Three reasons why managers don't do people management
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IBM and the Human Capital Institute recently released the results of a study they did on the ROI of talent management. I found most of the "findings" to be suspect, but one caught my eye.
"While 84 percent of organizations know that workforce effectiveness is important to achieving business results, only 42 percent of those surveyed say managers devote sufficient time to people management."
Why not? What keeps managers from spending time on people management? I think there are three basic reasons.
They don't think it's their job. It's easy to laugh at this and chortle about how managers think their "real work" is something other than people management. But in many cases neither their boss nor the performance evaluation system measure them on people management. Besides, they were probably promoted based on their ability to do the "real work."
They don't have the tools they need. I don't have any statistics on this, but I know there are a couple of boatloads of managers out there that have never received a scintilla of training in the basic communication skills they need to set expectations, check for understanding, praise good behavior and performance and confront the team members that don't do what they're supposed to.
They won't deal with the uncomfortable parts. Since we don't select people to be bosses based on their ability to do the work that bosses do and don't give them the tools to do it, it's no wonder they find things like confronting poor behavior or performance to be very uncomfortable. And when things make us uncomfortable, we tend to avoid them.
What are your thoughts? Why do so many managers avoid the people management part of their jobs?
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You are so correct. I have encountered manager after manager who don't see the people part as being their "job." They have not been trained and feel unprepared for it. Besides they are not evaluated on it, nor typically rewarded for it. And as any good behaviorist knows you get the behavior you want by rewarding it. You pay someone for their "regular" work then they are going to do that. You reward people for their management work you will get that. We just don't typically track, evaluate or reward that part of a manager's job.
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Thanks for stopping by and adding to the mix, Michael. It's always good to have someone with your experience commenting.
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Wally, as usual an intriguing post. I think all of the factors you outline are closely interrelated. I also think Michael's comments raise some interesting points, it starts at the top. People management----coaching, development, performance management needs to be a critical element of how each manager is measured, evaluated and compensated.
Too many years ago, when I was promoted to my first management job in IBM, I remember being told: "Your job has changed, you are no longer being measured as an individual contributor. Your job is to get things done through your people."
From that point on, all the training, coaching and performance management from my own managers focused on how I acted as manager and developed my people. Not making your numbers/goals could be excused, at times, but the quickest way to be removed from your job was not doing the people management part of the job.
As a separate point, it is interesting that as you publish this post, I have noticed some studies and a number of articles about the growth and spending on the "coaching" business. This illustrates that management is increasingly "outsourcing" their people management responsibilities.
As a consultant and "coach," I believe that outside coaches can provide tremendous value, but the outside coach can never displace the responsibility of manager in doing people management. They can only complement that.
Unfortunately, I think too many managers and too many coaches use this as a way to relinquish this responsibility.
In the end, I believe this weakens performance---both that of the manager because they are not developing critical skills, the subordinates because outside coaches can only complement strong people managers, and the overall organization.
Thanks for an insightful and provocative post!
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Thanks for stopping by, David and for your comments. I have a small disagreement. When we say "it starts at the top," we tend to think the top of the organization. And it can start there. But I've found many instances of pockets of excellence in awful companies and pockets of non-performance in excellent organizations. The individual supervisor is "the top" for the people that work for him or her. And that supervisor can make a huge difference in the morale and productivity of their team.
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Point well taken.
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It is so much easier for managers to focus on acheiving the bottom line, or meeting strategic goals than it is to manage people. And, in the end, for most managers, the bottom line is what they are compensated for.
Unfortunately, managing people is messy and complex. People are unpredictable. It takes too much time (this is a common excuse that I hear).
How many times have we actually seen a strategic plan that includes the tactics and timelines necessary to develop, foster and support work relationships?
Those who do want to be better people managers are often swimming upstream against the organizational pressures of time and money. I believe this will have to change in order for organizations to be competitive over the long haul.
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Thanks for stopping by and sharing those insights, Mary Jo. Managing people is, indeed, complex and messy. It's also doable.
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Hi Wally-
I remember a piece I once read about an “unusual” manager. The guy being profiled looked like he was just puttering around, not doing much of anything - and getting a hunk of money to boot.
It turned out that, much like IBM in Dave Brock’s comment, his company really meant it when it said he’d be judged by the performance of the people who worked for him.
He’d hired good people performing very well at what they needed to do, who knew he was totally on top of what was going on, and who also knew he was ready at the drop of a hat to plug in and be helpful, or make a tough decision.
He saw no need to run around frantically looking busy. The company had not burdened him with his own “work product” to generate on top of his “people” responsibilities. It trusted him, and expected that trust to be vindicated.
I often see “Type A” personalities, frantic about their always jammed schedules and relentless deadlines, essentially abandon their direct reports justifying it by saying, in essence, “I treat my people like grownups. I’m not always looking over their shoulder.”
There’s definitely a postmodern reluctance to seem intrusive, or to “micromanage.” Too often, the net result is not enough crucial contact – early and ongoing – explaining, listening, clarifying, reassuring, coaching, etc., which is human, necessary, and mistakenly avoided by “busy” managers.
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Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Shaun. When I was starting out in business, before the leader/manager dichotomy emerged from gurudom to plague us, it was common to define "management" as "getting things done through people."
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Henry Mintzberg has been telling us this for some time now. Pavett and Lau followed up on his study of the 10 roles of managers and found that managers who actually managed people were promoted less often than those who emulated upper management. Organizations don't reward it so they don't get it. These results were found from study actual performance reviews. I don't imagine that this is likely to change anytime in the near future as organizations downsize and turn virtual.
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Thanks for coming by and adding that, Todd. I didn't know about the follow-up study you mentioned. Any possibility of getting a reference or pointer?
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Wow. I came across this blog through a link on another forum and I'm so glad I found it! It's great to connect with like minded people - people who care about great people management and try to create better people managers in whatever way they can.
I've had the same experience - people (including myself) are getting promoted to supervisors or managers because they did a good job - but then nobody tells them how to be a good manager! If you care about your team, you have to develop yourself in most cases, as training budgets, especially for middlemanagement and below, are small. Failing to be a good manager makes both the manager and his/her team suffer from it. And the whole organization, if good people leave the company due to bad people management.
It is such a valid point, that people managers should be evaluated on their people management skills in their performance reviews!
Why do so many people avoid the people management part? That depends on lots of things I think. On the company culture, for example. If there is no evaluation system for people management in place, the chain will just continue and if a newly promoted manager sees that their boss got away with it, than maybe they will, too? Maybe they don't even know an alternative if they have never worked under a different boss or in a different environment where their manager actually did care and set a different example.
How many managers actually ask their staff for an evaluation of themselves? (Even anonymously.)
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Thanks for the great and enthusiastic post, Anja. There's a lot there to respond to.
I think the hardest thing for a new supervisor is if you don't have good role models. But I've found that most people have worked for a great boss at one time or another and can use that boss as a role model.
What I tried to build into the Working Supervisor's Support Kit is the lessons we learned from studying top-performing supervisors, all of whom were rated excellent by their boss, their peers and their subordinates. That was before the day when 360 evaluations were in vogue, but all of our top people sought feedback from the people who worked for them in one way or another.
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