Transitioning from a functional management role to a more strategic position does not come naturally to everyone, and this book aims to equip managers with some practical tips and strategies to overcome this challenge.
Written by two INSEAD academics, Kevin Kaiser and Michael Pich, with the help of author and journalist IJ Schecter, the book takes the form of a series of case studies where we follow the fortunes of three recently promoted managers, who ascended from functional positions to become general managers in a large TV and film distributor, a mid-sized steel manufacturer and a Brussels-based toy distributor.
The challenges they and their colleagues face are presented as scripted narratives with comments from the authors on how the subjects deal with the scenarios they face. The views and experiences of past participants in Kaiser and Pich’s executive development programmes are also woven into the mix here.
The themes chosen are consciously universal.
As the authors note, successful managers often attribute their success to the knowledge and experience they gained in previous functional roles. However, having become used to having the answers, they experience great difficulty moving to roles that require them to ask good questions instead. Good general managers – as in ones who don’t micromanage – cannot have all the answers at their fingertips. Instead, they must learn to ask the right questions of their managers to assess how well the business functions are being managed.
Neither is general management about telling people what to do. If your people expect this, then you have misunderstood your role as a general manager.
Admiration and fear
The key issue is trust. As people look upwards in their organisations, they see a boss who has the power to overrule, embarrass or sack them and, in general, their feelings towards this person are a mix of admiration and fear.
The relationship dynamic changes upon assuming the higher office of general manager. You no longer share the functional identity of those below you and on occasions you are likely to have to make decisions that are not in the narrow interests of the function from which you came.
To ensure everyone continues to speak openly to you, you must demonstrate openness, fairness and respect. As the authors put it: “If they fear your authority, they will quickly shut down, but if they know that you respect and value them, they will be forthcoming in the manner you need them to be for your own success. This trust can take years to earn but can be lost in an instant.”
The authors explain the concept of managing for value which means expanding thinking from the short term to the long term and from looking at a single area of responsibility to the impact on the entire organisation. The new general manager needs to resist the temptation to oversimplify the job by choosing to define success narrowly by short-term performance indicators and instead should focus on the longer term organisation-wide impact of their actions and decisions.
Learning lessons
There is a need to guard against bias. We have an easy time giving ourselves credit for success but we tend to find excuses for our failures, rather than learning lessons from them. The impact of this can be reduced by forming diverse teams, soliciting independent views, collecting broad data sets, reframing questions and rotating the role of devil’s advocate.
One of the most important tasks of any general manager is to ensure there is good morale in the team they are responsible for. People need to be excited, motivated and willing to continue to learn and adapt and you should encourage regular feedback to assess whether your style is motivating individual members of your team.
In addition to morale, the authors advise that a general manager must ensure ongoing communication is taking place between team members to minimise siloed thinking, reduce inconsistencies and avoid conflicting efforts.
The book should prove useful to newly promoted managers or those aspiring to leadership roles.
