It’s the 21st Century - Stop Managing

The majority of people in employment are hard working, loyal, trustworthy, and passionate - except for the 8 hours they spend in work each day! But the problem isn’t with the workers or staff, as most senior managers might think, it’s with the ‘mindset’ of managers, their systems, processes and structures, and their need to control. You might disagree with this, but just ask your workers if they are excited about coming into work each day.

Those of you that were around in the 80’s and 90’s would be able to remember the ‘revolution’ which took place with frontline workers and unions. The revolution of the new millennium is now in the Boardroom, with senior managers. We have to stop managing with 19th Century thinking and leap to the 21st Century if we are to survive as a country, and industry.

‘Leaders’ must become critical about managerial thinking and practice. We tend to treat people like children, telling them when to come in, what to do, when to go home, even at times giving permission to go to the toilet. The problem, if we treat them like children, is that they will often respond like children.

Yet, to question how managers at all levels manage, becomes an extremely complex task. This level of criticality and scrutiny can cause uncertainty, fear and worry for most managers. They quickly realise they are not necessarily adding value to the ‘customer’ but simply creating more bureaucracy, rules and procedures which can be counterproductive and costly.

A commonly held belief is the theory that for an organisation to be successful it has to have a good manager (usually male…another argument, for another time) at the top of it’s structure. Well unfortunately, the evidence suggests over the past 20 years, organisations are successful despite the manager, their systems, planning, and strategising; not because of it.

At DNA Wales, we’ve found in our 7 year research that the solution to almost every problem will be found within the organisation already via the ‘frontline staff ’. They are already your consultants, leaders, ready, willing, passionate and hopefully loyal to the cause. That’s if you allow them to say what they think, encourage debate, trust their opinion, and give them reason to trust you. This is why management in its whole sense must be removed, for it hinders this relationship.

To remove the managerial practice of command and control and consider alternative approaches is of course difficult in some industries. However, we should all want an organisation in which there is not just one pair of eyes, the manager, looking out for the competition, and searching for customers, but a thousand pairs of eyes, all of the employees in the organisation, each watching the competition and searching for customers. This doesn’t just apply for small private sector companies, but large multinational companies and Public Services.

Managerial meddling is bringing industry and public services to their knees by a desire to control, plan and limit the interaction of staff. It’s always anathema to me that we believe in democracy in all areas of our life, except the workplace, and this needs to change. I strongly believe that managers get in the way of staff who have the capability, desire and skills to satisfy customers, if only they were supported via a system of trust, freedom, true empowerment and democracy.

The managers must now empower staff to make things happen – particularly to ‘delight’ the customer within the boundaries of budgets. Staff and front line workers should be trusted – as adults. We live in a democratic society outside of work, why do we have to be answerable to those above in the workplace who are not democratically elected. Why isn’t everyone in the organisation trusted to make the right decision in line with the organisations’ agreed values?

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