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More and more I hear and read about a looming crisis of leadership at the middle management level and the inevitable resulting increase in, poor performance, accidents and production mistakes and hence declining profits. I’m afraid to say these observations are not just rumours. In my own work as a management consultant I’ve noticed a distinct increase in negative behaviours in many middle managers in all sorts of companies. In this short article I’ll explain what I mean by “negative behaviours” offer suggestions on what senior managers can do about it. Over the past four years I’ve noticed the following kinds of behaviours from many middle managers: · Increasingly using harsh, abrupt language: “Don’t be so stupid”. “I don’t care what the problem is just get it fixed” · Becoming more dictatorial (unwilling to listen) “Yes, I know all that now do it this way” · Putting time pressure on people by continually asking when jobs will be completed and why things are taking so long · Losing tempers and insulting others when things go wrong · Unwilling to take the time to read, seek advice and think things out carefully · Creating a them and us culture: “We decide and direct and you do”. · Using more of the fear factor: “Perform or you’re out”. If you’re a senior managers reading you’ll be disappointed and even shocked. The tragedy is that the middle managers I meet are excellent people – they are not behaving like this on purpose. When you point out the danger and destructiveness of these behaviours they acknowledge it and change for a few days. However, in a few weeks they forget and go back to unhelpful behaviours. Why? In a nutshell, middle managers are under more pressure to perform than I have seen in a long time. For example, · In the past five years, levels of management have been stripped out resulting in middle managers doing more and more. · The constant downsizing, having to apply “for your own job” and frequent relocation have numbed many people. Some just don’t care anymore. · Many middle managers are now forced to be contractors and work in a culture where “you are only as good as your last job” and loyalty and long-term thinking is not seen to be valued. Middle management is now overstretched to breaking point both physically and mentally, hence the behaviours listed above. This is having an adverse effect on the supervisors they manage and in turn on al their people. Another tragedy is that most middle managers won’t own up that they are under this pressure. So senior managers don’t know about it. For me it’s the effective leadership of senior managers that will prevent the coming crisis. Here are just six straightforward steps senior managers should take now. 1. Initiate a short, anonymous survey to measure the extent of pressure on middle managers. 2. Take even more time to discuss in detail the workload and targets of direct reports. Probe to see if people are accepting unreasonable workloads just to please you as the boss. Make sure your direct reports do this with their people too. 3. Deliberately create situations where you as a senior manager can admit that you can’t cope and need help. People will not own up if you don’t do it first. 4. Find ways to show middle managers that you value them as people not just a resource. Especially when they are non-core staff. Yes, short-term contracting as a mode of employment is increasing but that doesn’t mean we should treat managers who are contractors as less valuable than full time staff. 5. Provide the time for management training. 6. Here’s the toughest of all. When the Board trims the budget for a project and you’ve struggled to find ways to do more with less and you realise you can’t, you should tell them. This is the ultimate source of unreasonable pressure. Don’t allow it to flow down hill. Yes, we need a leaner business model for the modern competitive and fast-paced economy. Yes, we must keep pushing for better performance from everyone. But does lean have to be mean – do we have to lose the human touch? Indeed, doesn’t success in this era require senior managers to be even more human? Copyright (c) 2004 Dr William Robb. Electronic distribution to ezines, friends and colleagues permitted but publication in print prohibited without written permission Witchcraft Exposed! - Powerful Spells about Love, Luck, Wealth, Money, Protection, etc. Guaranteed Results from the European Wizards. Great Affiliate. Federal Grants! - Free Government Money! - FederalGrantSource.com free government money, business grants and cash grants directory. We guarantee results! This is a guest blog post written by Dave Kawula, a Senior Consultant with 1E. Dave was the guest on our January episode of the AlignIT Manager Tech Talk where we talked about how IT managers can take the risk out of their Windows 7 deployment projects. Below Dave details cost savings that can be claimed by implementing automation and self service as part of your deployment project. Read Dave’s other guest post on rationalizing your apps prior to a Windows 7 deployment >>
Imagine that you have finally completed the following phases of your project:Core Architecture, Gold Image Build and Test, Application Rationalization, Testing, Testing, and more Testing Now you need to get your images deployed to end users…well this is a problem because most organizations lack the forethought to automate this process. So when it comes to deploying Microsoft’s operating systems there are really two choices that we are normally presented with: Lite Touch and Zero Touch. Let’s take a moment and define both of these:
Now do either of the above work… the answer is yes absolutely. The issue is that all of this requires Careful coordination and communication to end users. This process normally involves hiring project managers, business analysts, corporation communication specialists, and costly IT Engineering time. My question is this: We are in a world where we can get applications delivered to all of our phones by simply clicking in a portal and having them magically installed. We can change devices and simply re-deploy these applications from the same portal. WHAT IF… you could do the same thing for your Windows 7 deployment. Just treat the Windows 7 deployment as nothing more than a complex application. Allowing end users to click on a Windows 7 upgrade icon in a portal. Then have them them schedule their own upgrade for a time that works for them. Check out this product from 1E Software called yes you guessed it, 1E Shopping:
Does this mean death to the manual spreadsheets… well probably not – we always seem to return to what we know and love. I have personally deployed this product and have seen the impact it has on the classical approach to operating system and software delivery. The only requirement for Shopping is that a customer must already own and have configured System Center Configuration Manager. The best part of this application is that it can be easily be installed and configured in less than five consulting days. So I want to wrap up this post with a little bit of simple math for everyone:
Now…here is a look at the old way! Deploy 1000 Desktops x $3,000 each = $300,000 in resource costs
How about the new way!!! Take the opportunity to incorporate this organizational change into your Windows 7 projects. From my previous post on application rationalization:
Add in savings from using automation and self service:
Assume your budget for this Windows 7 project was around $500,000. I will leave you pondering those numbers. Now of course remember there is an acquisition cost of new software that would save money. The nice thing about 1E is that all of their software pretty much pays for itself very quickly. I hope you have enjoyed this post and I welcome any feedback or if you want to share your experiences with your Windows 7 projects thus far. About Dave Kawula
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