A Paradigm for Modern Management

This is by no means exhaustive, but I believe it will guide managers and leaders on the right path towards a focused and productive workforce. None of these ideas are new, but they are a reframing of existing ideas in order to think about them through a new lens.

• Clear Vision over Detailed Planning
• Leadership over Management
• Enablers over Constraints
• Ownership over Accountability
• Experiments over Goals

There are many best (bad) practices for the items above on the right. They are instilled in us in leadership trainings, certification programs, from our boss and boss's boss. This is the way we've always done it. And if change can be hard, change of a mindset or paradigm can be harder.

Our Relationship with Ambiguity

At the core of the statements on the right is the need for control. Our need to 'know' things. We have an uncomfortable relationship with ambiguity. In our desire to wrest control over our environments and systems, we introduce a lot of overhead and, even worse, a lot of dysfunction.

All of the items on the left are about letting go of our need for control and trusting the people you work with. Sometimes items on the right may be useful, but I would caution you to challenge why before implementing them. If you can find a way to address the problem or desired outcome by focusing on the left side, you will set up your teams and organization for longer term success.

Clear Vision over Detailed Planning

Most people would agree that an organization needs vision, but to diminish detailed planning sounds like heresy. I've written before about the problems of planning. With detailed planning, we tend to pre-determine our decisions before we have all of the information. This closes us off to new information and potential innovation. Better to have a clear idea of where we are going (Vision) and sense and respond our way of getting there. This provides us with the most options for success.

Mindshift: If you aren't making detailed plans, that means you need to be doing plan-thinking on a daily basis. Live in the moment. Adjust based on today's information. As long as you understand where you are going (Vision) you will almost always know what it is you have to do next, even if you don't know what you will do after that. This is called 'just in time planning.'

Creating a vision that gives teams clarity of purpose is not easy. The responsibility lies directly with leadership to know what the vision is, communicate it, and help the org/team to stay focused on it. Deming would call this "Constancy of Purpose." Who are you working for? What do you expect the outcome will be?

The next time you find yourself asking an employee or team what their detailed plan is for completion, ask them instead if they understand the purpose of the work they are doing. Do they understand the value they will be delivering and for whom?

Old Paradigm: "Tell me how you plan to accomplish x by y date."

New Paradigm: "Do you have an idea of what to do next?"

Enablers over Constraints

Constraints are also known as red tape, review boards, keeper of the purse strings, approval processes, and planning constructs. The old paradigm feels a need to 'strap it down so it doesn't get away from us.' It is a telltale sign of a lack of trust.

One of the biggest problems of constraints is the cost/benefit ratio. At some point things get strapped down so tight there is no room for movement.

Enablers are things that allow us to work faster and with more confidence. Safety nets, scaffolding, automated tests. Anything that keeps us from blowing something up or hurting ourselves or others. When we feel safe, we are more apt to work faster and try new things.

Education is another enabler. Building confidence in our work knowledge allows us to speed up our efforts. Education comes in many forms. It can be informal sharing of information across a business, it can be a peer to peer mentoring and learning, it can be tackling a problem as a group and learning together. This also means that the employee needs to feel safe to say when they don't know something. Hiding lack of knowledge can be just as debilitating as hiding knowledge.

Mindshift: Unleashing the knowledge and power of your employees means letting go of control. Let go of any practices/processes that create a gate, bottleneck, or silo of decision makers. Allow self-policing and self organization around good practices. Encourage learning throughout your organization. Create opportunities for employees to share knowledge.

Old Paradigm: "We need to set up a committee to make sure everyone is doing this right."

New Paradigm: "How can we set up an environment for people to learn and move forward safely and with confidence?" "

Leadership over Management

The difference between leadership and management has been a popular topic in the blogosphere lately. People don't like to be managed, they like to be inspired and led.

Management has a bad reputation because of bad managers. Bad managers tend to want to control people and teams. They use fear or intimidation to get results. They want metrics and if the metrics don't show what they like, they want answers. They want reports and documentation. They want plans and forecasts. They facilitate post mortems to determine who is to blame for bad outcomes. They tell their employees to 'just get it done' but then don't provide the tools or training to get there. They encourage working weekends in order to 'cross the finish line.'

I call all of the above noise. A lot of sturm and drang. A lot of tension. Very little value...or...if there is value, it is short lived and has long-term negative impact on the organization. Ironically, quite often it is done with good intentions.

Leadership can happen at all levels. At the management level leadership can have a transforming effect. Good leadership encourages focus on the vision and focuses on the system that delivers it. A good leader is like a sports coach. The players have everything they need (equipment, gear), they have the training necessary to win, and the coach helps by reminding them of what they learned. But coaches don't play the game. They don't jump in the field. They watch, observe, and give feedback to players as to how they might get better. They may encourage training in a new skill or area. And finally, leaders understand and accept that we are all people. We bring our own uniqueness into the workplace and not everybody thinks in the same way. And that's a good thing. Focusing on the individual, and caring for their development, is a sure way to keep people motivated in the workplace.

Mindshift: Any time you catch yourself telling an employee 'how' to do something, take a step back and instead ask if they need anything and how you can support them. Be open to the ambiguity of how your employees might solve a problem. Practice trust. Many times people don't know the answers until they get their hands dirty.

Old Paradigm: "Leadership has decided that we need to write APIs for our product. It all needs to be written in Python and we want it all to be hosted on AWS."

New Paradigm: "Our #1 priority is to make as much data accessible to our customers as possible. Tell me what you need and how I can help support the team."

Ownership over Accountability

"What we need around here is some accountability."

How many of you heard that statement before? People are quick to blame people for work dysfunctions. But it is usually the design of the system that is to blame. The system is set up in such a way that it is impossible to succeed. Many times, accountability gets brought up because the system expects more to get done than is humanly possible. People are expected to do 'all the things' instead of delivering one thing at a time, with quality.

Accountability has always felt like a dirty word to me. It implies blame. It implies that people don't care about their work, their craft, or the business. Accountability assumes that individuals have control over the system they are in. Many times employees have no control over the demands that are placed on them.

Ownership on the other hand feels freeing to me. If I truly own something, I get to decide how and when to tackle which problems. I consult with others to get advice and feedback, but ultimately, I'm in control of my own destiny of what can be done and when.

John Shook, lean guru and organizational transformation leader states: "Whenever you tell someone what to do, you take responsibility of that action away from them." If your employees don't own the 'how' of their work, they can blame others when things don't work out. Give them ownership and they will take pride in their work.

Mindshift: Giving away ownership is truly an act of servant leadership. It allows for complete engagement of the work by your employees.

Old Paradigm: "Why can't my employees just get everything done? They are so undependable."

New Paradigm: "Here is the direction the company is going in area x. I trust you and the team to figure out the best way to accomplish this. Please reach out to area experts as needed for advice, but ultimately, your team owns the solution. Let me know if you encounter any roadblocks in the system or conflicting priorities. I'll be available to help with those as needed."

Experiments over Goals

The idea of having and setting goals is deeply engrained in our psyche. The outcomes people are seeking when they hire goals aren't bad. The dysfunction comes from how we behave when goals are at stake.

There are several problems introduced when using goals to fulfill a vision or plan. The main problem is mindset. Goals encourage a win/lose mindset, whereas experiments encourage learning. We feel bad when we don't meet a goal. We disappoint ourselves and our colleagues. We want to 'make it up to the team.' But maybe the goal was unachievable given the system you are in or the constraints you are under. That is a lot of emotional baggage for something you cannot control. Plus the win/lose mindset tends to drive competition in a way that doesn't benefit the whole. Some may want to protect their goals over someone else's and therefore hurt the overall outcome.

That brings us to the second problem. Breaking a vision into smaller goals, while seeming to be a good idea, doesn't always take into account the whole of the system. Optimizing one or two parts of the system may actually be detrimental to the whole.

Example: Someone wants to lose 10lbs. They create a goal to eat nothing but grapefruit for one month. They may accomplish the goal, but their body will be thrown out of balance because of malnourishment (I would also argue that the aim is dealing with a symptom and not the problem. A better aim would be to live a healthier lifestyle).

The third problem is that goals are usually tied to metrics. We have a strange infatuation with metrics. From afar they look like they will be the answer to all of our problems, but in truth they can quickly turn into a fatal attraction. Managing people and goals via metrics is fraught with dysfunction. Metrics are useful to tell you how a system is functioning, not for how you want the system to function. Metrics are a great feedback loop. But once they become a target, they become useless (see Goodhart's Law).

The best way to change the metrics is to change the system. And the best way to change the system is not through the brute force of goals, but through the soft exploration of experiments.

Here is an example of experiments from my personal life. I was having recurring respiratory problems after a bout of pneumonia. It lasted several years with no permanent fixes from the doctors. I decided to experiment with my health. I took out a membership to a gym. It triggered some events...but eventually it started to get better. But I wasn't motivated going to the gym. So I decided to try karate. This gave my workouts a more rewarding structure. I continued to improve, but still had problems. Then someone made the observation that they have never seen me drink water. This was new information to me (at least something I hadn't considered). I set up an experiment to start off each day with a large glass of water. That was four years ago and I drink water all the time now. I no longer have respiratory issues. Through experimentation and ownership (not relying only on doctors to fix my problem) I was able to achieve my aim.

Mindshift: Thinking in terms of experiments is an admission that you don't know what will work. Experiments allows us to learn, sense and respond to what is in front of us.

Old Paradigm: "We need to break down our strategy into smaller goals and objectives to ensure that we are focused and on track."

New Paradigm: "Given our vision and the direction we want to go, what are some experiments we can try in order to achieve our aim? After every experiment, let's assess, then try something else."

In Conclusion

Letting go of our need for control and allowing ourselves to be responsive to the moment is the main shift in all of the statements above. Trust the people that work with/for you. Your job as a manager is to put the company vision front and center and to give your employees everything they need to deliver. Help with the coordination and collaboration between teams and silos. Make connections for the teams. Encourage learning across the organization. You never know. Your teams and your organization might surprise you.

What resonates with you in this article? Does any of it challenge your current beliefs or thinking? What is your biggest hurdle to changing how you work?