Be Different or be dead

December 1, 2011

Middle management should do these 6 simple things to be great at execution

Source: Unsplash

Middle management should do these 6 simple things to be great at execution.

Good executers have few people in their organization who run interference. Their organizations are extremely flat with only a few layers of management separating leadership from the frontline.

Successful companies don’t impede their frontline from above with thick layers of middle management folks who seem to do nothing than delegate, administer, co-ordinate and other low value activities.

They don’t bulge in the middle.

Middle management can choke the folks in the trenches.

They can get in the way of achieving results expected by the organization’s business plan.

Take a look at the number of layers in your organization between the leader and the frontline. How many do you have?
If there are more than two layers, you likely are ‘bulging in the middle’ with excess managers who are getting in the way of effective execution.

I suggest you think long and hard about eliminating one or two layers and redefining the roles of the managers you have left.

Hold middle managers accountable for these 6 things if you want them to contribute to executing your business plan, not slow it down.

1. Bashing barriers
Managers in the middle should be bashing barriers for your execution squad of frontline people.
Removing the things that prevent them from moving forward to execute the strategic intent of your organization should be the role you recruit managers to satisfy.

2. Killing dumb rules
Managers in the middle should be seeking out and eliminating the rules and policies that get in the way of providing superlative customer service. Their primary role here is to ‘cleanse the internal environment’ of things that don’t make sense to customers and promote a customer engagement experience that fosters happiness and customer loyalty.

3. Translating leadership’s direction
Managers in the middle must be proficient at translating leadership’s direction into what executing the strategy means to the day-to-day job of every employee.
If employees don’t know exactly what the strategy means to their specific job, execution falters, synergy goes missing and progress to strategic goals stops.

4. Cutting the CRAP
Managers in the middle must be looking for ways to simplify how the frontline does their job. Lubricating business processes is essential to more effective execution, as is removing all activities that don’t directly contribute to strategic goals — CRAP.
And leadership must remove or reallocate managers involved in ‘yesterday’s relevance’ for they add no strategic value to the organization.

5. Allocating scarce resources
Managers in the middle must ensure that the critical few priorities are fed with the right number and quality of people to deliver expected outcomes.
They must ensure that the focus is one what must be done and not on what could be done. The ‘art of the possible’ must be avoided in the face of limited resources.

6. Doing, not delegating stuff
Managers in the middle must get used to doing more themselves rather than serving as a conduit that passes on directives given out by their bosses.
One of the biggest issues I’ve seen relating to middle management effectiveness is the ‘pass on’ function they seem to want to perform. Rather than pitching in and doing the hard work, they pass it on to others without adding any personal value to the expected outcome and thereby adding to the bulge in the middle.

If you’re in the middle and you’re not serving the frontline to better execute, you’re not contributing

As mentioned above, activity that adds little value to carrying out the strategy of an organization is CRAP, and it needs to be cut out; unnecessary layers of management fits the CRAP definition and should be cut out as well.

Eliminate non-execution layers and your frontline will love you for it.

For your to-do list today study your organization chart. How can you slice a layer out?

Start the boot camp diet process now!

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 12.1.11 at 09:25 am by Roy Osing
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