Smart Management
Thinking through Others Versus Creating Your Own Solutions
Managers who excel at working smart are enablers, not doers. They help others get work done by being facilitators, catalysts, coaches, influencers and developers of people. Smart managers position their coaching management style as being in the best interest of others rather than giving the impression that they are lazy.
The best managers don't say they can't do something. Rather, they say: "Let me see how I can best help you." Then they give advice or support rather than take the monkey on their backs and do it themselves. They say: "I think I can best help you by showing you how to do it for yourself." They might add: "This will be good for your development," or "I'm confident you can do this without my help if I just point you in the right direction." They also say: "The best person to help you with this is..." and "See how far you can get and then review your progress with me."
Managing smart is not about avoiding work. It's a matter of being a resource -- like a website directory that assembles all of the sites on a particular topic on one page better than a search engine might do.
The Smart Manager Role
Smart managers, working as catalysts are the go-to people who bring key resources together to solve problems. Great facilitators excel at asking the right questions in a supportive manner. They don't come across as police interrogators. They ask questions that make the other person feel safe, valued, inspired and empowered. The best managers know the difference between needing to call the shots, being right, having all the answers and drawing solutions out of others. They realize that asking questions to stimulate others to think for themselves encourages them to take ownership for delivering results.
Why Some Managers Are Not Smart
People get promoted to managerial positions by being great solutions generators, goal scorers in other words. They impress their superiors by knowing what to do, being good at developing new ideas, using their analytical ability to solve problems. When they get promoted, they know they must work through others but, in their anxiety to prove themselves, they fall back on what they do best: goal scoring -- calling the shots by coming up with their own solutions, instead of facilitating.
Some managers think they work through others because they delegate. But these managers fail to realize that there are two kinds of doing: tasks and thinking. The former can easily be delegated, but the most important work in our knowledge-driven age is thinking smart -- being innovative, solving new problems, thinking creatively. The best way to get mental work done through others is to ask them questions, not for information but to find out what they think, what solutions they would propose.
Managers who might be called "mental doers" ask only factual questions so they can do their own problem solving. They feel good about themselves only when they are right, when they have the best answers and are calling the shots.
What Is Management?
Historically, management has been a decision-making role. Managers have authority to decide what to do, when, how and by whom. But the world is now too complex for managers to operate in this individualistic, macho way. The best managers realize that they need to base their identity on the role of facilitator, catalyst and developer of others.
Managers with a traditional mindset complain that they don't feel they are doing real work when they operate as facilitators. One senior executive, upon taking a position in a new company, went around asking his new direct reports what they saw as the issues and what could be done to address them. One old timer asked him: "Do you want me to tell you how to do your job?" This shows how deeply ingrained is the conventional view of managers as problem solvers and decision makers.
The bottom line is that to be a smart manager you need to do two things: start working differently and show some leadership by influencing your organization's culture to change their conception of management.
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