The Hard Realities of Managing

The pendulum of management thinking, books and training, has been going in the wrong direction for decades. Think about what is actually happening in the workplace today. The workplace is becoming so much more high pressure. It's more, better, faster all the time. Everyone has their numbers they have to meet. There is forced ranking. There is pay for performance. Everyone is getting squeezed. There is less time for down time, waste, and inefficiency. That's what is going on in the real world. Everyone is getting squeezed.

And then think about what is going on with employees. Employees are getting more and more high maintenance, right? Employees no longer trust the system to take care of them in the long term. What that means is that employees look to their immediate boss to take care of them in the short term. Employees are getting more and more high maintenance, the workplace is more and more high pressure, and in the midst of this, management thinking, training and books has been going in the wrong direction, toward what I call the Myth of Empowerment or False Empowerment.

The false nice guys of the world have been promoting this false empowerment: that the way to empower people is to leave people alone and let them manage themselves. "You figure it out. Do it however you think it should be done." These false nice guys argue that you should put everybody in their area of strength and passion. People should do only the work that they love and the work that makes them feel great and we should give them praise, praise, praise every step of the way. The problem is, what about all the work that nobody wants to do? Who is going to do all the work? And the hard reality of managing is, not everybody is a star. You've got to hire the best person that you can. There is lots of work to get done and a lot of it is work that nobody wants to do. There is a huge amount of pressure on everybody, and employees are pushing back every step of the way. And when you do hire a great person, they usually want a little more than praise. They usually want a little more than pats on the back, right? They want you to put your money where your mouth is.

So the hard reality of managing is that everybody is getting squeezed. But managers move into positions of supervisory responsibility because they are very good at something. It's not always because they are good at managing people. They move into these roles usually with very little training and they come up with their own style over time. What management training is available, what management training managers do get to do, is almost entirely dominated by the Myth of Empowerment, by all this soft, false nice guy, hands off, let people do it their way, make people feel good inside and results will take care of themselves.

Well, that doesn't work and it's time to swing the pendulum back. Be a strong boss. Practice real empowerment. Tell people what to do and how to do it. Set them up for success. Provide guidance, direction, support, and coaching. If there is a best way to do something, tell somebody, "Here is the best way to do it." Set up standard operating procedures. Give people checklists. Practice real empowerment. Help people succeed every step of the way. Tell them what they really own. "Here is the goal, here are the guidelines and the parameters, and here is the deadline." Within there, you've got power. It may be limited power, but it has the great virtue of being real power. That's real empowerment. It's time to swing the pendulum back. We need strong bosses, not weak bosses.