9/22/2009 1:56:13 PM #

I applaud the CMI for creating a "Management Manifesto", placing equal emphasis on businesses; Government and individuals.

A very big well done.

I've signed up and any self respecting manager would do the same! You owe it to yourself and your colleagues; customers; stakeholders and future generations.

Colin Millar

10/19/2009 4:49:03 PM #

I am writing with my comments on your consultation paper for a Better Managed Britain.

The Institute makes a fundamental attribution error when it draws too strong an equation between managers and management. While managers manage and leaders lead, management and leadership do not flow as a natural consequence. Ultimately, management and leadership are complex multi-faceted processes that are a property of organisations, not of individuals. That distinction between managers and management holds serious implications concerning what it takes for effective management to come about in organisations. This flawed thinking has for decades bedevilled attempts at improving organisations’ effectiveness.

The campaign promotes the Institute’s ‘standards’ framework of individual manager competence. It aims to leverage improved individual managers’ skill (at managing and leading) in the cause of solving organisation challenges. The CMI rightly cites the failure of child protection and the death of Baby P in Haringey as a prime example of the need for better management and leadership. But managing concentrates on what is going on within individual managers; it may be pursued by training allied with competency models. Management, by contrast, is a function of what is going on around and between managers and in interaction with other organisational components in the wider organisation system. Competence resides in the person. Management resides in the space. For management to be successful, more than competence is required. And the expertise required to bring it about is not training but systems thinking.

Managers’ personal agency (to bring about improvement for their organisation) counts for little if the space is neglected. It is like expecting fish to improve their own fishtank. It is beyond them. After a certain point polishing the fish no longer enables them to shine. The employer’s focus instead needs to shift to the quality of the fishtank – all those things that surround managers. The organisation can best improve management in how it shapes that space more than by polishing the individuals and pinning badges on them. While at least a minimum level of managers’ competence is necessary for them to perform in their jobs, it is it not sufficient for effective organisational management performance.

In the west’s individual-centric society it is a common mistake to think that services are delivered to customers by individuals (alone or in teams). But in reality, services are delivered by organisations working as effective systems, of which managers’ skills are but one component. Think about the banking collapse. Did managers suddenly become incompetent? No. Their competence didn’t change, and for the most part the managers were competent. Think about the collapse of Enron in 2001; this company revelled in its talent – the best that money could buy. However, high input was not matched by high output; something converted competent individuals into an incompetent organisation. Individuals’ ‘can-do’ competence requires a conversion process to translate input into a competent output and outcome. Besides a useful objective, the process requires will and opportunity, in which the organisation plays a significant role.

The Institute mentions Baby P’s death, where several managers’ cases against dismissal are before the courts. The ‘disgraced’ social worker Lisa Arthurworrey who lost her job and was at the centre of the Victoria Climbié scandal in Haringey that predated Baby P later appealed and won her court battle to regain her professional reputation. She was able to demonstrate in court that the system (in Haringey) failed her, and not the other way round. Of course, the shortcomings of managers and others play their part in systemic failures; managers bear a measure of responsibility. But, by and large, the system needs to bear most of the weight. Managers cannot be exonerated, but neither can they be trained and then assumed to guarantee the organisation’s success.

Only when managers are wise enough to appreciate that their organisation’s success is not just about ‘me’ but depends on the system’s capability will they refocus their effort on improving the system to deliver management and leadership.

Bill Tate