Management

Six Definitive Aspects of Management

What is Management

What is management, anyway? I would define it as taking responsibility for the performance and output of another employee in a business setting. There is obviously some overlap between that and leadership, and in many cases we can use the terms interchangeably, but in the end it boils down to being responsible for those two things—performance and output—and it relates to doing so with people in a business setting.

Let me make six statements here to help define management further.

Aptitude for Management Comes from the Choices you’ve Made

I’ll start by noting that management is not natural, and there are no “natural born” managers. Good management comes primarily from who you are as a person, and if you’ve made the right choices as you’ve responded to the circumstances you’ve encountered, there is a higher likelihood that you’ll be a good manager. That’s the first point, and it’s a very important one.

Who you are as a person stems from the choices you have made in the circumstances you have faced. You have had precious little choice about some of those circumstances, but you have had all sorts of freedom in deciding how you would....

As you grow, what transitions are useful and even expected? Let’s look at a few that you’ll almost certainly encounter and help you see what might be on the other side of the transition.

One: Hiring for Expertise vs. Money

The first good transition to make is to begin hiring people for their expertise rather than for what they cost you. In the early days, you have a budget and you hire accordingly. You aim for whatever you can get for that price, and that’s the best you can do. There simply isn’t any more money, and expertise takes a back seat to available funds.

Eventually, though, you determine that expertise is more important than money. So you outline what you’re looking for in great detail and you don’t settle for less. You have a budget in mind, but the budget takes a back seat to the requirements for expertise. That means you may bust the budget. But in this scenario, one very qualified person may actually be equally as effective as two less qualified individuals.

Two: From Judging to Shaping

The second good transition to make is to move from judging to shaping the work underneath....

A great client recently asked me to outline my definition of success for their firm. I really enjoyed doing that, and below is a version that you can adapt to your own situation, putting your own stamp on it:

• Partner compensation equals or exceeds industry benchmarks.
• After that is achieved, you still 20% net profit.
• The more entrepreneurial employees are satisfied that their contribution to your gain is recognized and accounted for.
• Partners and employees in key roles will have already tasted competence in the area of your focus, or they will experience it within nine months of joining the firm.
• There will be few or no young employees who value variety over expertise.
• When employees talk about your firm, while still employed, their private comments will be complimentary.
• When partners and employees head out the door to work for the day, they look forward to the challenges, the companionship, and their participation in the overall culture.
• As a firm you will not require extraordinary people....

I was recently working with a firm under our new "Come to Nashville" program for a day and we were doing long-term planning, mainly, but with an eye on how that might impact the short term. I came up with some questions that turned out to be very helpful as they took a break from the continuous crazy days we all have, and then answered them honestly and seriously.

• How do you feel about the current positioning of your firm? If you could waive a magic wand and change it (without regard to current employees or clients), what would your positioning be?
• What are your biggest fears in just pursuing that positioning, even if it means doing so alongside your current firm and maybe even doing it all alone without employees?
• If I watched you on a typical day, would it look like you are taking care of clients or would it look like you were taking care of employees (who would then take care of clients if you did your job well)?
• Who are the two weakest employee links who probably should be dismissed in the near future?
• Who is the most talented person at your firm who is disruptive to the culture? Are they on the list, above, of people to dismiss?
• You likely started this firm to create an environment for yourself that allowed for more freedom, control, and money. Now that you have built it, to what degree are these three things true?...

I seldom give up my 17,000-person blog platform to guests. Keeping your attention is important and my primary marketing tool. But, I read a blog last week that Mark Busse wrote, and I thought it was brilliant. I'm sharing it here with his permission:

Rushing into starting your own design business can turn a dream into a nightmare.

Recently I heard from two former students of mine. As they entered the industry a few years ago we had some honest talks about their options, and against my advice they decided to skip internships or junior positions--which they felt were both beneath them--and went into partnership together with another classmate to form their own design studio. After some early success working for friends and family, their studio quickly fell into chaos, the partnership dissolved, and the company folded, leaving their clients in rough shape.

I'll spare you my story of how running my design business has still not brought the freedom, flexibility or financial reward I'd hoped for after 15 years--and I have a business degree--and how I often miss the days of just working for someone else. Instead, let's talk about how lazy, short-sighted and dangerous starting your own business can be.

You heard me: lazy, short-sighted and....

This is a question that has long intrigued me. It comes up more frequently, too, as individual workers find it harder to find work at all, much less work that they enjoy. But even in a difficult economy, employees regularly switch jobs to work in a more satisfying environment.

They are told repeatedly to "follow your heart…and the money will come." Even aspiring entrepreneurs are encouraged to take that path to fulfill a dream, chase their hopes, and attempt to "build it," hoping they will come.

But that's different than having a right to enjoy it. Not only do I strongly disagree with the sentiment, I think believing it has twisted our expectations and those of our employees. It's not all that different, in fact, from commenting on someone's gruesome death that "at least she died doing what she loved."

First, a lot of people who are "following their heart" are starving. It's just true. Even pseudo-entrepreneurs who follow a system via a franchise are failing in droves--in some, there's a 60% failure rate.

Second, just...

The marketing field is probably less process-oriented than any other among the professional services. Why do you think that is? Working in the field for many years and advising the same field for many more, I’ve come to that realization after noting several reasons why.

Why We Shun Process

First, you crave a freedom to explore, free of the “restrictions” you perceive in process. Second, there’s a need to identify personally with the work—it must stem from inside you rather than emerge from a more external process. You want to create the solution and own it. Third, your role is replaceable enough that you perceive an added value in keeping part of it mysterious. You want to be a magician or shaman or rain dancer. Fourth, there’s a thrill in diving into an empty pool and inventing water on the way down. It’s a drug high to face a blank sheet of paper with each project and, with as little help as possible, make something out of nothing, once again emerging as the hero. Fifth, it’s clear to me that the typical generalist, “full service” positioning that so many of you employ prevents and even promotes lack of process, since each new situation really is new. In other words, the solutions you arrive at are not benefiting from experience like they could, but are instead plagued by the experimental where those who pay your bills could be more victims than clients...

Introduction

Every manager on earth is going to encounter significant management challenges. How you react to them is what will set you apart.

First Wrong Reaction: High Control Mode

The first wrong reaction to difficulties you’ll experience is to go into a high control mode and seek to eliminate the messiness of the management environment. That might manifest itself in coming down hard on people, drawing artificial lines in the sand, insisting on rule keeping all out of proportion to the circumstances, etc.

Essentially you quit trusting people and try to control them. The problem is that you can’t really control what they’re thinking—instead, you take a stab at merely controlling their behavior, but their attitude is actually worse. And of course that’s the root of the issue.

This instinct to control things is your perceived antidote to feeling out of control. You think people aren’t listening to you or aren’t respecting your directives, so you clamp down even harder, hoping to force compliance.

If the issue really is an obstinate employee who needs to be dismissed, well, then deal with the issue directly and dismiss them. It’s not very productive to penalize the entire group just because you’re deeply annoyed with a few people who, you fear, are infecting the others.

If you feel like things are spinning out of control, that’s usually a sign that something else—something deeper—is amiss. Take a deep breath and look underneath the surface to see what’s really happening.

Second Wrong Reaction: Revert to Former Expertise

The second wrong reaction to difficulties you’ll experience is to go back into the craft or the technical expertise from which you were promoted...