Scott David’s Post

Insightful read: The Quiet Magic of Middle Managers “…serving as the invisible glue that gives us a shot at sticking together.” “The democratic fabric is held together by daily acts of consideration that middle managers are in a position to practise and foster. The best of them do not resolve our disputes but lift us above them so that we can see disagreements from a higher and more generous vantage point.” Waving that magic wand, middle managers have the opportunity to lead with strong ethics, to foster a healthy culture and build strong and lasting relationships. Read on…. https://lnkd.in/gNuxpEgD

A recent vacation provided me with an opportunity to catch up on some reading, and as a result, I am sharing this article along with a personal reflection. While I don’t consider myself as eloquent a writer as David Brooks, my experiences align closely with the insights presented in his article. This article connected with me, and not just because of the Ted Lasso reference. (Those who know me best know that Ted Lasso is not only my all-time favorite show, but the character is also my fictional role model.) I’ve read several of David’s books (my wife and I are currently reading “How To Know A Person”) and I’ve learned that he challenges you to think deeply and wrestle with uncomfortable topics. For those in upper management, this article serves as a reminder of an uncomfortable truth: the direct reach of senior leaders, even CEOs, is inherently limited. Like everyone else, executives have the same number of hours in a day and can only be in one place at a time. In a company with 500 employees, the CEO represents just 0.2% of the workforce. It’s the remaining 99.8%—the employees interacting with clients, colleagues, and partners—who truly shape the company’s client service experience and define its corporate culture. In the article, David honors the pivotal but often overlooked role that middle managers play. In companies of all sizes (except perhaps the largest corporations), middle managers directly impact every employee. Building on David’s’ insights, I’d like to credit another great mind: Tony Bridwell, MBA. Having worked with Tony several times over the years (he’s also an accomplished author), I’ve learned that a CEO’s greatest power lies in leverage. Recognizing that CEOs cannot be omnipresent, the solution lies in eliminating dissonance throughout the organization. Clear and frequent communication across the firm provides the greatest opportunity for all employees to tell a consistent story about the company, live its values, exemplify its strengths, and overcome inevitable challenges. Ultimately, successful companies and leaders understand that it’s not about them—it’s about the collective effort of everyone else. Authentic humility becomes essential in winning over the hearts and minds of the team members who directly interface with clients, employees, and partners.

We raise a glass and bow our heads to the patron saint of middle managers: Oishi Kuranosuke! It's not easy to keep 47 workers aligned, but he found a way to muster them for flawless execution;) Who knew that serving as the glue that keeps an organization from disintegrating could be such a noble calling... --- "The democratic fabric is held together by daily acts of consideration that middle managers are in a position to practice and foster. The best of them don’t resolve our disputes but lift us above them so that we can see disagreements from a higher and more generous vantage point. Democracy is more than just voting; it is a way of living, a way of living generously within disagreements, one that works only with ethical leaders showing the way." - David Brooks in NYT opinion piece --- My reference to the 47 Ronin is obviously intended to be a bit snarky. Given the final fate of Oishi and his crew - enforced if honorable ritual suicide followed by centuries of valorization - one can hardly expect the rest of us corporate warriors to emulate his commitment to service over self. That said, there really is (or was) a tradition of respect for middle managers in Japan (although recently it seems to be evolving into a tradition of something closer to sympathy or even pity). When I arrived in Japan in the late 80s, you frequently heard people talk about how the paucity of inspirational, authoritative leadership at the top of large business and political organizations was compensated for by the high quality collaboration of middle level leaders. The stories I heard back then shaped my thinking on management. While the United States was leaping headlong into a period of worship of entrepreneurial heroes and captains of industry, I've tended to have just as much or more respect for and curiosity about the folks in the middle that put the meat on the bones of strategy and serve as the joints and connective tissue that constrain organizational entropy. In the 21st century, I hope our middle level leaders (many of whom may look like B players in terms of individual output) are rewarded more generously than their archetypal forebears. They deserve more respect and recognition for the ongoing things they do to hold their organizations, colleagues, teams and customers together!

"Nobody writes poems about middle managers. Nobody gets too romantic about the person who runs a department at a company, or supervises a construction crew, or serves as principal at a school, manager at a restaurant or deacon at a church. But I’ve come to believe that these folks are the unsung heroes of our age." Love this article on the Quiet Magic of Middle Managers in the New York Times: https://lnkd.in/eWdazGTX For so long being a manager has been looked down upon. Stuck in the middle, caught in a web of approvals, passing requests up and down the organisation, supervising people and monitoring task completion. Management has been seen as a necessary step on the ladder, but one that most want to get through and out the other side as quickly as possible. On to bigger and better things... As the article suggests, we're missing a big trick. A talented people manager can be the glue in an organisation, even a community. Their habits and rituals with their teams create strong cultures, and this can ripple across organisations. The impact of a people manager who is motivated by understanding others, helping others, who, above everything else, wants to see their team develop and grow, is huge. These managers can bring work to life. They create teams people want to be a part of. They build human connections and nurture networks of trust. And this is the lifeblood in thriving organisational cultures and businesses. So - it's time to identify and develop Human Managers! 1️⃣ Focus management roles on spending time with people - that's where the magic happens 2️⃣ Identify people with the genuine motivation, skills and potential to do just this (offer different progression routes for those who don't want to do this) 3️⃣ Take away the management tasks that keep managers away from their teams and help them develop their skills in building strong relatiomnships with people ❤️ 🧠 Human Managers are a key component in the Make It Human vision for a human-focused future of work. Join the Make It Human Club for regular updates on how we can create better, brighter, more fulfilling experiences of work (it's free!): https://lnkd.in/ehzwFBK2 #PeopleManagement #NewEra #HumanSkills #MiddleManagement #Engagement #Productivity #Innovation #Loyalty #Trust

Middle managers have the "power to decrease employee burnout, empower and maintain intelligent and hard-working team members, create lasting interdepartmental connections, translate and implement company-wide decisions and ultimately increase a business’s bottom line. They are the "Clark Kents" of the workplace—with a superhero suit hidden beneath their business attire." Thanks for your research, Zahira, and the call for empathy.

In writing about "the magic of middle managers" in this Op-ed David Brooks gets it only 50% right: his idea that middle managers should create magic with joy, generativity, attentiveness is the way I believe they SHOULD manage, but it is NOT how they actually manage. At least this is what I hear repeatedly from the leaders I teach, coach and mentor. All too often they drive their employees with numerical metrics instead of motivating with a deeper sense of purpose and values. They are pressured from above to make the numbers & KPIs which often translates into insensitivity and a lack of caring for their employees. These approaches take place in all sizes of businesses in a wide range of industries. Sadly, companies do not train their middle managers to have greater emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and sensitivity to the needs of their employees - so much of the challenge resides with their leaders. How should they lead? By using our True North COACH model, not by trying so hard to manage people: C - Care for your people, and they will follow you. O - Organize them around their Sweet Spot: their strengths and their motivations. A - Align them around your organization's purpose and values. C - Challenge them to reach their full potential. H - Help them solve problems with their work. If more leaders followed this model instead of the traditional managerial approaches, their employees would be far more productive, with greater commitment and less turnover. Then they would be able to achieve "human magic" as my HBS colleague Hubert Joly used at Best Buy to achieve great results.

In ethical leadership: if you help your people become the best versions of themselves, the results you seek will take care of themselves.

The Five Characteristics Of Fear-Based Leaders I don't believe there's a manager anywhere who would say "I manage my team through fear." They have no idea that they are fear-based managers -- and no one around them will tell them the truth! Nobody thinks they're a fear-based leader, and yet there are fear-based managers everywhere. People misunderstand what the term "fear-based manager" means. It's true that these managers wield a big stick and use it to club their employees into submission. They use fear to control people instead of trusting their teammates and inspiring them to do great things. Yet the term "fear-based manager" doesn't only refer to the fact that these lousy managers threaten their employees and keep them on edge in order to keep them compliant and docile. The term "fear-based manager" refers to the manager's own fears, as well. The reason so many managers treat their employees as badly as they do and keep them in line with unnecessary rules, policies and punishments is that the managers themselves are in a state of fear. They don't know who they are behind the business card. Their professional identity is their only source of personal power, and they more than anyone else in their sphere know how fragile that power is. They don't feel whole and healthy. They don't have the self-esteem to build anyone else up and make the people who work for them feel strong and capable. My first-grade teacher was that way. She put us down. She regularly told me that I wasn't smart or pretty or talented. Even as a six-year-old I thought it was strange for a grown-up to spend her energy trying to make a first-grader feel bad. My spidey sense knew something was off. My teacher was a nun. Who knows what her childhood had been like? She couldn't have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old at the time I knew her. People who feel bad often try to make the people around them feel even worse. A grade-school teacher has a lot of power and control over the kids in his or her classroom. Likewise, a manager or supervisor has a lot of power over the people in his or her department. You can easily see how fearful people put into management positions would not only devote their lives to pleasing their 'superiors' by becoming almost machinelike in their devotion to the structure of business - the rules and punishments and obsessive measurement - but also take pride and almost delight in treating their employees like dirt.

Middle managers are too often overlooked, but—as I’ve expressed time and time again—these roles are the bread and butter of healthy organizations.   I appreciate this take on how these unsung heroes use a “quiet magic” to bring a humanistic, people-first approach to inspiring workers along their professional development journey.   Great reminder that fostering an environment where managers can flourish by developing their unique abilities is crucial for company success.   #PeopleFirst #MiddleManagement #OrganizationalDevelopment

Much like public infrastructure that we often take for granted, middle managers are often undervalued. (Case in point: how often do we think abour pumping stations until there is no water from the tap?) Similarly, work not seen within organizations is undervalued - until something goes awry. This ode to the best of middle managers speaks to the typically unsung ways they affirm organizational culture, mentor and guide, and create joyful spaces for day-to-day work. https://lnkd.in/dkzcnmRK