Managers' Dilemma: Task-Immature People?
As a manager, it's great when your people do more than just good substantive work. Think of entrepreneurial activities like maintaining their network, for example, or identifying opportunities. But that doesn't exactly happen automatically.
This brings you to a dilemma: do you (or do you continue to) carry out those entrepreneurial activities yourself, or do you get your people to do so?
We discuss this in Chapter 1.7 of our book “Why Don't They Just Do It?”
In terms of content, your people are task-mature, but ...
Most content junkies are task-oriented when it comes to their billable hours. With a clearly defined goal, they can usually manage. Otherwise, they'll get back to you. Don't tell them exactly what to do; they might know better than you and it'll lead to frustration.
This is less true for non-billable hours and the more entrepreneurial aspects of work. Think of the 3Ds we described a few pages ago (Dare, Do, Discipline). In that respect, your people are not task-mature. What does that mean for your management?
When people are task- mature , you can manage them based on output. You tell them what outcome you want. For example, you can tell a professional musician: in October, you must play Chopin's 2nd Piano Concerto. Then he knows for himself what he needs to do to study that piece. But a beginner doesn't get much out of this. Even though he might understand the goal, he doesn't really know how to achieve it. Someone who is still learning is task- immature. And you must manage them based on input : what to do at what moment and how.
Your people are therefore both task- mature (regarding the content of their profession) and task- immature (regarding the entrepreneurial aspect). This makes it logical to manage your people in two ways.
That feels strange. One moment you're talking to a highly competent engineer with an academic background and years of experience. The next, that same person is suddenly a novice when it comes to discussing additional work. And what's tricky: managing someone who isn't highly competent can quickly feel childish. What do you choose? Highly competent or immature?
Your billable hours determine this year's turnover.
Your non-billable hours determine next year's turnover.
David Maister
A catchy title for a management book is “Managing Professionals: Don’t Do It.” We agree with that, provided the professional is mature in their role regarding the subject matter.
A different style of guidance is appropriate for the part that is not task-mature.
The good news is that most professionals are perfectly fine with this different style, especially if you address this dilemma. And you don't veer into childish behavior. The slightly less positive news is that managers are often still somewhat immature when it comes to coaching immature people. They can usually coach mature people just fine.
If your super-mature Java programmer is going to learn to play the piano, we don't direct him as if he were mature, do we? “Just start with Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto in F minor.” No, then you’re going to tell him what those pedals at the bottom of the piano are for, where the C key is, and how he should hold his hands. ‘There’s a chicken in the water’ is a more appropriate tune for the beginning pianist.
Another dilemma we face: The content professional feels that he has his “real work.” He does this in a substantial number of (billable) hours per week. But actually, there is something else that goes with it.
He understands perfectly well: Actually, I should do something about networking. Or post something on LinkedIn for a change. Or have spontaneous client conversations more often. Start talking about extra work a bit sooner.
But do you remember the three D's from the previous chapter? To put it bluntly: Some cold feet + Not knowing exactly which input leads to the best result + Full schedule = Tendency towards actually.
And actually , that means: we really should do it, but in practice, we just don't. We put it off for a while, usually until the cows come home.
You can represent it like this:
The "Actually " part is important, but not urgent. That is why you keep putting it off. What we would like is for at least a part of that " Actually " to become part of the real work.
So that it will look more like this:
We have now developed an “actually” alarm. As soon as we hear a manager say “ actually, we should do this more often …”, we sit up straight and start asking follow-up questions. Because with “actually,” the manager is saying that it needs to be done, but also that we aren't doing it. We want to move from “ Actually, we should ” to “ What we always do is… ”
We do this in practice with our WCCC checklist. But before we present that, first a few real-life stories about how it didn't work. Because, of course, we also like to make mistakes amidst the success stories…
This article was written by Maarten van Os and Jan Willem van den Brink from DreamfactoryIt's based on a chapter from our book Why don't they just do it? – Make sure your consultants and technicians find and keep clients happy.
If you wish to use it, we would greatly appreciate attribution.
Want to know more about this topic or how we can help your organization? Email or call us at 0348-741670.