As a formal management, the whole department ruined.

Formal management is a necessary phenomenon in the management of large projects. It allows you to structure and organize work and relationships in a controlled team or organization. However, if the formal management, in the first place, setting itself goals and tasks, crosses a certain point of no return to itself and its subordinates, it begins to destructively influence the work and reduces its effectiveness. It is this story, about the execution of the development goals of the department by the management, distorted by excessive formalism, on the part of the management I want to tell you.

Goals: classic. Improve the quality of work, efficiency, bring the department to a new level as a whole.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

It is not a secret for anybody that each new head reshapes the department, one way or another, “for himself”. So in this story, dear reader, the same fate befell us. The young and promising manager was torn off piece by piece from the two existing divisions within the department and created a third one. I probably have only one answer to the eternal question “why?”: It is simpler to create narrowly focused specialists than generalists.
One thing is for sure. Setting goals and choosing methods that are divorced from reality is the most terrible thing that can happen to you. Overall, there were two global goals.
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Goal one. Bringing order

As the main tool for debugging workflows, the formal was chosen, I would even say the book-formal type of management. I think everyone who has worked in a more or less large team can confirm that next to the working atmosphere and working order there is the same working, from the manager's point of view, chaos: morning coffee in the smoking room, group races for tea and cookies in the kitchen, persecution Head of the working issues in the corridors , the solution of burning issues through personal communication with management, not related to the work of Skype conference for communication, funny pictures and videos. If you have a young, active male team, then, in fact, all this is inevitable. How to arrange the chaos, if he, in your opinion, undermines the effectiveness? Correctly, formalize workflows and workflow.

Build vertical

In large companies, they are very fond of verticals, which is understandable. A huge information flow in the form of tasks and problems in the direction of managers needs to somehow be filtered and streamlined, otherwise they will fill up to the top of the head, you will not dig it out. First of all, the junior managers are formed: local leaders and senior shifts, in fact, the Timlids and the group of their deputies are organized.

Unfortunately, some managers may not take into account the fact that the team leader and his assistant must be not only good performers and mouthpieces of his will, but also respected specialists and experienced "fighters" of their field of activity. How not cool, but subordinates must respect their leadership, and the best respect is the recognition of professionalism and experience. Timlid, who is only the executor of the will of the leader, but is not a cool specialist in the sphere he supervises, turns for the team from “father and mentor” into an annoying hindrance. He needs to explain and chew everything three times. Due to the lack of professional experience, such people will only slow down problem solving, since are constantly in doubt whether they are acting professionally or not.

And here comes the first devil, which, as is well known, lies in the details. The vertical of managers is organized in order to reduce the workload from the final leader, leaving him solely the functionality of vising and monitoring work processes. With the rigid formalization of working processes, and, first of all, the processes of solving the problems that have arisen, additional links are created through the use of the “power vertical”. If these very units do not have sufficient qualifications to make independent decisions, they only delay the decision-making process, since at the exit, instead of sighting and observation, the manager receives only a “damaged telephone”.

The employee needs one thing, the team leader understood the other, and the manager heard the third. As a result, we get a collapse, because, to understand what is happening, we almost have to gather a rally (remember, we have formalized the processes), and the working team leader-manager discusses the problem that has arisen, or even wait for a general meeting of the department.

The closure of all processes on the manual

Each of us is faced with a situation where for making a decision it is necessary to receive the blessing of the authorities. This is correct, since the ultimate responsibility lies directly with the manager. Here the second devil of details pops up - the scaling of the problems that are necessary for the consideration.

If the management closes on itself the solution of all issues, at least minimally beyond the limits of the statistical "norm", it paralyzes its own work, simultaneously connecting hands to specialists in the field. This situation forces to resort to the use of a crooked vertical. Remembering the effect of a “broken phone” we end up with a huge lag, up to a week, in making decisions on work issues. In turn, a specialist in the field could solve them, with delegated authority, within 10-15 minutes.

I understand that many recommend to know everything and everything, but the total "understanding" of all questions leads exclusively to the paralysis of the structure at times of peak loads. It's like the saying about a sysadmin: a good sysadmin at work can sleep, or not appear at all for weeks, because Everything always works for him and does not break. So with the management. A manager who uses a correctly built vertical and the system of delegation of authority may be absent for several weeks without fear that everything will collapse without him. The system must be able to support itself.

Hard workflow

We have a vertical. We closed all the processes on ourselves. It remains to write job descriptions on how to work correctly - this is the next stage I observe of the formalization of the work process.

The third devil is hiding in documents. The more instructions, manuals and other things written for an ordinary employee, the more difficulties he has with their execution. The problem is that the need to comply with a huge list of rules reduces the speed of response and problem solving. Plus, the more documentation has been written, the more difficult it is to keep it up to date. But even this is not the main problem. Over time, it is becoming more and more difficult to bring changes in regulatory documents to subordinates, because “mince” is created in the head of people from actual and irrelevant information. Against the backdrop of strict compliance with the workflow, more and more shoals due to its change are falling out into the light.

Well, the most controversial about the hard workflow observance is its dominance over common sense. Sometimes situations arise in the solution of which one should be guided by personal experience and common sense instead of direct job descriptions. However, workflow prevails over common sense and it is necessary to follow it. Thus, situations are created, due to which the mere fact of following a workflow is the cause of future problems.

As you can see, the goal was set and, in its own way, successfully completed. The vertical is built, the processes are formalized, the documentation is prepared. However, no one took into account to what medium and long-term negative effects this will lead.

The second goal. Team building and employee motivation

Any supervisor would like to motivate his subordinates as much as possible on labor feats and 100% return to work. The eye rejoices when people work quickly, efficiently and harmoniously. But under the pressure of circumstances, many organizations cannot afford to invest entirely in such risky assets as staff development.
Here you have anything: a natural personnel turnover, sudden dismissals of one's own will, the transition of people to other positions and to other departments, the banal inability of some people to jump above their heads, etc. And here I observed the following, very controversial decision:

“Can't take quality? Take quantity! ”

Nightmare recruiter

Of course, I am not HR, but it is believed that his nightmare might look like this: Once every one and a half or two months, find 5-6 new people in the same department. Terms of recruiting: not defined, a permanent set.

I think it is not necessary to be a rocket scientist in order to understand that the quality of “human material” in the hiring process is proportionally reduced relative to the number of people hired by the same position. Considering that the department was very specific, I would even say that, by the nature of its activity, it had no analogues, people were hired on the basis of some basic sets of personal qualities and knowledge. In general, they took everyone .

Here our fourth devil of parts pops up: a general decline in the quality of work performed by the department. Judge for yourself. We have spherical 10 people in a vacuum of various skill levels. Of these, 1-2 seasoned specialists who can train the young. And here 3-4 people come at once, with which they are lined up like bags, the leading specialist, so that he “directs and educates”. According to the results of the probationary period, a decision will be made whether these people will work or not. In fact, the period of study to a more or less acceptable level ranged from 4 to 6 months.

As a result, we are sort of fulfilling our goal of quantitative performance of indicators, but at the same time, the quality of work in some moments causes only tears. The goal was to increase the indicators set, but apparently all the consequences of such a decision, using the constant hiring of new people, apparently forgotten.

Employee Motivation and Team Spirit

In this regard, I am faced with a very, very strange practice. It is clear that its main goal was to rally the team and instill the feeling “One for all and all for one!”. However, the method of "smearing" responsibility for the mistake of one over the heads of all gave very strange results.

A bit creepy retreat.

In 1938-39, the Nazis used methods of psychological pressure on prisoners conc. camps. At that time, the “death camps” did not receive their terrifying spread throughout Europe and were used to create a “working biomass” that is submissive and not capable of resistance. One of the points of the Nazi program was to impose collective responsibility on the basis of the will of prisoners.

The basic principle of collective responsibility: When “everyone is guilty,” or when a particular person is seen only as a representative of the stereotypical group, and not as a spokesman for his own opinion.

Collective responsibility is one of the three basic tenets for breaking the personality according to the Nazi methodology. Then we used three more “drums”, but I ran into it again, with only one of them: Make people believe that nothing depends on them.

Each worker, one way or another, hopes for the recognition of his merits and expects a cash reward in the form of a bonus for good results. The management sets a goal for him - he fulfills it qualitatively.

Collective responsibility allows you to set priorities in such a way that employees fall into the following situation:
“You all did a great job this month, but the prize will not be again, because some of you have messed up” (everyone is to blame for this).

Such a position is enough to slowly but surely kill the desire of a person to change something. If it is necessary, there will always be a “cant” in the team of 25-35 people for which the entire department can be left without additional money. It really works, I felt it in my own skin. But not in the long run.

At a certain point, an accelerated outflow of personnel begins, primarily highly qualified specialists. People get tired of “struggling” with the system and are looking for a place either in other departments or in other companies. With a similar policy, over time, only psychological stress was built up within the team. Every month to listen that you are guilty in the mistakes of others was getting harder and harder.

This is the fifth devil. Responsibility "for a neighbor", at first glance, should have prompted only more careful and thoughtful work, mutual assistance and help to one's neighbor. But after a series of months without premiums and constant pressure for over a year, this only led to the creation of an unhealthy atmosphere of hopelessness. The goal was failed due to improperly chosen implementation methods. We tried to rally and motivate, but only pissed off and killed the will to professional growth, he had no meaning for us.

findings

Unfortunately, it is too early to speak of any changes for the better. Two years later, similar experiments were announced reboot in the management of the entire department. The senior management reviewed the need for hiring managers from the outside and returned to the practice of raising ordinary employees who know the work of the departments from the inside. We also had to revise the structure of the vertical, to make it shorter. As far as I know, a system of individual incentives and rewards for good work is being developed.

How to estimate losses from an incorrect choice of methods in fulfilling the goals set by the management? I dont know. I think it will remain solely on the conscience of the performers.

With respect.