Wanted: A Mentor

Ruminations on Management
I came across an old paragraph that I wrote one day many years ago, in seeking a mentor in a manager. My modus-operandi stems from one of my father’s wise sayings: “always hang out with people who are better than you. They’ll pull you up to their level and encourage you to be more, to do more”. Naturally, this results in a high expectation of management, as well as a high calling of myself:

Wanted: A mentor that will challenge, teach, coach and encourage me to become a better leader in the business environment. Someone that brings years of experience in both succeeding and failing and who is willing to impart those lessons on someone who is still growing. Someone who will look at who I am today and see potential for what I can become tomorrow. Someone that will force me out of the box into very uncomfortable situations, but be there to give wise advice and support if/when I fail in those situations. Someone who will proactively seek to put me in situations that will grow my skills and abilities and push me out of my comfort zone. Someone that reads voraciously and synthesizes information into actionable application that makes his/herself, business and the world a better, more efficient and effective place. Someone that is constantly questioning, looking, learning and taking-in everything – and reminding others to do the same. Someone that is a very effective communicator, an empathetic leader, a wise counsel and in a state of constant improvement.

There is a scenario often played out in business called “success to the successful”, which is fundamentally about self-fulfilling prophesies. Two people, A and B are given an unequal amount of resources (e.g. attention or time). The theory follows that person A, receiving more resources, will succeed. He succeeds because of the resources, and his resulting success impels the giver to provide him with more resources, further fueling his success. At the same time, person B receives fewer resources. His lack of resources is the source of his failure. His failure prompts the giver to provide even fewer resources, further fueling his failure. The virtuous cycle for A continues as does the vicious cycle for B, ultimately satisfying the two self-fulfilling prophesies. If you expect people to fail, they will. If you give people the resources to succeed, they will rise to the occasion.

When you manage people, do it with the intent to make them capable of doing your job one day, or better yet, doing more than your job. This is more than an altruistic attempt at mentoring; it’s a profit-maximizing mindset that will improve the bottom line of your company. By challenging others and encouraging their potential, you not only improve who they are, as a by-product, you improve the organization as a whole.

Filed under: Career development, Coaching, Management

The delicate balance: challenging yourself and others challenging you

I’ve always wrestled with a thought in business: whose responsibility is it if an employee fails because they were not challenged or coached enough? Is it the manager’s responsibility to make sure that the employee is challenged and coached, is it the employee’s responsibility, or is it a combination of both? At what point in the job role does the responsibility for challenge shift from the manager to the employee?

I visualize the orientation of workers (task versus strategic) in the firm on a horizontal hierarchical scale, with task oriented positions being on the far left end of the hierarchy and strategically oriented positions falling on the far right of the strategy. As a simple example, the secretarial position or mail clerk would fall on the far left, and the senior level manager or CEO would be on the far right. The horizontal hierarchy is in no way representative of importance to the firm, it is just a framework to use when visualizing task versus strategy oriented jobs.

The secretary’s tasks are purely instructional: keep our files orderly, answer the phones in three or fewer rings, set up as many appointments on next Tuesday as you possibly can. The senior manager’s tasks are more esoteric: introduce X product into the European market, develop one new product per year for this specific product line, increase brand recognition in rural markets. If a senior manager had to receive a task list every week in order to inform her of the expected objectives, it’s likely that she does not have the appropriate skills for the position. Conversely, if a manager expects a secretary to take a majority of the responsibility for the strategic goals of the company, the manager does not understand the role of the secretary.

At some point in the hierarchy, there starts to be a blend where positions resemble a blend of task-oriented and strategic objectives. Consider the sales representative role: maintain a list of customers, call on the customers, tell the customers about our product, convert customers. This job is a blend of both tactical and strategic objectives. The same with a marketing manager: keep reports of conversation with customers, send out weekly emails, create marketing messages.

Is it fair to argue that responsibility of challenge should lean more towards the strategic influencer? In other words, the person who is influencing the strategic role of the position (be it the manager for the secretary, or the senior manager for himself) is responsible for challenging and coaching themselves to grow and improve. Should it be the organization’s role to coach and challenge regardless of the task-orientation or the strategic orientation? Maybe it depends on your view of the firm: is the firm purely in place for profit, social responsibility, or some combination of the two? Does giving an employee a positively challenging work environment improve the success of a firm?

This may depend on company, industry or structure, or it may depend on the person. I’ll keep wrestling with this and add thoughts as experiences and ideas come to consciousness and to mind. Just food for thought, to whet your appetite with thoughts to consider as your work for, or manage employees within a firm.

Filed under: Career development, Challenge, Coaching