12 Comments

1. 

   Jamie on January 2, 2012 at 9:28 am

   Do you assume here that the manager who sends mixed messages is incompetent and that, given the skills, would dis-aggregate their power?

   Isn’t the problem that people hold onto their position power not because they think it’s useful but because it affords them, well, great power. What do you male of this? Isn’t it more constructive to think about how we can destroy power structures like the one from your example?

   Thanks, Jamie.

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     Esther Derby on January 2, 2012 at 9:35 am

     I assume that most people in management roles send mixed messages or hold on to power because they haven’t really thought about the impact of the theory of management and their management practices.

     Reply
2. 

   Jamie on January 2, 2012 at 12:30 pm

   If they stop to think, do they relinquish that power?

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     Esther Derby on January 3, 2012 at 6:58 am

     I suspect it depends on their beliefs about people and organizations. If the person believes people are lazy or irresponsible, they probably won’t. If they believe people are capable, responsible, creative, and can imagine something other than hierarchical bureaucracy they might.

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3. 

   Bob Marshall on January 3, 2012 at 5:28 am

   Nice post.

   Jack Stack’s “The Great Game of Business” (book, recommended) has lots of real-world stories about managers that discover (by various means) how much better off everyone can be (including themselves) when they relinquish their morbid grip on power.

   See also Art Kleiner’s Core Group theory (congruent, imo).

   – Bob

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     Esther Derby on January 3, 2012 at 6:59 am

     Thanks for the book recommendation, Bob.

     Reply
4. 

   Paul Boos on January 3, 2012 at 5:40 am

   This is a great post!

   I’ve been thinking of facilitating Jurgen Appelo’s Meddlers game to allow managers to better visualize appropriate delegation levels. Seems constructing the roles and collectively organizing folks would help everyone in better understanding the right levels of accountability and responsibility. If you’ve read over his game/exercise, I’d be curious of your thoughts.

   Cheers,
   Paul

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5. 

   Jeff on January 8, 2012 at 12:37 pm

   Interesting post.

   It’s become a hot topic of debate right now whether or not we really need managers at all. See HBR “First, Let’s Fire All the Managers” http://bit.ly/vb8kaD But would we, in fact, be better off relying (entirely) on self-organizing teams instead?

   Personally, I believe that it’s still possible for managers to play an important and positive role in many organizations. The real problem is that most managers have no idea what great managers do and, even if they did, lack the ability, incentives, or confidence to act that way themselves.

   I wish I knew how to solve this problem on a large scale, but I feel that change is more likely to happen one (potential) manager at a time. Great managers teach and inspire others (through their actions) to do the same.

   Unfortunately, most organizations aren’t even capable of recognizing (and rewarding) their best managers. More often than not, doing the right thing (for both employees and the organization) has to be its own reward. This isn’t necessarily a bad form of motivation, but I think it has a lot to do with the general scarcity of talented managers in major corporations.

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6. 

   Madhu on January 19, 2012 at 12:34 am

   Seems to me, all this leads back to the common and destructive practice of promoting the best engineer to become a bad manager.

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     Esther Derby on January 19, 2012 at 9:14 am

     That is only a small part of the problem. It isn’t so much the fault of individual managers (tho clearly there are manager who do not have the skills to do the job) as it is the /system of management/ that they work in. Current mgmt practices are based on a set of assumptions and beliefs. Those are seldom examined…and that is our task if we want to change our organizations.

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7. 

   Ashish Gupta on January 30, 2012 at 1:59 pm

   Scrum is a good example of Agile Command and Control management framework but without most of the negatives which got associated with command and control through its misuse.

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     Esther Derby on January 30, 2012 at 9:25 pm

     I suspect that the people who developed the scrum framework would not agree with your characterization.

     What have you seen and heard, that leads you to believe that Scrum is “command and control”? What does “Agile Command and Control” mean to you?

     e

     Reply

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