Here’s one of them, and a question that every manager has to come to terms with: How much managing does a manager actually do?
In my view, anyone who is a manager is probably always managing at some level, but I am talking more about the outward signs of management and how aggressively you control your employees, or how much leeway your staff gets to work and make decisions on their own.
Yes, how you approach this has a lot to do with your personal outlook on life, but it also speaks to a lot of other factors—experience, confidence, the industry you work in and/or the type of work you do, and sometimes, company culture. For example, I once worked for a large media company that believed in aggressively managing everything and was top-down driven.
This worked pretty well for them most of the time, but it meant that managers were micromanaged from above so they in turn micromanaged those below them. That doesn’t make for the happiest working environment, I quickly found.
This leads to the question that I don’t think enough managers ask themselves: Should I overmanage or undermanage, and why do I do it that way?
I’ve known lots of managers and executives who, like Joe Girardi, seemed to be more focused on showing off how smart they were rather than doing the right thing by their staff, and that’s certainly an occupational hazard when it comes to managing.
But here’s the thing—managing is also about leading, about coaching, about nurturing, about helping your people to do their absolute best. Some do it with a lot of drama, but in my book, the best managers do it quietly, without a lot of fanfare, and without feeling the need to draw attention to themselves.
Each has their own unique style, but each is also focused on one critical thing: helping their people so that they have the freedom and the opportunity to do their very best. In short, it’s not about overmanaging or undermanaging, but rather, about supportive managing that lets people reach their full potential for the good of the entire organization.
If that’s what you’re doing as a manager, well, congratulations, because you’re doing it right. If that’s NOT how you’re doing it, well, you had better step back and take a good look at yourself and figure out how you can be more like Warren Buffett than Joe Girardi.
This isn’t some subjective observation on my part, but rather, what I have learned firsthand from managing people for the better part of 30 years. But one reader of this blog thinks I’m dead wrong on this subject and makes a very articulate challenge to my point of view.
“The problem with the examples here is that they typify the worst kind of sleazy behavior by married people with a substantial power differential between themselves and the people they’re having affairs with. All the office romance bans in the world aren’t going to begin to stop that behavior—the egos are too big and the sense of power too inflated.
“What such policies will do is push normal, healthy relationships underground, so that no real discussion with the employer can take place. You may call it prattle, but it’s unrealistic to believe that people won’t have workplace romances. The best policies I’ve seen accept this and deal with it an adult fashion instead of forcing the employees to try to fly below the radar.”
Now, let me be clear: I have never, ever called for a formal ban on office romances. In fact, here’s what I said about this last year at Valentine’s Day: Office romances have always been part of the equation in any workplace since the dawn of time, and there’s no evidence that the problem has gotten appreciably better or appreciably worse. Yes, sometimes office romances go bad, but the trend The New York Times was touting back in 2007 was to not get too worried or worked up about co-workers dating.
I certainly understand that very pragmatic viewpoint, but my own opinion on office romance hasn’t changed—hype, trends and surveys notwithstanding. It’s a bad idea. That’s because, in my experience, they go bad all too often. And, spoiled office romances leave the participants—and the co-workers around them, who have to live with the bitter, sometimes litigious aftermath—much worse off as a result.
Yes, I’ve written about the fallout from high-profile office affairs like the recent one with ESPN’s Steve Phillips (who just got fired for his bad judgment) and David Letterman before him. And yes, I agree with reader HR PS that these two examples DO “typify the worst kind of sleazy behavior by married people with a substantial power differential between themselves and the people they’re having affairs with.”
As bad as those are, the ones that drove me crazy were of the more mundane variety, like the three-month relationship between two co-workers who sat next to each other. When something like that goes sour, it affects everyone around them, generally for the worse. And, it’s a management headache I’ve had all too often.
But am I wrong here, as reader HR PS says? Can pragmatic office policies realistically deal with affairs of the heart, or are they just a Band-Aid approach to an emotional and hard-to-handle workforce problem?
In my personal experience with the Millennial generation—I hate the nonsensical and meaningless Generation Y tag that some use to describe them—I have found that there is no one way to characterize or manage them. The three Millennials that I am closely related to are as different as any three people you would find on a street corner. And the classroom of Millennials that I teach writing to each semester at a local university follows this same pattern.
In other words, there is no single way to manage or deal with the Millennial generation, just as there is no single way to manage any other generation that exists in today’s workplace. Any experienced executive should know this, and that’s why I am scratching my head at the huge industry that seems to be springing up around helping train managers to “deal” with Millennials.
Here’s one example, from The Washington Post: “High atop the august Tower Club in Fairfax County, overlooking the glass-and-steel edge city of Tysons Corner, business coach Anne Loehr is teaching 20 executives, mainly baby boomers, how to crack one of society’s most vexing workplace problems—how to deal with their youngest employees or clients.”
The Post story goes on to discuss how Loehr’s seminar helps managers and executives, at a cost of $25 each, to do a better job communicating with the Millennial generation. It also hints, somewhat skeptically, that this is more about making money than any real communications stumbling block that can only be solved by a paid consultant.
“The collective fretting over Generation Y—also known as the Millennials—has turned into an industry for entrepreneurs such as Loehr,” the Post story points out. “The former … hotel executive, based in Reston, VA, is a ‘leadership coach’ and generational guru, one of several who market themselves to corporations, the military, and federal and local governments as anthropologists interpreting today’s 70 million to 80 million 20-somethings or early 30-somethings.”
This makes me wonder: What is it about the Millennial generation that makes us unable to communicate with or understand them? Why do we now suddenly need paid consultants like Anne Loehr (who, as the Post points out, puts on “corporate seminars and one-on-one sessions that go for $500 to $2,500”) to figure out how to deal with younger workers? Is this something we really need and can’t figure out on our own without a pricey “leadership coach”?
You know the answer to that: It’s not, and we don’t. Good managers have ALWAYS had to figure out how to deal with a variety of different generations and personalities in the workplace.
The notion that the Millennial generation is so unique and different from generations before them is nonsense. They are different, yes, but so is every other generation, and it’s something that managers have dealt with long before pricey leadership coaches came along and decided we needed their services.
Frankly, the whole notion of a management coach is a silly concept that we could do without, but that’s another gripe for another day. Still, I think you have to question your ability as a manager if you have to spend money for a “leadership coach” to teach you how to talk to a segment of your workforce.
If you can’t figure out how to manage Millennials, you have far bigger issues than any pricey leadership coach can help you with. It’s akin to flushing the money down the toilet and just about as useful too.
Here’s something that doesn’t take a lot of intuition to figure out: Organizational culture is the DNA of a business. In the most successful companies it is not only tangible and specific, but it also defines the essence of the organization and provides the glue that holds the workforce together.
The success of Home Depot was based not only on having a large and competitively priced store where you could find just about anything needed to renovate, fix or remodel a home, but also in the army of orange-aproned experts that were always available to help with any problem or situation you might have.
It was this personal, customer-first service that was, at least in my mind, the key to Home Depot’s remarkable business success. And, it was one of things that former CEO Bob Nardelli seemed to have little use or respect for.
“I would say for a period of about four to five years, we lost our way through the last CEO,” Marcus told the Journal-Constitution. “[Marcus] was referring,” the newspaper pointed out, “to the December 2000-January 2007 reign of Bob Nardelli as chief executive. Recruited from General Electric, he was the first CEO brought in from outside.”
It’s not atypical for any new manager to want to make their mark, and this is especially true for a new chief executive brought in from the outside. But all too often, making their mark means a wholesale dismantling of the company culture long before they really understand or appreciate it. This “marking your turf” style of management is similar to what a dog does as they wander through a new neighborhood—and just about as useful.
“Nardelli, hired to give Home Depot discipline and structure, was criticized for changing a culture that had been working,” the newspaper story noted, and Bernie Marcus reiterated this, saying, “I think Nardelli came in because Arthur and I felt we had grown the business and the systems were very antiquated. We were very entrepreneurial and we needed some discipline. Nardelli provided that. But unfortunately, he had his own culture he tried to infuse into Home Depot, and that culture didn’t work.”
I don’t want to keep beating on Nardelli, but he’s a great case study in how a talented executive can do all the right things financially yet completely foul up an organization by failing to understand or respect the underlying culture that drives it.
And to be fair, Nardelli is just one of many talented and highly paid executives who parachute into a business to save it but fail to understand that you need the support of those on the ground to really drive meaningful, positive change. I can point to any number of other executives—and names like Tribune’s Sam Zell and former Circuit City CEO Philip Schoonover leap to mind—who are guilty of the same shortsighted judgment.
The culture of an organization is highly critical no matter what the business or endeavor. Smart executives get this, but being highly paid doesn’t mean you are smart or sensible. It just means that you managed to find some shallow-minded board of directors somewhere to throw you a lot of money before they really have a good handle on what you can actually do.
“Frank is not wedded to everything in the past,” said Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blake, “but he understands the value of culture and those fundamentals.”
Amen to that, I say. And maybe, just maybe, it gives Home Depot—and its remarkable culture—a fighting chance of survival.
There are lots of things they don’t teach you when you become a boss or a manager, and these are usually the highly unpleasant or unmentionable tasks that you only face when times get really tough.
Today’s lesson is about taking responsibility, accepting blame, doing what’s right for the greater good of the organization—in other words, knowing when to fall on your sword.
Although there is always a good time to leave a job (and knowing when the time is right), I’m not talking about simply leaving because you have done all you set out to do, or maybe because you have stayed on too long. No, I’m talking about falling on your sword and leaving in the classic and traditional business sense—because you are taking responsibility for something bad that happened on your watch, under your leadership, regardless of whether it was really your fault or not.
Why is Martin falling on his sword? According to The Lede blog in The New York Times, “The speaker had been widely criticized for his failure to respond appropriately to the revelation that many members of Parliament have been abusing their taxpayer-financed expense allowances for items like moat clearing and porn.”
And, according to the Times story, “For some, Martin was a scapegoat for the squirming embarrassment of legislators of all major [British] political parties caught in a cascade of disclosures in The Daily Telegraph newspaper about their spending under an official program that allows members of Parliament to defray the costs of maintaining homes in London and in their home districts. But for others he was held responsible for blocking disclosures of financial abuse and for stonewalling reforms from his leather chair dominating the benches of the House of Commons.”
Yes, Martin had to go, but some think that he might not have gone without a lot of political pressure being brought to bear from people like British Prime Minster Gordon Brown. Like so many American executives who also dug in their heels despite driving their organizations into the ground recently, Martin tried to avoid what was painfully obvious to everyone else—that only his going would truly help everyone to deal with the issue and get past the problem.
This is a hard concept for just about any manager or executive to accept, because most believe that their presence can greatly help to resolve whatever issue is on the table. It’s tough for anyone to believe that they are standing in the way of a solution—like former CEO Rick Wag0ner at General Motors—and that’s why it sometimes takes outside pressure before they can really see the light.
Yes, doing the right thing can be tough, but tougher yet is knowing WHEN to do the right thing and being willing to accept the consequences of falling on one’s sword.
Generally speaking, if you have to be told or urged to go, it’s probably too late.
Martin finally saw the light and did what he needed to do. He couldn’t lead anymore, and falling on his sword made sense, although it could have been worse.
As The Guardian newspaper noted: “It may be of some consolation to Martin that he will not face the fate of the seven speakers before 1560 who were beheaded. Another one was murdered.”
Yes, despite the rough-and-tumble world we live in, some business practices have improved over the past 450 years.
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