Am I a Boss or a Shrink?
by Barbara Reinhold
DEAR COACH: "I thought I'd seen it all in my 30 years of being a senior manager in a small manufacturing firm, but last week I had a visit from one of my line supervisors that has had me spinning ever since. This young man, an engineer currently pursuing an MBA at night, said he'd just discussed an article from the Harvard Business Review in one of his classes, and that he
wanted to talk with me about it. That made me a little nervous, but I said I'd be happy to hear about it. And then he proceeded to tell me that he thought I should be talking to all the members of our supervisors' group about how to find out what really matters to their direct reports (You know, what parts of the job they like, what they'd want to be doing more of, what their long-term plans are, etc.). The point, he said, was that people would work better and stay longer if they had a chance to shape their own workdays in the short run and, eventually, their own careers. So I asked him where we'd find time to have these cozy little talks, and he said it didn't matter that we didn't seem to have time, because we'd get back the time it took in improved productivity and morale. It reminded me a little of when my kids' guidance counselor called me in to talk about changing some of the rules at home to give them more time for activities. I asked him if Human Resources had put him up to this, and he said no. He said he wanted to talk to me because his professor had said that line managers had to make these changes first, and he knew I could make it happen at his level. So what do you think? Should I really be encouraging people to be asking personal questions like these? And should I in turn be asking my supervisors the same questions? And, if yes, what am I, a boss or a shrink?"
WALTER
DEAR WALTER: Count your blessings. You've got at least one smart guy reporting to you. And give yourself some credit, too. You must be doing something right if he felt he could bring this idea from his MBA class to you. I think he's right on the money. And, in fact, I've read Timothy Butler and James Waldroop's article " Job Sculpting: The Art of Retaining Your Best People" from the Harvard Business Review, and it squares directly with what my counseling and executive coaching clients tell me about their work experiences. The gist of the article is that having conversations with your direct reports can, indeed, tell you what really matters to them and, hence, what tasks and functions would be the most energizing for them. That translates into "what would get the best work out of them for you." Butler and Waldroop call these preferences "deeply imbedded life interests."
They have identified eight different ones:
1. Applying technology
2. Quantitative analysis
3. Theoretical/ conceptual thinking
4. Creative production
5. Counseling and mentoring
6. Managing people and relationships
7. Enterprise control
8. Influence through language and ideas
Forget narrow job descriptions. Instead, help your supervisors figure out the deeply imbedded life interests of their team members (i.e., what parts of their jobs really grab their interest?) and move tasks around accordingly, and you'll have a humming team, rather than a humdrum one going through the motions. Is this harder to manage than a "follow your job description and just get the job done" approach to managing people? You bet. But does it get more results than the ambiguity that it engenders? You can bet on that, too. It won't be easy to implement the Butler and Waldroop plan, because it will seem weird to some of the folks on your teams, particularly the more seasoned ones. But this is a two-sided slippery slope: It's risky to suggest new things, but it's always even more slippery to resist things that can keep you ahead of the pack. And what's more important to companies these days than retaining talent and enhancing
productivity?
So, here are a few steps for getting started:
1. Start with yourself. Ask yourself to think hard about your work week (the parts you dread or procrastinate about, the parts that are actually fun for you, the things you could imagine doing as part of your job if somebody loosened the shackles of your old job description) and then give yourself a high/medium/or low for each of the eight "deeply imbedded life interests" above. It would also be a good idea for you to get hold of the original article and read it. I'd also suggest you have a consultation with someone in HR, to be sure managers there are on board with you and willing to give backup assistance later in the process if necessary.
2. Next, get the article to your supervisors. Have them read it and come to your next meeting prepared to discuss it. After that discussion, send them off to read it again and then do the exercise you did about themselves -- culminating in having them do a high/medium/low analysis on themselves.
3. Meet with them again to talk about the concepts and their own scores. Tell them that you'd be happy to meet with them individually to talk about their jobs, to demonstrate that you're willing to "walk the talk."
4. Next, schedule another meeting with them to prepare for how they'll present the ideas to their groups. At this point, it would be useful to go back to HR, particularly if you have a training and development or OD person who consults with senior managers, to be prepared for any resistance you might run into.
5. Finally, you're ready to roll out the idea to the line troops. You'll have to read the culture of your teams carefully here, to ascertain whether it would be accomplished more effectively in groups or individually. You might even want to do it one way for some groups, and differently for others. How do you know which way to go with this? You guessed it, by being a little bit of a shrink as well as a boss. You probably didn't try to raise all of your kids the same way, and it won't work for employees either. Contrary to the military model, one size does not fit all when it comes to management strategies.
6. This is, of course, something you'll have to keep on managing, because once the genie is out the bottle there's no stuffing him back in again. The good news is that, if you're brave enough to do it, you'll be rewarded with much more energetic, productive, high-morale work teams. So, Walter, good luck, and welcome to the world of 21st century leadership, where we're all called upon to be part-shrink/part-client ourselves and part-anthropologist/part-native. And, congratulations for being the kind of boss whom your direct report was able to come to with this nifty idea!
Career Coach
