Every few years business leaders celebrate the birth of “new” management techniques and new gimmicks that promise to solve employee, customer and product quality problems. It’s as if new were synonymous with better. Well, it isn’t.
Management By Walking Around (MBWA), one of the newer techniques, is nothing more than caring enough about what’s going on in the organization to talk to the people who know. Nothing new there. And, Total Quality Management (TQM), still another “new” technique, is a matter of instilling old-fashioned pride.
While new management techniques may look different from those they are supposed to replace, they don’t qualify as a better means of accomplishing the results corporate executives are paid to produce. New techniques do not improve morale, productivity, quality or profits. At best, they offer short-lived hope and excitement, which any changes, even superficial ones, usually engender. They also generate a new vocabulary, buzzwords-which seem to give techniques legitimacy-and structured programs designed to implement the techniques.
Experience shows that technique-oriented programs eventually die, but not because the techniques themselves are bad. The problem is that many users are not true believers of the emotional and intellectual assumptions the techniques reflect.
Suppose, for example, a manager learns how to use the techniques of Management By Objectives, but really believes that the only objectives that count are the manager’s. MBO is doomed to fail.
Many managers employ techniques that do not represent their basic values or true feelings. Yet, they go through the motions because they would like to think that the techniques they’ve learned have powers-independent of anything else-to accomplish results. The fact is, techniques for managing people that do not come from the soul-from emotions-from a genuine caring attitude, come across as phony and artificial. Unless managers’ people-managing techniques are extensions of their values and beliefs, they will, almost invariably, revert to their natural ways.
While any given management technique may work temporarily, enthusiasm for it will die unless it is an outgrowth of the user’s emotions. In an informal poll of my graduate students I asked them to recall the best manager they had and describe, in writing, the five behaviors or characteristics this manager exhibited that warrant this honor. Next, they were asked to visualize and jot down some characteristics of their best teacher.
Comparing the two lists, I found my students had said little about the techniques their managers and teachers employed. The reason is that actions and words of outstanding managers and teachers are not governed by techniques, but by their respect for the people under their influence-by a desire to see them succeed. That’s why, according to my investigation, the common thread in both lists is an attitude that could best be described as genuine caring.
While outstanding teachers and managers may exhibit this attitude differently, their motives are the same: to bring out the best in the people to whom they are responsible.
What follows are the 10 qualities great managers and teachers share.
– They both really listen. This is the single most important way of demonstrating genuine caring. It’s a skill that makes demands on all your senses. You have to read between the lines and see or hear things that words alone do not convey.
– They both take an interest in people under their influence; not just as employees or students but as people. When, for example, an employee tells her boss, “I’m going to my sister’s wedding this weekend,” the next time they see each other the boss asks, “How was your sister’s wedding?” It’s a simple gesture, but if it’s sincere and characteristic of the manager, it will be viewed as a caring gesture.
– They both are clear about their expectations. By making their expectations known, they say, in effect, “I believe in your ability to fulfill your obligations, as long as you know what those obligations are. So, let me tell you what I want from you and give you the freedom to do it.”
– They both are eager to transmit their knowledge or insights to their “students.” They take time to explain, demonstrate and answer questions without making questioners feel inferior.
– They both reinforce positive behaviors and discourage unacceptable performance by complimenting good work and constructively criticizing work that needs to be improved.
– They both can be trusted to fulfill promises and not to make promises they cannot fulfill. They consider their word as binding as a legal contract because it violates their sense of propriety-their values-to deliberately disappoint people they genuinely care about.
– They both are flexible and, therefore, open to new ideas. They will admit when they are wrong and change their views if evidence warrants it.
– Their good humor and enthusiasm are infectious and create a friendly and productive atmosphere.
– They both challenge and set standards that motivate the people to produce the very best they can.
– They both are in control of their respective environments. Their control is conveyed by their knowledge about their areas of expertise, by being organized and by the confidence they exude. From the employee’s or student’s standpoint it’s like being in the constant presence of a commercial airline pilot who, the moment he welcomes the passengers, says in effect, “Lean back, relax, I’ll get you to your destination because you’re in the hands of a true professional.”
As you can see, there is nothing new or “technique-ish” about behaviors of outstanding managers. What they do was originated by outstanding practitioners of one of the oldest professions, teaching. That’s why, as a prerequisite for advancing to a management position, candidates should learn the art of good teaching. Since this art probably comes naturally to those who have a reputation for being outstanding managers, they could serve as the “professional corporate teachers” of management.
What would they do? For starters, they’d lead discussions with management candidates on the values of genuine caring and how to convey that attitude. Once fully convinced of this attitude’s merits, these students would learn how to really listen to employees, how to be sensitive to their needs, how to instill a sense of pride, how to be tough yet fair and how to help employees grow professionally.
If we are to increase this country’s pool of outstanding managers, building an attitudinal foundation must be the focus-not techniques. Failure of corporate leaders to provide that foundation can only perpetuate technique-smart, mediocre managers.
