Management is a Relationship

May 10, 2012 Laurie Management Work, Motivation, Performance Management

Is it wired into a human being to think everything is About Me? As managers, we operate like individuals. But notice three management words:

  • Perform – The word comes from the Latin “per” (thoroughly) + “fournir” (provide or furnish). To perform means to provide something thoroughly, to someone or something outside ourselves. Performance is delivering a product, service, or communication to other people – not an individual phenomenon.
  • Accomplish, from the Latin “ad” (to) + “com” (with) + “plere” (fulfill) reminds us that to accomplish is to complete, or fill, together. The root of accomplishment is with others, not a solo performance.
  • Promise is from the Latin “pro” (forward) + “mittere” (send), with the same base as “missile”, or “mission”. It’s about sending something forth to someone else, making an agreement with someone to do something.

Performance, in fact all accomplishment, is not a product of individual, or even team, effort. It is a product of the relationships between individuals and between teams. That’s why it is so important to pay attention to the deliverables – the products, services, and communications – that are sent from one person or group to another.

In fact, the deliverable may be more important than the people. Heresy? No. The deliverables are what connect us to each other for performance. We can define and change a deliverable, and agree on it in a way that we may not be able to agree about our own thoughts, feelings, and values. Get the deliverable right, and you share an accomplishment.

Share
No comments

Tools of Management

May 2, 2012 Laurie Change Management, Management Problem, Management Work, Performance Management

I see where the missing 50% of my performance went: it never had a chance.

If the basic tools of management are:
1. Scoreboards for Objectives, Deliverables, and Players;
2. Calendars for Objectives, Deliverables, and Assessments;
3. Players Map(s); and
4. Conversations for Creating agreements, Agreement status, and Endings,
… then I am missing the first tool of management in several areas.

Those little tasks – usually tied to bigger ones – are not well anchored to a Specific Measurable Result. The SMR, as it’s called in some university MBA programs, can be associated with an objective, a deliverable, or a particular “player” such as a customer, partner, or vendor.

A task like “find the disconnects in this process and make it more efficient” might sound like there’s a clear objective: a more efficient process. But why? What’s the big picture purpose? How will we know we’ve won, or accomplished something worthwhile?

Too many of my tasks are not aligned with something – a Specific Measurable Result – that is valuable to me. I can fix that!

Share
No comments

When Management is Missing

April 24, 2012 Laurie Management Problem, Performance Management

There’s a virus in our house today – we both have too many projects that all need to be moved forward at once. Which is, of course, impossible. Yet we think we “should” anyway.

So I made up a calendar with a 10,000-foot-view of the next 2 months: Where will I be each week? What commitments are already scheduled? Any empty space?

I printed it out to post by my desk. On the back of recycled paper I saw reference to a 2006 Time article, “Help, I’ve lost my focus”. There are no accidents.

Googled the title: it described someone with 15 projects. Absurd. Wait. I counted up my current projects: 12. Oops.

How to reclaim myself when lost in multiple demands? What, exactly, isn’t being managed or accounted for? The schedule helps, seeing the future of my present obligations. I read the whole article looking for suggestions to get back to management.

I’m Good: I already keep my computer’s sound turned off, looking at email when I choose, not when a bell rings. Yes, the phone rings sometimes, but I work to keep calls brief when I’m “on task”.

I’m Bad: I fill “blank spaces” in my schedule with the work I intend to do between appointments or conference calls. But I only succeed about half the time. I wonder what that’s about?

Power = Responsibility. If I blame something other than my own habits and practices, I don’t get my power back. 50% missing performance says Management is Missing.

Share
No comments

The END of Leadership

April 20, 2012 Laurie Management Work, Performance Management

That’s the title of a new book by Barbara Kellerman – and she didn’t even add a question mark. Kellerman comes right out and identifies the “leadership industry” as the myriad companies and coaches who make their living from leadership.

Kellerman says in the 1970’s, Warren Bennis began differentiating leaders from managers, of course favoring the leader as “a swashbuckling hero” over the manager, who was “a bureaucratic bore”. It was era when the leader was seen as an “original”, while the manager was just a “copy”, and thought a leader inspired trust while a mere manager had to resort to control.

Kellerman admits there is still an “apparently bottomless market for leadership training and development”, but says now we ask, “How are our leaders doing, really?” We – followers – are somewhere between disappointment and outrage – Kellerman says “disillusioned”.

I’m OK with the leadership industry, but it IS time to restore management as the vehicle for actually implementing the nuts-and-bolts work of creating accomplishment.

Managers keep the goals and objectives alive and real for the people working toward the fulfillment of the goal. They also:
1. Deliver the communications that keep things going,
2. Launch new phases of work and recognize accomplishments as they occur,
3. Build accountability and agreements for producing results, and
4. Listen and integrate feedback from all elements of the team and key stakeholders.

That’s a good recipe for personal and organizational accomplishment that some of today’s leaders would do well to copy.

Share
No comments

Who Uses a Mission Statement?

April 16, 2012 Laurie Motivation

Answer: Almost nobody. Why? Because a mission statement is usually trying to do too much.

One manager recently told me the mission statement should accomplish 3 things:
1. Guide the department,
2. Advertise your strengths, and
3. Distinguish your department from peers and rivals.

Actually, the main emphasis of a mission statement should be to identify what your department sends out to its primary customers. The words “missile” and “missive” derive from the same root: to send.

When your mission statement identifies what you deliver, it pulls people outside their “box” and into the world they are intending to impact. That is also a quick way to guide the department, advertise your strengths, and distinguish you from peers and rivals, right?

Focusing people’s attention on the primary deliverable – the product, service, or communication that your customers want, need, and value – is a way to help people see above the fray of workplace busy-ness. It helps them see the outside world they are there to serve, even if that outside world is really another department inside their own meta-organization.

An authentic mission statement centers on what your department provides, delivers, or impacts – outside itself. It lifts people up outside their normal everyday swirl of productivity and distractions, and reminds them what they are there to accomplish.

I do agree with that manager about one thing, though: he said it’s most likely to be effective if it’s short and concise enough to fit on a t-shirt.

Share
No comments

Managing for Non-Dummies: Three Duties

April 11, 2012 Laurie Management Work, Performance Management, Uncategorized

“Managing for Dummies” by Bob Nelson PhD & Peter Economy lists the 6 Management Duties:
1. Hire and interview new employees. Most managers have people who are already there and don’t have a big say in hiring.
2. Set goals that are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Gotta love this! Every manager needs it.
3. Develop employees through coaching, mentoring, and career-development plans. Really? A manager’s job includes being a guidance counselor?
4. Work with teams, providing focus and responsibility. Why is this a separate item?
5. Manage virtual employees and shift-workers – orient them, and communicate with them. Um, I think you have to orient and communicate with other employees too, right? Were these workers singled out because the authors think managers don’t remember to manage people who don’t visit the coffee machine?
6. Monitor performance and execution. Give positive feedback. This is what management is all about. Glad to see it mentioned in the last item.

Treat virtual and shift workers like everybody else.

If you’re lucky enough to make hiring decisions, learn how to do interviews.

If you’re unlucky enough to have to develop people’s careers in addition to actually managing for results, learn how to do that too.

So, it boils down to:
A. Set SMART goals for Teams and everybody else.
B. Monitor Team performance and results to increase responsibility.
C. Communicate by orienting people – and Teams – to their job, giving them positive feedback, and providing focus.

A good start.

Share
No comments

Job #1 for Leaders, Job #1 for Managers

March 28, 2012 Laurie Motivation

In a class on leadership, the instructor talked about Job #1 for a leader: Commit to something you want to see happen – your vision of what’s possible. OK, so you need to care about accomplishing something, then commit yourself to accomplishing it.

The professor talked about the class structure. “This won’t be a lecture,” she said. “You’ll choose something you want to see happen, something bigger than you can do on your own. Then you’ll use this class to guide and support you in being a leader who makes your vision a reality.”

The students dutifully took notes. Then one of them asked the Big Question: “Yes, but how will we know how much work we’re going to have to do?”

Good point – when leaders commit to a vision, they don’t know what it will take. Kennedy didn’t know everything required to send a man to the moon and return him safely to Earth. Gandhi didn’t know how much work there would be to get the British out of India.

Leaders commit to a vision. The students wanted to be managers, a much more predictable job.

Managers don’t have to commit to the whole vision. Some people took charge of getting villages to make salt from seawater, so India wouldn’t have to depend on Britain for their salt. They managed salt-making, inside the vision that Gandhi provided.

There is a recipe for good management to make Leader’s vision into reality.

Job #1 for a manager: know the management recipe.

Share
No comments

What is “Management”?

March 15, 2012 Laurie Management Problem, Management Work

I’ve been away at a large conference on the management of radioactive wastes around the world. Day 1, I attended a workshop on “decisions and tools for managers” for technical and field specialists moving into management roles. In fact, the subtitle of the workshop was “How I Learned to Love the Org Chart”.

I’ll say more about that workshop in upcoming blogs, but the rest of the conference pointed to several different meanings of the word “management:

  • Day 2: Environmental management; Commercial waste management;
  • Day 3: Project management;
  • Day 4: Legacy management; Worldwide perspectives of waste management; and
  • Day 5: Risk management.

So what are we talking about? What’s the difference between management and administration or supervision? Is management different when we talk about the management of change, or management of strategy, operations, projects, or processes?

The one lesson I took away was that management must always be “for” something. People manage FOR some results or outcomes. The most important part of the job must always be to remember what the heck we’re managing for.

In other words, management isn’t just activities like communicating, resolving conflicts, making decisions. It is actually lots of actions that are organized FOR accomplishing some end. In fact, that’s where the word comes from: to manage is to have your hand (Latin: manus) on the reins for controlling a horse.

Governing the wild horse of worldwide radioactive wastes is quite a challenge, and smart people are working on it at all levels. What IS management?

Share
No comments

Management Vocabulary

February 23, 2012 Laurie Management Problem, Performance Management

The fourth and final finding in our study of “Leadership of Change” has to do with the vague and confusing vocabulary people use about leadership.

For example, the term “communication” is used to cover many different intentions, behaviors, and activities. Of course communication is important for both leadership and management, but is it the content of the communication that matters most? Or is it the way it is delivered? Or whether it is delivered in person or by teleconference, to large groups or small ones, accompanied by documentation or visual materials?

I’m leaving soon for this year’s version of a conference I attended last year. My old notes show the word “management” meant something different in almost every presentation: regulation, control, strategy, legislation, supervision, or providing resources to people in the workplace.

The word “performance” was equally overused, which was especially odd since they didn’t seem to have a shared understanding of what their metrics were. Without alignment on metrics, what does performance mean?

Here’s hoping for more clarity this year, but even if it’s not there, I’ll be taking notes on what management could mean for their world. More later.

Share
No comments

The First Management Challenge: Altitude

February 16, 2012 Laurie Management Work

This morning an exasperated manager said, “I manage this international program, but there are too many levels of authority. We have operations in Asia, Europe, Great Britain, and North and South America.”

She went on, glazing over a little, “In each of those locations are three functional areas and one financial center – four more managers. What does management mean when you have so much going on?”

I reminded her of the Rule of Management Altitude: Every level of altitude must be managed at that level of altitude. In her example there are three levels of altitude – international level, national or regional level, and functional/financial level. That means, I told her, that:

  1. You manage the international program, i.e. you manage all the nations or regions;
  2. The national or regional managers, such as the one for Europe or the one from Brazil, manage their whole nation or regional area.
  3. Each functional or financial center manager manages their function or center.

“Yes,” she said, but those are very different kinds of management. I would be managing managers, and so would the nationals. But the functional and financial managers at the bottom level are managing operations, processes, and systems.”

But they really aren’t different kinds of management. At each level the managers will manage exactly the same three things:

  • The structure for accomplishment;
  • The network of agreements for deliverables and communications; and
  • The conversations for implementation that enact the network.

Management = Structure, Agreements, and Conversations. Same job, different altitude.

Share
No comments
« Older Entries