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On Sunday, I was catching up on my blog post reading when I found one by Tom Peters titled "A Peerless Strategic Opportunity: The First-line Manager20/1LM20." Here's the opening.
"The evidence is clear: Employee satisfaction and like variables are significantly, even overwhelmingly, linked to the employee's relationship with her or his first-line manager. While first-line managers are considered to be of great importance, in my experience few companies truly obsess on every aspect of their care and feeding. In fact, my observations suggest that such things as first-line manager training regimes are often of questionable quality. This is a strategic mistake. More important, a lost strategic opportunity."
Tom continues the post with 20 points designed to "stir your analytic juices." They will do that. I encourage you to read the full post.
I've added a comment on Tom's site, reacting to each of his points. Here are a few of my own thoughts, developed over a quarter century of observing, training and coaching first line supervisors. They are in no particular order.
As long as most organizations make "management" the only way to get more compensation and preferment, you will have people seeking the work who are unfit for it. Create ways for people to increase their income and get recognition in other career paths as well.
Don't try to predict who will turn into a good boss. Instead, provide opportunities for those who are interested in it to try it out on small projects.
Look for three things. Do they talk to others about behavior and performance? Do they make decisions? Do they enjoy helping others succeed? People who do those things have a shot at becoming good bosses.
Allow a long enough probationary period. I suggest a year to eighteen months.
Provide training. Not one or two full day classes. Have lots of short, skill-specific training spread over the probationary period.
Teach new bosses about their role. Help them identify and use role models. Teach them to seek and use feedback, including their own self-critique.
Provide support to new bosses and to all bosses. Peer support is best. There are some things you can only discuss with a peer.
Follow the guidance of the Marine Corps. "All commanders should consider the professional development of their subordinates a principal responsibility of command."
Learning to be a great boss is a lifetime endeavor. Most of the great ones I interviewed felt that it took them a decade or more to achieve basic mastery and that there was always more to learn.
Boss's Bottom Line
If you do your job well, everyone benefits. You open up new career and personal possibilities. Your people grow and develop. And your organization improves both performance and morale.
Other Posts on this Subject
How the Great Supervisors Do It
Poof! You're a Boss!
Generals Win Battles, but Sergeants Win Wars
One Thing You can do to Supervise Better
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
Wally, Outstanding and important post. Your points cannot be made too often since most companies don't have this kind of process in place for developing front-line leaders. My company is almost ready to launch an online service that provides leadership and personal strength development for 1st line supervisors over a 12-month period - very much aligned with your recommendation! Really appreciated your thoughtful responses to Tom Peters' post - you made some excellent points.
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Sounds exciting, Meredith. There are several people who seem to have been laboring in the shadows on this issue. I wish you great good fortune with the new product.
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Wally, having worked at a company that provided compensation in non-management positions that was equivalent to that in management positions (selectively, for mid-level and below), I can attest that this was a good thing to do. We were able to retain high performers who weren't management material and put those most suited into management positions. It also allowed movement in and out of management without a penalty to an individual's income.
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Thanks for adding that, Mary Jo. Per testimony from someone like you really makes the point.
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"All commanders should consider the professional development of their subordinates a principal responsibility of command."
The problem is that the development of team members is seldom a KPI for first line managers. In many cases, it is seen as something to be done in addition to the 'proper job'. The amount of time allocated to actual management is hopelessly inadequate as a consequence.
Top of the list of accountabilities for all managers at all levels should be, how have you developed your team individually and corporately?
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Excellent point, Karyn. I'd go even further and suggest that few managers at any level are evaluated on how well they evaluate and develop the people who work for them. In many companies, in fact, the incentives are for managers to keep good performers just short of promotability so that they remain with the team.
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Wally, I too read Tom Peter's blog entry several weeks ago. However as I read it - it seemed to go on, and on, and on. Twenty recommendations "to-dos" tends to be too much for most small to mid-sized organizations to implement. So I was wondering, if you might be willing to go through the list a second time and pick out the top 3 or 5 or 7 actions that are critical to the outcome, and yield positive results.
I realize that 20 may be optimal, but working with the top 3 or 5 or 7 is more likely to get implemented. Twenty is more likely to lose steam and never be implemented.
Thanks for your continued contributions.
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Good point, Rodney. I agree with you on the one hand, no one is going to seize on 20 things and put them into practice. But I don't think that's what Peters is after. I think he's learned over the years that when he puts a bunch of things out there, individual businesspeople are more likely to find one thing to pick up and try. It's that bias for action thing. At least, that's my interpretation.
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Very good points-
My two cents, nowhere is this more evident than in the NGO non-profit arena where I have worked. In providng goal setting/strategic planning for private industry and the non-profit sector, there is almost an "apethetic" mentality between leadership positions (sups, etc) and "field" support staff.
I believe much more needs to be done leadership training wise-to bridge the already enoromous gap between management and everyone else.
Best-
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Thanks for that two cents. I think training is only part of the issue. We need to deal with selection and performance evaluation of bosses as well.
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"We need to deal with selection and performance evaluation." Amen to that!
I guess the crassest way to state it is, why are you hiring these people? Poor recruitment combined with lip service performance management (or none at all) cannot be remedied by learning and development (and even less by training).
Step 1: Hire good people
Step 2: Treat them right
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Good point, Karyn. It really does start with hiring. I was referring to the promotion process. We need to do a better job of selecting the people we promote.
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I particularly like the point about management being the only way to earn more money, so people unsuited to lead will seek out management roles.
I also would like to recommend insights from a book called "Hundred Percenters." It spends the entire introduction (~20 pages) talking about the ruts leaders fall into: trying to appease employees so they'll be liked, or being too intimidating, or never challenging their workers to achieve greatness. Being a quality leader is the first and best step to engaging and retaining employees.
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Thanks for sharing that Heath. I don't know the book, but perhaps some readers can share impressions of it.
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