...if it weren't for the people. (Which brings to mind an article I read several years ago wherein the author points out alternate uses of the word 'manage', as in, 'Oh, the house burned down, the crops died, and our Internet service is very slow...but we'll manage'. Given that, how could being a 'manager' mean anything other than dealing with failure on a routine basis?)
When I was younger and more idealistic, I used to read management articles pretty often. I liked the articles in the Sloan School of Business magazine the most, with the Harvard Business Review being a close second (they were more global in scope than Sloan, but Sloan felt more realistic, as if they were written by the actual people involved, and not dictated to a furiously penning scribe). When I discovered INC magazine, I thought that this was even better, because it was about people working (for the most part) in small businesses -- anything from the family drug store to a company that employed about a hundred people. These people didn't have much truck with elegant theory, however intellectually satisfying; they wanted facts and direct, clear statements.
One problem posed to one of INCs advisors still sticks with me. A person said that he and his wife had started a business, hired employees as it grew, and prospered to the point where they wanted to take some money out of the business to buy his and hers Mercedes (or similar; I don't recall exactly). The question was, should they? On one hand, the advisor said, it was their business, and they could do whatever they chose with the money from the business. On the other, the business presumably relied heavily on the good will and effort of the employees; if they saw the owners strutting their new toys, they might become restive.
I recall this one, I think, because several years ago I worked for a large computer company which was solely owned by one man. The company was publicly traded, but he held a controlling interest. One year he decided it would be a dandy thing for his son to learn to fly a helicopter (the son ended up flying around the world, hop-scotching from one military base to another, courtesy of his father's connections). He had a small heliport built next to the main office building. Every couple of days, we could see the helicopter arrive, and the son (and sometimes others) would go out and lift off.
The helicopter was owned by the company; the company was owned by the man. Did this make it right? I know that very few of us seemed upset by the sight of the helicopter (it was fun to watch, actually, when the professional pilot would land it, because, among other things, he would land exactly aligned with the helipad's long edge, and he would apply the rotor brake so that the blade stopped exactly aligned with the body of the helicopter. Classy. ) We tended to think that 'them as has, gets'. But every so often, we'd think about what we were paid (and we were paid well) versus the cost to the company of that helicopter....and we'd get just a bit glum. I specifically recall one day when the helicopter arrived and the passengers walked out in business suits; on disembarkation, they all wore bathing suits. None who saw that felt much like working, afterward. The sight had demotivated us, even though, objectively, nothing in our work environment had changed.
To me, motivation is the key responsibility of management. It's not just money, or power, either. Maslow said it well, decades ago, with his Hierarchy (I mentioned it once to a fellow manager, during my tenure in that job, and was surprised to learn that he'd never heard of it). And I developed for myself (not first, but I thought of it before I read it) the concept that people want attention in varying degrees; some want you to know everything they're doing, and others don't want you in their airspace at all, but everyone wants recognition and respect for what they do. You can go a long way simply assuring people that you do see their activities, and that you value them. It doesn't hurt to point out, gently, that you likely value them better than they do, themselves, because when you value them, you don't see the nagging little doubts that everyone has -- the ones that say 'oh, you're not so good' or 'oh, you could have done that piece of work better'. All you see is the output, and so you can value them without distraction. I'm amazed how often that doesn't occur to people. Though perhaps I shouldn't be: when I'm in the doldrums, it doesn't occur to me, either.
One of the many managerial tasks that I never mastered past that point, though, was how you motivate people. I knew intellectually how to do it; the problem was in figuring out which of the possible methods would work with a given person. I recall a manager of mine, during that period, saying to me that he had to call in one of his employees and 'get him excited about' a task he wanted him to perform. He wasn't being evilly manipulative; he simply wanted this person to accept this task and run with it; further, to be enthused about it. I wished that I could have listened to his conversation, because it worked, and I wanted to know how to do it.
It only occurred to me much later that he did the same thing to me, too.
2 comments:
I consider that quite a compliment, but, truthfully, I wasn't a very good manager. I never had the sense that I 'got' the idea of doing business. I found it hard to be tough when needed. I would tell people if I needed something done, and they would do it, but I had difficulty engaging them in the concept of 'this is our business, lets make it profitable together'. Part of that was because, no matter how profitable, it didn't result in more goodies for us, but part was that I couldn't come up with ways to engage their imagination. I would read articles about organizations which were deeply structured -- say, the military -- and try to draw some conclusions from what worked for them. The one thing I did that I was pleased about, years later, was when we had to get another person for our team. Rather than simply picking the person from the pool of applicants, I picked three, and let people from the group decide who they'd want to work with. I had some people tell me they really appreciated that, because it rarely happened. Right here, under the glass on my desk, I have a Dilbert where he is doing an interview, and the applicant asks, suspiciously, why he has to use the phrase ' the principle of employee empowerment' -- if they were truly empowered, they'd never consider needing a phrase for it. I agree with that. How often do you see articles these days about houses that have indoor plumbing, or telephones? If its an accepted and normal part of the environment, you don't even notice it.
Thanks for your comment.
The trick is learning what that style should be. I have heard of 'executive coaches' who work with senior managers, many of whom are startled to learn that their subordinates do not like the way they do their job. At my grunt-level manager job, no such coaching was possible. If you were lucky (and I was, once, and not, once), you had a manager who would give you specific pointers -- do this, don't do that. Short on theory, but better by far than trying wing it.
Thanks for writing.
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