Manage without Management!
Many of us often feel we get more done when the boss is out of the office NOT managing us. At the same time, Senior Directors frequently find themselves wishing everyone could
Manage without Management!
Why does Management take so much time?
In small organisations, management is minimal. Everyone sits together, and gets on with the work at hand.
There is usually great clarity about what must be done, and there are few formal performance management processes, because everyone can see all the time what is happening.
In larger organisations, however, huge amounts of time and energy are devoted to try to re-create the clarity and immediacy of a small organisation.
Clarity
Many of us have ‘task clarity', fewer of us have ‘results clarity'. Try to make sure that all your team know what the end result of their activity is meant to be. That means, everyone has a clear Line of Sight between their activity and specific departmental organisational goals.
If you need help with this, check out the Line of Sight Wizard™.
Communication
You may think your team already know exactly what they need to do and how they contribute to the big picture, but the chances are they don't.
Most managers over-rate their communication and goal setting skills, and believe their teams are much better informed than they actually are.
Creativity
Encourage everyone to use their brain to think about what they are doing, and how it could be done better/ faster/ cheaper or perhaps not at all.
Use Management Development training to drive an attitude of ‘what must be done to get the results' rather than ‘what must be done'. Process is important, but it's a means to an end, not an end in itself. Problem solving is a driver of innovation.
If your managers are tough with themselves and others on these three Cs, you will find that the need for ‘management' reduces significantly. Your managers will be less stressed and have more time to drive the business forward:
- Having absolute Clarity about the ‘big picture' results
- Communicating both the big picture and the daily progress effectively and repeatedly to their team
- Demanding a Creative, can-do approach to delivering the results
No prizes for guessing where our name ‘3C' comes from!
