Recently, one of my friends who is working with a top IT organization shared the predicament faced by him and some of his colleagues, who got recently promoted as front line managers (FLMs). He used the phrase "caught between the devil and the deep blue sea" to describe his confused state as a manager, trying to satisfy two diverse species - the top management and the first level employees. He asked me the best approach to gain the trust of the employees. I shared with him the synopsis of the regional Tamil movie – “Jigarthanda” and left for him to decide as to which is the best way to get things done from his employees.
Jigarthanda Movie - StoryLine: A budding film maker gets associated with a famous Don to make a gangster movie based on the don’s real life incidents. When he decides to make the movie after finalizing the story, the don drops a bomb shell that he wants to reprise the Don’s role in the movie. Having known about his notoriety for murdering people who go against him, the film maker accepts his proposal out of fear. After repeated training, the Don couldn't portray his real fearful image on the screen and so the film maker, without the Don’s knowledge, shoots the movie as a comedy. The Don, high on expectations, goes to watch the movie but finds that the director has betrayed him by portraying him in a wrong light. He then sets out to kill the director but finds that the general public who used to fear and resent him as a gangster have now started to respect and love him as a comical gangster (on screen). He realizes his mistake and chooses the path of respect to gain people’s trust.
I have heard time and again that the FLMs are the critical link in an organizational hierarchical set up and there are plenty of reports/ studies on the internet which points to a single conclusion that the company which had efficient FLMs showed increased performance and sales. If you wonder why it is so, it is quite obvious that these people directly interact with the most critical asset of any organization- the employees who really make things happen on the ground and typically define the growth/success of an organization. According to a new study conducted in May 2014 by the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services (based on a survey of more than 600 global executives), there seems to be a huge gap in the front line manager performance as against the expectations of the top management and this has negatively impacted the organizational growth. The report also mentions that the major reason for this failure is the lack of leadership development training and tools to support these managers. Adding to the report findings, these managers have been found to have limited flexibility in decision making and are downgraded to perform just a supervisory role. In most of the companies, the FLMs role is to oversee a span of direct reports and communicate the top management's decision to the employees and vice-versa. They mainly keep an eye on people & projects, prepare reports, implement plans and policies, and escalate issues. To put in a nut shell, a FLM is meant to communicate decisions, not to make them; to ensure compliance of policies, not to use judgment (and certainly not to develop policies); and to monitor the execution of improvements, not to prepare plans or carry out improvements (workers do that).
The recent incident that involved the sacking of thousands of employees, mostly in the managerial role, working in top Indian IT companies is a testimony of the gross mismanagement of the managers in an organization. This is a clear wake-up call for managers who merely act like humanoids/human robots, taking directions from the top management and getting work done through control & fear.
Just like Jackie Chan tries to find his true identity in the movie - "Who Am I", managers need to do a thorough introspection and put their thinking caps on to make decisions on their own so as to gain the employee and the management’s respect. This might be really hard as it would involve shedding the fearful image (just like the Don mentioned above) and might be even perceived as a lighthearted person. If you still feel this as a risky option, just listen to what the great poet Robert Frost has to say, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference”.
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