By Al McClain
A new book, It’s Okay to be the Boss, by Bruce Tulgan, says managers are under so much pressure and so busy, they don’t bother to manage.
Employees trust “the system” less than ever and increasingly look to their immediate bosses for help in succeeding, which puts even more pressure on managers.
So, managers end up stuck in the middle between the company and staff, trying to balance competing interests. According to Mr. Tulgan’s research, employees get promoted into management positions because they are good at something. That something, however, is not necessarily managing people, and often they don’t receive training to overcome that shortcoming. Consequently, managers develop their own style based on what they see and what they think works for them.
Without the time to do the job properly, managers tend to leave people alone and let them sink or swim. They try to treat everyone the same; they tend to try to be nice by not spelling out expectations and avoid confrontations by being “the nice guy.”
The bottom line, according to Mr. Tulgan, is that there is an epidemic of under-managing in business. This creates a whole set of problems for employees and managers, in the process making everyone less efficient than they otherwise would be.
In a conversation with Mr. Tulgan, I asked if managers aren’t right when they feel they don’t have enough time to manage properly. Managers don’t have enough time to not manage properly, he agreed, and managers who don’t devote enough time to this aspect of their work end up spend a lot of time putting out fires.
The analogy Tulgan used is that there is a need to “get in shape” as a boss. Most everyone feels they don’t have time to work out and yet there are people who are in shape. And, he said, people who are in shape don’t get that way by loafing most of the time and then going for an occasional ten-mile run. They do it with regular workouts, such as an early morning walk.
In business, managers can dedicate the time and effort to get in an hour early and spend that time managing their people – showing them what needs to be done and how to do it. Managers spending time with employees will find an hour spent this way will yield many additional hours of productivity. And, he advocates not treating all employees equally, but differentiating the treatment based on circumstances.
But what if you happen to have a poor manager as your boss? Work with your boss to set clear expectations, advised Tulgan, and essentially force your boss to set clear goals for your performance. If all else fails and you are in a large enough corporation, he advocates shopping for a boss that can help you optimize your value within the company.
Discussion Questions: Do you think managers need to follow a standard set of practices on managing people, or are most managers able to successfully develop their own style? What companies do the best job of managing people and why? Are there legal ramifications of not treating all employees the same?
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What works and doesn’t work in terms of management became crystallized for me quickly when I joined a fairly busy volunteer fire department. You can hide and fake it in a corporation, but you can’t when a building is burning down and people need to be rescued. The chief never picks up a hose, and shouldn’t. He delegates, and watches the overall scene in case strategies have to be altered. That’s his only job. If he gets into micromanaging or hands-on involvement, he loses touch with the big picture, and that’s very bad. He’s got to be calm, a quick thinker, and someone who plays no favorites. Errors here have immediate and obvious consequences, and he’s held accountable. I believe strongly that management skills are learned, not instinctive. You could learn a lot about what works, and what doesn’t, by studying fire training manuals.
I was a manager at a department store in my career and can personally understand the pressure of being a manager for a few hundred people. I had 400 associates at any one time and it was a challenge to know everyone’s name…let alone give them feedback on their performance. Managers in many cases are given too many priorities, so many that you end up managing by exception–associates that are average, not late, don’t have any employment issues, etc.–often cruise along with very little supervision. The 80/20 rule applies…you end up spending 80% of your time on the 20% of your population that is a problem.
I learned that you had to develop a personal style of management that allowed you to treat people fairly, but allowed for differences. Some people respond differently to direct feedback, recognition or to clearly defined goals and objectives. To get the best from everyone, I often had to adjust how I addressed people and issues. You can read books, articles and papers on how to be a better manager but at the end of the day, you have to enjoy people and ultimately enjoy what you are doing. If you look at the job as a coach, not a boss and look at the organization as a team, people want to be part of a winning team. They will work harder if they feel they are part of a bigger entity.
Here are a couple of interesting statistics that may put this discussion into a new perspective:
– Managers are under the influence of the same System that causes 100% of all business organizations (an actual, measured statistic) to have significant problems they do not know about and are not correcting.
– One hundred percent of executives we have studied (over 7,000 to date) generate, and are conduits for, significant problems within organizations, and do not know it.
Managers have a concept of their jobs that is in significant conflict with what they are actually capable of doing in hierarchical organizations. Boards of directors, Wall Street analysts, and management theorists have a concept of the role of the manager/executive that is in significant conflict with what is possible in hierarchical organizations. The business world (business schools, business journals and magazines, the overall business culture, etc.) promotes management concepts and approaches that we have measured to be not only ineffective, but even destructive to organizations. Many of these concepts are presented in this discussion.
The world of management and management advice is full of misinformation and flawed concepts. If all the information on how to manage either worked or was effective, we should expect to find most organizations to be well run. Obviously, this is not the case. To sort out this misinformation mess would require far more than a discussion of this type. Let’s hope one day that we can really address this issue here.
I don’t know about the legalities of not treating all employees equal. Generally you can’t because not all employees are equal. Sometimes you have rainmakers that make most of the profits and then you have just the warm bodies that can easily be replaced. There are lot of good companies that do a good job of managing people. In retail, it’s those companies that tend to have low turnover and high morale. You could also argue that Wal-Mart does a good job of managing people. Just the fact that they can convince anyone to show up to me is a great accomplishment. If there was a standard set for management practices that worked then we would all be happy little robots and following them. I see companies today that, to me, have horrible people management skills, yet they continue to thrive. So who am I to judge?
No matter how hard we work at putting uniform guidelines in place, human beings are going to interpret them in their own ways and develop their own styles of whatever they do–including managing groups of people.
But as we’ve noted above, new managers come to the job because they were great workers, or they come from good degree programs. So there ought to be some basic management training in place to get folks up to speed with the company’s culture and the expectations that come with the job.
Of course, training often seems like an out-of-reach luxury to a small organization, involving hefty seminar fees and often, travel, and it may not capture exactly the things you want taught.
But there are great resources on the web. And if you have new managers coming up through the ranks regularly, for a few hundred dollars a day, you can access your community’s freelance training writers and facilitators–the same ones the big company down the street is using–and have your own Management 101 course ready to go the next time a new manager is about to take on the challenge.
Most managers are promoted either because they have done the best job of performing at the entry level jobs or have an impressive education. Unfortunately neither is a good preparatory course to becoming a manger, which has completely different requirements. It has been said that it is much harder to get a number of people to do a job than it is to do it yourself. So how do you learn how to be an effective manager?
It starts with common sense in treating people the way you want to be treated. You must learn how to effectively communicate the company’s goals and each person’s responsibilities toward those goals. It is very important to be certain that each employee knows how he or she is really doing and not be afraid to tell them of their shortcomings. This has to be presented in a clear, consistent and professional manner. Most employees want to do better if they understand what the problem is.
Managers need to realize that they are evaluated on the performance of their department, which is the average of all their employees. Every time you improve the poorest person’s performance, you raise the average. But you may be able to raise it even more by motivating the best performers to do even better. It is very helpful to try to understand each of your employee’s individual motivations so that you can tailor your supervision accordingly. Your approach should be different to someone who is clearly working for promotion as opposed to someone that just trying to get by, for example. Desire to excel is a better motivator than fear but there is a place for both in business.
Once you can decide on a problem employee you must diagnose the root of the problem. Are they not performing because: They don’t know how and haven’t been properly trained? They think they are doing a good job and haven’t been told otherwise? They have a bad attitude and don’t want to do the job? Or they aren’t capable of ever doing the job? As soon as you feel comfortable with one of these causes of poor performance, the required actions should be obvious.
Effective managing has always been hard work. Maybe we should look at the word, “managing.” Whenever I think of that word I think of a circus act with the animal manager whipping the animals into shape to do their rehearsed acts. People don’t like to be managed. People want to be guided and lead to a level of desired effectiveness and treated with respect. A great leader is a good communicator, one that explains what the activity that needs to happen and the skills set required then backs it up with clarity. Many time managers go awry by not achieving clarity in communication. “What is your interpretation of what I just asked you to do?” That simple question gets amazing answers and shows how effective the communication is to achieve results.
On another note, I think a real problem in the human resource field today is the lack of understanding of gender gaps. What motivated the baby boom generation, does not motivated the Gen X or Y group. They were raised differently and marched to a different drum. But we are still using the same old tired concepts. A good leader understands the different needs and idiosyncrasies of the workforce today and responds to each to create the passion of success desired consistently.
It is the culture of a corporation or smaller company that should convey the management style. Top-down–from CEO to the lowest level of management–should be educated in general terms how to manage the departments and reportees.
As a worker under a manger, you always observe the ‘pluses and minuses’ of your boss, and view other bosses’ handling of their workers. Reading and actual experience will help you manage, when you gain this position.
If you feel your manager/boss, is not giving you a fair and viable education on managing, speak to the human resources manger.
Isn’t it too bad that corporations have had to become lean ‘n mean, and work their managers to a frenzy…all to beat Wall Street’s projections, or short term the business and management quality to “get that bottom line”? No wonder the younger generations want no part of the corporate world…and retailing too! Hmmmmmmm
You can’t “standardize” management any more than you can “standardize” customer service. Standardization too quickly becomes a substitute for thinking.
First regarding “time.” We have all the time there is, there is no more. My best advice to ‘overly stressed’ managers/people is SLOW DOWN. You’ll get more done that way. Take at least 30 minutes or maybe an hour at the beginning of each day to just think through your day. The “busier” your day is going to be, the more time you take. It’s in that quiet you find the alignment you need for the day. Try it, it works. (I’ve given out pillow cases to executive teams with SLOW DOWN printed on them. They were a huge hit.)
Second. Stress sooner or later raises the question of purpose. As someone said: “Having lost sight of our objectives, let us redouble our efforts.” What do most of us (at least those of a male persuasion) do when we’re lost? We drive faster. ‘Craziness’ at work is usually due to lack of defined and communicated purpose.
Third. Once that purpose is defined managers need ask only one question of themselves at every point of action. “Does this decision or behavior ‘enable’ or ‘disable’ the fulfillment of that purpose?” If it enables–do it. If it disables–don’t.
Finally, and I hope this point is made by many commentators this morning–managers need to get out of the way. Many of us are fond of Peter Drucker’s comment that management is mostly a matter of preventing people from doing their job.
But when it’s done right ‘management’ is a noble calling indeed.
There’s no “right way” to manage because managers are individuals and the people who report to them are also individuals. One manager may “direct through indirection” and encourage his team to be self-starters, while another manager may need to be more hands-on in the supervision of her employees. It depends totally on the circumstances, the type of business, the experience level of the team, and the culture of the company.
All this sounds like conventional wisdom even if it’s true. The underlying issue may be time-starved managers. Technology that was intended to make the workplace more productive–the cell phone, BlackBerry, and so on–has in some ways enslaved managers and kept them from having enough face time and “teaching time” with the people they manage. Regardless of the “right management style” that works for you, it doesn’t work without enough time to accomplish it.
Just as Bruce wrote a book on the subject of the need for better management and better management training, one could write a book just answering the questions that are presented in this discussion. To be brief, let me just make a couple of points.
1. Treating people equally is a great concept but one that does not hold water, or work. The key is not to treat people equally but to treat them fairly. Best producers get better rewards. We do not pay all people the same unless you are in a union environment.
2. Managers need training. Reports show that new managers have a 50% likelihood of failing in the first 18 months on the job.
3.When it comes to management there are 8 things that employees want. I call them the 7 Rs and 1 C. They are not in order of importance.
1. Recognition
2. Respect
3. Rules
4. Reward
5. Responsibility
6. Relationships
7. Revelry
8. Communications
Managing people is all about exerting leadership. Leadership is not a passive activity, leadership is about being visible, being involved and being accessible.
There are tons of how-to books published, seemingly, daily. They cover wide ranges of subjects from managing people, mastering computer skills, cooking, biking and topics ad nauseum.
Yet all of this is just plain rubbish in the absence of action. One can read all day long about “how” to do this and that, but the fact remains that the best way to learn is to “do.”
It is the “doing” that is the problem amongst many retail leaders today. Remarkably the “doing” part of leadership is inate amongst most people, they only have to act naturally.
Leading is pretty straight forward and involves team and individual interactions. How well one leads is based upon the consistency with which they apply common sense.
Leaders lead by interacting with their people. They lead at both the team and individual level, similar approaches; one macro, one micro.
Group Activity:
1. Ensuring the team understands company goals and your goals.
2. Reviewing achievement of company and team goals
3. Identifying challenges to achievement of goals
4. Providing appreciation, support, suggestions and challenges
One-on-One Activity
1. Setting individual goals which support the larger goals
2. Reviewing individual business goal progress
3. Identifying individual challenges and providing support
4. Reviewing individual personal goal progress
5. Providing appreciation, support, suggestions and challenges
It’s important to measure management quality. No single measure can do it. Retailers typically look at sales increases and ignore statistics like staff turnover and promotions from within. Many press releases use anecdotes to brag about management excellence, instead of using objective measures consistently applied on a frequent periodic basis. How many retail stocks would go up if they reported their employee turnover each quarter?
My father has a very simple maxim: “managers should manage so that workers can work.” Sounds easy but it incorporates the key principle of management: your job is to clear road blocks and conflicts out of the way and to weigh in on tough decisions so that the people under you can be more productive. It’s amazing how few managers do this well–and yes, it’s often because we take a strong individual contributor and make them a manager even though the two skill sets are very different. Management training should focus on empowering and supporting your employees so they feel confident to move forward and have air cover when they stumble. On the other hand, I’ve managed people for years and no one ever taught me this. I just took the characteristics of all the bad managers I’d worked for and did the opposite. Businesses don’t value good management no matter what they say–they have trouble correlating it to the bottom line so it gets lip service but no real innovation.
Of course, every employee is different. The key to managing is to tune in to each person and figure out what that person needs from you and how to manage that person to success. The answer is different for every person. But you don’t find that answer with every person by being a hands off manager!!!! You find that answer with every person by being a highly engaged manager. Do you want ENGAGED employees? The key is to teach your managers to be engaged. Stop asking if your employees are engaged and start asking if your managers are engaged!!!!
Being the boss is a huge responsibility. If you are the boss, people are looking to you to set them up for success and help them earn what they need for their family.
What we have found in thirteen years of research on the front lines of organizations in just about every industry is this: Most managers simply neglect the basics. There are lots of beautiful formulas for what managers should do and how they should do it. Most of them work a lot better in the ivory tower than the real world.
My research has led me back to basics because what I find over and over again in the real world is that most managers simply don’t spend enough time spelling out expectations; monitoring performance and providing feedback, guidance, direction and coaching; solving small problems before they turn into big problems; and rewarding people extra when they go the extra mile. As a result, problems occur that didn’t need to occur, problems get out of control that could have been solved easily, resources are squandered, personnel problems abound, and managers are pulling their hair out… and then managers spend all their management time putting out fires that never had to start in the first place… and then they REALLY don’t have time to manage.
Look around!! Most managers fool themselves into thinking that they don’t have enough time to manage; that the red tape and rules and HR police prevent them from doing what they need to do; that they are not ‘naturally good at managing’; that they don’t want to stage confrontations with employees so they avoid difficult conversations; that they want to be ‘one of the guys’ so they do all their workplace rapport building talking about personal stuff instead of work; that they should be ‘fair’ by treating everyone the same; that they should ’empower’ people by letting them figure things out on their own.
That entire mindset leads to devastating undermanagement. It is the mindset of false empowerment, false fairness, false nice guy, weak negligent management. We should stop selling managers the nonsense platitudes of false empowerment and start teaching them the basics of managing again.
The workplace is becoming more and more high pressure. The workforce is becoming more and more high maintenance. That calls for strong leadership, not weak. That calls for real empowerment: Support, guidance, and direction. It’s time to get back to basics. Real managers in the real world who do that will quickly start seeing radical improvements in productivity, quality, morale, and turnover.
My best advice is for managers to “MBWA,” manage by walking around. It is always amazing what you can learn when you get up from your computer or get off your blackberry and talk to your people; and talk to your customers. The focus becomes that much clearer when this occurs, because managers are accessible to their people and can see what their customers are seeing. Too often this is a rarity. Managers need development and support from HR and upper management for sure, but communication skills are essential today.
At the end of the day, it’s about people: MBWA and getting back to basics and communications. Planning for the day is important but it’s not effective unless you have all the information. Connect with your employees. Ask how they’re doing. Ask how they think the team is doing. Ask what they need. Ask how you can help. Managers who say they don’t have enough time to for it are probably right. Putting out fires takes a lot of time.
But, building a strong team takes commitment. And the payoff is huge. Employees who feel part of something and connected to their boss and co-workers are generally happier. Happy employees mean happy customers. Focusing on small changes with an employee at a time is going to free up the time managers need to communicate, coach, teach, encourage, and ultimately get out of the way so their employees can do their jobs well.
Should they be treated differently? No and yes. They should be treated the same with regard to respect and a human connection. Employees are people first and workers second. Connect on the human level that transcends the boss-worker mentality and you’ll strengthen their feeling of belonging. But, employees need to be treated differently with regard to feedback and what motivates them. Because it is different for everyone.