The role and responsibilities of a manager have significantly changed in today’s complex world compared to the past. Companies that have understood this can produce the right products faster and with greater calm. If you have not yet adapted your role as a manager, it may already be too late.
Doers and Thinkers
Before the industrial revolution, ‘Doers’ and ‘Thinkers’ were the same people. Manufacturers and masters knew exactly why something was being made, how it was made, and at the same time, they produced the products.
However, the industrial revolution started to distort this metaphorical equation. Machines enabled production to occur much faster than by hand. But machines had to be operated by people. Compared to manual production, more people were needed. But where could they be found, especially when the products and the way to produce them were innovative? Most people at the time were uneducated, and those who were educated were too valuable to be used for manufacturing products since they knew what should be produced and how. The ‘Thinkers’ became separated from the ‘Doers.’ The speed of industrial production demanded this separation.
The ‘Thinkers’ started to transition into managerial roles. They began to focus on the system of how the company operated. But not only that. The ‘Thinkers,’ the managers, continued to divide tasks, control work, and find people for the jobs.
With the advent of IT, the situation started to revert back to the times of manual production. It is engineers who know what, how, and why to make things. Management has a hard time specifying how a person should program or design an integrated circuit. The issue is complex and complicated. You need to have detailed knowledge of the problem and its solution. ‘Doers’ and ‘Thinkers’ merged again in the form of developers and engineers.
And the world doesn’t sleep. These innovative technologies once again significantly increased the speed of the world. The need for a new approach to work emerged. Lean appeared, and a few decades later, Agile. The ability to decide how work should be done was transferred to those doing the work, not to the manager who told them what to do. And so, another typical managerial task – task assignment – became obsolete.
Agile has significantly changed the approach of companies to the entire value stream that a company invents, creates, delivers, and operates.
Control is still necessary in Agile, but instead of punishment for poor quality, Lean and Agile focus on learning and preventing mistakes from being repeated by implementing feedback. It’s not the manager who “punishes,” but rather the manager who motivates the team to improve.
If no problem occurs, then there is nothing to solve, and no one needs to be punished.
Manager in Today’s Complex World
So what exactly should a manager do in a company that operates Agile?
The answer is simple, but not easy: The word is System. This encompasses everything needed to create a meaningful and valuable product in the shortest time and highest quality.
If we had to find a metaphor for the role of a manager in an Agile company, the closest and most effective example (at least according to the trainings we conduct) is the example with Petri’s dish.
The manager (not just of an Agile company) ensures that the company has enough Petri dishes, on which, let’s say, medicines will be created. In your case, more likely products or services.
The manager of today ensures that each Petri dish has the right nutrition and the proper amount of it.
To do this, you need to know what bacteria are on your Petri dish. For every medicine, you need a different kind of bacteria in a specific quantity. I apologize for this analogy, but each of us is a beneficial bacterium in a company, helping to produce some penicillin. Without us, there would be no penicillin. Without proper care, there will be no penicillin. And that is the role of a caring manager.
The manager today cares for the health of their Petri dish.
The manager today must occasionally vaccinate the culture of bacteria to revive the colony or allow for new capabilities to be built.
The manager today must remove elements from the Petri dish that do not benefit the colony.
The manager today must observe how to optimize the Petri dish, the nutrient solution, or the bacteria colony to produce more and faster. They must think about temperature, humidity, UV light, cleanliness, chemical influences, and nutrient supply.
The manager today must coordinate efforts with other managers to ensure the company produces the right medicines or that the products support each other in the business.
The Manager Today
The manager today doesn’t care about producing penicillin; they care about the Petri dish.
The manager today cares about the system of work, not the activities of the people.
If you’re interested in more in-depth details, you’ll find them in the highly-rated and continuously updated course, Manager in an Agile Company.
