The Manager - 132 - Management by committee
Monday 29th March 2021 - Management by committee
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Hi,
Hope all is well and good. Life is busy here - finishing off a recording of my Keynote talk for StarEast. The recording doesn't take that long, but the scripting and editing is where my energy and attention is pulled.
I'm happy with it though, just need to trim a few more minutes from it. It's a more personal talk than usual, but one I think reflects the last year's uncertainties.
Management by committee
There's a trend I'm seeing in the business world right now. A trend that I think is causing more harm than good. It's the trend of management by committee. But not as you may expect.
When most people think of committees, they think of decisions, ideas and action being put before a senior group of people for approval. But what I see is managers being steered, sometimes entirely, by their direct reports.
Consulting people for ideas, gaining valuable experienced based insights, working with the team to construct a future are good things to do, but there are certain decisions and actions that managers should own.
In one company, the manager, a well intentioned clever person, couldn't bring himself to make a team based decision without 100% commitment from everyone in his team. You can imagine what happened. Not many decisions were made, and the decisions that were made, were watered down to appease everyone's strong opinions, often times causing the problems of tomorrow.
In another company, the manager wouldn't even move on from a topic on her meeting agenda, unless everyone agreed with the outcomes or decisions from the previous topic. She rarely made it past point 1.
In another company, the manager insisted on speaking personally with every member of his team before he would make a decision. Sounds good, but everyone had to agree with the plan, and that rarely happened. Instead of bringing everyone together to mash together good ideas, he would spend weeks discussing changes with each person in turn. Back and forth, on and on. It was infuriating.
In another company, the manager would get his three heads of each tech department together to agree a strategy for cloud based hosting. Each would have their preferred infrastructure platform. Each would agree on one by the end of the meeting, then meet with the manager after to say they wouldn't adopt the one of their liking. Round and round it went. Meeting after meeting. The leadership team refused to pay for all three and wanted a simple consolidation, the team leads refused to play ball, the decision never got made. It created some serious fall out.
Not all decisions about the business direction and change need to have everyone 100% agreed.
In fact, in my career, I can't think of a single strategic decision that everyone agreed with. But a core value and behaviour for us was to "disagree and commit". We heard people's disagreements, acknowledged them, took ideas on board, but ultimately, if the decision went against someone's idea, we expected them still to commit to it.
Some decisions simply belong to management and leadership. That new way of working the leaders want implemented, well, it just needs implementing. Financial decisions, low performance, rapid improvement of failing services - they sometimes just need doing and managers are managers for a reason - to make decisions.
Remember, as a manager, we work for the organisation that employs us, not our people. That sounds old school, but who is paying our wages, who has given us the responsibility, who is expecting strong business results? The best managers solve business problems WITH people, but sometimes, people will absolutely disagree with the decisions that need to be made.
And consider also, that not everyone's opinion should be trusted or listened to. There are many people in work who are pugilists - they like a good fight. It's often not that they disagree, they simply want to be entertained. Not everyone has the insights, the experience nor the commercial awareness to make business revenue decisions.
Here's what I do:
1. Clearly identify the problem needing to be solved
2. Consult those I trust deeply who are experts in the problem area
3. Gather evidence
4. Put together a plan to overcome the problem (a strategy)
5. Share this plan widely for input and feedback
6. Gather the feedback and assess the merits of it, weave changes in
7. Present the modified strategy plan again
8. Gather any final comments
9. Expect "disagree and commit"
10. Make the decision and move with it
It's rare to find good business decisions or plans that everyone in your team agrees with. And managers who listen, gather input and then make an informed business decision, are the ones who don't need to worry that everyone may not be 100% on board. They did the right thing.
The manager who never consults the team, should worry greatly. And the manager who is driving for 100% agreement, may never even make a decision, and when they do, it's likely a much more watered down decision than is actually needed.
Management is hard and at times people will disagree with you. Listen and bring their ideas in, but don't feel the need to please everyone. The goal is business results and problem solving, not 100% agreement about next steps.
When we try to please everyone, we will no doubt please no-one - and the business may suffer in the process. We are employed to achieve business results and retain our good people. Not ensure everyone has dot voted and is 100% on board with everything.
Disagree and commit is a useful behaviour to encourage.
Until next time
Rob..
Interesting articles
1. Manage the overwhelm. Feeling overloaded and overwhelmed? Time to get realistic about the time you have available. This article is an interesting read about how to be realistic. (Out of free articles? Try a private browser window or clearing cookies)
2. NFT Swindle. NFTs are all the rage. Blockchain, crypto currency and the sale of valuable (or useless) digital content, is the new trend sweeping the world. It's touted as a new economic model, but let's face it, it's causing a whole load of junk to be sold as "rare" and it's making a few tech entrepreneurs very rich in the process. Interesting article on the pyramid scheme of NFT.
3. People are just spreadsheets. Here are some HR practices and processes that should not be in a spreadsheet.
4. Quitters. Why are people quitting? Interesting read on why people are quitting their jobs in large numbers. and intrusion of always being on. Warning : some fruity language.
5. Shouty. Outrage and anger seem to be ever so more common. I've seen this first hand - and I'm putting it down to the pandemic, but I suspect some people are just angry. The thing is, it's contagious.
6. Bedtime procrastination. I suffer from this. The kids are in bed, it's time to go to bed, but heck no. I'm staying up - I need some "me" time. I need to watch pointless TV, surf the web, play video games - anything except going to bed. Well, I'm not alone - and staying up is the wrong thing to do - sleep is important.
7. Be true to yourself. If you can find your true self.
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Thanks
Rob..