Teams' Aptitude AND Attitude with Arturo Arteaga
Arturo Arteaga, a former Mars colleague, is currently responsible for rewards - compensation and benefits - in the Americas for Mars. He started working for Mars nearly 14 years ago in finance, with more than 30 years of experience in companies like Pricewaterhouse before they merged with Coopers to form PwC. Before that he worked for Anheuser Busch, brewers of Budweiser and Bud Light beers among others. For a time he also had his own consulting business.
Carlos: Thinking back to your early experiences as a manager or team member, what were some important lessons you learned about teams and teamwork?
Arturo: I started managing consulting teams at Pricewaterhouse a long time ago. My first lesson was that you need to trust in your team. Most of the work is done by your team. You do comparatively little compared to what they do. So, you have to trust the results of your team. It was a big change going from being an individual contributor to being a team leader mainly because you lose control of the outcome of the work. Your success as a leader depends on the direction and supervision of your team’s work, therefore you have to trust them and how they work.
Carlos: I’m keying in on the word, “trust”. Some people are quick to trust and slow to mistrust, others are quick to mistrust and slow to trust. If you break trust with some people it’s very hard to get back, others are more willing to forgive. What is your trust profile? How did you foster that?
Arturo: When I was young and just started leading teams it was wishful thinking, hoping that everyone will do their work, do the best they can, and the work will get done. It doesn’t happen like that. This was a hard lesson for me, and I learned situational leadership.
Everybody has a different profile, maturity curve. The first thing I try to understand is where my team is, where they are in terms of their seniority, their standing and the supervision they will need. Therefore, I need to meet with each one individually to understand how independent they are. Can they deliver without supervision or without even asking? So that is where I start, by understanding them.
I also have to let them know what I expect from them, to be clear what is non-negotiable, what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. When you’re a leader you want everything to be perfect but that’s not reality. You have to know which mistakes can be done, and which cannot.
For example, I divide my team and how I communicate with them between attitude and aptitude. If someone has the right attitude but not the aptitude, I can work with them on the knowledge and capability building. Someone who has the right aptitude but not the right attitude is more difficult because you are losing some trust there.
Carlos: I have so many questions I want to ask you. None of us gets to where we are by the same path. We come to where we are through the great diversity of human experience. Early on you were extending trust pretty readily.
Arturo: That’s a good point. The first part is to know that what I’m saying is not necessarily the same thing that people are understanding. And when you’re young, it’s difficult to know that from the beginning. So, I can say what I want, I can give the right direction and the right vision, but the person in front of me understands something totally different. And why is that? Because my context, my background is totally different than the context of the background of the other person. I may understand what I’m saying from the context, the experiences, and the opportunities of my background, but what they’re hearing is based in their context, experiences, opportunities and background. So what I learned the hard way is to confirm that we are on the same page, that what is important to me is also is important to them.
For example, delivering on time is very important to me. Quality of work of course is important for everybody, but that doesn’t mean I expect the best quality of work the first time. I’m there to help and improve them, to coach them so that they can resolve issues, improve the work and finally we can get to an outcome that is good for everybody. So, I give them trust in the beginning, but I also make sure that I am understood, that I give the understanding and that I understand from the beginning.
Carlos: It’s a matter of communicating, and understanding that communication is always two-way, right? What I’ve learned in working with teams and their leaders is that stories are often the most powerful way to convey a concept to a team member. Can you think of a specific instance of “what I say isn’t always what they hear”?
Arturo: I was responsible for part of an audit when Grupo Modelo, a Mexican brand, joined Anheuser Busch. There were many leaders on the team and we needed a lot of communication. And it was very senior team on that assignment, so I trusted them to do the right thing. I was out on a very critical day when we had to deliver a report. I had to absent myself because I had to go with my wife to the hospital. The person who I left in charge called to say, “I have everything ready. Do you want to see it before I send it?”
I said, “Let me ask you some clarifying questions and then I can tell you.” So, on the phone I asked him, “Did you check this? Did you check that? Tell me about the overall message.” Everything seemed to be perfect, so he sent the report. But what I had in my mind was different than what he understood it should be. Two days later a lot of trouble erupted because the report was going to important stakeholders, including our shareholders. I did not have the time, I could not have the time, to make sure the message that I wanted conveyed was expressed in the report. I checked all the technicalities, and everything was perfect. But the wording, I didn’t check. Even though he did his best effort with the wording, it sent a message I did not intend to send. It created a lot of noise with our stakeholders. In the end, we managed it, but it was a hard lesson to learn: if you have a very special, personal touch that you want to put in something, make sure you put it in yourself.
It is not always as easy as 2+2=4. What my direct report did was correct, it was great, it was by the book. But from the beginning there was a message I wanted to give to the stakeholders that I had in my head. My mistake was to assume that my direct report understood what was in my head the way I meant it. It’s like cooking: sometimes you have to add your seasoning to the recipe and taste test it before serving it.
So, you have to be aware of your team’s capabilities, and to be aware of what you are asking of them and that it’s fair to them. So, ensure they understand exactly what you mean and if not, do it yourself.
Carlos: I’m always excited, when talking about collaboration, for someone to say, “You know, sometimes you just have to do it yourself” because often people think everything has to be about the team but clearly, from your excellent example, it can’t always be about the team. In your story, there was a certain tonality that only you could impart, and you had to learn by doing.
Let’s go back to this thing about attitude. Let me reveal a little bias I have. Back when I first started consulting, when I first came across competencies, a defined list of behaviors that was specific and clear about what was effective and what was ineffective, I was excited. I had heard from managers, “Well, I just hire the right people and that’s what makes all the difference.” In fact, you could listen to inspirational speakers and what they’ll tell you is, “It’s all about attitude!” But I’m skeptical. I think you need more than attitude, you need aptitude. What is the right attitude to be successful on a team you lead?
Arturo: I agree with you, Carlos, I think you need both. You need the aptitude, the capabilities to do the work, but you also have to have the motivation. So, let me change ‘attitude’ to ‘motivation’. If you are motivated to do what you are doing, you want to do it, you will do it right, or you will try to do it right. When you don’t have the motivation, maybe it’s difficult or you don’t want to do it, maybe you will do it right but not at your maximum expression, not at your best. So, for me it’s to identify what motivates each of my team members. I have tried to align motivations to do what is right for the team, but many times there is no way to change other people’s motivation to fit your motivation, to fill your objectives. So sometimes you have to make tough choices around people who are very capable, but don’t have the right motivation. You can work on that with incentives, but sometimes it’s just personal and you can’t interfere with that. It may depend on their willingness to move forward and to learn. So, in my experience to have an effective team, we need to have both things: the right aptitude, capabilities, and the right motivation, the right attitude toward what we must accomplish.
Carlos: So you’re saying attitude and motivation are almost the same thing?
Arturo: I think so because your attitude, positive or negative, decides what moves you to be there. So, if you’re frustrated because you are not doing what you want to be doing or earning what you want or you are not comfortable with the team, that motivation can affect your quality of work, your engagement, your teamwork. The perception other people have about you is that you have a bad attitude. People cannot work with you.
As a leader, I have to decide if it can be solved and work with it, or if it cannot be solved and work around it.
Carlos: So that’s a talent call, isn’t it? If you can’t work with that person’s attitude, if it’s not appropriate to the work that needs to be done, then maybe you need to part ways with that individual.
Arturo: Let me give you an example: when I was working in finance, we received a transfer pricing audit from the government. They requested tracing information, and we had a week to deliver it. It meant going back 10-12 years to find papers and documents, all that. It meant about 18 hours of work per day. It was tough and heavy. I went to the team and said, “This is a challenge we cannot ignore. I know it’s a crazy, short time to deliver, but it is what it is.”
The brightest person on the team said, “I cannot do that. I have my personal life. I cannot sacrifice my personal life for this audit. You are not paying me enough for this.” So even though he was the brightest person on the team, when push came to shove, he was not able to deliver.
This was not how we usually worked. I apologized and said, “I’m sorry, we do not have an option.” But that kind of reaction sent a message. It says who was committed to the cause and who wasn’t.
Carlos: It seems to me that this comes back to trust. Did you lose trust in that individual to get the job done when the going got tough?
Arturo: Yes, that’s fair to say. He continued doing the work because life goes on, but I knew that similar challenges would be tough for him to take on. I didn’t lose trust that he would do good work, but I might not count on him in the future because of his attitude. When other tasks came and he was not chosen to work on it, I got the complaint, “Why not me?” I replied, “Because you told me it was not in your paygrade.”
The difference is the first job was not sexy. It was the kind of work that nobody wants.
Carlos: Wait. Are you telling me that there’s work in finance that’s sexy??
Arturo: Of course! Maybe not as sexy as marketing or sales, but there are some stories in finance that are sexy. This new work was around governance involving some advertising and training, etc. and it was more visible than the other work.
Carlos: You’re speaking to my heart when you talk motivation. It’s always been my belief that successful teams are grounded in individual motivation: that just saying “be a good team player” does nothing if it doesn’t appeal to the individual’s motivation. So thank you. In this case, the motivation had to do with visibility: this person wanted to be in the eye of the people he thought were important. Is that what we’re talking about? So I’m just dying to know; did they stay on your team and did they work out?
Arturo: Yes, he stayed on my team. With my kids I use an analogy where everything has a consequence. I think he learned the consequence of only being available only when something feels good for him. So, if we are a team, we need to take the good and the bad, the sexy and the not so sexy projects. He learned from these two projects that there is a balance. Some work will be visible, some back office. Some sexy, some ugly and dirty.
He stayed with my team until I moved to my role Human Resources in Rewards. Then he became my successor – he became the comptroller where I was.
Carlos: That speaks volumes to your leadership skills. That you could take a person who was unwilling to do the hard work, motivate him into a good attitude and then backfill you – good for you for your patience and the ability to see the good that was there!
The object of this podcast is to give our listeners examples of things they themselves could be doing, and that example of someone letting you down –
Arturo: And sometimes it’s not a matter of capability, it’s a matter of not having the mind in the task at the moment. But that doesn’t mean someone can’t change or grow.
Carlos: So if you out there are leading a team, take an example from Arturo. I think you showed patience and a kind of wisdom there, Arturo, I really do. Thank you for joining me today, Arturo. To our readers and listeners, we look forward to seeing you in our next post.
Take care!