People Need to be LED not MANAGED
I was at a conference recently, talking to a group of managers, and I asked them to tell me about the departments they managed. Almost unanimously, they talked about how their teams were meeting KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), and that there were challenges with attendance, and use of sick time, and disciplinary issues. They talked about streamlining processes and improving the communications infrastructure in order to find efficiencies that might improve the bottom line in the next quarter.
Then I asked, “How do you manage esprit de corps?”
I got a sea of blank stares.
“Ok, I’ll simplify this a little. How do you plug in the vagaries of the human condition into an Excel spreadsheet, so that you can report a 14% increase in motivation by the end of the quarter?”
Nope… still staring blankly
“How are your PEOPLE doing? As people, not as inputs into a system. Are they stressed? Having marital problems? Tommy’s marks at school aren’t as good as last year? My father-in-law had a stroke this spring, how long does it take for him to get back to normal? Is this a good time to marry my girlfriend? How am I going to come up with the cash for a downpayment on a house? Et cetera, et cetera”
The vast majority of the managers I was speaking to had no idea how their people were doing. As we explored this a little further, we found that conversation with the members of our team was almost strictly business, and there was never time taken to actually learn who was on these teams and what made them run. The assumption was that valuing their job, and the paycheck they received was all the manager really needed to know in order to operate the team.
At it simplest, we manage three things: money, materials, and people. Money comes in the form of the budget and we are either on budget, or we’ve blown the budget and have to either find a way to trim the budget to get back on track, or find a way to get more money injected into our operation. Materials are pretty static too. What do we need? When do we need it? How much do we need? How cheaply can we get it? These two aspects of management are easily done on a spreadsheet.
People are a different animal. They are not subject to easy categorization. They will not always behave as predictably as we would like them too. Their emotional state plays an important role in how effective they will be on our teams. You can’t quantify motivation, especially if the employee has transcended money as their main interest for doing their job with any quality. Most of the time, coming to their workplace to do the job we pay them to isn’t even at the top of the list of things they would rather be doing. As managers, we often require the members of our team to ignore self interest in order to achieve the goals of the department.
No spreadsheet will ever convince an employee to work harder or be more efficient. In fact, being treated as a cell on a spreadsheet will usually achieve the exact opposite effect. In short, we have to PERSUADE our subordinates to ignore self-interest. We don’t manage people – they have to be led. As leaders when we impose our agenda on others, we have to understand that there are human intangibles that we must account for, and utilize in order to achieve the goals set out for the team.
How do I motivate my team? First you have to figure out what motivates them, and that only happens if you understand who they are as people, what values they bring to the table, and how their priorities might align or compete with yours. Somebody who places greater importance on the meaning of their work, in a positive outcome for the client, or a desire to contribute to the welfare of their community is much less likely to be swayed by a slightly bigger paycheck.
If the team’s task is unpleasant, people who question whether the organization actually values them, or only sees them in utilitarian terms is going to want to see at least the same willingness of their leaders to get their hands dirty. It is up to the leader of the team to determine which motivational levers need to be pulled and when, and which ones are detrimental to mission success.
A HUMAN approach to resourcing the humans in your organization will require you as the leader to step out of your office, and persuade in person, from the front. You will not be able to hide in your office, behind a sea of memos. People need to SEE you leading, they need to feel valued, and they need to know that their place on the team has meaning, not just being a cog on an otherwise gigantic machine.
Can you lead your team? Not just tell them what to do?
