What will your employees do when you leave for a vacation?

Photo by mark(s)elliott’s

Imagine. You leave for a month of an overdue vacation. The catch is, it is on a deserted island, which has no way of communicating with the outside world. What will happen to your employees when you are gone? Will everything continue as usual? Will they be able to ask themselves, at every decision intersection they face – what does my manager would like to me to do, and answer that question? Correctly?

I believe that the most successful managers refrain from intervening in their employees’ processes, unless they are asked to by them. These great managers focus on the setting and explaining the right desired outcomes and let the people do their jobs in the best they can. But, even this outcome perspective about management does not come without limitations. The main limitation being, that people job should align with the organizational goals and strategies. So, one of the main jobs – and challenges – of great managers is to communicate these things to his/her employees.

Now, this could be done easily. You can tell your employees that every time they are in doubt or they think about a new idea, they can check with you. This is not meddling with their ideas and processes, it just a way to guide them. Right? Wrong. Even the greatest manager can’t be everywhere all the time. And as more organizations move away from simple manufacturing to jobs that require the use of judgment, specialties and  knowledge, the less a manager can be there to support his employees and answer all of these questions.

So, not only does the manager face the challenge of creating of a clear message to explain the desired outcomes, but, not less important, he needs to make sure that this message will guide the employees when he is not there.

Lao Tzu said:

The best of leaders when the job is done,
when the task is accomplished,
 the people will say we have done it ourselves.

Two thoughts:

1. We usually don’t think about what would happen if we won’t be there. Maybe it is just too frightening. But, just think about all the time you can save if your employees will be able to make all these decisions themselves. And I am not talking about your vacation time. I am talking about everyday at the office.
2. When we try to articulate the desired outcomes and limitation, we need to remember the curse of knowledge. Out employees don’t know what we already know. Don’t make any assumptions. Make sure they truly understand.

So, what are you doing to prepare for you next solitary vacation?

Elad

 

Outcome management

photo by The Comic Shop

I wrote a number of times in this blog about the fact that I believe managers should not dictate to their employees how to do their job, but concentrate on defining the desired outcome and let people find their own way to reach the desired outcome. In my E-book I write about the importance of processes, developing them and learning form other people’s processes. But that does not mean that as a manager you have to dictate the process to your employees. Most of the times, they will produce better results when left to develop the process themselves.

The last few days had me thinking about this concept again.

Though I believe this is the right way to bring about great results from people, it is important to recognize that it does not always work. Some people need and look for specific prescriptions on how to their job. Some people are not into empowerment, thinking and challenge. Or at least not in the workplace. Because people are different, even in this regard, we should be careful not to make generalizations as managers.

You must be asking “But, how can you know?” Well, the simple solution is to ask your employees. The problem is people will more often than not tell you that they want you to tell them what to do. The conventional wisdom that a manager needs to say to its employees how to do their work is already intertwined into peoples expectations. Just the same way people think that there is one best way to write a speech, give a presentation, use notes or get the audience attention, while there isn’t, people expect their manager to tell them how to their work. So as a manager you should ask them, but you should also use a little trial and error with a bias towards giving them just the desired outcome and see how it works out for them. Then ask them again.

Note that this does not mean that you should not offer support or advice. If they come and ask you for how you do things, tell them. They need your hear your advice. But don’t force them to use your advice (or get offended if they don’t).

The second problem is explaining the outcomes. I used to believe this is quite simple, but as time passes and with the experience I had in the last few weeks of working in a diversified (professionally and nationally) MBA team, I now understand that this is the real challenge for managers. This is part of the “curse of knowledge” described in the great book “made to stick”. Basically it means that we have problems explaining things because we already know them, which makes it hard for us to imagine how someone who does know what we know see it. So, articulating the outcome in simple and coherent way is the biggest challenge managers have. You usually have a picture of the outcome you want in your head. Your employees don’t. Bare that in mind while explaining the outcome.

Elad