Manage or be Managed
"Due to the current workload, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off." Office Humor
We lead people, we manage things. I love this old adage as I feel there can be confusion among leaders in the workplace. Managing, in my view, is less personal and more process. It involves the establishment of procedure and policy, organizing and synchronizing tasks and operations, and governing time. Leading on the other hand is the personal interaction, influence, and nurturing required of leaders to get the most out of the people associated with these tasks and operations.
In organizations, sometimes it is the 'things' which manage us. These 'things' can be information, expectations, and natural or man-made events. In an Army field training exercise years ago, in the always rainy Pacific Northwest, I heard a senior officer state, "water management." He was referring to the channeling of water to prevent it from interfering with operations. Plastic and pieces of tents were used to channel water away from briefing rooms and electronics. Pallets were used to prevent muddy walk ways. The rain could not be prevented, only managed.
'Expectation management' (future blog) became a vogue term sometime in the early 2000s as I recall. This meant feeding leaders, teams, or other stakeholders bits of information to prevent disappointment or total surprise. 'Consequence management,' gained popularity in our post 9/11 wars. It meant the organization and synchronization of tasks, teams, and operations to lessen the negative impact of post-combat operations on the population and in the media for the enemy to exploit.
The concept of 'manage or be managed' presented itself recently in a business venture I am leading. While we repair products we sell, it is not a formal offering of our business. This said, one of our top priorities is the forming and fostering of relationships with our customers. Therefore, while repairs are not a revenue generator, we will take swift action to care for our customers. Repairs distract us from our primary revenue generating activities; sales and installations. Repairs were managing us. It was time to manage them.
We opted to create a standard day of the week to handle repairs. We developed a questionnaire to gain efficiency in the process and we conducted some 'expectation management' with our customers to ensure them we would attend to their broken product yet do so on a more managed time line. Like the rain in the Pacific Northwest, repairs are not going away. But they can be managed!
What is managing you or your team? Manage it then lead your people!
Make it Personal!
Rob
Rob Campbell