2015.04.24 Some Management Philosophy
As part of my continuing education at DAIMLER, I recently took the FranklinCovey "7 Habits for Managers". I've had some thoughts about it, both as a review and meta.
Habit 1 - Be Proactive
Use your resourcefulness and initiative to break the barriers to results.
It is probably forgivable that the first point is a lot on the obvious side - Do Stuff. The spin is to be mindful of maintaining focus on what progress can be made, rather than just ineffectually lamenting limitations.
While I fundamentally agree with this, it seems to me that any promotion of this in others should be done carefully. The risk for having people become defensive is quite high, because the meta-message for criticisms is that they Don't Do Stuff.
Habit 2 - Begin With the End in Mind
Make the great contribution you are capable of making
To truly make progress, it is essential to know what you are trying to accomplish ultimately. Because it is extremely easy to toil in the context of immediate tasks, only to find that the obviously-suggested mode of the tasks which are most immediate are potentially contradictory or antithetical to the ultimate goal.
The trick here being that it is relevant to know how your goals align with those of your employer. And employees. And partners. And government.
Habit 3 - Put First Things First
Focus on a few "wildly important goals" and track your progress.
The conceptualization of this "habit" was to rank things in 2 axis: importance and urgency. Things that were both important and urgent demand attention (quadrant 1), and all that can be suggested is to do them as best you can. At the other end of the spectrum are things that are neither important nor urgent (quadrant 4), and that these should be avoided entirely. Things that are important but not urgent (quadrant 2) is where we should focus and make time to work in, while unimportant but urgent (quadrant 3) tend to suck time and is an obvious set to abbreviate to make time for quadrant 2.
I quite liked this visualization, and appreciated the insight of the systemic value of making time for important tasks before they become urgent. It is something I intend to become more intentional about.
But I couldn't disagree more with the dismissal of quadrant 4. At least, in some contexts. Without taking regular "breathers", my work starts to lack creativity. Those so-called quadrant 4 excursions are how I nourish my creativity - by letting my imagination spool up while I surf some internet or read some correspondence or draw distractedly or socialize. And it helps me maintain my morale, which is of general benefit to anyone I pass on the stairs.
Habit 4 - Think Win-Win
Make Win-Win Performance Agreements to motivate superb performance.
This was another matrix visualization: Win-Win, Win-Lose, Lose-Win, and Lose-Lose (Me-You, repsectively).
- Win-Win
When dealing with another entity, managing to have both of you get what you want (win-win) is the most forward-motivating situation. This kind of arrangement helps leverage future success as well as the current situation.
Basically, theoretical communism (according to Karl Marx). Just don't tell any of my co-workers that.
- Win-Lose
If you can't both win, be sure that you win (win-lose), so this is admitted to be the next-best option. The warning that was also added was to avoid focusing on winning solely, as popular as that might be, because it does tend to hamper future success. In real society, anyway, as opposed to sports leagues and natural selection. And, I guess, Capitalism.
- Lose-Win
Martyrdom, and not particularly effective for any real endeavours. To be avoided.
Also a part of Capitalism, by extension.
- Lose-Lose
This is basically just being a jerk; a punitive exchange to make sure you aren't the only one to go down.
Basically, real communism.
Habit 5 - Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Practice Empathic Listening and give honest, accurate feedback.
The understanding being referred to here does mean the issue at hand, but it also means an understanding of what the other viewpoint is. To understand something in the same way as someone else is an important aspect of making sure communication is fruitful. It is extremely easy to have a conversation and actually be talking about different things. Especially when human elements are involved.
One of the things that many engineers do poorly is empathic listening. While that is not necessarily all that consequential to the typical function of an engineer, it is a conspicuous failing of many engineering managers - most of whom are engineers. Fidelity of communication should be more important to an engineering department than it seems to be.
Habit 6 - Synergize
Always seek the Third Alternative - the truly creative solution or decision.
The main thrust of this "habit" is in reference to the tendency for concepts to devolve into type/antitype and other such binary considerations. What is better than negotiating about who should have an advantage is to conceive of an alternative wherein it is possible for everybody to have an advantage. The so-called "third alternative".
Let me just state, for the record, that I really fucking hate the word "synergize". It's a verb-ized, value-free derivative of an over-used piece of business-babble.
Despite that, this does speak to my strong preference for what I typically refer to as "elegant solutions". Simpler ways of solving multiple problems. Or, perhaps more saliently, my personal quest to be a big smarty-pants show-off to other designers. Honestly, I do not think that this is something you can just suggest to others without looking smug and superior. Not that I have a problem with that, obviously. But I will need to practice how I introduce the idea to people I mentor so that I don't fall into my Usual Ways™.
Habit 7 - Sharpen the Saw
Unleash the potential of your team members by tapping the "whole person".
This is the part where they refer to continuous improvement.
Does that make the title make sense now? Barely. It's a stupid title, and I hate that they settled on it. It reinforces the vaguely cult-like confirmation bias that does away with criticisms and introspection.
Continuous improvement is good. They should have improved the title. Perhaps continuously.
How does this allow you to tap into the "whole person"? That's an interesting philosophical exercise. The idea is that if you consider a person as being more than just the aspect that interfaces with their job, to only address the parts of them that matters for employment is to intrinsically limit their motivation and capability. However, if you encourage a person to grow and improve - even outside the realm of their narrow job function - you enable them to become better at everything, even their job.
This makes a lot of sense to me, and is something I mean to advocate in my workplace. Especially if I ever become a manager.
Overall Impressions
If you were to distill the whole course down to just one statement that was most-relevant to engineering managers at DAIMLER, it would be:
Do not micromanage.
Indeed, I feel like there are many who would benefit from this course. And I feel like I got a lot of valuable and relevant concepts from the course. It is likely that the sense of comprehension was greatly aided by having an excellent instructor: Harvey Young was very good at conjuring understanding about the core purposes of the various course elements.
On the down side, there was an aspect to the course that did not countenance divergence. The assumption was that these principles (or "habits") were universally applicable, and that they should be swallowed whole. However, I see the most benefit in incorporating some of my favourite parts, but discarding most of the "tools" and jingoistic oversimplifications.