Hands Off Manager

I've been consulting on a project lately with a group of people who are in another state. Even though the work is right up my alley, one of the difficulties I've had is in understanding their exact process. The reason for not understanding the process is that the person who requested my help made one of those crucial errors that I talk about often, and I fell into a trap that took me some time to get out of.

The initial trap the person who hired me got caught in is that she knew I could do the work; what she didn't do, however, was instruct me in the process and procedures of their particular company. Her company presents reports in a particular format, one that I was unfamiliar with. The trap I fell into was the one where I, as a professional, was trying to give them what I thought they wanted without fully understanding what it was they needed to see. The problem was twofold: on the one hand, they didn't take the time to tell me their way; on the other, I didn't take the time to ask.

At least initially. Once I realized that I wasn't going to get it done their way without their assistance I started asking questions. I had to go back into the principles of my own book, Embrace The Lead, as it concerns identifying the types of managers one has to deal with, and then realizing that there are ways to work with this type of individual.

I call this type of person the hands off manager, because they feel that they hire professionals to do a job and they should know how to do the job. This is often true, but it's a bad way to run business. For instance, in healthcare, hospitals hire nurses to do specific functions. Nurses are trained in special schools, but processes and procedures change from school to the work place, and each work environment is different, as well as each hospital department doing things differently. Experienced or not, no hospital brings a nurse into their facility and just lets them go off on their own accord. Any nurse manager or supervisor who did this kind of thing would be fired fairly quickly.

This doesn't seem to work the same in the traditional business world. People are hired all the time and told to get to work without adequate training or direction. Often managers expect their charges to learn procedures by osmosis. When they hire qualified personnel, they sometimes feel that the person should come ready made, already knowing everything the position entails. As someone who's been in the business world for more than 20 years, I can tell you that's not reality. Any person who's ever worked in any capacity should know that's not the case.

So what is it that makes these hands off managers decide that people should come already knowing everything? Did they somehow forget that when they came into the workplace that there were things they didn't know about the job they were getting ready to do? That seems fairly obvious, but it's not the only point. Typically there are two reasons hands off managers are like they are. One, they believe they're too busy to take the time to give directions to people they feel should be qualified to get the work done. Two, they have no idea what the person they hired actually does and don't want anyone to find out what they don't know. This second point is actually the most common because of the many different reasons a person can be promoted into management, and very few of those really involve moving up the ladder and learning all the jobs that everyone in the department may perform.

As the employee of one of these types of managers, whether you are in some supervisory capacity yourself or just a front line employee, you're immediately at a disadvantage. Whereas it can feel like it's a blessing when the person you report to leaves you alone, most of the time it's a curse because you don't know what's expected of you, and at some point you're going to get blind sided by someone who questions the work you're putting out. Even if it's quality work it may not be what your employers are considering as the best use of your time and efforts.

You as the employee cannot afford to always have to guess what those above you need. You have to be proactive and ask questions, as many questions as you have to in order to get the information you need. If you are a long term employee who was shown the process and have problems remembering it, that's one issue. If you're a new employee and you've never been given any direction it's another.

In my former life as a patient accounting director, I always understood the work that needed to be done; I knew my job. What I always needed to do, however, was determine the philosophy of the hospital. Were we supposed to be overly patient friendly? Was the pursuit of the dollar the overriding rule. Did they expect accuracy over results? Which results did they want me to concentrate on first? What resources were they willing to let me have to get things done? And how much control was I going to have over both the internal and external factors that my department had to work with?

As an employee, these types of questions are always critical for you to know as the employee. How far do you go with your customer service issues? Do you always tell the truth, or do you tell the employees what they want to hear? Do you create reports in the format that everyone has always seen or can you modify them if you think there's a better way to communicate the information? What particular questions do you need to ask, or have answered, for the job you're employed to do?

As the hands off manager, you need to recognize that where your employees are now is where you once were. Unless you started your own business without ever working anywhere else you had to go through a learning process with the first job you ever had. You had someone teach you, and hopefully you had someone to go to when you had questions to ask. You need to provide this same service to those who report to you. If you have a particular way or process you want followed you have to be willing to take the time to teach this process. And if you really don't understand what it is that someone who reports to you does then it become incumbent upon you to least at least some of the facets of what it is they do. At the very least you have to know where to go to get the answers to questions you may be asked. If you're busy you have to make time. Your responsibility as a manager is to do whatever it takes to help those who report to you be better. The better they are, the better you will look, and the better the company will be.



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