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Ryan Healy is a recent college graduate. He is a founder of 
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Seth Godin claims that Henry Ford’s greatest achievement was not the assembly line, but rather that he understood (and exploited) the power of productivity. Godin argues that Ford understood that paying workers more than the average salary would make them work twice as hard, and pump out twice as many Model T’s, each one making him wealthier and more powerful.
The strategy worked because people were dying to make more money in Ford’s day, so any assembly line worker could be easily replaced. And when you’re easily replaced, you work much harder.
But they didn’t work harder because they wanted to, or because they had an inner drive to succeed. Instead, they worked harder because they were terrified of losing their jobs. Ford created the ultimate workplace culture of obedience and fear.
Which begs the question, “What happens when we start using our heads, not our hands, when our collars change from blue to white?”
The answer is that fear no longer works and hands-on-management is no longer optional. When we use our minds rather than hands, there are no widgets to produce; there are no cars to build, but there still must be results.
Fear worked in Henry Ford’s day. People knew they would be fired if they didn’t produce, so they worked harder. But fear does not work anymore because instead of working harder and pumping out more products, the fear of being let go for doing the wrong thing will cause people to sit back and do nothing.
Managers correctly expect employees to have initiative and get things done. But it’s a two-way street. Employees should expect managers to take initiative to properly train and manage them. When I read articles bashing Generation Y for lacking in confidence and behaving like idiots, I can’t help but question the manager’s effectiveness at his job.
There will always be way too much “non managerial” work to do and important milestones to hit. But the good managers, the managers who don’t complain about their employees, are the ones who manage first, and work second. These managers know that if people know what’s expected of them, they won’t be scared to take action. Fear used to drive results, but in today’s workplace it’s nothing but a productivity killer.
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My colleague Dan Rasmus often suggests that managers should “manage the experience, not the employee” (and is working on a book centered on that premise). IMO, the only way to effectively manage knowledge workers - especially Millennials - is to provide opportunity, challenge, feedback, visibility into the big picture, and a willingness to lead by example. The old habits of the “fear and obedience” workplace die hard. The only way to get rid of them for good is to show that the new model works better.
Since when does Generation Y lack in confidence. My experience has been one of being comparitively overly confident (cavalier is their word for it). And yeah silly managers still try to use fear. Probably still works if the economy is bad and you have no savings.
Your post seems to jump around a bit, and doesn’t really settle on a point. Is it about the difference between the economy in the early 1900’s and now? Is it the difference between blue collar and white collar workers? Is it about how management by fear is counter-productive? Is it about hands-off management? I’m not sure. So I’m going to latch on to the last one because that’s a pet peeve of mine, and agree with you that hands-on management is a good thing.
When corporations started purging the ranks of middle managers, they overlooked something. The career ladder created by all those middle manager positions was very good at two things; Defining the management role, and training people to fit into it.
Now you have incredibly lean, quick, and flat organizations. And you have managers who are tossed into the role with little or no training, with no clear idea of what their role is, and way too much work on top of everything.
So they ‘empower’ their employees, then retreat to their office or meetings. The employees are left to figure stuff out on their own. with no clear instructions or goals.
Sure, the ambitious and extraordinary are going to take the lead, but most of us are not extraordinary. We’re just trying to make a living, which is hard when no one is telling you exactly what you’re supposed to do for your paycheck.
This isn’t really a Gen-Y issue. It applies across all generations.
So you managers: Get out there and Manage!
Ryan, some interesting observations here and I agree with you. It’s a complex issue though, and it isn’t simply a matter of deciding to “manage first, and work second”.
The middle management purge that Scott M identifies happened partly because companies found it difficult to measure the ROI of pure management tasks below the executive level. No one denies that management is necessary and has value; the problem is in measuring it and being able to report it in a meaningful way so that the value offsets the cost of the management staff. That problem persists. So instead, managers end up saddled with the same production goals that other workers have, along with management tasks. Proper, effective balance can be very hard to find, especially when the production metric is the one keeping you employed.
The two hands an empty mind and a long day of hard work is gone!
The one main concern is that most of our management training and college level MBA classes are still geared towards and industrial age. Covey in the 8th Habit makes a great case about the age on the knowledge worker. The areas of TQM, 6 Sigma, Lean Manufacturing etc.. were all created for industrail worker problems - some 6 Sigma for example is able to be flexable and fit human componants is used for that reason to help leaders understand the Kaizen process.
The day of employees being deficits is going to be a slow shift.
Sorry I’m late to the party.
Not only has the workplace changed over the last hundred years, but the culture of work has changed with it. I wrote an article for bMighty.com a while back about the challenges facing employers in an increasingly connected world. It’s linked here at my blog: ciscoetl.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/generation-collaboration/
I agree that meeting the financial as well as personal goals of employees in becoming increasingly important.