Managing Leadership^®

The key point I think for managers to note, when they are attempting to repair a business unit damaged by a bad experience with a previous manager, is that people join businesses or other organizations not just for the paycheck, and not even just for the social gratification that the workplace provides, but also to be a part of something larger than themselves, a collaborative enterprise in which they can feel their contribution and their shared commitment and value amongst their peers. Many people don’t think of organizations this way – especially commercial ones. But look at the really successful ones, the ones that feel that they’re on a mission, that they’re changing the world for the better. We all know of companies like this in the information technology, communication, and computing fields; many energy and pharmaceutical firms are also in this category.

Some of these companies are unique, but people look for this sense of fulfillment from every organization they join. That’s where the manager’s job comes in, to provide facilities, systems, procedures, and support that enable employees to do the jobs they’ve been hired to do, to clear the decks so they can focus on what you said you need them for when you hired or promoted them.

Inevitably, when you come across a unit that has suffered from bad management, it is because the management environment has become about something other than the value of the work at hand and the ability to do it; usually it has become about the manager’s distorted impression of his or her own personal importance. The irony is that the low performance of such groups is so often due to management and not to their own shortcomings.

The opportunity for the new manager is to see a veritable laboratory of human/corporation/workplace interactions; to see them at their lowest point, and to see how focused, practical, results-oriented management – of which we are all, with sufficient discipline and humility, capable – can set in motion the restoration of those interactions to produce a humming, efficient unit and pleasant work environment.

Obviously, it is also an opportunity for many other organizationally positive things. For example, it can prove to be an excellent chance, while assessing the damage done by the previous manager, to review and improve the unit’s work procedures and rules, and to rebuild and reinforce employee morale and loyalty by making them an important part of doing this. It can be sort of like building a new city on the ruins of the old – you can use lessons learned to start fresh and build a more optimal architecture, rather than jury-rigging your way around existing structures.

Managers coming into such a situation should not feel daunted or hesitant about it – they should have optimism grounded in the realities of why people work, and how ready they are to forgive past mistakes and move on when presented with credible, responsible, and focused managers. That is what provides the opportunity to not just restore the unit and the productivity and morale of its employees, but to improve them. Moreover, the new manager him- or herself has a golden opportunity to gain years of really priceless experience from such an assignment.