What the world needs now: more Managers!
By: Tim Shand
Tags: Management, Management And Leadership

Recently, some traditional allies like Forbes and HBR have jumped on the ‘Management bashing bandwagon’, claiming new technology and ways of working could signal the end for the Managers we know and love.

This is completely wrong. New technologies and new ways of working simply mean there’s so much more for our Managers to manage!

‘Chaos’ by George Frederic Watts (c-1880) anticipated an unmanaged world

Exhibit A: History

Early humans were far too lazy to build anything worth keeping. In fact, anthropologists think some societies only worked 4–6 hours per day. Enter our first hero Hammurabi, around 4,000 years ago. He was the first to grasp that clever people could specialise in coercing the lazy ones to work harder.

Management was born, bringing order to the chaos!

Management practices soon spread into Feudal and Military systems. More recently, they took hold in the world of Business. Thanks to Managers, we have vastly increased the happiness and productivity in the world.

This graph from the Institute for Studies, shows Managers literally propping up productivity.

Exhibit B: Science

Enter our next hero: Frederic Winslow Taylor, who set out to show just how important managers were, and he proved it — with science.

His 1911 masterpiece ‘Scientific Management’ concluded that “the average employee is so stupid [and] will only work so hard as to not get fired”.

The smoking gun had been found, and the smoking gun was us. Enter our third hero: Henry Ford, who took Taylor’s thinking and attached it to a V8 engine! A new mechanised world was born, with huge increases in the production of all the great things we now take for granted.

Hippies and Socialists fight back

Not long after ‘Scientific Management’, Mary Parker Follett began arguing that positive human relations were key to getting work done. She clearly missed the memo from HR that humans are simply resources, to be allocated and managed like any other.

In his 1960’s book The Human Side of Enterprise, Douglas McGregor made a similar mistake. He thought that rather than being lazy and stupid, humans just needed the right conditions to do great work.

Follett, McGregor and others like them have inspired much navel gazing by those looking for excuses to do less work. Meanwhile, our faithful Managers have quietly been getting on with the impossible task detailed below.

Sandwiched between ‘strategic thinkers’ and lazy workers, Managers are our hidden heroes

Exhibit C: Lockdown challenges

Economies are contracting, and unemployment is rising. The reason is clear: without Managers to check on us, far less work is being done.

While “working from home” many staff are actually just home-schooling their kids and baking complicated sourdough. Others are surfing the internet, safe from the watchful eyes of their overworked and under-appreciated Manager.

You probably should be working as you’re reading this, so here’s a chance to make good on your careless idleness: we must think big, and act fast…

A bold proposal for the 21st Century: Your own personal Manager!

After reviewing the facts, I’m sure you’ll agree: Forbes and HBR are wrong to even consider a retreat. Everyone knows that if you’re losing money at the casino table, the best strategy is to aggressively double down!

Reskilling the world’s unemployed to be Managers will eliminate joblessness, and with more Managers to guide us, the economy can be saved.

An unemployment rate of 20% would disappear completely if we reskilled these people to become ‘Personal Managers’. Each Manager would have only four ‘staff’ to manage, so they could easily make sure all were working their full 8-hours (no more ironing during important meetings!)

But why stop there? Your new ‘Personal Manager’ would also interview and select potential partners, and a quarterly performance review would no doubt improve your relationship! No more rubbish holiday destinations and restaurants, and no more arguing over the best education path for your children.

A Personal Manager would bring you all the advantages of being on parole, without the hassle of a criminal record.

Conclusion: A bright post-Covid future is possible

More Managers would bring an end to your unsupervised and inefficient existence. No more would you flail fecklessly, a rudderless ship lacking purpose and clarity. With the firm and reassuring hand of management to guide you, no longer would you make the poor and uninformed decisions that have no doubt defined your life so far.