Celebrate the substratum in your organization

I was listening to an anecdote this morning. There was a mother and a daughter walking out of a house. The child is barely 4 years old, and bubbling with energy. She is jumping up and down, laughing, shouting, and the whole neighbourhood is fascinated with her. The mother is not so amused. She just holds the child and walks, sometimes keeps her on the side with a scolding, holds her hand and crosses the busy junction and walks to her destination.

The mother is often judged for being of low energy, no enthusiasm about life. The child is appreciated and celebrated. However, without the stable hand of the mother, the child is in danger. Without the working hours and the work at home of the father and the mother, the child has no future. The slog hours are put by them, often to the admonishment of others that they are not enjoying their child enough. Well, if they just sit back all day and enjoy the child, like her grandparents can afford to do, the child would reach nowhere. The family would be in shambles if everyone just stared at the child in affection and excitement.

Organizations have such a layer. The middle management. The uncelebrated ones.

The young ones are celebrated for being cheap and cheerful. They bring in new skills, they bring in life to the organization. The write code very fast and smart. They even get more than their share of the pound of flesh of the organization in terms of salary. They come with all fancy ideas and excitement, and the CEO and his team often get carried away by them.

They forget about that manager of theirs who actually makes sure that the energy of the young worker is channelized in the right direction, that he comes to work every day and is productive, that he is collaborating with other team members. She monitors his performance, gives him feedback, often to have a reaction of a know-it-all scorn by the youngster.

There are others of that tribe of unknown middle. The project manager who is often hated by everyone for the daily grind she makes happen, for following up with people for tasks which they should have done without follow up, but she gets blamed for micro management. She tracks metrics which annoys the engineers! Who is she to define our productivity? Has she even written enough lines of code? She gets all the ridicule. But in the strange menagerie of the organization, she gets work done from all the animals.

We do not celebrate these quiet workers, because of whom organizations survive. The second fiddles. The mycelium. They are not just ignored, they are the ones whose jobs are put to the axe, when the latest nice-and-shiny, young-and-bubbly thing comes to the organization, saying that all these middle aged, middle management is useless, and here is me, the cowboy, the cowgirl, the one who will save your organization. The CEO falls for that, and the fancy change management consultants who come in with show and pomp.

Another year goes by. Very action packed year. The fancy consultants have already fired the middle management for their lack of impact. The young ones are celebrated and glorified. There will be crisis after crisis, and the heroes of the organization will slog day and night, weekdays and weekends, 24 by 7, and solve the problems. No one, including themselves, realize that they are the ones who created that mess, which they are now spending time to solve. There is the story of a judge who was solving corruption all around him, but never saw the corruption within. Such are these celebrated newbies and the fancy consultants who are the change makers. They get extra bonuses, awards and appreciations for solving the crises, and after a year, the organization moves on but has more and more crises. The middle management who glued everything are missing or highly understaffed. But they slog on, though tired. The organizations shows tremors, instability.

By then, the fancy ones are bored and fatigued. The young ones who we celebrated have already left for other jobs where they will again be celebrated. The fancy ones blame the organization for not being able to execute their dreams. They will also blame the leadership for all the mess they allowed in the middle management and in hiring and what not. And these fancy mercenaries also will go away.

Take care of your middle management while they are still there. Find the second fiddles. Recognize the mycelium. Know the substrata under the soil which keep the current going. They are the ones who keep the flow of the river going. These underground waterways are never seen, and in the rush of sand mining, we destroy them. We realize the peril only when the entire river bank caves in. Then we wonder why, not knowing that we are the ones who destroyed the substrata.

Recognize those quiet workers in your organization who provide the much needed stability. The middle management. The project managers. The quality managers. The testers. The test automation engineers. The IT staff. The HR Business partner. They run deep, while the other fancy ones come and go, and they will keep your organization stable.

Nurture them. Reskill them. Retrain them. That will be smarter, logically and financially, for the organization's growth and success.

There is an organization that was in news recently who saved significant dollars just by retaining and retraining its middle management.

Yes. It is well deserved to them. And it makes best business sense and financial sense. Works both ways.