The Manager - Edition 60 - Who is doing the work - By Rob Lambert
Welcome to the Cultivated Management Newsletter
Hi,
I hope you are well and have had a great weekend and looking forward to the week ahead.
Sorry "The Manager" is late this week. I was on holiday last week in the magnificent Yorkshire Dales with my family and we had a cracking week. I was then struck down with a Migraine like no other - which took me out on Sunday evening - that's when I normally write "The Manager".
Management is about getting results.
In fact, being in business is about achieving results (customer satisfaction, changing the world, market share, profits - whatever the reason your business exists for.)
Yet it’s becoming increasingly evident that many companies have a lot of activity, but little achievement. There seems to be a terrible epidemic affecting companies. The leaders and managers in these companies are becoming obsessed with trying to control and manage work, usually at the expense of actually getting work done.
As a manager when you build and organise your team that you are putting due effort and focus on building a team where more people do the work than manage it.
It’s not uncommon for a team to consist of only 20% doers. With the other 80% being management, project management or other roles designed to manage the work, report on the work and organise the work - but not do the work.
It’s remarkable to see in action. And sad to see too.
What’s even more remarkable is that managers, leaders and executives are sat around watching their organisations bloat with project management and reporting, and wondering why it costs so much to get any work done. I know what "we need more people to organise and manage the work". And the cycle starts again.
I’m not saying project management is bad, far from it - we need it, but project management does NOT accomplish any of the work.
Tasks, being done by people, accomplish work.
It’s why SAFE and PRINCE and everything in between are simply solving the wrong problem.
It’s all made worse by the fact software is developed that helps project managers to be remote and removed from the actual work.
I remember an exec in a company once waxing lyrical about how amazing a new project management tool was. It allowed her to prod and badger people about tasks on a timeline that were not complete. But these people were sat in the same office, on the same floor, sometimes directly opposite her. Why use a tool to “prod” someone when you can get closer to the work to understand the real reasons why things aren’t getting done or are slipping?
I think all of this stems from managers and project managers being unable to have hard conversations about why work is not getting done, or to fully understand the system people are working in and fix it.
They then resort to using tools to capture work, more tools to report on work, more tools to tie the work to finances (wrong on too many levels for this newsletter!) and then tools to hold people accountable to a plan rather than speaking to people about the actual work.
We do need to manage work and we do need to report on it, and some tools are useful, but not when they create huge gaps between those managing the work from those doing the work. As soon as you have more people planning and reporting on the work, than you do have doing the work - you’re in trouble. Every minute we spend planning is time taken away from accomplishing tasks.
If you’re a manager or project manager or anyone leading a project, start with getting the best people together. They will overcome a bad system, they will work well together, and they will need very little “managing”.
And if you’re an exec or manager who has more people organising the work than doing the work, it’s time to stop and ask why that is so. Keep asking why until you get to the root cause.
We can’t do everything at once, we need to know what we're prioritising, we need some level of planning and task awareness, we need to report on work being done and we need to co-ordinate work - but this doesn't require more people to manage it than to do the work. It certainly doesn't require huge toolsets and armies of project assurance people.
Remember, at the end of the day - it’s just some tasks that need to be done by some people by some date. Simple really.
Go forth, build teams where more people do the work than manage it - and you’ll likely see great success.
Rob
My week in pictures
We had an awesome time in the Yorkshire Dales, Yorkshire, England. It's my home county and it's stunning. Here are my little two surveying the landscape of the Dales.
The second photo was taken at the Manchester Science museum. It's the "Baby" - a replica of the first computer to calculate something using memory. It's a vast machine and not very powerful for the size of it - but it paved the way for modern computing. And I for one am thankful for those clever people who built it, developed it further and created the very machines I now use to make a living.
Cool Stuff To Click On
1 - Should you listen to music whilst doing deep work. Maybe. It depends.
2 - Some interesting ideas for helping remote team members bond together and form better relationships. I like some of these, but the most effective way I've ever experienced is to bring them all together, at least once, to meet. It works wonders.
3 - Your brain needs idle time to process, ponder and put in to practice what you're learning and taking in.
4 - The 4 day week trial resulted in better staff stress levels and more productivity. Whoot!
5 - The best way to stay healthy - it's not exercise.
Thanks for reading this week's edition of The Manager.
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Thanks
Rob..