For authors Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, the importance of this managerial function could not be overstated. They felt that the strongest organizations always learned from the middle and that the manager’s primary responsibility was to serve as the knowledge center for the organization. The more importance a given organization placed on learning, the more important the manager was within that organization. The manager could serve this function by sharing knowledge in both directions on the organizational chart.
The primary method to help the rank and file learn is through training. A manager might train employees on the basics of job relevant tasks or impart knowledge to colleagues about the organization’s mission, history, and culture. Managers might also create resources such as FAQs and process documentation to help reduce the complexity of the work or eliminate the need for time-consuming ‘FYI’ meetings (1).
A manager helps leadership learn through performance measurement. A strong manager informs superiors while also motivating employees. However, when mishandled, measurements become threatening or burdensome. A good rule of thumb is to measure performance in a way that aggregates data as it is reported upward. This way, employees are not singled out any time a team falls short of an objective.
One up: Peopleware occasionally twists expressions or phrases to help bring new light to old thinking. One example is workaholism – the authors note how the analogy is to the wrong illness. They think a better comparison is to a cold and suggest the manager’s role is to help guide employees through these brief bouts of madness that any employee is susceptible to come down with from time to time.
The other thought covers Parkinson’s Law – work expands to fill the allotted time (2). They note that in these situations, managers should determine if the employee in question is truly procrastinating or if they are overwhelmed by the difficulty of their other work. It could also be the case that the employee needs better connection with colleagues to help complete certain tasks. Lacking these things may be why the worker is trying to hide behind the perception of busyness. Since it is the manager's job to reduce the difficulty of the work and help employees connect with each other, it is also the manager's job to know when these needs are not being met (3).
One down: Sometimes, good managerial advice reveals how poorly most managers handle a task. A good example from Peopleware is their insight into how an organization builds chemistry:
-They make a cult of quality and build a sense of eliteness.What this told me was that most unhealthy organizations must regularly do the following things:
-They provide satisfying closure.
-They encourage heterogeneity.
-They preserve strong teams.
-They provide strategy without detailing tactics.
-They have no sense of quality and make everyone feel mediocre.Just saying: This is not the first book I’ve ever read that pointed out how most firms do not promote managers based on their aptitude for management. So, what to do?
-They never provide satisfying closure.
-They epitomize uniformity.
-They regularly dismantle strong teams.
-They provide detailed tactical overviews without linking it to strategy
Peopleware does not offer any suggestions. However, they do make a couple of helpful observations. They note that leadership without formal authority means providing leadership as a service. It requires being well-prepared, finding ways to bring out the best in others, and interacting with humor and goodwill no matter what the nature of the task.
A firm struggling to identify future managers could probably do worse than assess non-managers with those qualities in mind. Does the employee prepare? Does the employee help lift the performance of colleagues? And most importantly, does the employee conduct business with humor and goodwill?
Footnotes / other management concepts
0. The theme...?
In one sentence - managers make it possible for people to work.
1. When to meet?
Meetings are often justified by the ‘monumental complexity’ of the organization (or even the given project). This observation makes everyone feel important. But most work is not so complex. A good manager should be able to spot the difference between a task that requires a meeting and one that does not.
A good rule of thumb for calling a meeting – do the employees know how to do the work? If not, meet. But if everyone knows what to do already… then why meet?
2. While on the topic…
So, what is subject to Parkinson’s Law? According to Peopleware, any busywork. It is possible that Parkinson’s Law, often framed as some kind of insidious truth about large organizations, is actually just exposing how little work actually needs to get done in a large organization.
3. Again, a reference to Andy Grove…
If the whole ‘train or connect with colleagues’ concept sounds familiar, it is because it echoes Grove’s thoughts from High Output Management about what a manager’s job is – train or motivate. It’s a thought I highlighted elsewhere in this post.
When someone cannot do the job, Grove thought it meant that the person either did not know how or was not motivated to do the work – thus, train or motivate. I like Grove’s answer a little better than the one I noted from Peopleware but I think the spirit of the two approaches is the same.
