One of the key concepts underpinning the Legitimate Leadership framework is: ‘We manage things, but lead people.’ You can’t lead a budget, a target, time, or any other inanimate resource. And managing a ‘human resource’ leads to disengagement and often, eventual discontent and hostility. Unfortunately, many performance management schemes (or the way they have been implemented) are rooted in the idea of managing people and/or their output. That is not to say we don’t need to manage aspects of our responsibilities, but people need something different.

To illustrate how ‘managing’ misses the mark, let me share a story from a 24-hour aluminium alloy wheel manufacturing facility where I worked many years ago.

The production of a wheel followed the following basic steps: casting –> machining –> painting –> final Inspection –>boxing and shipping. Each step was also a department that was managed through statistics, including output per day, scrap rates, and rework rates, among others. Any minuscule defects that occurred in one of the steps often led to scrap in the subsequent steps. Since departmental heads were ‘managed’ by these scrap numbers, often with unpleasant consequences, it usually became a fight about who was responsible for the particular batch of scrap. The foundry, where casting was done, took the brunt since it was an easy target, being the start of the process. The foundry personnel then fought back to justify why they were not responsible for the scrap and were being used as scapegoats – and often, they were right.

And so, each department ended up managing the numbers internally, while fending off external attacks on their numbers.

One could say that they were using a perfect management system that accurately recorded numbers and outputs.

At a point, the foundry got a new departmental head who decided to take a different approach. Instead of defending every bit of scrap that came at them, he chose to accept it and even include it in their scrap numbers. Initially, this caused an uproar. Once done, a small team of specialists would then investigate the scrap wheels and determine the actual reason for the scrap, and then allocate it to the relevant department, regardless of how it was reported.

It took a few weeks, but a harmonious way of dealing with scrap soon emerged throughout the plant, and overall scrap numbers improved because the actual problems were being addressed, rather than wasting energy on ineffective conflict.

So how is this leading and not managing? I have three points to consider:

1. The actual issue was not to manage the numbers, but to build trust relationships between departments to work together on a common problem. This requires leadership and a desire to get to know others.
2. There was movement away from a competition to be right to a desire to collaboratively solve a problem. Positive mindset changes always require trusting relationships.
3. It required a personal surrender of own needs and reputation in order to gain, not without risk, a successful outcome.

Pure management of numbers could never have achieved this shift. Only leading a change in mindset could.

In evaluating your own work environment, are there areas where people work hard to be right rather than working at being successful? What would they need to change and who should go first?