What Does It Mean To Manage?

[Post by Chuck Krugh, September 27, 2024]

Lately, I find myself talking more about managing. Managing is an important part of my job. It is also an important part of the job of each person who works here in a management position. Managing is the more disciplined and rigorous part of leadership. A good manager is required to ensure the company runs successfully on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis – especially at the many points of execution that happen in our company.

I first brought up this topic in the blog Manager vs. Leader back in April 2023 and again in Micromanagement? at the end of June of this year. I think it’s a good time to dive into the manager portion a little deeper.

As I like to do, let’s start by grounding this exploration with a definition. A manager, in my mind, is someone who ensures that the necessary steps are taken to keep the business running day in and day out.

Lots of people take steps to keep the company running, so we need to refine this definition some more. In both the context of this blog and in reference to our management team as a whole, I consider a manager to be anyone who holds a management position and leads people in our company. Whether you are a supervisor or anywhere along the management chain of command, you are a manager as well as a leader. It doesn’t matter which department you work in or which division. This is not specific to someone who holds a job title of “Manager.”

Let’s break it down a little more: a person in a management position manages the processes falling under that role’s responsibilities to confirm three key things.

  • First, a manager confirms the processes are followed consistently (process discipline).
  • Second, the manager confirms the work is not deviating from the plan and, if there is deviation, determines why (which is problem solving).
  • Third, the manager confirms that those processes are delivering the product or service they are supposed to (do what we said we would do).

In other words, managers ensure we meet our commitment as a company by using process discipline, and then problem solve when a process is not delivering what it should. It sounds pretty simple, but it can be really challenging if you are not prepared to carry out all three bullets above.

Organizing your work is crucial so you are prepared to execute these three bullets. Organization for me brings a certain level of calmness to what can be chaos at work. When I’m not organized as well as I want to be, I get frustrated because I feel that I’m not controlling the process. This can affect my can-do attitude.

Now, frustration, feeling like I don’t have control when I think I should, and losing my can-do attitude are three things that I do not like at all! Maybe worst of all, I feel like I’m not winning or not being successful! I especially hate this feeling. So I take steps to be organized to avoid these.

Therefore, I thought I would share a little more about what I mean by organizing my work as well as some of the things that I do to help me manage our organization. So, here goes:

  • Prioritize my activities for the day: Identify what is important for me to get done today (time cards, status sheets, schedule updates, meetings, reviews, etc.) and know when the tasks must be completed. I prioritize my activities so I can get them done as efficiently as possible so I can get back to the floor (deckplates), which is where I prefer to be.
  • Understand the goals of the week: Review what needs to be done this week in relation to the master schedule, employee-related activities (i.e., reviews, personnel actions, vacations, sick time, etc.). Certain goals may require certain staff or skills, so understanding the work goals means knowing in advance (to the extent possible) what your people will be doing. Be prepared for what you know is coming at you!
  • Develop work assignments: Prepare daily work assignments for each team member. Know what needs to be done to ensure that it happens. Have additional work ready in case there are personnel changes during the week, the work gets done faster than expected or something unexpected happens.
  • Track team performance: Track my team’s performance hourly, daily and weekly. Understand how they are progressing, help them get what they need to keep moving and generally clear the path for them to keep going. Part of tracking my team’s performance is holding them accountable for their performance, both individually and as a team.
  • Communicate progress: Communicate both up and down regularly. Earlier in my career when I held a managers’ role, I had to communicate at least once a day up and several times (shift start, after lunch and second shift start) to my guys. Keeping everyone informed sometimes seemed like repeating the same message, but now I know how important it is for someone in my seat to have everyone on the same page!
  • After-action review: Learning from what went well and what didn’t is a key part of a manager’s job. If we don’t learn from both the good and bad performances, then we are doomed to repeat it again. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like seeing things happening over and over. I prefer to learn and make adjustments to help my team not suffer some of the frustrations caused by letting things repeat that shouldn’t.

I hope some of these techniques help you think about your own work’s organization and help you avoid those negative feelings that bother me so much.

Now, I would feel remiss if I didn’t mention accountability in this blog because it is a basic function of leadership – and especially management. A manager of a process would typically assign work to his or her team as a routine matter of business. This act of assigning work to an individual begins the accountability process.

In turn, the person accepting the assignment becomes responsible to complete that assignment. If you are a manager, your job is to monitor the completion of that assignment. If the assignment is completed within the perimeters set for the task, then the person doing the work did what they were supposed to do. Completing the work within the parameters means the worker earns credibility with the manager. However, if the person doesn’t complete the task and cannot explain why without making excuses or blaming others, then we have a situation where the manager needs to hold the person accountable. Making excuses for underperforming or blaming others means the worker loses credibility with the manager.

Over time, that person’s performance will determine the course of action, starting with a conversation and moving on ultimately to dismissal using the disciplinary process.

This action I have just described – the worker accepting the assignment from the manager – highlights a critical part of a manager’s job function, but I am looking at it from a slightly different angle than we usually do when talking about the manager-employee relationship.

Let’s look at it more closely. As a manager, I assign work to be completed. The individual who receives the assignment makes a decision as to whether he or she is going to do the work. If the person makes the choice not to do the work or to do it poorly, it’s up to me as the manager to hold that worker accountable for the work. In other words, the employee, by accepting the assignment, has made a commitment and then has control over how accountable he or she will be for completing that commitment.

In other words, employees are accountable to managers for their commitments. Managers are responsible – and accountable – for holding employees to their commitments (assignments). This is a different way to explain what accountability is, but in the end, it is simply meeting your commitments.

(Some of you many recall me saying something about meeting commitments way back when I first arrived . . . see the blog Meet Your Schedule Commitments.)

One last thought before I close this blog: Some leaders lose sight of the fact that being in a leadership position is a privilege and an honor. I have never forgotten this, even when being a leader is hard.

If you are in a leadership position and don’t feel it is an honor and privilege to be in that seat, I believe you are in the wrong position. I suggest you think about what position is best for you and for the company.

See you on the deckplates!

Safely Execute High-Quality Work

Chuck
President, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works

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