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With the word wars and various social media fires started by Musk’s recent tweet on managers needing to know how to do the work of their people … I am bracing for a resurgence of related firefights like leader vs. manager, are managers needed in agile organizations, and are managers even needed (e.g., Holacracy themes)!

Organization and role designs vary widely, and the statements about what “managers” should be/do … or not be/do … will also vary widely in relevance to your situation.

For instance, for any given role/job, who does – or provides – the following? The same person or different roles/people? (somewhere in the bowels of my computer I have a list I made sometime ago but it is resisting search, so these are some recollections 😉

• Hiring/selection (find someone to do the job)
• “what to do” (results desired, including any quality parameters or values adherence)
• “how/when/where/etc. to do” (how to achieve results)
• Development/training as needed (increase ability to achieve results)
• Resources, tools, etc. to help do the work
• Feedback about desired results vs. actual results
• Performance management, if done in the organization
• Compensation decisions/input
• Removal if necessary

These also assume that *someone* has set the overall organizational context of purpose/mission/”why”, vision, and so on.

What would you add to the list?

What impact do items on the list have on pro/con views of Musk’s statement?

Back in pre-war (!) days earlier this year, I recommended leaders take action to help themselves and their people deal with fear … might be a good thing to review the LinkedIn article, given the past few weeks:

https://lnkd.in/eCpurf3n

We got another call from a company wanting “agile transformation” …

The problem? They are focused on “agile” as techniques that promise to produce big results. They haven’t considered the radical implications of the underlying principles … a cause of many transformation and “agile” failures.

Here is a great observation from Perry Marshall:

“Businesses are failing today because they are ignoring principles and trying to replace them with techniques.

… It’s very important to recognize the difference between a principle and a technique. A technique is a “trick” that you use to get something done, something that works in a very specific situation. A principle, however, is something that’s universally true, something that transcends any particular company or circumstance.

…  There have never been more people skimming the surface of life and living on [techniques] “crack cocaine” than there are right now.”

Perry is referring to the ongoing massive changes in marketing and advertising … for example, what techniques worked on Google yesterday have changed today. Keeping up with the changes is important, but it is more important to know the underlying principles of marketing and advertising to win long-term.

The principle about techniques vs. principles, though, applies to every business.

New techniques feel great momentarily because of the illusion of real change … “we’re doing something different!” … and the momentary success. Things fall apart when a different situation is encountered, and the techniques don’t work quite like they did before … if at all. It takes knowledge of the underlying principles to adapt techniques for a new environment or pick more suitable techniques.

Things also fall apart if work techniques change but the underlying principles behind policies, procedures, etc. do not … the principles will win out in the end. And the “change” will fail because the foundation did not change.

Real change … sustainable change … only occurs when there is change in the techniques AND the underlying principles, and the techniques and principles align.

What have you been focusing on lately?

–> Watch leaders during crises.

What they say, how they behave. The effects on their teams, organizations, stakeholders, constituencies.

Government leaders, business leaders … any kind of leader and at all levels are candidates.

The pandemic, Russian invasion, and other recent crises have provided incredible opportunities to learn by watching.

Anytime you see, read, or hear something that strikes you as either good or bad leadership, make a quick note. If on a computer or device, save the item and annotate it as needed.

Periodically review your notes and pick one (or a very few) top things to work on. Observe how you do and adjust as needed.

Your observations will also help you identify your perspectives on leadership. In time, the accumulated notes and annotations will build your own leadership “book” of how you think leadership should work (and not work!).

The act of formalizing observations by making notes will also make you a better observer, which in turn is an important aspect of leadership as well.

Not convinced? Even children have used a process like this 🙂
The “Blue’s Clues” children’s TV show had a recurring theme, at least in early episodes, of Notice-Note-Noodle … children were encouraged to follow the host along in noticing clues, making notes about them, and then thinking (there was even a “thinking chair” in the show) to figure out the clues.

The first one is that you have no warning signs built in.

Most leaders have learned how to set goals and communicate those. Some have learned how to define, distill, and disseminate an inspiring vision. And some have learned how to collaborate in goal and expectation setting.

What’s frequently missing is pre-scheduled 2-way feedback.

People can go astray like projects … feedback is fundamental to any leadership activity where there is any uncertainty.
(see the previous post about project feedback)

For short tasks with little uncertainty, completion – the accountability of checking “done” – can be sufficient feedback.

For anything other than a short task, build in scheduled feedback cycles at the time of agreement. The frequency and type of feedback cycles should be based on the level of uncertainty about things like:

• The end result’s contribution to achieving goals,
• The path forward,
• Ability to perform (e.g., motivation, how much guidance/development the person needs),
• Any other significant risks.
  

You can also think of this as a form of risk management. And also people development by increasing the ability for bit-by-bit feedback for improvement.

Have you built regular feedback cycles into how you lead?

It’s a key part of the basic leadership mechanism we call “4-part Harmony” …

This question trips up lots of folks, at all levels …

“How are your retrospectives going?”

You can insert “learning review sessions” or something else similar in the same spot as “retrospectives” … the answer is usually the same: there is no real answer. Just a lot of “uh” and other stalling sounds, sometimes along with some form of mumbling.

In those cases, it’s almost guaranteed that the reason their ______ isn’t working as expected. (Fill in the blank with any important effort like a critical strategic plan initiative, transformation, agile implementation, etc.)

Doing something new implies there is some level of uncertainty. A fundamental principle is that you can’t construct perfect plans amid uncertainty.

Jim Highsmith said it well: “Many traditional planners don’t understand a key concept – you can’t ‘plan’ away uncertainty.  ​Uncertainty is another way of expressing what we don’t know – about the ends or the means.  ​For most uncertainties (lack of knowledge) the only way to reduce the uncertainty and gain knowledge is to execute – to do something, to build something, to simulate something – and then get feedback.”​

The point of feedback – as Jim cited above – is to check and adjust the initial plan and progress (or lack thereof).

Post-mortems, lessons learned sessions, and the like are great … but at the end of the effort there is nothing that can be done to improve results of that effort. Only improve future efforts. That’s good, but why not also improve current efforts?

It’s far better to be checking and adjusting along the way, rather than waiting until the end. If there is no checking and adjusting (e.g., retrospectives) along the way, then you are depending on an initial plan based on uncertainty – an uncertain plan.

Do you depend on uncertain plans?

Fundamental error. And one that can be hazardous to both your company and your career health.