Outgrow Middle Management

Accelerate Your Climb to the Top

Dave Osh

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781630472597
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

Outgrow Middle Management offers a unique blueprint that enables executives to expedite their rise to senior management while increasing their income and getting the most out of life.

The book provides a roadmap for scaling the corporate pinnacle much faster with better career/life harmony. The accelerated journey to top management is navigated primarily through two domains:

Inner Leadership:

Inner leadership is self-awareness, growth toward self-mastery, and cultivation of the right attitude toward other people. It is achieved through three steps:

• Intention - performing with purpose leads to the outcomes we aim for
• Expansiveness - expanding beyond expertise, education, or comfort zones
• Effectiveness - making an impact and affecting the end result of processes

Outer Leadership:

Outer leadership is the behavior that influences other people and includes the art of motivating people to progress toward results. Here in brief are the three strategies:

• Dialogue - developing communication skills to excel in fierce conversations
• Decision - getting commitments through collaborative decision making
• Action - driving flawless execution of the committed decisions

While there are thousands of books on leadership, Outgrow Middle Management is counterintuitive to the common approach of improving management skills, increasing efficiency, and becoming a better manager or leader. Its main concept is "get out of there!" because middle management is a stressful place to be. Instead, executives can learn to do what commercial pilots do when they hit bumps flying through clouds-they soar above them.

PART I

INNER LEADERSHIP

INTENTION

TRANSFORM FROM MANAGER TO LEADER

There is a lot of confusion about the differences between management and leadership. They both involve deciding what needs to be done, creating a network of people to accomplish goals and ensuring that the work actually gets done. Management and leadership complement each other, but they do so in a very different way.

So what is the difference?

John P. Kotter differentiates management from leadership in his book, What Leaders Really Do. He claims that management copes with complexity but leadership copes with rapid change. Kotter has discovered three major differences between management and leadership:

1. Management involves setting goals, planning, budgeting and allocating resources. Leadership involves setting direction and developing a vision of the future, along with strategies to achieve this vision.

2. Management involves organizing, staffing, and setting-up job descriptions, recruiting qualified individuals, delegating responsibilities and devising systems to monitor execution. Leadership involves aligning people, communicating the vision and getting a commitment to achieve it.

3. Management provides control, solves problems, monitors results versus objectives and takes corrective actions to resolve deviations. Leadership provides motivation and inspiration. It keeps people moving in the right direction despite challenges, by appealing to their values and emotions.

Most organizations are over-managed and under-led because they focus mainly on formal long-term planning and budgeting rather than on setting a direction. Long-term planning is a deductive process, while setting direction is an inductive process. Long term planning worked well in the 20th century when the markets did not change rapidly. In the 21st century, markets are characterized by rapid change and we must adapt to volatile market dynamics. Therefore rapid change is essential to be able to compete in the new dynamic business environment.

But here is the problem…

Managers try forcing change through formal organizational systems, structures and incentives. They fail to drive change because they don’t involve informal stakeholders (like customers or suppliers). Managers communicate short-term plans effectively through the formal organization, but when it comes to communicating a whole new future – you need a leader.

Communicating a new vision successfully depends solely on leadership – not management. Leaders tend to go beyond the mechanical structure of the organization. While managers count on the power of their titles, leaders count on rapport, integrity and trustworthiness to drive change.

Well-managed organizations are not necessarily well-led organizations. The employees of well-managed organizations are effective within the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). The same employees are powerless when they try to initiate change outside the SOP. When they attempt to initiate change, they receive responses like, “That’s against our policy” or “We cannot afford it” or “Shut-up and do as you are told.”

Strong leaders resolve these challenges by providing a strong alignment and drive change beyond SOP. While managers focus on “best practices,” leaders create “new practices.” While managers adapt to the culture; leaders create a new culture. Leaders align employees with the new direction and ensure that they are not reprimanded, even when they do not comply with the policy.

For example, managing a factory requires an effective control system to respond immediately to deviations from the plan. This factory requires well organized, trained and disciplined employees to run the plant efficiently. But achieving a bold vision requires the kind of energy that only motivated, empowered and inspired employees can achieve. Control systems will not drive employees toward a new direction. Leaders, not managers, will evoke feelings of achievement, a sense of belonging, recognition, self-esteem, and a valuable purpose. Such feelings will prompt powerful responses.

Leaders, rather than managers, will motivate their people by articulating the business vision, involving people in how to achieve the vision, providing coaching, empowering and enhancing self-esteem and rewarding success. This not only gives people a sense of accomplishment, but also makes them feel like they are part of the company. They feel that the organization really cares about them. The more change characterizes the business, the more the business needs leadership over management.

While managers tend to develop depth of expertise in their professional discipline, leaders must develop width of experience beyond their professional disciplines. These leaders are finance professionals that assume operational responsibilities or operational managers that assume sales positions. Creating multidisciplinary task forces or small business units are great ways to develop new leaders.

Promotion to a management position is a milestone in your career. There is no promotion to leadership. Becoming a leader is a personal decision and a milestone of personal development rather than career development. The leadership milestone requires focus on three areas. First, set vision and direction toward change. Second, align people by communicating through an informal network of relationships. Third, motivate and inspire people to “buy-in” to the vision by evoking feelings, emotions and inner values.

Here is a three-step process that will accelerate your transformation from manager to leader:

First, decide to be a leader. If you have leadership traits but have not decided to lead, no matter how much you attempt to scale the corporate pinnacle, you won’t reach the top. It is a decision based on desire. It is a life mission, not a job description.

Second, you have to believe you are a leader. If you do not believe in your capability to lead, you will continue to act as a manager. Imagine you are managing a department of 50 employees. You are addressing them in order to summarize the year-end report and state your expectations for the upcoming year. You can either stand there as a manager drowning in a list of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of employees; or you can speak to the dreams, wishes and personal expectations of the people listening to you. Believe me when I say there is a big difference!

Third, you change from management behavior to leadership behavior. An important milestone for change is when your thoughts and actions about your supporters take more time than your thoughts and actions about yourself. A leader’s mind is busy with his supporter’s lives. A manager’s mind is busy with his own performance.

Have you noticed that leaders are dealing with supporters and not subordinates, employees or staff? Leadership is 360°. You manage employees who report to you but you lead supporters who are colleagues, managers, customers, distributors, business partners and even the Board. There is a saying that goes: “As much as the Board manages the CEO, it is the CEO who manages the Board.”

The lesson is that you must see leadership beyond your reporting relationships. The 360° leader continuously inspires, motivates and influences listeners, no matter where he or she is in the corporate hierarchy.

The first thought that often comes to mind when considering change is, “What will people say?” or “How will I look?” and even, “Won’t people disapprove of my new behavior?” It is most likely that they will not disapprove. However, approval or disapproval does not matter as long as your behavior is congruent with your values.

Let’s wake up today to a new reality. Decide, Believe and Change. Influence the people you touch.

SET PERSONAL GOALS

Danny is the Customer Support Manager of PM Publishing in San Mateo, California. He was surprised to be promoted to this position after the previous manager resigned. Danny was not quite ready for the promotion. He had previously managed five service employees in the company’s West Coast office before he was promoted to managing 36 employees in five offices nationwide.

Danny has never taken time to plan for the changes in his life. He was thrown into this situation just as he was thrown into resolving endless escalations from the regional offices. He resolves delivery delays, customer complaints, order changes and other typical service issues in the same way; always floating along in whatever direction the river of events takes him. Danny is completely reactive, struggling to manage his team and losing control of his work life. He is the last to leave every day (except for the night shift employees) and he gets home long after his kids have gone to bed. One night, while crunching on the cold dinner left behind by his wife, he wondered if there was a better way to manage his life.

Danny, like many people, has never set personal goals. For him, things just happen without a plan. It has never bothered him before, but being promoted to a leadership position left him out of his depth. He did not realize that living life without setting goals is like driving a car without knowing where to go. Danny recognized that he needs a compass to guide him in setting priorities and balancing his life.

If you want to avoid feeling out of control like Danny, it is important to set personal goals. Goals are a road map to guide us toward a destination, like a lighthouse, compass or an internal GPS.

If you’re like Danny and aren’t accustomed to establishing goals, the end of a year is a good time to set up goals for the following year. Most companies plan the next year at this time. It is good to align your personal goals with your corporate goals so that your career path will be congruent with your organization’s path.

When I set up personal goals for the first time, I accomplished less than 10% of my goals by the end of that year. Since then my goal setting has changed dramatically. In the beginning I focused on career and prosperity. Over time, my goals evolved to include goals outside of career and prosperity.

Here are some topics to think about when setting goals:

Health

If you get sick, your set of priorities changes immediately. If you face a life threatening illness, survival becomes top priority. Prevention is important. So some sample goals for health can be:

• Exercise three times a week for 45 minutes.

• Quit smoking by dropping from one pack per day to ten cigarettes by March, five cigarettes by June, two cigarettes by September and none by December.

Relationships

Human beings are social creatures, who naturally want to improve relationships with our loved ones. Your lifestyle will occasionally stand in your way. Setting relationship goals helps to determine the changes you are looking for in your relationships. Here are some ideas:

• Get involved with your kid’s school.

• Surprise your spouse with a romantic dinner at least once every 3 months.

• Get involved with your favorite charity and volunteer your time three times a year.

Leisure

Leaders work hard and play hard. It is important to take time off to re-charge. To that end, you can set goals like:

• Play tennis every Sunday.

• Take guitar lessons every Monday night.

Prosperity

Everyone would like to achieve financial freedom at one point in time (and better sooner than later). After all, if you don’t save for retirement, you can never afford to retire! Saving requires planning and so you can establish goals such as:

• Allocate 20% of monthly salary to a savings account.

• Invest in rental property.

Career

You spend half of your waking time at work and definitely want to be accomplished and rewarded. This does not happen by chance. Successful career paths are planned. Where are you heading? What do you need to do to get there? These goals can be:

• Start an MBA and complete it in two years over the weekends.

• Attend a tax course to obtain a tax advisor certificate.

• Restructure department(s) to prepare for a future business expansion.

Self-Actualization

What do you feel is your true calling? It is not always easy to find the answer to this question, but one can make small movements toward it. It’s helpful to spend time trying to gain clarity on the “larger questions” in your life. Some goal setting ideas might include:

• Define a purpose or framework within which you pursue all your activities.

• Define core values that drive you.

What in the world does goal setting have to do with leadership?

Leaders must first lead themselves in order to lead others. Setting goals and defining vision and values develops the inner strength that leaders require. Titles, nominations, and rankings are superficial. True leadership comes from within. Take some time to write down at least two personal goals for each of the six items above.

ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

I was driving back home with my family on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. My thoughts began to wander, planning the New Year ahead. “I feel restless,” I said. “My personal goals are not congruent.”

Without hesitation my wife asked, “Are they in line with your core values?”

“My core values are still changing and I am not clear about the deepest ones,” I replied.

“Just imagine what you want people to say about you after you die,” she advised. It was the best advice I have ever gotten about deciding about my core values.

For a few moments I th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Middle Management Hell
• Adversities
• Blueprint for Success
• Part I: Inner leadership
• Part II: Outer leadership
• The Pinnacle
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• About the Author