There is a theory, called the Peter Principle, which says that workers are promoted based on their performance in their current role, rather than the necessary abilities in the role they are being promoted to. As a result, people constantly get promoted until they no longer perform effectively, and “managers rise to the level of their incompetence”.
In a similar vein, the Dilbert Principle states that companies promote their least competent employees into management roles to keep them away from ‘actual work’ and limit the amount of damage they can cause. Cartoonist Scott Adams, who developed the theory, said that “the least competent, least smart people are promoted, simply because they’re the ones you don’t want doing actual work. You want them ordering the doughnuts and yelling at people for not doing their assignments – you know, the easy work. Your heart surgeons and your computer programmers – your smart people – aren’t in management positions.”
Preparation trumps ability
Whether a manager is promoted for their abilities, or their perceived incompetence, it is vital that they are well-prepared. It’s telling, then, that recent research by business performance training provider, Impellus, has shown that 40% of managers (across all industries) are unsure of what is expected of them. That, explains Jon Dean, managing director of Impellus, is a sign of a disunited workforce. “More often than not, there is a disconnect between top and middle management,” he says. “Those at the top are naïve to the challenges of the company, and there isn’t enough of a roadmap to what they want the company to do. That means line managers will be receiving incorrect or insufficient information to be able to push forward the company strategy.”
Dean also asserts that companies are often guilty of promoting people through the company and into management positions based on their technical ability, without considering the skills they may need to manage a team. And, he says, manufacturing is an industry more guilty of this than most. “People often forget that you have to teach management skills,” he asserts. “Manufacturers are very good at promoting people based on their talent, and expecting them to just get on with it. They assume that because someone is skilled at their job, they will be good at teaching others how to do it. That approach won’t bring any advancement in ideas or any attempt to do things in a better way.”
The importance of training
It may be an obvious statement, but a sure-fire way of ensuring a well-prepared management team is to train them up. The Impellus research highlighted that managers are very concerned about their teams’ skill levels (41% wanted to see their teams receive more training and development of their skills; 31% want the opportunity to assess their teams’ skills and identify any gaps). However, says Dean, their own ability is often neglected. “We have statistics on how long people have been in a management role before they receive any formal training,” he says. “The figure has fallen in recent years, but it’s still up around the two-year mark.”
Perhaps even more shockingly, Dean estimates that “only around one in 50” of the people who attend Impellus’ training courses are doing so before they start their new management role. “Everyone else on it will have been in the role for some time,” he says. “People will always receive additional on-the-job training, but when you think about those numbers, the vast majority of managers will be put in charge of a team of people, who will all be costing the company money, without having had any training. Can you imagine someone walking into a factory without ever having used the machinery and just being allowed to get on with it – ‘it’s easy, you’ll just pick it up’? That would be an insane position to take, so why would you allow it to happen to managers?”
The cost of putting managers through training courses can often be off-putting, concedes Dean. “It’s easy to kick spending a load of money on training down the road,” he says. “However, if someone came to you and said ‘you’ll waste a chunk of money this year because your management team are passing on inefficient advice’, you’ll want to try and save that. Because you don’t see an invoice for waste, it can be an easy thing to ignore – but it’s a relatively easy thing to fix.”
Added to this are the knock-on effects a poor manager can have on the rest of their team, and the wider company. Dean warns that managers who are poor leaders will cause morale to fall, productivity to grind to a halt and staff churn become an expensive, and time-consuming, problem.
“Companies with poor management are the ones who will also be spending a lot of money on recruitment, to try and replace the staff who grow infuriated with the lack of leadership,” he says. “It’ll cost a lot less in the long run to train the management properly before the problems become especially serious.”
The makings of a manager
The million-dollar question, of course, is what actually entails a good manager? For firms who may be concerned that they are fulfilling either the Peter or Dilbert Principles, what should they be looking for to ensure their management is doing the job? Dean is clear that senior and middle management have distinct roles. “At a senior level, managers have to know where the company is heading and how it’s going to get there. They can’t be afraid to make tough decisions. But, most importantly, they have to communicate that to the rest of the company, and in particular their middle management levels.
“For middle managers, it is vitally important to learn how to manage up as well as down. Line managers who get promoted through the ranks can often have the feeling of just muddling through without any direction. If they do feel like this, they have to go up the food chain to ask for advice about what is required – and senior management have to have the answers. Otherwise, the middle management will be giving incorrect advice to their teams, and the company will suffer. Managing up – taking information to your boss and highlighting any issues – is just as important as managing down.”The overarching secret, however, is, and will always be, a well-trained and informed manager, at any level.
