Getting the best out of the team
It’s interesting to see how a few simple management principles completely transform the idea people have about their managers - from being someone above wanting to exploit the team to achieve his targets versus being someone within wanting each single person to succeed and making the team successful as a result. I have been thinking, experimenting, and refining my ideas about getting the best out of the team and here’s a gist of them.
1. First among the equals
Being a manager is special but not so special. The last thing that it means is absolute control over the team; “having absolute control”, ironically, is exactly the first assumption a new manager makes about his role. Assuming that positional management authority grants the manager absolute control over everything that the team does is not only naïve, it’s fatal.
The best strategy is to honestly think and agree to self that the manager is not an authority over the team. The manager just happens to be the one who is responsible for performance of the team rather than her individual performance. The role offers a wider visibility and decision making powers since the role requires it. That’s it. Nothing else is different between a team member and the manager. A manager is only as important as any team member. Nothing more, but nothing less too.
Hierarchy and chain of command/control kills creativity and passion in the team. Everyone is equal. Manager is the first among the equals.
2. Don’t give a man a fish
The old proverb goes, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for lifetime”. How meaningful such simple words can be. Translating to management function, don’t provide readymade answers. A manager’s job is largely asking right questions. Period. Indeed there are times when the manager needs to help the team with domain expertise or some other knowledge. This is particularly true when team members are new or they are working on a project that’s not all too familiar. However, at this moment, the manager is not simply a manager; he is expert in the given area and acting as a consultant to the team member.
Providing answers will save time in the short term, but prevents growing and scaling of the team dramatically. Providing answers makes the team depend on the manager. The manager soon runs out of bandwidth and becomes the bottleneck in the system. At this point, the manager is not doing her true job as a manager because she is simply too busy doing others’ work.
On the other hand, if right questions are asked rather than providing solutions, team starts thinking and soon learns how to find solutions to their problems without any help.
3. Mistakes are good
Lots – if not all – managers are afraid that people make mistakes and in the good intention of preventing the damage preempt the mistakes. What is not so obvious to realize is mistakes also offer the opportunity to learn – for those who want to. Making mistake is not only okay, it’s healthy and necessary if one wants to grow. Flowing out of the second principle above, saving a team member from making a mistake saves time in the short term, but never allows him to understand the implications of making that mistake. This makes it necessary for the manager to protect the team member from making the mistakes, always. Any practical person can easily guess that it cannot be sustained simply because any person cannot protect any other person – including his children – for lifetime.
What is frightening is such a person who never makes mistake – just because he is protected by his manager – obviously shines and is soon promoted. And if his next manager is not so protective, this newly promoted manager is faced with the challenges that he never had even imagined before. Just think of the scale of mistakes that a manager can make versus those that an individual contributor can make. Many/most of these mistakes will have less impact or perhaps will not be made if the new manager had been exposed to them when he was still an individual contributor.
Are mistakes not good?
1. First among the equals
Being a manager is special but not so special. The last thing that it means is absolute control over the team; “having absolute control”, ironically, is exactly the first assumption a new manager makes about his role. Assuming that positional management authority grants the manager absolute control over everything that the team does is not only naïve, it’s fatal.
The best strategy is to honestly think and agree to self that the manager is not an authority over the team. The manager just happens to be the one who is responsible for performance of the team rather than her individual performance. The role offers a wider visibility and decision making powers since the role requires it. That’s it. Nothing else is different between a team member and the manager. A manager is only as important as any team member. Nothing more, but nothing less too.
Hierarchy and chain of command/control kills creativity and passion in the team. Everyone is equal. Manager is the first among the equals.
2. Don’t give a man a fish
The old proverb goes, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for lifetime”. How meaningful such simple words can be. Translating to management function, don’t provide readymade answers. A manager’s job is largely asking right questions. Period. Indeed there are times when the manager needs to help the team with domain expertise or some other knowledge. This is particularly true when team members are new or they are working on a project that’s not all too familiar. However, at this moment, the manager is not simply a manager; he is expert in the given area and acting as a consultant to the team member.
Providing answers will save time in the short term, but prevents growing and scaling of the team dramatically. Providing answers makes the team depend on the manager. The manager soon runs out of bandwidth and becomes the bottleneck in the system. At this point, the manager is not doing her true job as a manager because she is simply too busy doing others’ work.
On the other hand, if right questions are asked rather than providing solutions, team starts thinking and soon learns how to find solutions to their problems without any help.
3. Mistakes are good
Lots – if not all – managers are afraid that people make mistakes and in the good intention of preventing the damage preempt the mistakes. What is not so obvious to realize is mistakes also offer the opportunity to learn – for those who want to. Making mistake is not only okay, it’s healthy and necessary if one wants to grow. Flowing out of the second principle above, saving a team member from making a mistake saves time in the short term, but never allows him to understand the implications of making that mistake. This makes it necessary for the manager to protect the team member from making the mistakes, always. Any practical person can easily guess that it cannot be sustained simply because any person cannot protect any other person – including his children – for lifetime.
What is frightening is such a person who never makes mistake – just because he is protected by his manager – obviously shines and is soon promoted. And if his next manager is not so protective, this newly promoted manager is faced with the challenges that he never had even imagined before. Just think of the scale of mistakes that a manager can make versus those that an individual contributor can make. Many/most of these mistakes will have less impact or perhaps will not be made if the new manager had been exposed to them when he was still an individual contributor.
Are mistakes not good?
posted by socratik | 9:00 PM
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