What Management Is

Management exists to organize purposefully.What Management Is: How It Works and Why It’s Everyone’s Business [MS02] The whole purpose is to deliver results and build capacity. It’s conceptually easy but operationally difficult.

Apply simple—but not easy—practices consistently.

None of the practices described here—one-on-ones, portfolio management, feedback, coaching, delegation—is difficult to understand. They are simple practices. But the key to successful management is to consistently and reliably perform those practices.

Managers who never apply these practices are poor managers.

Managers who apply these practices intermittently are only average managers.

Great managers consistently and reliably apply all these management practices.

Learn about your staff as people.

No matter where you are in the organization’s hierarchy, it’s important to understand the people with whom you work. It may seem paradoxical, but the higher a manager is in the hierarchy, the more important it is to know people as people.

Work with other managers as a team.

Working as a management team allows all the managers to see where the department’s problems and successes are. A management team will reduce the likelihood that one manager will solve problems in ways that create problems for another manager.

If your peer group of managers isn’t working as a team, start having conversations with your peers to find ways to work together to accomplish department goals. Learn about areas where goals conflict so you can influence your manager to organize your peer group into a management team.

Develop shared goals.

The most successful departments we’ve seen have management teams that share goals at each level. The first-level managers share goals. The mid-level managers share goals. And the senior managers share goals. The more each manager understands about his or her peer managers’ goals, the more likely each manager will be to work so that others can achieve their goals.

Explain the goals.

We meet many managers who tell us their goals are to reduce time to market, reduce cost, or increase market share. Goals like these are a good starting point, but they are too vague. Make goals useful by making them SMART (see ​Setting SMART Goals​). Take every opportunity to explain the goals to your team. When people know what the goals are, they tend to accomplish them.

Define what success means.

If your manager hasn’t defined a mission and a strategy for your group, create one—with the help of the people in your group. Use the mission and strategy to develop a definition of success. Once you know what success is, identify (and complete) actions to achieve success.

Tackle the highest-priority work.

The best way to deliver results and increase capacity is by working on—and completing—high-priority work. The low-priority work (and the work on your not-to-do list) reduces the energy available for the high-priority work. Completing the highest-priority work helps your team feel as if they’ve accomplished something useful.

Help people work together effectively.

Sometimes people who have never been in a management role believe that managers can simply tell other people what to do and that’s that. Not so. Much of management work is facilitative, not directive. Facilitate people working together by discovering common interests, discussing possible solutions (before surprising people with them in a meeting), using the sidebar ​Rule of Three​ to generate multiple options, and clarifying decision rules. Effective managers don’t just tell people what to do; they help people work together.

Create an environment of trust.

Consistent management (provided it’s not consistently bad management) creates trust. In an environment of trust, people work diligently and work for the good of the organization.