Managing to failure?

There are hundreds of books out there with the title, or subtitle, of something like "Managing to Success". The different methods all work, so why is it there are still people out there who seem not only to ignore these methods but actively shun them? I say those people are "managing to failure." Perhaps some management expert has used this phrase before, but I've never seen it and, if it ever crops up after this, remember you heard it here first.

So, what is "managing to failure"? What I mean by that is the manager, or team leader, assumes their staff will fail to meet expectations. Here is a simple example (taken from a recent job experience; all names are removed to protect everyone's privacy).

Each month I and several others within our area graded the quality of support we each gave. For example, my specific responsibility was managing the contract between my company and its outsourcing clients. Others reported on user ID validation, hardware and software inventories... you get the idea.  We received a reminder on the first Monday of each month, and our reports were due by the fifteenth of the month.  For most of the accounts I had, the person responsible for delivery of services would not contact us unless the grades had not been reported by, say, the 10th.  For one account, however, by the second working day after the announcement the account's service manager was reminding us (again) to do the grades, and if they were not entered by Friday (five working days) that person accused us of not being responsive.

As you can see from the above example, the delivery manager I spoke of assumed we would not enter our grades unless we were told regularly to do so.  For all contracts I supported all grades were in on time for the entire time I was responsible for grading, regardless of the managing style of the delivery manager for a given account, so there was no valid reason for this manager to act as, well, a slave driver.

By standing over us, demanding immediate response to an assignment which did not require an immediate response, the delivery manager showed both a lack of trust in us to do our jobs and a lack of respect for our professionalism.  One might think this person's management would frown on browbeating us for our responses, but instead praised this manager for being "on top of things."

Over my career I have worked for a few managers, team leaders, or coordinators like this... and invariably they are looked at as being excellent leaders.  I say this is wrongheaded, because it is a very inefficient management style.  Further, it is not in keeping with most companies' stated HR directions, which usually state "our employees will be treated professionally."  While the latter is obvious, the former requires some explanation.

First, people resent being browbeaten.  The vast majority of people are hard workers who will give their best and complete their assignments on time, even if left alone; in other words, they are self-responsible and do not need baby-sitting.  Most of us just want to be given our assignments and then given the resources to complete them.  Someone who is managing for success does that; a person who manages to failure will not, because he or she assumes the people under them will not perform unless they are watched constantly.  I don't know why managers do this; I assume it depends upon the person doing the managing.  A few possible reasons are a fear of being blamed for a team's failure, a perception of being considered a better leader if they are vocal, or positive reinforcement from senior managers who follow the same belief, that is employees are lazy and must be forced to work.

Second, when people get treated as described above and the resentment of such treatment builds, many will move on to another team.  That means a loss of experienced team members, which leads to lesser performance from the team.  Further, those who do not or cannot move perform less well as the pressure to perform increases; this is a well-known phenomenon.  The net result is an inexperienced team of people under a great deal of stress, a certain recipe for a poorly-performing team.

Note that last statement carefully; in effect, a person who manages to failure notes their team is performing poorly, puts more pressure on their team, in turn leading to even worse performance, which leads to more pressure, worse performance... in a downward spiral.

I have seen this happen over and over, and witnessed it several times first-hand.  And yet these "driving leaders," managing to failure, are often praised by middle management.  In those situations I've witnessed, often the response from middle management is, "They must be good managers, look how hard they push their team!"  A laid-back manager, even one who gets better performance from their team, is often perceived as being less capable because they do not appear to push their team.

In my experiences as a team leader (excepting my first attempt, which I was unprepared for and anyway was dropped into it without any notice), I found if I treated my team as if they were adults, let them do their jobs without hassling them, and in general show them respect they performed better than if I treat them as if they cannot or will not do their jobs.  It takes time to do that, of course; one has to learn the individual personalities of one's team before being able to know who is best at what tasks.  However, I think it's worth it.  After all, the result is not only a better team but a happier one, and that leads to higher productivity.

Now, I should point out one thing which causes even good leaders to fall into this "managing to failure" mode:  not enough staff to complete all required tasks.  During times of "resource actions" (i.e. layoffs) many leaders fear for their own jobs, and pass along that fear to their teams by becoming more aggressive in trying to wring performance from their team.  The big problem with that, besides the negativity I discussed above, is this:  the team members are already under stress from their own fears of being terminated, which can cause a lower efficiency and interfere with completing tasks.  Again a vicious cycle develops, as the fear of being terminated increases.

The situation is made worse when the team is already short-staffed and is being overworked.  I will not specify any given situation, but I will say I've been in that situation three times over my career (team is short-staffed, management piles on more responsibility (trying to do "more with less"), and under leadership which is managing to failure).  It is situations like this in which those getting laid off are actually envied by those keeping their jobs.

What a strange situation:  a person keeping their job is envious of someone who is being let go.  This is becoming all too common in companies which pay too much attention to the bottom line and not enough to giving good service.  To me, it's a sign of poor management, from the front-line team leads all the way back to the vice-president level.  If a service company provides good service at a reasonable cost the stock price increase will follow; if the stock price increases by abusing the service employees, eventually that bubble will burst and the company's service will no longer be sought out.