How to Spot a Manager in a Crowd

When I teach Introduction to Management courses, I always challenge myself to elicit some level of interest or intrigue before starting any day's lecture. At the very beginning of the course, I pose the following question:

"You walk into an organization as an outsider with a vested interested in being there, and need or want to talk to 'the manager.' There are a number of people milling around, looking as if they are all doing tasks that they are supposed to do. Most people would stop the first person they see and ask who the manager is, or where the manager's office is. But picture yourself trying to identify the manager just from observation, using your eyes and ears. What would you look for in order to decide which person should be approached as the most likely person to be the manager you want to talk to?"

When I ask that in class, answers are "the manager is the one who's giving the orders," "the manager is the one with a lot of important papers in his hand," "the manager is dressed better than everyone else," and "the manager is the one who looks most stressed out and in a big hurry."

Let's not bet the ranch on any of those criteria, OK? Let's define management. Now, there are lots and lots of formal definitions of management. That's fine, because the point is not to define management correctly. The point is to adequately define management for present purposes, so you know what I mean by it and so the rest of my discussions will be framed in a consistent way. My definition of management, from experience and from borrowing bits and pieces of other definitions, is this:

Management is the art and science of planning, organizing, motivating and controlling the effective and efficient use of resources in goal-oriented organizations.

It took me years to come up with that one, though most of it is stolen. So let's deconstruct it so that you understand my thinking.

"Art" means that management is at least, in part, a matter of intuition, instinct, latent talent, and can't be boiled down to formulas, optima, or numbers. Leadership, as a related topic, is an example.

"Science" means that management is, when not an art, subject to rational thought processes, pre-determined ways of doing things, logic, and the use of hard data to draw courses of action. Financial management and quality management are good examples.

The next four words summarize the contemporary list of management "roles." "Planning" is pre-determining a course of action, formally or informally. "Organizing" is pre-and-re-allocating resources to tasks. It's a lot more than the hierarchical chart in the hall. "Motivating" is getting people to do something according to plan. What a mouthful, I agree. "Controlling" means making sure planned goals are accomplished. Let's keep all this simple for now.

"Effective" describes how well the organization is accomplishing pre-determined goals, and whether or not those goals are prioritized correctly in the first place. It is often referred to as "doing the right things." Then, are the right things getting done or not? In broad strokes this largely applies to upper-levels of management, who are accountable for accomplishing strategic objectives like making a target profit, accomplishing the articulated mission, being good corporate citizens, and basically not taking the whole enterprise into the tank.

"Efficient," in contrast, is a matter of using resources with a minimum of waste. Relatively speaking, it is the accountability found at low-levels of management, in activities such as reducing manufacturing scrap, not busting budgets, making sure people are working productively, and so forth. It is often expressed as "doing things right."

Let me offer a little humble pie. Efficiency can be measured in an infinite number of ways, but it all boils down to this: efficiency = outputs / inputs. It is expressed as a percentage. Anything less than 100% is wasteful, but a fundamental law of the physical universe states that trying to achieve 100% efficiency is impossible, and thinking you can achieve greater than 100% shows total ignorance. We'll get back to that later.

Efficiency is related to productivity, which is measured: productivity = outputs / inputs. Confused? If efficiency and productivity have the same mathematical definition, aren't they the same? Nope. Not at all. We'll get back to that too.

Both efficiency and productivity are related to one of my least-favorite buzzwords, "value-added." Most people who use it don't have any clue about what it means. I'll whet your whistle by saying that the objective of adding value is to break the above-stated cardinal rule of the physical universe - to achieve a level of output that exceeds the level of inputs. We'll really get back to that.

"Resources" in an economic sense refers to the classic three economic factors of production - land (and/or in the industrial age, equipment,) labor, and capital. It also includes two more factors recognized in the economics of today - time and information. (Now, management was earlier noted as also being a factor of production, but it's not logical to present management as an input to the process of management, so I'll just drop that idea.) Note that all factors of production can be measured using the same unit of measure, which makes comparisons among factors easy - dollars, greenbacks, bucks, dead presidents, fazool, or whatever they call it in your neighborhood.

Finally, "goal-oriented organizations" just asserts that we're talking about some kinds of management, but not all imaginable types. The setting is any organization that has goals that transcend the goals of the individual or the gaggle, whether it's your Fortune 100 employer or your kid's scout pack.

I will boil it down so that you know exactly my stance. Management is getting things done through and with other people in organized settings. Managers don't directly manage technology, or money, or inventory, or information. Managers' first point of contact, the first domino they tip when trying to get something done, is with another person -- that's the manager's moment of truth, a hundred times a day.

Now, how do you spot a manager in a crowd?

Next: You Are One of "THEM" Now