Road Trip: A Management Analogy

You’re a manager. Cool. Your team achieves goals. Awesome. But you might be a bad manager.

As managers, we often believe that the thing our team is working toward, the product, the delivery, the sale…whatever…is your primary focus. This is the biggest lie you can tell yourself as a manager.

Your primary focus is your team. Anything they produce is really a byproduct. So why do we focus so seriously on the outcomes of our teams instead of the team itself? It’s simple — too often that’s how a manager’s own work is measured.

“Did you achieve X?” is the question you’re always answering at the end of each quarter and each year. By itself, it’s a horrible question.

The more important question you should be asking yourself as a manager is:

“How did you get X done?”

And the way you answer this question is going to define whether you’re focused on the right things.

Let’s take a road trip to explore this question.

The Road Trip

Quick analogy breakdown.

The destination of the road trip, that’s the goal, the ultimate outcome of your team’s work.

The car, that’s your team.

You, the manager, you’re the driver (this analogy won’t work well in the future, I know).

You’re the connecting point of this entire operation. That car isn’t going to get to it’s destination by itself (stop thinking about self-driving cars already!).

The car itself is capable of making the trip. Anyone could be the driver, but the car might not make it to its destination with a bad manager.

So let’s assume you’re a “good enough” manager to actually get to the destination. You’re the manager who can answer the question, “did you achieve X?”, with “yes”.

Awesome. You did the thing.

But how did you achieve X?

If you made it to your destination, but along the way you got three flat tires, then had to replace all of them, ran out of gas six times because you pushed too hard to make it to your next checkpoint, or even arrived at your destination in a completely different car, well, sorry, but you’re a bad manager.

You’re the driver, you’re responsible for the care of your car. If you hear weird noises coming from your tires, you slow down, or stop if it’s terribly bad. If you notice the engine overheating, you immediately stop and assess why. Maybe even call for help. If you’re low on gas…you get the point.

You want to arrive at your destination in the same car, with the same components. To do so, you have to pay attention to your car.

As a manager, your responsibility is to enable your team to do their best work. That means taking care of them.

If you ignore them as human beings, treat them as a commodity that can be replaced, unnecessarily push them too hard…then they won’t be happy, they won’t enjoy their work, and they won’t be efficient. Keep it up and they’ll leave. Then you’ll be needing new team members, which costs you even more time and money. And, as the driver, you’ll also be frustrated with the failing state of your car and the difficult journey.

You might reach your destination. You’ll be a “good manager” because you’re there, you met the goal, but in reality, you’re still an awful manager. You know it because your team knows it.

So, what do you do?

You pay attention to your team, do your best to give them satisfaction in their job, and invest in them reaching that destination with you. Then you’re a good manager…

…and you’ve got a dependable car for your next road trip.