Three Failures of Management

I was talking to a colleague, who works as a consultant to management in a field different than mine.  Interestingly, he seems the same issues related to decision making as people in my organization often see.  When we boil down the reasons why managers fail to do what should be obvious to do, or when they "need" consultants to do what they ought to do or ought to decide, the reasons come down to three things:

1. Lack of vision.  Either there's no clear strategy or mandate from on high, so that excuses them from making a decision or they are unwilling to advocate for a new strategic direction, so they continue on in the gray areas, doing the regular daily business without any strategic insights.
2. Lack of time and bandwidth.  They are too focused on attending meetings and getting done the daily regular work that they neglect to take time, or simply don't believe they have the time, to do the big picture stuff, which goes lacking.
3. Fear of failure.  In this environment, everyone believes they are on the tightrope, and one false step or decision could be a career killer, so no one wants to make a mistake.

For all three of these failures, a consultant - for better or worse - can fill the gap.  A consultant can claim to have more vision or better insight, and therefore can recommend a course of action.  A consultant can bring more people to bear and more bandwidth - after all, people and bandwidth are a consultants stock in trade.  And a consultant can bear the blame of a possibly incorrect decision - after all, we just took the advice of consultant X.

As a person who makes his living as a consultant, I understand these things, yet it galls me that so often mid and senior level managers will not take the course of action that makes sense for their teams, their people and their company.  Almost inevitably the rationales boil down to one or more of these three failures.

OK - if they are consistent failures, what could managers do?

1. Ask for a clear strategic direction from the senior executives, and failing that, develop a clear strategy for your product line or group that details your intentions, and your efforts to meet those goals unless instructed otherwise.  Rather than work in the dim gray areas of strategic intent, why not create one small bright light for your team to follow?
2. Delegate whenever possible, refuse to attend meetings unless they are absolutely necessary and budget time for the important, not the urgent stuff.  Next company I go into I'm taking in fire helmets, since the most consistent excuse for failing to get things done is "fighting fires".  If we are so good as managers, why are we constantly fighting fires?
3. Make the tough decision and live with the results.  If we want to do things differently, and better, then we need to take decisions that will on occasion be new or different from what everyone else does.  A good manager shouldn't fear for their job if they have a good rationale for making an interesting decision.  If so, then let's just hire robots to make the decisions.

Thankfully, I think few individuals will adopt these principles, keeping us consultants in business.

Comments

[Martin Proulx]

It took me a while to realize that "Fear of failure" impacted managers' ability to make decisions. When everything seems clear and logical and when you have a decisive personality this perspective doesn't cross your mind so quickly. Because of the Peter's principle and with experience, you realize that this third reason comes out more often than you could imagine.

On another note, IMO "Lack of time and bandwidth" is a more politically correct way of saying "Unable to establish the proper priorities".

[Dwayne Melancon]

Amen, brother. I have been in too many situations where you could rationalize just about anything you did because the strategy was nonexistent or ridiculously vague ("monetize our capabilities" or some such). I need a clear strategy so I can serve the organization - not just to know where I'm going, but to be able to rule things *out* so I can focus.