Part 1 here.
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So, did you all understand the one major reason management is in decline? No? Well, you do know the answer, you’re just protecting yourself from it. If you keep reading though, there’s some more fun military facts at the end.
I should speak about my own background here so you to have a fuller picture of my own prejudices. I’ve worked in both the public and private sector, started out in operations then spent some time as a consultant. I’ve also worked primarily in the United Kingdom, a country which one foreign observer remarked was a “90 miles per hour country trundling along at around 50”. Poor management is a continuing existential threat to the economy of my nation, which is possibly why I see a failure to improve on it in eschatological terms.
Of course, of the three Management Strategies I presented (flexible, prescriptive, and laissez faire), none are perfect. Much like a negotiation position, it is entirely dependent on the situation and the primary actors within. Yet, the universe is no narrow, anaemic screenplay and its ability to react to the verisimilitudes humanity exists in is impossible to explain or arrest by its own constituent parts, management existing as it does within the machinery of the organisation itself rather than as a pilot or captain.
The narrow, anaemic screenplay in Part 1 was however not a screenplay. It is an almost literal conversation I had, except with the nouns swapped out. You might say that this is obvious; of course what is most desirable for the individual is not always aligned with what is most desirable to the company as a whole.
Yes, I know that, but you’re missing the point if you think that is the reason the manager decided upon a prescriptive style of management. A better question to ask would be why do you think the semi-fictional characters have decided to advance their own position - coldly and logically - and then just hope their grossly incompetent management skills are never picked up? Do you think your manager doesn’t also have a quarterly review? Maybe. I saw this at a financial company we’ll call Globo-Financial. However, I see the fear of making choices much more often than I see bad logic. I also dislike calling it “fear” because it isn’t pure cowardly fear – it is a narcissistic fear. A bad manager will follow policy, knowing it is the wrong call, because they are afraid of testing the real limits of their competence.
I think ancient stories are worth listening to, because I believe they convey a kernel of mimetic truth that speaks to a fundamental, but rare, earnestness within ourselves. Pitches must be idiot proof, however, so I only sprinkle them into follow up meetings.
One ancient story I especially like is that of Icarus. The basic story is Icarus’ father Daedalus built wings made of feathers and wax. Headstrong Icarus was told not to fly too low to the ocean, as the wings if wet would come apart, nor fly too close to the sun, as the heat will melt the wax. Icarus became too confident in his flight, flew too close to the sun, and fell to his death.
What do you think the relation to Icarus is to the manager who deliberately makes the wrong call? Is not the manager heeding the moral of the story, to not become too arrogant, follow policy, and thus fall to their doom? I’m getting ahead of myself.
I think a lot of people have a false idea of who becomes c-suite executives. They go from prestigious schools to great jobs, don’t rock the boat too much, never make controversial decisions. Then just slowly ride the wave to the top. They don’t fly too close to the sun, they don’t sink so low they’re underwater. Except it isn’t true. People who make CEO often fly way too close to the sun and bite off more than they can chew, and often have to take demotions to pick up the total amount of skills needed to gain the necessary experience/tool kit to become a CEO. They had to risk their wings melting in order to get the chance to truly soar.
“OK, so the moral at the heart of the myth of Icarus is wrong? Is that what you’re saying?”
No, what I’m saying is people like the story of Icarus because his story is both tragic and aspirational. Did he die? Yes, like a hero, chasing what he wanted. Attempting to master flight thousands of years before any other human managed the feat.
“Ah, so you think Icarus is a hero?”
Do I? I think Icarus is an idiot that fell into the sea. Like I said before, everyone loves a winner, and Icarus won nothing.
The bad manager is Icarus. Except they don’t fall into the sea once, they fall over, and over, and over. Each new task they fly too close to the sun, perspiration covers their brow, and they fall into the depths of their deepest fear; failure. Constantly failing to deliver exceptional results, again and again, a sort of torturous half-life trapped in middle-management. Never really being given the chance to “show what they’re made of”. But it’s not the sun melting their wings, it’s their own fear and anxiety. They don’t want to actually succeed. That would be an actual death. Right now, you can just keep trying and failing. Doomed to repeat the same process over and over.
“…aren’t you thinking of Sisyphus?”
No, I don’t want to mix metaphors.
It is not just fear of failing, but also fear of succeeding that is letting down our hypothetical manager. For up until now, they have been promising. Climbing the ladder, doing good things, giving fresh perspectives. Do you know what happens once you reach the sun? You reach your potential. You’re no longer promising; and that’s the thing about being promising, some day you have to actually deliver something. So instead they just keep reaching, not quite wanting to put in the effort for the final climb, tragically never really knowing how far they can reach. Couched in the knowledge that “they did well just to get where they are”, they deliberately stop trying so they might avoid the final play of the game. The petite mort. Or maybe that’s just me.
Anyway, a better question to ask would be why the organisation hasn’t figured out that their management style isn’t working, and do something on the macro level.
The answer is they have. Globo-Finance knew they had a middle-management problem. They had an amazing set of C-Suite executives and lower management, the problem is their just-below top managers were lack-lustre. Also the COO was incompetent and let a gaggle of cronies run the place like a personal fiefdom, but I digress.
So what did they do? Well, they did what they could. They were on the macro level, and knew they couldn’t micro-manage every little thing.
But, as long as the big strategy is right, everything else will fall into place? Correct?
Incorrect.
More fun military facts! France had better tanks than Germany when the Germans invaded during WWII. One obsolete FCM tank took forty-two hits from German 37-m antitank guns without being knocked out of action. Britain and France also had more tanks than Germany on the front, at about 4300 allied tanks to 3900 Axis tanks. The problem was Allied forces had 36 battalions dispersed throughout the front, with some massing in a push into Belgium. German generals massed almost all of their mechanised forces into one large advance through the Ardennes forest, and then pushed right along the French Northern coast (famously cutting off the British in Dunkirk). Rommel’s division became known as the “ghost division” because he advanced so far, so fast, he couldn’t keep in contact with command. He didn’t care, he knew what would win the war. A push to the coast.
Is this a success of Axis strategy over Allied? No, the German generals deliberately misled High Command (not their civilian masters, but their military masters) because they knew their idea of a massed, almost unsupported push to the sea would never be approved (too risky). Rommel already knew from his time as a junior infantry officer that you have to move fast and shoot first (it’s true, I’ve read his book). It wasn’t strategy that won France for the Axis, it was field-craft. The middle and upper-middle management in the army knew what needed to be done, and were willing to risk their commander’s ire if they got it wrong. Of course, they acted in the knowledge that failure meant capture or death, so failure meant they would never have to have the ‘meeting without coffee’ with High Command. This might have emboldened them.
If you think that death would be more of a motivator for success than humiliation or the condemnation of your colleagues, though, you haven’t been reading closely enough. Remember that people usually choose public speaking as their number one fear, the second is death.
Post-script.
When I was small, I used to watch the Power Rangers on television. Each week, the Big Bad Guy sent a new monster to fight the Rangers. Each week the monster almost won, but then a small weakness was found. For instance, with one almost-invincible robot monster if their exhaust was covered, they blew up.
As a consultant, I often found people would dismiss ideas they’ve already heard because of a small, easily fixable fault. Someone higher up had dismissed it once before years ago so it was a fight for people to even think about the rejected solution. I had to fight with a half-memory of the ghosts of management past too many times in my consulting career.
Apparently, the only thing stopping the Power Rangers from being unceremoniously beat the eff up for eternity was a £5 sheet metal exhaust grid.
Post post-script.
This is an expansion of a train of thought I had whilst watching the flag fly above Big Ben. I wanted to get it down somewhere now before I forgot it. This will eventually be written into an essay on symbolism and national myth.
“I often think of the weight of the Union Jack when I see it. The butcher’s apron. Gun boats on the Liffey, the Easter rising, James Connolly transmogrified into a hero in front of a firing squad. And on the other side, 30,000 Ulster men at the Somme exchanging handshakes and sashes before being transmuted to legend in two minutes of machine gun fire. Soldiers of the Queen crumpling under Boar sniper fire. Breaker Morant screaming defiance into an African Dawn.
I think about the massive debt run up to eradicate slavery, arming and enabling the British fleet to hunt down slavers from all corners of the empire (which at that time meant the world). How the rest of the world howled with indignation, including the African slavers put out of a business they plied for thousands of years.
I think about the heroes of 1940. How surrounded and outgunned, they refused to surrender to save themselves. A single act of courage which saved the world from a thousand years of tyranny under Fascism or Stalinism.
I think about the Raj, the jewel in the crown. I think about Iraqi and Afghani villages strafed into compliance. I think about the industrial revolution, inoculation, the great strides made in mathematics and science. I think about how a small island held the entire world hostage at gun point for 200 years.”
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