Hack:
Who's the Boss?

By Leslie-Ann Bergstrom - MBA Candidate, 2012 at UC Berkeley Haas MBA program

September 21, 2010 at 12:46am

hierarchy

managers

communication

Moonshots

Increase trust, reduce fear

Reinvent the means of control

Make direction setting bottom-up and outside-in

Summary

Get leaders truly working for their teams, rather than the other way around.

Problem

Employee satisfaction depends on many factors, of which one of the most important is their relationship with their manager.

I know I'm happiest when my manager knows me and understands my goals, cares about me as a person, and when I have confidence that my manager not only values my contributions but understands the challenges and frustrations I encounter in my job. And I'm really happy when I trust that they not only understand, but can and will help me remove barriers and overcome challenges, be they resource challenges, bureaucratic challenges, etc.

So much of a manager's job is enabling their employees to be more effective and productive, but many managers set goals and dismiss challenges without a real understanding of how the world looks from their employees' point of view.

One could say that great leaders work for their team and not the other way around, but what does this mean in practice and how do managers know if they're really their team's advocate and partner?

Solution

Treat employees like customers. Spend a day in their shoes, shadow them to see what their day is like and what challenges arise. Learn their job as part of your ongoing development.
Ask employees to write you a job description. Ask them to try to frame it in the affirmative, as in what you should do rather than what you should not do. Taking this a step further, employees on functional teams could write job descriptions which would then be formalized and used for recruiting and performance evaluation benchmarks.
Start goal-setting exercises at the base level of the organization. Ask the front-line employees to select their top 3-5 objectives for a given period, and then see how those roll up rather than setting high-level objectives and then drilling down into detail at the lower levels.
Managers at all levels do the shadowing exercise skipping levels, so they can see the org at all levels. This could be done once a year and then managers can share their learnings at a team meeting to show the impact of their day on the job.

Practical Impact

Increasing trust between managers and employees. Managers get to know employees and their roles better, and have more information for making key decisions, allocating resources, motivating and empowering employees. Employees (hopefully) feel listened to and acknowledged, increasing their engagement and willingness to speak up, offer ideas, etc. They're likely to offer more of their passion and creativity if they feel that their manager is making an effort to understand where they're coming from.

First Steps

Float the idea at a team meeting. Ask for volunteers to do the first session or two with you.
Try it with peers and stakeholders other than direct reports. See how it goes and if it has a positive impact on those interactions.

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September 21, 2010 at 8:10am

James Marwood

I really like this idea. I think it would work very well with teams of professionals or where workers have a good idea of the overall direction of the company. Of course this is itself a function of how well the leaders have articulated their vision. I guess it could also be used to measure this, as well the benefits you mention.

September 21, 2010 at 8:08pm

Akash Sah

I love the part about employees writing the job description for their managers. I think it could be very insightful about what you think you should be doing and what others think you should be doing.

September 21, 2010 at 10:46pm

Laura Cerruti

I really like the idea of having the goal-setting roll upward rather than down.

September 23, 2010 at 2:22am

Franky Redant

Even though I agree full-heartedly and I've been practicing this for over 10-years (except for the job description part ;) ), I find that not many managers will see this as an advantage (fear of losing control, fear of losing position etc). The job of manager is for most managers still foremost 'managing resources and budgets' not leading people, unfortunately I would add. Or put otherwise many managers are not leaders. I do agree though that this is how it should be. A manager's role is to make sure the team can do its job in the best possible circumstances and a leader's job is to inspire people to do the best they can.

It works the other way round too btw : if the team understands the role of the manager better, they will better understand the decisions he/she has to take.

September 24, 2010 at 5:30pm

Julia Jia

I second Franky’s comments. I also agree full-heartedly about the concept and ideas and have been trying many of ideas. In many organizations, there is a hierarchy, front line engineers, front line managers, mid-tier managers and upper management. I wonder how this would work in all those different layers.

September 26, 2010 at 11:22am

Gopi Badipuram

Brilliant idea. Given the fact that a manager's first and foremost responsibility is to ensure her team's best performance towards meeting the organisational objectives, its time managers treat the team as customers and set expectations (via job description) from team's perspective. But setting objectives at the bottom and bubbling them up the organisation may not be feasible. Instead, the manager and her team must co-operate to interpret, understand and translate those high-level objectives within the context of the team and each team-mate's responsibilities (job.)

October 4, 2010 at 6:41am

Dhiraj Gupta

Removing Command and Control is a key need identified by MIX. The method proposed here is part of the lore for a good leader. The problem is practicing the lore:
- How to reach the team members on a regular basis on the issues that are important to them?
- How to mentor without being intrusive?
- How to know when to mentor?

These issues are created by the growth of the enterprise. Perhaps they require to be addressed for the approach to deliver results.

Regards,

Dhiraj

November 8, 2010 at 8:46am

Rudi Sellers

I agree with your point around feeling motivated when I have a feeling that my manager understands my goal and objectives. Some of the more radical ideas (treating employees like customers for example) are already in practice in organisations like Zappos and Netflix. What would you say are the main stumbling blocks to wider adoption of this type of leadership/management? Do you think all employees will be happy to participate? How would you build engagement with sceptical leaders or followers?

December 27, 2010 at 8:18am

Jo Wong

I have been researching staff dissatisfaction (rather than satisfaction). Unbelievably there are differing triggers & results for combating both endsof this spectrum. Your Hack has potential but would be interesting to see what psychology theory would add to the discussion.