Sorry if you choked on your doughnut while reading the title but, really, there has been so much written about CEO’s and their lack of ethics but their abundance of perks; about how leaders are failing every stakeholder they answer to and about how, like the dodo, management as a practice is becoming extinct.
How did things get this bad? Like Wile E. Coyote, didn’t we see Roadrunner aiming that anvil right at our heads?
Here’s my theory: we brought it on ourselves; we asked for the anvil. Why?
- We continue to hobnob with people who look like us and think just the way we do.
- We ignore social media as a passing fad or something IT needs to eliminate from employees’ Internet permissions.
- We haven't picked up on the fact that people are organizing online in communities that criss-cross time zones, date lines and borders to innovate, collaborate and create their own products and services. What's irrelevant are buildings and organization charts and titles.
- We talk engagement but secretly believe “they” are lucky to have a job.
- Change is for everyone else.
- We've been drinking the Kool-Aid of “shareholder value” as the only means to an end.
- And follow it up with a chaser of re-engineering as a synonym for de-layering, downsizing and off shoring (but, oh, that short term lift to the bottom line!).
- We are rock stars, aren't we?
I held management positions for twenty years; I know what it’s like to slog away and then be rewarded for my efforts with a fancy title and a fancy car. The problem is, the Roadrunner is on our tails, with a stick of dynamite.
I am really raving about this issue because there is so much more that managers can do not only save ourselves but also to make a difference in our companies and to the employees who report to us. For a less heated rant, I recommend an article titled, The End of Management by Alan Murray, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on August 21st.
In my next blog, I may rant less and offer a few solutions to an issue I didn’t know meant this much to me – until now.
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Rant away Barbara.. they are instructive. But, there have got to be some managers/executives out there that get it. It would be nice to read a story about them sometime.. Bueller? Bueller?
ReplyDeleteAt least let us hope there are some.. maybe not.
Looking forward to you suggestions.
Mike, you're absolutely right, there are managers and leaders who get it and that is my focus for next week. I just had to get the other stuff off my mind because there is a plethora of bad news out there. BUT, I really believe that if we have re-engineered every other process, it's time to run the management process through the meat grinder, too.
ReplyDeleteI love the coyote by the way, and I do believe the roadrunner is nipping at his heels. I think another tend is that we kept pushing employees to make decisions, "push decisions down"" that we no longer need managers to decide when to order copier paper. We also as you mentioned, we are working virtually and not necessarily in offices so who are managers going to manage? Themselves? I don't think so!! :)
ReplyDeleteYes, poor old Wil E. Coyote; he is all of us if we don't step it up. What a great observation: we keep pushing more decision making and autonomy downstream and then expect that our jobs haven't changed at all!
ReplyDeleteI hope that next week, I'll be calmer and more reflective of the role of the manager in the new organizational model. I hope you will contribute some of your thoughts as they are always real world and practical.