Breaking Down Three Trends Impacting Team Dynamics
There are three trends in team and organizational dynamics that are limiting how organizations can achieve their fullest potential. Let's review each trend and how to address it.
Hiring experienced individual contributors into the role of managers
This is a two-fold issue that has both immediate and long-term implications.
It falsely assumes that people with experience doing something will be good at managing others that do the same or similar work
It creates pressure for individual contributors to move into management, as most organizations have ceilings for earnings potential of their individual contributors
If you're experiencing this, a great book to read is Camille Fournier's The Manager's Path. It provides frameworks and recommendations around how to navigate these challenges.
Note the subtitle suggests this relates to technology engineering and leadership, however her perspectives are wider reaching than that domain.
Treating managers as a team captain instead of a player/coach
This is related to and typically presents itself with the previous trend.
As a refresher on these sportsball terms:
A team captain performs the same tasks as other players, but also focuses on orchestrating the overall team
A player/coach can demonstrate specific skills in a teaching capacity, then returns to coaching the team.
The cause of this trend is the pressure to ensure that teams are achieving the necessary outputs and outcomes (often focusing too much on the former), thus driving managers to do the work alongside their teams.
If you're experiencing this, you need to either lower expectations on the outputs and outcomes to allow the manager to manage (instead of do) or increase the team's size with more individual contributors or contractors.
Extending executive tenures causes stagnation and perpetuates legacy practices
This is another two-fold issue that has immediate and long-term implications.
It blocks opportunities for mid-level and senior managers to ascend into those roles at both their organization and its peers
It perpetuates legacy practices around transformation programs (e.g. "hire IBM") and reduces the organization's agility and achievement of its potential
Regardless of the reason (financial needs, ego, etc), turnover at the executive level is healthy for organizations. Fresh perspectives and experience from peers and other industries is equally as important as promoting from within.
If you're experiencing this, here are two recommendations:
Understand how succession planning takes place and at what stage it is for executives that appear to be aging aggressively in their roles
Proactively seek and push for mentorship between management and executives to create learning opportunities and increase an executive's confidence that ascending management can lead effectively
TLDR: Managers matter, don't expect ICs to fill that role. Push managers to be player/coaches, not team captains. Ensure the exec team has turnover.
