Old joke: Did you hear about the guy who had a dog with no legs? Every morning he took it out for a drag.
Some managers consider that to be their job description.
To avoid that sad fate, imagine it’s as I proposed two weeks ago: You and every other executive and manager in your organization have the same responsibilities you do now, but without any authority at all, because the Board of Directors suddenly removed the right to compel from the management job description.
How much would change? In a well-run organization, very little, because well-run organizations don’t hire “legless dog” employees that managers have to drag around.
In well-run organizations, everyone understands:
- What the organization exists to accomplish — the mission.
- How the business works and how it connects to the external marketplace — the business model.
- How the organization is supposed to evolve over time — the vision.
- How the organization is supposed to get there — the strategy.
- How they fit into the mission, business model, vision and strategy.
- How to do their jobs exceptionally well in order to make it all happen.
And in well-run organizations they buy into all of this, have good reasons to want it to happen, find it energizing, and have no “perverse incentives” to take them in different directions.
Sound utopian? Sure it does. Sadly, “utopian” has two meanings: An ideal state, and impractical perfection. And while this account of a well-run organization is certainly utopian in the first sense, trying to achieve it is as practical as a business leader can get, because the closer you get the easier everything becomes.
So imagine you have no authority. What would you do differently? Or (I certainly don’t want to imply KJR’s readers are anything short of excellent leaders), what would less-enlightened business leaders than you need to do differently?
First on the list is staffing: Hiring, retaining, training and promoting superior employees at all levels. If you want to avoid the legless-dog syndrome, step one is hiring “dogs with legs” — the ones eager to pull you along, instead of the ones you have to drag.
Speaking of limits to metaphors: Well-trained dogs heel. That’s the second-to-last thing you want. Obedience is a virtue when and only when you are the source of all ideas, and everyone else is supposed to follow. Otherwise you want employees who strain at the leash, metaphorically speaking. They’re the ones who, when you turn them loose … well, you get the idea.
You have the right people. Now what?
Next on the list is clarity. If you can’t clearly articulate the organization’s mission, business model, vision, strategy, and organizational plan, nobody else will know where you’re going, why, or what they’re supposed to do to help you get there.
A word about the mission: If you can’t see beyond “To make money” as your mission statement … and I’ve known business leaders who couldn’t understand why anything else was needed … add the word “by” at the end and see where that takes you, as in, “Our mission is to make money by building widgets people want to buy.”
Then add energy, as in, “Our mission is to make money by building widgets so far beyond what the competition has to offer that our customers eyes water at the prospect of owning them.”
Making money is nice. It’s the essence of capitalism. It’s also a non-motivator to the best employees you can hire — the ones who want to accomplish something important every day.
Speaking of clarity, try to see the world through the eyes of your employees, and see it that way clearly. If you need help, ask them. Because understanding what you want is one thing. Wanting it themselves is something else.
Ask yourself why your employees would want to go the extra mile for you. If you’re left with empty phrases like “work ethic” (translation: When employees work hard it isn’t because of anything you did to encourage it) you need to think more carefully about the radio station every employee listens to every morning. It’s the same one you listen to every morning: WIIFM … What’s In It For Me?
This isn’t about bribing employees to perform. It’s about engaging them in the company’s success, so they consider it to be their success as well and not just something that happened while they showed up every day.
And then … then you don’t need authority any more. Just turn your employees loose and enjoy the show.
Sounds like you are espousing the
Tao te Ching verse 17 on leadership.
When I worked at IBM the best managers I had were those who made it feel they worked for me, not me working only for them. I would get assignments with the appropriate resources to complete them. There typically would be “problems” or show-stoppers beyond my sphere of influence. When those occurred I would take the problem to my manager and the problems would be resolved. I had the autonomy to get my work done with the knowledge that any problems outside my realm would be effectively handled. This was productive for both of us.
I love this.
Ideal Utopian, call it what you will, its something to strive for.
I was employed at a company in which I wanted to do good work and prove myself; excelling at the next level, and offering a 1/4 century of experience. When I could find a manager, they were more concerned about validating themselves and their archaic old methods than improving.
I was the pent up dog wanting to get let out.
I got let go instead.
I found your article very poignant, and worth forwarding to colleagues.
Bob:
Transit guy who has written before.
Love your similes and glittering generalities in today’s rant. But beg to differ on the basic premise.
Years ago, when chief enigneer design and construction at this midwest transit agency, I was standing in the hallway with my right hand man, who was a Nigerian educated civil engineer, when one of our brightest young guys came up to us with a problem. Bestman and I immediately jumped all over the subject. Shortly, I realized what we were doing, and wrote in my pocket calendar, ” Don’t tell me your problems, tell me your solutions, and asked my young engineer to read it out loud. Turned out, as I suspected, that he had the answer, but was not sure of it. Two things happened there. First, his confidence was supported. And secondly, the next time he had a problem, he night well say, Well, maybe I should go to the boss. But then, again, i really do know what is right.
Instills conficence and independent thinking.
Just be sure that the “Below the waterline decisions” percolate up.
That’s another whole subject.
Charles
Your last comment in particular struck me as … not quite on target. I think the distinction between “power” and “authority” needs to be made. In fact, this distinction has been made long ago by Max Weber. Power stems from the exercise of formal control mechanisms (allotting vacation, granting raises, writing reprimands, etc). Power is what is used for what you refer to as the legless dogs (which by the way have the name of Cigarette — taking it out for a drag). Authority, on the other hand, is when the followers recognize your claim of leadership as legitimate, and will follow where you lead based simply on your word.
I recognize that this description is a little simplistic, but the point should be there to be seen. Power is the element that should be left to the side, while Authority should be promoted. As managers, we are privy to various information sources, perspectives and pressures that are not normally perceived by the people under us (we have the choice to share that information, albeit post facto). Therefore, a good group will be based on authority (not power!) to guide our teams appropriately.
Having people move mountains helps neither the people nor you (nor the mountain for that matter) if the mountain is placed haphazardly. If your people move a mountain to where it fits, everyone is happy (and the benefits ripple throughout the organization).
In short, authority needs to be exercised to keep everyone on track. Power should be rarely, if ever, used.
I just had to add another variation of the legless dog joke.
“what do you call a dog with no legs?”
“It doesn’t matter, he won’t come when you call him.”
Excellent column. I think your six steps about what the organization exists to accomplish, etc, would be the perfect questions for an individual to ask of an organization at a job interview.
I had a VP who was fond of “…bring me solutions.” We called him “Hammer Hank.” He ruled his organization, but didn’t get the results he wanted. My experience was to take solutions to him so that he could make decisions – the reason he got paid 5x my salary. Supposedly, he operated from the “Big Picture.” I quickly learned that I had to do all of the organization selling to get him to make the decision I wanted him to make, only to infuse my recommendation with his supposed authority. When properly managed from below, it is possible to get your viewpoint/method/strategy installed with top management authority even when you don’t have any.
Sounds like the pointy-haired boss in the November 25th Dilbert. “We need more of what the management experts call “employee engagement”. I don’t know the details but it has something to do with you idiots working harder for the same pay.”
Bob, reading this I kept thinking of The Gervais Principle: or The Office According to The Office.
The basic premise is that people fall into three roles:
Sociopaths — who always put themselves first, and know that the corporation is a non-feeling entity that exists to support their goals. They are fast-tracked for executive positions.
Clueless — the high performers naive enough to think that the corporation values them, so provide loyalty in return. They are shunted into middle management to do all the real work for not much more pay.
Losers — people without ambition, who keep their heads down and punch the clock. They do enough to not get fired, but not enough to get stuck with the additional responsibility of middle management.
(The article also describes the trajectory of these three groups in the lifecycle of a corporation. But this is enough to make my point.)
When you talk about finding “the right people”, I can’t help thinking you’re looking for the Clueless. Sure, as an executive you want people for whom the work is its own reward. But for the ambitious, what’s the path to the executive ranks?
Simply doing good work doesn’t seem to be enough. That’s the road to middle management.
I guess what I’m asking is, can you explain why The Gervais Principle is wrong? Because it seems to describe life in a large corporation pretty well from what I can see.
The Gervais principle is neither right nor wrong. It describes some but not all organizations.
The good news, I think, is that for the most part the best organizations … the ones I described this week … are relatively speaking less likely to be run by sociopaths. The reason: Sociopaths and narcissists are so self-absorbed, and so certain they’re the reason for the organization’s success, that they’re not the sort of people who understand the importance of hiring great people to work in their organizations.
For the most part they’ll hire toadies and suck-ups who tell them how great they are.
Great piece.
A lot of common sense there.
Regarding the way-too-obedient subjects I wrote about them a week ago. Search for the copycat critter description at http://holoom.com/2009/11/25/office-fauna/
Cheers,
Shuje