What do managers do?
I was at a Bucks Show on the weekend, at the awesomely old-school pool hall Chalkers at Glenelg. I played a game with Joe, who is an excellent bloke I get to see around the social circle from time-to-time, and as I successfully avoiding potting the 3-ball into the pocket I was aiming, he asked me what did I do before I became a consultant.
As I started to bore him with the details of what the business I used to oversee actually did, he stopped me with “yeah…but what was your job?”.
I had a quick think, and answered with my job title back then – General Manager.
He laughed and said “If someone could explain to me what managers actually do, that would be great”, then headed off for a pit stop.
I made a note to myself, ordered a drink, then the speeches started so I didn’t give it any further thought.
I reckon I owe Joe an answer.
I’d start with defining ‘manager’ so we know who we’re talking about, and I’d go for ‘someone who is accountable for the output of other people’.
But watching someone taking accountability is the same as watching someone make a decision. Sure doesn’t look like much. It’s perhaps easier to look at what sort of things needs to be done if you’re going to be accountable for others.
As I see it, these things are:
- Show the team and each person in it why their work is needed – what are we actually doing here and why?
- Make sure the team is working well together and with other teams as well
- Agree with each person in the team what a good job looks like.
- Make sure each person in the team knows how they’re doing and how the team is doing
- Recognise and reward those who are doing well and address those who aren’t
- Make sure the way things are done by the team is always on the improve
I reckon I know what Joe would say – “That’s great Adam. Now can you tell me what managers actually do?”.
I think he would be disappointed with the answer. What managers actually do is:
Make decisions, communicate them, then organise the people so it happens. They might read reports, have lots of discussions, go to meetings as required, but ultimately, they are pondering and making decisions.
What do decisions look like? They look like what the team is asked to do next. And if it’s done well, it all seems obvious.
Important it is.
But it doesn’t look like much.
Hi Adam
What mangers do is be an advocate for the team so if for example budget cuts are likely you represent the team to minimize impact.
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Cheers
Daryl
Indeed. It’s interesting how this flows right up to the top, which can result in the Exec team considering what colour carpet should be in the hallway. Often results in that team getting frustrated as they instinctively know that it’s not really an ‘Executive’ decision, but what they’re actually doing is being representatives. A better way for some organisations would be to elect a committee to make these decisions who then advise the Exec team.
What do you suggest on resolving conflict in the team when mediation fails
I’d assess where the conflict is coming from. Generally I find its from a) lack of clarity on what we’re trying to achieve here; b) disagreement on the best way to achieve our objective; c) lack of clarity on the accountability of each role, and how the two roles relate to each other; d) performance issue with one or both which is frustrating the other; e) behaviour (personality) issue on one or both.
Each has a different approach, to me the important thing is that the issue is rarely e), but it looks like it, and people assume it is which gets us all into strife.