aliando management is ...

… about people.

Isn’t this approach a little bit obvious?

It obviously isn’t. Karl Weick, a renowned organisation expert, already in the seventies wrote, that organisation itself does not exist. If you start looking for organisation, you end up finding nothing but people and their interactions. This hasn’t changed. However, if you look at current management literature, you find nothing but roles, rules, processes and optimising, and little about people. This only describes what could be done, not what helps people be successful, and not at all what people will actually do.

Even the boundaries of an organisation, which we always draw on our white boards as some sort of circle, are visionary. It is the people who act with outside organisations and the environment. In some places, there indeed are automated processes, which assist people with their interactions. There is little operation which is completely automated, and most of it consists of energy or production supplies.

Yes. But processes describe what people should do and give orientation.

From what I have seen, they do not. They are often documented afterward, and seldom used as a guideline for work. I’ve seen many of those process graveyards. If two human beings interact, something way more complex happens than what can be described in process documents. These additional factors have at least as much influence on every single decision and action of human beings as rules and role descriptions.

Process descriptions, social microsystems between people and all other influencing factors (health, family, likes, dislikes, skills, etc.) create conflicts. These conflicts have to be resolved by us working individuals. Adhering to processes is just one piece within the conflict resolution process. Besides, there is a big motivational issue. Many people like to help other people by far more than they are motivated to abide by abstract rules. They cannot do otherwise, because it is a reflex. This is a powerful human trait which can lead to enormous achievements. In terms of procedure you may just call it poor performance.

This isn’t really professional behavior, is it?

This is human behavior. If two people interact, they “entangle”. This means, there is a chance that they will feel sympathy and start to like each other. This makes communication a lot easier and gives way to new possibilities. In fact, all human life is based on this principle. But it also creates new diversion and places importance on traits like matching ethics, likes and dislikes. If two sympathizers negotiate on a certain subject, there is good chance that they will find some agreement or at least decent compromise, and — for a certain time — will live up to this agreement. Until they become more involved with other “entanglements”. During their working routine, these two people will most likely pass the ball on in mutual responsibility, regardless of any process requirements or prohibitions.

Yes, but …

Yes, but. There is also a chance, that the two will not feel any sympathy for each other, their ideas, views or beliefs. This makes conversation difficult, if it’s being taken too seriously. And ironically it makes interaction, which we usually call professional, a little easier. If the two converse on a certain subject, it is highly likely that they will not focus on their mutual understanding. But instead of results they may just as well focus on the differences which still remain (and will always remain).

There is never an end to the subtleties of differences in points of view. The phrases which are most commonly heard in such situations start with “Yes, but …”. My personal favourite is the completely hypothetical “Yes, but if …”, which has no practical relevance whatsoever, but merely constructs illusionist scenarios which might some day at a given time have a tiny chance of creating a problem. People in this state are likely to throw tasks like bullets at each other with an air of “not my job”-attitude. Perfectly justifiable by situational interpretation of their respective role descriptions.

So we behave a bit like quantum systems. There is a certain probability that we will act according to what role descriptions prescribe. But the organisation or management itself cannot measure, what this probability really depends on. It remains hidden in our brains, or the mutual brains of our teams, families or any other level of coexistence.

Yes. But therefore we measure compliance, performance and goal indicators, and create incentives

Frankly, this is an illusion. We know that human interaction in organisation creates emergent properties. This means new possibilities arise, which are beyond the sum of all our parts. However, on an individual level, we are not capable of measuring them, because they only exist at larger scale.

Even more: If we measure people at an individual level for their performance in away so they are aware of the measurement, we actively ruin organisation and its results. I’ve never seen measurement of poor personal performance take place in organisations which did not directly lead to prohibitive interaction. This always results in poor team interaction, and on a large scale this leads to poor team results. At least poorer as they could be.

Imagine for a minute a team in the following state: One member is, for whatever reason, performing bad. The others, aware of this, decide to make a difference, and by any means do not copy his poor performance. This has a good chance to boost overall performance. If you take the low performer out of the team, the result may just be the opposite of what you expect. There may of course also be a chance, that chit chat about the team member’s bad working attitude will distract people more than it’s worth. You simply cannot tell from measuring on an individual level. You will have to interact more intelligently if you want to call it “management”.

Incentives based on personal performance monitoring are even more harmful. In this case, for our own benefit, we entangle with the measurement more than what common sense would allow for in certain decision situations. You can blame many ludicrous situations in organisations on this. Even with the measurement systems themselves. I’ve personally encountered the following situation not only once: “Why can’t we just correct this number to reflect the proper amount?” “I don’t know. Probably somebody’s bonus incentive depends on it.”

So what do you propose?

Radically speaking: never measure on an individual level and never try to directly influence people’s actions.

Instead, at each level of organisation (teams, departments, groups, …) provide as much orientation and guideline which is necessary, so people can align their many interactions in order to achieve their mutual targets, as a team. Only people can decide: what they can do best, when they can do it, how they can do it, and when not.

Every team is capable of negotiating this on a daily basis without any or at least with little loss. But the benefit is huge. However only measurable in terms of team performance. If you insist on measurement, do it passively, on team level, and always as a means to improve your own performance, not others. Refrain from drawing quick conclusions on individual performance. Always place developing people’s abilities, skills and welfare in life above squeezing for individual results. Create a working environment, which on global scale encourages such behavior.

In other words: If you want great achievements, treat people like intelligent, creative human beings, not like exchangeable role and duty fulfillers. Otherwise, you will never get more than the sum of their parts, and in this case, your organisation’s only justification of existence left is some shared resource among the people.