The Frontline Manager

Last week we discussed the specific role of the Team Leader, and how this is not a level of management.  This time we will look specifically at the first level of management, the Frontline Manager.

This role is often known simply as ‘Manager’, as in ‘Sales Manager’ or ‘Call Centre Manager’.  Some organisations, however, add to the fun by giving this role the title of Team Leader, Supervisor or Coordinator.  I have seen this done for a range of reasons, with the most insidious being due to having too may layers of management in the first place, so we simply run out of titles.

Whatever we call it, the Frontline Manager Read more…

The Team Leader

The role of the Team Leader can be crucial to making the day run well and keeping the show on the road.  It’s also a potential source of confusion, frustration and can actually be an inhibitor to delivery if it’s not understood.

Team Leaders can also be known as Supervisors, Seniors and Coordinators.  Some organisations use this title for their first layer of management also, which can add to the fun.  So here’s how we distinguish between the Team Leader and the Manager: Read more…

You don’t need a reporting relationship to get things done

Organisations often need a watchdog role.  I know we shouldn’t call it that, we should at least say ‘ensure quality’ or ‘alignment’.  But what we are trying to achieve is to make sure that a group of people provide the services or do the work as required.

One particular role comes to mind where this function appears – Manager of Strategy.   This role is often expected to ensure that plans and outputs across the business align with the agreed organisational strategy. Read more…

Stop the battles: Using authorities to set up cross-functional work

There is a way to create a culture of working together and stopping cross-functional work being the bane of your people’s working life, and it does not start with sending everyone away to learn how to handle conflict, find out their personality type or get 360 feedback.

Instead, it involves addressing the issue at its source by managers clarifying what they are each accountable for, confirming with their cross-over manager, then setting up role relationships for their people by integrating accountabilities and authorities.

Elliott Jaques provides  seven different types of authority to match with accountability Read more…

Connect what to who (not how)

Tom Foster writes Management Skills Blog, one of the best going around on organisations and management.  I always urge my clients to sign up, please do yourself a favour and do the same.

One of my favourite points of Tom’s is  “it’s not about how, it’s about who“.    This simple phrase goes to the heart of a change in thinking managers at all levels can apply if they want to provide better value-adding leadership to their people.

A manager who is spending their time thinking about how their people need to do something is not actually doing their full job.   This is for a simple reason – managers are paid to exercise their judgement on what needs to be done in their area to fulfill the needs of the organisation, then decide who is going to do it.

An example Read more…

Why Mick Malthouse is having fun

I think Mick Malthouse is having fun.  Mick is the coach of  Carlton, a team in the Australian Football League which is the top competition in the land.  He took on the job this season and I think overall he is having a good time due to two structural reasons that are useful for us to pay attention to.

The first is clarity of accountability.  I doubt Mick has Read more…

Conflict? Just work together!

Here’s a bit of non-genius – getting people to work together across departments requires setting up how they are supposed to work together across departments.   And the reverse – if people don’t work well together across departments, there is a fair chance that we haven’t set up how they are supposed to work together across departments.

Imagine this conversation: Read more…

Feedback – answer the questions

A younger friend of mine has recently made the elite professional level of his sport; there is no higher level besides international representation in his game.  Very impressive as he had the courage to leave his hometown and try to reach something in which there was a genuine chance of failure (when was the last time you did something with that condition?).

I asked how is he finding things at the top level, and his answer was about feedback.  He said that any mistake gets punished on the field by the other team, so there is heaps of pressure, and along with it heaps of feedback Read more…

Different Level…Different Bang for Buck

There’s an easy way to distinguish the different work at successive levels in the organisation.   Look at the bang for buck each level is expected to contribute, not just in terms of ‘what about’, but ‘by when’.   Including a timeframe allows us to set up middle and executive management that can add real value, while allowing the frontline to get on with their work.

It works like this for the first three levels in the organisation, which are all about delivering:

1a) Frontline: Deliver bang for buck today, or in a matter of weeks. Read more…

Higher up does not mean vague it up

Where to sir?

There’s something I’ve seen in organisations more than once, that if we put into a saying would read like this: “the higher you go in management, the more vague you can be about what you actually want“.  This sentence will not exactly generate wise nods around the executive table, but it seems to be true a lot of the time.

Why does this occur? Three reasons 1) behavioural , 2) cognitive capability and 3) knowledge & skill

For behavioural, it means Read more…