How to make a manager do his job?
A run through the manager hiring process in companies tells a story - that no one differentiates managers from frontline staff and hence hiring basis remains the same - is he good at work.
Now the big question is "What is work for a manager", writing codes, getting sales orders, attending client complaints or hiring team, making plans, communicating, motivating team, reviewing performance.
Love for action orientation of entrepreneurial leadership teams has completely eroded role for managers which has become almost same as frontline. What can managers do, leaders themselves are doing frontline work themselves leaving no space for managers to do their real job. And frontline is wondering why they were hired in first place.
Job of a manager is not doing but getting done and only if this is clear can a manager focus on right deliverables like team formation, risk mitigation, monitoring, coaching, redundancy building. This way managers can contribute significantly towards organizational goals.
Starting point in this direction can be setting manager's KRAs right. Try not to put more than 50% weight on core output putting rest across team building, planning, review, derisking their deliveries, coaching teams, innovation etc.
Similarly while hiring managers, assessment must be done on managerial qualities as indicated above. Remember a good manager can give performance upside from whole team, so do not waste talent letting him write codes.
Comments/ questions can be directed to prashant@plughr.com
2 comments:
True, but we seem to be living in a 'Great Sounding Designation" era.
I've met candidates who are put off by designations offered. I remember one case in particular: He was a Sales Executive in a SSI and when offered appointment as a Sales Executive in a much larger organisation, he insisited that he be designated as atleast a Dy. Manager - whatever his job profile may be!
The designation 'Manager' is, I am afraid used a bit too casually and 'loosely'.
It was specially registered at a forum to tell to you thanks for the information, can, I too can help you something?
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