The question, "How to make managers manage," is fascinating. The word
"make" is what captured my attention. As human beings we seem to have a
preoccupation with "making" things happen. Many of us live life oblivious
to the pervasiveness and sacredness of volition.
I want to say human volition, but nature has choices to make as well. The
whole idea of "make" something happen implies that the person(s)
responsible for doing the "making" has some sort of "control" over other
people or nature itself.
As frustrating as it may be, I can never make another human being do
something I like. Other people are going to act on their own beliefs,
their own experience, their own desires. Equally true, however, is that
everyone's behavior is constantly being influenced by both internal
factors (those just listed), and external factors (or systemic forces).
>From my perspective, the first thing to do would be to give up on the
notion of "making" them managers work. I would eliminate, from my
vocabulary, any word that implied coercion. Rather, I would use words that
communicated consequences. This allows the managers to feel like they have
a choice . . . and responsibility always follows choice. Furthermore, high
levels of performance seem to flow from such choices.
The second thing I would do is determine if the behavior is internally
motivated or externally motivated. To do this I would ask a few basic
questions:
1) Is the problem isolated to a single department, or does it pervade the
entire organization? (If it's isolated, then the field of inquiry narrows
rapidly; if it's limited to a couple of people then I'd start looking for
internal motivations.)
2) How are the managers evaluated? What determines the amount of their
next pay raise? (The old maxim that you get what you measure has a lot of
merit.)
3) What are the tacit expectations set by senior managers?
4) What signs have the managers given, to either their managers or their
employees, that would explain their behavior? (Have they said to their
employees, "I really hate coming to work in the morning?)
Without doing this type of inquiry, I'm reluctant to give any advice. For
any advice I might give would do nothing more than reflect my mental
models, which probably have nothing at all to do with what is actually
happening.
I think the most important thing to do, however, is create an environment
in which it is safe for the managers to explain their own behavior. And
using words that imply coercion is a fast way to replace feelings of
saftey with fear. A safe environment will naturally produce an open
environment. And until the managers feel free to explain their behavior,
I wouldn't count on it changing.
For what it's worth. . .
-- Benjamin B. Compton bcompton@enol.com http://www.enol.com/~bcomptonLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>