مکالمه

BEC : Management -Conversation

AJ: Management is a topic about which there are many thousands of books, maybe more than that, tens of thousands of books about this subject of management. So, of course, management -that word -is referring to the idea of managing people, mostly managing people. You have project managers who manage projects or certain jobs, but again what they’re doing is they’re managing a team of people who are working on a certain project.

Management is very important because every company has to deal with this idea of management. Unless you’re just a company of one person, you have several people working. Even if you’re a company of one person, you’re probably hiring outside vendors to do work and you have to manage them.

So there’s almost no escape of this topic. There’s no escaping this topic. You have to know how to manage people. You have to know how to get things done through other people or with other people.

George: Yeah, that’s true, as you say. I’d put the number closer to millions in terms of books on this subject.

AJ: Yes.

George: This is an age-old subject and throughout the history of mankind management has been management. As you say, when we’re talking about management we’re talking about managing, directing, supervising; a lot of words to mean people. That somebody is responsible for some kind of task, some kind of operation and they’re given X-number of people to accomplish that task and it’s not an easy job; otherwise, you wouldn’t have millions of books out there about it because it’s obviously a very difficult job.

It’s a difficult job to coordinate the activities, to motivate, to encourage, to be good guy, bad guy; all of the emotions of life that you have to deal with from people who work for you and bring them together no matter how many it is.

Whether it’s two or a thousand, brining them together to accomplish the goal, the objective that the manager has probably been given and it’s a tough job, tough job.

AJ: Yeah, it is. That’s why managers tend to get paid more than people who are just doing the direct work. Now, that’s not always the case. Some companies are different, but generally people think of becoming a manager as a promotion. So you’re on the frontline doing frontline work of some kind and then if you get a promotion you may become a manager of your little team or your group. That’s kind of the next step up because now you have to not only know the job, but you really have to be able to work with people and it’s a totally different skill.

So let’s say you’re a computer programmer and you’re really great at computer programming and then you become a manager of a bunch of computer programmers. Now you have a totally different set of skills you have to master because just being a great programmer won’t be enough.

You’ve got to be great with people. You’ve got to understand people’s emotions. You have to understand their motivation. You have to deal with problems. You have to deal with problems between people. One person doesn’t like another person or they’re angry with them. All kinds of things like that. So you really have to become more of a practical psychologist, I would say.

George: You hit on a key point there. The phrase that I like to use is that the best operator is not necessarily the best manager. By that I mean the best accountant is not necessarily the best accounting manager. The best salesperson is not necessarily the best sales manager. Or, if you look on the military side, the best sergeant is not necessarily the best lieutenant.

AJ: Well, yeah, I think of that a lot in sports too. If you look at the people who are coaching teams, like the really top coaches in American football, international football, soccer, basketball, they’re not necessarily the best players. They probably played the game at some point, but they weren’t necessarily superstars themselves.

George: Yes. If you look at the resumes of the great coaches, and it doesn’t matter what sport it is, at least in the United States, there are very, very few great coaches that were great players.

I can think of only one exception truthfully, but most of the really great coaches in the United States, whether it’s American football or basketball … I’ll pick a good one, golf. The greatest managers, if you will, trainers and so on for the golf professionals were never great golfers.

There are a lot of great coaches. Oh, I could rip off a list of hundreds of them probably. You look back and, as you say, sure, they played the game and in a few cases they might have been pretty good, but not many professional athletes move on to be professional coaches.

Professional athlete, that’s the pinnacle or the epitome of the sports world.

They’re getting paid to do this, to play a game, frankly, but there are not a lot of them who after their athletic career is over move into coaching, which is a management position.

AJ: Yeah and so of course it’s the same in business. Management is its own skill, a very separate skill. I know that when I had to start dealing with being a manager - that started back when I was a social worker actually - one book that I liked a lot was called The One Minute Manager. It sold millions of copies, but it’s super simple and that’s why I recommend it. The English level is very easy, it’s short, but it’s actually still very useful.

To break that book down into three really simple parts, the three essential parts of being a manager, according to Ken Blanchard, are to set very specific simple goals. He calls it ‘one minute goal setting’. You actually sit down and create written goals with each person that you manage. So you do this individually. They come into your office or you sit down with them and you figure out the goals. What is it exactly you want them to do and accomplish in the next month, the next six months or whatever and you make it clear these goals are measurable so you can both agree when the goals have been met.

Then the next thing that he talks about is praising or what he calls ‘catching people doing things right’, catch them doing something right. So instead of focusing on correcting mistakes and correcting weaknesses, instead you focus on strengths. You catch them doing good things. Whenever they accomplish something you notice it, you praise it sincerely.

Then, finally, only with veterans, you can do what he calls ‘one minute corrections’ or something like that. But, basically, if they’re not performing at a high level and they’re not performing at their usual level, you might call them in and tell them hey, I’m not happy with this. You’re not doing what you need to do. He recommends then when you finish that meeting that you still give them some genuine praise at the end. So you’re saying you’re a really great worker or you’re a really great whatever and I’m sure you’re going to get this changed very quickly.

So it’s a nice, very, very simple way to approach it and it actually works very, very well. I used it myself and still do. I like the kind of more positive approach. A lot of managers out there in some of the jobs I’ve had that people manage, it feels like they’re just constantly trying to catch you doing something wrong.

You’re not even really sure exactly how you should do something and you find out that you’re doing it wrong when they yell at you or they complain and then that quickly demoralizes you as a worker. As a manager, of course, you don’t want to demoralize your team because then they will stop working hard and they may even purposely do bad things or purposely be lazy just because they’re so frustrated with you.

George: Yeah. Well, what you just described, I would say that’s a bad manager. That’s a manager that probably shouldn’t be in that position. I like this one minute manager concept. As I said, there are millions of books and there are all kinds of theories, but these three little steps, I would concur, fall within a realm of management style, I guess, that I would support --the simple goals.

I use the term ‘incrementalism’, which is nothing more than short-term low goals. Good managers will set short-term low goals for their employees. Help the employee attain something --a low goal. Train them. Motivate them.

Inspect what they’re doing. Catch them doing the right thing. Well, that’s easy to do.

Another phrase I like in management is ‘inspect’ don’t expect. That one does not mean you’re looking over a person’s shoulder all the time, but you give them a short-term low goal. Give them a short-term assignment and then at the completion of the assignment you inspect it. You can reward them in terms of this is a good job. This is a very good report that you filed. There are a couple things that maybe we’ll look at that we can improve on in the future maybe, but overall that’s good. Then you set another short-term low goal.

Catch them doing the right thing. Inspect what they’re doing.

Same thing with the older employees or the long-term employees, you go through the same process but maybe it’s a little different. You know John, you’re my best accountant and that’s why I gave you this assignment. This isn’t up to par for you. Let’s take a look at this and get back. Was there something wrong when you were doing this? This isn’t up to your standards.

You and I both know that. So let’s wrap this one up and go after another project and let you do the work that I know you’re capable of doing.

Those are the kind of approaches that make a significance difference with employees. They’re encouraging. They’re training. There’s motivation.

There’s delegation. A lot of factors play into those kinds of scenarios.

AJ: Yeah, exactly. Certainly, I think micromanaging, looking over someone’s shoulder watching every little thing they do, nobody likes to be micromanaged. It’s a bad idea to micromanage people and then you have to avoid the other extreme too, which is just letting people do whatever and never guiding them. Anyway, it’s an important topic and we’ll talk more about it in the commentaries.

George: Okay.

The End.