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Executive Times |
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2006 Book Reviews |
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Your
Management Sucks by Mark Stevens |
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Rating: |
** |
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(Mildly Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Punchy Mark Stevens’
new book, Your
Management Sucks, reprises the spirited attitude and punchy style readers
would expect from an author who grew up in Are you a
leader? Do you think of yourself this way? Do the people who work for you? Before you
answer, allow me to make a statement that I have found to be true throughout
the course of my business career: Unless you are a leader, you cannot be an
effective manager. An inspired manager. The kind of person who drives people
to achieve more than they would if you were not standing in front of them (as
well as by their side). Now let’s
delve into this issue a bit more. What if your business card has a leadership
title: Supply chain manager. Director of human resources. Marketing
coordinator. All sound
as if you are leading something. Ostensibly, you are fusing employees and
vendors around the achievement of strategic and tactical
initiatives. It doesn’t matter if you have one person reporting to you or a
small army, if your budget is $10,000 or $100 million—to get the job done,
you have to lead. But having the title hardly assures that you are leading.
It’s just words on a piece of paper. Leadership is expressed in thinking and
doing by applying your personal philosophy to the team you manage. At this
point, you may be thinking, “I’m very busy. Without me, this business unit
would not get the job done. In fact,
it would be in terrible straits. So I must be the leader in action as well as
words.” Not
necessarily. Being busy and leading are vastly different. Sure, they may
converge, but being busy is hardly the acid test of leadership. And if your
business unit cannot get the job done unless you are on the premises,
that is generally a reliable indication that something is amiss in
your leadership skill. Strong
leaders (and, in turn, exceptional managers) establish a compass for their
people to pursue in the course of their work and provide the motivation to exceed
established goals. Can you
honestly say you do this? Are you proud of the way your people take the hill?
Are you confident that they can get the job done—any job—in a way that
elevates your business unit to new levels of success? Or is it just the opposite?
If so, you cannot take it out on them. You have just looked in the virtual
mirror and come to the realization (perhaps grudgingly) that you are not as
good a leader as you can be. The time has come to change that. To declare
war on yourself. The question is, if you are not a
born leader, how can you develop the skills that are essential for extraordinary
management? One thing
is certain: Holding a mirror to other people— even those you greatly
admire—is not the way to do it. Here’s why. As a manager (of your life, as
well as your career, your business unit), you’ve probably looked to emulate
role models such as Jack Welch, Carly Fiorina, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett,
and the superstar VP two offices down from yours, whose place in the
hierarchy keeps soaring along with the success of her business unit. There’s
certainly a rich pantheon of managerial poster people to worship: the
patrician Ivy League executive. . . the
street-smart, hard-boiled, self-made entrepreneur . . . the
everybody-loves-me consensus builder . . . and lest we forget,
the deep, analytical, I-don’t-talk-to-anybody-just-get-the-results type
leader. And if you are so inclined, you can emulate them all. It’s only
natural to want to imitate the stars. To swing a golf club like Ernie Els. To play hoops with the style and swagger of Michael
Jordan. To conduct a sales meeting with the electric panache of Steve Jobs.
The media encourages this emulation by informing you in colorful detail how
these role models make the seas part, earn their place among the managerial
elite, and reap harvests of wealth in the process. Surely you’ve come across
managerial profiles filled with all the details you need to try on their
personalities, their MOs, like colorful masks at Mardi Gras. You’re tempted
to do it. Even if these people are cold, driven, cavalier, pompous, and
insensitive, the message is that they have the right stuff to make it, and
that if you read carefully, you will learn how they do it. And you will be
able to imitate them, armed and dangerous. Completely
understandable. And the worst damn
thing you can do as a manager. Because
you can’t pick a persona and make it your own. You can certainly learn from successful business
leaders. But you can’t copy them. If you try, you’ll be dazed and confused. A
successful manager needs to wake up in the morning and be himself instead of
assuming a role that’s inconsistent with his personality. His DNA. Sure, I’m
advocating that you declare war on yourself, but not to dress in someone
else’s clothes. Instead, you should keep striving for the full potential that
is reflected in who you are and can
be. If you have been blinded by the hype surrounding the role-model stars,
it’s time to transition from followership to
leadership. Recently,
my company was called on to compete for a major client in the fiber-optics
industry. Before flying out for a beauty contest, the prospective client’s
COO called to prep the key members of my team, focusing on the personalities
of the executives we would meet at the company’s headquarters when we arrived
to make our presentation. As the COO
talked on and on, my radar was telling me that he wanted us to morph our
personalities into a multicolored persona that would be acceptable to the
eclectic group we would be facing in his company’s boardroom. In theory, a
good idea. In practice, a prescription for disaster. If you want to
carry around a book that will be noticed by others because of its inflammatory
title, by all means pick up Your
Management Sucks. You’ll be entertained by Stevens’ stories and examples.
If you want to prove your independence, buy a copy of this book for your
boss. If you want to improve your managerial skills, look elsewhere. Steve Hopkins,
August 25, 2006 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the September
2006 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Your
Management Sucks.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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