Managing the Managers

If you think that managers whether they be males or females do not need to be managed because they are managers, you would be WRONG!!! And while this seems to be a very sad comment about American workers since most managers are college graduates, it is nonetheless TRUE. It happens in all professions and in all geographic locations where work is taking place and it happens regardless of how much salary and other compensation is being paid to these managers.

Most of our research indicates that when employees at any level get pay raises they will work with due diligence on for a short while before gravitating back to their old behavior patterns. This is more noticeable among hourly workers because productivity can be measured quite easily but not so in the ranks of management.

One would think that by the time boys and girls reached the mature age of 35 (actually it is more like 35-65) they would only have to be told once to do something and their maturity would get it done and no more would need to be said about that task.

WRONG!!!

I have spent several years in positions of Dean or Director of Education at Proprietary Schools where I also had Associate Deans and Directors of Education as well as Department Chairs reporting to me both males and females. And, in all these situations, I approached the task of being their leader with the same attitude in mind and that was to give them the benefit of the doubt that they would do what I asked them or delegated to them to do without the need of following up on them... which I considered to be a type of micromanaging.

You would not believe how WRONG I was in making that assumption.

Yes, it is true that they did, in fact, get some tasks accomplished just as I had imagined that they would and with the level of quality that I had hoped would be generated... but, the vast majority of tasks, they did not and in order to achieve the results that I wanted to achieve, they had to be micromanaged.

And, what I soon discovered was their biggest drawback was prioritizing their tasks and managing their time appropriately. And, what is even more amazing to me than this, is the fact that all my subordinates could not have been hired without Masters Degrees.

Several of my subordinates were conducting private consulting activities during their regular working hours for me because their previous bosses did nothing to stop them from doing that. Some of my Chairs had not added any students to their programs in 2-3 years because no one was looking at their enrollment/persistence/graduation numbers, and what they were doing was enrolling students who dropped out after the first quarter or semester.

Several of my subordinates told me that Deans or Directors of Education typically last 12-18 months before they are fired for not making their numbers and since those numbers depend upon the subordinates to generate, they intentionally keep that from happening so that their boss will not remain their boss for very long.

The turnover at their level is very low because Chairs are more difficult to locate and hire than Deans or Directors of Education, so they play the game to keep their job and do their consulting with the understanding that they should NEVER get the bug in them to advance upward...

The owners of these Proprietary Schools never see what is happening down in the ranks and I am not sure why that is... maybe they do not want to see, as long as revenues are being generated. And, the Regional Directors/Managers that are responsible for the output of these Deans and Directors of Education never seem to want to look below the surface either... so, Deans and Directors of Education are turned over rather quickly and consistently in the hopes of finding the “right one.”

And, when they find the “right one,” then there is a voluntary mass resignation among the Chairs and some of the Associate Deans.

And NONE of upper management is ever aware of the game that is being played beneath them...

With this information, I have hit TWO BIRDS with one stone... how some businesses actually operated and one of the reasons why our educational system seems to generate graduates that are piss poor employees.

Americans across the board are always looking for the easy way out... unless you are the owner of an enterprise and then that does not happen all that often, but it does still happen.

So, managers must be managed and they must be managed with the same delicacy by which these managers manage their subordinates... and, then they will learn to walk between the lines and will learn that deadlines need to be met and will learn that outcomes need to be realized and will ultimately learn that quality and customer service are the two keys to success.

Probably the most difficult aspect of managing the managers is the amount of time and energy that this task requires... and, because of that one needs to be focused, determined, and dedicated... so that due diligence can be done. Of course, this is easier said than done.

Unfortunately, managing the managers is typically only one aspect of one's job or employment responsibilities and in order to executes all one's responsibilities in a timely manner, one will typically finding oneself working 6-7 days a week and each one of those days could be 10-12 hours long, maybe longer.

Heart Attack, Stroke, and other stress related illnesses are typically associated with this type of job and the older the individual, the more likely one of these or something else will take place. If one is married and has a family, this type of routine cannot be generated for long... consequently, it is much, much easier just to turn one's back on many of these activities and just let them happen the way they will... since profits after all are still being generated...

And, we have come full circle... back to the beginning of this article to that point-in-time that I inherited all those misguided subordinates because the previous boss just let them do what they wanted to do...

But logically, intuitively, and fundamentally we know that managers should be and need to be managed just like everyone else; yet, sometimes, it is just easier to let all that go... collect one's paycheck, keep debt down and invest the rest... because one never knows when one will be terminated for not making the numbers...