Why Do Managers Fail?
June 23, 2008 by Phil Gerbyshak
Filed under Business
Lisa Haneberg recently shared a brilliant list of 5 simple reasons managers fail. #1 came as no surprise to me.
Fail to build positive and trusting relationships.
So simple, yet often completely missed by many managers. Management is a team sport folks, and if you don’t like it, you shouldn’t be a manager.
If you get that point, then let’s talk about this a little more. Who should you build relationships with, and how should you build them?
Here’s a few ideas on how to build positive and trusting relationships. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
First, build a relationship with each person on your team. The folks that report to you are the most important people in the world, whether you manage a team of 1 or a team of 1000. How? Take the time ask a few questions to better understand what makes your team tick, at work and at home. Ask them first, and then figure out how you can help them get what they want most, and you’ll lead a much more successful team.
Next, build a relationship with your manager. When I was first promoted 5 years ago, I had no idea what my manager liked or didn’t like, and I barely knew she was married with a child and that she started out on my team some 15 years prior. I had to figure out what was important to my manager, and you need to find out what is important to your manager. What are those big, hairy audacious goals is she working on this year, next year, and long term? Ask her, and she’ll tell you. Then deliver the goods and set your goals around her important goals. Make sure and share your BHAGs too, and ask how she can help you achieve them.
Last but not least, you must build a relationship with your peers. I work in an IT department with 10 folks at my level of management/leadership. Some people, including some of my team, see our team as a launch pad to other opportunities in the department. I realized early on that I had a choice on how I viewed my peers: I could view them as my competition, as folks who want to steal my best people as soon as they become competent enough to move to the next level; or I could view them as partners in getting our IT team mission done. I chose the latter, and though it might mean my best people get promoted to another team, I see the folks who leave my team as advocates for us, sharing my vision with other teams of the world’s greatest IT customer service organization.
I ask my peers what their goals are, and how my team can help them achieve them more rapidly. This cross-functional teamwork gives my folks exposure to things they’d never see or do without these relationships. Additionally, these groups will come to trust your team more, and be more forgiving of the occasional mistake, if they have a relationship with you, and eventually, with your team.
Who else do you need to build a relationship with in order to be a successful manager, and how can you do that?
Photo credit to http://www.lumaxart.com/
I would suggest building relationships with others in your industry as in a trade group.
This is important not just for learning about other successful tactics from others, but also as providing excellent networking opportunities to help others.
I agree with what Scot Herrick mentioned. I do believe there is a book called “The power of we” out there. A manager/leader should look outside the box and to the outside world as well.
Waht about bonding with outside vendors as well? Granted that may not be a part of your team, or rather on your Org chart, but they can have a profound impact on your deliverables!
Today, many manager development and mentoring programs are very much focused on managing up and managing down – engaging your boss and working with the people who report to you. Consequently, not only do many companies have training that addresses “north-south” management, but they have entire corporate universities built around this idea.
The problem is that over the past 10 to 15 years, we have found that more and more strategies require managers to manage “east and west” versus north and south. So, in many organizations, the execution of a strategy requires “dotted-line” relationships and degrees of ambiguity that oblige managers to work from a shared focus, seeking shared results, and holding a shared accountability. This can become very tricky at times.
We recently worked with a healthcare company that was launching a matrixed-based strategy. As it developed, the leaders found that people didn’t actually have others to “report to,” but they all needed to work east and west. This resulted in about 50 activities that they were all, in some way, responsible for. We realized that the key to working in this kind of framework is to focus on answering three questions:
o What is the shared outcome that we are co-responsible for – what goals are we all working toward?
o What are the behaviors that represent the way we want to work together, and how will we hold ourselves accountable to those behaviors?
o What are our roles for each activity: are we a driver-owner, a proactive supporter, or someone who needs to be informed of progress?
When these questions are addressed, managing in an east-west management matrix makes a lot more sense.
Phil – Thanks for the link love. I think you suggestions are great. It boggles the mind how tolerant we are of destructive people in the workplace. I wonder why? Building relationships is a fundamental job duty for 95% of all jobs.
I’d also build relationships with the support teams around yours, HR and IT in particular.
Lisa said: It boggles the mind how tolerant we are of destructive people in the workplace. I wonder why?
Because we can’t get rid of them; because they have a North-located protector; because they serve that person’s purpose; and my personal, #1 favorite: because we are afraid of conflict.
How much does that fear of conflict eat in annual productivity?