By BLR Founder and Publisher Bob Brady
Contrary as it may sound, the best way to grow might just be to define limits, says BLR’s CEO.
Most of my experience as a manager has involved getting a handle on quickly changing processes. During one 5-year period, we grew from 10 people to 150, going from a company where my partner-brother John and I did everything, to one that relied on others for success.
Often we would work hard to develop a process to handle, say, incoming mail, only to find that, a few months later, volume had gone up 50 percent. We learned that, although we tried (too often), no amount of tinkering can salvage a process that has outstripped its capacity. But there was another more important lesson, as well.
It involved the challenge of managing growth in the context of our “if I don’t do it, it doesn’t get done” mentality. Growing organizations need constant direction and monitoring. But good people don’t last in a culture that gives them little freedom. There is a real tension between the two.
Resolving the conflict between giving people freedom to learn from their mistakes while, at the same time, keeping the organization on the path to success has been my major challenge for the past 20 years.
Mistakes made. Lessons learned.
As we’ve grown and thrived, we’ve made plenty of mistakes. Here are a few of the bigger ones, and some of the lessons learned:
— Mistake: Hiring people who were perfect at doing what they were told and then thinking we could promote them into being thinkers and strategizers.
— Lesson: Square pegs don’t go in round holes. It’s tempting to reward loyalty, but it is not always wise.
— Mistake: Thinking that good process, imposed from the top, can compensate for poor management skills.
— Lesson: Process is important. It makes the good better, but it doesn’t insulate you from loose cannons.
— Mistake: People need attention–there’s no one who doesn’t appreciate regular “attaboys.” But they don’t want to be micromanaged.
— Lesson: Managing is about maintaining a balance between providing maximum strategic direction and emotional support and an appropriate amount of auditing to keep day-to-day activities on course. You can’t expect people to stay on track if you don’t communicate strategy and vision regularly. But you also can’t hold them accountable if you take away their authority.
Keep the Boundaries Clear
How do we protect against micromanaging, particularly when multifunctional teams are involved? Here’s one technique we’ve learned to use:
Communicate clearly to people what their roles are–and what your role is–so that there’s no mistake about it. One way to do it is to look at specific tasks and say, “I retain approval authority for the task (budgetary or strategic, etc.), but you are primarily responsible for doing the work and producing the required result.”
We often formalize this with a memo that lists the tasks, with an “A,” “P,” and “S,” next to the appropriate name. Here’s an example:
The end result is employees who know exactly the realm in which they are the masters, so that within that realm, they can exert all their abilities. Along with clear boundaries, you see, comes empowerment.