“The test of a manager is whether he or she adds value to the team. Are they more productive with the manager or without?”
My friend Jim Pancero was talking about sales managers, but he could have been talking about anyone responsible for the performance of a group. And since I heard Jim say that, about twenty years ago, the world of work has started to shift dramatically. We’re not done yet, either.
If you want an idea of what we’re developing management talent for, read Harold Jarche’s excellent post “Management in Networks.” Harold reminds us of Henry Fayol’s six functions of management. Then he says:
“I heard these same functions discussed by a workplace issues consultant on the radio as recently as yesterday morning. Notice that there is no function for enhancing serendipity, or increasing innovation, or inspiring people. The core of management practice today has not changed since the days of Fayol, who died ninety years ago.”
Read the whole article and allow yourself some time to reflect on it. Harold lays out six of his own ideas about what managers will be doing in a work world that is less structured and more opportunity-driven than what we’re used to. What does that mean for talent development?
I think it means that we need to prepare managers more for coaching and less for monitoring tasks. I think it means that we should help managers imagine themselves more as facilitators of development and less as scorekeepers of performance. I think we should give managers the skills to do their job more with a light hand of judgment and less with a heavy rulebook.
What do you think?
