The Manager Is Dead!

The youth today want to go where they feel happy, learn something, feel challenged, rewarded and intellectually stimulated.
And then, they meet 'the manager', a relic of the first industrial revolution.
A fascinating excerpt from Aseem Dhru's book, Mondays @ 7.

The Manager is Dead! Will someone please inform them?

In medieval Europe, the Roman Church was probably one of the first corporations in the world.

It owned businesses, banks and even an army. In 1600 AD, the East India Company got a charter from Her Majesty and became the world's first MNC.

The 1850s Industrial Revolution and factories came up and along with it was born 'The Manager'. A being who managed men, materials and machines to produce maximum output.

The second industrial revolution was due to electricity, gas and oil.

In the twentieth century the third Industrial Revolution came by where Telecom and Computers changed the way the world worked.

We are now in the midst of the Fourth Revolution -- the march towards Singularity.

Today across industries the one common challenge is attracting, retaining and managing talent.

I see three reasons for high attrition.

1. Opportunities.

2. Confidence.

3. The Manager.

Pre 1990 in India if you had a job, you held on to it for dear life. Post liberalisation one had growing options in the private sector.

Now we live in a world of plenty and the youth today isn't scared.

They want to go where they feel happy, learn something, feel challenged, rewarded and intellectually stimulated.

They seek a place which is open, accepting and fair. And then, they meet 'the manager', a relic of the first industrial revolution that lives on long after he is dead.

Can you see the problem? All of our companies have highly paid managers but fun fact is none of their staff want to be managed!

Today, marking attendance, seeking permissions, reporting of work everything we call 'micromanagement' is intensely disliked.

The manager was once a junior and was micro-managed so her idea of management is to do what her manager did to her.

Appraisals, and bell curves are dead but we don't know any better so we still continue.

Today the only way is to lead by inspiration. Command and control structures simply won't work.

The manager has to lead by doing. By example, by knowledge, by intellectual prowess, by empathy.

Leading by grey hair is passe. Just because you have a long title impresses no one.

What you did to get here no one cares about. What you are doing now is what matters and rightly so.

These are smart kids who aren't worried about leaving a job without having another for they know they will find something.

Earlier if you were an MNC, a big bank or one of the consulting giants you never had to worry about losing talent. Now in a heartbeat they will leave for an unknown startup.

At the heart of attrition is the Manager. Middle management has become our Achilles Heel.

They need to inspire their teams to follow instead of trying to lead. Empower, delegate and trust. Lead by example, not by authority.

Layers will collapse, structures will flatten. The manager becomes the damager if she insists on managing.

Instead, she needs to take the team to victory and, in the process, build more leaders not more followers.

Excerpted from Mondays @ 7 by Aseem Dhru with the kind permission of the publishers, Tbooks Ventures LLP.