Geoffrey Bellman

At the base of it all, we’re all a bunch of naked human beings. Down underneath it all, in the game we never talk about–the primary game–we’re all down there reaching, grasping, clinging, lifting, floating through life.

But we seldom acknowledge this. We’re all equal in that regard. We all share a resistance to looking into the deeper meaning of what we are doing.

Let go of the idea that we are ever going to fully understand it, but always keep trying to understand the unspoken game. We are always going to be discovering more about ourselves, our games. We need to acknowledge that the game goes beyond our ability to make sense of it. It is a fascinating life mystery.

Then he goes on, now talking as a consultant:

Whenever I tell clients to “Do this,” ” Don’t do that,” I imply that the game is “solvable.” It is not. My advice, my techniques, tools, and models are only attempts at fuller understanding; these tools will not give me answers, the complete picture.

This is such a powerful reminder to all of us who coach, whether you are a manager or an independent like me. We can’t “fix” things for those we coach. And we owe it to tell those same people–and ourselves–that there is no ultimate solution to the challenges of swimming in an organizational soup. There is only the prospect of continuing to become a gradually better swimmer.

Here’s a quick secret for getting along and playing nicely in the sandbox: When something goes amiss, don’t look for guilt, look for cause. Focus on correcting the situation and not blaming anyone. The former develops support, the latter enmity.

While he mentions it in a more general context of human relations, it is a good reminder for managers whose employee screws up on a task and the situation calls for feedback.

Depending upon the gravity of the situation and the history of the employee involved, it’s hard not to swing directly to the blame option. Judgments of the employee as incompetent, uncaring, or even malicious flow into our mind. This just makes us angry, a rather destructive frame-of-mind in which to engage the employee in “constructive” feedback, wouldn’t you say?

Operating from a place of anger or frustration activates what author Seth Godin calls our reptile mind, causing us to block out other explanations. We neglect to consider the staffer’s skill level (training) or other external forces in play such as lack of resources, too many pressures on the employee, or difficulties in the system of work and information flow.

Blame speaks–not favorably–to the imagined intention of the individual. If it is their fault, why look beyond the person to other possible contributing causes?

We need to program into our minds–yes, we’re talking about a mental habit here–a default response that scans for cause, not blame, when a staff member falls short of acceptable performance. Your spirit of problem-solving has a chance of turning around performance AND building a more trusting relationship. The other way never will.

Three main themes emerged:

1. The global recession has permanently altered the so-called “contract” between employees and their employers.
2. There is a gap between what employees want and what employers are able to provide them.
3. This is a pivotal time when employers have the opportunity to identify and put in place a more flexible, sustainable “deal” for their staff…before the economy takes off again and we see a flood of unhappy employees packing their bags for greener pastures.

Not surprisingly, the downturn has had an impact on the results in this year’s report. It has uncovered a couple of dilemmas:

• Employees want security above all else (76% of respondents) but only 51% believe it is attainable.
• People continue to hunker down in their current employment, putting having a stable job above the siren call of career opportunity. 81% are not actively looking for other jobs, despite the fact that 48% see no potential advancement in their current job.

News for leaders and managers! Confidence of employees in their managers’ interpersonal and relational (vs. operational) competence is alarmingly low…

• Only 38% think their leaders are sincerely interested in their well-being
• Only 47% see their leaders as trustworthy
• Just 42% say that their leaders inspire and engage them
• 53% question whether their managers have time for the people aspects of their job
• 61% question doubt their managers’ effectiveness in dealing with poor performers.

Clearly we have a woeful shortfall in the people side of leading at all managerial levels. Despite these numbers, TW sees this time as one of great opportunity for employers:

We are at the earliest stages of a significant workplace transformation that will profoundly affect how businesses approach people management and how individuals approach the workplace.

I’ll have some more to say about this in my next couple of postings.

Instead of distinguishing managers from leaders, we should be seeing managers as leaders and leadership as management practiced well.

While we may be able to separate the two forms conceptually, asserts Mintzberg, you can’t disentangle the two in practice. This has a certain resonance with me. It has always felt a tad artificial to separate leading and managing, although our programs have positioned the former as more influencing and big picture thinking, vs. the skill-based nature of pure managing.

So, how do leading and managing intermingle as the “manager” goes about her duties? Mintzberg has a practical model of what the manager does. She works her magic by operating on three planes, each of which involves both an internal (i.e. within the unit) and external focus.

1. Information – Collecting, organizing, authoring and communicating information out into the wider organization and beyond as well as down into her own unit. She uses information to suggest, cajole, and frame certain actions and decisions on the part of unit employees and others outside the unit.
2. People – Encouraging, helping and developing (i.e. leading) individuals and teams within her unit to make decisions, get things done and develop new capacities to perform. On the “people plane” you also have linking to people outside the unit, for example, building relationships with individuals in other departments, customers, vendors, public officials, and so on. Here is where a manager’s networking skill is so critical.
3. Action – Internally, it means getting directly involved, hands-on, in key decisions, projects and problems. Beyond the unit, the manager makes deals to mobilize support for the unit’s needs and interests by exchanging reciprocal power and influence.

When you think about it, working these three planes internally and externally, the manager has to slide back and forth, frequently during the same interaction, from leading to managing. At one moment she is directing her staff to move on certain priority tasks. Then she represents her department at a senior team meeting. Then she negotiates with finance for leniency on reporting requirements just this month. Then she meets with an irate customer company, listening and problem-solving their complaint.

In the end, says Mintzberg, managing is a “soft” craft (with an element of art thrown in), not a hard science. This is why management training and leadership development can be a difficult “sell” to technically-oriented decision makers. Craft though managing may be, the strategic importance of developing the leadership roles of your managers is in no way diminished.

In a similar vein, I put it to you that your most important three feet as a manager is that space between you and your employee. I’m not talking about so much about the physical space but more importantly about the mental and emotional space. How you handle this “I-thou” space will determine how effective a leader you are. It’s a distance across which pass–in both directions–information, meaning, expectations, resistance, appreciation, criticism, enthusiasm, hope, discouragement, fear, and much, much more.

We hear a lot these days about employee engagement, productivity, and retention, about talent development, and about leadership. These are all central to the results your employees ultimately generate and how profitable and successful your enterprise will be in creating wealth and achieving its goals.

Look at the organizations that do these things well and trace back to what’s behind it. Your search will eventually take you to that same “yardstick” of distance across which exemplary managers are leading excellent relationships with their employees. This is where the important work of leaders at all levels lies.

I touched upon this phenomenon in my last post. Here now are four reasons for managers’ tendency to adopt a directive style in these situations. See if you can relate to any of these in yourself and perhaps in other managers where you work.

1. Managers have previously developed the “take action” habit. Most of them are promoted from the ranks of individual contributors where they worked in a technical, professional, administrative or blue collar activity. Here success came from organizing and controlling inanimate “things,” such as reports, data, concepts, materials, and so forth. Their job was to take some kind of action or make some decisions around these items. They come to management having already developed a “default,” action-oriented response to their work.
2. A manager’s key success factor is his or her ability to identify and solve problems. Managers are constantly being presented with urgent issues. When they solve one they feel good, feel like they have added value to the operation. So, it’s not surprising that when an employee brings forward a problem the manager’s default response is either to solve it himself/herself or tell the employee how to solve it.
3. They most likely already know the solution. Managers typically have been around longer than many of their employees and have learned a lot about working effectively. Furthermore, if they came up from the ranks, they understand the front line work from personal experience. Often the solution is a no brainer to them. Without duct tape to cover their mouth, it is hard to keep from blurting out the answer.
4. Managers are busy people. It is simply quicker to give the answer, check it off mentally as another problem solved, and send the employee on his/her way. Any other response, such as coaching the staffer to come up with a good solution, will take more of the manager’s limited time.

If you can see one or more of these forces operating within you, you have reached the first step toward changing your default behavior to one of coaching and getting your employees do the mental heavy lifting around problems they encounter in their work.

More to come about this in my next post.

You can’t “lead” things. You can’t lead inventories, cash flow and costs. You can’t lead information, time structures, processes, facilities and tools. You have to manage them.

Why? Because things don’t have the freedom to choose. Only people do.

So, you lead (empower) people. You manage and control things. The problem is, the organizational legacy we’ve all inherited says you do need to manage and control people.

Now, isn’t this simply the nub of it all?

To start with, it’s in our psychological DNA, as humans, to want to control–manage–our immediate environment. That includes the people with whom we come into contact. Add to this the expectation of companies that managers control their departments. That includes their employees. Add to this that most managers started their careers in a professional, technical or hands-on capacity where it was their job to manage “things” (e.g. deliveries, numbers, data processed, hamburgers flipped).

Our biggest obstacle to being their “best boss ever” is our default need to control our employees–what they do, how they do it, the attitude they bring into the workplace, and their level of job satisfaction. Until we let go of this need and realize that we can’t make them do anything or feel any particular way or be satisfied and keen  we will never ascend to that level of effectiveness that we read about in all those best seller leadership books. For some managers, letting this go becomes a life-long journey and some never succeed in it.

A large focus of our management and leadership programs is teaching participating managers how to engage, challenge and inspire their employees, rather than how to “get” staff to perform and feel positive about their job and the organization.

Are you still clutching on to the need–and responsibility–to control your people? Consider, if you will, gradually relaxing your grip and opening up to a way of leading that really gets results.