Andy Raynor - Beyond the Brief |
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Andy Raynor's blog Management is a contact sport
I repeatedly talk in these blogs about the difference between active and passive management. I’m lucky enough to meet maybe 20 new businesses or practices every year. I’ve been trying on my fingers and toes to count up which of them are natural, active managers. It’s only about 10%. Which is a problem. What’s the difference? Well, not all management can be purely active or entirely passive, but the attraction to manage a business by pushing notes under a closed door (now known as “an email”) seems overwhelming. The more we communicate management by email, the less we manage at all. But it isn’t just email. I’ve been in boardrooms this last month where the answer to every problem has been to create a policy and send a directive and produce more statistics, when all it has actually needed is a quiet word and a gentle nudge to get one straying individual back in the groove. Are we so afraid of people these days that we create a whole handbook to regulate the behaviour of a single team member? I am mystified about how we got here. As an industry, professional services is about people, and yet we deal with people either appallingly or not at all. Yer average partner is (despite their denials) terrified of difficult conversations with clients, staff and partners. Which is why bills are late and low, partnerships often have the stability of unexploded bombs......and 90% of our people think we're idiots for not dealing with the antics and political wheedling of the others. Dealing directly, actively with issues is the only way. Policies,
emails, edicts and other stone tablets
are interesting and may be necessary,
but they are not the same as management
and never, ever will be. PS – I haven’t mentioned leadership....because there is no such thing as passive leadership. If you are passive, you aren’t a leader at all.
Tell me what you think at andy@andypraynor.com And see what's been said before by looking in the archive:
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© Andy Raynor 2013 |