Managers, Management and Managing and Managerial Performance, Results, Success and Failure. Ten Reasons for Managerial Mediocre and High Performance

Management resultsology is the scientific study of management and how managers produce the kind of performance and results they get as well as the science behind success and failure of managers and others in management roles and positions.

The terms manager and management have been a subject of academic and intellectual inquiry for hundreds of years but, like in all other disciplines such as leadership, entrepreneurship, strategy and performance, the inquiry continues amid rapid and radical changes in both theory and practice. Despite the ubiquity of time invested in study, inquiry and research in management, there is still little agreement on what really constitutes management while many of those in management positions are still not very clear about what management really is and how best to practice it. The majority of the attempts to develop effective managers is are also, according to research, not producing the desired results; billions of USD dollars are still being wasted in training and development programs. At the same time, there has been a remarkable improvement in the understanding and clarity of management as well as great training, education and development programs for developing effective managers have emerged. The big challenge that remains is that of the sluggish reaction and response to the new, the cutting edge and the leading edge by humans in general and in organisations and the corporate world in particular. The result is that managerial performance is still way below its full potential when compared to the potential of the managers to deliver higher performance and the existence of high-powered, highly effective solutions for producing excellent managers. There are several reasons that interact to perpetuate low performance and mediocre managerial performance. I will mention seven them in this treatise.

 First Problem: The Definition and Concept of Management

Asked to define management, many people including academics, top leaders and managers themselves resort to the traditional textbook definitions. Few people have thought through the management theory that they have learned and contextualized it for the real world. While traditional academic definitions of management are useful and help us to understand the concepts; they do not help much when it comes to the daily practice of management in the real world.  

In team building, strategy sessions and leadership and management training sessions, I ask managers the following questions?

1. What do you think about management?

2. What do you know about management?

3. How much do you know about management?

4. What do you think about yourself in terms of management?

5. What do you think about your company or organisation in terms of management?

6. What do you think about managers?

7. What do you know about managers?

8. How much do you know about managers?

9. What do you think about yourself in terms of being a manager?

10. What do you think about your company or organisation in terms of managers?

11. What do you think about managing?

12. What do you know about managing?

13. How much do you know about managing?

14. What do you think about yourself in terms of managing?

15. What do you think about your company or organisation in terms of managing?

The answers to these questions are always fascinating and revealing; they tell a big story that no other set of questions can answer and they start a great starting point for improving managerial performance.

In the majority of cases, people have bad, poor, vague or incomplete definitions of management; most do not have an internalised definition; showing a serious weakness management-wise. 

A wrong poor, wrong or definition of management is invariably a good sign of poor or average managerial performance. 

The definition of management has drastically changed over time and the contemporary definitions are clearer and more practical than old definitions that tended to be more academic and therefore much less useful for practical management. 

Second Problem: Problematic Organisational Titles

Organisational titles are major sources of many problems in the areas of management, leadership, marketing and sales. The traditional and conventional use of the title manager still confuses many people. When most people hear the word management; they automatically create a hierarchical structure where leadership is at the top, management at the middle and operational people at the bottom. In other words, they think about management in terms of structure rather than in terms of practice, roles, and functions. Therefore, in automatic unconscious conclusion is that leaders lead, managers manage and those below the managers do. This frame of thinking leads to serious confusion and misunderstanding of what management is all about and how it happens in organisations. 

Interestingly, a title called manager is common in almost every significant organisation but very few organisation has the title called leader except isolated cases where you hear the title team leader. Again, people get these titles but without a very clear blue print of what exactly management means and how to do it effectively. The confusion caused by titles worsens with tiles such as managing director, top managers, middle managers, marketing manager, sales manager, operations manager and so on. The worst is people management. 

The title manager and its derivatives needs a serious review if organisations are to improve managerial performance and the performance of managers. The questions that still need serious attention in organisations is:

1. Who is a manager and who is not a manager in organisations?

2. What exactly must managers be doing on a daily in order to be said to be managing?

3. What really goes into managerial performance?

4. How well are people managing compared to their best possible levels and also according to the available best performance levels?

5. How good is our theory of managers, management and managing?

Third Problem: Bad, Poor or Inadequate Development of Managers

This one is big. Many people in positions of management get bad, mediocre and meagre effort to improve their performance. Many leaders and their organisations assume, and mistakenly so, that their managers will deliver world-class performance just because they are managers, they are well-paid; they have experience and they have good degrees or other academic qualifications. As a result, these managers get very little in terms of organisation specific management, training, education and development. Many of those that do get some kind of training get random, adhoc “training” in the form of “in-house training” or attending some workshops and seminars and other events. Regrettably, most of these programs are ill constituted for major performance improvement and transformation because they are the same educational type where the managers receive more doses of academic format theory on management; they get more teaching and learn more and do much less of actual training and person development which is more powerful real world performance. 

Many “managers” are well-read; they are articulate about management theories, but they are much less skilled, little equipped and far less developed. The problem is to know is not to do? Doing needs more of skills, qualities, attributes and talent than factual knowledge. 

Many people have management know-what and deficient in management know-how. This gap is not being closed; leading to a perpetuation of low managerial performance.  

To be continued

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