In the last few months I have repeatedly come across organisations that say: ‘Our problem is that many of our managers are not very good people managers.’ In other words, they don’t spend enough time with their people, they are not good coaches, they find appraisals difficult, they recruit people badly, they go for ‘easy’ training solutions and, worst of all, ‘they want HR to solve their people problems’ (and we want to spend our time on business partnership)! How many generic summaries of 360-degree feedback have I seen that show collective weaknesses in these areas. It is particularly true of organisations where the core competencies are in engineering or in technical areas, both private and public.

We should not be surprised. First-level managers are often promoted initially because of their technical ability to lead and guide a team. (In developing countries, the managerial jobs often come through connections or just through having qualifications.) The ability to manage, motivate and develop people is at best assumed or expected to come with experience. All our expertise in competency frameworks and development centres does not seem yet to have overcome this problem. Even management training, generally widely available and often a mandatory requirement, still leaves us with managers with under-developed skills. But the cry goes on: ‘Our mangers have just got to learn …’

But are we having an up hill struggle? Is the answer more and more training, more and more tools from HR? Or should we face realities? One solution might be to get much tougher on selection of first-line managers, assessing on the required competencies rigorously. But we have very little to go on with people who have never previously been managers. And furthermore we need people with the core competencies of the business, who understand its technicalities and how to sell its products or services. I want to suggest three possibilities, none of which is actually about training but which training can support.

The first is to identify some good learning-through-experience areas of the organisation and to second potential managers to them. Two such areas in a commercial organisation (which sadly often have the lowest status in the UK at least) are manufacturing (if it can be found these days) and customer service. These are functions that employ a lot of people and where business success is very dependent on good people management. They are functions that probably have good role models in them. Each organisation can identify where it has similar breeding grounds, if it does not have these particular departments. Planned systematic learning experiences, using the role models as coaches, can be put together and become a regular part of career development. This implies more cross-boundary flexibility than is often found today, where still people develop in ‘silos’, but it is a solution that many have used in the past.

The second possibility concerns career structures. Though by no means unknown, it is surprising how many organisations have not considered the Y structure, for which – above team leader level – two options exist for progress in salary, benefits and status. One is purely towards technical or professional leadership; the other is to higher levels of managing resources. In the computer company in which I worked the former ladder went up to the grade below board level with all the status benefits that accrued, but not necessarily managing anyone – not as subordinates, at least.

This approach breaches the real source of the problem, which is thinking hierarchically. If we think of an organisation as a group of people making a contribution to value creation, and build structures and systems around them, we will come up with different answers to one where we fit people into boxes and levels and evaluated jobs. Who says a manager must have all those people skills that are so highly desired, just because s/he is a manager on the chart? Our bipolar thinking (‘manager plus subordinate’) needs to be replaced by systems thinking (Senge’s fifth discipline).¹ In this case it means adding a third dimension to people management and development where needed. That third contributor might be an HR professional, another skilled manager, an external resource, the ‘grandparent’ manager, or whoever is best suited to help the employee.

Of course, the manager still has the job of allocating and supervising work, and of providing professional guidance. But when it comes to personal guidance, development, help and so on, managers or employees should be encouraged to take up the option of the third dimension if either feels it would help. Exploring how such triangular relationships can work effectively should be the subject of training courses rather than focusing on ‘you’re a manager and this is what you should be good at’. And it follows that the more we empower and enable employees at all levels to understand and use such an approach, the more effective it will be.

The goal is not actually better people managers; it is better people management. If we start from that baseline we will inevitably break out of the hierarchical stranglehold and see our organisation – or part of it – as a networked system of capabilities to be used for the good of all our stakeholders.

Reference
1. Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline, Doubleday New York, 1990.

Andrew Mayo is a consultant, speaker, writer and facilitator in international HR management, with specialisms in people and organisational development. He can be contacted on +44 (0) 1727 843424, at andrew@mliltd.com or visit www.mliltd.com

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