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Managing People

Why does everyone want to be a manager?

October 22, 2018 by Brian Goodman No Comments
Scaling the mountain - What kind of leader are you?
READING TIME: 6 MIN

Q: Why does everyone want to be a manager?

A:

Who is everyone?

Not everyone wants to be a manager.
Not everyone wants to be a manager. Some people find themselves in the role accidentally or reluctantly – someone else positioned them as leaders. Others became managers out of aspiration, but later realize the lack of interest or alignment in the role and then struggle to secede the position. Being a manager means being a leader and getting the opportunity lets you assess if it’s the best use of you.

People often say they are driven by power, money, fame or prestige. Notably absent is happiness, productivity and impact!
So, if not everyone wants to be a manager, why does it feel like sometimes everyone you know wants to become one. That has more to do with what seems to drive most people, often a combination of power, money, fame or prestige. To be clear, we are not taking a position on if these are the right things to be driven by. Notice for example happiness, productivity or impact are not listed. That said, of power, money, fame or prestige are presented in the discussion when considering professional motivation and used here to at least address common (mis)beliefs.

Aspiring to be a manager

Power

“…I can tell others what to do.”
In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Bill Taylor cited the responses of an MIT Sloan School of Management class asked what it meant to be promoted to manager. The response? “They said without hesitation, ‘It means I can now tell others what to do.’” Taylor’s article is interesting in of itself, but as we reviewed the question for this week, that quote stood out. At a minimum we can see that for some people, becoming a manager has to do with the power of directing the work of others.

Money

Managers typically make more money. Why? They are responsible for the success (and failures) of others and their scope encompasses the scopes of the individuals they lead. Added compensation is simply recognizing the change in contribution.

Fame & Prestige

Not all promotions are based on merit, so titles are not always qualitative.
Becoming a manager can be a gateway to becoming an executive. Most executives have management responsibilities and while rank does not always correlate with effective leadership there is a belief that to have made it to that level, you must be accomplished. The challenge with most promotions is that they may or may not be merit based. While that may seem counter intuitive, there are lots of reasons people get promoted and being an awesome leader is not always a requirement. Here in lies the other two motivating factors, fame and prestige.

Fame

Fame is the recognition of being known for the achievement of the title. It is not uncommon to hear reverence to a certain rank in a company. In banks it is having the title of Managing Director. It doesn’t matter that you might have a chain of managing directors before finding the head of the bank, they all share the title and the rank is significant in that ecosystem. In other workplaces it might be a Senior Vice President title, where it distinguishes the senior most leadership running the company. Either way, some people like being known in their circles as having “made it.”

Prestige

Prestige on the other hand is all about the admiration for the merit of the position. This distinguishes from the ambiguity often found in manager promotions where it is not always clear what the basis of the promotion is, and instead it speaks to the required evidence of past success. Prestige is often brought to the title vs. inherently residing in the role. It may be difficult to become CEO, so even if you do not know the individual in the role, you know its hard to achieve. As a manager, you must merit the admiration to achieve prestige.  

None of those qualities motivates you?

Happiness doesn’t come from a title.
The promotion to manager is about embracing the responsibility of a challenging dynamic and scope. Often you keep the responsibilities that positioned you as an SME (subject matter expert) and add the new goals of leading and developing a team—working through others. Most importantly, becoming a manager is taking on the responsibility for a part of the business. Until that moment, you are contributing but not fully responsible. As you enter and progress through management roles your closeness to business increases. With the added scope and success, you benefit with additional rewards… power, money, fame or prestige. What won’t be answered by finding yourself with a fancy title is happiness.

Become a manager because you want the leadership experience and stay one because you are uniquely capable in the role.
Happiness as it relates to work comes with your ability to succeed with work you are passionate about. While not everyone believes in or works from a source of passion, it impacts fulfillment. If your work is not making you happy, make sure something else is. Ideally, align your work with what you love because suddenly all you are doing is living.

People want to be managers for a variety of reasons, chief among them is the thought that the grass is greener in a position of power. If they find out its not, then it is often thought that at least being in charge of others over less or equally green grass is a better position to be in. These are all misguided ideas.

  • First, you can be a leader without being a manager. However, not having management experience will make it harder to successfully deliver in executive ranks. That is okay, because those roles are not for everyone.
  • Second, become a manager because you want the leadership experience and stay one because you are uniquely capable in the role.

Three tools for all leaders

READ
The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Updated and Expanded

by Michael D. Watkins

READ
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

by Mark Manson

READ
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

by Gary Keller and
Jay Papasan

We use affiliate links on this site. We make a bit of money when you click on those links. It costs you nothing and helps us spread the word.

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Activity, Development

How do I create a meaningful development plan?

October 16, 2018 by Brian Goodman No Comments
Growth is like seed germination
READING TIME: 6 MIN

Q: How do I create a meaningful development plan?

A:

What a joke

Development plan conversations often coincide with some chuckling. These are right up there with documenting business commitments. The laughter reflects the discomfort that these plans are supposed to be taken seriously, however the employee, manager or company see it as form not function. If you are serious about building awesome teams or simply meeting your aspirations, then this is no laughing matter.

If you search for development plans you are sure to find the templates that were presented to me at many training sessions. They tend to focus on current business needs, skill self-assessments and activities that create opportunity to grow. The challenge with these is that they don’t effectively address the employee’s aspiration and because of this feel arbitrary.

6 steps to creating a kick-*ss development plan

Great leaders craft development plans that are rich engaging experiences. Here are the six aspects for creating killer development plans for the people you lead or for yourself.

Creating a Kick Ass Development Plan - High Level Flow
Creating a Kick-*ss Development Plan - High Level Flow
1. Who is this person and to what do they aspire to?

These goals should be the things they would do because they are passionate about them. Any extra effort would be welcomed as a pleasure. Consider the professional connectivity that exists today and which relationships are desired moving forward. Write down these goals even if they seem longer term areas of focus. These are the anchors for what comes next.

Progress comes from ensuring that the goals we set are intrinsically motivating.

2. Identify significant and reasonable first steps towards those longer-term goals.

It is often easier to begin by capturing realistic milestones and then stretching them to challenge. Everyone is typically managing expectations and workload in these conversations. Progress comes from ensuring that the goals we set are intrinsically motivating. If they are too easy, they won’t be as engaging or rewarding. Sometimes too easy also never gets done.

 
3. Assess if the current employee context (i.e. domain, role, skill, exposure, network) offers enough scope to support the kinds of development activities required.

Often this is where managers and employees are discouraged. The employee’s aspirations might not fit neatly in their current situation, which is a great sign.

Grow beyond the current context

Development should include growing beyond their current context. Whether it is formally or informally, employees need to expect that their scope will increase to match their goals.

4. Have the employee propose the plan and measures of success.

This creates ownership, sets up where they are with self-assessment, seriousness and conviction without making it an overt social engagement. Self-assessments in the light of others are often inaccurate because of social dynamics. Allowing the employee to propose the goals allows them to reveal their current thinking and then invites you to shape as needed.

if you are hyper-focused on your  Company’s development, then you are missing out on your own

5. Given a set of employee led goals and planning, consider what can be done external to the organization.

This is missed by 99% of professionals. The modern workforce needs portability and if you are hyper-focused on your  Company’s development, then you are missing out on your own. Encourage employees to consider how they engage the world with their work. Examples include: presenting at conferences, engaging professional organizations and authoring. For some industries, these activities are challenging, but it’s worth pursuing nonetheless

6. Map the development activities to business commitments.

Managers often miss this key step which makes professional development an “above and beyond” effort. By aligning the development activities to business commitments, the employee’s business goals reinforce their professional development.

Business goals should reinforce professional development

Now, this might take some imagination on your part. The business commitments are already defined. Consider expanding them to include a broader scope to hold these goals. Ideally, align the professional goals with core activities, however there will be a need to expand scope to accommodate eager employees and it is worth doing. In this case, work to expand the scope of an existing core commitment or simply create a new commitment that aligns with your scope as a leader.

Your organization can’t be the limitation to growing your people

If you work in an organization where you are not allowed to formally change commitments, then make it informal. The governance of an organization can’t be the limitation to growing your people or it will be detrimental to high-performance.

Box this activity

There are two more points that should help time box this activity. Remember, this advice is intended to be practical, and there is only so much room to get specific around the vaguer points.

  • First, focus on the top three aspirations and expect to make progress in order of importance and practicality. Some employees have many objectives. Part of making progress is deciding which matter to them most and which align best with the context you know you can create.

  • Second, scope the first activity to fit inside of business deliverable timelines and no more than the company review cycles. This will ensure that you are assessing business and professional accomplishments at the same time, which makes for productive natural employee conversations.

Recap in 1, 2, 3

The hard part of managing to aspirations is that they often do not align neatly to current business or time frames. The trick is to:

  1. Tackle the tangible moves in the right direction.
  2. Engage employees in owning the scope, plan and success (what does it look like).
  3. Ensure the employee is working on stretch goals that you can align with the business.

Download the cheat sheet for quick reference for development discussions

The job of the leader and manager is to meet the employee where they are and help them understand which goals are most actionable and then reduce the amount of overhead it takes to enable them to execute. The paper work is on the employee, but the context is created by the manager. 

Great leaders find creative ways to develop even the most accomplished professionals. As this approach becomes second nature, it also becomes a learned behavior making it easier for employees to communicate, plan and execute without heavy lifting or uncomfortable laughter.

Three tools for all leaders

DOWNLOAD
Creating a Kick Ass Development Plan
Creating a Kick-*ss Development Plan
Cheat Sheet
READ
Emotional Intelligence 2.0

by Travis Bradberry &
Jean Greaves

READ
I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships
by Michael S. Sorensen

We use affiliate links on this site. We make a bit of money when you click on those links. It costs you nothing and helps us spread the word.

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