their peer group. Both have strong reputations. Both are considered a “safe pair of hands,” delivering with focus and responsibility.
Bill and Ted have different bosses. Each is responsible to build a nomination, documenting why their candidate is best qualified for promotion.
The nominations can’t possibly detail everything each individual has done, so they are summaries, featuring topline information on how the organizations managed by each candidate have performed.
These particular organizations are measured by a business scorecard which condenses performance on more than 380 metrics spread across six different pillars into a digestible snapshot.
I’m going to joke about this in the graphic below. Bear it in mind for later in our story.
This precis of metric performance is the heart of each nomination, along with narrative and evidential support from the sponsor as well as key leaders at senior levels who have worked with Bill and with Ted.
Once finalized, the nominations are reviewed by executives. A series of debates are conducted for these executives, with each sponsor advocating on behalf of their candidate. In the end, one candidate is chosen. The other is declined.
In this case, after a robust process, Ted was chosen for promotion.
There was just one problem.
Bill was better. Bill was way better.
Bill was easier to work with, more authentic and genuine, and took better care of his team.
Bill was an exemplar and ambassador of the company’s value system. He was an inspirational leader. An honest and effective communicator. Bill’s business sense extended beyond his own unit, and his picture was broad enough for him to relate his team’s performance to broader company goals.
Ted got his results through pressure tactics, subtle coercion, and driving his people hard. Ted was laser focused on his team’s deliverables, with a narrower appreciation of the business. He was focused on delivering what his boss wanted, and extended beyond this in concept and action only as necessary to “play the game” and get promoted. Bill, on the other hand, was earnestly stretching and growing.
Most of Ted’s team were no better than content, and some were looking for roles elsewhere. Bill’s team were inspired and energetic.
Each of these managers was creating strong results, but one of them was doing so in a way more likely to create long-term retention and employee loyalty. The other was simply driving and pushing, generating results in a more straightforward manner.
One candidate was more likely to support company and business strategy, while the other would doubtless get things done, and maybe even get more done in a shorter duration of time.
Notice how the differences between these two are not easily quantifiable?
Notice how they are functions of intangibles and character traits which are difficult to measure?
Therein lies the rub, and the central conflict in our story.
Bill was far more ready. And everyone knew it.
Except for those making the decision.
So why did Bill lose and Ted win?
There are three reasons.
Advocacy. Ted’s line manager was a more persuasive champion. The document he crafted was effective at obscuring and downplaying Ted’s weaknesses while highlighting his strengths. In the debates that formed the process, Ted’s manager excelled at selling his nominee. He had also done his homework on Bill, and was able to consistently nullify momentum in Bill’s nomination by sprinkling in selectively unfavorable data points.
Arbitrariness. In the end, Bill’s promotion was declined because one particularly unfavorable metric was isolated and picked apart by reviewers. They weren’t honestly persuaded this metric mattered all that much. It was a tertiary indicator of customer satisfaction that only made sense when considered in the context of about a dozen other measurables. But they needed a tie-breaker, and this indicator gave them something to latch onto.
When a process allows for more than 380 metrics to be considered, the door is wide open for arbitrariness. An individual motivated to defeat a candidacy will always be able to find and magnify a flaw in performance when it is measured in so many different ways. For an interesting societal parallel, check out Harvey Silverglate’s classic Three Felonies a Day, which illustrates how the overgrowth of criminal law means we’re all felons, which means the government can arbitrarily choose who to target and criminalize.Detachment. Like most promotion processes in most organizations, this one lifted decision authority to a level of the organization intentionally distant from the action. Executives on Bill and Ted’s review panels were several levels removed from their part of the network and only scantly familiar with what the candidates actually did in their roles.
This decision distance is meant to reduce improper influence and subjectivity, providing a “cold eye” approach more likely to select the best qualified candidate based on objective criteria.
But this is all wrong. It means that the decision maker has no idea what the hell they are actually judging. Rather than be influenced by the candidates themselves, they are simply influenced by their advocates and the pictures they paint. Armed with only an abstract picture of individuals and their performance, decision makers fill the empty space with their own preferences and biases. Distortion is amplified rather than being reduced, and a massive decision is made without a solitary jot of direct observation or knowledge of performance.
Ted prevailed not because he was the best candidate for the role. But because the process and its limitations obscured the best outcome for the organization.
And because the process had been ornately constructed and enlarged over several iterations, it was easily manipulable by a skilled advocate.
To be sure, no process we design for any purpose will be free from distortion or manipulation. Any process will occasionally find the wrong outcome.
But we should not fool ourselves to the contrary, which is what we end up doing with most of the promotion processes we find in the contemporary organizational environment.
They are overbuilt. They sacrifice essential truth in vain searches for completeness, fairness, objectivity, or equity. And they too often find the wrong outcomes.
This is a problem because promotion is the loudest organizational signal of all. It tells everyone what we value, what we herald, what we reward.
When we promote the right people, we get more of what they gave us as a result, and that rising tide lifts all boats.
When we promote the wrong people, we get more of what they gave us, and less of what we actually want.
So, in the name of Bills everywhere and their teams, not to mention the organizational goals being served by promotion, let’s think more critically about how we promote.
Removing any chance of influence or favoritism comes at the cost of direct knowledge of performance.
Attempts to make the process objective also make it more arbitrary.
Relying on advocates opens the door to undue persuasion.
Admitting these facts to ourselves is important. It leads to a smarter approach.
More generally, we can never allow the process to become the thing. The customer must always remain in center focus. And promoting incorrectly harms both the internal customer (the employee) and the external customer who feeds revenue.
When it comes to promotions, this is tricky. Because the search for fairness and equity and objectivity are important. But they are balancing against intangible factors that help us know excellence when we see it, and to make accurate judgments.
The good news is that the right data and evidence are always available to get to the right answers. We just need to strip down and tune our processes to expose those answers.
TC is an independent writer, speaker, coach, and consultant specializing in organizational leadership. He has held senior leadership roles in both military and commercial organizations.
A word of caution: process is still important. We generate process to mitigate the opportunities for mischief, like favoritism, or nepotism, or discrimination, etc.; it also manages exposure to litigation from adverse personnel decisions. It's a razor's edge of balance between identifying intuitive leaders outside a metrics framework and also relying on metrics, not as a savior, but as one factor to consider. But I understand your point about metrics capture. I have a story about the risks inherent in departure from process as well.