Tolerating Poor Management Performance

Most U.S. business and government organizations tolerate poor management performance because they do not recognize how much damage to their human resources is caused by their least effective managers.  They do not seem to understand that the twenty-five percent of their managers who are the least effective are responsible for as much as seventy-five percent of their people problems.  Ineffective managers are the primary source of dissatisfaction, discontent and turnover among employees in most organizations. 

Employees of the least effective managers are twice as likely as employees of the most effective managers to say they are not paid equitably.  They are three times more likely to say that promotions are not based on performance and competence and four times more likely to say that good work is not rewarded.  Few employees of the least effective managers believe their talents are used effectively, get genuine satisfaction from their work or say their jobs are compatible with their career and life goals. 

While the reactions of employees to the debilitating practices of the least effective managers have been ignored by many, if not most organizations, a few leading companies now recognize that they can no longer afford to let their managers make ineffective use of their human resources.  These companies also recognize that to succeed in the highly competitive and rapidly changing environment in which they find themselves, they must empower their employees so they can deal with the crucial problems they face on the job. 

John F. Welch, Jr., Chief Executive Officer of the General Electric Company, stated in his 1991 Annual Report, that G.E. could no longer tolerate the leader “who typically forces performance out of people rather than inspires it; the autocrat, the big shot, the tyrant.  Too often,” he stated, “all of us have looked the other way—tolerated these managers because ‘they always deliver’—at least in the short term.  And perhaps this type,” Mr. Welch stated, “was more acceptable in easier times, but in an environment where we must have every good idea from every man and woman in the organization, we cannot afford management styles that suppress and intimidate.”¹

Robert D. Haas, Chairman and CEO of Levi Strauss & Company, has similarly said that his company will no longer tolerate managers whose styles and practices are not consistent with the company’s values.  “At Levi,” he said in an interview published in the Harvard Business Review, “we talk about creating an ‘empowered’ organization.  By that we mean a company where the people who are closest to the product and the customer take the initiative without having to check with anyone . . . that goes against the traditional assumption that the manager is in control.”²

As both John Welch and Robert Haas have discovered, however, getting their overcontrolling managers, who have learned the wrong lessons from their experience, to change is a very difficult task. 

As Robert Haas explained, “We’ve had some very honest discussions with managers who say, ‘Look, I’m 53 years old.  I’ve managed one way all my life and been successful, and now the company wants me to change.  I don’t know if I can do it.” 

According to Robert Haas, Levi has established a training program to help managers who have always exercised tight control over their employees to change their management practices.  That program, he states, “gives people the freedom to opt out.  The real success of our core curriculum will be if it convinces some people that our environment is simply not right for them.”³ 

John Welch explains in his 1991 Annual Report that his is determined to change, one way or another, the practices of GE’s authoritarian managers.  He says:  “Whether we can convince and help these managers to change—recognizing how difficult that can be—or part company with them if they cannot, will be the ultimate test of our commitment to the transformation of this Company.”⁴ 

Neither more experience nor traditional methods of instruction can be relied on to change managers who have learned the wrong lessons from their own experience on the job.  What then is to be done with the enormous number of managers who force performance out of people rather than inspire it—who overcontrol rather than empower them—other than to part company with them or give them the freedom to opt out?

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Introduction

The Right
and Wrong
Lessons

Working
Relations

Guidance
and Direction

Control vs.
Empowerment

Getting
Worse with
Experience

Tolerating
Poor
Management
Performance

Teaching
Ineffective
Managers

Prompting
Managers
On The Job

Evaluating
Managerial
Leadership
Improvements