by David Maxfield
Interact Performance
Systems
How do you balance your
functional manager, your project sponsor, and your demanding customers? How do
you hold team members accountable when they don’t report to you?
You’ve got tough projects, even
tougher customers, nearly impossible specs, and two or three bosses. In fact,
you’ve got everything except the authority to get things done. Now a couple of
the managers you depend on are waffling on their commitments, and a member of
your team is being given other priorities.
Welcome to today’s world of
management.
Today’s
organizations give managers less formal authority. Why?
Organizational hierarchies are
flatter; the manager-to-employee ratio is smaller; and there is a proliferation
of project managers, team leaders, and others who manage, but without much
formal authority. These changes are all related, and stem from the move into
the information age.
Organizational theorists look
at two variables that determine the size and shape of organizations: employee
skill level and interdependence. A quick trip through time will show how these
variables have their impact.
Artisans: Consider Paul Revere, a silversmith in pre-Revolutionary
America. He was highly skilled—he did his own metallurgy, casting, finishing,
engraving, marketing, sales, accounting, et al. But his shop only employed one
person—himself. Artisans had trouble growing their businesses because training
was expensive and because the newly trained artisans had no reason to
stay—there was no interdependence. Instead, they left and became competitors.
Artisans have tried many techniques—indentures, guilds, even slavery—to keep
newly trained artisans from leaving, but none of these techniques have overcome
the structural challenge.
When skill is high and interdependence is low, then
organizations remain very small.
Mass Production: Henry Ford designed manufacturing facilities that required the
absolute minimum of skill. It took only two hours for a new employee to become
fully competent on the job. This allowed Ford to hire huge numbers of
unskilled, inexpensive employees to work in his factories. These employees were
very interdependent—each was a tiny cog in the large machine. Because there
were a lot of employees, and they were unskilled, Ford hired managers and
engineers to manage the employees and their work.
When skill is low and interdependence is high, then
organizations grow large and have steep hierarchies.
Information Age: Technologies have become more complex, change has become more
rapid, products and services have become more targeted, and customers have
become more diverse. These changes have forced organizations to hire
specialists or to train their employees to become specialists. These
specialists are highly skilled, but they are also highly interdependent. Each
is the master of a tiny piece of the overall pie. Their knowledge is deep, but
limited to their specialty.
These specialists don’t need
managers as much as they need each other. They need to coordinate with each
other and build on each other’s ideas. Putting managers in the middle is
inefficient and often counterproductive.
When skill is
high and interdependence is also high, then organizations grow flat.
|
|
Skill Level |
Interdependence |
Impact on Organizations |
|
Artisans |
High |
Low |
Organizations |
|
Mass Production |
Low |
High |
Organizations become large and hierarchical |
|
Information Age |
High |
High |
Organizations become flat and virtual |
How
can you get things done without formal authority?
Responsiveness, inventiveness,
collaboration, judgment, persuasiveness, and attention have become requirements
of most jobs. These characteristics come from active commitment and
accountability, not from obedience or compliance. Today’s managers need skills
for building this commitment and accountability.
Interact Performance Systems has been working with Stanford
University’s Program for Advanced Project Management and with Steven Barley, a
professor in Stanford’s Department of Management Science and Engineering to
identify the skills that managers need to be successful in this new
environment. The skills we have identified fall into two broad categories: 1) Strategic Relationship & Network
Building, and
2) Tactical Face-to-Face Influence Skills.
Strategic Relationship & Network Building: This domain includes long-term
actions that build rapport and trust with critical stakeholders. Managers who
have developed a reservoir of credibility before problems happen are more
successful at resolving problems when they occur.
The watchwords of this domain
are friendship, credibility, and common interest.
Sub-skills include ways to identify critical dependencies, building thick
informal networks, recognizing areas of personal credibility (and lack
thereof), assessing power dynamics, and building alignment around common goals.
Tactical Face-to-Face Influence Skills: These are the “What do I say
& What do I do” skills that people need in the heat of the moment. By the
time an incident has occurred it is too late to build friendship, credibility
and common interest. Instead, short-term skills for explaining priorities,
gaining commitment, and pressing for accountability are the tactics of choice.
These tactical skills include
ways to confront problem situations, assessing what people are thinking and
feeling, negotiating priorities, managing resource constraints, and handling
emotional outbursts.
People
Skills Are the Answer
As organizations grow flat and
virtual and managers find themselves managing without formal authority, People
Skills grow increasingly important. Tom Boyle of British Telecom has coined the
term NQ, or network quotient—a person’s ability to form connections with
others. He argues that a person’s NQ is more important in business than their
IQ.
Daniel Goleman, in his book Emotional Intelligence, documents the importance that
personal and social skills have in achieving business results. In a review of
nearly 300 company-sponsored studies he found that the competencies involved in
Emotional Intelligence are rated as contributing more to excellence than
analytical skills.
The challenge that Interact Performance Systems sees is to integrate these concepts into models that are clear, but not simplistic, and to build skills that are powerful, but not manipulative. We are proud to be at the forefront of this research—identifying the People Skills that matter in business settings and developing the methods for building them.
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Managing Without Authority-4103.htm