BAW Ep. 14: Why are managers so busy pt.2

Last time I talked about why managers are so busy, and their subordinates aren't. If you haven't read the article here. Tl;dr, it's because they take up their subordinates' work and pile it up on top of their own.

However, there is another big factor why managers are so busy, too busy.

It's because managers don't manage. Let me explain what that means.

Most of the time, a manager is hired internally rather than externally. In business sense, it seems like a logical thing to do. Why? Well, the person is already familiar with the business, they know about the team, and wouldn't need that much training. This notion of convenience and cost-saving is amplified when businesses compare it against hiring externally. It involves direct cost such as having to pay more as outside candidates tend to ask more for a position requiring the same level of experience and skills. It also involves indirect cost such as the time and effort to train the newcomers about the business.

Then there's also this tribal emotion at play where people feel like it's better to have somebody from the inside manage them because they're already familiar with the person hence they know how to handle this new manager. Although we'd like to think we are logical, at the end of the day, a lot of our decisions, even business ones, are largely emotional.

So, we promote managers from within.

And here where the problem starts for the manager.

This person-- let's call him Mr. Ravi, had worked at a company for 4 years. Because of his performance and loyalty, the CEO decided that he would be the perfect candidate to become his department's manager. Why not? He has been great at his job, he is agreeable and has relatively good relationships with his colleagues, and the pay raise is 30% below what they would pay if they were to hire a manager externally.

It makes perfect 'sense'.

However, Ravi, good as he may at his old job, is just that.

He is good at what he does as an executive, but he is not necessarily good at becoming a manager. The skillset he used back then was good to achieve what he needed to achieve, but maybe, not so much as a manager. Ravi wasn't promoted because he has that managerial skill or that he possesses excellent leadership qualities, no. He was promoted largely because it's (seemingly) convenient for everybody.

Being good at what he did before means that he might find himself hard to let it go. I faced this myself, not gonna lie, and I still do. I'll share how it looks like. For example, Ravi was a Marketing Executive. He was good at producing collaterals, designs, and website elements. He was praised for his works, and he's attached his self-fulfillment directly to the praises he obtains when he produces a good design.

After becoming a manager, that work is no longer his work, and thus he lost something big. At times, he finds himself doing the designs themselves rather than delegating it to his subordinates. This keeps him busy, and makes him oblivious to his actual responsibility; managing people.

And it doesn't help that the team, or the organization still depends on him to produce the great quality work although he is now the manager of the department. This vicious environment created by inept management and uninformed executives is what making managers too busy. Managers are expected to manage people, KPIs, planning for employees' growth, and STILL perform what they did best before. How then, are managers not too busy?

This, paired with the blissful ignorance of the management not to provide any support and training to become a leader and a manager, will only bring the team burning down to the ground. Subordinates are not being given the trust to perform their responsibilities, hence creating dissent and grieve. And this might be one of the reasons why 25% of the team resigned when a manager is promoted from within, according to a study.

But it might also be frustration and jealousy. Either is a fair assumption.

At the same time, the manager, busy with the tasks they're not supposed to do, neglects his own responsibilities. KPIs are not being set properly, people are not taken care of, disputes and dissatisfaction are left to grow their roots, and although things look fine on the surface, believe me; it's just waiting to burst.

How?

Well, the manager might get burnt out. As a business, this is bad for you. Let's say that manager finally realizes what he is good at and finds a place that would give him what he needs and deserve, he might take that opportunity. If that happens, then a new manager needs to be appointed. And how would businesses do this again?

By repeating the cycle, hoping it would be different this time, but refuses to do anything different to reach a different result. And that is the very definition of insanity as coined by Einstein.

At that point, there's nobody else to blame but themselves. Ill-informed management has only themselves to be blamed for not being thorough enough in hiring and preparing someone for a position so important. You might have heard about this but according to a recent study, our mental wellbeing is so significantly affected by our manager!

If we have a bad one, it increases the likeliness of us developing extreme mental fatigue, anxiety, depression, and at the end of the day, we all have to make the decision for ourselves-- so we quit, right? And thus, yet another huge loss to the company.

So, what to do?

There are things that both the new manager and the management can do to curb this issue. However, I feel that if I were to include those steps in this article, it would be a tad too long. I make it a case not to write that much so we all can take it slow one thing at a time as I do so like myself. So, it's a topic for another day, and I promise to write it if I'm still able.

Until next time and as always, good luck.