Common Managerial Issues

"Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet." - Henry Mintzberg

Management is as old as mankind.?Wherever there is a need to carry out a task - the need for management is felt.?Two or more people need coordination, division of labour, planning, communication - all of these are the facets of?management.??

Management is often the most talked-about skill within any organization.?Every company conducts various training courses for management skills upgrade.?Various management schools and institutes offer courses on management. In media; management and leadership have their own coverage space.

In short, management is all-pervasive and the most discussed and sought-after skill.?But even with a long history and pervasiveness - "management" has not become easier.? Rather with remote working, global operations, diverse teams, and 24 by & operations,?it has become difficult than ever.??

Previously I have written few articles on Management.?These are found here.?

1. My favourite quotes on Business, Entrepreneurship & Management
2. Essential Management Tools
3. Stuff that we managers don't do enough

The flavour of this article is on "what goes wrong" with the "act of management".?What are some common mistakes of management and how to prevent these??

Let's review these.

1. Poor Communication?

You may say; communication - no, never. In fact, we get an overload of communication. We get 100+ emails on daily basis and countless meetings that we attend.?

Surely - it is not less that is the problem - but it is more.? Believe me; it is still less communication that is the problem - correctly put as "poor" communication that is the problem.?Those 100+ emails and those meetings; don't necessarily improve the communication problems.?

Even with the overload of information and so-called communication; I have seen poor communication being the major cause of concern that leads to many issues. Whether it is the status of the project or policy announcement or refuting that rumour that is going around in an organization; timely and to the point communication in the hands of concerned people don't come by easily. Decisions about projects come through the chain much later than expected. Interdepartmental decisions and their escalation add to more such communication problems.

Like the old saying "there is nothing called over communication"

“Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.” — Peter Drucker

2. Failure to Delegate (including the decision-making)

"To err is human, to blame it on someone else shows management potential."?

The true delegation includes power delegation as well. I have seen both kinds of the delegation being the problems; either delegation being not there or delegation of responsibilities without the appropriate decision making power being delegated. In any case, failure to delegate (or even delays in delegation) leads to poor decision making, delays, cost overruns and an overall limbo situation meanwhile this is sorted out.

"Delegating work?works, provided the one delegating works, too."

3. Priorities misalignment/Lack of goal clarity

"Poor management can increase software costs more rapidly than any other factor."?-?Barry Boehm

Priorities or goal clarity is the classic of managerial problems. Most people in management positions may believe that Goals and Priorities are well understood and every member of the team knows these. But in most cases that is not the case. If this is the case, then why do we always seem to be "fire fighting". Why there is a need for all those overtime and weekends? Why do projects fail or are delayed?

This problem or mistake manifests in the following ways:

• need for fire fighting
• reacting to the situation (rather than working on the plan)
• treating all things as equal (any escalation especially from the client or other department becomes a priority)
• wastage of efforts (decisions not taken on time or delayed)

4. Incomplete / Non-existing Feedback Loop

With formal mid-years and year-end appraisals in place - we are getting some formal feedback. Some organizations also have 360-degree feedback. However, these come too late (stale) and become too mild.

Feedback about progress, delays, mistakes should be timely and both ways. A manager should be ready and confident to provide true feedback to employees so that situation is salvaged, and course correction is carried out. Similarly, managers should build such an atmosphere that employees are free to express their thoughts, ideas and opinions.

Though the creation of such a feedback loop is one of the easiest things that can be done; often we find this being non-existent.

“First rule of leadership: everything is your fault.” - A Bug's Life

5. Lack of appreciation of the different styles of working

"In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”?-?The Peter Principle

Not appreciating that there can be more than one way to achieve the result is a common managerial issue. When an employee tries to build a new process or improve the process such that results come faster, chapter - how many managers readily accept this at the face value.

Managers have become managers by following a style of operations, so they expect the same style should be followed by all those who report to them. Even small tasks such as creating a PowerPoint slide is also decided by the manager. An open mind about new ways to solve the problem is not a ready skill that managers possess. This skill is an acquired skill that managers have to learn on their own.

6. Poor Boundary management

“When I finally got a management position, I found out how hard it is to lead and manage people.” - Guy Kawasaki

By boundary management - I mean the issues such as interdepartmental topics, or with vendors or with customers that require managerial attention.

Many times we have seen that these problems are left to junior staff to manage. Not that I am saying these staff can't resolve the issues - but at times a level of seniority is required so that issues are addressed immediately. Some agreements between two departments eventually require those two department heads, but then what I have seen these discussions start with two employees and slowly go up the chain or when the problems become bigger. Eventually, the department heads do have to get involved. So in this case one wonders why this was not done at the start of the discussion. The second issue with this is that junior staff tend to get demotivated and see that everything is politics. Focus goes for a toss while the problem remains.

I hope you agree with these commons issues/mistakes of the managerial roles. I don't have some ready solutions, but I believe that the realization about these issues is the first step towards remedy!

"The bottleneck is found on top of the bottle, which explains where to focus for the organizational bottleneck!"