Death To Management
A look at why we killed hierarchical management and replaced it with leadership and coaching.
Ten days ago, in the middle of a meeting about our new coaching program, a creative director asked a pointed and depressing (but valid) question:
What’s management going to do to make sure that coaching sticks—that it doesn’t fall apart like so many previous HR-related efforts?
I didn’t really flinch at the question itself… But the word management sent me into an instant emotional rage. Over the conference line and through the Google Hangout, I seethed something like “the first thing we’re going to do is to make sure you never say the word management again.”
There were two reasons for my extreme reaction: 1. At Struck (especially at our current size), the idea of management vs workers really hurts—it’s the antithesis of everything we’ve fought to build; and 2. I hate the idea of managing people.
The very idea of management is passive. It’s what you hope for in a worst-case scenario, keeping your head above water and managing to stay alive. In football, it’s a backhanded compliment for below-average quarterbacks—they’re the types of players who manage (instead of win) games. It’s no coincidence that one of the most memorable lines from Mike Judge’s brilliant workplace satire, Office Space, describes the hypnotized, defiant Peter as “a straight-shooter with upper-management written all over him.”
Deep down, we know that management sucks. So why do we cling to it? Because it’s easy. It’s clear. It’s linear. And, perhaps most of all, because it absolves us of any authentic leadership expectations. The bar for management is low but clearly understood: I am a worker; that is my manager. It’s an inherently hierarchical relationship—and in the creative industry, it’s a relationship that takes our most talented people and puts them in roles of minimal impact. There is no greater agency catastrophe than to take a world-class designer/writer/strategist/etc and to put her in a management position.
I can’t think of anything more depressing that to consider yourself a manager of people. Maybe that’s fine if you’re running the night shift at a Frito Lay warehouse (where I certainly needed lots of management as a seasonal employee during college), but at Struck? A place where our primary business is solving problems with insight and creativity? The last thing we need is for our most talented people to be managers. They’re leaders, fountains of inspiration, coaches, mentors, teachers, guides, therapists, and cool aunts/uncles. They lift and empower their teams, with a focus on autonomy and accountability.
And if you’re an inexperienced designer/UXer/writer/strategist/producer? The last thing you need is to be managed. You should work with leaders who set you free, who encourage you to explore and take dangerous leaps into the unknown. You need to learn to trust your instincts, how to talk with clients, and how to take ownership of your work. That’ll never happen if you’re being managed. You need an advocate, an ally, someone you can trust as you walk the scary path of new ideas and imperfect skills.
So we killed management. It’s dead. As it should be.
Across our organization, we’ve eliminated the role and philosophy of management, replacing it with a mentorship program that focuses on human development. We’ve simplified our titles (no more jr/sr/associate/etc) and organized our teams around their objectives (growth and impact). We’ve also applied it to our account management team (hey folks, go manage some accounts!), who now carry the much improved, much more ambitious title of Client Partner.
And? Things are better. They’re rocky, for sure. You can’t discard a hundred years of corporate organizational hierarchy and expect everyone to celebrate. There’s uncertainty and some re-wiring that we’re working through. People need to know that they still have a career path and a future, so objectives, goals, and communication are a big priority. But we’ve always cared about those things—now we’re just talking about them in a way that creates opportunity and freedom instead of restraint and dissatisfaction.
The deeper we get, I wonder if maybe we didn’t kill management. It was already dead. We’re just getting rid of the body.
(Wow. That got grisly, but I’m going to leave it because HALLOWEEN!)
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