Rules of Management - Introduction
Strange thing, management. It’s something few of us set out in life to do, yet most of us find ourselves doing at some point.
Career Adviser: What would you like to do when you leave school?
16 –year-old: I want to be a manager.
Did this happen to you? No, me neither. But here you are anyway.
As a manager you are expected to be a lot of things. A tower of strength, a leader and innovator, a magician (conjuring up pay rises, resources and extra staff at the drop of a hat), a kindly uncle/aunt, a shoulder to cry on, a dynamic motivator, a stern but fair judge, a diplomat, a politician, a financial wizard (no, this is quite different from being a magician), a protector, a savior and a saint.
You are responsible for a whole gang of people that you probably didn’t pick, may not like, might have nothing in common with and who perhaps won’t like you much. You have to coax out of them a decent day’s work. You are also responsible for their physical, emotional and mental safety and care. You have to make sure they don’t hurt themselves – or each other. You have to ensure they can carry out their jobs according to whether legislation you r industry warrants. You have to know your rights, their rights, the company’s rights, and the union’s rights.
And on top of all this, you’re expected to do your job as well.
Oh yes, and you have to remain cool and calm – you can’t shout, throw things or have favorites. This management business is a tall order…
“You are responsible for a whole gang of people that you probably didn’t pick, may not like, might have nothing in common with and who perhaps won’t like you much.“
You are responsible for looking after and getting the best out of a team. This team may behave at times like small children – and you can’t smack them * (or probably even sack them). At other times they will behave like petulant teenagers – sleeping in late, not turning up, refusing to do any real work if they do turn up, sloping off early – that sort of thing.
Like you, I’ve managed teams (in my case, of up to a hundred people at a time). People whose names I was expected to know, and all their little foibles – ah, Heather can’t work late on a Tuesday because her daughter has to be collected from playgroup. Trevor is color-blind so we can’t use him at the trade show.
As a manager, you are also expected to be a buffer zone between higher management and your staff.
* Yes, yes, I know you can’t smack children wither. I was just making a point. Please don’t write in.
“You are responsible for a whole gang of people that you probably didn’t pick, may not like, might have nothing in common with and who perhaps won’t like you much.“Many sulks if left to answer the phones at lunchtime and loses us customers. Chris is great in a team but can’t motivate herself to do anything solo. Ray drinks and shouldn’t be allowed to drive himself anyway.
As a manager, you are also expected to be a buffer zone between higher management and your staff. Nonsense may come down from on high but you have to a) sell it to your team, b) not groan loudly or laugh, and c) get your team to work with it even if it is nonsense.
You also have to justify the ‘no pay rises this year’ mentality even if it has just completely de-motivated your team. You will have to keep secret any knowledge you have of takeovers, mergers, acquisitions, secret deals, senior management buyouts and the like, despite the fact that the rumors are flying and you are being constantly asked questions by your team.
You are responsible not only for people but also for budgets, discipline, communications, efficiency, legal matters, personnel matters, pensions, sick pay, maternity leave, paternity leave, holidays, time off, time out, time sheets, whip-rounds and leaving presents, rotas, industry standards, fire drills, first aid, fresh air, heating, plumbing, parking space, lighting, stationery, resources, and less and coffees. And that’s not to mention the small matter of customers.
And you will have to fight with other departments, other teams, clients, senior bosses, senior management, the board, share-holders and accounts department (unless of course you are the manager of the accounts department).
You are also expected to set standards. This means you are going to have to be on-time, up-front, smartly dressed, hard-working, industrious, late-staying, early-rising, detached, responsible, caring, knowledgeable, above-reproach juggler. Tall order.
You also need to accept that as a manager you may be ridiculed – think The Office – derived as a manipulative obstructionist pen pusher –think as Yes Minister – and possibly even judged by your staff, shareholders and / or the public to be ineffective and even superfluous to the carrying out of the actual job in hand.*
“AND ALL YOU WANTED TO DO WAS YOUR JOB.”
· If this all makes you feel a bit bleak about being a manager – don’t be Manager are the stuff that runs the world. We get to lead, to inspire, to motivate, to guide, to shape the future. We get to make a difference to the business and to people’s lives. We get to make a real and positive contribution to the state of the world.
· We get not only to be part of the solution but to provide the solution itself. We are sheriff and the marshal and the ranger all rolled into one. We are the engine and the captain. It’s a great role and we should relish it – it’s just not always an easy role…
“You are responsible for a whole gang of people that you probably didn’t pick, may not like, might have nothing in common with and who perhaps won’t like you much.“
And all you wanted to do was your job… Luckily there are a few hints and tips that will have you sailing through it looking cool, gaining points and coming up smelling of roses. These are the The Rules of Management – the unwritten, unspoken, unacknowledged Rules. Keep them to yourself if you want to stay one step ahead of the game.
Management is an art and a science. There are textbooks of thousands of pages devoted to how to do it. There are countless training courses (you’ve probably been on a few). However, what no text book contains and no training course includes are the various ‘unwritten’ rules that make you a good, effective and decent manager. The Rules of Management. Whether you are responsible for only one or two people of thousands – it doesn’t matter. The Rules are the same.
You won’t find anything here you probably didn’t already know. Or if you didn’t know it, then you will read it and say, ‘But that’s really bleeding obvious’. Yes, it is all really think hard enough about it. But in the fast-paced, frantic, just-about-coping kind of life we lead, you may not have thought about it lately. And what isn’t so obvious is whether or not you do it.
It’s all very well saying “But I know that already’. Yes, as a smart person you probably do, but ask yourself honestly for each rule; do you put it into practice, carry it out, work with it as standard? Are you sure?
I’ve arranged these Rules for you into two sections:
Managing your team
Managing you
I think that should be fairly simple. The Rules aren’t arranged in any particular order of importance – the first ones aren’t more important than the later ones or vice versa. Read them all and then start to put them into practice, adopting the ones that seem easiest to you first. A lot of them will flow together so that you can begin to carry them out simultaneously, unconsciously. Soon we’ll have you looking cool and relaxed, confident and assertive, in charge, in control, on top of things and managing marvelously. Not bad considering it wasn’t too long ago you were shoulder to the wheel, nose to the grindstone, ear to the ground and back to the wall. Well done you.
“Soon we’ll have you looking cool and relaxed, confident and assertive, in charge, in control, on top of things and managing marvelously.”
Before we begin, it might be worth taking a moment or two to determine what exactly we all mean by ‘management’. And that isn’t as easy as it sounds. For many my money we are all managers – parents,”* te self-employed, the entrepreneur, the employed, even the ones who inherited wealth. We all have to ‘manage’. It might only be ourselves, but we still have to cope, to make the best use of resources available, motivate, plan, process, facilitate, monitor, measure success, set standards, budget, execute and work. It’s just that some of us have to do all that with bigger teams. But the fundamental stuff doesn’t change.
The Harvard Business School defines a manager as someone who ‘gets result through other people’. The great management consultant Peter Drucker says a manager is someone who has the responsibility to plan, execute and monitor; while the Australian Institute of Management definition of a manager is a person who ‘plans, leads, organizes, delegates, controls, evaluates and budgets in order to achieve an outcome’. I can go along with that.
It can get very wordy and complex:
A manager is an employee who forms part of the organization’s management team and is accountable for exercising delegated authority over human, financial and material management to accomplish the objectives of the organization. Managers are responsible for managing human resources, communicating, practicing and promoting the corporate values, ethics and culture of the organization, and for leading and managing change of the organization. (The Leadership Network, California)
Fine, whatever. We a ell managers in whatever form or shape we think and we all have to get on with the job of managing. Anything that makes our life simpler is a bonus. Here are the simple Rules of Management. They aren’t devious or underhand. Actually they are all pretty obvious. But if you think about each carefully and implement each without fail, you’ll be amazed what a difference it will make to your work and your life.
You may know everything in this book, but do you do it? This book will help motivate you into doing what you already know.
Let’s get on with it…
PART 1 : MANAGING YOUR TEAM
We all have to work with people. These may be loosely known as a team or a department or a squad or a crew – even a posse. It doesn’t matter. The mistake a lot of managers make is to think they are managing people. They think people are their tools, their stock-in-trade. Make the people successful and you have the successful manager – so the theory goes.
But unfortunately this is a myth and we need to see that the real role of the manager is to manage processes rather than people. People can manage themselves if you let them. What you need to be concentrating on is the real job of management – the strategy. The team is merely a means to fulfilling that end. If all your people could be replaced by machines – and how many of us haven’t prayed that this might happen? – we would still have to have a strategy, still have to be managing the process.
The people will have disappeared to be replaced by automatons but the real job would still be there. The good manager is managing change, the process, strategy, processes and balance. In all of this we might well need our ‘people’, but we also may not. We can’t ignore the people of course, but we should be handing over as much self-management to them as we possibly can.
“People canmanage themselves if you let them.”
Of course we, as managers, have to work with real flesh-and-blood people and we have to know what motivates them, how they think and feel, why they come to work, why they give of their best (or their worst), what they afraid of, what they hope and dream for. We shall have to encourage them, coach them, give them the resources to do their job and manage themselves, oversee their processes and set their strategy for them. We will worry about them, look out for them, be on their side and support them. But we won’t mange them. We will let them manage themselves and we shall concentrate on our real role as a manager.
“What you need to be concentrating on is the real job of managmenet – the strategy.”
RULE 1 - Get them emotionally involved
“Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.”
Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic
You manage people. People who are paid to do a job. But if it is “’just a job’ to tem, you’ll never get their best. If they come in work looking to clock in and clock off and do as little as they can get away with in between, then you’re doomed to failure, my friend.
On the other hand, if they come to work looking to enjoy themselves, looking to be stretched, challenges, inspired and to get involved, then you are in with a big chance of getting the very is entirely down to you. It is you that has to inspire them, lead them, motivate them, challenge them, get them emotionally involved.
That’s OK. You like a challenge yourself, don’t you? The good news is that getting a team emotionally involved is easy. All you have to do is make them care about what they are doing. And that’s easy too. You have to get them to see the relevance of what they are doing, how it makes an impact on people’s lives, how reach out and touch people by what they do at work. Get them convinced – because it is true of course – that what they do makes a differences, that it contributes to society in some way rather than just lines the owners’ or shareholders’ pockets, or ensure that the chief executive gets a big fat pay cheque.
And yes, I know it’s easier to show how they contribute if you manage nurses rather than an advertising sales team, but if you think about it, then you can find value in any role and instill pride in those who do whatever job it is. Prove it? OK. Well, those who sell advertising space are helping other companies, some of which may be very small, reach their markets. They are alerting potential customers to things they may have wanted for a long time and may really need. They are keeping the newspaper or magazine afloat as it relies on ad sales income, and that magazine or people who buy it (otherwise they wouldn’t, would they?).
Get them to care because that’s an easy thing to do. Look, this is a given. Everyone deep down wants to be values and to be useful. The cynics will say this is nonsense, but it is true, deep down true. All you have to do is reach down far enough and you will find care, feeling, concern, responsibility and involvement. Drag all that stuff up and they’ll follow you forever and not realize why.
Oh, just make sure that you’ve convinced yourself first before you try this out on your team. Do you believe that what you do makes a positive difference? If you’re not sure, reach down, deep down, and find a way of caring…
“Get them convinced – because it is true of course – that what they do makes a difference.”
RULE 2 - Know what a team is and how it works
'Getting’ good players is easy. Getting’ ‘em to play together is the hard part.”
Casey Stengel, former manager, New York Yankees
So what a team and how does it operates? If we are going to be successful managers we have to know the answers to these questions.
A team isn’t a collection of people. It is an organization with its own dynamics, qualities, and conventions. Without knowing these things you will flounder. Knowing them, you can work your team to achieve greatness.
In every team there are a variety of people all pushing and shoving in different directions and with unequal force. Some shove louder, if you know what I mean. Others are happy to push from the back. Others don’t appear to be doing anything, but you’ll need them for ideas.
If you haven’t looked at team dynamics before, I urge you to read Meredith Belbin’s Management Teams: Why they succeed or fail.* (If you have, pass right on the next Rule.) This is designed for managers concerned with achieving results by getting the best from their key people. I’ll paraphrase what he says, but I do urge you to practice what he preaches.
*R. Meredith Belbin, Management Teams: Why they succeed or fail, Butterworth – Heinemann, 2nd edition 2003.
Belbin says that there are nine team roles – and we all carry out one or more functions of these team roles. Yes, it is fun to identify our own, but it is much more useful to identify your team’s and then work with that information.
The nine team roles are:
- The Plant – they are original thinkers; they generate new ideas; they offer solutions to problems; they think in radically different ways, laterally, imaginatively.
- The Resource Investigator – they are creative; they like to take ideas and run with them; they are extrovert and popular.
The Coordinator – they are highly disciplined and controlled; they can focus on objectives; they unify a team.
- The Shaper – they are very achievement orientated; they like to be challenged and to get results.
The Monitor Evaluator – they analyze and balance and weigh; they are calm and detached; they are objectives thinkers.
- The Team Worker – they are supportive and cooperative; they make good diplomats because they only want what is best for the team.
The Implementer – they have good organizational skills; they display common sense; they like to get the job done.
- The Completer – they check details; they tidy up after themselves; they are painstakingly conscientious.
- The Specialist – they are dedicated to acquiring a specialized skill; they are extremely professional; they have drive and dedication.
Now you know who you might have in your team. So what exactly is a team and how are you going to make yours more effective? Again, read Belbin and also come to understand a team is a group where all the members focus on a collective target. A team doesn’t pull together well when each individual member focuses on their own target – be that just getting to the end of the day, their own personal progress, how to stitch up the boss (that’s you, by the way), use work as a social club, etc.
“A team doesn’t pull together well when each individual member focuses on their own target.”
You’ll know you have a team when you hear ‘we’ and ‘us’ more often than ‘I’ and ‘me’.
You’ll know you have a team when difficult decisions become easy – because someone says, ‘it’s OK, we’re all in this together’.
You’ll know you have a team when the team tells you it is a team.
RULE 3 - Set realistic targets – no, really realistic
“Let’s make a dent in the universe.”
Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple
When I was doing the research for this book, someone said that setting realistic targets was unrealistic and that all targets should be ‘stretching’ ones because that would impress the board. Now, can you see the problem here? Yep, we’re not talking here about motivating a team, getting a job done, creating an atmosphere of success and creativity. No, we’re talking about impressing the board. Now on paper that might be a smart thing to do if your board is made up of monkeys, but I bet it isn’t. I bet it’s made up of pretty shrew cookies who would see through a manoeuvre like that in a nanosecond.
When I say realistic, I don’t say lower or easy-to-achieve targets. I say realistic. That might mean taxing. It might mean struggle. It might mean your team has to redouble its efforts, work harder, longer, brighter. But Rule 3 says realistic and that means achievable, within your grasp. And yes, you might have to stretch a bit.
Realistic means you know what your team is capable of and what is expected of it by your bosses. Somehow you will have to marry the two or to keep both sides happy. You can’t pressurize your team out of existence, nor can you let your bosses think you’re slacking.
If your bosses insist on setting targets that aren’t realistic, you must feed that back to them. Don’t argue or procrastinate; feed it back to them. Ask how they think the targets could be achievable.
Say they are unrealistic. Be very well prepared, make your case that the targets are unrealistic and ask again how they think they could be achieved. Suggest a realistic target of your own, well supported by facts and figures. Keep feeding the problem back to your bosses and asking for clarification. Sooner or later they must set a more realistic target or order you to achieve the impossible. Either way, you are resolved of the problem. If they set you realistic targets, then all you need to do is meet them (you know you can do this). If they order you to fulfill unrealistic ones, you are also in the clear; when you fail to achieve the unachievable you will be able to explain that at the time you did register your protest and bring your case back to them.
“Keep feeding the problem back to your bosses.”
RULE 4 - Hold effective meetings – no, really effective
“The ideas that come out of most brainstorming sessions are usually superficial, trivial, and not very original. They are rarely useful. The process, however, seems to make uncreative people feel that they are making innovative contributions and that others are listening to them.”
A. Harvey Block, CEO, Bokenon Systems
We’ve all been to them – the meetings that drag on, people who ramble, agendas written on the back of the envelope or spur of the moment, any-other-business surprises, lack of information, insufficient notice.
As a manager you will have to hold meetings. Make them effective. Decide in advance what the objective of the meetings is and make sure you meet that objective.
Basically, meetings only have four purposes:
To create and fuse a team
To impart information
To brainstorm ideas (and make decisions)
To collect information (and make decisions)
“Decide in advance what the objective of the meetings is and make sure you meet that objective.”
Some meetings might well take in one or more of these, but you should still be aware of that and add it into your objective. If your meeting is to impart information, then do it and get the hell out. If it’s a discussion about that information you want, then that’s a different type of meeting and as such should have different objectives. Be aware that some meetings are there to help your team meet each other, bond, socialize together, find out about each other and see you in your true role as team leader.
If you want your meetings to be effective, then remain firmly in control – no wishy-washy democracies here. You are the manager and you are in charge – end of the story. To be effective you shouldn’t allow anyone to reminisce, ramble, rabbit on, refuse to shut up or relax. Keep ‘em moving fast and get them out of the doors as soon as you can.
You don’t do ‘any other business’ – ever. If it’s important it should be on the agenda. If it isn’t, then it shouldn’t be there at all. ‘Any other business’ is invariably someone trying to get something over on someone else. Don’t allow it – ever.
See how many meetings you could hold by e-mail, phone, one-to-one (cut out everyone who isn’t absolutely essential).
Start all meetings on time. Never wait for anyone. Never go back over stuff for latecomers. If they’ve missed something vital they can get it from others after the meeting and it’ll learn ‘em to be on time next time.* Useful tip – never schedule meetings to begin exactly on the hour, always say 3.10 rather 3 o’clock. You’ll find people will always be more punctual if you set an ‘odd’ time. Try 3.35 if you want to be really wacky.
Schedule the meeting far enough in advance – but not too far – so that no one can say they had something else on. Confirm the day before with everyone to make sure they have remembered and can make it.
“Start all meetings on time. never wait for anyone.”
* The Toad, having finished his breakfast, picked up a tout and swung it vigorously, belaboring imaginary animals. ‘I’ll learn ‘em to steal my house!’ he cried. ‘I’ll learn ‘em!’ ‘Don’t say “learn ‘em,” Toad,’ said the Rat, greatly shocked. ‘It’s not good English.’ ‘What are you always nagging at Toad for?’ inquired the Badger, rather peevishly. ‘What’s the matter with his English? It’s the same what I use myself, and if it’s good enough for me, it ought to be good enough for you!’ ‘I’m very sorry,’ said the Rat humbly. ‘Only I THINK it ought to be “teach ‘em”, not learn ‘em.” ‘But we don’t WANT to reach ‘em,’ replied the Badger. ‘We want to LEARN ‘em – learn ‘em, learn ‘em! And what’s more, we’re going to DO it, too! (Kenneth Grahame, the wind in the Willows)
You decide who keeps the minutes – and make sure they do, and to you liking. You don’t have to be bossy or aggressive about this, just firm, friendly and utterly in control.
Make sure every point on the agenda ends up with an action plan – no action plan means it was just a chat. Or a decision of course.
If meetings are getting too big – more than six people – start to subdivide them into committees and get your committees to report back.
And most important of all – engrave this one on your heart – all meetings must have a definite purpose. At the end of the meeting you must be able to say whether or not you met that purpose. Oh yes, and hold all meetings on uncomfortable chairs (or standing, à la West Wing) – that speeds things up considerably.
RULE 5 - Make meeting fun
“Don’t tell me you lost your sense of humour already?”
Roger Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
I guess that when you were working your way up to your illustrious position of today you had to sit through many interminable meetings, all boring, all stupifyingly dull. Well, the pattern has to be broken somewhere and I’m relying on you to break it. The old ways of doing meetings has to stop and you’re the very person to do the stopping.
“The old ways of doing meetings has to stop and you’re the very person to do the stopping.”
So let’s make ‘em fun. Now, before we go on, I remember a tip I read somewhere. Basically you were supposed to give out five coins to each meeting member and when they wanted to speak they had to spend a penny. Once they had used up their coins they were done and dusted and couldn’t say anything more. It was supposed to make people really cautious about speaking and reluctant to spend all their coins on trivia. Fun? Maybe. But it would also get you quite a reputation as a prat and / or ineffectual meeting leader. As would other suggestions such as:
Fancy dress
Food and /or drink (unless it’s lunchtime, in which case that’s functional not fun; or if you take your team out to a restaurant or down the pub, and then it’s not a meeting, it’s a bonding session – or a thank you of course: see Rule 17)
Games, quizzes or contests of any sort
Having small surprises such as chocolates strapped under the chairs
A talking stick (don’t ask – New Age California thing)
Blindfolds
Letting the most junior member chair the meeting.
All of these head towards farce, ruin and idiocy. Don’t go there.
So how can you fun things up without looking like David Brent? Well, for a start fun doesn’t have to mean silly or stupid or unfunny.
Fun means not being stuffy, allowing people to be themselves and to bring their own contribution. Fun means allowing people to share things that have made them laugh without being frowned on. Fun is about letting people tell stories or anecdotes that lighten the mood (just know when to say, ‘Right, back to business’). Fun means being flexible enough to allow other suggestions as to where and how you all meet. Perhaps your organization has a great boardroom – could you meet there? Or outside if the weather is good.
The confident manager – that’s you – can be flexible because they are relaxed and cool and confident. The stuffy manager is frightened because they feel insecure and seek a rigid approach to prop up their lack of self-confidence.
