Type and hit ENTER

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
GET CONNECTED

 

"Witty, clever and extremely relevant in these godforsaken Zoom times." Zoë Foster Blake

Book on sale now from Penguin Random House.

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
Your job is to serve your staff, and why we need less management
Share
Too much management
Articles

Your job is to serve your staff, and why we need less management

April 11, 2022
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Here let me read it to you. Best to listen straight off Spotify though, the browser version is buggy.

 


Should you slash staff this year?

 

Want to increase profitability by slashing staff? I recommend it, though not in the way you’re thinking. Plus a radical managerial mindset that will make you a better leader, if that’s your gig.

Not going to lie, our business is more profitable than others in our field. That’s how we survived the event industry COVID apocalypse with our team intact. And that profitability comes from being ruthless about weeding out excess management. Not so much firing them as not allowing them to take root in the first place.

On average, management are time and profit vampires and a general burden on your staff. You need a lot less of them than you think.

And a shitload less than they will tell you you need.

Our entire approach is: better people on the front line, as little management as possible.

The value in our business is in the people who do the actual work we do, and our sales people. Each of them brings money through the door, an obvious point a lot of businesses don’t appreciate.

Managers cost you lots and many of them don’t contribute much. They multiply like half-used jars in the back of your fridge. You got them for that one time you needed them, and they’re still there. Justified by PowerPoint decks about new compliance requirements.

They’re so good at looking busy. They’ll spend a year workshopping a new mission statement that says:

“We’re passionate about what we do.”

A statement that gets fist-bumps at head office but means nothing to the people doing the actual work.

 

Stop saying you’re passionate

 

Side-note: never use the word passionate. It’s the empty language of LinkedIn wannabes.

You know how to tell if someone is passionate about something? Watch what they do. Do they light up when they talk about that subject? Do they take risks to pursue it? Do they have a track record of achievements in that subject?

It’s like describing yourself as cool, quirky or edgy. If you say it, you are not that.

Corporate drone:

“I’m passionate about customer service.”

Actual passionate manager:

“I spent last Saturday working behind the counter in one of our outer suburban stores and realised that our own internal processes are stopping our staff resolving customer issues quickly. Here are some ideas.”

Management flourishes because they’ve persuaded their paymasters the organisation needs two things above all: supervision and prediction.

 

Managers like to supervise people

 

Managers love to watch over workers, on the grounds that people would otherwise goof off. Because workers are intrinsically lazy.

The last two years have been the Emperor’s New Clothes of management. Turns out most people can work just fine on their own, without direct surveillance from middle management Gregs and Debs. People need a lot less management than managers thought.

 

Productive staff remote work came as a shock to management in 2020

 

I’m not saying all staff work hard all day long. In our experience, a small percentage of staff will turn up late and/or hung over, scroll their socials on the job in front of clients, and fail to back their workmates up in ways that make the whole business look like a clown show. Supervision isn’t the problem. They are, and you have to move them on from your business.

Rather than design systems to curb their shortcomings, then force all your good people to wade through those restrictions all day.

When managers aren’t directly watching, they like to measure their staff because “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. To justify their salary, the more measurements and data the better.

Pretty much every business I’ve known succeeds or fails on three or four ratios max. Labour costs as a percentage of revenue, that kind of thing. Get those right and everything else flows from there. Every other measurement is trivia that you should not bother your staff with.

The data becomes slide fodder for endless meetings that, ironically, lower everyone’s work output and morale through endless wasted time.

 

Managers like to predict the future

 

A big part of the management explosion is a response to the eternal question: what’s going to happen in the future?

What are customers and competitors going to do? Where’s the market going? How can we future-proof shareholder value? People love the idea of certainty.

So you get armies of spreadsheet soothsayers creating their version of the future, and presenting it to each other in meeting rooms all day. There will be disagreements, because the future is a squirrelly, subjective thing.

They retreat to their corners to gather more data, more PowerPoint, more talking points. And so the cycle continues, everyone pretending they hold the secret to predicting human behaviour and market conditions.

Of course businesses need to plan. But taken to the big corporate level, it’s no less of a grift than tarot card readers, just better-dressed, nicer certificates and less incense.

 

Would you like certainty with that?

Would you like certainty with that?

 

That’s the glorious thing about being a smaller business. Your huge competitor might be able to buy 5% cheaper than you through their enormous purchasing power. But you’re not spending 20c in every revenue dollar on people sitting in high-rent meeting rooms all day talking about what might happen.

You can do stuff faster and cheaper, and your quick and dirty guesses about the future will do fine.

 

The deadwood plantation

 

A rich source of deadwood management is people who used to do the thing your business does, but don’t want to do it anymore. It’s not like they’re driven to lead people. If that were the case, they would have made that move long ago.

Now they would like a nice quiet desk life, and they seem like a decent person, so they become something like Compliance and Training Manager.

Except they don’t do any training, instead spending their time creating Training Needs Analysis documents and hiring outsourced trainers. The costs balloon.

If people in these roles are motivated, their wisdom can be of major value to your team. They give you the knowledge continuity that so many businesses lack in these times of endless churn.

If they’re not, and just want to stop doing a job they don’t like any more, you should move them on.

 

Management is not leadership

 

I’m not suggesting some kind of anarchic workers’ co-operative system here. Someone needs to be in charge. But leadership is different to management.

Which are you?

Ask yourself, why are you in this? Is it because you’re aroused by exercising power and control over others? Or because you want to run a high-performing, profitable organisation?

If you want the latter, and you’re in charge, could I suggest a different way to view your role?

Your job is to serve your staff.

Not in a subservient way. You still have to make hard calls. But day to day, ask yourself how you can support them to do the best job they can. Ask them how you can do it.

How can you give them the best tools possible to do a good job? How can you remove obstacles and stupid rules? How do you make them feel like they work somewhere that gives a fuck about them?

We spend a lot of money buying the big-name tech equipment for events, when we could get a much higher daily ROI from cheaper replica gear that looks pretty similar. We do that because good staff are hard to find, and we want them to have absolute confidence that when they’re running the major bank CEO announcement or the big car launch, everything is going to work.

That staff confidence produces higher ROI in the long term. Because trying to explain why things didn’t work in front of a large audience is super-demoralising. I have some first-hand experience of this in previous gigs, it really sucks.

With the serve-your-staff mindset, there’s a big difference in the simplest interactions.

Managers say:

“Here’s what you should do.”

Leaders ask:

“What do you think you should do?”

In a few words, it shows you’re interested in their opinion. You’re opening up an opportunity for them to show what they know and what insights they have.

And if their idea could use some fine-tuning, it’s a chance to teach them something. Plus you learn more about what’s going with the staff at all levels. Wins all round.

It helps you find better ways to recognise and reward performance. We don’t have any seniority-based job titles. Because it encourages an unproductive sense of progress through power over others.

As work gets more remote, you have two options. One is creepy surveillance, logging keystrokes and timing bathroom breaks. The other is to make people want to do the best job they can. Choose wisely.

 


 

Want more Easter break reading? This topic came up after some banter with US-based writer and tech PR guy Ed Zitron, after realising we’d both written similar yarns on the management plague last year. His one in The Atlantic is well worth a read.

Help me out

If this story was useful or entertaining for you, why not help me out by sharing it? It’s a ton of work getting these stories out, and more readers really helps me justify the insane effort each week.

 

Why not buy this nice book?

Want to break free of a job that sucks and live life on your own terms? All that plus more entertainment than your average business book: Undisruptable: Timeless Business Truths For Thriving In A World Of Nonstop Change.

Every week since it came out 8 months ago, it’s the #1 Review-Rated biz book on Booktopia. On paper, electronic or audio book with me reading it. Get it here:

 

Undisruptable Booktopia Review Ratings

Also I write a story each Tuesday, drop your email here to get it in your inbox.

For those of you in geo-blocked countries, here’s your non-Spotify audio:

 

https://ianwhitworth.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Serve.mp3

 

April 11, 2022

Related News

Other posts that you should not miss.
Art Of Ther Apology
Articles

The Art Of The Apology

February 8, 2021
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Have you fucked up lately? We all do it. What separates the long-term winners from the clowns is owning it like an adult.

Read More
February 8, 2021
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Sinking Businesses by Ian Whitworth
Articles

A Rat’s Guide: The 7 Signs Of Sinking Businesses

September 23, 2019
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

How do you know if you’re working for a solid, dependable business, or one that’s teetering on the edge of doom?

Read More
September 23, 2019
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Undisruptable Edit
Articles

Best Review Ever: Behind The Scenes Of Getting A Book Out

May 3, 2021
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Undisruptable is through a 6 month edit and off to press. Here's some interesting things I learned through the whole publishing process.

Read More
May 3, 2021
Posted by Ian Whitworth
← PREVIOUS POST
The theatre of business: six rules to stand out and get remembered
NEXT POST →
The secret ingredient of successful businesses: a great 2ic
FREE E-BOOK

SUBSCRIBE
MOST POPULAR
  • Last-minute grocery businesses are a massive bag of dicks
    June 27, 2022

    It’s a business model that seems to have cherry-picked all the worst, hardest, most expensive elements of running a business.

  • Scotty Marketing
    3 post-Scotty lessons: good marketing is not like that
    May 30, 2022

    Don't be a product that people only buy once. How to make marketing a force for honesty and profitability in your business instead.

  • Undisruptable South Korea deal
    Undisruptable’s first international publishing deal
    January 31, 2022

    Undisruptable will see its first international release later this year and it's not in a country you'd expect.

  • “An Australian business classic.” Reviews of Undisruptable
    July 12, 2021

    The reviews are in and they are very good.

ABOUT IAN WHITWORTH

Ian Whitworth is a reformed advertising creative director turned entrepreneur with a successful national group of businesses that he doesn’t work in day to day. Read more

POPULAR TAGS
management
branding
Sales
Marketing
jargon
Persuasion
Covid 19
Nickelback
Pitching
Coronavirus
strategy
MBA
startup
Copywriting
Motivation
Business
CEO
Design
Graphic Design
Business Travel
Elon Musk
Frequent Flyer
David Attenborough
Advice
Lacey Filipich
Saxton Speakers
Scene Change
Penguin Random House
Gary Vaynerchuk
Sales Pitch
Tendering
Planning
Conversation Skills
Customers
Customer Service
AI
Shingy
LinkedIn
Simon Sinek
Success
Presentations
Mr Pigden
Motivators
Entrepreneur
Ian Wright
Archives
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Whitworth Communications 2020
Your job is to serve your staff, and why we need less management - Undisruptable