Managing to Make a Difference

Managing to Make a Difference, How to Engage, Retain & Develop Talent for Maximum Performance by Larry Sternberg and Kim Turnage, Wiley 2017

If you believe that managing and developing good people can make a difference, but feel that maybe you are just not cut out to be a people person, or that some people are just too hard to manage, or that organizations are going to be run by robots anyway, so who cares, you might want to check out this timely management book.  The authors offer four key, basic truths about people in the workplace - 

1.  relationships in the workplace matter

2.  adults have identifiable patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behavior that are deeply ingrained and very difficult to change

3.  aptitude is the natural potential to do certain things really well - possibly at a very high level of excellence

4.  every person has aces and spaces - things they naturally do well and things they naturally just do not do well.

There is a method to the author's recommendations.  But readers will be fascinated, indeed surprised, by Chapter 5, Tolerate Undesirable Behaviors - that's right, tolerate undesirable behaviors.  What could these behaviors be?  Well, being late to meetings for one - annoying, contrary to the rules, but if, as the authors' illustration points out, the late manager also happens to be a superior mentor, trainer and producer, they might let it go.  They conclude in a boxed in "Lesson" - With real human beings in the real world, you do not get it all.  Everybody has aces and spaces.  In both business and personal life, tolerance of shortcomings is required to cultivate close positive relationships.

Do you as a manufacturing leader buy that lesson?  Hard to say, but we know that finding and retaining good people is an overwhelming challenge. 

Here's another illustration.   Gunter had hair down to the small of his back, in flagrant violation of the company standard for male hair length, but he was the number one chef de cuisine at The Ritz-Carlton.  Do you pull him aside, put him on probation, hand him a hairnet, or simply move on to the next transgression?  Again, the authors give us a counter-intuitive response:

        "All the employees on my team started speaking at once.  I could see they were talking about Gunter, but I could not understand what they were saying, so I asked one of my interpreters.  She said, "They are saying he must be really, really good at his job."

In factories, as in health-conscious public kitchens, long hair is dangerous.  I don't know when that concept shifted, but it's always been and I am guessing even with robots, who are remarkably hirsute for good reason, it will continue.  So to look away in the face of this long-haired image is hard.

Other chapters in this methodology are more helpful.  The authors talk about the ebb and flow of relationships, and they offer up great pointers on building a better relationship with the boss.  Their ideas about how to accelerate people's growth are worth putting on an index card.  And their chapter on how to kick butt the right way (Chapter 19), is awesome.

But the word of caution beneath all these solid and proven methods is that first and last, leaders need to understand their workforce.  There's a big difference between managing soon-to-be retired boomers, and hiring and bringing on board Gen X's and beyond.  And I think the other surprise in this book is understanding that what works with one generation or one class of workers won't necessarily work with another type, another culture.  People management is just a huge challenge.  

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers, https://sites.google.com/site/blueheronjournal/, tricia@patriciaemoody.com, patriciaemoody@gmail.com, pemoody@aol.com