Working with over 6,000 clients in my current stint as a career coach I have seen first hand how managers, directors, and executives complain about their inability to be effective in their roles, primarily because they do not have the time to do their job right. Part of my coaching practice is to understand how they manage their time and priorities. One of the first things I ask these clients to do is to make a self-audit of their “typical” day by looking at their calendar for an average week. In almost every case we uncover that it not the time, but something else is at play here.

What is interesting—and consistent—across these self-audit results, regardless of the level at which they are done is how most do not understand their managerial duties and how they are not able to separate their management obligation from ongoing technical work.

Let me explain:

At any managerial level there are only two kinds of tasks: technical and managerial. The former result from someone engaged in their area of specialty doing what they are paid to do. This can be any functional specialty such as developing a product package, cutting software code, analyzing an engineering failure, writing a legal brief, or creating an ad copy.

Managerial tasks, on the other hand, include those that stem from the four functions of managing: Leading, Planning, Organizing, and setting up Controls. These managerial functions are universal to any management job, regardless of what business that manager is engaged in. Of course, each of these functions has specific activities within them, in turn. For example, the function of Leading can include Motivating, Communicating, Decision making, Selecting, and Developing people. Each of the other three also has activities relevant to their respective functions.

The problem comes when managers do not understand that the technical and management responsibilities are orthogonal; no amount of technical effort can make up for work that only the right manager can do. It is perhaps because of this and the bias managers bring to their jobs—most get promoted from being excellent in their own technical areas—predisposes them to solve many problems that belong in the management realm by using technical subterfuge, instead. Compounding this situation is that unattended technical problems constantly scream for attention—often as burning platforms; unattended management problems, in contrast, quietly pile up until they explode into a scandal or an untenable situation, sometimes years later.

With this basic framework, let us now take the two most recent management scandals that have exploded in this nation’s consciousness to explain this model as its object lessons: The GM recall and the VA scheduling fiasco!

In the case of the GM’s ignition switch design, someone at the management level early in its history decided to hijack the problem by merely attending to its technical

aspect—by modifying its design, deliberately not changing the part number, and then not escalating further the implications of this decision to GM’s higher authorities, a management task. Thus solving a potentially serious problem attending to only its technical side, and not understanding its business ramifications—a management decision—resulted in how some 12 years later GM’s ignominy exploded as media headlines.

Ditto for the VA scandal: The problem–actually, only its symptom—those on the front line was facing was that they could not schedule sick veterans for a timely doctor visit. So, instead of escalating this to higher-ups, functional mangers decided to solve that problem with a technical subterfuge: keeping two sets of scheduling books to look good to earn their performance bonuses for shorter wait times. The second concomitant failure here was the inability of the top managers to understand how people’s skullduggery can compromise the real mission merely to earn their incentives. The underlying management problem—lack of capacity and resource planning skill—exposed by the technical symptom—scheduling delays—should have warned higher-ups within the VA bureaucracy of systemic and chronic resource shortage, archaic systems, and uncaring staff, all of which can only be addressed through management intervention.

So, what is my guidance to manager clients, who bring me their audit results and who complain that they do not have the time to do their job? Here is my refrain:

1. Understand the difference between technical work and management work. To solve a management problem no amount of technical work will compensate for it.
2. Learn about the four functions of management: Leading, Planning, Organizing, and setting up Controls. Understand the activities under each and develop tools and rules to codify how you deal with management problems.
3. At each management level certain amount of technical work is appropriate. The time a manager can spend attending to technical work at any level must be inversely proportional to their hierarchical position in the organization. A first-level manager is expected to engage in much more technical work than would be the CEO.
4. At each management level learn to do the appropriate amount of technical work and to do the management work that ONLY you can do. Delegate everything else. Do not postpone doing management work just because you can get away with it, that you cannot let go of what you once loved, and just because the technical work is screaming for attention—it always does and will! Learn to find the underlying systemic causes for chronic problems and solve them only with management intervention.
5.  When setting up incentives—again Management work—be careful to foresee how people will misuse or abuse them for their benefit without really delivering what they are designed to promote.

After reading this blog you will perhaps appreciate why nearly 80% of the managers at all levels are dysfunctional, ineffective, and just plain incompetent; surveys during the past 50 years have borne this out. Their impact, both up and down, on the organization they manage can be far reaching. If you understand the basic functions of a manager it will not be difficult for you to belong to that rare 20% club and make a difference to many that work with you! Besides, they will always remember you as a good manager, then!

Good luck!