Industrial and Commercial Training

Emerald Article: Identify the reality: re-build, manage and lead Gordon Rabey

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To cite this document: Gordon Rabey, (2005),"Identify the reality: re-build, manage and lead", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 37 Iss: 5 pp. 244 - 251 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00197850510609676 Downloaded on: 26-01-2013 To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com This document has been downloaded 269 times since 2005. *

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Gordon Rabey, (2005),"Identify the reality: re-build, manage and lead", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 37 Iss: 5 pp. 244 - 251 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00197850510609676 Gordon Rabey, (2005),"Identify the reality: re-build, manage and lead", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 37 Iss: 5 pp. 244 - 251 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00197850510609676 Gordon Rabey, (2005),"Identify the reality: re-build, manage and lead", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 37 Iss: 5 pp. 244 - 251 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00197850510609676

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Identify the reality: re-build, manage and lead

Gordon Rabey

Gordon Rabey is a management consultant and writer based in Wellington, New Zealand.

Abstract Purpose To show that the skills of managing and leading are both essential for those holding in-charge positions wishing to generate the optimum contribution of employee effort. Organisational success and continuity lie in identifying the reality, clarifying the purpose, providing the resources, and working with and trusting people to achieve it. Design/methodology/approach The outcome of literature research, organisational consultations, and a recognition of how the compartmentalisation of activities can blur the forward vision. Findings Marketplace activities, business uncertainties and staff movements make planned implementation difcult and the needs of the moment will always receive priority attention. Practical implications The coordination of the total activities of the organisation through the use of the senior team, improved communication and the recognition of special effort. Originality/value Implementation of the points espoused here should increase operational effectiveness the outcomes will conrm it. Keywords Uncertainty management, Adaptability, Disclosure, Senior management, Trust, Productivity rate Paper type Viewpoint We need to increase productivity. As the business journals continue to predict a serious tightening in the global economy, and the clustering of manufacturing and processing in developing areas, the need for national enterprises to become more lean, efcient and responsive to change grows increasingly apparent. This quest for higher cost-effective performance will not be achieved by management directive and exhortation but will be the outcome of united effort within each organisation led by a management which realises that every employee in whatever role can contribute towards total effectiveness.

he patterns of the working world have changed perhaps forever. We now see the impermanence of jobs, the rearrangement of working conditions, continuous exposure to new technology and electronic processing, and the increasing impact of global developments all of which create a growing uncertainty of the future and a realisation that national organisations must, with some urgency, review every current strategy and process to ensure their own viability.

This will require a single-minded focus on the critical elements of ones business survival, and should divert attention from some of the facets of people management which seem in recent years to have drawn heavily on management resources.

What happens in the workplace will demonstrate quite clearly the difference in performance between compliance with a manager and commitment to a leader.

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VOL. 37 NO. 5 2005, pp. 244-251, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 0019-7858

DOI 10.1108/00197850510609676

For instance:
B

Recently, USA Professor William Rosenback estimated that some 15,000 books and articles on leadership had now been published. But recurring reports of employees still being over-managed and under-led have not stopped the tide. Also recently an Australian survey showed that some 51 per cent of employees felt that their bosses do not inspire their trust.

One might query the abundance of the former and the provenance of the latter, but the reason for initiating the survey and its nding must cast some doubt on the trickle-down effectiveness of the motivational messages. Does it suggest some gap between the leaders and the led? A closer look seems to be warranted.

The backdrop
The debate between management and leadership continues, perhaps by a felt need to identify the signicance of each, which thereby would emphasise their differences. Management is dened as requiring an ability to:
B B B

conceptualise symptoms, causes and effects; analyse facts, explore options and their likely consequences; and act by synthesising all the factors (including appropriate elements of knowledge and skill, leavened by street smarts, plus inputs from the wider environment) into the optimum procedures.

Leadership is the human factor that binds a group together and motivates it towards goals, shaping and sharing a vision that gives purpose to the work of others, and is demonstrated by their response. Management is seen broadly as the exercise of planning, execution and control, using all resources to achieve objectives, but the concept of leadership has developed its own momentum and captured the attention of the behaviourists enthused to explore all its permutations, with the underlying message that it is the nger-post towards personal and organisational success. Management can be taught. The objectives are clear and the components and the boundaries can be dened. Principles of leadership can also be taught but it is assessed by the actions of the led, which are often unpredictable, not always foreseen, and those who seek to teach it may show their credibility by the scars of their experience. Management is assigned and confers authority and accountability, with access to resources, to achieve dened objectives. But leaders cannot be appointed with an assurance of success. Their positions are dened by followership and demonstrated by the voluntary responses of those they lead. If their vision and inuence does not create and maintain followers they will fail. But leadership has several origins:
B

The individualist who has an idea, a dream, develops and nurtures it towards its assumed potential. It is successful. Others may choose to see its purpose and direction and then seek support or guidance from the one they now see as its leader. Science and the arts and crafts give many such examples. The followership is voluntary and carries neither commitment nor obligation, and in its development other leaders may arise. Leaders have thus created their own followers, and vice versa. The innovator. Here, too, someone had an idea, a dream, in which others see its potential, its marketing possibilities, and from this perception a strategic plan is designed to set up an organisation to launch it. The leader is acknowledged and probably retained in an advisory role but a management group may implement the scheme.

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The team leader whose personality, competence and ability to assess and master situations with skill which attracts others to listen and to follow. The charismatic.

And it may be at this point that some confusion is emerging. Leading and managing are not necessarily discrete roles. The world has never been so desperately short of leaders in every eld as it is today but leadership does not exist in a vacuum, it arises in response to a particular situation. The elements of the situation will inuence the nature of the response and the form it takes, but the acceptance or rejection of it will determine the action that follows. It is unlikely that there will be a leader for all seasons in fact the qualities may be dormant until aroused (Lincoln, Churchill, Mandela?) and may become less important when on-going coping procedures are in place. But here we are concerned with sustained organisational effectiveness requiring good management that will ensure continuing nancial viability, and to underwrite this there is only one solution the management must have the skills of leadership. It is not an either or situation but one which requires an appropriate balancing of the skills of both. Our vocabulary is decient here[1]. Manager is too deeply ingrained to be changed, neither should it be, and as the one who is accountable for the continuing achievement of objectives within budgets the manager must be competent and uent in all the roles and skills required in that position. Until that is assured morale might be high but the results might not always meet expectations or bottom-line targets. But what happens in the workplace will demonstrate quite clearly the difference in performance between compliance with a manager and commitment to a leader. The manager will get acceptable performance that meets requirements in terms of what is the leader will get maximum effort to achieve what could be (see the map in the Appendix).

The workplace and the action phase

The preliminary step here was to examine how organisational tasks are performed, the interaction of power and inuence and the continuing need to nd and maintain the balance. One outcome, perhaps open to challenge, is the thought that as leadership is situational it can be seen as a subject of or a precursor to management, without diminishing the power and the value of either. But these questions are means, not ends in themselves, for the core task of every organisation is to full its purpose, to increase its productivity and maintain its revenue ow in a volatile marketplace which will require unremitting action to:
B B B B

develop skill; add value; involve and trust people; and hold the focus.

This, of course, assumes some prerequisites: 1. Clear objectives and a strategic plan both of which are known, in general terms, to all employees. 2. Resources sufcient to meet these goals:
B B B

physical and nancial; competent and motivated employees; and a smooth and co-ordinated work and revenue ow.

3. Continuous feedback to and from employees and customers/clients. There is nothing original in these aims but progress to date does not always seem to have met expectations (see the introductory paragraph).

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In this context the role of the leader then becomes to:

B B

identify the goals so that people want to be associated with them; encourage and enable people working both individually and in teams to achieve them; and give appropriate recognition to their attainment.

A leader will create an attitude of positive discontent, to seek improvement or innovation. The ability to make a difference and to be given recognition of its effectiveness is perhaps one of the strongest motivations. But innovation should be more than the grasping of an opportunity to create something new. There should be a pause to consider whether this is complete within itself or a rst step on a new path. (For instance, Edisons invention of the light bulb was not promoted until a whole electrical system had been developed.)

Team work
Few people work as individuals their work is usually part of a bigger pattern. Most work in groups whether small or large and this is where power lies. (In fact, it could be useful to debate the statement An organisation is as strong as the people it employs want it to be.) Some form of team work is inevitable. Take any group working together and challenge them with an open-ended question such as:
We have a cash ow problem which needs urgent attention. One way of meeting this is to seek to cut our costs say by 10 per cent. You know the workplace. We want your ideas on how you think this might be done. Or Weve been doing the same things for a long time, and were good at it. But theres competition out there. What could we do or change which might add value to our output? Then Would you discuss this among yourselves and, say, on Wednesday well look forward to your ideas no holds barred.

Not only would good ideas be generated but the beginnings of a team will have emerged. There will be a leader, and others will willingly choose supportive roles, a problem solver, a detailer, a questioner, quiet compliers, etc. Some may change later but a natural team has formed and gives evidence of wanting to act as one. The perceptive manager will build on this. The literature gives much coverage to the process of team building but perhaps tends to overlook the elements that bind a team together and empower it to drive forward under its own momentum. To consider the analogy of successful sports teams:
B B B B B B

There is a single-minded purpose to win. There is a condence and trust in each other. Each member has a dened role and is supported in that role. They are critically supportive of each members performance and of their interactions. They dont leave matters unresolved. Team meetings are debates, not lectures. They are coached individually, in small groups and as a team and all are kept fully informed on the nature and strengths of expected competition.

Yet in the traditional pyramidal structure of organisational hierarchy the reporting line is vertical and each level is responsible for a lower span of control. Each section or unit has its own identity but the nature of its inter-relationships with other units may not always be dened. Team building activity occurs within each unit.

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 The real inuence in a progressive organisation lies in the combined and interactive strengths of its constituent units by linking all unit heads into a senior team charged with keeping a continuous spotlight on operational and support processes.

But each unit has its own part to play within the overall strategic plan. None is an isolate, though this is not always apparent especially when a specialist unit seems to operate within its own efdom. The real inuence in a progressive organisation lies in the combined and interactive strengths of its constituent units by linking all unit heads into a senior team charged with keeping a continuous spotlight on the total operational and support processes and their interactive activities. The key task of the senior team is to review all work in progress and its co-ordination, to strengthen relationships and to dene the balance of the priorities. At such meetings, particularly in the larger organisations, unit heads are frequently surprised initially not only by the spread of activities of other units but by the range and value of their networks. In-house resources are not always known or tapped. Many organisations using senior teams nd it protable to allocate a full day each month to review total operational effectiveness. (The checklist in Figure 1 outlines the processes in which every unit has its part to play, and a meeting agenda could be derived from this.)

Recognition of effort
Sincere personal appreciation of good performance is assumed. People are appointed on individual pay scales related to ruling rates elsewhere, matching an assessment of individual skill and experience with the particular requirements of the job as it was dened. But now they are being asked for a higher level of attainment to do more, better, cheaper, faster or different, and to do this in a team culture, and perhaps under new pressures. Some may ask for a renegotiation of the pay scale, others, taking the example from executive levels, seek a performance bonus, and there is an increasing call for appropriate recognition of such higher-level output. Whatever form such recognition takes it must be:
B B B B B

seen and felt to be fair to all concerned; consistent with the culture of the organisation; timely; subject to continuing review; and inclusive of support staff for special contributions towards the outcome.

The recognition itself might be based on:

B B B

prot sharing; a percentage of net savings arising from an innovation; pay increases for new skills gained;

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Figure 1 The operational processes a checklist: are all the wheels live and working in synch?

B B

qualication gained; and a non-nancial celebration or some other award agreed by those involved.

This can now be expected to be an ongoing concern.

The generator of positive change

Leadership, management and teamwork all stem from one foundation a willingness, a purpose and the ability to communicate. People want to know whats going on they feel its their right. If one of them is absent from work, even briey, their rst question on return is invariably What happened while I was away? They hate being mushroomed kept in the dark and told nothing. And todays electronic messaging, which makes little provision for feedback and discussion, lacks the human exchange of thoughts and feelings, and the spontaneous disclosures which strengthen relationships.

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The need to communicate, to exchange and share meanings, is universal but it is dependent upon empathic listening the ability to sense and understand the others feelings. But in the impatience of the everyday workplace we are in danger of losing this. Yet good listeners are usually very popular people, perhaps because there are so few of them. From communication grows mutual trust. From trust grows commitment. The naturalness and openness of communication will be responded to in kind and managers may be surprised by the perception and knowledge of background and environment in those who actually do the daily tasks. Keywords here would include feedback, trust, disclosure, exchange of ideas, rapport, respect for others, willingness to respond, appreciation, recognition a powerful mix. And another vital ingredient is the attitude of the CEO towards in-house communication morale will be an indicator of this. Teams are fuelled by their communication processes. Youre trusting them with information, you respect the contribution each member is making, youre seeking their ideas and listening to them and their effort is recognised and because of this trust there is unity of purpose. This is the power source and it is generated in-house.

The bottom line

The elements of leadership and human relations have been identied and promoted in so many ways that it is disturbing to still hear that there are gaps of understanding and trust between managers and employees. This brings an awareness that the training room and the workplace can be different worlds and that one cannot always assume a smooth transition. The marketplace today is very volatile, nothing can be assumed and pressures can and do arise from many sources. Change is a constant. In this uncertainty there is a tension, communication becomes more staccato and electronic messaging can be the preferred interchange. In such an environment the human factors can become secondary and co-operation, the lubricant which keeps the wheels turning, diminishes and productivity will be impeded. Perceptive managers will be aware of this and will recognise a need to restore constant and honest informal two-way communication at all levels, to replace the masks of persona status with the realities of personality, and to rebuild trust in relationships. The bottom line will reect the outcomes. A card on the wall of a staff cafeteria condenses this to: If you and I dont work together to satisfy our customers and maintain our cash ow neither of us will be here. The road map (see the Appendix) gives some guidelines towards dening an effective enterprise.

Note
1. One might see a linkage here between Yin and Yang which when conjoined become Chi, the essence of being. Our nearest word is chief but this is not likely to nd favour.

Appendix. Re-build, manage, and lead: the map

A busy manager, already under pressure, on seeing this map (Figure A1) might understandably respond with a shocked comment Who? Me! But it is do-able. This seeks to outline the components of a fully effective organisation rather like a well-planned smorgasbord it contains all the ingredients of a comprehensive diet, the necessities of life, with an ability to go back for more. Managers seldom know in advance all the demands they must meet, but they and their employees must be fully equipped to meet them and this will require an ability,

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Figure A1 Gestalt management: a map

competence and condence to work together in using all the skills and potential of a trained team. Deciencies in the diet should be readily detectable and mutual coaching and mentoring should be developed. It is recognised that today much of the core or peripheral work associated with the assembly of the nal product is outsourced or sub-contracted to other providers but responsibility and accountability for the nal outcome remains with the parent body and cannot be delegated. (Outcomes are the consequences of outputs.)

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