It’s always the managers

Dear Bob …

In a recent column you said, “Among the many lessons to be learned, one stands out. Twice. The lesson: The person in charge has a huge impact on performance.”

More passion and emphasis please. This lesson is THE PRIMARY AND MOST IMPORTANT LESSON to be learned. Please excuse my shouting but I feel very passionately about this subject.

Every organization – not most or some – every organization is a reflection of the person in charge. It is the person in charge who sets the tone and culture throughout the organization. There may be pockets in an organization that appear to contradict this but their true effectiveness will always be influenced/limited by the values of the person in charge.

It makes no difference that Abrashoff was working with an unfree work force, his methods will work in any company with or without a “free” work force. That is not to say every person within any work force will respond – some never will and these individuals need to be cut loose. However, the vast majority of people will respond positively to the methods espoused by Abrashoff.

Whenever a company resorts to downsizing or layoffs, it is a management failure.  It is managements JOB to run the company. When management lays off personnel, management failed to anticipate market changes, or management over-hired or failed to utilize its resources to best advantage. If management lets people go due to poor performance it is management’s fault for failing to best know how to motivate and use those people.  It is management’s job to communicate with its people in a way those people understand. Every person is different and some respond differently than others. It is management’s job to figure out those differences. It is not the employees job to figure out how to talk to the boss – which unfortunately is how all too many manager’s believe.

All too often, management blames the employees when in reality it is management that is to blame. Unfortunately, our system seems to constantly give management a pass on its failures. And having failed at its job, management gives itself huge pay raises, bonuses, and golden parachutes.

Organizations have only two resources, both equally important, employees and customers. Everything else is just stuff.  In most cases, when an organization is facing a problem or even a crisis, the answer to the problem or crisis is readily available through the resources of the company. However, management in its “infinite wisdom” thinks it knows all the answers and fails to utilize its resources, resorting to layoffs

and downsizing. If management had been paying attention, it would have seen the problem coming before it became a crisis and it would have mobilized its resources to find and implement the answer. Maybe not every crisis or layoff can be prevented in this way but most employees at ost companies are so under-utilized and under-appreciated that they have gone to sleep on the job. Again that is management’s fault.

Don’t believe me – look at the U.S.S. Benfold.  Or in the private sector look at Southwest Airlines.

– Knows who’s to blame

Dear Knows-who …

But don’t hold back – tell me how you really feel about the situation.

You and I are in about 90% agreement. Maybe more. There is, I think, one aspect of the situation you’re missing, though: “Management” isn’t a thing. It isn’t a person. In mathematical terms it’s a set, defined as those employees who are responsible for the performance of a business function.

More or less – the dictionary definitions are pretty much useless.

Much of my recent series on turning around complacent organizations has been focused on new CIOs figuring out what to do about the organization they’ve inherited. They aren’t to blame for the situation – the person who is to blame is gone, making the allocation of blame an even less useful exercise than normal.

Get back to the definition: A manager is someone who’s responsible for the performance of a business function. It doesn’t matter who’s to blame for a business situation. It might be a departed CEO who who trusted his gut even though the data clearly demonstrated his digestive tract was wrong; the current CEO, who failed to anticipate a radical change in the marketplace; the whole sales organization which hasn’t met its commitments; the accounting department, which, during the budgeting process, flogged the sales organization to come up with the “right” revenue number; or whoever.

The business faces a situation and has to respond to it no matter how it got into the mess in the first place. A layoff isn’t a punishment used to penaliize employees who are to blame for the situation. It’s one of many mechanisms managers use to address a business challenge. Often it’s a badly used one (you might recall I’ve criticized bogus layoffs several times over the past few years). Sometimes it’s the most effective response.

I did want to address one point you made: ” It is not the employees job to figure out how to talk to the boss – which unfortunately is how all too many manager’s believe.”

No, it isn’t the employee’s job to do so. Effective managers take responsibility for learning how to communicate with their employees as part of how they maximize their effectiveness. Effective leaders recognize the communication is one of the eight tasks they have to master.

There is, however, a flip side to this particular coin. Employees who take responsibility for their own careers take care to learn how to talk effectively with the boss. Wise employees understand that they’re independent businesses that sell their services to a customer – the person who makes the decision to buy their service. Their boss is, in a very real sense, their customer.

And it isn’t the customers’ job to learn how to talk to their providers.

– Bob

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