Open Thread: Are You Being Undermanaged?
March 21st, 2007 (12:00pm) Anne Zelenka 12 Comments
Brazen Careerist Penelope Trunk posted a video today from Bruce Tulgan, author of It’s Okay to Be the Boss. Tulgan thinks there’s an epidemic of undermanagement in business, that “leaders, managers, and supervisors are not leading, managing, and supervising.” He proposes that it’s better to be hands on than hands off if you’re a manager and says that “if you’re the boss, people are counting on you.”
Books like The Starfish and The Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations promote the idea that decentralized loosely-managed organizations can be more successful than hierarchical traditionally managed organizations. Starfish organizations, so the claim goes, work mainly via flat and collaborative peer networks, not by the practice of top-down leadership or management. This might make you think that management isn’t necessary in the new world of work and business enabled by the web. Yet even so-called starfish organizations like Wikipedia and Craigslist rely on some sort of governance structure and effective leadership to succeed.
Anyone who watches The Apprentice regularly sees how project teams yearn for strong managers at the same time they revolt against domineering personalities. Leading and managing effectively requires talents that few of us seem naturally blessed with. There are so many ways to be a bad boss, it’s no wonder many workers resonate with Dilbertian anti-management thinking.
I’ve been undermanaged and overmanaged and I’ve done my part to add to the dysfunction by under- and overmanaging. I prefer being undermanaged, because I’m an independent and stubborn sort who likes to do things her own way. Yet a thoroughgoing lack of goals and structure to meet them causes stress for everyone.
Are you suffering from undermanagement, like Tulgan suggests? Or do you wish your micromanaging boss would get off your back? If you’re a manager, do you struggle to find a balance between not enough and too much management, supervision, and leadership?
12 Comments Post your own comment
Audrey says: March 21st, 2007 1:45pm
I had that exact conversation with someone a couple of weeks ago.
The key here isn’t just management, it’s responsibility. Whether you have a decentralized organization or a strict management hierarchy, someone has to be responsible for each part of the business needs and goals. Or else those things don’t get done. You can structure that responsibility in all sorts of ways, as long as all of the business roles are covered.
Edward O'Connor says: March 21st, 2007 1:52pm
There’s a blend of the two, which IIRC Joel calls “drive-by micromanagement,” under which you’re undermanaged most of the time, with occasional spurts of micromanagement to compensate. The worst of both worlds!
rick gregory says: March 21st, 2007 2:06pm
Anne,
Aside from individual cases, I think there’s an issue of what, precisely, we mean by management now. Everyone spouts quotes from Cluetrain and talks about ‘The world is flat’ but we’ve not yet adjusted our perceptions of roles within an organization. Management in its classic, 1950s sense is people getting told what to do and telling those beneath them on the org chart what to do. Great managers are creative and inspiring, not mere order givers, but when push comes to shove the manager is the decisionmaker.
In a more fluid world, does this stay the same? Does the manager become more like a coordinator or conductor? Or do we still need an order giver? And how does this translate into day to day tasks for a manager? I suspect that it’s much more of a coordination and communication function than in the past, with a healthy dose of creative problem-solving tossed in…
Daniel Gibbons says: March 21st, 2007 2:22pm
I recently left an organization that suffered from a truly epic lack of under-management. I didn’t see this manifest itself so much at the junior level, but it was rampant among the VPs (of which I was one) and Directors.
To Audrey’s point, it all comes down to being responsible for getting things done, but I increasingly see companies staffed at the senior with successful type A personalities, who often don’t need to be there to pay the bills. Perhaps they’ve had entrepreneurial success elsewhere, but very often that entrepreneurial drive manifests itself entirely differently when said entrepreneur has to fit into a hierarchy rather than lead the overall vision and strategy for the organization. It’s not that I as a lapsed and then reborn entrepreneur can’t get things done, but these things have to have been my idea in the first place otherwise I feel frustrated and backed into a corner. Selfish and arrogant, perhaps, but true nonetheless.
Daniel Gibbons says: March 21st, 2007 2:24pm
edit to the above: should be “truly epic lack of management”. sorry…
Penelope Trunk says: March 21st, 2007 8:34pm
Anne,
Thanks for linking to Brazen Careerist. I really like the mini-essay format of your post — and I love how you bring in NPR and The Apprentice.
What people want from work today, I think, is personal growth. So if managers are going to add value, I think it can’t just be about productivity. A manager is there to give the worker what the worker needs to succeed. And what workers need in order to stay at a job is personal growth, so a manager should foster that.
A manager can be a coach, a mentor, a sounding board. All the things we would love to get from a friend but don’t usually have friends who are up to the task. In this regard, a manager would need to be very hands on in a way that helps us to be better people – not just better workers.
I know: Big challenge. But at least it’s something to aim for.
Penelope
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Markus says: March 21st, 2007 8:34pm
I don’t believe that one style is necessarily better than other. I think with some workers you must be hands on, and with others you just need lay down clear and concise goals and expectations. I feel a managers greatest asset is the ability to quickly adapt, and this includes management styles.
The Danger of Under-Management « Organizations and Markets says: March 22nd, 2007 7:05am
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Wawaga says: March 22nd, 2007 4:28pm
Edward O’Connor, you just described my boss. What do you do, but hang on to dear life.
dennis parrott says: March 26th, 2007 10:25am
for the “flat” organization to really work, you need to have CLEAR OBJECTIVES that everyone buys into. if everyone knows what needs to be done and they aren’t slackers, people will team up to make it happen. you also need management to develop some part of the rewards system that is based on REAL TEAMWORK. if people see that self-less and self-sacrificing behavior will net them some reward (other than to be stepped on my some vine climbing wanna-be boss monkey) they will actually function as a team. you also need people to be EMPOWERED so that they can actually function as a team when they form up to take on a task. you also require people with REAL SKILLS. too often we see organizations rely on degrees, honoraria, certificates and so on and things end up a mess because these things don’t really mean the persons are capable…
management in this sort of organization needs to go about setting up the strategic direction, project expectations, a willing ear to really listen when teams report difficulty and a willing hand to resolve same. management must also amply reward the teams for good behavior and results.
wow, now that would be a great place to work wouldn’t it?
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