Top Management Story

Writen by Peter Hunter

There seems to be a feeling that the answer to our performance measurement, incentive and ownership problems lie in what we do to the workforce.

If what we do now to the workforce is not working then we have to change what we "Do" to the workforce.

My experience indicates that the problems are not caused by what we "Do" to the workforce, they are caused by the mindset that believes that as managers we can manipulate the workforce to "Do" what we want.

This mindset is the cause of the failure.

When we believe in the value of the workforce and know that they want to do a good job, the job of management stops being to get the workforce to do what we want by telling them what to do and it starts being to look for the things that are stopping the workforce from doing a good job, and getting rid of them.

The biggest obstacle that gets in the way of the workforces desire to do a good job is a manager telling them what to do, telling them what their targets are and telling them what equipment to use to achieve those targets.

The biggest part of the answer is so easy, stop telling people what to do.

How do you tell people that telling people what to do is wrong?

Or do you do that at all?

What do managers have to do?

The initial premise that we work from is that the workforce want to do a good job, they know how to do a good job and they just need to be given what they need in order to do that job.

The only thing that managers need to do is to listen to what the workforce want and give it to them. What management need to get up to speed with is listening to the workforce. For most managers this is incredibly difficult because as soon as they become managers they undergo a divine change that confers on them an absolute ability to know what is best for their workforce, better than the workforce themselves.

If we try to tell these managers to relax their control and allow the workforce to start calling the shots that will be the end of that conversation and the effect of the implementation will be zero, we will have achieved nothing because we tried to make a change by telling someone what to do.

If on the other hand we are able to change the way that the workforce feel about what they do, we allow them to start to care about what they do, we allow them to become proud of what they do, then their managers have to ask, How did that happen? because when people are proud of what they do their performance becomes astonishing.

Nobody has been told what to do. We have simply allowed the workforce to become as good as they can be by removing the obstacles that managers put in their way and the resulting performance makes the managers ask, How did you do that?

And because they have asked we can now tell them, because they asked.

We don't have to get the managers to "Do" anything different. They will figure it out for themselves when they see what is happening to the workforce and their bottom line.

How do you tell people that telling people what to do is wrong? You don't. Just make them curious about what is possible, they will get the rest on their own.

Object achieved.