Confidence v Pressure

Tasks get work done, but only duties ensure that tasks will be set and performed. So assigning a duty is fundamental to gaining control of a particular area of work. The confidence from management control naturally assumes that everyone can and will perform their duties efficiently and effectively. But people are not machines.

The pressure emerging here is based on the emotionality and variability with which individuals discharge duties and handle work situations. Issues may blow up in terms of relationships or recognition or workloads. Whatever the cause, there is an emotional aspect that cannot be dealt with by an instruction. Personalities have to be engaged and dealt with in the context of duties and their performance.

This requires a mutuality-based dialogue and cooperation in the next higher Grouping.

If managerial oversight takes place in a regular and disciplined fashion, then there is a time and place for personal issues and concerns to be discussed. A way forward can always be found through dialogue in which the issues are explored and options examined. This confidence comes from the presence of cooperation, a management quality that is necessary within any organization.

However, no matter how systematic and frequent the meetings and briefings, or how good the feedback, there are always surprises. These put pressure on management.

Managers dislike surprises, just as they dislike coping with emotions and personalities. Nevertheless, given cooperation, surprises can be handled by springing into action, i.e. dynamism, as found at the next higher Grouping.

Pressures for change and co-evolution are mastered by a drive for improvement that demands dynamism from managers. Confidence emerges when managers are willing to act even if information is limited and outcomes are uncertain. However, in dynamically entering new situations, it commonly becomes evident that specialist knowledge is relevant.

Amateur efforts and coping can only go so far, and although advice may help, it is often insufficient. The absence of dedicated skills and expertise creates anxiety and generates a pressure for professionalism within the organization.

Dynamism and professionalism are synthesized as management competence. However, for this to contribute properly within an organization, it must relate to a designed role i.e. at the next higher Grouping.

Provision of function-based roles with strong specialist functional management and a general management function ensures competence, which provides confidence that challenges can be met. To handle new developments, either specialists may be recruited or existing staff in the function can be given additional responsibilities (and possibly training).

The problem with competent staff in well-developed functions is that they want to optimize and enhance their own special area. The pressure that emerges to prevent this compartmentalization is the mission of the organization.

Based on those over-riding values, management must become realistic about their ambitions and develop a consensus as to where to take the organization. This requires the goals determined at the next higher Grouping.

Goals are determined based on where the organization is at present—on which agreement is usually fairly easy, and on where the organization could be—which depends on the ambitions in play. The development of consensus around authoritative plans provides confidence that the organization is on the right track (whether or not that is so) and ensures everyone is pulling together in the right direction.

The problem with plans of all sorts, is that reality does not always conform. Invariably pressure on management emerges as a crisis that is unexpected and threatens assumptions or disturbs the consensus.

Putting the crisis in the context of the consensus, requires maintaining a high morale, which is about motivation, found at the next higher Grouping.

When any manager is employed in an organization, they are expected to be motivated to do the job. Motivation is not an extra to be ensured by someone else. If everybody is motivated, there is confidence that management can succeed in handling whatever comes. When leading and following occurs smoothly and naturally, then morale is high.

However there are always setbacks of various sorts, and these may lead followers to start doubting their leaders. It can soon seem that management is not coping or even cannot cope—which is a potent source of pressure and anxiety.

Setbacks can be handled while maintaining morale if everyone shows commitment. Management then possesses credibility: but this is handled at the next higher Grouping.

Managers, especially at higher levels, are often viewed as parasites, with little commitment beyond their paycheck. Evidence of a strong commitment of managers generates high confidence that they will be reluctant to preside over failure. In a business, this commitment often shows up in a significant ownership of the equity. It can be developed in all organizations by a variety of arrangements that promote participation and full involvement. The end result is then a management that possesses credibility.

Pressure is placed on management by investigations either instituted in response to a failure or as part of a new program or as part of a routine. If this reveals something seriously amiss, it will indicate a gap in the systems somewhere. Certain duties have either not been identified or not been discharged.

If credibility is to be retained in association with investigations, there must be a move back around to G1, the lowest Grouping. Here the necessary duties can be re-defined and/or re-assigned so that management control can once more be assured.