ROMR: The Role of Management Reconstruction

[David Zinger]

Post by Rosa Say...Inserted by David Zinger
If we do not change the role of the manager in our organizations, we will not change much else.

I fervently believe that reconstructing the Role of the Manager must be a key strategy in our efforts to increase employee engagement, for the manager must be the Great Enabler of the process.

I invite the brilliant minds of The Employee Engagement Network to read an article I have just today posted on my coaching blog, Managing with Aloha Coaching. I would truly love to learn your thoughts about this basic belief I have about connecting managers (and therefore management which matters) to employee engagement.

The article is called: The Role of the Manager in Managing with Aloha: The case for a better way to work and it presents 4 building blocks for this reconstruction I am calling for.

This is my thesis:
* People can fix broken processes.
* Processes cannot fix broken-in-spirit people.
* Break the spirit of your managers, and you fall even farther behind.
* The simple, glaring fact is that the role of the manager has to change from how it now exists in the vast majority of workplaces.

How do you feel about this?
I hope to hear from you, for we Ho‘ohana (create intentional work) together,
~ Rosa

[Terrence Seamon]

Rosa,
Great article. I will be re-reading it in the coming week.
To your point --that the role of managers, which is so critically important in today's organizations, needs to be re-imagined and re-designed-- I say "Amen!"
Best,
Terry

[David Zinger]

I appreciated these lines from the article

The “people” snicker. For work is ACTUALLY done in a way that plays out as: “Our processes are our biggest assets, and we just keep people around to keep them running.” Even managers who WANT to coach and mentor their people and feel they DO have a calling for it, are called in different directions, expected to do other things, torn as they answer to a boss of their own (who is also expected to do a process job instead of a people one).

It is a sad state of affairs the disconnect between philosophy and practice. This seems to be an instrumental reason for disengagement for many. Not only the disconnect from philosophy and practice but the disconnect between managers and employees. Both feel the disconnect and I have witnessed what I call: "Middle Manager Implosion" leaving the organization to drive a truck, sell real estate, or just leaving to who knows where.

Let the reconstruction begin.

[Janine Moon]

Rosa: absolutely accurate--both your comments on a manager's role as well as on the few organizations that believe or care about this. A lack of managers who know what inspirational and productive managing entails is one of the greatest problems associated with an aging workforce in the US..."management development" as training, mentoring or coaching has all but disappeared from most organizations. What is available in some instances is online learning modules --good for processes, perhaps, but not capable of the emotional/inspirational learning that is the heart of managing.

It continues to amaze me that with the numbers-based business cases available for emotional intelligence and strengths-based management and the measurable results demonstrated by engaged associates, organizations continue to use and reinforce the management practices of the industrial economy--where machines and production lines were the capital assets. When will accounting practices catch up with the "assets" of the information and conceptual age economies? (and I don't mean newer and upgraded technologies)

I used to think that the sooner baby boomer leaders retired, the sooner organizations would shift to acknowledge the significance of (human) brains, heart and soul and engaging people at all these levels in the workplace...but I'm not so sure. Younger generations have neither good role models, mentors, or coaches within most organizations.

So perhaps they will take on the task of re-imagining and re-designing the manager role: with different world views and values, including 'work to live' and a native sense of technology, their collaborative beliefs may produce something that the current hierarchical ones can not.

Thanks for a thoughtful article, Rosa!

Janine

[Rosa Say]

Aloha Terry, David, and Janine, thank you all for weighing in on this.

Janine, I've wondered about the same thing: For all the inroads that both the emotional intelligence and strengths-based management movements have made, why are we still so archaic in our actual practices? I continually return to this primary conclusion: We agree in theory, but we relegate these teachings to "the soft stuff" that we believe in, but will only find time to do after the "real work." We haven't really changed what we value much over the years, and what we work on is what we value.

Ironically, when you talk to mid-level managers about this soft stuff, they also feel that "soft is just too hard." The employment of strengths/talents versus qualifications/skills/experience is too difficult to figure out, and most managers feel they don't have the proper training and certification for it, vastly underestimating the intuition and ability they actually do have. We have a dire lack of confidence in the ranks of mid-level management that we aren't doing much about --- it's easier to just keep everyone busy with the process stuff.

And to your other point, if we just wait for the generations to shift we'll squander away much opportunity. The majority of boomers still have a good twenty years or so left in them in terms of life/work expectancy.

For the role of the manager to change, I think we have to do substantial work on our business models so the work is designed that way.

[David Zinger]

I am finding this discussion very helpful as I think managers have the leverage to make huge differences in engagement. More and more managers I work with feel "taxed to the max." I just don't have time or energy...yet I believe the use of strengths and connecting authentically and often with staff will free up time in the long run and even boost energy in the short run.

I strive to make the significant simple and easy and powerful. That is why I like Rosa's Daily 5 Minutes or Lisa Haneberg's 21 days to a breakthrough based on short and specific actions.

I was reading Marshall Goldsmith a lot this weekend and he is quite a coach yet he start his day off with very simple and specific questions with a partner. With all his knowledge, expertise, and moxie he still makes himself accountable daily with about 20 questions. When he does behavioral coaching he only looks at 1 or 2 behaviors. To be engaged is not to be engaged with too many things.

After reading this forum, including my own post, I will strive to do better at this.

[Rosa Say]

Well done David!

We all learn so much every single day, and the learning is relatively easy --- it is the applying of our learning, turning it into decision, intent, and commitment that is difficult for us. Then, I have found David Allen's advice (and insistence) very useful; that we immediately follow-up with our very next action step to getting the ball rolling, and habit eventually formed.

That is exactly what you just did here, giving us all a terrific example for a big subject.

And I agree with you, that the simpler the better.

[Debbie Payne]

Rosa
Agree heartily. Managers really need to understand that they manage budgets, manage projects, manage inventory. They need to lead people through other skills such as coaching, mentoring, teaching, listening. Leading and managing are different and yet intertwined. As we call people "managers" that is what they focus on. When we call the people at the top the "leaders" we somehow expect them to stop managing and start leading and it is impossible as both are valuable. We call all " the management" if we could create a new term that embraces both leadership and management it may help. We teach management at MBA schools. Leadership is also being taught ( I have an MA in Leadership) and some schools are starting to combine the two. In the meantime helping managers lead people is probably a really good start and is one of the reasons that coaching is so hot right now.

[Rosa Say]

You are so right Debbie about vocabulary adding to the confusion: The way that management and leadership get used interchangeably with no clear definition for either drives me crazy, for our conversations get so muddled up about them - especially when people begin posturing versus asking others for clarity on what the heck they are talking about.

Then again, you are right about how much coaching has progressed in a pretty short time - it used to be that clients did not want us posting their names as referrals because of the stigma that they were riddled with problems and needed help - now we've swung to the smart strategy of those who are ready to move from "good to great."

Back to this,,, at my company (Say Leadership Coaching) we're beginning to call everyone manager and stay away from the word leader, to convey your point - managers manage AND they lead. Even for us though, old habits die hard, and it takes deliberate intention!

[Terrence Seamon]

Debbie,
When you wrote, "helping managers lead people is probably a really good start," I thought YES!

And I'd add that it's not only a good start, but a good place to be.

My POV is that the world is filled with managers. Managers at all levels, from front-line to the C-suite. To the extent that they have people working for them, they all need, to one degree or another, to be working on developing some leadership skills.

Terry

[Ian Buckingham]

I agree entirely about the process vs spirit dilemma you highlight David. It reminds me of a piece of work undertaken with the Board and senior management team of Zurich Financial Services. They believed their line managers to be dull, grey and transactional and needed innovators. After a lengthy process convincing them to allow their people the chance to "play" whilst being set a challenge, the result was measured in millions.
I haven't the time to relay the whole story now but if anyone's interested, follow this link to the original paper/article and case study:
http://www.by2w.co.uk/finalcopyinnov.pdf.
It proves the importance of spirit and how engagemnt need to be a voluntary act based upon authenticity and, to some extent, vulnerability.

[Jean Douglas, CMC]

I've been thinking a lot about managers (years of thought, actually) and am so glad this post was started. As we each read the posts of our membership, so much of what is said makes enormous sense. This reinforces my thinking that "we often need to state the obvious". We know that managers are often caught in the middle of competing demands, priorities, politics, etc. and that things need to change - on a number of fronts. Some of my thinking on this follows.

The role of the manager is the area I think is in the most need of revision. There are "people managers" and "task managers", in a most simplistic form. Organizations seem to believe that one person can fulfill both roles. I believe that most organizations fail to recognize the importance that managing people requires a skill set, level of expertise and education specific to the job. Yes, some people have a natural ability to be good people managers, but for most, they must acquire the skills and knowledge to be successful. In terms of rethinking the role, I believe that the role of people manager must be reclassified as a specialist role - much like an accountant, engineer, machinist, etc. - that is filled based on the competencies needed, not used as a reward for good work (do well and we will promote you). A people manager's primary responsibility should be the employees - they would work in concert with the task manager. In a mid-sized to large organization, this position should be a formal one. The candidates for the position would have the educational component (e.g., organizational psychology, HR certification, courses in behaviour, motivation, sociology, MBA, labour relations, and so on) plus the experience needed for the particular workforce. It seems to me that an organization recognizes that other key areas in the organization require some specialist knowledge (HR, Finance, Production, Labour Relations, Marketing, etc.) and have staffed them appropriately. HR is a good example of a revised role - in the past, when it was known as Personnel, you would often see a manager, close to retirement, given the title Manager of Personnel. But over the years, HR's responsibilities have grown and required specialist skills (hence the growth of the CHRP designation, graduate and post-graduate degrees in HR, etc.). Why not the people manager?

I am realistic enough to recognize that getting to this point requires a transitional period (although forward thinking organizations may already be doing this). So what kind of advice do I have to give?

Put some thinking into how to change the compensation structure (here, I need a specialist), but the career path to enable pay increases should not have a mandatory "manager" step. You can really ruin good people by making them a manager. Why would we want to do that? How can we reward people who want to excel (and do excel) in their field of expertise (be it a scientist/researcher or an administrative assistant) without making them wear the mantle of people manager?

Help leadership (those who are driven to rise within the organization- the C-Suite and VPs) understand that what engages them and gives them a sense of accomplishment isn't necessarily the same for thing that drives others. Over the years, I have conducted hundreds of employee focus groups and have seen the meaning of career opportunities change from "promotions" to "learning and development to help me over the course of my career". Employees know that the promotional opportunities are small and the workload and stress often not worth the pay increase and added to that the fact that they are unlikely to stay with the same employer for many years has put more focus on enhancing job skills and competencies for the future than on moving up within an organization.

In a nutshell, understand what the job really requires and fill it with the right person.

[Rosa Say]

Jean, you are truly singing my song!

As you have alluded to here, we can't just be preaching this message though - we just get a lot of head-nodding that doesn't lead to much else. We must get smarter at effecting this shift within the organizational cultures and systems which now exist.

This is something that is now done consultant by consultant, and the downside to this is that hiring outsiders is seen as a luxury when all the other basics of a business are met. However this crucial understanding of what and who a manager is, and what they do, is as basic as it gets.