What Does a Manager Do?
Becoming a manager requires a radical shift in thinking. Here’s how to succeed at your new role as a manager by knowing what a manager’s real job is.
What does a manager do? So many of them don’t know their own job. That’s because one of the hardest professional transitions to make is becoming a manager, yet in any growing organization, you may be forced into that transition, ready or not.
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It was a tense day at Green Growing Things. The Audrey 2s were agitated, because Melvin and Europa were fighting. Europa, with her experience secretly running the economies of the entire Eastern Bloc, has naturally been overall manager of the new store. Melvin has been in charge of the inventory department.
Europa ordered 16 bags of potting soil for the Audrey 2s without telling Melvin. He’s livid. She says, “I saw that the plants’ roots were showing, poor things. Someone needed to order soil, so of course, I did it. I pride myself on being a team player and doing what needs to be done!”
Melvin thinks differently. “Europa has no respect for me! She just tramples over my projects willy-nilly! We don’t have anyone scheduled to receive orders that day, and there’s no room in the warehouse to store the extra soil.”
Neither is wrong. The problem is that their roles have changed and they never got clear about the new ones.
Growth Drives Changes
In a small business, everyone does everything. Europa handles billing, customer service, and inventory. When a customer complains their Audrey 2 ate their cat, she knows off the top of her head that the customer was behind on payments, so they don’t qualify for Free Pet Replacement™. Thus, there’s no need to order more replacement pets for inventory.
The business grows. There are more customers, so many that it’s a full-time job for 3 people to handle customer calls. Those people are 100% devoted to customer service. Someone else handles collections. And someone else handles inventory.
The people who did everything when the organization is small do fewer jobs more deeply as the company grows.
As organizations grow, jobs get narrower and deeper.
Europa has a choice: she can either be one customer service person in the department, or she can rise into management. As a manager, however, her job is very different from simply doing everything she did before.
Managers Get Things Done … Through Others
With three people doing Customer Service, someone has to coordinate. Someone must assign customers to service reps and spread the workload between them. If there’s too much work, someone needs to hire more staff people. Someone must also help the team define customer service standards and train new team members in those standards.
This mysterious “someone” is a manager.
Front-line workers do things. Managers don’t do thing, they get things done … through other people. A customer service rep serves customers by giving them a new pet to replace the one that was eaten by an Audrey 2. A customer service manager serves the customer by hiring, training, and helping the reps provide replacement pets.
The manager does the job by building an organization, not by doing the work directly.
Managers Translate Goals
Managers form the glue that keep an organization together. When Bernice says “Our vision is to be the safest plant store in the neighborhood!” managers translate that company motto into goals for their department and employees.
Europa, general manager, works with Melvin, who runs the inventory department. Together they ask, “If we’re going to be the safest plant store around, what changes will the Inventory department need to make?” “That’s easy,” says Melvin. “We should repair the unstable step on the loading dock. We should stop giving elementary school kids tours of the Audrey 2 holding pens. And we shouldn’t store barrels of deadly pesticide under the bridge by the local reservoir.”
Melvin just outlined his department’s goals for the year. Europa’s worked with Melvin to translate the company vision into department goals. Now Melvin will translate department goals into goals for his workers. Europa’s son Thomas is working for Melvin as his summer job. Melvin tells Thomas to move the barrels from the reservoir into a properly shielded room in the basement.
Organizations Have Cross-Department Needs
Speaking of shields, managers also shield their departments from the rest of the company. People in one area of a company often have needs that affect another area. If Melvin’s department is to reach their goals, they need to be able to coordinate their work among themselves.
Europa may discover she needs inventory numbers for an analysis she’s doing. She could walk downstairs, find Thomas, and say “I am your mother, She Who Must Be Obeyed. Get me those numbers, now!” Thomas would get her the numbers, but by doing so, he would upset the barrel moving schedule and throw the rest of the department’s plans into chaos.
Managers Shield Their Departments
Melvin’s job as manager of Inventory is to shield the department from Europa. He isn’t doing this out of spite or nastiness; it’s just how workload gets balanced. If Europa needs something in Melvin’s purview, she can ask Melvin, “I need inventory numbers for our strategy analysis.” Melvin then figures out how to get the numbers to Europa with as little disruption as possible to the projects his people are working on. Maybe Europa’s request is more important than any of Inventory’s current projects. In that case she and Melvin discuss that, and together decide when and how to interrupt Thomas.
But even though Europa is his manager, Melvin is always the gatekeeper to his department. He is involved in decisions about the department because Europa doesn’t have detailed-enough knowledge of Inventory’s plans and concerns to know how best to get what she wants. By working together, Europa and Melvin get stuff done that meets the needs of the organization and the needs of their departments.
If you find yourself getting into management, change how you think of your job. Don’t think “My job is to get stuff done.” Think, “My job is to help my people get stuff done.” You do that by translating higher goals into goals for your team. You also serve as a shield between your team and the rest of the organization, so people can put all their efforts into their current projects.
Melvin and Europa talked. Europa realized her order screwed up other orders that were in process. Going forward, she’ll work with Melvin on inventory issues, rather than doing things herself. The story is once again humming smoothly, and the Audrey 2s are happy. And we like it when the Audrey 2s are happy.
I’m Stever Robbins. Email questions to getitdone@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email. I help high achievers accelerate or change their businesses and careers. If you want to know more, visit SteverRobbins.com.
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
Management hierarchy, board meeting, and project management images courtesy of Shutterstock.
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About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the podcast Get-it-Done Guy from 2007 to 2019. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Sciences from MIT.
