What in the world is everyone talking about when they talk about
management?
Primarily, they're talking about control.
Managers control things. People. Results. The stuff we do every
day to make sure nothing goes wrong, to make sure that we're
sailing smoothly.
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And yet, no matter how many managers we hire, and how many
things they do, and how many results they're accountable for,
and how hard they work, and how much they care, something
always-and I mean always-goes wrong.
Why is that? Why is it that no matter how hard we try to control
everything, most things seem to have a mind of their own?
I suggest-and rather strongly-that it's the belief held by
most business owners that successful managers are people with some
sort of "management skills" that are to blame. It's
our belief that people can be depended on to do what they say
they're going to do that gets in our way. Not only because we
hire managers with false and impossible-to-realize expectations,
but no matter how often our expectations are proven to be
unrealistic, we hold on to them with everything we've got.
Because to change our perception of what's true would mean we
would have to accept the fact that people can't be depended on
to do what they say they're going to do. If that's true,
then we all need to set about discovering what we can depend
on, and that's the management system each and every single one
of our managers needs to become expert at, and use.
It's not the person, it's the system.
It's not how much our managers care, or how hard they try;
it's how well they've been trained in "the way we do
it here." The Action Plan. The Controlling Calendar. The
standards by which we measure our performance. The Benchmarks. The
due dates. The accountability. The way in which we monitor the
system. Knowing that something is always going to go wrong, but
because we're watching it, seeing it, understanding what
we've committed to do, and by when, and by whom, and for how
much, we can then begin to understand, with true oversight, what it
is we've jointly committed to, and what our expectations
actually are. Not of the manager, but of the process through which
a result is expected to be produced.
But who's got time to do all that, and do the job, too?
Just about everyone asks me that when I haul out my Management
101 primer, which says: "If you don't have a system for
doing it, you aren't going to get it done."
Unless you're lucky, that is.
To be successful, you need to discover the way to produce a
specific result in your business. And through that discovery, you
need to then determine how you can consistently replicate that
specific result. That becomes the intellectual property of your
rarified organization, and the specific quality you deliver to each
and every manager who takes on the task of first, being committed,
and second, committed to knowing the truth. And third, committed to
doing what's true, or of finding a way to improve it.
Michael Gerber is the founder and chairman of E-Myth Worldwide, where
he invented a revolutionary small-business development system
that's been proven in thousands of businesses across the globe.
Since 1977, Gerber has been sharing his business success strategies
with millions of fans of his E-Myth books, audiotapes and programs.
As a business-coaching pioneer and bestselling author, Gerber has
changed the face of small business by providing entrepreneurs with
an innovative and stunningly clear understanding, capability and
process to transform any small business into a world-class
enterprise.