Managing Your Workload in a Promotion!

One of my younger clients—in his late 20s—came to me seeking advice on how to move up in his career and, as the next step, become a senior manager. A year later he got promoted to a senior manager role with four managers (his previous role) now reporting to him. I expected him to be excited about this outcome, but, instead, he was unhappy and concerned.

Although he was still ramping up in his new role, he complained that his workload had greatly increased since he now has many managers reporting to him. After a pause, he wondered if this promotion was worth pursuing since it has considerably increased his workload and upset his work-life balance. He sees that getting only worse as he wonders about his next promotion. 

When I explored further, he admitted that each of his managers had their own teams under them, ranging from three to 12 people. When I mentioned to him that during such a major transition, he may see his workload temporarily increasing, as he gets familiar with the overall workflow and learning how to manage it, getting to know his manager reports and their team members, and developing a rhythm in his new job; but as things settle down, I assured him, that his workload should not change. I further assured him that he would be doing the same amount of work; just different work and doing it differently. He seemed puzzled and surprised by my casual tone in which I mentioned that to him; he expected me to say, instead, that the increased workload would continue since he has to look after four managers and their teams in his new role!

This is a common misperception among professionals who manage resources, and it is especially acute in newly promoted individual contributors, who become manager for the first time. Although my client had crossed that state, he had not overcome that mindset as he laddered up to the next promotion. Many carry this misperception as their responsibilities rise and continue to spread their wrath as micromanagers making everyone under them suffer with their inadequacies. 

Longitudinal studies—mostly Gallop surveys, which are conducted annually across a hundred countries on 50,000 or more employees at all levels, during the past 60 years—have shown that nearly 80% of the managers at all levels are dysfunctional, incompetent, disengaged, or inadequate in some ways. I see the evidence of this in my own coaching practice because nearly 60% of my coaching practice stems from my clients’ inability to manage their dysfunctional bosses. 

Why does this happen, as it was beginning to happen with my client? 

The main reason for this managerial malady is their lack of understanding of the difference between technical work and management work. A good leader understands their work and is able to make the distinction between these two categories of their workload, which are orthogonal. By “orthogonal” I mean exactly what the word suggests; they are not connected. What that means is that by doing more technical work you cannot compensate for the ignored management work. Further, undone management work quietly piles up until it becomes unsustainable and results in catastrophic outcomes, including having to go out of business. Undone technical work, on the other hand, is like a burning fire that needs to be urgently put out. Typical examples of urgent technical work include a customer complaint, a P0 failure, a failed qualification test, or a missed deadline, among others. 

Management Work: Typical management work can be divided into its four main functions: Leading, Planning, Organizing, and Setting up Controls. Each of these functions, in turn, has its own activities that subsume it. For example, the function of Leading subsumes Motivating, Recruiting, Developing, Promoting, Decision Making, and Communicating. Similarly, the three remaining functions have their own activities subsumed under them. 

Although each of these activities requires a keen understanding of the underlying technical work, it is these management activities that define their managerial responsibility, regardless of a particular technical area, which they must own. Thus, these functions and activities are universal to the basic management framework. Together, these functions and their respective activities make up the management rubric.

While a manager at each level must do the appropriate amount of technical work, they must understand their management responsibilities with greater ownership. If they spend their time doing mostly technical work—because they find comfort in doing this work they well understand—instead of doing the management work that only they can do—their team will suffer its inexorable long-term consequences. 

For example, if a manager does not prioritize their time to recruit new team members to support increasing workload—an activity under the Leading function—the mounting workload will inevitably result in the overworked team members to leave, exacerbating the situation. Thus, delayed or undone management work has a long-term deleterious effect on an organization’s effective functioning. A simpler way to look at how dysfunctional managers view these two workloads is to carry them out as voluntary (management) and involuntary (technical) responsibilities, although each is something any person at a manager level—including CEO—must do as their job responsibility to be effective in their role. 

When managers revert to micromanaging, they are making a conscious choice to do technical work preempting the management work that only they can do. As they continue to focus on doing more and more technical work, their undone management work quietly piles up resulting in management debt. When this management debt reaches a critical mass, their organization implodes—or they get fired. This situation is depicted in Figure-1. 

Figure-1 shows how neglecting management work and doing technical work as its proxy quickly results in piling management debt—and technical debt to boot—as shown in the middle gray zone. If a manager does not appreciate the management responsibilities they have and preemptively does technical work in its place, the management debt becomes unsustainable and the team suffers as this goes on unabated. Eventually, a major change is inevitable.

It may seem paradoxical how doing more technical work in lieu of the right management work results in more technical debt. This is counterintuitive because the nature of management work. When a manager is engaged in doing unnecessary technical work that their team can do, they are micromanaging at the expense of doing the right management work that only they can do. Apart from the team’s resenting this intrusion in their work and creating varying degrees of chaos, the manager is guilty of ignoring the management work that can help the team become more productive, more effective, and more empowered. 

If that manager reprioritizes that time on doing what the team needs to improve its development productivity and velocity by giving it a better work environment, more modern test tools, and up-to-date infrastructure—all of which are activities under management work—the manager has done their job. Lack of these amenities often result in releasing inadequate end products, which amount to piling technical debt because of post-release customer complaints. Thus, doing more technical work does not obviate management work. This is what I meant previously by its orthogonality to technical work.   

The Antidote: The best antidote for preventing this inevitability of piling technical and management debt, compounded by a demoralized team because of interfering manager is for a manager at each level to understand their division of labor between management work and technical work and for them to focus on doing the right management work that only they can do, leaving the appropriate technical work to those below them. This is one of the hardest objectives to achieve as most technical individuals gravitate to the work they understand well and the work that demands their urgent attention. To them interfering in technical work is their infrangible right at the expense of ignoring their management responsibilities. 

The price of this team dysfunction stemming from a manager at any level not appreciating and engaging in the right management work and the work that only they can do is incalculable. Many team members accept this as inevitable and suffer through this malady as if their job depends on it—and it does. But, those enlightened managers and team members—the remaining 20% --who  understand the importance of the two types of work a manager must do and recognizes its division can make the difference between a mediocre team and a soaring team. 

Good luck!