The question for managers to answer

“What do you want your people to do?”.

That’s the question I often ask when I’m helping managers with their accountability to lead their people (not optional by the way):

I usually get pretty good answers of the activity variety – the various things that solid employees would be seen doing as they go about their work.  Things like “liaise with customers, build relationships, deliver sales, plan projects”, and the old chestnuts of “deliver a framework” or “develop a strategy”.  Which is why I then ask this question:

“And if they do a fantastic job, what does the company get?”. Read more…

Pay grades – how to make them work

ASO4, APS2, PSO3…and countless other classifications are all around the world, denoting the different gradings that determine what someone is paid.  Government is a common spot where this is found, but in no way is government alone.

The concept itself is fine.  The original work of organisational scientist Elliott Jaques studied pay levels and the findings were clear that it was believed to be fair that those doing more complex work receive higher levels of pay..

So why is it the case that government departments have the reputation for bureaucracy, frustration and an inability to deliver? Read more…

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…

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…

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…

A crucial cause of work behaviour

There’s a classic old video on youtube called Explorations in Management, and I’m not going to put the link up – the production is just too hard-core 70s and the language so gender exclusive I can’t associate myself with it.  It’s like a serious, boring Goodies episode.  But I’m mentioning it by way of acknowledgement because it makes a simple and fundamental point about what causes people’s behaviour at work.  (If you can’t resist finding it, type ‘Lord Wilfred Brown’ into youtube).

So, without further ado, quoting Lord Wilfred Brown:

“the behaviour of an individual at work is 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…

How to increase your capability

I had some questions from my last post on cognitive capability on how to increase it.  Here’s the answer:

Don’t smoke.  The is the single most important thing you can do to increase your capability.

The second is 30 minutes of movement per day.

The third is healthy diet.

Not what you expected?   The thing is, the only way you can increase your cognitive capability is to not die.  This is because while your cognitive capability will unfold at it’s own rate, that rate has been shown by research to be predictable over time. Read more…