Management Miss: Too Busy to Manage
by Miki SaxonManagement M&M is a new weekly feature focusing on various management misses and messes. I hope you’ll send examples from your own experiences for me to use—anonymously, of course.
I found an interesting bit of idiocy in a recent McKinsey survey (free registration required),
Even though overall reliance on financial incentives fell over the past 12 months, a number of companies curtailed their use of nonfinancial ones as well. Thirteen percent of the survey respondents report that managers praise their subordinates less often, 20 percent that opportunities to lead projects or task forces are scarcer, and 26 percent that leadership attention to motivate talent is less forthcoming.
The technical term for this is ‘how stupid can you get’.
At a time when corporations large and small need the highest level of employee engagement just to survive, let alone thrive, they are making every effort to convince their staff that they don’t give a damn about them.
This attitude essentially says ‘you are worth neither money nor time, but I want you to work harder and produce more than ever before’.
The survey also touches on the reason for the idiocy.
…nonfinancial ways to motivate people do, on the whole, require more time and commitment from senior managers. One HR director we interviewed spoke of their tendency to “hide” in their offices—primarily reflecting uncertainty about the current situation and outlook. This lack of interaction between managers and their people creates a highly damaging void that saps employee engagement.
Well, doh.
The higher you move in an organization the more you are required to accomplish your goals through the efforts of others, but the less time you make to do that.
Sure doesn’t sound like a winning strategy to me.
Image credit: Finsec on flickr
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