Management is Getting More Difficult!

Well, it’s been official for awhile now! It is not just supervisors and middle managers talking about how tough it is to manage and lead employees.  Global CEO’s also  jumped on the bandwagon!

In discussions with 1,541 chief executive officers, general managers and senior public sector leaders,  the IBM Institute for Business Value found in a classic study that the most pressing challenge that faced this group of senior leaders was complexity (not coping with change as it was in previous years).

Significant findings from this IBM study included the following:

• 78% of CEOs expected the level of complexity to grow significantly.
• 60% of CEOs were experiencing a high to very high level of complexity.
• Less than half of the CEOs felt equipped to deal with the coming complexity.
• The new economic environment was substantially more volatile, much more uncertain, and increasingly complex than past times.

Here’s What You Can Do About It

So, if things are getting tougher because organizations are getting more complicated, what can you do about it?

The study found several strategies of standout organizations (companies that perform well during both good and bad economic conditions) that other businesses can follow.  They included the following:

• Value and encourage leadership creativity (experimentation through calculated risk taking and innovation).
• Embrace ambiguity and encourage and reward innovative thinking.
• Co-create products and services with customers and integrate them into core processes.
• Manage complexity by simplifying operations and products.

To navigate this organizational complexity, the study noted that managers needed to get closer to their customers to not only better understand their customer needs but also to anticipate and meet them.  For example, leveraging the information that comes from social media is one important vehicle to understand, forecast, and meet customer needs.

While these recommendations from the study are helpful, creating an environment that fosters innovative thinking can be a challenging task. Some organizations do well in this area while others fall far behind.

To assess your ability to perform well in this critical area, you can assess both your organization and yourself by answering the following questions:

• Can we hear the voice of our customers through the vast amount of internal and external data that exists?
• Can we understand and act upon that information?

If you find from your answers to these two questions that some gaps exist in innovative thinking in your organization, you can address them by first looking at your own organizational operations (how your business unit normally runs).  In doing this, you may find that you have some operational barriers in place that are hindering organizational innovation.

For example, typical operations such as hierarchical organizational structures, top down communication styles, structured processes, and command and control management styles hinder innovative thinking.  (Innovative thinking by nature requires flexibility and non-conformity.) The more you minimize these barriers the better your chances will be to promote workplace innovation.

The study also explained that managers who invited disruptive innovation and encouraged others to drop outdated approaches and take balanced risks have better chances of navigating their operations through this new organizational complexity.

To assess your ability to perform well in this critical area, you can answer the following questions:

• How are we challenging every element of our business model to get the most from untapped opportunities?
• How are we leveraging new communication styles, technologies and tools to lead a new generation of talent and encourage innovative thinking?

If you’re a senior level manager or business owner, you’ll have more power to make a direct impact in your organization as you can sponsor whatever change that you want to make. The more committed you are to creating an environment that promotes innovative thinking the easier it will be to manage organizational complexity. Making this transformation however will also require the support of middle and lower level managers.

If you’re a middle manager, you’ll need the support of your boss and potentially other senior leaders to significantly impact your organization. Depending on the size and complexity of your organization, you may also need peer middle manager allies and other key stakeholders to support you in your efforts. If you’re a first level manager, you’ll need the support of your boss and your employees to impact your organization. Having a proven track record for success at either of these managerial levels will go a long way to convince others to work with you in your efforts.

Conclusion

So, the verdict has been in for awhile: organizational complexity is the new normal of our time! There is both good and bad news with this verdict.

The good news is that this classic study confirmed what many managers have felt for awhile.  Specifically, organizational leadership and management have been getting more difficult.

The bad news for managers is that there is no rest in sight.  In our time, both the pace of change and the new challenges that organizations face are often unpredictable and unrelenting. Management and leadership will continue to get tougher.