Textbook vs. Reality

"Traditional bosses design and allocate work. Teams do that for themselves. Traditional bosses supervise, monitor, control, and check work as it moves from one task performer to the next. Teams do that themselves. Traditional bosses have little to do in a reengineered environment. Managers have to switch from supervisory roles to acting as facilitators, as enablers, and as people whose jobs are the development of people and their skills so that those people will be able to perform value-adding processes themselves.
This kind of managing is a real profession. Traditional practice undervalues both work and management. It undervalues work by stating that the only way a worker can get ahead is by becoming a manager. Managing, this implies, is more important than working. But the traditional practice also says that anybody who does well as a worker can manage.
In fact, managing is a particular skill, just like engineering or sales, and there is little correlation between excelling in a work skill and being a good manager. Casey Stengel was an adequate baseball player; he was a great manager. Most great players have made lousy managers.
Managers in a reengineered company need strong interpersonal skills and have to take pride in the accomlishment of others. Such a manager is a mentor, who is there to provide resources, to answer questions, and to look out for the long-term career development of the individual. This is a different role from the one most managers have traditionally played."

… from Michael Hammer & James Champy – Reengineering the Corporation – A Manifesto for Business Revolution - Forget what you know about how business should work - most of it is wrong. (p. 77) [highlights mine]

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"Reengineering the Corporation" was published in 1993 and has been prime business literature and required reading in many MBA programs ever since. Yet, here we are 16 years later, and the roles of managers haven't changed in many companies.


This is a hard nut to crack in corporate America. In many companies it makes you the lay-off target, and with such a threat looming on the horizon, who wants to be the first to become the new model manager?
As mentioned in the Accountability post, managers will need to feel secure enough to let go of their stranglehold on their reports. Letting their reports run the daily activities, while the managers can focus on improving and growing the business.