Are managers engaged in developing the potential of their teams or simply their own careers? Godfrey Parkin suspects the latter.
What on earth are we teaching people in “management training” courses? The more senior managers I encounter, the less impressed I am with either our training practices or our promotion processes, or both. There seems to be a growing sense of self-righteous despotism in organisational management, and it’s getting harder to ignore.
There has always been a lot of lip-service in organisations. Our Vision, Mission, and (especially) Values statements bask in a PR-conscious preciousness that rarely reflects the reality on the ground. Upholding human dignity, respect for the individual, fairness, equal opportunity all drip from the earnest clichéd prose used by corporations to describe their management regimes. But, in most companies, at the one-on-one, manager-employee level, it’s a sham.
Over the decades I have worked with corporations large and small around the world, and my universal impression has been that most people manage by fear and manipulation, and they get ahead by skilful (or instinctive) use of politics, networking above themselves, and exploitation of their peers. The warm, fuzzy, touchy-feely stuff so beloved of HR policy and management training gurus is a whitewash that obscures the reality: at the individual level, people-management in corporations is all about taking credit and passing blame.
If this is a result of incompetence or indifference, then perhaps training is at fault. But often it is a result of calculated competitiveness in those with ambition for “bigger things,” or desperate attempts at maintaining control in those already out of their depth. As trainers, we prefer to ignore these realities, because formally acknowledging them is career suicide in companies that are in denial.
Particularly at the upper-middle management level, dominance rules over competence. That appears to be the natural order of things anyway, so maybe it is the best way to run a business. It’s how the military has been run for centuries, and 20th Century business organisation was derived from military organisation, with command-and-control hierarchies the central pillar of most corporate designs. Sadly, the military has always done a much better job of managing talent.
The dog-eat-dog environments in which most employees operate tend to allow those with bigger teeth and less restraint to advance ahead of those who may be better qualified but less ferocious, or less sly. Nothing is more guaranteed to have you occupying the same desk for decades than doing a good job and passively waiting to be recognised. The result is a top-tier of management whose unifying characteristics are ambition, ruthlessness, and a sense of infallibility, and whose integrity, decency, and fitness for task may be questionable.
It is that mix of characteristics which gets companies into trouble. It is how mega-corporations lose billions in only a few months. It’s what leads to the commonplace firings of thousands of workers, a gesture that says: “I have absolutely no constructive ideas how to manage my business out of the hole that I put it in, so I’ll just dump overhead.” Bizarrely, such acts of desperation are routinely applauded by analysts as indicators of strong management.
That self-serving indifference to employees also leads to another commonplace management practice – instead of simply re-organising a department, everyone in it is instructed to re-apply for their own job. “You have been working for me for years, but I don’t really know who you are or what you do, so sell yourself to me.” In the contorted world of management-speak, this grotesque process is seen to be clever, yet it is really another admission of management failure.
Individual employees are routinely ignored, stifled, oppressed, mentally abused, and in other ways subjected to enormous stress that has nothing to do with their roles or tasks. Good people are played off against each other. Managers nurture those least likely to threaten their jobs or their egos, and sideline those whose competence makes them uncomfortable. Getting ahead these days typically requires a good performer to change companies. None of this is good for the health of an organisation.
There’s something wrong with this picture, but what, if anything, is to be done?
Should we heroically be trying to train managers to act in the best interests of the company, even when it is not in the best interest of their own careers? Should we be training managers to recognise and respond appropriately to self-serving practices in those reporting to them? Should we be training employees how to get ahead, giving those who are by nature less assertive the skills and insights to compete? Or is this all futile – should we simply stick to regurgitating Argyris, Ansoff and Maslow, and hope that nobody ever notices that we are not in touch with day-to-day realities?
russell slater , 24 August 2005 @ 07:40 AM an example of the issue...
I am intrigued by Godfrey’s hard hitting and heartfelt article which I think should become required reading at all management schools and I was particularly interested in the way it has lent itself to the gender equality seekers. I agree in principle that certain traits have been established for male and female but let’s not assume that it always goes that way.
I am a six foot three, seventeen stone, male ex-soldier who, since leaving the military has worked in the civilian world for 17 years. I have suffered at the hands of precisely the type of “dominance” that Godfrey mentions on a couple of significant occasions the latest being in hand currently.
My role is as a training associate to a larger consultancy working with a governmental organisation. I have just been sacked by the consultancy, allegedly at the request of a female senior manager at the client. She has not given reasons and will not communicate with me. My female consultancy manager will not demand justification and will not support me, preferring to passively comply with the ego of the client.
The irony of the whole event is that the training I have been supplying to the client is centred on communication skills, effective performance management and the provision of timely and meaningful feedback!
Eleanor Dearle , 04 August 2005 @ 12:00 PM Women often have a life
Referring to Vivienne's comment - Yes this is probably why after 30 years of the women's movement we still feature lower in the hierarchy.
However this could also be a sign of our rounder lives and sanity - after all who wants to work 70 hours a week and live your life for an organisation that will drop you without a thought at an economic pinch.
Life's got more to offer
Bennet Simonton , 03 August 2005 @ 20:51 PM Thankless task?? Maybe. Great for the business? Yes, yes!!
Sorry to hear of your sad experience, Ian. IMHO, treating your people well resolves most issues.
You said - "To be part of a team with your staff, to coach them, motivate them and move them properly towards their own personal goals and supply the forms needed to prove all of this does not sit comfortably with the need to drive the business forward, cut costs, increase sales and spend as much time as possible on this."
My experience indicates that treating employees properly and with respect is the best thing one can do for driving business forward, cutting costs and increasing sales. The two are not incompatible as you infer.
I proved this in successfully effecting four turnarounds including a nuclear-powered cruiser and a 1300 person unionized group in New York City. In the last case, productivity per person rose by over 300%. I admit that my methods were not in consonance with what my bosses believed was correct, but it was hard to ignore my amazing results and the fact that my people loved to come to work. For me personally, it was very rewarding to see such turned-on people tear up the competition.
Ian Whyteside , 03 August 2005 @ 15:46 PM Is it ever going to be right?
Not a lot I can say about the summary of the woeful state of real management in this country and, no doubt, beyond.
I have been in management for about 25 years and now spend most of my time counselling managers through problems and changes and I feel very sorry for them, male and female, because it is a thankless task and I for one am glad I am out of it.
To be part of a team with your staff, to coach them, motivate them and move them properly towards their own personal goals and supply the forms needed to prove all of this does not sit comfortably with the need to drive the business forward, cut costs, increase sales and spend as much time as possible on this.
In the end you actually occupy a uncomfortable position where the bosses hate you because you are not generating enough work and the staff hate you because you expect too much of them. That means, certainly in my case, working 70+ hours a week being no ones friend and losing all touch with home as well.
In 4 years of freelancing as a trainer and consultant I see no changes and can only offer small words of advice to those emulating my own experiences and getting nowhere. You are right to accuse the management training world of regurgitating the tired old methods but thats because the client asks for that and we need something radical and new to lift the middle manager from where they are now. Is it going to happen and will it ever be right?
Well yes it will be but only in places, the majority probably won't. Ian Whyteside
Bennet Simonton , 01 August 2005 @ 13:35 PM There is a solution!
Godfrey,
Well done on stating the problem, but that is the easy part. What about the hard part? What about a solution?
The solution is to design and implement a method of managing people which is easy-to-learn, easy-to-execute, and causes such a significant increase in productivity and innovation as to blow away the competition. The attractiveness of such a method would eventually overcome the bad tactics Godfrey relates.
The next question is "Does such a method exist?" I contend that Peter Hunter has one in his book "Breaking the Mould". I also contend that my methods explained in the book "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed" will also achieve the desired result, the desired very, very large increase in productivity and motivation. Both Peter and I have proven our methods in the workplace several times.
Steve Jones , 01 August 2005 @ 13:17 PM Shoudn't we be coaching leaders?
Great article and reflects most businesses & in my opinion is even more accurate the larger the organisation.
I have no doubt that the leaders & HR departments of these organisations have to shoulder most of the blame. After all most managers reflect the behaviors of their leaders & it takes a very brave manager to go against the grain. The leaders in turn are hardly ever measured on how people perform but on the bottom line, increased sales, reduced costs etc.
So HR people and trainers need to talk to the leaders in their language not the language of HR/training people. To gain the leaders buy in to the concept and deliver results…. ie sell the solution….. sorry used that unmentionable word in the training realm… SELLING!
So what’s the answer?
Well for one the ‘HR department’ need to get out from their comfy offices and move away from a box ticking or bums on seats mentality, (90% of the workforce have completed their appraisals so we must be doing a good job approach, we trained 50 managers and it only costs us £2,000) to one that involves working with the leaders to help them achieve the organisations business results. It mans recognizing and gaining an understanding of the business pressures of leaders and managers & supporting them to achieve the business result.
Goals need to be agreed at all levels with leaders mangers and HR all working to those goals but more than this, HR & trainers must support the leaders and managers over time to help them tweak their every day behaviors in achieving those goals.
Business leaders have to be sold on the idea to support the investment…. How many HR people have ever been on a sales course?
Oh and finally! please stop sending people on ‘sheep dip’ training.
Peter Hunter , 01 August 2005 @ 11:49 AM Stop Teaching, Make Them Curious Instead.
Godfrey You describe the world pretty accurately.
This situation has developed as a result of trying to use yesterdays management practices today.
In the past the workforce expected to be told what to do and the managers expected the workforce to do what they were told.
To make money you simply had to manipulate the workforce with the same dispassionate direction that you moved figures on a balance sheet.
Today telling people what to do creates resistance because human beings will no longer accept being ordered about.
Telling people what to do is now recognised as the weakest most destructive things that a manager can do (Ben Simonton - : "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed".)
The problem appears to be that nobody has ever come up with a replacement behaviour that managers can use to allow their teams to perform.
Without this ability or the tools to allow their team to perform the manager concentrates his energy on the shallow politics of his own career instead of the performance of his team.
In order to allow the managers to be able to have a positive effect on the performance of their team they have to learn to use the tools that will make that change.
Before they can understand the use of those tools they first have to understand the effect that the tools have.
Only when they have seen what happens when people are allowed to become powerful can they ask what they can do to support them.
Then we can give them the tools they require to provide the support and recognition that will create the environment that will allow their team to become powerful.
It is a massive change for a manager to change from telling people what to do to asking them what they need to perform but once they understand the documented effect this change of behaviour has on the workforce it is impossible for the manager not to ask, "How can I help?"
What can be done is to create the curiosity that causes the managers to ask "How can I help?"
Only then can we start to give them the tools and soft skills they need to start to support their teams.
Vivienne Rayner , 01 August 2005 @ 11:25 AM Is this what holds women back?
I really identified with the sentence - Nothing is more guaranteed to have you occupying the same desk for decades than doing a good job and passively waiting to be recognised.
And from my experience, it is something that characterises women's behaviour by and large. Could it also explain the persistence of the gender pay gap?
Are managers engaged in developing the potential of their teams or simply their own careers? Godfrey Parkin suspects the latter.
