Stop Being a COMPETENT Manager!
February 12, 2008 by David Zinger
Filed under Business
I am getting worried about myself. I think pixie dust from Tom Peter’s NONSTOP RANTING is rubbing off on me. Today, I am ticked off at competent managers and managerial competencies.
Competencies and list of competencies are an incredible anemic pathway to robust management practice and development.
You know what I am talking about: Those competency tables and lists that can be 300 pages long outlining all the things you should be able to do as a manager at a 3.5 level out of 5:
- Performance management
- Coaching
- Communication
- Creativity
- Innovation
- Financial Skills
- Collaboration
- Value Diversity
- Change Management
- And the list goes on…and on…and on…
Managers assess their competencies, get assessed by their managers, and then take workshops to go from a 2.5 to a 3.0 and everyone lives in cubicle mediocrity happily ever after.
This is where Tom Peter’s pixie dust comes in… GET WITH IT (Tom loves to use all CAPS – if he doesn’t CAP we don’t see, if he doesn’t YELL we don’t hear, if he doesn’t BOLD we don’t believe, and if he doesn’t RANT we don’t read).
We must be more than competent and we can’t be competent in everything without being mundane managers.
Who cares, beyond some narrow-minded-form-filling-fascist if you are competent?
Find someone else to look after your deficiencies.
WHERE ARE YOU EXCELLENT?
Where do you follow my partner’s plea to MAKE IT GREAT.
Read Marus Buckingham.
Read Tom Rath.
Read Martin Seligman.
Read Peter Drucker.
Better yet, practice what these authors preach and get busy giving all you got to what you’ve got the most of…YOUR STRENGTHS.
Talk to me…Write a comment.
WHAT’S YOUR NEXT MOVE?
Photo Credit: striatic – the bored game by http://flickr.com/photos/duchamp/7850684/
Great post David, I’m glad you turned it into something useful with a great peice of advice as well, unlike the “getting old” rants by Tom. I can’t read much of his stuff anymore because of that.
Practice makes perfect. Nothing else does…
Mike,
Thanks for the compliment Mike. I had fun with this post yet underneath the fun and parody was a very sincere hope for more strength engagement and less of the 100 competencies.
David
I think competency tables are simply maps (some better than others)
The problem isn’t the map, it’s how you use it.
To your point, I agree — rather than focus on a laundry list of possibilities, focus and harness key strengths.
One of the best things a great manager can do, is unleash the power of their people.
This doesn’t come from scoring somebody against a matrix. It comes from:
- finding their unique voice
- identifying key talents/strengths
- narrowing the focus to go from good to great
- reducing liabilities, but not focusing on them
- playing to passions and strengths
Unless you need a workforce of drones, don’t build drones.
Drones worked well in the industrial age, but that’s not the game to play in the info age.
One of my recent focuses is identifying the vital few strengths (5 or so) that together give me a unique advantage for certain things. I’m helping my team do the same. I find that if you use your innate strengths, you end the day with more energy versus less (for example, if you’re not a spreadsheet person, don’t spend your day in spreadshsets; it you’re a tinkerer, then tinker more … etc.) When I find somebody drained at the end of the day, then spent their day on their weaknesses, not their passions and strengths.
Key resources
- Finding your Strengths – http://thebookshare.blogspot.com/2008/02/finding-your-key-strengths.html
- The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and the Technician – http://thebookshare.blogspot.com/2007/12/entrepreneur-manager-and-technician.html
- Leader vs. Manager – http://thebookshare.blogspot.com/2007/07/management-is-doing-things-right.html
Way to go, David!
Terry
Thanks Terrence, now I just need to keep going strong and stronger into strength practice and leverage.
David,
!TOM! would use WAY more !!!EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!
Nicely written! (That one was my own). Might I also add David Maister’s ‘Strategy and the Fat Smoker’ to your list of recommended reading. It’s a fantastic book that follows in a similar vein.
Mike
Hey David, great timing. We’re getting ready to get in the throes of the annual career development discussion. So easy to get into a pattern of regurgitating all the competencies that are listed. I try to focus on a few things they are doing right and then 1 or 2 critical areas they could improve on. Thanks for the post!
Bobby,
All the best at managing bytes and go with strengths…it is the only way to go.
David
David, this is an excellent post, I read it in the RSS and came over to comment with my mind brimming with ideas on how to capitalize on a handful of core strengths and …
jd beat me to it. Great comment!
David, loved your call to action “Better yet, practice…” :). Here is my next move – go through JD’s http://thebookshare.blogspot.com/2008/02/finding-your-key-strengths.html, find my strengths and then play to it.
To be serious for a moment, most lists of competences are . . . well . . . incompetent. The coaching we might do as a junior manager fresh out of college is not quite the same as the coaching we might do 30 years later leading an entire organization.
And what is called for in one culture/place is going to be very different from what is needed some place else. To give a concrete example, North American assessment centers typically assume you can use the phone liberally. I’ve waved off more than one naive yet otherwise highly “competent” manager who has promised a telephone call on reaching their destination. Grateful smiles all round thinking of the peaceful week ahead! For the record, in places with weak comms, the “right” answer is to delegate everything “competently” b4 you leave. Your subordinates will act in your absence using a combination of their best judgment and the information you left behind. Any thought of back seat driving is deemed . . . well . . . incompetent.
Too serious a comment, by half.
Stephen:
All the best with implementing the strength ideas.
Alik:
The strength assessment is from Gallup and is updated by Tom Rath with StrengthsFinder 2.0.
Jo
I like playful and serious, so you could double the serious, even throw in some ALL CAPS!!!! :)
David