The Atlas

On Friday, we held the third in this month's Connecting the Dots webinars and the topic was one of my favorites: Manager as Coach. Before I spend the next few weeks on the meat of this topic, I want to start with a really important background point: most managers don't understand what coaching looks like.

Most managers grew up with an Industrial Age factory-model about leadership. This is something that made much more sense in a widget-based world driven by factories and mass production than it does in an information one, but it included some core assumptions that we've largely absorbed into our managerial and organizational DNA over time:

1. Career "progress" is about "climbing the ladder" up the food chain to management roles.
2. The boss knows how to do all the jobs on the team and is the boss because he's the expert.
3. A career is successful if you've stayed with the same company for a (very) long time.

The truth is, most knowledge workers will look at that list and scoff at #3, probably roll their eyes a bit at #2, but still cling a bit to #1. The truth is, though, none of them are useful expectations to tie yourself to anymore.

We live in a world where:

• Most people will increase their income more by changing companies than they will by staying put.
• The lifespan for a company is just 18 years -- down from 61 years in 1958.

• New technologies lead to new learning, which leads to new interests. Industries evolve and take career paths with them. (e.g. In 2000 ecommerce was largely a technical field. In 2020 it is almost universally a sales and marketing function.)
• Entrepreneurship, freelancing and the gig economy mean that any person can go from executive roles in someone else's business to 'Chief Cook and Bottle Washer' in their own business -- even if they have the sexy CEO title.
• Boom and bust economic cycles often involve laying off expensive employees who find themselves with no choice but to slide down the ladder a few rungs in order to find another job.

Bottom line: until we let go of the beliefs we have about work that are rooted in a time and place that does NOT match our current reality, we will continue to cling to models that no longer fit. The dragon I constantly work to slay on this front is the idea that management is a top-down, dictatorial discipline based on compliance, and rooted in command-and-control practices.

Hence my conviction that Manager as Coach is not only the best way to lead, but also the only appropriate one for the 21st Century.

If you want the Reader's Digest version of the What-Why-How-Who points on this topic, please join me on Thursday for a webinar where I will go over what this means in detail, including providing some resources for managers looking to start developing their coaching skills.

Upcoming Events:

• Wed, April 22nd at 12:00 ET - The art of finding and being a mentor with Thynk Global
• Wed, April 22nd at 4:00 ET - Weekly episode of Grow or Die on Zoom
• Thurs., April 23rd at 3:00 ET - Manager as Coach Webinar
• Fri, April 24th at 12:00 ET - Managing your expectations during a career/life transition in the last of this month's Connecting the Dots series

I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe, healthy and (at least mostly) sane, as we head into yet another week of lock-down in most of the country.

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