Has Management Become Just a J-O-B? Five Enduring Lessons

A couple of weeks ago, I asked whether ‘management’ is obsolete. As a discipline, it’s less than 100 years old and emerged in response to the large and complex organizations that grew after World War I. Management doesn’t have an exam like the law or licensure like medicine to demonstrate proficiency. Nevertheless, management is a difficult practice that many have come to with poor training and confusing expectations. And yet, while some practices must change, there are some enduring lessons about management I’ve learned during my career:

Embrace Your Outliers: I had a manager in London who was gender blind and that was a real asset to me, who wanted to be one of the first women to present insurance risks at Lloyd’s of London. It was about competence and potential, not whether we used the same bathroom.

Get a Mentor; Be a Mentor: One of my favorite managers made it his job to take on new recruits in a structured way to develop our skills and show us the ropes even if we were not in his department. He insisted that we give back by becoming a mentor and I found that teaching was the best way to learn.

The Better You Are, The Better I Look: This was the philosophy of a dynamic manager who made a point of surrounding himself with the best people he could recruit. The team couldn’t have been more different and while that caused friction, it also made for amazing innovations, growth and surprising agility. I learned from him that diversity of thought is a competitive advantage and that as change is the only constant in business, it was advantageous to get out in front of it or get out of the way.

Make a Decision: I once asked a manager for feedback on areas to improve after a performance review. He thought for a minute and then said, “Don’t take forever to make a decision. Gather information, hear opinions and then make a decision. You can always modify it but people hate dithering.” Good advice.

You Are the Culture: If you are a manager, even if you aren’t the uber-manager, you set the tone for your department. People learn the way things are done from you, good or bad. Employees don’t leave their jobs; they leave their managers. A hard lesson I learned as a manager was when I took over from someone who had very different ideas about what it meant to manage. If I had to do it over, I’d spend a lot more time changing the culture before thinking I could change anything else.

I agree with Gary Hamel that management processes have to be redesigned to take account of new organizational structures, different workforce dynamics and technological advances. His Management Innovation Exchange is an open innovation project aimed at reinventing management. It doesn’t mean throwing out every good thing we learned as managers; it’s just about kicking out what no longer works, like celebrity managers.

Waging the War on Bureaucracy: Is Management Obsolete?

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.

Three Big Trends That Will Change the Way You Make Decisions

I attended a seminar this week on predictive analytics, a topic some say would cure insomnia. But, I found the trends important and worth more consideration by anyone who owns a business or runs one or is employed by one – so the majority of us.

I love data, even as a totally right-brained person, because it has a story to tell. The problem is we’ve exhausted the process of using lagging indicators to produce insight about future decisions. Companies should be moving from silos of data hoarded and rarely aggregated to a point where employees collaborate and make real time, fact-based decisions based on modeling organizational data and assessing the power of one choice over others to achieve results.

A few years ago, Thomas Davenport wrote a book titled, Competing on Analytics and cited large companies such as Marriott, Harrah’s and Progressive Insurance as the analytics champions. Not much hope for the rest of us, is that what you’re thinking?

Here’s what I learned from that seminar and I believe it is important for businesses of all sizes to get really clear about the implications of these trends:

Analytics are moving downstream. What was once done by a cube farm full of PhD’s will be done by us regular people who are tasked to come up with hard evidence for what we do (market, train, deploy technology, in short, everything). Technology will make it possible to collaborate with other functions to aggregate data and perform our own statistical and predictive work. On our laptops. In real time. Maybe a lone PhD floating among us.

Analytics are moving into every function. No longer will we be able to get by with a "I -can’t- quantify- the- ROI -of –why- I –need- this- money- from- the- budget-but- trust-me- on- this". Jack Fitz-Enz said it best in his new book The New HR Analytics: if the HR department doesn’t feel up to handling human capital issues in a quantifiable, predictive way; the C-suite will give the responsibility to someone else. That holds true for every function from Marketing to Customer Service.

Predictive analytics are a competitive advantage. At a time when we all are looking for the Holy Grail of business success, if your company isn’t starting now to explore the concept, it could find itself out-maneuvered and shut out by the competition.

• What if your competition could predict which of its customers was likely to defect in 6 months and offer them a sweetheart deal before they are out the door?
• How much money will you spend trying to woo a customer that isn’t interested in moving her business to you because you don’t know which behaviors trigger a purchase?
• What if you could predict which employees had the greatest power to impact customer loyalty and could increase the likelihood of retaining them by customizing their rewards and recognition?

Am I going to turn away from my intuition or sense of what feels right in favor of analytics alone? Heck no, but using both is the right equation: Intuition+ Experience + Analytics = Insight + Results.

How about you?

Who Does Our Customer Experience Satisfy: The Customer or Us?

These days, who isn’t looking to create efficiencies in every work process, transaction and function? When we evaluate our options to be more efficient, can we quantify the impact on the customer and the employee?

I read a good article on the Great Brook website about customer experience management, which, the author contends, is looking from the wrong angle: the experience is designed; then managed to greater effect for both customer and company.

The article cited the notorious example of the JetBlue (ex) employee who went ballistic because of a rude passenger and, while he may have 90,000 “friends” on MySpace, he doesn’t have a job. The article examines the system from two perspectives: the customer (JetBlue actually refers to its passengers as customers) and the employee. The ultimate issue is not employee engagement per se or customer loyalty; JetBlue comes up well in research into both areas. It’s about how well the process has been designed to promote more harmony and less frustration; more engagement and less bad behavior; more loyalty and less attrition (or banging of stuff into overhead bins).

The crux of the problem in so many industries is that workflow and processes are designed from the Inside-Out, and the fact that the customer is actually a key component of the process isn’t factored in. All our side of the ledger shows is how much time and money saved and wasteful steps eliminated -- for us.

The burden of negotiating our unhelpful web sites, hellacious voice mail systems and confusing online storefronts calls falls on the customer; but when is the ensuing frustration accounted for as a cost? And, who measures the impact of (dis)engagement when customers’ anger and frustration are taken out on the front line employee?

When customer feedback says “I want self-service on my schedule, preferably online”, this is not a license to implement any sub-par system on the basis that because the customer has indicated a general preference, anything we implement is bound to satisfy needs.

I’ve spent a lot of time in business process redesign and there is no doubt that there is a smart way to do it and a really stupid way. Let’s outline the smart way and you’ll figure out what the stupid way looks like. When mapping a process that in any way involves customers:

• How are your customer interfaces designed? Inside-Out or Outside-In?
• What tasks are you asking customers to perform instead of you?
• Are you making the process efficient for the customer or just you?
• Are you saving yourself time at the expense of the customers’ time?
• Have you asked your employees which of your processes cause the most frustration for customers?
• Have you asked your customers the same question?
• Have you quantified the costs and benefits of your processes on your customers or you only?

Part of the employee engagement/customer commitment linkage is having processes that respect both parties who are expected to use them. Bringing a customer to the point of anger with an employee means that everyone loses.

Are you designing your processes Outside-in or Inside-out? Do you measure your own benefits from efficiency or do you think about the cost to your customers?

Hot Customer $ervice in the $ummer Time

We’ve been sweltering through a crispy summer in Atlanta and I finally had to bite the bullet to install a new HVAC system.

Of course in these new days of austerity, it wasn’t a matter of picking the prettiest system; oh no, I had to do my homework. Onto the web sites I went, looking at systems, any deals that could be available and, most importantly, what my friends and neighbors are saying about the two contractors I short-listed.

While I had used a locally well-known provider for 15 years, I had a very disappointing experience with one of the company’s executives last year. However, I decided to give them the opportunity to make a service recovery and quote for my business. And, I added another local contractor that had very positive online reviews. Both quotes were very similar but I couldn’t shake the bad experience I had had with my current vendor.

After dithering for a month (it’s $10,000 after all; not exactly an impulse purchase), I phoned the sales person for the second contractor. We discussed scheduling and the fact that in this Sahara-like summer, I couldn’t do without air conditioning for a day and a half. Without hesitating, he arranged to bring a room air conditioner 5 days before the work was due to start because “there is no reason why you have to be uncomfortable”.

Do I have to tell you who got the business?

Bill was on time and dutifully dragged the unit upstairs and down until we found a window that would accommodate it. He installed it, tested it and ensured there was no escape of precious cold air into the outdoors. And he did it all cheerfully on a day with a 106 -degree heat index.

I’ve told everyone who is even mildly interested about my customer experience and why I didn’t select the first vendor. Of course, if anyone asks me, I’d happily recommend Bill and his company. I’ll also be doing online reviews because I found them very helpful when I was looking for a new HVAC contractor.

Lessons learned?

• It takes only one conversation to lose a long time customer so if you have the words “Customer Service” in your title and you don’t live up to it, be prepared to lose your revenue base over and over again.

• What your web site and marketing materials say had better align with how your employees behave with customers; it’s becoming easier to spot the differences. And, in this economy, people are fed up and aren’t putting up with sub-par service.

• It only takes one small thing, in my case, the offer of a loaner air conditioner several days in advance of the installation, to completely surprise and delight a customer. We are so hardened to expect customer “no service” that when the unexpected happens, it produces multiples of satisfaction versus the actual expenditure of resources.

• Online reviews are routinely part of a customer’s research. Ignore them at your peril. Google never forgets!

• Word-of-mouth referrals and recommendations are incredibly important for any company.

• Going above and beyond, often in small ways that are personal, is the greatest source of satisfaction, which will drive intention to buy, refer and repurchase. When everything else is equal between you and your competitors, this kind of differentiator stands out.

What is your company doing to surprise and delight your customers? Do you monitor what people are saying about you – or do you think customers don’t really take notice of other peoples’ opinions?

Your Job is to Motivate: Fact or Fiction?

As a manager, I learned a long time ago that I couldn’t motivate anyone except me because motivation is internal and personal. I did learn, though, that the work environment can influence an employee’s motivation to achieve her own goals and that motivation positively affects performance and business results. Unfortunately, the wrong environment results in an equal and negative impact on motivation.

I just finished reading Dan Pink’s new book, Drive as well as a white paper published by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) on motivation. These are good resources and I recommend them. Both sources agree that there are a number of things at work that can influence motivation including engagement, commitment and job satisfaction.

As a manager, what does all of this research and thought leadership mean to me? How am I going to apply it? Here is the “how” of influencing motivation from my perspective:

It Starts With Selection. Hiring people with the internal orientation, not just the skills, has to be Job #1. Asking interview questions that help you assess the level of motivation present in a candidate is invaluable. Examples:

• “What is it about XYZ Company that makes you think this is the right place for you?”
• “What kind of work makes you excited to be at your job every day?”
• “What do you want to know from me?” (I think this one is key. If the candidate doesn’t have a clue, that’s a clue for you).

It’s Not Always About the Money (or the t-shirt or mug). As Dan Pink pointed out in Drive, extrinsic motivators work in very limited circumstances but intrinsic motivators work in a high percentage of scenarios. This isn’t an issue of pay; if that is out of line, morale and engagement will suffer.

What kind of intrinsic motivators could work with your staff? You’ll have to ask them because motivation, like fingerprints, is unique to the individual. This is where asking relevant questions specific to your company on an employee survey can provide great insights, especially when linked to other employee data and financial results.

Sometimes It’s About You. People don’t often leave their jobs but they do leave their managers. Here are some of the issues I’ve read when analyzing clients' employee engagement studies:

• Showing favoritism
• Not communicating often enough – or at all
• Pointing out failures but not successes
• Managing every detail of my job
• Not listening to my ideas
• Not allowing the flow of information to trickle down from senior management and percolate up from me.

Thinking about your own performance as a manager, here are questions you can ask of yourself:

• Am I managing someone’s job or managing results?
• Do I play favorites or let my personal likes and dislikes influence how work is done?
• Is information my personal power base, accessible by only a chosen few in my team?
• Do I insist on making all of the decisions or do I share that with all team members?
• Am I onboarding my new team members or do I leave that strictly to the HR department?

That Vision Thing. This is a tune I will continue to sing. Talking about the company’s vision, strategy and plans for the future often and with a consistent message is critical for commitment and therefore motivation. What if your company doesn’t have a concrete vision or strategy? Ask yourself:

• What results am I accountable for?
• What is the mission of my department/team/unit? What does it exist to do?
• How does my team contribute to the company’s results?
• How do I communicate our mission and our team goals?

Measure Progress Toward Results. Spread the News. End of story.

As Gary Hamel, a leading thinker on strategy, often says, leaders are needed at every level of a company. Providing a working environment that positively influences employee motivation can start right in your office, no matter what your title.

I’d love to hear what you are doing to influence employee motivation at your organization.

Making Tough News Inspiring

I had dinner with a client/friend last week; she is the COO of a small company that has had a lot of ups and downs given its revenue reliance on the construction industry. She has been studying trends in her business and it’s clear to her that things are going paperless; that more online/cloud computing is on its way and that things will change radically in the way business is transacted. To be competitive, the company will have to drive down the cost of doing business and still provide excellent service in a complex industry.

Instead of hiding her ideas behind a wall of silence until the inevitable day when she has to deliver bad news about restructuring and lay-offs, she called a town hall meeting. Here are some of the ideas she shared with the employees:

This is How Things Are Changing: She spelled out clearly how technology especially online computing would be game changing.

This is How the Changes Will Affect Our Business: She outlined the financial benefits of new technology and the consequences in terms of an uncompetitive position in the marketplace if it doesn’t change.

This is How the Changes Will Affect Job Roles: She drew two columns on a whiteboard: ‘This is How It Is Done’ and ‘This Is How It Will be Done’. Tasks currently done by paper or in disparate systems will be automated online.

This is How You Can Prepare and Benefit From the Changes: Clerical positions can’t stay as they are BUT there are opportunities to move up to more complex positions that are only done by people with knowledge, experience and judgment. Preparing for new roles requires training from us (company) and a determination from you (employee) to 1) ask for new projects and work; 2) be willing to step up and do more; 3) take a proactive approach to learning and building skills.

In Case You Think This Means a Pay Increase: The COO showed data from two outside sources that showed how salaries internally were out of line with the prevailing market.

These are tough messages for any leader to give but what is better: the shock of a lay-off with little or no notice or a clear message of how things will change and the offer of a partnership to develop new capabilities and skills?

The feedback from the staff has been very positive. They got it. This is change management at its best: BEFORE the fact, not AFTER. The senior employees are working diligently with the more clerical staff to design an on-the-job training curriculum and there are daily meetings to talk about progress. This is the tipping point in terms of culture change: it starts here.

Is everyone going to get on board? Probably not, but all employees have a clear vision, the business case, and a roadmap to develop new skills that lead to interesting work and a more rewarding career path. They have a choice: to stay and learn or to find work in a company that still needs their skills. That’s what most of us want when change is all around us: the ability to make an informed decision.

Here are my ‘take-aways’ from this story:

• Frame a new strategic direction clearly and with conviction.
• Be a leader. Don’t hide and don’t waffle.
• Start the change process before the event, not after.
• Explain in certain terms what most people want to know: What’s In It For Me?
• Show how behaviors need to change as well as skills.
• Invite a dialogue but be confident about what parts of the change in strategic direction are non-negotiable.

Are you facing a similar challenge as a leader? Will you share with us how you are delivering a tough message that inspires?