Book Summary — On Managing People
Harvard Business Review’s 10 Must Reads
You can find all my book summaries — here.
1 paragraph summary:
10 great Harvard essays and Part II on “For New Managers”. Some great frameworks and thought provocing concepts whether you do those things as a manager.
1. Leadership That Gets Results
What do leaders do? >> you hear a sweep of answers. Motivate. Mission. Strategy, Culture
What should leaders do? >> you’ll hear one response: get results.
Most leaders think their style is based on their personality. Instead of choosing the one style that suits their temperament, they should ask which style best addresses the demands of a particular situation.
The most successful leaders have strengths in the following emotional intelligence competencies: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill.
There are 6 leadership styles:
1. Coercive Style
- “do what I say” approach
- effective in turnaround situations, natural disaster or when working with problem employees
2. Authorative Style
- “come with me” approach
- states the overall goal but gives people the freedom to choose their own means of achieving
- effective when business is adrift
- works less well when leader working with team of experts who are more knowledgeable than the leader
3. Affiliative Style
- “people come first” approach
- effective for building team harmony or increasing morale
- exclusive focus on praise can allow poor performance and without much advice
4. Democratic Style
- “what do you think” approach
- impact is not as high as you might imagine
- by giving workers a voice in decisions, you build org flexibility and responsibility and help generate ideas
- But the price is endless meetings and confused employees who feel leaderless
5. Pacesetting Style
- “do as I do, now” approach
- setting high performance standards and exemplifying as leader
- very positive impact on employees who are self-motivated and highly competent
- but others can feel overwhelmed by such demands for excellence and resent
6. Coaching Style
- “try this” approach
- focus on personal development rather than immediate work-related tasks
- it works well when employees are already aware of their weaknesses and want to improve but not when they are resistant to change
The more styles leaders exhibit, the better.
Leaders who have mastered four or more — especially the authoritative, democratic, affiliative and coaching styles — have the very best climate and business performance.
If you lack some of the styles, the simplest way is to build a team with members who employ styles you lack.
2. One More Time — how do you motivate employees?
The surest and least circumlocuted way of getting someone to do something is to administer a kick in the pants — called KITA.
- Negative physical KITA — physical, no good
- Negative psychological KITA — does not lead to motivation, but movement
- Positive KITA — exert a pull not a push
How do you motivate?
- Remove controls — increase accountability
- Give responsibility end to end
- Make info available directly rather than sending through manager
- Enable people to take on new, more difficult tasks
- Assign specialised tasks that allow people to become experts
3. Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome
Sometimes — we would venture to say often — an employee’s poor performance can be blamed largely on the boss.
The syndrome is a spiral where someone’s performance is deteriorating and you fuel it more and more. The boss’ actions contribute to the very behaviour that is expected from weak performers. Low expectations trigger the same behaviour reducing expectations.
It is self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing.
How to Reverse
- establish expectations early
- regularly challenge your assumptions — what are the facts? is it really that bad?
- convey openness, letting employees challenge your opinions
- choose neutral location and acknowledge tension
- agree on weaknesses and strengths — facts not feelings
- unearth causes of weakness
- identify ways to boost performance
- agree to communicate more openly
4. Saving Your Rookie Managers from Themselves
Many companies unwittingly support a downward manager spiral by assuming that their rookie managers will somehow learn critical management skills from osmosis.
Delegating is the biggest struggle for rookie managers — the natural reaction is to “just do it” because that’s what got them promoted.
Fears:
- losing stature — who gets credit?
- abdicating control — how will I make sure it’s correct?
- overburden staff — fear of resentment
Steps to help rookie managers:
- Get them to understand their own role — it’s a new job
- Lead by example
- Explain that developing staff is as important as financial results
- Encourage to take small risks by playing on staff’s strengths
- Help break complex projects into small chuncks
- Emphasise open communication
- Introduce to other managers
- Have him/her prepare agendas — will help organise thoughts
- Encourage conscious comportment — constant awareness of image
- Express feelings behind closed doors
- Keep from undermining own authority by pushing things down
- Explain strategic thinking
- Focus on long term big picture
- Request written plans documenting strategic goals
- Give constructive feedback
- Role play giving feedback
5. What Great Managers Do
Average managers play checkers, whilst great managers play chess.
The difference?
In checkers, all the pieces are uniform and move in the same way; they are interchangeable. You need to plan and coordinate their movements, certainly, but they all move at the same pace, on parallel paths. In chess, each type of piece moves in a different way, and you can’t play if you don’t know how each piece moves. More important, you won’t win if you don’t think carefully about how you move the pieces. Great managers know and value the unique ability and even the eccentricities of their employees, and they learn how best to integrate them into a coordinated plan of attack.
This is exactly the opposite of what great leaders do. Great leaders discover what is universal and capitalise on it. Their job is to rally people towards a better future.
The job of a manager, meanwhile, is to turn one person’s particular talent into performance. Managers will succeed only when they can identify and deeply the differences among people, challenging each employee to excel in his or her own way.
Instead of trying to change your employees, identify their unique abilities (and even their eccentricities) — then help them use those qualities to excel in their own way.
Three things you can do:
- Continuously tweak roles
- Pull triggers that active employee strengths
- Tailor coaching to unique learning styles
Based on learning style adjust how you teach:
- Analyser — give ample classroom time, role play, time to prepare for challenge
- Doer — assign simple task, gradually increase complexity
- Watcher — have shadow top performers
Uncovering Strengths/Weaknesses
- What was the best day at work you’ve had in the past 3 months?
- What was the worst day you’ve had?
6. Fair Process
When people feel a decision affecting them was made fairly, they trust and corporate with managers. They share their ideas and willingly go beyond the call of duty.
Three principles for fair process:
- Engagement — involving individuals in decisions by inviting their input
- Explanation — clarifying the thinking behind the final decision
- Expectation clarity — stating the new rules of the game, incl performance standards, penalty for failure and new responsibilities
7. Teaching Smart People How to Learn
Most people don’t know how to learn.
- single-loop learning — thermostat that increases temperature below 20 degrees
- double-loop learning — thermostat that thinks why is it set to 20 degrees and if there are better ways
Double-loop learning is not about how you feel, but a reflection on how you think.
Because many professionals are almost always successful, they rarely experience failure, they never learned how to cope. By constantly turning the focus away from their own behaviour to that of others, the professionals bring learning to a grinding halt.
8. How (Un)ethical are You?
We delude ourselves with the Illusion of Objectivity.
- Implicit Forms of Prejudice — bias from unscious beliefs
- Biast that favors one’s own group
- Conflict of interest
- Tendency to overclaim credit
Conter-act:
- Gather better data
- Bid your workplace of stereotyping cues — images and language
- Broaden your mindset when making decisions — put yourself in other people’s shoes
9. Discipline of Teams
Think of teams as a discrete unit of performance and not just as positive sets of values.
A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.
Teams develop direction, momentum and commitment by working to shape a meaningful purpose.
Five Characteristics of Team Discipline
- Meaningful common purpose
- Specific performance goals
- Mix of complementary skills
- Strong commitment to how work gets done
- Mutual accountability
Building Team Performance
- Establish urgency, demand performance standards and direction
- Select members for skill and potential not personality
- Pay particular attention to first meetings and actions — first impressoins
- Set clear rules of behaviour
- Set and seize upon immediate performance oriented tasks and goals
- Challenge the group regularly with fresh facts and info
- Spend lots of time together
- Exploit the power of positive feedback, recognition, and reward
10. Managing Your Boss
Effective managers seek out information about the boss’ concerns and are sensitive to his/hers work style.
Focus on:
- Compatible work style
- Mutual expectations
- Info flow
- Dependability and honesty
- Good use of time and resources
