Middle Managers Are All That’s Wrong With the Universe…Or At Least The British Economy
I’m so seldom truly outraged by what I read that it’s hard to work up a really good rant, but then I read this article in Management Issues and almost had a coronary. You can read the whole article here….but let me share with you its opening salvo:
Far from being the backbone of the modern workplace, hapless middle managers have been castigated by Britain’s company bosses as the single biggest impediment to success and greater productivity.
More than a third of British directors believe their organisation is “paralysed” by ineffective managers, with underperforming middle managers costing the UK economy a massive £220 billion a year.
A study by management consultancy Hay Group has placed the blame for Britain’s productivity malaise squarely on the shoulder of middle managers, long considered the backbone of the modern workplace.
Moreover, four out of 10 directors believe their middle managers are the single greatest barrier to achieving their company’s objectives.
Okay, what outrages me the most?
- The claim that four out of 10 directors believe middle managers are the single greatest barrier to achieving their company’s objectives
- The notion that bad managers cost 220 pounds annually (and I can guarantee that’s not in salaries)
- The fact that this Hay Group sells management training, but apparently either not enough of it or what they sell doesn’t work worth a hoot, cause there are a lot of incompetents out there
All those claims may be true or not… but here’s what really outrages me. My limited understanding of the usual HR process tells me that the managers who apparently are throwing spanners in the normally smooth-running machinery of Business were hired by the very directors who are griping about them- so who’s fault is THAT?
I could be wrong, but here are a couple of things that could explain this:
- Very intelligent, capable senior managers carefully screen, interview and hire seemingly capable people who become incompetent immediately upon assuming their new positions
- Those same people are taking good, competent individual contributors and putting them in impossible situations, then passing the blame on. (God herself could not oversee an SAP implementation in 6 months, I don’t care what the project plan says)
- They are taking good individual contributors, putting them in jobs that don’t require the skill sets that got them there, and not giving them the tools, training and support they need to learn the new job, so they’re not as effective as they should or could be
- Middle managers really are useless, drooling morons. I’m not sure how someone with absolutely no power can negatively impact that much of an organization but for want of a nail, and all that……
Arise my brethren and sistren- we don’t have to take it. The revolution will not be televised, but it will be podcasted……Stay tuned.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Wayne:
Based on my current experience, I choose numbers 2 and 3 as the more likely cause of the problem. Way too many senior executives have forgotten that their main job is to provide the tools - including adequate time - that their people need to accomplish their work.
In addition, there is good reason for caution and even obstructionism when the boss’s “visions” face real hurdles in implementation that CANNOT be overcome with the allowed resources. As you implied - some things take more time than the salesmen said they would and that is not the fault of the manager as much as it is the fault of the idiot - oops, did I really write that disrespectful term about senior executives - who made the purchase decision in the first place.
I have been told several - make that many - times “that train has left the station; you better get on board”. I am trying to come up with a pithy response - here is my most recent iteration “If you think it is hard to stop a train after it has left the station, try catching one that is going over a cliff.”
BTW - there might be a character in this post, perhaps the symbol for British currency, that is causing iTunes to determine that the feed is invalid. I have episode #83 in my library, but I am now getting an exclamation point that provides a popup message saying that the URL does not appear to be a valid podcast URL. I had the same message on The Atomic Show a couple of weeks ago and it turned out that I had included an ampersand symbol in the blog post that iTunes did not like.
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:01 am
[...] Middle Managers Are All Thats Wrong With the UniverseOr At Least The British Economy [...]
February 23rd, 2007 at 7:22 pm
[...] This rant from Cranky Middle Manager Wayne is wonderful. Here’s a slice: All those claims may be true or not… but here’s what really outrages me. My limited understanding of the usual HR process tells me that the managers who apparently are throwing spanners in the normally smooth-running machinery of Business were hired by the very directors who are griping about them- so who’s fault is THAT? [...]