The Role of a Manager in Service Organizations and Government
- November 30th, 2009
- Posted in Systems Thinking Concepts . Systems Thinking and Government
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As I was working with a client last week, I reflected on the role of a manager in a systems thinking environment. If we are to improve the design and management of work . . . the way we manage must change. This should be seen as an opportunity to a more efficient and compassionate leadership strategy.
Taking an outside-in approach we squarely place ourselves in alignment with the customer. There is no need to manage the financials as this will take care of itself when the customer is the center of our thoughts. Taking our minds away from cost control to focus on the causes of costs.
Organizational change management with all the restructuring that leads to new programs and no improvement, gives way to focus management attention on the work. A far cry from the report-driven and anecdotal method embraced by today’s command and control style of management. Silos become non-existent as doing what is right for the customer delivers value rather than turf battles.
Measurement derived from customer purpose replaces the functional targets set from the quarterly dividend, financial forecast or budget. Managers are instead looking at how capable they are at meeting customer demand and the measures that matter to customers.
Meetings related to making sure the customer or supplier are adhering to contracts written, instead look at a systemic review of “what matters” to customers and create a cooperative environment. Working together with suppliers and other managers to act on the system to improve flow rather than manage people and budgets.
Managers and workers learning together how to (first) understand current performance and learn what matters to customers. We move from a reactive environment to an adaptive one. Change is emergent as workers and managers try new methods to improve the work and innovation through better design. Rewarded with the desire to learn more and continue the cycle.
Our need to redesign the way manager’s manage should be at the top of our 2010 to-do list. Is your service organization or government ready for real change?
Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion! Click on comments below.
Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public). His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work. Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com. Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbitt or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.
Tripp Babbitt,
Concur, however a manager within a given system who has transformed must execise great caution as they set out to help with the needed change in the way the organization and/or system is managed. John Seddon said it best in a number of ways: “Any behaviour that is viewed by another as ‘against the credo’ becomes the subject of attention”; “The right answer is change the system. If you say that, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”; “In order to make the change the manager had to be prepared to have their own implicit theories and practices put into the open and questioned, even criticised”; and “The organization has conditioned them to the prevailing philosophy; any agent who questions the philosophy is labelled as difficult or making excuses.”(all quotes taken out of Freedom from CC, by John Seddon).
I was once told that; you can only move an organization forward as fast as its people can learn. I have learned that this statement is false. Let me put it this way; you can not improve any organization until the very top has transformed and the profound knowledge is enabled and encouraged to permeate down through the system. If not, the system will actually discredit and spit out the transformed manager within a system attempting the shift in thinking. Victimized by their own knowledge.
Keith