The New Manager’s Maze

By Thabo Moalusi

A definite must-read for new

or wannabe managers.

This organisational leadership book places its emphasis on new managers. It points out common challenges they may encounter and offers possible solutions. This is a peek preview of what lies in store for individuals who are considering joining management.

Management principles are laid out in a simple and easy-to-grasp manner with accompanying real-life articles and illustrations. It takes a bottom-up approach that most new and experienced managers can relate to.

In this book, author Thabo Moalusi brings out his management experience through his entertaining and incisive writing. His area of expertise is in retailing, however he believes that broad management principles are the same everywhere, whether you lead a family unit, a church, a school or a corporation.

about the author

Thabo Moalusi is an entrepreneur and freelance writer whose articles have been published by The Star newspaper. He has twenty years management experience, having worked himself up from being a union shop steward to middle management positions in the retail industry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thabo Moalusi
• Release date: Sep 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463529713

Book preview

The New

Manager’s Maze

Thabo Moalusi

Copyright © 2019 Thabo Moalusi

First edition 2019

Published by Thabo Moalusi Publishing at Smashwords

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by Pieter van Rensburg using Reach Publishers’ services,

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Edited by Gil Harper for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

Website: www.reachpublishers.co.za

E-mail: [e-mail]

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my editor, Gil, designer, Joe, Evie and the rest of the team at Reach Publishers. Also a word of gratitude to my artist, Thandi. You all did splendid work. Special thanks to my wife, Mokgadi, for her unwavering support. Blessings to you all.

Contents

Introduction

Genesis (In the beginning)

1) Is – ought

2) Organisational culture

3) Organisational memory

4) Short-termism

5) Language

6) Resonance

7) Mission and vision

8) Paradigms

9) Abstraction levels

Core (The journey)

1) Know thyself

a) Strengths and weaknesses

b) Frame of reference

c) Points to ponder

d) You are not your position

2) Know thy purpose

a) Your goals

b) Organisational goals

c) Individual and team goals

d) The age of underinvesting and overexpecting

3) Know thy team

a) 80/20 principle

b) Power dynamics

c) Power derivatives

d) Recruitment, succession and letting go

e) In pursuit of an ideal employee

4) Know thy boss

a) Defining your boss

b) Managing your boss

c) Buying and selling your boss, at a profit

d) Other challenges

Khabye (Revelation)

1) Win-win-and-win

2) More on strategy

3) The dog that caught the bus conundrum

4) Becoming irrelevant

5) Reinventing

6) Riding the wave versus going in tangent

Conclusion

Resource

Introduction

This is a book for managers that will take you on a leadership journey as I explore and share workplace experiences, challenges and solutions.

For the purpose of this book, a manager is someone who has underlings and overlings, and is not expected to formulate strategies but to implement them. You are expected to sell top managers’ ideas to your subordinates, whether you agree with such ideas or not. You have to negotiate, and sometimes ‘swallow issues without chewing them first’ from your seniors on the one hand, and convince or impose them on your subordinates on the other hand. If you are a manager, you have pressure coming from the top and the bottom.

You have to understand the thinking and context of both senior managers and junior staff in order to create harmonious cohesion. And you are expected to do this with aplomb. This is a mammoth task that deserves a good remuneration package! Gary McCain and Deborah Romaine alluded to this by stating that, Being a manager isn’t about you, except to you. To everyone else, it’s about them. Subordinates want to know what you can do to help them, and superiors want to know what you can do to help the company. (Gary McCain, PhD and Deborah S. Romaine, The everything managing people book, page 39, F+W Publications Company, 2002)

Before you despair, there are those amongst us who have managed to traverse this perilous territory well. This is not an easy undertaking – to avoid stepping on eggs on a daily basis. We do our utmost best to emulate great managers, for our salvation as a ‘species’ relies on this.

When you embark on this journey, you will quickly realise that things are not simply as clear as black and white. The stuff that you learnt at school and in the lecture halls is quickly forgotten. You may find that the PLOC (plan, lead, organise and control) that your lecturer was fond of cannot be perfectly applied as your operational context keeps on changing. You realise that new and urgent items somehow find their way into your well-planned ‘to do’ list. You sometimes find yourself putting out fires due to ‘unplanned’ incidents. Despite its challenges, leadership can be fulfilling more so when you have the right tools and support.

Richard Templar succinctly captured this in his book Rules of Management, As a manager you are expected to be a lot of things. A tower of strength, a leader and innovator, a magician (conjuring up pay rises; resources and extra staff at a drop of a hat), a kindly uncle/aunt, a shoulder to cry on, a dynamic motivator, a stern but fair judge, a diplomat, a politician, a financial wizard, a protector, a savior and saint. (Richard Templar, Rules of Management, page xi, Pearson education limited, 2013)

Everyone plays a leadership role in some way in their lives. If you add value to people, they may in some way enable you to lead or influence them. However, a purely managerial position gets bestowed upon you by an organisation.

It must be noted that leadership is follower specific and context specific. A leader in an audit firm has a different operational context to that of a school principal. The same can be said about a leader of a scientific research team as compared to a church pastor. However, the fundamental leadership principles are the same.

This book is divided into three main sections, each with subsections. It is depicted as a journey. Though the titles suggest a biblical narrative, this is in no way a religious text. The narrative nature is purely for illustrative purposes. Starting with ‘Genesis’ which means the beginning, this section focuses largely on the main challenges the low-level and middle managers face. It attempts to define them as much as is possible, taking into cognisance that organisational contexts vary largely.

The next section entitled ‘Core’ is the actual journey which is subdivided into four subsections:

(1) ‘Know thyself’ which focuses largely on self-awareness;

(2) ‘Know thy purpose’ which looks into your own goals first, then those of your organisation and finally of your team. Once that is done, next is to align all of those for the benefit of all in win-win-and-win scenario;

(3) ‘Know thy team’ which looks at individuals constituting your team. Emphasis is placed on their uniqueness as individuals in particular and as a collective in general. Furthermore, it deals with challenges of contradicting interests such as individualism versus that of wanting to belong to a group and how you as a manager can harness that for the greater good; and

(4) ‘Know thy boss’ which unpacks various characteristics of different bosses and how they influence you as a manager and your subordinates. Further, an attempt is made to navigate the tricky situation of managing your boss. This is done in the section, on buying and selling your boss. Support and cooperation from your boss is critical for both of you.

The last main section I aptly called ‘Khabye’ which means ‘in full blossom’. This is where all is revealed to you as to whether you are travelling your journey well or not. That is where you reflect as a manager as to whether you stay on or move to other challenges. It is a personal choice.

This book is not intended to be a laborious lecture with complex concepts and postulations. For those who are already in management, I hope that you see reflections of yourselves in it. And for those who intend to begin the journey, I hope this will serve as a window of what may lie in store for you. There are articles at the end of some sections for further reading. This is to emphasise points covered with real-life examples. Should you have a full grasp of the principles covered in a section, feel free to skip them.

The ideals mentioned in this book are what I humbly think we should all strive for. Just like a fleeting illusion, they may seem evasive. However, I hope you find this read to be both rewarding and adding value to your working life. Your comments and critique are most welcome. Bon voyage!

Regards

Thabo Moalusi

Genesis

(In the beginning)

Is – ought

The problem is that most of the time the people and the organization lag behind the leader, for that reason leaders always feel the tension between where they and their people are and where they ought to be.

John C. Maxwell

As I stated in the introduction, your main function as a manager is to implement an organisational strategy. There are various strategic models that organisations embark on but they are mostly premised on the ‘is-ought’ principle. Simply put, what is the current situation? What is it supposed to be (according to organisational strategy)? And close the gap to be where you ought to be.

This is true even with scenario-based strategy, whereby the organisational picture shows the likely future scenarios on one hand, and the desired future scenarios on the other, with measures then put in place to attain them. Every organisation has a strategy of some sort. Whether it is explicit or implicit.

Thus, the organisation can plan a strategy and work towards its attainment, or it may be emergent. Typically, emergent strategies come about due to human capital noting emerging changes in the environment within which the organisation functions. This leads to teams adapting to new ways of doing business without instruction from management. This is necessitated by attempts to meet new demands from clients. This is not necessarily wrong as the overall objectives are fulfilled. Such actions should at least be in line with the legal framework or organisation’s policies.

It is common to find that organisations have policies that affect efficiency in which the organisation conducted the business previously that are no longer relevant. Top management may be oblivious to such and it is up to a manager to pick these up and escalate them. Failure to do this, could result in either a frustrated team, clients and stakeholders as the policies might be cumbersome and no longer relevant, or the team might take initiative and modify those aspects of policies that are a hindrance to smooth operations. As a manager, you do not want to be overtaken by such events under your watch. You need to be aware, influence their emergence and escalate them to your bosses.

Another ugly scenario may be where clients raise issues directly with headquarters, with encouragement from your team. This could arise due to your team being frustrated with old ‘tried and tested’ methods that are no longer effective being stubbornly supported by management. Similarly, there are instances where members of the organisation vent their anger by addressing their frustration outside the organisation.

Such emergent strategies are likely to affect