A MANAGER''S TIME

17. září 2004 277 ze 412 15 A MANAGER'S TIME HOW DO MANAGERS CREATE THE TIME FOR LEARNING? At one of our recent Leadership and Mastery programs, I talked to a manager who was born and raised in India, and who has worked in both United States and Japanese firms. She said that when a person in a Japanese firm sits quietly, no one will come and interrupt. It is assumed that the person is thinking. On the other hand, when the person is up and moving about, coworkers feel free to interrupt. "Isn't it interesting," she said, "that it is exactly the opposite in American firms? In America, we assume that when a person is sitting quietly they aren't doing anything very important." How can we expect people to learn when they have little time to think and reflect, individually and collaboratively? I know of few managers who do not complain of not having enough time. Indeed, most of the managers with whom I have worked struggle unceasingly to get the time for quiet reflection. Could this be a cultural norm that we take for granted—the incessant "busyness" of our daily lives? 17. září 2004 278 ze 412 Donald Schon, in his book The Reflective Practitioner, points out that the drive for instant action appears to come from public school classroom learning, where teachers are bound by a bureaucratic or- ganization that discourages time to reflect. "If the teacher must somehow manage the work of thirty students in a classroom, how can she really listen to any one of them?" Thus, in the schoolroom, learning becomes synonymous with absorbing information dished out by an "expert," and everyone, both student and teacher, moves as quickly as possible so as to absorb as much as possible. 1 In an organization, the manager is the "expert." If there is no authority figure to turn to, then successful professionals (according to Schon) must develop the capacity to work in continuous cycles of pausing to develop hypotheses, acting, and pausing to reflect on the results. Schon calls this "reflection-in-action" and talks about it as a characteristic of professionals who are successful learners. "Phrases like 'thinking on your feet,' 'keeping your wits about you,' and 'learning by doing,' " he wrote, "suggest not only that we can think about doing but that we can think about doing something while doing it." But many American managers are too busy running to "think on their feet." For most of us our internal pictures about the nature of our work say that activity is good, that a manager's job is to keep things moving. Hanover's Bill O'Brien calls this the "chain gang" model of management: "Most managers seem to think of themselves like the boss of the chain gang: 'the speed of the boss sets the speed of the gang.' " It is easy to blame this incessant activity and lack of time for reflection on organizational pressures but research is beginning to suggest otherwise. We have conducted numerous experiments, as part of research in developing managerial microworlds (Chapter 17), to study managers' learning habits. Surprisingly, these experiments show that even when there is ample time for reflection and the facility for retrieving all manner of relevant information (in the form of a computer-based simulation, in which the managers play out their real- life roles), most managers do not reflect carefully on their actions. Typically, managers in the experiments adopt a strategy, then as soon as the strategy starts to run into problems, they switch to another strategy, then to another and another. In a simulated four-year exercise, managers may run through three to six different strategies, without once examining why a strategy seems to be failing or articulating specifically what they hope to accomplish through a 17. září 2004 279 ze 412 change in strategy. 2 Apparently, the "ready, fire, aim" atmosphere of American corporations has been fully assimilated and internalized by those who live in that atmosphere. Learning takes time. When an individual is managing mental models, for example, it takes considerable time to surface assump- tions, examine their consistency and accuracy, and see how different models can be knit together into more systemic perspectives on im- portant problems. The management of time and attention is an area where top man- agement has a significant influence, not by edict but by example. For instance, O'Brien simply doesn't schedule short meetings. "If it isn't a subject that is worthy of an hour, it shouldn't be on my calendar." In a well-designed organization, the only issues that should reach a senior manager's atteufion^should be complex, dilemma-like "divergent" issues. These are the issues that require the thought and experience of the most senior people, in addition to the input of less experienced people. If top managers are handling twenty problems in a workday, either they are spending too much time on "convergent" problems that should be dealt with more locally in the organization, or they are giving insufficient time to complex problems. Either way, it is a sign that management work is being handled poorly. "It's a big year for me," O'Brien adds, "if I make twelve decisions. I may pick someone to report directly to me. I may set a direction. But my job is not consumed with making many decisions. It is consumed with identifying important issues the organization must address in the future, helping others sort through decisions they must make, and the overarching tasks of organizational design" (see Chapter 18 on the design functions of leadership). The principle is simple to say and understand, but it's not the way most organizations operate. Instead, people at the top continually make decisions on issues such as how to run a promotion—as op- posed to why they need to run promotions at all. Or they discuss how to make a sale to a particular customer—instead of inquiring about how their products serve the customers' expressed and latent needs in general. On the other hand, as the basic learning disciplines start to become assimilated into an organization, a different view of managerial work will develop. Action will still be critical, but incisive action will not be confused with incessant activity. There will be time for reflection, conceptualizing, and examining complex issues. No one knows how much time managers in future organizations 17. září 2004 280 ze 412 will spend reflecting, modeling, and designing learner processes. But it will be a great deal more than was spent in the past. Ed Simon at Herman Miller has asked his management team to commit 25 percent of their work time to what he calls "learning the work of organizational architects." During the past year, the team has devoted itself to mastering the "reflection and inquiry" skills integral to the discipline of "mental models," and applying these skills to their most strategic issues. He said that this time commitment is necessary because although there is much to be learned about the "new work" of managers and leaders, "We know enough that we can get started." One useful starting point for all managers is to look at their time for thinking. If it isn't adequate, why not? Are work pressures keeping us from taking the time, or, to some degree, are we doing it to ourselves? Either way, where is the leverage for change? For some people, it may involve changing personal habits. Others may need to soften or deflect the organization's demands for incessant "busyness." The way each of us and each of our close colleagues go about managing our own time will say a good deal about our commitment to learning. . 15 A MANAGER'S TIME HOW DO MANAGERS CREATE THE TIME FOR LEARNING? At one of our recent Leadership and Mastery programs, I talked to a manager who was. American corporations has been fully assimilated and internalized by those who live in that atmosphere. Learning takes time. When an individual is managing