From #SXSW: RIM’s T.A. McCann on how to manage others effectively
SmartBrief editor Jesse Stanchak recently attended the SXSW Interactive Festival, where he had a chance to speak with T.A. McCann, vice president of research and development at Research in Motion and the CEO and founder of Gist. McCann spoke about how letting go is key to effectively managing others and why it’s important to let your team to take charge of their own responsibilities.
Some of his points:
- Make everyone the CEO of their own area. Give your team the freedom to take charge of their own ideas and expertise. Your role as manager is to provide the resources and support to make sure things are getting things done.
- It’s all about freedom with responsibility. It doesn’t matter when, how or what your employees will do to get something done. What matters is that they meet the deadlines when they’re set. “It’s not, ‘I’m gonna tell you what to do,’ ” McCann says. “It’s, ‘You’re gonna tell me what you’re gonna do.’ ”
- Build an organizational system from the bottom up. Instead of enforcing your own organizational standards on your employees, allow them to work together to create a system that works based on their own needs. “Let the system evolve in an agile way — not a top down sort of way,” McCann says.
For more of McCann’s interview and for information on the tools he uses to keep himself organized, view the video below:
Posted by Marcus on April 7th, 2011 at 9:31 am
This is refreshingly sweet to read. I started managing people immediately after graduating from university in 1990. It has been my style that you allow your staff to meet targets and deadlines without hovering over them with do this and do that way (except where they are clearly off track or illegal). However, my own bosses have faulted me as 'not being on top of things.' Their idea it seems is to instill fear and intimidation on subordinates. But I do not agree, and I can tell you that my former subordinates have come to tell me that it was much fun working with me and achieving results as against others who treat them differently. The difference was that I talked with them more than bossing them.
I am much happier now, reading this article of someone who shares an opinion I have always had.
Posted by J Christine Feeley on April 7th, 2011 at 10:03 am
I embrace this approach….it works even better when you assign financial objectives to all members…even if it's only a small piece. If done correctly, the revenue should be distributed as a pyramid with the business unit leader responsible for the whole number. What I learned, as did my team….
-they learned how to empathize with the responsibility attached to financial responsibility and accountability,
-they felt that they were more significant contributors to the success of the company…
-They learned by their own efforts that not all ideas make good financial sense since they were responsible for assessing the financial value of a recommendation this led the entire team to operate with much more efficiency
-finally, this objectives were used as KPIs at review time to determine the amount of bonus earned, and eliminated the idea that a bonus is an entitlement.
Posted by John Heinrich on April 7th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
This is a timely post, because as firms ramp up hiring, it's good to try to find out if new workers are accountable, which is what this post is all about. Most Gen X and Y people aren't raised to be accountable, so it's something they're going to have to learn in the workplace.
Also, if you make people more accountable and judge them on results, the management job becomes somewhat easier.
Posted by Nancy on April 7th, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Commenter Marcus makes a good point when he talks about managers who use intimidation as a way to motivate people. It poisons an organization. McCann taps into a new area that I think has a lot of potential: allow a group of people to work on X with a deadline, and get out of the way while they do it. It's okay to check in but it shouldn't be an 8-to-5 appearance at the office just to make the boss happy. This opens up more of virtual office groups, which opens up business to finding talent wherever it may be.
Posted by Офисна дипломация | Дигитален PR в БГ on April 7th, 2011 at 3:11 pm
[...] собствени стандарти за съвършество. Виж интервю тук, както и повече по идеите: Make everyone the CEO of their own area. и It’s [...]
Posted by Mike Faber on April 7th, 2011 at 4:58 pm
As Robert Goddard may have once said about leadership, “it ain’t rocket science”! Yes, yes and yes! Challenge people by empowering them.
Posted by Carol Dysart on April 7th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
I love the idea of making everyone CEO of their project or assignment. And I agree with all the above comments.What I would add is how important it is for each manager to know how to approach and/or manage each person "the way they like being treated…"
This is achieved when a manager knows and understands his or her personal work behavioral style (I use DISC with my teams, but any four quadrant model will do) and also knows how their style matches – or is different from- those people they manage. When profiles are done when coming on board to a company and available to each manager, then the manager can instantly see the type of responsiblity each person is going to be the best at and who on the team will make a good balance or resource to them.
We live in an information age and this type of information is easy to get now with the help of online profiling tools.
Posted by Bill on April 15th, 2011 at 10:18 am
To take the football analogy further…sure the CEO/coach and their direct staff may call the plays, but the quarterback has to have the latitude to decide where to pass and make other quick decisions in the heat of the action.
The CEO who recruits a good team and tells his team "we need to increase our presence the blue widget market by x%" will usually get a better result than the CEO who says "we need to increase market share x% in the blue widget market by following these specific tactics and never deviating from them". The CEO should only lead the in-the-weeds tactical details if the team flounders or has no idea how to accomplish the task. When management sets strategy, their staff should be free to choose (and change) tactics.
Posted by Outliers & Observations » 4 Ways to Get More Out of Your Team on July 11th, 2011 at 12:03 pm
[...] cutting edge conference (SXSW Interactive Festival) recently reminded us of some very old truths. T.A. McCann of RIM and Gist delivered the secrets of good management. He believes the key to effectively managing others is simply “letting go.” Managers should [...]