When being too helpful is a management failure

Author: Kevan Hall

Do your team members call you every day for advice, answers to problems or support? It is nice to be popular but this may be a sign that you have not given your people the information, confidence, skills or authority to deal with problems for themselves.

Many managers are flattered to be asked for advice and feel they are not supporting their team unless they are constantly involved. But what if we viewed every call for support as a management failure?

We adapted a technique from manufacturing quality control. In manufacturing, we learn that it is our job to build a “capable� process. A capable process is one that reliably produces a product to meet a specification.

When a product is found to be outside this specification we call this a “non-conforming event� and the job of manufacturing is to get the process back in control (solve the problem) but then to improve the capability of the process so that this problem cannot happen again.

If we apply the same thinking to management then our job as managers is to build the capability of our people to solve the everyday problems they come across in their jobs. If they are unable to do this and need to involve us as their manager, then first we need to help them to solve the problem.

The second and critical step is to build the capability into the individual or the team to deal with this issue if it happens again – so next time they will not need to delay their response to involve the manager.

If your people need to involve you in something it means that they do not have the information, skills, confidence or authority to deal with it themselves. If we take this idea to its natural but challenging conclusion - every time they call you it is a management failure.

Start by keeping a record of why your team members involve you. After a few weeks analyze the information and look for patterns. Pick the top two reasons and develop training or information to allow people to solve these issues for themselves. If the issues come up again, push the decision back to the individual. Keep repeating the process until only essential calls remain.

This is a simple, practical technique for developing local empowerment and reducing the need for escalation.
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Last updated: 09/11/05 08:58am