Don't Make Managers Better, Eliminate Management
In his blog post "If I See One More %*$@#^! Article On How To Make Managers Better...", Chuck Blakeman tells us that making managers better is a terrible, horrible, abusive, and holistically untenable idea. He speaks from experience. Blakeman started and built eight businesses in the U.S., Europe, and Africa and is the founder of Crankset Group, a business advisory firm for leaders and companies worldwide.
Highlights from the Article
Management is the business equivalent of the Titanic. Let’s figure out how to do it differently.
What if we did something simple? What if we decided people are adults and can be smart and motivated, and if given the opportunity, a team of people TOGETHER could actually design better jobs, better metrics, better processes, and better division of labor than any one boss/manager/genius/hero ever could?
Let's rehumanize the workplace and give everyone their brain back by pushing decision-making to those who have to carry out the decision. Teams should make decisions they have to carry out, not managers. Companies that have pushed local decision making to the people who actually have to live with the decisions have exponentially higher staff happiness and retention compared to others in their industries.
Managers aren’t the problem. Management is the problem. Trying to make managers into superhuman co-dependent enablers of people "above" and "below" them is an idea we should just stop flogging. Let's stop treating the people "below" managers like they are children in need of an office day care center and a babysitter.
All the data is on the side of self-managed teams, yet we keep trying to put lipstick on a Factory System pig that was born in an Industrial Age that does not serve an emerging work world. No more articles on how to make managers better! Make PEOPLE better - give them their brain back!
The Enlightened Rebel Perspective
We agree with Peter Drucker’s observation that "We are in one of those great historical periods that occur every 200 to 300 years when people don't understand the world anymore, and the past is not sufficient to explain the future." We’re at an important crossroads and change is needed for businesses of all kinds to remain relevant and effective in our rapidly changing and connected world.
In the workplace, we are in the midst of a shift from Industrial Age management to Participation Age leadership. This means that current business owners and leaders must adopt a new mindset, skill set, and tool set to continue to be effective in their roles. As Chuck Blakeman emphatically points out, we must create a work environment that provides psychological ownership and the ability to make decisions to teams of self-motivated stakeholders.
Shift happens! We can equip you to navigate the change required!
