Ask Mr Manager #3

With the economy is disarray and unemployment rampant Mr Manager has once again been called upon for advice in not to just retain your job but even to improve your chance of promotion.  Of course many people see Machiavelli as amoral and evil, even though he was really just pointing out how to achieve and maintain power.  This is also true of Mr. Manager – business is business and in these troubled times success depends as much on perception as reality.  So the first step in your plan to succeed without breaking a sweat should start with visibility.

To achieve visibility requires speaking out, but not in praise of anything because any success no matter how modest will have dozens of people claiming the glory.  No – what you must do is speak out against any project or activity that is doomed from the outset.  Every organization has these and they are easy to spot.  Here is a list of candidates which you can predict will fail.  Opposing these or predicting failure is sure to mark you as a person of vision.

1. Product with specifications greater than 1000 pages
2. Projects requiring more than a couple of years to reach fruition
3. Any team or morale building effort
4. Any reengineering effort that requires multiple managers and processes
5. Any new or innovative process

Of course there is always the remote possibility that one of these projects might actually limp to some sort of conclusion.  However, no project is ever clear of weak areas and things that didn’t turn out so well.  In that case you point these out with a shake of your head and say ”Well – that’s just what I expected”  This will reinforce your growing reputation as a visionary and brilliant leader.

Now no manager works alone or without competitors so at some point one of your competitors will have managed to have you put in charge of a doomed project staffed by zombies and cretins. Obviously your first task is to find a way to switch jobs but this is not always possible so you have two options.  First you can quickly isolate and fire the zombies and cretins but then a bloody massacre no matter how justified will not enhance your reputation unless you aspire to being seen as Ivan the Terrible.  So the most viable course of action is to identify the worst of the worst and begin building their reputation, by making them employee of the month, bragging about their immense value to your project.  Your purpose here is to make them seem so useful and valuable that some unsuspecting fellow manager will “steal them away from you”.  This is especially rewarding if the manager who steals this “valuable” asset is a competitor because once he steals your best player he will have just infected his own project with this failure virus.

But many times your fellow managers will fail to fall for this ploy so you must resort to a tried and true strategy commonly known as “kick them upstairs”.  That is you do everything possible to have these losers promoted off of your team and into a position where they can drive your competing managers into gibbering idiots.  This is a highly effective strategy and widely used which tends to explain the disappointing performance of many large corporations and the federal government.

But don’t make the mistake of ever giving any of these zombies and cretins a bad performance review – NO – they must be given the highest praise because otherwise they will be chained to you forever.  If you cannot find a way to remove these cretins from your staff then place them in key support positions for projects belonging to competing managers.  This offers the potential of making your project look better than your competitors because you aren’t any worse than anyone else.  As a last resort bundle these losers up and put them in charge of the United Way Campaign.

The normal corporation is composed of managers who are constantly searching for ways to make themselves appear to be highly productive hard driving team players.   So naturally your objective is to make yourself appear to be a brilliant and a major contributor to the success of the team.  This is best accomplished by remembering that in the large corporation form always is more important than substance.  Or to put it another way volume always trumps brevity, because as everyone knows any document longer than a few pages will not be read by any manager or executive.  This means that all of your reports should be jammed with irrelevant facts and graphs and if you can include some very complicated equations even better.  Then your report should be packaged in a binder with a cover letter that describes in subtle detail why everything in this report is self evident to any manager as capable as the addressee.  This will ensure no one ever reads it while demonstrating your penetrating intellect and incisive analytical abilities.

As you climb the corporate ladder it is important that you give the impression that you are not only a hard worker and key player but that you are also a strategic thinker.  This is more easily accomplished than you might think.  It is important that you associate yourself with important sounding jobs that have no possibility of a measured result while avoiding those that include names like Operations, Budget, Accounting, or Quality.  Instead volunteer for assignments that have Strategic, Worldwide, Market, or Planning in their title.  Projects with these in their title have little chance of accomplishing anything while drawing the attention of upper management.  Your value to these projects can be increased if you carry a full briefcase home every night giving the impression that you are slaving over this project.  Of course your reports should be lengthy and filled with confusing statistics. 

If you have ever wondered how some upper level manager, who can’t even order a Starbucks Coffee without assistance, got his job – well now you know – it is all about how things look rather than what they are.  Mr Manager is pleased to provide you another lesson in how to achieve success without actually having produced anything.  

Managing With The Liberal Arts III

There are many management lessons and techniques to be gleaned from the liberal arts. These can be found in books, plays, and history because the modern corporation parallels the kingdoms of old. Of course the names change but the modern corporation has its kings, princes, barons, courtiers, enemies, allies and even the praetorian guard, they rise, they decline, and they fall. For the modern manager to learn how to succeed in the corporate world he need look no further than Machiavelli. Through the years Niccolo Machiavelli and his writings have been seen as amoral and unethical. Indeed a person accused of duplicity or scheming is described as “Machiavellian” but actually Machiavelli was just putting down in writing how to achieve and maintain power. He did not condone or recommend the actions he describes, he merely documented the reality. Those lessons described by Machiavelli in the 15th Century still apply and can be seen at work in any large corporation today.

One of the challenges facing a newly hired manager is gaining control of his organization. Naturally this new manager has the support of his superiors but is that enough? Machiavelli addressed this problem”

For, although one may be very strong in armed forces, yet in entering a province one has always the need of the goodwill of the natives.

This is a simple and obvious lesson – when taking on a new position do not alienate the incumbents because they can obstruct you in many ways and ultimately cause you to fail. But Machiavelli also goes on to address the downside in case there is resistance from individuals.

Upon this one has to remark that men ought to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones, they cannot; therefore the injury that is done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.

The message here is clear. When you assume control of an organization treat everyone fairly and with respect for them, their positions, and their opinions. But if you encounter opposition from an individual do not spend a lot of time trying to win them over. Do not ignore them, transfer them, or demote them, terminate them, because they will work against you and could ultimately lead to your destruction. But for the incoming manager, Machiavelli offers further advice:

It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all of those who profit by the old order and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit from the new order.

Essentially Machiavelli is telling the new manager to move very cautiously when introducing changes and the greater the change the more carefully he should move. But sometimes the new manager has been brought in specifically for the purpose of purging the organization of inefficiency and incompetence. In these cases the new manager changes processes and procedures but also will generally conduct a layoff. But Machiavelli also offers some advice on this activity as well.

It is to be noted that in taking a state the conqueror must arrange to commit all of his cruelties at once, so as not to have them recur everyday … by not making fresh changes to reassure people and win them over by benefiting them.

For some this advice is self-evident but many times the new manager takes some immediate actions and then steps back. After some analysis then he introduces more changes including purging people. These periodic changes can go on for an extended period and invariably lead to poor morale and performance which impacts the reputation and performance of the manager. But Machiavelli offers some further insight into how the new manager should proceed.

He who becomes prince by help of the nobility has greater difficulty in maintaining his power than he who is raised by the populace, for he is surrounded by those who think they are his equals and is thus unable to direct or command as he pleases.

When an outsider is imposed on an organization as the new manager, the incumbents may challenge his authority because he will know less than they do about the processes and procedures. When the manager has been promoted from within he can expect the support and obedience of the staff because he may not be expected to make changes. The outsider on the other hand must demonstrate to his superiors his ability to meet their goals and objectives and this cannot be done without inflicting pain on others.

These are simple examples demonstrating how Machiavelli’s descriptions of how power can be obtained and retained. There are many more in his works and they offer practical solutions not normally found in modern texts on management. But there are many other authors whose discussions of historical events can be easily translated into lessons for the modern manager; among these are Sun Tzu and Von Clausewitz, whose writings can be translated into marketing as well as leadership.

Reading contemporary books on management is not discouraged but there are many lessons to be learned from the kings and princes of history. In many cases these historic lessons are more realistic than what is found in contemporary literature because they illustrate the results of bad decisions as well as good ones.