Ten Myths of Managing Managers

Organizational America is working very hard these days to become more competitive. Few organizations have been spared the necessity of taking serious action to fight increased pressures from home and abroad. The message is clear: either become more competitive or run the risk of going out of business.

Organizations have responded to this edict with a wide range of actions, including austerity campaigns, drastic restructurings, new technologies, enhanced customer orientations, and a host of “enlightened” management techniques designed to encourage workforce involvement and quality improvement.1 In this flurry of activity, managers at all levels are being asked to work harder, work smarter, work longer, and question traditional approaches to managing organizational resources.

With increasing frequency managers are urged to change the ways they think and act. Organizations are spending millions on training and development programs, management retreats, quality improvement programs, and a variety of other approaches.2 These intended reforms rest on the assumption that for any organization to improve the overall quality of its management group, managers themselves must be “reshaped” and imbued with a new organizational culture and operating philosophy.3 Managers simply must improve their effectiveness or the organization’s competitiveness is endangered. Peter Drucker recently noted that the greatest challenge to U.S. business in this decade, especially for large companies, may well be the development of its management people. And “we are totally unprepared for it.”4

In this article, we argue that the way in which organizations manage their managers often derails or even sabotages their efforts at becoming more competitive. In the rush to reform, they often overlook or misconstrue a number of basic managerial principles. Surprisingly, we traced many of these dysfunctional managerial practices to beliefs that appear to be self-evident, but that on closer inspection turn out to be deceptive myths that adversely influence the management of managers.

As one telling example, organizations typically fail to conduct effective executive appraisals. Three years ago in Sloan Management Review we reported a study that found that executives were frequently frustrated by the lack of clarity concerning their responsibilities, the lack of input on ways to improve their performance, the absence of ongoing performance feedback, and the lack of regular and systematic performance reviews.5 Performance-enhancing review and appraisal practices that were successfully applied to lower-level employees were botched when applied to upper-level managers. As a consequence managers felt frustrated, isolated, and neglected. Worse, they felt that oversights associated with the appraisal process hampered their development and future effectiveness. That study indicated the need for a look at a broader range of issues. But when we conducted the study discussed here, the results suggested a more critical question: Are higher-level managers managing their subordinate managers effectively? The findings are both enlightening and disturbing along a number of dimensions.

The Study

We conducted in-depth interviews with 261 managers from eighteen different large service and manufacturing organizations in the United States. These organizations were all profitable at the time of the study and included companies from the automotive, electronics, steel, building products, transportation, medical, and communications industries. The participating managers represented fourteen different functional areas evenly split between operations and administrative support. Forty-one percent were senior-level managers, 36 percent were middle managers, and 24 percent were lower-level managers. As a group they averaged forty-one years of age and had over nineteen years of work experience and twelve years of managerial experience.

In these interviews, we asked managers to freely discuss: 1) how their superiors managed them; 2) factors that limited their effectiveness; and 3) suggestions they would offer those who manage managers. We encouraged them to provide specific examples of their experiences (both positive and negative), concerns, and frustrations. Our findings are the result of a systematic content analysis of their comments. At least 65 percent of the managers in the study identified and discussed each myth described below.

Uncovering the Myths of Managing Managers

These interviews generated a great deal of convergence on how managers are managed (or mismanaged). The managers identified a number of common problems and frustrations that were traceable to their superiors’ behavior. Upper-level managers appear to hold a number of assumptions about their subordinate managers that are problematic from the subordinate’s perspective. These assumptions are critically important because they ultimately affect the upper-level managers’ behavior toward their subordinates.6 We came to label these assumptions “myths” because they all initially appear to be accepted truths, even to the experienced eye, but all are questionable on either conceptual or practical grounds, and all have negative consequences. Understanding their debilitating effects leads to a reconsideration of their supposed wisdom. We have included direct quotes from the interviews as a means of underscoring the issues and conveying the richness of the findings. The first four myths are all variations on a central theme, but each one represents a misleading distortion or half-truth that is distinctive and consequential enough in its own right to warrant separate discussion.

Myth 1: Managers are self-starting, self-directing, and autonomous, or they would not be managers.

The mythology involved with this widespread belief has more to do with the statement’s accuracy in absolute terms than in relative terms. Most managers typically are more self-starting, self-directing, and autonomous than other lower-level employees.7 Yet, our respondents themselves believed that expectations for their self-managing ability were too often exaggerated. Their positions in the middle to upper-middle level of the hierarchy actually inhibited the kind of autonomy they were expected to demonstrate. It became obvious from our first interviews that managers believed that to be truly effective they needed more focus, guidance, and feedback than they were typically getting. As a general manager in the steel industry put it:

It is common practice to turn a manager loose and say “go for it” without a lot of input. It’s a sink or swim approach, and although it’s challenging, maybe even stimulating, it’s also scary and dicey. It’s a form of benign neglect that can be fatal.

Although managers wanted autonomy, they also wanted clear guidance and regular reassurance that they were on track and some clearly established guardrails to keep them from going over the edge. Many managers expressed skepticism at the homily that “managers are paid to manage”:

Just because I’m a manager doesn’t mean that I don’t need a boss. . . . We dream that it would be great not to have a boss, but when your boss cuts you loose completely, you can lose sight of what he thinks is important. I need to work within some mutually understood parameters.

The overwhelming majority of managers felt that their superiors treated them in ways that gave them some of the autonomy they wanted but a lot of the headaches they didn’t want. Self-management without input and interaction from the boss appears to be a formula for poor working relationships, foundering development, and ineffectiveness. Perhaps surprisingly, this finding held even among vice presidents.

The Myth Revisited:

Good managers are self-managing, often to an extraordinary degree. They want, appreciate, and accept autonomy, but they also want input, attention, and guidance that only their superiors can provide.

Myth 2: Managers worth their salt know what their jobs really entail.

Although this myth is related to the first myth, the issues involved here are subtly different. Consider the dilemma of a director of quality control in a large manufacturing operation. He had had three bosses in the past four years, his department had shifted from staff to line, his own staff had grown from three to twelve, and he had taken on three major quality improvement programs in the past year. Yet, he had little face-to-face contact with his boss and had not received any sort of formal performance review in over three years. This manager’s job had changed radically, but his current boss failed to develop a clear picture of his current job expectations and performance standards. The outcome, according to this director, is “that you do what you think is right, even though you are never quite sure what your boss is thinking or if he even understands your job.” This example was by no means rare among the managers. Formal job descriptions, however, were not as important as having “a clear-cut working agreement between you and your boss that accurately reflects your real job and priorities.”

Given the complex and dynamic nature of most managerial work, this problem is perhaps understandable. What is more difficult to understand, though, is why those upper-level managers do not take more active steps to help subordinate managers keep “focused,” “on track,” and “aligned” with the job’s current demands. As plant manager of a high-tech electronics operation put it: “Managers tend to do what they are most comfortable with or what they’ve done in the past, which is not necessarily the right thing to do now!”

The Myth Recast:

Even savvy managers need an unambiguous picture of what they are responsible for in their jobs and, just as important, what they are not responsible for. Without leadership from the boss, the subordinate manager has less clarity of purpose and is less effective.

Myth 3: Good managers know how well they are performing

Nobody wants to be left in the dark about how well they are performing. Nobody. Including me.

The marketing vice president who made this observation about himself admitted moments later that he was guilty of not giving his own subordinates the kind of feedback they wanted and needed. When confronted about the paradox, he indicated that more important issues tended to take precedence over concern with his people. When pressed further, he added that his people could “read the monthly report and performance indicators as well as I can.” Yet, he still wanted more feedback on his own performance from his boss, the CEO.

Managers felt that the feedback they received from their superiors was often too nebulous or negative. When things were going well, they received little, if any, feedback other than an occasional acknowledgment. In truth, managers wanted regular and ongoing feedback regardless of performance level. Managers firmly believed that they did not always know how well they were performing because of the ambiguous nature of their work. And the lack of feedback only served to make their work even more ambiguous. At the time of the interviews many managers feared that they were “expendable,” given the U.S. business climate, and this no doubt affected their insecurity. As one middle manager put it:

No one really lets you know how you’re doing unless there is a blow up. … I can’t remember a time this year my boss said something more than “keep it up,” which is open to a lot of interpretation.

A vice president in the same organization made an almost identical comment later the same day and added, “We all get a little weird wondering about how well we are doing.”

The Myth Reconsidered:

Managers want and need regular feedback on their performance. Managers performing ambiguous work want unambiguous feedback, and they want it on a regular basis.

Myth 4: Good managers seek out the information they need.

Again, although this myth echoes the themes of the foregoing myths, it has its own distinctive character. Managers regularly talked about the “information explosion” that they were experiencing in their organizations. The key issue for these managers was never about having enough information but about having the right information. Only a small percentage of their bosses received high marks for keeping them well informed on issues that affected them. Being “kept in the dark” was a major frustration, especially when organizational changes were involved. A frequent refrain echoed the theme, “I’m the last one to hear about things around here.”

Managers agreed that keeping informed was, without question, one of their responsibilities, but they wanted their bosses to be “information facilitators,” preferably through personal interaction. They registered many specific complaints about the overreliance on memos as the primary communication vehicle (described variously as “memo madness,” “memo mania,” or “memorhea”) and the absence of meaningful face-to-face communication. They frequently mentioned a lack of information on such issues as the boss’s current projects and workload, recent changes in the market or within the organization, strategic plans for the next year, recent budgetary developments, or activities in other departments. These issues tended to fall into the category of “things managers need to know and shouldn’t have to ask about.”

Managers did not generally feel that their superiors intentionally withheld information but rather that their superiors simply failed to take the time to keep them informed:

My boss tells me that my job is critical to this operation, so I’m surprised just how little time he takes to keep me filled in on things going on around here that affect me.

The Myth Refurbished:

Good managers are proactive information-seekers. Yet they often do not have access to the information that their bosses have. Their proactiveness is thus wasted on unnecessary work that their superiors could eliminate with better information flow.

Myth 5: Goals are adequate guides for effective managerial action.

The belief in goal setting is alive and well in corporate America. All of the organizations in this study employed some form of formal or informal goal setting with its managers. Indeed, goal setting was one of the dominant methods used to manage managers. Upper-level managers apparently believe that goals represent the best method for focusing managerial action. A director of MIS summarized the view this way:

Goals are a quick and easy thing to throw at a manager, and once they are written down, managers tend to react to them. Goals provide direction for managers that is invaluable. Most of us use them with the belief that things get done that way.

Goals do provide a target, but the managers in this study noted that, as usually practiced, managerial goal setting is characterized by three problems: the inappropriate nature of the goals; a lack of input in setting goals; and ineffective discussion of process and means concerning goal achievement.

Common frustrations surrounding the nature of the goals included: 1) having too many goals (“If everything is important then nothing is really important”); 2) having unrealistic or stretch goals (“I know you probably won’t get there, but give it your best shot”); 3) having incompatible goals (increase output and reduce head count; cut benefit costs and increase morale). These common factors frequently had a debilitating effect on goal-setting effectiveness.

Managers also said that higher ups often overrode their input into the goals they were expected to achieve. A vice president in the steel industry said:

If the president says we need to increase ROI by 3 percent this year, that’s it, and there is very little discussion. . . . We sort of use the military model these days.

Managers suggested that this top-down military model is becoming more frequent (contrary to much of the popular literature) because of competitive pressures and because goal setting is being used as a hammer instead of a motivational tool. Once goals were set, another frustration emerged. Managers seldom had a chance to discuss the means to accomplish the goals—process and strategy issues. Further, they were hesitant to initiate such a discussion for fear of appearing ignorant, indecisive, or overly dependent. An East coast plant manager:

We don’t want a discussion on every goal just the goals that count. Without some discussion of strategy, means, and style, goals themselves are no guarantee that the manager’s behavior is going to be effective.

The Myth Reframed:

Goals must be carefully established, provide for mutual input, and include some discussion of means and process. To use goal setting in a cavalier manner breeds poor communication, Monday-morning quarterbacking, and, ultimately, a stymied manager.

Myth 6: Competition among managers is good for the soul and for business.

These managers perceived their organizations’ cultures as increasingly competitive, especially in the managerial ranks. They saw themselves as having to compete excessively for promotions, merit raises, bonuses, budgets, access to superiors, personnel, and a variety of other resources that seemed progressively more scarce. Competition among managers is nothing new, but these respondents said that escalating competition can create a variety of problems if not properly managed.

Two factors were identified as primary causes for this problematic competition. First, today’s managerial workforce is generally more aggressive and competitive than in the recent past. Second, these managers are competing for a pie that seems smaller in terms of resources and opportunities. An automotive plant manager describes the outcome:

The competition among managers is, at times, ferocious. . . . This competition can easily degenerate into open conflict with people working against each other rather than for the organization. . . . You see it day in and day out.

One manager suggested that the “competitive flames are typically burning among most managers, and they don’t need to be fanned by the boss.” Managers criticized their superiors’ inability to recognize and properly manage conflicts between subordinate managers. They believed that excessive competition led to “impression management,” “gamesmanship,” “communications breakdowns,” “misguided egos,” “political maneuvering,” and in extreme cases even “sabotage” and “character assassination.” Managers made it clear that excessive conflict in the managerial ranks is quite commonplace, and that a manager can “get trapped spending more time thinking about how to win or defend yourself than how to improve productivity.”

A human resources director of a large service organization said, “The problem is that many managers believe that it is best to just let the two parties slug it out and let the best one win.” Many managers also believed that some superiors intentionally pitted them against each other, thinking that competition would “develop character.” Again, these beliefs are predicated on the assumption that competition is preferable to cooperation—an assumption that has been recently called into question.8 A general manager:

I really believe that excessive competition among managers is bad for business because they lose sight of what we are really trying to accomplish here. . . and I know I’ve been guilty of encouraging it and even ignoring it in the past, with very mixed out-comes.

The Myth Reconstructed:

Competition is effective among businesses, but not necessarily within a business. Collaboration and cooperation within the organization are demonstrably better strategies for improving competitiveness in the business arena. Upper-level managers must be careful to manage the resources that their subordinates need and to take proactive steps to reduce internal conflict.

Myth 7: Meetings and documentation are a central part of a manager’s job.

We all know that managers accomplish much of their important work by meeting and talking with other people in the organization. Talk is the work. But meetings too often get in the way of actually doing the work. As a consequence, meetings, the richest, most immediate source of critical information, can become the bane of a manager’s existence, according to our respondents.

The average manager in this study described spending an inordinate amount of “dead” time each week in meetings. An MIS manager’s schedule for an average week contained no fewer than three to five hours of meetings every day. Managers complained of “too many meetings, involving too many people, discussing too many topics, lasting too long, with too few outcomes.” Some meetings are indeed important and useful, of course, but the average meeting was described as “two times longer than it should be and generating half the results that it could.” One executive put it very succinctly: “Meetings about projects, programs, procedures, and proposals tend to take precedence over people and productivity.”

Managers were also frustrated with the overinsistence on written documentation and paperwork. The modern manager, it seems, is expected to document virtually everything and also to read everybody else’s documentation. They saw the excessive paperwork as effectively getting in the way of the work it was supposed to document. This topic evinced some of the most negative responses we heard. Managers hated the “rotten paperwork” and the “manufactured paper blizzard” that tended to hinder, not help, their work. Superiors, however, did not always see it that way, apparently believing that a paper trail was important and necessary to good management. That belief spawned almost uniformly derogatory reactions among our participants. The paradox here is disheartening; techniques that are intended to assist work actually inhibit it.

The Myth Revamped:

Meetings and paperwork should be designed to facilitate work and not to reduce time for performance-enhancing activities. A key question should be: Does the meeting or the paperwork increase the manager’s ability to do the job?

Myth 8: Management style cannot be changed so there is no point in discussing it with managers.

In these interviews managers frequently talked about their management style and that of their superiors. They used such traditional labels as “very participative,” “an autocratic type of guy,” and “very laissez-faire.” More colorful labels included “a Mr. Rogers sort,” “from the Darth Vader school,” and “a scorched-earth manager.” Managers agreed that there are indeed a variety of styles and that some are more effective than others.

However, the managers noted that people in their organizations rarely discussed management style in a proactive or systematic fashion, apparently because superiors assumed it was futile to try to change someone’s style. Superiors only raised the issue when there was a crisis or problem, at which time all of the manager’s difficulties were frequently conflated into the issue of “style.” It appears that management style, which is rarely discussed, critiqued, and scrutinized in more normal times, is quickly the target of criticism and complaint when managers are struggling. The interviewees, especially the middle managers, frequently asked, “If management style can be criticized and torn apart after the fact, why can’t it be systematically discussed and critiqued up front?”

Consider the experience of a general manager of a Midwest manufacturing organization who had a corporatewide reputation for being hard-nosed but also for getting results. For three years his operation was highly profitable and productive; he was viewed as a hero in the company and received large salary increases and bonuses. In year four a strike hit his plant, and his management team revolted over his “abrasive” management style. He was then brought to corporate headquarters and “dissected” for his inappropriate management style and behavior. His retort: “If my management style was a problem why didn’t you tell me before now?” He felt betrayed that his boss “saw the problem brewing but said nothing.”

Managers felt that management style could and should be talked about. Although they might not agree with their bosses’ assessment of their style, they at least want to know their bosses’ opinions of their strengths and weaknesses. One middle manager concludes:

It is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback or an after-the-fact analyst, but it requires honesty, guts, and energy to articulate an effective management style and then to coach the person. It sure doesn’t happen too much around here.

The Myth Reformulated:

Managerial style should not be a taboo subject. Managers realize that their management styles might include ineffective traits and types of behavior. Thus they want systematic discussion of their styles with their superiors before a problem or crisis.

Myth 9: Formal training and development programs can best accomplish management development.

All eighteen of these organizations offered formal in-house training, from programs on basic supervisory skills for lower-level managers to programs on a wide range of topics (time management, budgeting, performance appraisals, leadership, quality improvement, customer service, etc.) for middle and upper-level managers. In addition, almost all of these companies were willing to send their middle and upper-level managers to off-site programs. Managers usually found these formal programs stimulating and thought provoking. However, these programs had a curious downside—they raised the manager’s desire to change and improve, which caused frustration later when improvements couldn’t be made. One manager said, “You get all pumped up and decide to turn over a new leaf: and then you come back to work and reality sets in.”

Managers traced the problem to their superiors who had virtually no involvement in the training program. As a result, they failed to discuss with the manager what he or she learned and how it could be best implemented. Managers believed that their supervisors were frequently indifferent to management development. A director of marketing services said:

My boss thinks nothing of sending me to a $3,000 seminar each winter. I think it eases his conscience because he so rarely gives me feedback, or talks to me about my personal improvement, or my future. Is that too much to ask?

Managers agreed that a one-shot training program seldom had a lasting impact on their performance without regular coaching and input from their superiors. Said one manager: “A once-a-year discussion of a manager’s development is woefully inadequate. Once a year is a joke if that is the only time it is talked about.”

In contrast, the superiors who received the most positive comments were those who put effort into personally developing their subordinate managers. Such efforts tended to enhance commitment, loyalty, and motivation to help the senior manager. Managers wanted to discuss how to expand their duties, authority, and technical capabilities, and how to gain opportunities for cross training. In addition, they wanted their bosses to help them set behavioral goals and to offer feedback on progress.

The Myth Revitalized:

Managers want their superiors to take a more active role in their development. They need formal development, but it is the informal attention of their immediate superior that makes the real difference.

Myth 10: The formal performance appraisal adequately monitors and guides managerial performance.

One of the strongest findings in this study further affirmed the findings we reported in Sloan Management Review in 1988. Most managers were not satisfied with the quality of their annual performance appraisals. Given their concern over their ambiguous jobs, and the absence of regular and ongoing feedback, it is not surprising that managers registered strong and frequent dissatisfaction with the appraisal and review process. Their appraisals were “rushed,” “poorly written,” “filled with a lot of ambiguities,” and “lacked substance.” One manager sarcastically said, “It is tough to pack a year’s worth of suggestions and criticisms into one hour, but my boss thinks he’s good at it.”

Managers were especially concerned about their formal appraisals because these influenced merit pay increases, bonuses, and long-term promotability. In principle, the review should be tied directly to the manager’s overall performance. In practice, a variety of factors frequently blurred the relationship between performance and performance reviews. These included: the boss not really knowing the subordinate’s performance level; the superior’s reluctance to be honest; departmental politics; a lack of clarity about what was being evaluated; differences over means used to achieve ends; and the influence of merit money availability on the evaluation.

According to these managers, their appraisals would be more effective if they spent more time with their superiors clarifying their accountabilities. At the same time, they need ongoing performance feedback to take uncertainty out of their inherently ambiguous roles. These two key activities are not taking place to the degree that managers feel is necessary. This lack has a debilitating influence on performance as well as on the annual performance review.

The Myth Reassessed:

If evaluation is to be effective, the appraisal process must be ongoing and must have structure and substance. To give less than professional appraisals to professional managers creates the impression that performance and its evaluation are not well linked. It also fosters the impression that the evaluation process is not necessarily accurate and is fraught with politics.

Table 1 reiterates the ten myths and their revisions.

Discussion

We undertook this study to assess organizations’ effectiveness at utilizing what many consider to be their most important resource: their managers. We found from these interviews that highly educated, well-paid, and achievement-oriented professional managers frequently had a variety of performance needs that were not being satisfied by their higher-level managers. When managers of managers neglected to address these issues, the consequences were negative at both an individual and organizational level.

When a manager fails, many people are quick to conclude that he or she is somehow incompetent or simply doesn’t have the “right stuff”9 Comments like “he’s in over his head,” or “she just doesn’t have it” are frequently heard in organizational circles. Although this view may be valid in some cases, the managers in this study offered an alternative perspective. They cited example after example of managers who “failed” because they were mismanaged or simply neglected.

One might ask whether our interviewees were somehow atypical or inadequate because they were frustrated by their jobs’ ambiguity, their lack of feedback, the overly aggressive goals they were expected to achieve, the abundance of meetings they had to endure, and the unstructured appraisals they lived with, among other things. Probably not. These characteristics are assumed to come with the managerial territory, especially as a person climbs higher up the organizational ladder.10 But are all these attributes simply part of the nature of managerial work? Not necessarily.

It is in vogue to talk about the dynamic, ambiguous nature of managerial work, the multiple goals that must be pursued, the importance of continuous development, and the significance of managerial performance for organizational success. If these characteristics truly define managerial work, then why do these managers feel that their superiors are giving such little attention to these issues? If managers are in fact the pivotal group in an organization’s long-term success, then it would seem reasonable to assume that managers need to be guided, mentored, and developed in a manner commensurate with the demanding nature of their jobs. This study suggests that managers might actually need to be more effectively managed than others in the organization because of the sophisticated nature of their jobs.11

Several other factors also contribute to the 1990s call for improved management of managers. First is the distressing recognition that managers believe they are “disposable assets.” Either they must perform or give way to others who might be more effective. Managers in this study wanted to be effective and worked hard to be effective. Fear of losing their jobs not only powerfully motivated them, it heightened their need for support from their superiors. Second, managers are highly dependent on other people in the organization. They generally view their superiors as critical “linking pins” who help them manage and also understand the interdependencies that affect their overall performance. Third, managers have a tremendous desire to move up the ladder and succeed, despite realizing that opportunities at higher levels have become more limited. They view their superiors as being critical to the success they desire.

Collectively, these factors suggest that managers want and need more input and guidance from their superiors. Yet, senior managers seem typically to believe that managers are autonomous, self-starting, and self-directing individuals or they would not be managers—a belief that governs their approach to managing their managers. This belief also leads to dysfunctional attitudes such as “benign neglect” and the “let them sink or swim” mentality.

Organizations would be well served to do some soul-searching on these issues. The myths identified here should serve as a catalyst to reconsider individual or organizational approaches to managing managers. To this end we believe that overall management and organizational effectiveness can be enhanced by emphasizing some fundamental managerial practices. While many factors, such as subordinate managers’ professional maturity, tenure, and track record, influence their performance needs, the nature of managerial work makes it clear that all managers need their superiors’ involvement and support in achieving effectiveness.

Recommendations

These recommendations are not a quick fix. Yet, refreshingly, they do not cost the company anything. They instead require those who manage managers to be willing to reconsider how they view their subordinate managers and how they spend their work time.

The managers in the study contributed to these recommendations. They noted three specific sets of activities that superiors need to enact. We emphasize three critical management imperatives:

Managing Focus

• To achieve maximum performance, a manager must be able to focus. To focus, a manager needs a clear understanding of his or her responsibilities, goals, and priorities. To this end, managers should write down their goals and priorities on a quarterly or semi-annual basis. Their superiors should do the same and then compare notes. A mere 50 percent overlap is not uncommon. Meet and discuss ways to close the gap. Such a discussion better focuses the manager’s efforts, keeps the superior informed, and provides a solid basis for evaluating performance.
• Superiors and their managers should set SMART goals together: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-oriented, with Timetable attached. Include a discussion of process and means. Goals should reflect both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the manager’s job.

Providing Support

• Managing managers should happen on a personal level; face-to-face contact is important. Schedule time regularly to discuss operations with managers. This not only assists the junior manager, but helps the senior manager understand current performance.
• Schedule regular one-on-one meetings to provide specific feedback on performance. Keep managers informed on issues that affect them directly. Supply unsolicited information to open up communication channels and to make performance improvement discussions the norm instead of an annual event tied to compensation.
• Use a subordinate manager’s time and energy judiciously. Limit the number of meetings managers must attend. Learn to run effective meetings. Include only those managers whose input bears directly on the meeting’s purpose. The same streamlining should take place regarding documentation. A key question should be, “Is this paperwork worth the cost of a manager’s time?”
• Manage interpersonal and interdepartmental conflict through personal mediation. Developing conflict resolution skills enhances a manager’s ability to build an effective team and reduces distracting and potentially destructive conflict between managers.

Developing Talent

• Managers want a boss who offers ideas on how to improve performance. Upper-level managers must devote time to coaching and mentoring, which can take the form of frequent interactions, quarterly mini-performance reviews, or taking a more active role in the manager’s training.
• Conduct sincere, unambiguous performance appraisals. Treat the appraisal process as a way of developing a strategic plan for managing individual managerial performance, rather than as a bureaucratic requirement.

These activities might cost the upper-level manager a little extra time over the work year, but they accrue benefits. They will help build a more effective working relationship so that the two parties can meet both personal and organizational needs, together. We do not intend to criticize, but rather to suggest that traditional approaches to managing managers need to be aligned to the demands of U.S. work culture in the 1990s. A general manager offered an analogy that is worth remembering in this context:

We really do need to challenge our thinking on the way we treat our managers. . . . It’s a lot like a marriage; different times have different demands but you always need to keep talking, sharing values and goals, spending time together to meet each others’ needs, or you’ll grow apart and eventually divorce out of frustration. . . . It’s just like managing people; it all goes back to the day-to-day stuff that leads to long-term survival and success.