My management philosophy - II

It's been a long time I wanted to write a sequel for 'My management philosophy'. But, guess what? With the 'manager-hood' comes certain necessary evil. One of the most significant among those is the meetings. During the past month, I would've spent a good 25-30% of my time on meetings that ate away my 'free time' almost entirely. With all my 'free time' gone, I couldn't find any for writing up my next set of thoughts for the blog. I, really am tempted to talk lots about this 'time-pass' of busy executives around the world, but I want to talk about something more close to my heart. Of course, we will come back to this subject, a very important aspect of 'manager-hood', in a few more posts.

In this post, I want to talk about how I think a team should be managed. Rather, I will talk about how (I think) a team shouldn't be managed. I've had many experiences in the past with my previous managers, all of which taught me, how not to manage a team (unfortunately, more than, how to manage!)

1. Manager's job is to manage the team, not the individuals.

In a perfect world, people would manage everything for themselves - whether he is a fresher at the job or 10 year experienced specialist. When we talk about people, we are talking about adults, more than 18 years of age. I think it is safe to assume so about all people working in an organization. 99% of the times, adults know what they're doing, can make choices for themselves, and are conscious about the time-lines (schedules and such). There may be exceptions, and again, the above rule can't be extended to all categories equally. So, what's the point? The point is, it's hence natural for people to resist the idea of the so called 'manager' to barge in their private world and 'manage' stuff for them. It's very important to understand that the line between managing and controlling is very thin. People perceive them differently. Management for me could be controlling for another. So, my learning is this. Don't ever try to 'manage' individuals. It's simply an unsafe practice to do so. It will do more harm than good - to you (and your family, in turn), to the individual, to the team and even to the whole organization.

Instead, manager should look at his job from a team perspective. Manager owns the end-result of the work done by the team, not the individuals. I believe, that individuals own their actions, being responsible adults. But, at the same time, manager is accountable (not exactly responsible) for all happenings - good and bad - that happen in the team, even if it is an individual that wronged. The line is thin between the two cases, but it's important to give the benefit of doubt to the individual.

Manager must oversee work at a team level on a regular basis (weekly, might be a good choice) with additional help, as needed. It helps to avoid surprises at the end (could, potentially be even the beginning!)

Manager must promote a culture within the team, so that it can perform well. One very good example of a rich 'culture' is that of sharing knowledge freely among the team members. Think of innovative methods of promoting such a culture in your team and implement them.

Manager must ensure that resources, as appropriate for the job, is available to his team to perform well.

Manager must make sure that his people feel safe in his group, both at the job and otherwise. He must be ever-ready to come forward and protect his people from external issues, either from customers, from other teams, or even internal to the team. Essentially, people should feel being in a secure environment.

Manager must ensure that good things happen to good people, that is most important to keep people cheerful and engaged. In short, a manager should act as the HR for his own group.

Most of that I wanted to talk about are already covered under this section, so I've only a few more items. Hold on!

2. Don't pretend to, but show a genuine interest in peoples' affairs. It is easier to impress people that you're keenly interested in the team's/individual's affairs, while actually ignoring most of them. Couple of managers I'd in the past, adopted this strategy and also had been successful for sometime before they were shoed away by the people in his team. Remember, you may fool some people all the time or even fool all people for some time, but not all people all the time!

3. Practice what you preach. It is very tempting to advice people on things, that you may not even have the most distant idea about. Perhaps, the only reason you do this is, you'd similar advices from your own manager in the past. After all, what's wrong is just passing on good advices? No, you're wrong.

Advices are people-specific and environment-specific. Environment can be anything - ranging from the job, the team, the organization etc. Before giving advices, the manager ought to double-check with his conscience if it makes sense for him and can be implemented in his own life? If not, discard it.

4. Always know the context first, before passing opinions. Don't interfere into your team's issues and offer advices, especially the 'unsolicited' ones, if you don't know the entire context of the issue. You're probably just wasting everybody's time, if you do that.

5. It is not necessary that a manager is super-knowledgeable about everything, and must have opinions on everything that happens in the team. There is nothing so sacred about a manager's position, that he should fear of compromising it, while asking opinions, even from the junior-most engineer in your team. People, infact will respect the manager for it.

6. I'd a manager in the past, who whenever we met in a team meeting or otherwise, used to talk only about what we didn't do, but ignored what we did. He believed that a manager's job is to interfere into team affairs, only when something is terribly bad. The truth is, people, irrespective of the titles they have at their jobs, irrespective of their work environment, and even irrespective of social/economic background, want to be reaffirmed or noticed by others, especially the manager, of their actions and want to get recognized and eventually rewarded for their contributions, in the same order of priority. So, it is suicidal for the manager to ignore, either purposefully or by oversight, the achievements, however small, of his team members.

We'll talk about other interesting aspects of management, when we meet next time. See you soon...