Top 10 Manager by Design Articles of 2011
The Manager by Design Blog celebrates its 2-year anniversary today!
Let’s count down the top 10 most popular articles of 2011!
10. Quick tips for making all-hands meetings tolerable and useful
7. Tips for how a manager can improve direct peer feedback
6. More reasons the big boss’s feedback on an employee is useless
4. How to create a team strategy document—use the team
3. Why peer feedback from surveys doesn’t qualify as feedback
2. Some pros and cons of peer feedback directly given by peers
1. Examples of how peer feedback from surveys is misused by managers
Thanks to all who have supported the Manager by Design blog. Keep reading the Manager by Design blog for great tips on people and team management, as well as deep thinking and analysis on how organizations can structurally improve how managers perform!
Related articles:
Manager by Design celebrates its one-year anniversary! Here are our top 10 articles so far!
Manager by Design 2010 Year in Review: Top Article Series (part 1)
Manager by Design Year in Review: Top Article Series (part 2)
Why managers don’t give performance feedback – it hurts the ego
I’ve recently taken a philosophical turn in the Manager by Designsm blog. I’ve been drawing from Lacanian psychoanalysis to explore the concept of a manager ego. The short version is this:
- Managers lose their identities when they become managers
- However, they became managers based on their ability and expertise, which is their former identity
- They can no longer perform those former actions, and must perform new managerial actions
- These managerial actions, while based on the notion of personal greatness, are, by definition, new the manager and amateurishly performed.
- The first time such an amateurish action (like giving performance feedback to an employee) is performed, it shatters the notion that the manager is expert, effective and useful.
This step 5 I’m calling the “Mirror Stage” of being a manager. It’s the moment that, despite all sorts of evidence that the manager is terrific (hence the promotion to manager), there is the stunning evidence that the manager’s management technique is ineffective.
Here’s a likely – and concrete – scenario: A manager has to give performance feedback to the employee. The manager goes in with the expectation that the employee will agree, understand and implement everything the manager says. But this is nigh impossible. The employee could provide his own, different perspective on the situation, may not understand what the manager is trying to get across, or may not implement exactly what the manager had in mind. And that’s when an employee reacts well to the feedback!
What if the employee actively resists the feedback? The employee argues with the manager, says the facts are incorrect, and even says that the manager is wrong. There may even be an emotional reaction on the part of the employee. This is shattering to the manager’s ego, because this simple act of giving performance feedback didn’t go well (in the managers’ mind), despite the manager having a) authority b) expertise c) a greater general talent level than the employee.
In short, the act of giving performance feedback breaks the ego of the manager and provides a rather sudden and obvious moment where it is indisputably proven that the manager is not 100% effective at managing. So now there is now a problem associated with the act of managing.
Giving performance feedback breaks the illusion of greatness of a manager
For this article, I’d like to draw upon a concept created by Henri Wallon and popularized by French structuralist philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The concept is the stade du miroir, or “the mirror stage.” The mirror stage is when an infant first sees himself in the mirror and, by virtue of seeing an image of himself, understands for the first time that he is not an embodiment of the entire universe but is instead that he is a single individual amongst many others. In short, the infant goes from thinking he’s everything to only one thing, goes from not having an identity to having an identity, and from no external image to an image of himself external to himself, and has for the first time an understanding of the other. The scope of the infant’s identity has gone from huge (or unlimited) to that of an image of himself.
OK – but this is a blog about management skills – what does this have to do with managing?
I would like to propose that – for a manager — the act of giving performance feedback is the equivalent of the mirror stage.
I have recently written about how a new manager has been stripped of her identity the moment she becomes a manager, and how that identity is often then built up using management techniques derived from individual instincts for what good techniques are. As a result, many managers persist in a kind of ongoing limbo of amateurish techniques while trying to retain the aura of expertise that they once – but no longer – have. That manager is in the difficult position of asserting that she is expert in the domain they were a former individual contributor (IC) while simultaneously asserting that she is an expert in the managerial tasks related to overseeing that IC work.
Now, imagine a manager who never gives performance feedback to the employee. That manager is like an infant who has never seen his image in the mirror. That manager can continue to think that she is
a) Expert in the field she is managing
b) Knows more than her employees
c) She can convey what is the correct way to proceed without much effort
d) Her employees believe in 100% what she says
e) Her employee can immediately implement what she has in mind
Does this sound like any managers you know or have had in the past? This manager has not gone through the “Mirror Stage” of being a manager and confronted their limitations as a manager.
Now, imagine a manager who decides to give performance feedback to the employee.
This is the moment where the manager must test the following notions:
a) she is still an expert
b) knows more than her employee
c) the conveyance of her thoughts are 100% transmittable
d) the employee will accept 100% of what she says
e) the employee will immediately implement what was in her thoughts.
That is the way an infant thinks before the mirror stage. Read more
The new manager is an amateur at doing managerial tasks
Perhaps this is obvious, but has it ever occurred to you that a new manager is actually an amateur at being a manager? Not just initially, but ongoing, well after becoming a manager? Let me explain.
The typical model is that someone starts their career not as being a manager, and then, after a certain moment in time, becomes a manager. It’s a new job title, new role, and lots of new stuff to do. And this new stuff – since it is new, shouldn’t we expect managers to be amateurish in how they perform these tasks? After all, they have never done this professionally before.
Perhaps this moment of becoming a manager isn’t entirely ignored, as there are many management development programs out there, but even with this assistance and turbo-boost into management ranks, there is a reigning operating theory – that when you hire people who are generally competent in their field, they will perform this new complex job of management competently as well.
With non-managerial roles, there is a gradual build up of skills, expertise, and speed that can possibly turn into creativity and innovation. This can be done in a short period of time, but it is generally understood that when you are starting out, you need to get better at what you are doing, and most organizations provide that chance.
Without management design, the new manager relies on base instincts
In my previous article, I discussed how the moment an employee becomes a manager, her identity – in so many ways – is entirely subverted, and this loss has both an immediate and long-term impact on how the manager performs as a manager. Does the manager keep trying to develop expertise and perform the tasks in the field she is managing? That doesn’t make sense, as the manager isn’t actually doing the task. Does the manager rate herself using the same metrics and peer groups as before? No, that’s difficult because there is a team element and because team output is difficult to compare. Does the manager still identify herself with the trade she’s managing? No, because she isn’t doing that trade any more.
But perhaps the biggest sense of loss when someone becomes a manager is simply not knowing what to do.
Before becoming a manager, there was a schedule, inputs, outputs, a work stream, and some sort of set of measurements that determined quality and quantity. It was very likely that these things were defined by someone else long before her arrival, and in the case of trades, these techniques and expertise have been built up and modified over decades.
Now, when it comes to management, is there any such regiment that organizations provide? Sure there might be a lot of tasks that a manager is supposed to do – approve time cards, monitor attendance, host a team meeting, answer questions over email. These things come to mind. But after that – where does a manager start?
OK, so maybe the manager starts a new series of things – sets up one-on-one meetings, sets up meetings with other managers, sets up meetings with the new manager.
Now things start getting a little more abstract – now what? Does the manager start looking at work output of the team? Does the manager try to gather or look at metrics of team output? Are these things even available?
When does the manager actually start managing? Is it the first moment of providing performance feedback? Is it the moment the manager leads a team meeting? Is it the moment the manager creates a team vision or strategy (and does it have to come directly from the manager)? Is it the moment the manager sets expectations for how the team performs?
Becoming a manager is a subversion of self-identity
Let’s talk about the manager and his or her identity at work.
The act of becoming a manager is the very act of undermining the person’s identity at work. Here’s why:
For years the employee who was not a manager has the following elements associated with the employee’s identity:
–What you do at work is produce something
–Work is rated by quality and quantity metrics
–Work can be compared against other people doing comparable work
–Work quality and quantity can be improved and new techniques learned by meeting with and learning from others who do comparable work
–Expertise is increased over time
–There is a trade name/professional identity associated with the job (mechanic, accountant, camera operator, software engineer, etc.)
With these fairly well-defined elements that contribute to the identity of the employee, the employee can develop a general understanding of who she is and what value she provides. On top of that, she can see fairly easily how she performs in comparison to her peers, and she has peers to which she can compare and learn from. Via this identity, the employee develops a sense of who she is and what she is capable of, and where she fits in the organization and the industry.
Then the moment she becomes a manager, all of this is lost. It is taken away. It is eliminated. It is killed off. The employee has lost her identity entirely. Let me explain:
Element #1: The loss of productivity
The moment the employee becomes the manager, she is no longer expected to produce something. Sure she is in charge of the people who produce something, but she herself does not produce anything any more. In fact, the manager who attempts to keep producing something to keep this element of her identity becomes something of a ghost of an employee – someone who neither produces as much as the others nor manages the team very well. That sense of productivity is gone.
Element #2: The abstraction of quality and quantity metrics
The employee who becomes a manager no longer can produce quality and quantity, but must indirectly produce quality and quantity from the other employees. It used to be a direct creation of what is productive, but now it is an indirect, abstracted creation. The manager has lost the direct sense of what productivity looks like, and now has only a trace of that sense of productivity. It is an abstract concept rather than a concrete concept. Any former claims of productivity, innovation, and quality are immediately vanquished and lost over time, and cannot be used as a measure of success in the new role.
Three more reasons “You don’t take feedback well” is risky performance feedback
In my previous article, I discussed the common tendency for managers, in a feedback conversation, to give the secondary feedback to their employees, “You don’t take feedback well.” Perhaps you have experienced this scenario yourself: you receive feedback from your manager, and you react negatively in some capacity (perhaps by debating the feedback, or respond with emotion), only to be told, often in the same session, “You need to take feedback better.” I argue in my previous article that this reveals the manager
a) is willing to distract away from the original intent of the feedback conversation, and whether the feedback is actually incorporated
b) believes the feedback conversation would not or ought not surface a response
c) is interested in protecting his or her ego.
There are more things that “you need to take feedback better” reveals about the manager. Here they are:
1. It probably means that the either manager or employee or both together are new to the feedback conversation process
When a manager gives feedback to an employee, and the employee reacts negatively, this is probably a sign that the whole performance feedback process is new to either the manager, the employee or both together, which are all highly likely situations. It should be expected that initial performance conversations will be wrought with defensiveness, excuses, emotion, and other reactions. That is, they will be clunky. But if the tandem keep working on it, and try to have performance conversations over time, they will both get used to the process and stay increasingly focused on the performance and the desired outcomes.
It should be expected that the more the manager and employee do something (in this case, have feedback conversations), the better they will be at it over time. Isn’t this true on just about every other activity? When the manager feels like the (initial) conversation isn’t going well – this should be the default understanding: “We’ll keep working at getting better at this,” rather than immediately assert that the “taking feedback” part is an inimitable defect in the employee. So to you managers out there, don’t be surprised when the first time you do something it isn’t perfect.
Telling someone they “don’t take feedback well” doesn’t count as performance feedback
Perhaps the most common “performance feedback” is, “You need to take performance feedback better.” I’d say about 90% of all employees in the world fear this “feedback.” That’s because performance feedback of this nature is inherently unfair, and it isn’t performance feedback anyway. Let’s take a look at why this is so.
The context for the dreaded, “You don’t take feedback well” is usually during a feedback session to an employee, and the employee reacts negatively in some way to the feedback. Some sample negative reactions by the employee may be the following:
–Saying, “I don’t agree with the feedback”
–Saying, “That doesn’t make any sense.”
–Saying, “I’ve never heard that feedback before.”
–Saying, “Whatever.”
–Saying, “I tried really hard.”
–Saying, “You’re a terrible boss!”
–Shutting down, getting angry or otherwise reacting emotionally
In each of these cases, the employee is reacting to the feedback in a way that makes it uncomfortable to the manager providing the feedback. Then the manager may, at that instance, or in a second feedback session, say, “You need to take performance feedback better.”
OK, manager – this is more “feedback” to the employee, but it is not performance feedback. And managers should consider refraining from giving this “feedback” for the following reasons:
A Performance Feedback/Performance Management Flowchart
The Manager by Designsm blog seeks to create better managers by design. Here’s a great tool that outlines a simple flowchart of when a manager should provide performance feedback, and when the performance management process should occur. It can be used in many contexts, and provides a simple outline of what a manger’s role is in providing feedback, and how this fits with the performance management process (click for a larger image).
You’ll see that Performance Feedback starts at the task level, not the person level. You want to know what the task is, and make sure the individual gets feedback on how well he or she is performing the task. It also requires the manager to know what acceptable performance looks like. If not, then the manager is in a complex feedback situation, and both the manager and the employee agree to strategize on how to do the task differently, since it isn’t defined yet.
You’ll also notice that there is a lot of activity prior to the performance management process, which is actually a more formal version of this same flowchart. Managers need to perform this informal version first.
Let me know what you think. Do you your managers follow this flow chart? Do they skip steps? Do they add steps?
Related articles:
The Performance Management Process: Were You Aware of It?
Overview of the performance management process for managers
How to have a feedback conversation with an employee when the situation is complex
A tool to analyze the greater forces driving your employee’s performance
When an employee does something wrong, it’s not always about the person. It’s about the system, too.
The Art of Providing Feedback: Make it Specific and Immediate
What inputs should a manager provide performance feedback on?
When to provide performance feedback using direct observation: Practice sessions
When to provide performance feedback using direct observation: On the job
Annual reviews are awesome artifacts that can be used to improve management skills
The Manager by Designsm blog has documented many issues that annual performance reviews bring to the manager/employee relationship. I’ve written about how they are “toxic”, cause angst, and perpetuate myths both about employee capability and what acceptable management practices are.
But I’m not totally against annual performance reviews. Sure, I don’t think that they are effective at actually evaluating performance of the people they are evaluating, but I do think that they are extremely effective at revealing the practices of the managers conducting the reviews. They are a treasure of information that provides a window into how the manager relates to her employees, how she assesses performance, and the degree of effort taken to help the employees improve.
So I say keep the performance reviews, because this is the only infrastructure – however flimsy (I can’t elevate it to the level of “design”) — that many organizations have that actually require managers to perform management-related tasks, such as setting expectations and goals, assessing and discussing performance of the employees, and actually committing this to a document that demonstrates that this task has been performed.
