I have been starting businesses since I was 22 years old. That’s just short of 40 years ago.
And of all the skills I have been required to acquire and hone along the way, the one that was most difficult was learning how to manage.
What is a manager?
A manager’s task is to somehow find a way to drive a group of disorganized and disparate individuals toward the achievement of some goal.
Sounds easy on paper, doesn’t it? But --- and as many of you already know --- it most certainly is NOT. In fact, managing is singularly the most difficult thing a human being can endeavor to do, short of performing brain surgery.
Managers must teach and, of course, managers must figure out ways to reach their goals using only the resources they have available. Sometimes this is equivalent to creating matter, as the number one complaint of all managers is that they are, “understaffed, overwhelmed, and under-resourced.”
So how do managers reach their goals? Well, they start by planning. First and foremost, managers must learn how to be great planners. Everything starts with planning, and this is where so many would-be managers fall short. They somehow become more involved in “running” than “planning.”
Sun Tzu (in his groundbreaking book, “ ” --- a book which must be read by every executive in many Japanese corporations) talks a lot about planning. In fact, it is the first thing he talks about and is, in his words, “the single greatest determinant” regarding the ultimate outcome of the battle. (I should point out here that the greatest managers I have ever known are also the greatest chess players I have ever known. This is because great managers “see” each chess game two ways --- in reality, and in their mind’s eye.)
Whether through experience or insight, great managers somehow envision the moves that competitors, suppliers, and even employees will make in response to their own actions. It is this ability to visualize that enables them to create marvelous plans.
Eliyahu Goldratt, author of “ ” (one of the best books about manufacturing ever written) says, “There really is only one goal.”
And that one goal, he adds, is “to make money.”
But Goldratt also talks about reaching this one goal while dealing with certain, universal roadblocks --- which he calls, “constraints.” Included among these constraints are the aforementioned limited resources, the inherent fallibility of the product/service being offered, and the quality and quantity of the people on the team.
There is no way that I can write a column about the overall topic of managing. That --- is a book. And if you’d really like to read great books about the art of managing, I refer you to the writings of such giants as: Peter Drucker, Lee Iacocca, and Harold Geneen (among others).
But what I can do in the space of this column is tell you about some of the management “types” that I have had the pleasure (and displeasure) of encountering over those same 40 years. You might find learning about them both instructive and amusing. Here goes:
We all know the micromanager (MM). He (and ladies, for the sake of brevity, I am going to use the masculine pronoun the whole way through --- please forgive me) simply cannot resist his absolute need to know every little thing that’s going on in his own business.
Since it’s rather difficult to ascend to a company’s top-spot as a micromanager (MM’s tend to get rooted out early in the ascension process), most micromanager CEO’s are also company founders.
But in the rare event where that micromanager actually does ascend to the top position (or at least to a position near the top), it’s probably because someone saw that MM’s incredible energy and attention to detail and mistook those qualities for those of a great manager.
Micromanagers are famous for killing initiative among their workers. You can easily understand why. This is why MM’s typically must experience a significant personality change if they are going to continue their trip up the management hierarchy.
I once worked for a Tyrant. In fact, I’ll even tell you that his name was Ed. This guy ruled by absolute fear. He was a total bully (I suspect that he still is) and he was one of the most insecure people I have ever known.
One day Mr. Ed actually went so far as to cause one of our organization’s best employees (a 66 year-old woman who was actually retired but came back to the workforce because she was “bored”) a mild heart attack. This attack was the direct result of his screaming and carrying on. I was 21 years old at the time --- just out of college and chock full of righteous indignation.
Once I knew that this lady had been taken safely to the hospital, I actually followed her tormenter back to his home. I dropped him right in his own driveway. A one-punch affair. I paid a pretty steep price for that punch as I ended up being arrested and jailed that night. It was worth it.
Beyond causing heart attacks, tyrants absolutely kill creativity. No one wants to make a single move when they know that they will be criticized for making it. Hence, employees do only the things that the tyrant orders, and only when he orders them.
Ironically, my very next “boss” was also a Tyrant. In fact, I remember thinking, “Is this how I’m going to spend the next 40 years?”
Fortunately, I never had the opportunity to find out, as I started my own business just six months after beginning to work for him.
The coward is a close relative of the Tyrant. The Coward’s number-one objective is to avoid conflict at all costs.
The coward will only step into a contentious situation when he has absolutely no other option. More often than not, he will hide behind an assistant or a great executive secretary.
You’ll almost never find a Coward in an entrepreneurial start-up. They tend to live at or near mid-management in larger corporations and businesses.
Wall Man is also related to both of the previous “types.” This guy also hides behind others and is known for erecting barriers --- if you will --- that keep anyone and anything away from him.
Wall Man manages almost exclusively by paper. He will send e-mails, memoranda, and the like to his troops, expecting them to respond the same way. As you might guess, this grinds an organization’s decision-making velocity to a snail’s pace and so the organization suffers.
Wall Man sees nothing and offends no one. He simply “hides” --- oftentimes right in the middle of the battlefield --- by currying favor (somehow) with the big boss.
Like Cowards and Tyrants, Wall Men are typically found in corporate mid-management and their “run” --- and just like a bad Broadway play --- tends to be short.
The King is characterized by:
- His private parking space, and,
- An office full of adornments and avatars (for example, many kings will have weapons of war hanging on their walls; things like knives, pistols, and swords.) Oftentimes Kings will also “decorate” their space with heads of animals. The message, methinks, is “this could be you.”
The King will often use his executive assistant or secretary to place phone calls for him. I’m sure you’ve had this happen, “Please hold for Mr. …”. Kings have no compunctions about making other people wait on them.
The King is usually found in an organization where revenues are flowing and problems are few. Almost every King I have ever met was in a private organization. Often, they are either the sons or the grandsons of the Founder of that organization.
Finally, we get to the perfect manager (PM). The perfect manager is someone who, and in my opinion, is impatient by nature --- but has somehow taught himself how to be patient. This juxtaposition often works out perfectly. The impatient side drives and the patient side mitigates “overdrive”.
Perfect managers almost always come up from the bottom. That is, they either begin their careers deep in the bowels of the organization or they work a series of stepping-stone jobs that replicate that same pathway. Either way, they somehow learn what it is to be a “commoner”, which in turn gives them empathy for that commoner --- empathy that comes in mighty handy later on.
This is why so many sons and daughters of founders fail to work out as CEO’s. Daddy --- like most parents --- cannot see his offspring suffer; and so he “starts” him in the upper middle of the organization, a place where sonny-boy will never really have a chance to learn what it’s like to work in the bottom half.
So, the son never learns what it is like to really work in the trenches and the organization never forgets this either. It’s a relationship with much weight against it whenever the offspring finally takes the corner office.
You’ll see the perfect manager everyday out walking with the commoners. I remember about two decades ago when my good friend Don Jones --- already a multi-millionaire and starting his third company while still in his late forties --- and I had an appointment at his offices.
As I drove up to park my car, I saw a bunch of young guys out on the shipping dock, off-loading computers and related equipment from an 18-wheeler. There, and right in the middle of things, was Don. He was quite comfortable (by this time, he had already had heart surgery) unloading some very heavy equipment and boxes. I ask you --- how often do you see a company owner/CEO working on the loading dock amongst twenty-somethings?
The perfect manager treats everyone the same way. This can easily be seen simply by going to lunch with a PM. Here, the PM will treat the wait staff precisely as he would treat another CEO. That is, with courtesy and respect. You’ll never find a PM talking “down” to a “less important” individual.
And --- the PM listens. In fact, he listens even more than he talks. That’s an excellent measure to track, at least in my opinion.
I tend to deal more with technology companies than any other kind, and so I have my own sort of measuring stick when it comes to the CEO’s of those kinds of businesses.
As most people know, most “tekkies” are not exactly the greatest communicators sent down by the Great Creator. This is precisely why they went into technical fields in the first place; they wanted the absolution that comes only from precise mathematics --- not the “gray” that comes from PEOPLE!
So, and while these types of folks are expert at all things technical, they somehow still teach themselves how to also be effective communicators. This is not easy, but when it’s done and done right, it results in a highly effective leader.
Greg Babe, the CEO of Bayer Corporation, comes immediately to mind when I think of this kind of individual. Greg, an engineer by background, not only taught himself how to communicate, but he went even a step further and taught himself how to communicate in the German language! (You see --- Bayer is itself owned by Germans).
One could search a long, long time for a manager as well-rounded and empathetic as Greg Babe. But once you begin to understand him, you see exactly how this is so. It is, and to a very high degree, patience and understanding atop an “operating system” of natural impatience --- drive!
Put these things together in a package that is also high-bandwidth and physically fit and you not only have the Perfect Manager but also a “Super-CEO”.
That, and a company that breaks both sales and profit records year in and year out.
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