Every manager tends to create more stable and more “quieter” environment for working. Outcome of that is elimination of all people thinking “progressive”, “different” and introduction of beautiful peaceful environment everyone would wish for. So what is the problem? The only problem is that that system is planned failure in long-term both for that manager and even more for the company.

Positive behavior. More senior manager you are, more you have to understand that you are here to introduce and promote positive behavior in all groups you manage. You cannot do micromanagement because it shows to your managers that you are not trusting them and also elevates the stress among non-managers. Also, you are responsible for the procedure and for organizing and by micromanaging you are giving a direct admission that you failed in that chapter. Ok. You have great managers under you, you have process and one day they discover that you have more and more yes-tellers around you. That only means you are sensitive and you positively react to all people agreeing with you in everything. Soon, you have “your people” against “other people”. Even people who do not agree with you will start to agree of risk to be out of deciding group and definitely out of list for promotions.

Pollution. Even in the most situations it is not intention, but when you start “game of thrones” everyone is loosing:

  1. your players because everyone start thinking that they value is based only on you. Every decision or statement they say is accepted as your and they start to be frustrated,
  2. opposition players because they become demotivated and inert with no contribution to the joint cause,
  3. you because you are spending more and more time to fix dramas and not do business. Later you start to have more and more issues with your superiors or with owners if you are senior manager and
  4. in the end company because you created a chaos that is doing everything opposite from your goals: decrease of productivity, decision instability, lack of trust, increased employees turnover, etc.

In the end: if you are not able to move back to the track you will bring business to the point that everything will stop and complete system will be oriented to fix problems you created with misbehavior. If you let it go too far, you are voluntarily putting you on the list for removal.

The root of the problem. Never forget that management is “managing of resources” and the most valuable resource we manage are people. We have to show the trust relationship with people we manage and build the feeling of responsibility. If we are successful, people start to be stand-alone professionals defending the interest of the company without your interventions. Then you are responsible to keep them motivated and promote positive culture. During hiring process, you have to hire diverse people that will help you in the future. Diverse backgrounds mean diverse experiences and in the end more possible solutions to “need to change” requirements. Completely opposite: if you hire only people that will follow your ideas and support whatever you say, you will never have some kind of internal check about what you do.

Science in management. Management is as many other branches of human activity based on scientific methods. That means that every decision has to be based on need, observation, plan and it should have verifiable success. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we do errors, but we have to measure them and be able to explain every anomaly happening in the process. That makes us better and better managers every day. As in science, it is good to have independent audit or consult someone who is not “polluted” with our way of thinking to check if the methods we use are aligned with goals we have set and with regulations present in some industries (as HIPAA for healthcare, SOX for corporations, etc).

Way to fix it. Everyone had or will have the situation with lack of people that will make a contribution to our decision making process. As any change, we have to detect the problem, to have some plan and to correct it in some time. In the end we have to see positive impact. We should try to do all efforts to keep best players in the company, promote them to have and express diverse opinions and allow people to feel the ownership and to be productive. In modern business, the good practice is to create small motivated teams and to show everyone how every additional energy spent for the best interest of the company is well appreciated. Promote people that are trusted by others and that are respected without your interference.

Conclusion. Even many managers think that, but we are not here for anything but for� the “best interest of the business” that is directly aligned with “best interest of the owners”. The best interest is increasing of value of resources business owns or uses, increasing of responsiveness and productivity which combined leads to increase of revenues. Good culture, motivated professionals, open panels and exchange of opinions dominate in every successful modern company. Reading that, you should think about your process, your people and try to find what could be better tomorrow: what could help and increase your output and quality even more?

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