D 1995 – 1999: The Dilbert Years

In a period in the US of economic prosperity, a tight job market, and high worker mobility, the balance of power has shifted back to the employee. It appears that good managers are focusing on how to hire and retain good employees and how to maximize employees’ capabilities for the long-term benefit of the corporation.

In the 1990′s companies are increasingly measured by their human capital. This is much different from the 1970′s during which the U.S. was more of an industrial economy. Current leading-edge companies’ market capitalizations are significantly in excess of their assets. Much of this difference is based on the perceived value of the company’s intellectual capital—its people.

Now that the balance of power has shifted to the employee, workers in many industries can leave their current job for an equally good one if they have a personality conflict with their boss. It has therefore become critical for managers to create a workplace they’ll never want to leave. To be a bad boss is, simply put, career suicide.

Selecting the Right Talent

We see evidence in industry magazines that companies are focusing heavily on recruiting the right employees and retaining them. The best managers select employees for talent rather than skill or experience, and for how they set expectations by defining the right outcomes. This current focus on recruiting and retaining the right talent is likely a result of the current tight labor force, coupled with increased employee job mobility.

Coaching—Fulfilling Employee Potential

Articles in both academic literature and in business magazines focus on the importance of coaching in good management. Companies do seem to be increasingly aware of the need to both develop coaching skills and to be more responsive to coaching, because of a general shift towards a more facilitative, “participative” style of management. The emphasis placed on coaching reflects the belief that, if managers make a personal investment in employees, it is often the best way to maximize employees’ underlying talents.

The increased managerial role in coaching shows that the relationship between the boss and employees are becoming more supportive and less authoritative. The goal of coaching is to help the subordinate become a more effective manager, “not to build a case for prosecution”. A relationship through which the “boss” can be an effective coach or mentor is one that maximizes an employee’s capabilities, brings individual talents to fruition, creates value, and combining these activities, creates the greatest possible advantages for each employee.

Matching People’s Interests and Talents with Their Assignments

With increasing recognition that employees are a company’s most valuable assets, good managers are working to align employee interests, talents and values with the appropriate assignments. Doing so spurs intrinsic motivation. A good manager will match a professional’s skills and long-range development plans with projects that enable them to acquire the experience and training they need to achieve their goals. The manager should also provide quarterly and annual feedback and a reward system for those who meet and exceed project and firm goals. By focusing on employee strengths and interests, a manager can maximize the employee’s capabilities and potential while motivating employees to fulfill their own potential.

Knowing Your Employees

In order to match people’s capabilities and interests with specific assignments, good managers must know their employees. Managers should not assume that the same things that motivate them would also motivate other employees. Find out what the employees consider important. A manager may uncover differences between different generations of employees, or different groups of employees doing different types of jobs.

Emphasis on Soft Skills

In the late 1990′s, good management means having strong emotional competencies such as trustworthiness, adaptability and talent for collaboration. According to a study of what corporations seek when they hire MBAs, the three most desired capabilities are communication skills, interpersonal skills and initiative-all of which are elements of emotional intelligence.

There has been a growing awareness of the importance of soft skills because the corporate environment has changed so drastically. As layers of middle management disappear and senior management trims down, organizations are demanding that people work faster, cheaper and smarter. Corporate cultures have gone from vertical to horizontal, and collaborative partnerships are replacing the old command-and-control managerial hierarchy. In this increasingly team-driven and intimate workplace, leaders and followers interact more closely and deficiencies in personality become clearer. Simply stated, we need these soft skills just to get along with each other.

Leadership Qualities, As Always, Are Paramount

Leadership qualities are one aspect of good management that, at least in theory, has stood the test of time. Current literature continues to emphasize that leadership is paramount to good management. Often, the difference between an excellent manager and an average manager is in the excellent manager’s softer skills such as leadership qualities and ability to coach.

Author Henry Minzberg describes three levels on which leadership is exercised. “At the individual level, leaders mentor, coach and motivate; at the group level, they build teams and resolve conflicts; at the organizational level, leaders build culture.”

New Emphasis On Creativity

Today’s corporate environment is filled with information overload and hectic schedules. The pressure to maximize business activities such as coordination, productivity, and control often squashes new and useful ideas. Despite these pressures, creativity is how companies develop new ideas and differentiate themselves in their respective competitive environments. Good managers are creative and evoke creativity from employees. Emphasis is placed on techniques like matching people and their capabilities with the right assignments, as this serves to spur employees’ intrinsic motivation. Giving employees the autonomy to determine the process to attain the stated mean or goal allows the employee to be more creative. Good managers, in granting freedom, will state goals clearly and will not change goals frequently.

Increased Focus on Bad Bosses

Although there have always been bad bosses, there appear to be more employees suffering (or voicing) their suffering under some type of bad boss in recent years. The 1990′s
have been
characterized by a significant wave of downsizing, which has provided the boss with “broad, blunt, and often unrestrained power to burn jobs.”
Harvey Hornstein’s research attributed nearly half the cases of abusive bosses to the 1990′s work environment. Brutal bosses have been especially prevalent in get-rich-quick areas like show business and financial services. In these businesses, individuals can earn huge profits for company and rise in power without being an adequate manager.

Focus on bad bosses is evidenced by an increased number of forums for complaining, including Dilbert, numerous web sites (get site names) and columns in mainstream magazines such as Fortune where readers can vent their complaints.

Dilbert, a cartoon that lampoons idiot bosses and inane management trends, has been one of the fastest-growing comic strips in the United States in the 1990′s. Most of the material for the comic strip originates from readers, and subjects have included hoteling, employee recognition programs, manager jargon, mission statements, great lies of management, Machiavellian methods, job security, and downsizing. According to Scott Adams, Dilbert’s creator, no matter how absurd he tries to make his comic strip, he cannot stay ahead of what people are experiencing in the workplace. Based on some of his strips, bad bosses can be characterized as not respecting or valuing their employees, ineffectively communicating (using incomprehensible jargon), employing Machiavellian tactics, and perpetuating great lies of management.

Fortune Magazine began a column in 1996 where readers could express workplace frustrations. One column included complaints about roundtable project management, a new age management fad, which was a type of quality circle.