[MUSIC] Welcome back. Since the manager's role may vary geographically or by organization, let's look specifically at the manager role a little more closely, in order to come to a common understanding. In this lesson we'll define the manager role and review why that role is so important to an organization. I'll give you examples of effective use of the manager role and describe the pitfalls of relying too much on the manager role. Manager, as it is defined, practices and implements policies and procedures that mitigate organizational risk and drive employee productivity to ensure organization goals are met. Here's the thing. We have to have managers in place to make sure the work gets done. For some people this is their favorite role, because if we think about the tree analogy that I talked about in the previous lesson, that the leader gets up high in the tree, the manager is down in the weeds. The manager is down there making sure people are working, they're chopping, they're focusing, they're committed, dialed in, they're working together. That's what the manager is doing as they are working with their team every day. So one of the keys that's really, really important for this role is that the manager accepts the responsibility that comes with being a manager. Sort of an oxymoronish thing for me to say, but think about it. In order to be an effective manager you really have to own the role. You have to recognize that your work is to keep the work moving, that it isn't other people's fault that the work isn't getting done, that if you are charged with these employees to get the work done through them, then that is your responsibility. Leaders set the vision. Managers deploy it. The best example I have right now for that is to think about an orchestra. And I'd like you to think about that there's a composer, and the composer in our analogy is the leader. So the composer writes this beautiful piece of music and hands it to the conductor to say, conductor, please make my music beautiful. Make people understand the message of my music. And so the conductor, in this analogy, is the manager. The conductor looks at all of the pieces and parts of the orchestra, all of the different instruments. And not just the instruments but the skill of the players of the instrument. And not just the skill of the players of the instrument but the position. And are people sitting where they need to sit to maximize the sound, to maximize the composer's vision of what this piece of music is supposed to sound like? Are the musicians responsible for their instruments? Are they in tune? Do they play in accordance with the orchestra? Is everybody working together? That is the role of a manager. When you assume that responsibility, you look out at the people that you are managing and you see that your goal is through these people to create the masterpiece that the composer has seen in their mind and then transferred to paper. So when we think of ourselves that way as managers, it's a pretty big responsibility, but there's a lot of opportunity. Because as a conductor we might notice that one of our players isn't playing well. We might notice that one of our players is not in the best location seat-wise. We may notice that an instrument is out of key. We may notice that one player is playing much faster than another. And so our job is to sort of coordinate all of that to make sure that the music comes together to really maximize the vision of the composer. Let's look at an example of a manager who may have had some challenges executing on their manager role. So Alice is a manager, and she continues to have two people on her team who are missing deadlines and making a lot of errors. As you might imagine, everybody is very frustrated. Alice doesn't understand why the problem keeps occurring. And the employees are frustrated because they're not making Alice happy, and she is annoyed with them. So Alice thought about this and recognized that maybe she was expecting them to just know what to do. And so instead of making that loose expectation, she decided to create a checklist and an approval process for their work. She did so by talking to them and asking them about their work, what they needed to focus on as they were going through their work, and what their challenges were. And after she implemented the checklist and the approval process, amazingly, there was a big decline in missed deadlines and errors. The issue here wasn't necessarily that the employees didn't know what to do or that Alice hadn't communicated it, but that she hadn't been clear and there was no process in place. If we think about the conductor example, if you just hand people music and ask them to start playing, they'll probably play fine. But if we need them to play a particular way, then I have to be more specific about what my expectations are. This is what happens to a lot of managers. They think that people see the work the same way that they do, and so they go about the business of just saying hey, get your work done. But a lot of people need more specific detail. They need more structure and they need more feedback, which we're going to talk about in future lessons. So keep in mind the manager's job is to really look at every player on the team, every player in the orchestra and see how well they're contributing and what do they need to improve their performance. Now sometimes this role can also be overused, and we've often heard the term micromanager. Now what a micromanager is, is somebody who doesn't pay attention to the critical thinking and problem solving skills of their employees, and they assume that the employee can't figure it out on their own. And so they're always telling the employee what to do, when to do it, how to do it. That's fine when we're first teaching someone how to do something. But as our roles expand and as our employees become more sophisticated in their skills, we can't micromanage everything because then what happens is we create disengagement. And then we limit their critical thinking and their problem solving skills, and people become either frustrated with you as a manager, or they become overly reliant on you as a manager, which ultimately can create disengagement on the team and a lack of motivation on the team. So we want to be careful that we recognize that the manager role is essential to keep things moving and to make sure the performance of the team is moving forward in a way that the organization is successful. But we also want to recognize that there is a time and place for the manager role, and it isn't all the time. So in summary, the manager role is essential for everybody to understand. If you're managing people, you've got to get the manager role. [LAUGH] The manager role also helps the team stay focused on the processes and activities that lead to high performance. And lastly, organizations need this role to ensure the work gets done on time and as it is supposed to. In our next lesson we're going to talk about manager as mentor.
