Leader's Digest October 2007
From PLN
Leader's Digest October 2007
by Leslie Dillon
October 3, 2007
Are you delegating so it sticks?
As a manager, you’re aware of the importance of delegating responsibility to your subordinates and of the dangers of not doing so. But when you’re under intense pressure, sometimes it seems easier to take on someone else’s problem than to help them solve it themselves. Today, with 80% of the value added to goods and services coming from knowledge work, delegating is more important than ever.
Here are a few tips from the experts on delegating:
- Make yourself let go. Let go of old assumptions that it’s faster and easier to take over a subordinate’s task, and that you know more than your direct reports do. Think like a leader, not like a manager. Managers manage details. Leaders manage people by encouraging their sense of ownership and accountability.
- Ask, don’t tell. Ask “What do you think should be done?” This helps staff come up with proposed solutions next time there’s a problem. And it saves time in the long run.
- Match tasks to people. Assign tasks and problems to your staff based on their capabilities and development needs. Delegate so that you help people stretch and “treat mistakes as growth opportunities.” Find out what your staff are most passionate about, and assign duties accordingly. When you do, people won’t need supervision, “they’ll generate creative solutions...on their own.”
- Cultivate independent thinking. The more employees think independently and feel a sense of ownership in their jobs, the fewer problems they’ll bring to their bosses.
- Link people with resources. Linking staff with the resources they need will reduce the number of problems they bring to you. “Think of resources in broad terms--as people, tools, information and developmental opportunities that can help employees resolve issues on their own.” Sometimes all that’s needed is to tell an employee to talk to someone in another area. Mentoring programs are also highly successful.
Your direct reports need to know the same things you “know if they’re going to make smart decisions and solve their own problems.”
(Lauren Keller Johnson, “Are you delegating so it sticks?,” Harvard Management Update, Sept. 2007. Available from EBSCOhost Business Source Premier or from Harvard Business Online for $4.50.)
Encouraging dissent in decision-making
Contention is essential to good decision-making.
There’s a “widespread and problematic” propensity toward silence “in both the public and the private sectors.” People tend to avoid speaking up about things that are important to them, not only when it’s bad news but also when something’s perceived as a good idea. This reluctance to speak up stems from fears that superiors won’t like an idea or that it may criticize the status quo. The costs of speaking out seem more certain than the benefits.
How do you get contention in decision-making? Here are a few pointers:
- Start at the top. If high contention isn’t demanded at the top, you won’t see it anywhere else in your organization. Senior managers are often the ones responsible for suppressing dissent. Alfred P. Sloan Jr., president of General Motors in the 1920s, said in a meeting of top decision-makers, “Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the subject here.” Heads nodded around the table. “Then,” continued Sloan, “I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting, to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.” Senior managers must “be able to hold paradoxical ideas, or to think in the future and the past, simultaneously.”
- Compensate candor. Encourage dissent and develop incentives to reward it.
- Honesty at the heart. Honest, thorough, ongoing self-criticism is at the heart of improvement.
- Listen. Sometimes the smartest leaders shut out others’ voices. They don’t listen because they believe others’ comments aren’t worth listening to. Listen anyway!
“Decisions are seldom better for silence, and overcoming that is a key task for the leader of any organization.”
(Garry Emmons, “Encouraging dissent in decision-making,” Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, Oct. 1, 2007.)
How to make sure your constructive criticism works
Your top employees may have the hardest time hearing honest feedback because they haven’t “learned how to learn from failure.” They can become defensive and blame others. “In short, their ability to learn shuts down precisely at the moment they need it most.” Another reason for resisting feedback is long tenure at a job or in the organization. The longer someone’s been in a position or the older they are, the more likely they are to resist change.
Here are some techniques for getting your feedback heard:
- Prepare as if you’re making a presentation. Gather all the instances of negative behavior and organize them into key themes. Then frame the discussion in terms that the employee values most.
- Reinforce the message--repeatedly. You may need to have several conversations before the person acknowledges that there’s is a problem. You may even need to have regular meetings with the person. Look for opportunities to give them immediate feedback about old, unchanged behaviors or new, modified behaviors.
- Customize the conversation. Tailor your remarks “to fit the employee’s communication style.” If the person is detail-oriented, give them step-by-step specifics. For someone who’s impatient with detail, come to the point quickly and give only as much detail as is absolutely necessary.
- Be aware of power signals. The location you choose says a lot about power. If you use your office to deliver unexpected, unwelcome criticism, you might want to sit in a guest chair rather than behind your desk—-except in those situations where you need to assert your power.
- Consider what the culture communicates. The corporate culture plays a large role in how employees respond to criticism. If your organization clearly values continuing improvement and rewards it, then employees will be more likely to accept thoughtful criticism and hear what they need to hear.
(Anne Field, “Block that defense: How to make sure your constructive criticism works,” Harvard Management Update, Sept. 2007. Available from EBSCOhost Business Source Premier or from Harvard Business Online for $4.50.)
Worlds apart? The relationship between teaching and marketing and what it means to academic librarians
Virginia Commonwealth’s Jill Stover argues convincingly that “marketing techniques [are] compatible with the missions and values of libraries, [and] they also offer a practical—-and increasingly necessary-—means of connecting our work to users’ needs.” Marketers and librarians engage in “strikingly similar activities,” and we need to take advantage of the useful ideas marketers can offer us.
Here are some similarities:
- Both groups aim to modify behaviors and thinking. But, instead of tests, marketers “measure their success in terms of sales, which indicate whether customers adopted the desired behavior.”
- Both teachers and marketers tailor their strategies to specific groups. Marketers call this market segmentation.
- Both groups are skilled at using motivation. While teachers give extra credit, etc., marketers “adjust prices, devise reward programs for repeat purchases and attach prestigious logos to products like clothing.”
- Teaching and marketing seem to have evolved along similar paths; both are more participatory now. Marketers know that today’s customers are “savvy and empowered, demanding greater involvement with the products they consume.” “Open source marketing” encourages customers to “generate new product ideas, create advertising campaigns, participate in customer-driven communities and share their opinions...with corporate decision-makers.”
- Teaching and marketing empower people; both give them what they need to achieve their goals.
The point of this comparison is to emphasize just how similar certain aspects of librarianship are to marketing and to urge that librarians note what can be borrowed from good marketing. “Just imagine what librarians could accomplish if they matched their knowledge of information and their local communities with the abilities of marketers to communicate how their products and services solve customers’ problems.”
(Jill S. Stover, “Worlds apart? The relationship between teaching and marketing and what it means to academic librarians,” The Readex Report, Fall 2007.)
What’s different about Generation Y and how to adjust
Andrea S. Hershatter, director of the undergraduate business program at Emory University, talks about what sets Generation Y apart in the workplace and how to accommodate them.
Generation Ys care most about authenticity when they’re being recruited. As consumers, too, the “promise of the brand has to match the reality” or they’ll shift preferences. Gen Ys who are unhappy in their first jobs complain not about the amount of work or the day-to-day tasks, but that the culture doesn’t feel meaningful or isn’t conducive to belonging.
An effective technique is to use “millennials to teach other millennials; the ones who emerge as the go-to people are the ones who are already very visible.”
Millennials look up to the older generations. They don’t want us to to try “to think on their level and use their lingo.” It’s artificial.
Millennials strongly dislike ambiguity and risk. So they tend to “seek a lot more direction and clarity from their employers” about tasks, expectations and advancement.
Boomers may have an easier time mentoring millennials than Gen Xers, in part because they may feel paternal about them.
Regarding entitlement, GenYs “don’t feel entitled because they’re special, they feel entitled to have others support them in their efforts to accomplish and achieve.”
(”The college administrator: What’s different about the Ys,” BusinessWeek, Sept. 13, 2007.)
How great managers manage people
An article from a past issue of Harvard Management Update came to my attention recently; it’s still highly relevant, and I’ve summarized it below.
Great managers “boost the engagement levels of the people who work for them.” But only 28% of U.S. employees are engaged. Engaged employees lead to engaged customers and a better organization. So how to keep a talented employee instead of driving him or her out of the organization or even the field? Great managers reject conventional wisdom in four core areas of managing people: selection, expectation setting, motivation and development.
- Selection. Great managers select employees for their talent, not for specific skills needed for a job. For example, all customer service representatives in a company receive the same training. But some are much better than others, and the best ones take 1/3 fewer calls than the others. “Why? Because they use the phone as a tool of intimacy--they can envision what the customer looks like, what room he is in; they smile and nod even though the customer cannot see what they are doing. Instinctively, their talent leads them to manage each customer relationship in the most effective manner.” Great managers seek out employees whose talents redefine how their jobs are done.
- Expectation setting. Rather than specifying steps needed to accomplish a task, great managers define desired outcomes and let each staff member use their individual talents to achieve them. Great managers “don’t let the steps obscure the focus on the outcome.”
- Motivation. Great managers focus on developing their employees’ unique strengths to help further their talent. “The key here is determining how to take greater advantage of what people already do well.”
- Development. Great managers rate an employee’s performance and develop the person, realizing that every person is unique and should be treated as such. Promotions aren’t necessarily the natural path for everyone. Great managers seek the right fit for a person, work to see that she or he is rewarded, and ensure that his or her talent is developed through increasingly meaningful assignments.
(Paul Michelman, “How great managers manage people,” Harvard Management Update, August 2004. Available from EBSCOhost Business Source Premier or from Harvard Business Online for $4.50.)
October 16, 2007
Harvard Business Review
The October 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review has its usual collection of excellent articles. I've summarized two of the more relevant ones below.
Manage your energy, not your time
You can significantly increase your capacity to get things done!
In today’s hectic environment, people are putting in longer and longer hours and taking for granted the energy that fuels our capacity to work. All this leads to loss of energy and ultimately to burnout. Increasing that capacity for work is the best way to get more done faster and better.
Energy has four “wellsprings--the body, emotions, mind and spirit--and in each, it can be systematically expanded and renewed.” This article describes how to establish rituals that will build energy in those four key dimensions. For example, taking intermittent breaks restores physical energy. “Buying time” is one way to defuse negative emotions. You can do this with deep abdominal breathing; exhaling slowly for five or six seconds “induces relaxation and recovery, and turns off the fight-or-flight response.” Viewing events from a different perspective defuses energy-draining negative emotions. Avoiding technology’s constant distractions increases mental energy. And participating in activities that give you a sense of meaning and purpose can boost your spiritual energy.
Wachovia Bank employees who participated in an energy management program outperformed a control group and reported substantially improved customer relationships, productivity, and personal satisfaction.
To recharge their workforces, organizations need to shift their emphasis from getting more out of people to investing more in them. To re-energize themselves, individuals need to learn the costs of energy-depleting behaviors and then take responsibility for changing them.
Are you headed for an energy crisis? To find out, fill out this questionnaire!
(Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy, “Manage your energy, not your time,” Harvard Business Review, Oct. 2007. This article’s definitely worth reading in full, and it’s available free from HBR. It’s also available on EBSCOhost Business Source Premier.)
An interview with Amazon's Jeff Bezos
The authors of this article interviewed Jeff Bezos to see what’s different about strategy formulation at Amazon. “They came away with a sense that Amazon’s strategy and culture are rooted in a sturdy entrepreneurial optimism.”
The most important thing about Amazon’s strategy is that it’s all informed “by a cultural point of view.” Some of their strategic capability comes from a quote by Alan Kay: “Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.”
First, they focus on the longer term; they’re willing to wait a while for seeds to grow into trees. Part of that confidence comes from basing their strategy on things that won’t change. The energy you invest in the things that won’t change will still be paying off in 10 years. “Whereas if you base your strategy first and foremost on more transitory things--who your competitors are, what kind of technologies are available, and so on--those things are going to change so rapidly that you’re going to have to change your strategy very rapidly, too.”
Customers want “selection, low prices and fast delivery.” That won’t change. So Amazon chooses projects based on stable customer needs and adopts the customer’s perspective to make strategic decisions. To keep their customer focus, everyone at Amazon, “no matter how senior or junior,” is required to spend time in customer service. When people look at Amazon years from now, Bezos wants them to say that Amazon “uplifted customer-centricity across the entire business world.”
Bezos believes most big errors are errors of omission, not commission. Be “stubborn on the vision, and flexible on the details.”
(Jeff Bezos, Julia Kirby, Thomas A. Stewart, “The institutional yes: The HBR interview with Jeff Bezos,” Harvard Business Review, Oct. 2007. This article’s available free from HBR, and is on EBSCOhost’s Business Source Premier.)
Demystifying strategy
What, exactly, is business strategy? There’s lots of confusion, but professor and leadership consultant Michael Watkins defines it this way: "A business strategy is a set of guiding principles that, when communicated and adopted in the organization, generates a desired pattern of decision making. A strategy is therefore about how people throughout the organization should make decisions and allocate resources in order [to] accomplish key objectives. A good strategy provides a clear roadmap, consisting of a set of guiding principles or rules. The strategy is just one element of the overall strategic direction that leaders must define for their organizations. It’s not the vision, which is actually just an inspiring portrait designed to motivate employees to work harder! And it’s not the mission, which is about what will be achieved. Nor is it the value network, which is about with whom value will be created and captured. The strategy is about how resources will be allocated to accomplish the mission.
“Together, the mission, network, strategy and vision define” strategic direction. “They provide the what, who, how, and why necessary to powerfully align action” in an organization.
(Michael Watkins, "Demystifying strategy: The what, who, how and why," The Leading Edge, Harvard Business Online, Sept. 10, 2007.)
How to improve strategic planning
Formal strategic-planning processes are an important ingredient in improving strategy development. So what can managers do to improve the process? This article lists five ideas that executives can use to make planning processes run better.
- Start with the issues. Identifying the key issues is the first step. Ask each of your direct reports how a given set of social, economic, and technology trends will affect their units. Or list three to six strategies for the coming year and then meet with your managers to debate the implications each of the trends has on their units. If you prefer a bottom-up approach, meet with your direct reports and other key staff to develop a list of the most important strategic issues facing your organization.
- Bring together the right people. Include your most knowledgeable and influential staff, stimulate and challenge their thinking, and hold honest, open discussions about the issues you’ve identified. And remember: those “who carry out strategy should also develop it.”
- Adapt planning cycles to the needs of your organization. Annual strategic planning cycles for the entire organization are not necessary. But when important changes in the external environment occur, senior managers may need to make major strategic decisions on an ad hoc basis.
- Implement a strategic-performance-management system. Establishing milestones and assigning metrics to them helps alert managers to problems as they emerge.
- Integrate human-resources systems into the strategic plan. “One way to create a more valuable strategic-planning process would be to tie the evaluation and compensation of managers to the progress of new initiatives.”
(Renée Dye and Olivier Sibony, "How to improve strategic planning," The McKinsey Quarterly, 2007 No. 3.)
Building a successful change agent team
The key to successful operational transformation is a “carefully constructed change agent program.” You need to designate specific employees as change agents to lead your organization through its journey. Whom to designate? Appoint leaders from across the organization “without regard to traditional hierarchy.” Free them from some daily tasks so they can concentrate on “leading and driving change”--implementing new processes, training staff in new procedures and serving as role models.
Change agent programs require thoughtful design, careful recruitment and development of staff and close integration between the change agent team and the units targeted for transformation.
- Design the program. Define the roles of the team members and establish a reporting structure.
- Recruit and develop the team. Spell out the benefits and opportunities team members will receive. Identify the best candidates; these are high-performing staff, who are respected by their peers and have strong interpersonal skills, perseverance, tolerance for ambiguity and the ability to deal well with conflict. The team as a whole also needs an appropriate mix of skills.
- Integrate the team. The team needs active support from management and buy-in from the entire organization. Team members should spend at least half their time working with their peers.
(Philippe Arrata, Arnaud Despierre, and Gautam Kumra, "Building an effective change agent team," The McKinsey Quarterly, 2007 No. 4.)
Technology innovators
The MIT Technology Review’s TR35 honors young (under 35) innovators whose inventions and research are changing our world. Here’s a brief glimpse of a few whose work is relevant to library and information science and the technology we rely on.
Sanjit Biswas, 25, created wireless mesh networks that would link people to the Internet cheaply. His company, Maraki Networks, can produce Wi-Fi routers that cost as little as $50.
Garrett Camp, 28, developed StumbleUpon, a tool to help people serendipitously discover interesting Web content. In May, eBay bought the “discovery engine” for about $75 million. The web site claims over 3.6 million users have downloaded the StumbleUpon toolbar. Examples of stumbled-upon sites include gethuman.com, which tells how to get to a human operator when calling for support.
Kevin Rose, 30, set out to change the way people read news. The result was Digg, which mixes blogging, online syndication, social networking and “crowdsourcing” (combining the knowledge and opinions of many individuals). Digg is hugely popular, and though controversial, boasts over 17 million visitors to the site each month.
Mark Zuckerberg, 23, Facebook. In just 3 1/2 years, Facebook has attracted more than 30 million members and its value may be more than $1 billion. Among other things, the Facebook Platform lets users add content from other websites. The idea is that “the personal connections people have made within Facebook will lead them to content that’s interesting to them”. This is one innovation that has already changed our world!
(TR35, Technology Review, Oct. 2007.)
October 23, 2007
Harvard Business Review
Here's another article from October's Harvard Business Review. This one's on good leadership judgment.
Making judgment calls
Good leadership judgment is a three-part process. According to the authors of this article, “Each phase is crucial, and each offers ‘redo loops’—opportunities to correct missteps. By mastering the judgment process, you make decisions that secure widespread commitment to results.”
- Preparing. In this phase, you frame the issue, ensure that your team members understand the importance of the decision, and gather ideas from stakeholders. Here, you’ll need to articulate the strategic context for the decision and weigh your options in that context. Also, be sure to explain the context to your staff before you make the decision so that they’re more likely to support it.
- Making the call. In this phase you come to a decision and explain it. This could require a redo loop if you’ve left out important considerations in the preparation phase.
- Executing. In the final phase you carry out your decision, learning and adjusting along the way. You’ll need to mobilize all the necessary resources--people, information and technology. Again, use redo loops if needed.
“Good leaders use a ‘story line’--an articulation of a company’s identity, direction, and values--to inform their actions throughout the judgment process.” They “also take advantage of ‘redo loops’ throughout the process, reconsidering the parameters of the decision, relabeling the problem and redefining the goal in a way that more and more people can accept.”
(Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis, “Making judgment calls,” Harvard Business Review, October 2007 and Harvard Business Online’s HBR in Brief. Available from Harvard Business Online for $6.50, or from EBSCOhost Business Source Premier.)
Infectious leadership
Michael Watkins, Professor of General Management at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland and a leadership development consultant, believes that the senior leadership of every organization is truly viral. Their behaviors are passed down to each succeeding level. Over time, they permeate the organization from top to bottom, eventually becoming embodied in the organizational culture. The “infectious nature of leadership applies as much to good behaviors as to bad.”
Watkins invites managers to try the following experiment:
- Day 1: Enter smiling. Greet everyone cheerfully. Compliment people on work well done. “Accentuate the positive, even it if hurts.”
- Day 2: Enter frowning. Be irritable. Focus on problems and call people to account on the smallest details. “Accentuate the negative in every interaction.”
He believes you’ll be amazed at the difference in the atmospheres on each day. On Day 1, staff will likely “mirror your positive mood and energy levels will rise.” On Day 2, “it will be like you sucked the oxygen out the room.” Staff will be anxious and will try to figure out what’s wrong. Imagine what it’s like to work with leaders like these and the impact on their organizations.
“The implication? Leaders need to think hard about their viral impact on their organization. What kind of infectious agent do you want to be?”
(Michael Watkins, “Infectious leadership,” The Leading Edge, Harvard Business Online, Oct. 3, 2007.)
The spirit of service
I read an article recently about the importance of the spirit of customer service in a retail store that applies to libraries as much as it does to stores. Every library (and every store) has employees “who would clearly rather be anywhere than...serving customers.” That’s too bad because the interaction between customer and the person behind the counter says a lot about the store (or library).
Every one of your customers needs to be handled “with a ’spirit of service’--an attitude that communicates the desire to make a difference in the life of each customer... In the end, it’s the employee, not the company that makes the encounter a memorable one.”
When things aren’t going well, stellar customer service is even more important. “It is imperative that every salesperson remember that no matter how bad things are going for them, the customer could care less--they merely want to be served.”
Every person who has contact with your customers needs to realize how much their attitude will add to--or detract from--the customer’s experience. Their attitude determines what the customer tells others about their experience. Consider this: every customer talks to an average of 30 people every 48 hours! “Similarly, if a store has 20 salespeople and each assists 25 people in a given day, it means that their spirit of service could be shared with 15,000 people in a matter of two days.”
What kind of impact do the staff in your library make on your customers (or users, or patrons or whatever)? Remember, it’s the employee, not necessarily the library, that makes the lasting impression.
(Mark Hunter, “The spirit of sales service,” Sales & Marketing Management’s managesmarter, Oct. 12, 2007.)
Publishers must push ebooks
John Wiley’s chairman, Peter Wiley, believes publishers need to help drive consumer adoption of e-book readers. He forecasts the “demise of printed textbooks in higher education” and predicts that digital textbooks will have a strong future, but he doesn’t know when the tipping point will occur.
Ebook readers are likely to be the key to the success of electronic textbooks, so textbook publishers need to push their use. Wiley has already begun to educate the educators. The new ebook readers (such as Amazon's Kindle) will spell growth for textbooks, but “we are in a rocky transition period right now.” Digital textbooks will be able to be targeted for specific courses and tailored to students’ needs. Wiley is reassessing its business model for textbooks, and while print texts still dominate its revenues, digital is experiencing rapid growth. Wiley’s currently developing a “search-driven platform” to deliver its content.
“Wiley said of the changing marketplace: ‘You once sold a book and went away. Now we are integrally involved in the education process.’”
(Mark Chillingworth, “Wiley: publishers must push e-books,” theBookseller.com, Oct. 12, 2007.)
Perfecting performance reviews
Both managers and their staff need to do plenty of preparatory work on performance reviews. Here's some practical advice from an expert:
- Train employees to expect and request feedback throughout the year. They should keep a record of their accomplishments, plus a list of questions and issues to address.
- Let them know they can ask managers for more. Employees should ask for specific examples when there's criticism and they should ask for positive feedback, as well.
- Create an atmosphere of open negotiation. Train your managers to talk about negotiable points in open terms.
- Ask for more training. Managers need to let their staff know it's all right to ask for more training. Managers and employees should "jointly commit to a personal development plan."
("Performance Reviews Perfected," Inside Training Newsletter, Oct. 5, 2007.)
October 31, 2007
Harvard Business Review
November's issue of the Harvard Business Review has an article on Lynne Brindley's re-engineering of the British Library. I've summarized it below. The November 2007 Leader's Digest has more article summaries from HBR.
British Library CEO Lynne Brindley on business innovation
Over the past seven years, the British Library has made a major shift in its mission and culture. Its mission today is to “foster innovation and build future knowledge on top of past knowledge.” That’s helped the library become “more forward-looking and customer focused.” The library’s public spaces are now full of entrepreneurs, researchers, and students taking advantage of the collection and the free wireless network.
BL’s Chief Executive, Lynn Brindley, discusses how those changes were brought about.
Market research helped reveal the reasons people used the libraries and the barriers to use. Meanwhile, the British government “was encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation as key to the country’s future economic success.” The library developed plans to serve small businesses and creative industries and to change people’s perception of the library.
To make this happen, the library focused on networking. When they designed the Business and IP Centre, they provided space for “brown-bag lunches, networking events, seminars and free access to databases.” They’ve also hosted “high-profile events” where a well-known business leader speaks to a group of entrepreneurs.
Lynne Brindley also hired “a more corporate-style senior team, which included a senior marketing function for the first time.” At the same time Brindley worked to fit communications to BL’s organizational “wants and needs” to get buy-in. “People wanted to learn about the changes from the horse’s mouth.”
Brindley added a note on the importance of protecting one’s physical health. “You must learn what drains you and plan accordingly.”
(Sarah Cliffe, “British Library CEO Lynne Brindley on helping to spur business innovation,” Harvard Business Review, Nov. 2007. The article’s free from Harvard Business Review. It’s also available on EBSCOhost’s Business Source Premier.)
Gary Hamel on management innovation
Gary Hamel’s new book, The Future of Management (Harvard Business School Press, 2007) is getting lots of attention. The McKinsey Quarterly interviews him and another management expert and Harvard Business Online is featuring weekly excerpts from the book. I've included summaries of both below.
Innovative management
In The Future of Management, Gary Hamel warns, “Sometime over the next decade, your company will be challenged to change in a way for which it has no precedent.”
In this article in The McKinsey Quarterly, Gary Hamel advocates that a new future be imagined and our 100-year-old management model be reinvented. We need to learn how to build organizations that are as nimble as change itself, engaging to work in, and that mobilize the imagination of every employee. Talent and human beings are an organization’s greatest assets.
Three reasons management may change as radically in the next few years as it did early in the last century:
- The impact of new technology. The availability of powerful new tools for coordinating human effort will profoundly change the work of management over the next few years.
- The increasing demand for organizations to be adaptable, innovative, and exciting places to work.
- A revolution in expectations. Today’s kids assume “that your contribution should be judged simply on the merits of what you do rather than on the basis of your title.” This is the lesson they’ve drawn from the “thoughtocracy” of cyberspace.
Leaders need to learn how to “build organizations that merit the gifts of creativity and passion and initiative.” First, though, managers need to abandon some traditional management beliefs, e.g., the notion that strategy should be set at the top. The “overtly hierarchical management model” is a thing of the past.
Increasingly, the work of management will be pushed out to the periphery and embedded in systems. We may now be on the verge of a “postmanagerial society.”
Here’s Hamel’s 21st-century management model:
- Decision-making will be more peer based.
- The tools of creativity will be widely distributed in organizations.
- Ideas will compete on an equal footing.
- Strategies will be built from the bottom up.
- Power will be a function of competence rather than of position.
Hamel believes we’re very much at the beginning of a fairly long journey. It’ll take a lot of work to migrate to a new management model. Essential to this migration is experimentation, but most organizations don’t think it’s possible to experiment with new managerial models.
To experiment successfully, you have to set clear boundaries around the “risks you’re willing to take and then challenge people to test new ideas within the boundaries. That’s a new skill for most organizations.”
In this experimentation, it’s critical to include the voice of the individuals “whose work is heavily influenced by the organization’s core management processes." “These people know which processes choke off innovation, impede adaptability, and frustrate employees.”
(Joanna Barsh, “Innovative management: A Conversation with Gary Hamel and Lowell Bryan,” McKinsey Quarterly, Jan. 2008. This article’s really worth reading in full! You might also want to have your managers watch Hamel’s 90-second video on Amazon, which says: Organizations must get the very best out of their people; you can’t build an organization fit for the future that isn’t fit for people. Our organizations are less human than we are. Organizations leach adaptability and innovation out of their people between 8:00 and 5:00 every day.)
Be bold in your innovation
This excerpt of Harvard Business Online's weekly excerpt from The Future of Management contains a few key questions to help you bring about “precedent-breaking management innovation.”
Focus on a “problem that is consequential and inspiring, essential and laudable.” If you don’t already have a worthy problem in mind, here are some questions from Hamel that will help you “focus your search”:
- What new challenges are in store for your organization? What are the “emerging discontinuities” that will stretch its management practices to the breaking point? What’s the “tomorrow problem” that you need to start working on today?
- What are the tough balancing acts your organization never seems to get right? What’s the frustrating “either/or” you’d like to turn into an “and”?
- What are the biggest gaps between rhetoric and reality in your organization? What are the values it has the hardest time living up to?
- What are you indignant about? What are the frustrating incompetencies that plague your organization and others like it? What’s the “can’t do” that needs to become a “can do”?
(“Be bold in your innovation,” Harvard Business Online, Oct. 28, 2007.)
People who can apologize earn more money!
Recently, online pearl merchant The Pearl Outlet noticed pearls were increasingly given as an apology, usually to a wife or girlfriend. The Pearl Outlet hired pollster Zogby International to find out more.
Zogby’s survey revealed people who are more willing to say ‘I’m sorry’ make more money than people who rarely or never apologize.” Those with incomes of over $100,000 a year were almost “twice as likely to apologize after an argument or mistake as those earning $25,000 or less.”
- 92% of $100,000+ earners apologized when they believed they were to blame; 89% of those earning between $75,000 and $100,000; 84% of those who make $50,000 to $75,000, 72% of those earning between $35,000 and $50,000 and 76% of people earning between $25,000 and $35,000.
- 52% of those earning $25,000 or less said they usually apologize when they know they’re at fault.
- Even when they believe themselves blameless, 22% of the highest earners say “I’m sorry,” compared to just 13% of those in the lowest income group.
So what does this mean? Saying “I’m sorry” now and then indicates strong people skills. “The link between income and willingness to apologize shows that successful people are willing to learn from their mistakes and are keen on mending troubled relationships.”
Also, “High earners tend to be more secure... They realize when they’re wrong and know it won’t hurt their career much to apologize.” In addition, acknowledging a share of blame is a trait shown by many great leaders “because it tends to build solidarity with the troops.”
(Anne Fisher, “For higher pay, learn to say you’re sorry,” Fortune on CNNMoney.com, Oct. 17, 2007.)
Managing absenteeism
According to a recent CCH Unscheduled Absence Survey, unscheduled absenteeism is on the rise. And worse “almost two out of three employees who don’t show up aren’t physically ill at all.”
Usually it’s the immediate supervisor who has the responsibility of addressing absences. Unfortunately, most supervisors have had no guidance or training in how to manage absenteeism.
All staff need to be fully aware of absence policies and procedures, and they need the full support of senior management. Policies should be administered consistently among all departments. Supervisors need to be “trained in their responsibilities toward addressing absenteeism, advised how to conduct effective return-to-work interviews, and educated in the use of disciplinary procedures when necessary.”
Responsibilities of the supervisor
- Ensure that all employees are fully aware of the organization’s absence policies and procedures.
- Be the first point of contact when an employee is absent.
- Maintain accurate, up-to-date absence records for their staff.
- Identify patterns or trends of absence that cause concern.
- Conduct return-to-work interviews.
- Implement disciplinary procedures where necessary.
The Return-to-Work Interview
Training in how to effectively manage absenteeism should include instruction on how to conduct return-to-work interviews. These interviews are one of the most effective tools for managing short-term absence. The return-to-work discussion, which should be conducted no later than one day after the employee’s return, lets the supervisor welcome the employee back to work and demonstrate management’s commitment to controlling absenteeism. “The message should be that the employee was missed and that productivity suffered.” If the supervisor doubts the authenticity of the reasons for absence, he or she should express any concerns.
The small number of employees who have an absence problem “should be handled individually and firmly.”
Organizations need to take the subjectivity out of absence management and ensure that all employees are treated equally. “It’s essential to be consistent, persistent and fair to all.” And programs should be “facilitative, rather than punitive”.
(Stefani Yorges, “Effectively manage absenteeism,” Sales & Marketing Management’s managesmarter, Oct. 23, 2007.)
