Why management excels in a symbolic basement

Relocate your management to the basement!

Not literally, of course, as we all aspire to climb the stairway of success to end our working lives with a magnificent view over the landscape we toiled to create.

Reaching the top floor is an achievement worthy of a retirement gift: the ubiquitous clock that helps us spend our golden years reminded of the incessant sand of time. However, is the management penthouse an anachronism? Does reaching the top floor mean we assume an authoritarian leadership position from where we control, make decisions and issue commands with little or no input from those with a less spectacular view below?

This was probably the norm until about 25-years ago, and most of our forefathers may have only taken one trip to the top-floor: either to be dismissed or to receive the inevitable clock. Our foremothers were not even allowed outside of the typing pool, but that’s another story.

Within a traditional organisation structure there are absolute rulers sitting at the top away from the grassroots, applying their will with unwavering certainty.

This model gratifies only the autocrats in our society, yet thankfully this approach is a remnant from yesteryear and non-existent in most organisations today. Nevertheless, the traditional pyramid model with power sitting at its apex and direction flowing one-way vertically from top-to-bottom may still exist in some cases despite modern thinking and current management practices that flip this model on its head.

Unfortunately, much like the leopard who never changes its spots, some people in a position of authority (the Management Process) still believe the workers (the Primary Process) are obliged to look up and admire leadership whilst leadership has earned some unwritten right to literally look-down on, and disregard, workers.

This top-down mindset has severe limitations because it hinders interaction, confidence, trust and communication, and thus restricts the flow of ideas, value-adding improvements; it also creates unnecessary constraints on the capacity for growth and prevention of potential problems.

Evolution in an organisation, as in nature, can be a slow and laborious process, but restrictions on growth, improvement and success need to be removed.

The model-of-power is traditionally drawn as a pyramid with the Management Process – the brains – at the top and the Primary Process – the hands – at the base. The brain is responsible for total ownership of all actions, decisions and vision, and the hands do not do anything without a signal from the brain. A key flaw in this model in an organisation is that any injury, impediment, obstacle or restriction felt by the hand is usually not fully transmitted back to the brain in its ivory tower, as the one-way flow and multiple filters or throttles keep the brain numbed and disconnected.

As humans we learn from our experiences and our hands are powerful sensors that allow our brains to make decisions and change how we behave. This is often not the case in business, however.

The Primary Process does the work sitting at the coal-face where value is added, and this proximity to day-to-day operations and activities places it in the best and most logical position to determine and decide where changes are most needed that will increase value.

Modern organisations wishing to be more adaptable, dynamic and responsive recognise this and have abandoned the top-down model, inverting the model-of-power pyramid by placing the Primary Process, the resource most important to the business, at the top with full empowerment and responsibility.

The Management Process in these organisations demonstrate trust and conviction by taking on the important team role of listening, coaching, coordinating and facilitating what is needed to implement important changes and improvements.

This does not, of course, discredit or diminish the importance of the Management Process, but rather changes its focus away from supreme decision-making to mentoring.

The Management Process in this case recognises that decisions relating to day-to-day processes, procedures and operations should be predominantly and consistently influenced by what happens where value is created: the Primary Process. This shift in thinking is totally dependent upon having the correct culture and Management Process in-place that trusts and demonstrates its commitment to empowering the Primary Process to drive decisions and share authority.

A shift in how the Management Process thinks has little or no cost implications, but it is not, however, a quick-win. Long-term vision, strategy, commitment and buy-in to this current and financially rewarding management style is needed to coach and nurture cooperation, the right skill-sets and team-thinking within the Primary Process.

Some form of training may also prove beneficial.

Communication is the key: everybody in the Primary Process should be informed about his or her position and responsibility in the decision-making process and be furnished with all the important facts and information – never kept in the dark – so that interaction with the Management Process is effective and aligned with organisational goals.

Allowing the wrong style of culture to thrive in the Management Process will create reluctance and cynicism within the Primary Process to any change in thinking, and this may prove disastrous to any organisation that considers itself modern, forward-thinking and keen for success at the next level.

Cynics will argue that the Primary Process is unskilled or unable to understand, and only the Management Process can handle the stress and complexity of business because the Management Process is highly-skilled, highly-paid and therefore able to act quickly and carry the weight.

Besides the self-preservation evident by an unwillingness to coach, mentor, train and empower the Primary Process, this notion disregards the position of the organisation and the advantage of a shift in thinking within an ever-evolving market.

Being a market-leader requires growth and/or change, and organisations can no longer remain stagnant simply to ensure people in the Management Process retain their position of superiority and control.

Customers have needs and are willing to pay for value, and organisations who have so far failed to evolve need to perceive where that value is created and improved in order to survive. The Primary Process adds value on a day-to-day basis and, therefore, has the knowledge and expertise to be a driver of change for success and needs to be fully empowered.

My bizarre analogy

I will end with a rather bizarre analogy.

A factory, for example, has its workers on the ground-floor and the management in the basement.

The workers sweat constantly through a lack of effective processes and procedures that makes their jobs extremely difficult to the extent that customer value is not met. They crave refreshment in the way of improvements and changes for the better. Their sweat is essentially the feedback, which reaches a critical mass then soaks through the floor onto the management below.

The management then takes on the critical role of applying a process and procedure: taking the sweat, filtering out the impurities to make it a healthy tonic, and then pumping it back to the workers who relish the pick-me-up and once again can function successfully.

And the cycle continues.

Each time the management pump that healthy tonic to the workers, who provided the original inspiration (perspiration?), it provides improvements and change that alleviate some of the stresses and strains on the value-adding process.

It is logical: nothing drips upwards, that’s a law of physics.

Peter Mulville has over 23-years’professsional experience focusing on organisational challenges, such as business processes and improvements, facilitation and enablement, service management orientation, and strategy. Experienced in leadership, coaching, mediation, team-velocity and the concept of People-First, Peter is critical thinking, complex problem solving and uses Emotional intelligence and body language to nurture a culture of trust, respect, communication and cohesion. Peter is also a Project Manager and well-versed and experienced in governance, risk, and compliance, IT information security and SQL business intelligence.

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