Ever wonder if those Dilbert cartoons floating around the office are a comment on your own management abilities?
The shortest path to “Dilbertdom” is to ignore the knowledge your employees have. If you think you know how to do their job better than they do, you’re sorely mistaken. Come into a new position and start making changes so things run the way you’ve been accustomed to see them run – unless everyone agrees the changes improve things – and you’ll quickly lose the trust and respect of your staff.
Think this doesn’t happen? Think again. When was the last time you saw a new VP of Marketing who didn’t change the ad agency, PR agency, and talk endlessly about changing your logo system? How many CEOs bring in a cadre of co-workers who know how he/she wants things done?
Let’s look at an analogy: traditionally stopping a domestic auto assembly line would be difficult and risky for the individual who makes the decision. In Japanese companies, any assembly line worker can stop the line if he sees problems – without worrying about losing his job. Who knows more about the quality of the product and assembly problems than the people making the cars? Shouldn’t the managers be listening to them instead of punishing them?
So here’s my suggestion for new managers and for consultants: ask the workers what they do and why they do those things. Take notes. Study what they’re doing. And then you can make suggestions if you see problems. Too many managers just change things, and too often, the changes don’t make any sense. Then, the workers question your ability, and if they don’t think you’re listening, they know you don’t care about them, and then – well you know what happens then. Change doesn’t have to happen overnight, unless there’s an obvious, and serious, problem.
And remember, change should make your processes better and help your employees do their jobs better. If it’s something that makes just your job easier, you’ll get backlash. One time I saw a new owner capriciously change the way the workers kept records of new sales. I say capricious because the old system worked perfectly and all the employees knew how to use it and liked it. But the new owner didn’t know how to use it, so he made everyone change to another system he understood better. Think about it: he used the system occasionally, but the workers used it every day. Who really needed the easier system?
It’s better to wait until you have enough information before you make changes. This also lets you involve your workers in the changes so they are part of them, rather than subject to them. It’s much harder to criticize something you’ve helped to change than something you’ve been forced to change.
Being a decisive manager doesn’t mean you have to change things quickly. It means you change them right the first time. And if your employees are part of the decision – if you have their buy-in – you’re much more likely to have good decisions that are actually implemented properly.
Finally, please make sure your changes make sense! There’s no substitute for common sense, and most of your employees have plenty of it. Anything you make them do that doesn’t make sense will make you a Dilbert-style manager.
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