Week 8 Assignment: Your Personal Experiences in What is Wrong with Management

Here are my takeaways from reviewing your spreadsheet comments.

Managers MUST make the business case for change.

Employees have to understand why things are changing. Why? People are simultaneously both rational and emotional. Knowing the “why” addresses the rational side of our behaviors.

Managers MUST walk the halls, go to the shop floor, meet and greet.

And above all, listen!  You are there to hear form then, not the other way around. Bottom up thinking provides insight into the day to day issues that positively or negativity impact morale and productivity.  In addition, managers and the management team must do a thoughtful stakeholder analyses of who is impacted by the business and address the needs and opinions.

After Action Reviews

AARs should be conducted after every major operation. Why? To formally capture learning so that the activity will go even better next time. What did we expect would happen> What actually happened? What did we learn?-

The Manager’s role in training and development of direct reports

A current business trend is to move a major part of the responsibly for training out of HR and placing it directly at the feet of the front line manager. Why? The FLM is in the best position to determine gaps and to provide “stretch” work projects that address those gaps- Current talent +1 (activities just above current level).

Barriers

A management role is to deal with barriers- show folks how to go around them or the manager must remove the barrier.

Basic Project Management Tools/Requirements

Timelines/due dates are mandatory. At the end of each activity phase,  a steering team should make a judgment call on if the project is ready to move forward and, if so suggest, adjustments if need be,

Delegation

A must but, one reason cited for not delegating, is the belief direct reports don’t know how to perform the task.  I argue that that attitude is the reason for failure due to overwork, burnout and a poorly trained workforce. Now is the time for the front line manger to engage and teach.