This is a reader guest post by Jeremy Neuharth. Jeremy is a .NET software engineer with State Bank and Trust and enjoys learning and assisting teams in implementing release management and continuous integration.

As an individual that watches the national talent completion America’s Got Talent I was surprised when I found something beyond basic entertainment value. What is this special nugget, well it is a management framework that should be used for managers everywhere.

What does America’s Got Talent have to do with management anyways? I’m so glad you asked! It is simple, really. I’ve broken it down into three parts, and think it is quite an effective process for managing employees.

1. Set expectations

When a performer comes out on stage, he knows he must wow the crowd and judges so he can continue on to the next round. Now, obviously on a TV show with thousands of performances one doesn’t have the same ratio of managers to employees, and for the most part the expectation is understood, but the thing to note is an expectation has been set.

Likewise, I believe that generally most employees show up on the job with the desire to do good work. So, if expectations are communicated to them, they will work to achieve those goals. It is almost human nature to try to satisfy your boss, just as it once was to try to please your parents (if it still isn’t). Therefore, as a manager, you should clearly state what your expectation is for each employee so they are aware of their goals and can attempt to achieve them. Listen to the Hoff, make us go crazy from your performance.

2. Watch and “X” if needed (Coaching)

During each act, the judges (managers) watch the performance without getting involved, except in the case where the performance is failing. In this case, the judge “X”s the performance, which alerts the performer to the fact that he is not meeting the set expectation.

If a manager has set clear expectations, I believe a normal employee would not expect a manager do their work for them, but rather use your experience to coach from the sidelines. (NOTE: I said sidelines, which means that you can’t be on the playing field asking for updates every 10 minutes). If the employee runs off the tracks a bit, but has some experience with what he is doing, let him run with it – you might learn something yourself. On the other side, if that same employee is heading toward a total train wreck of a project, get in there and coach him to success.

3. Give feedback ( Punishment or Praise)

The third and final step of the model is giving feedback. Once the performer has completed the performance, each judge chimes in with how they felt the performance measured up to their expectations. If the performance was beyond their expectations they might give a standing ovation with words of praise to go along with their vote to the next round. If the performance needed small improvements they might give some advice and let them try to prove themselves in the next round. Finally if they missed the mark, not only are they punished verbally, but they lose the opportunity to perform again until next year.

The same applies to being a good manager. If, as an employee, I miss the mark, tell me what I did wrong and pull back the reigns a bit. If you can tell I learned the lesson and have gained valuable experience, let me go to the “next round” and show you that I have learned. If I really missed the mark, take me out of the competition for a while and coach me a bit to get better.

As you can see, America’s Got Talent has not only provided us with a few hours of entertainment, but also a management process that is simple yet effective. Unfortunately, an amazing number of managers fail to hit the mark. Apparent “mind reading” tricks and a tremendous lack of feedback have allowed ineffective workplaces to run rampant. Create an environment for your employees to use the talents you hired them for in the first place, and use the America’s Got Talent three easy step management system by setting expectations, monitoring, and providing feedback. Vote for your favorite, lines will be open for approximately two hours after the end of the show…

It is funny how software engineers always tend to simplify problems with one additional level of abstraction; that is, the answer always lays in the next tier of thinking.

The original Von Neumann computer did not have CPU registers, and when Von Neumann was asked he responded “Any competent mathematician will be able to keep track of them in their head”, and as you can imagine CPU registers became the first level of computer abstraction. Then came the primitive data types, the first procedural languages, and then the grand daddy of them all OOP.

With concepts such as inheritance and polymorphism, there is no question why today’s software developers think and solve problems at such a high level. Don’t get me wrong – this is a great thing as it allows us to concentrate and be more efficient on solving real world problems. However, this has also become a very bad thing as the majority of us no longer understand how the basic computer works.

Humans (on a daily basis) do not look at a piece of fruit and say to themselves, “Oh my, that mass of molecules sure looks tasty”, of course not. This is because in order to function in our space we do not truly need to understand that level of detail.

However, in software we both do and do not need to understand the lower levels of abstraction for the software to work, and this is where we as modern software developers are getting soft.

I have met many young (and talented) developers that have never programmed in BASIC. Never even developed in C or C++. Have absolutely no clue what a semaphore lock is. With first languages now being Java or C# the days of algorithm analysis are withering away.

I guess what I am trying to say is, you can be the best orange farmer on the planet without knowing anything about molecular structures, but you can’t be the best software developer without knowing how your CPU works…

Don’t get me wrong, getting a hi-five from your boss is a pretty cool feeling, and getting a gift card for Best Buy from your employer is pretty cool too; however, what I do find often are people that allow themselves to only be rewarded in this fashion. I call this “Going for the doughnut” effect, that is, people allow themselves to only be rewarded with the occasional box of doughnuts and never with meaningful or sincere awards.

For example, let me tell you a little story about a guy I know: This developer bleed for his project managers for 2 months putting in over 80 hours each week to reach a fictional deadline. When the smoke cleared he emerged victorious…which he was promptly awarded a $100 gift card to Best Buy.

Cool right? WRONG.

First off, let’s put this into perspective. 80+ hours a week * 8 weeks = 320 hours of overtime. The reward was $100 for 320 hours of overtime = $0.3125 per overtime hour.

To add injury to insult in this story, the very same day his boss announced they would be doubling the company Fantasy Football pot to a tune of $400.

Alright, so what are the three elementary lessons to be learned here for all managers and team leads? Anyone?

1. Rewarded overtime >= $1/hr

If you are going to reward your employees, be sure to reward them with gifts that at minimum equal to $1 / hr of overtime. AT MINIMUM! Two 80 hour work weeks would be very justifiable if at the end of it you got a $100 gift card for that expensive downtown $30 a plate restaurant for you and the spouse to take a night off and reconnect. That sounds pretty good right? What about an iPod Touch after a really long project – cool! Just remember that they value of the reward does need to be at least in the ball park of the sacrifice put forth by your employees.

However, probably the most appreciated of all gifts is reciprocal time off, even if it is at a lesser ratio of 1:1. Put in a 80 work week – take next Friday off. As an employer you have to be an idiot not to take these opportunities. As an employer you are trading 40 hours of work for 4 hours of downtime, that is ROI that you can not beat!

2. Fun budget < Reward Budget

This is absolutely critical but so many people get it wrong – always spend your extra budget to reward hard work before creating a culture of fun. Sure it is great to work at a place that likes to have fun, but they call it work for a reason. You want to keep the resources that are top producers, not the people who are loyal solely because the company is cool and fun.

Creating a culture of fun is extremely important in any company, but showing your employees that you are business first is mission critical.

3. Advocate Sane Hours

If you have read my blog for awhile you know that I sincerely attempt to advocate a 8-5 hour day. I too get hung up in the office a few extra hours, but permanent heroics are a sign of a weary team and bad management. Good management knows when developers need to temporarily bleed and when that emergency is nothing more than a out-of-whack expectation.