Management is a form of ministry because it is a matter of serving people. It serves them in relation to their immediate role in the organization, helping them to become more or less effective, and it also has spillover effects into the rest of their lives.

Therefore, we ought to want our organizations to be well managed. Managing well — and developing management systems that help people be more effective — means having a correct understanding of the nature of management. This understanding must, in turn, be based on a correct understanding of people and how God made them.

A correct understanding of management means understanding at least five main guiding philosophies of management. These philosophies guide how we think about management at Next and how we have developed every management system we have, especially the specific management systems throughout this particular section. These five principles are as follows.

1. People are made in the image of God

The central question of management, in my view, is this: what does it look like to understand management in light of the supremacy of God in all things? In other words, we should ultimately understand management within a God-centered, theological context. While fleshing that out in detail is outside the scope of this brief paper, we need to begin tracing that out a bit here.

The key to understanding management within a God-centered, theological context lies in the fact that people are in the image of God. This reality has significant implications for how we ought to treat people. We cannot act as though the realm of management and organizations is segregated from the rest of life, as though the image of God has implications for personal relationships but not organizational ones.

At root, I would argue that the image of God in man implies three things for management. First, it implies the importance of respect for the individual. We need to manage in a way that treats people as humans, not factors of production.

Second, it implies that we should manage in a way that creates and supports freedom over control. We should trust people and let them do their jobs. The manager is not primarily a supervisor, but a source of help and someone who makes sure that the necessary systems and structures are in place that will enable the person to thrive.

Third, it implies that we should respect individuality. Everyone is unique, and this is a good thing. It should be respected and harnessed, not something we should work against.

2. Each person’s talents are enduring and unique

Talents are distinct from knowledge and skills. Talents are “recurring patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior that can be productively applied.” Our talents are given and innate; they probably come from a combination of nature and nurture (both through the hand of God), but whatever their secondary causes, they are mostly fixed by early in life. Consequently, our talents are enduring, fundamental features of our personality that do not change.[1]

Because talents are enduring, the role of the manager is not to try to shape and correct how people were made. But this is exactly what conventional wisdom tries to do. As Marcus Buckingham points out, buttressed by the belief that people can change in any way they want if they just try hard enough, conventional wisdom says that “anyone can be anything they want to be if they just try hard enough. Indeed, as a manager it is your duty to direct those changes. Devise rules and policies to control your employee’s unruly inclinations. Teach them skills and competencies to fill in the traits they lack. All of your best efforts as a manager should focus on either muzzling or correcting what nature saw fit to provide.”[2]

Instead of shaping and correcting how God made the person, instead managers should accept how He made them. They should recognize that “there is a limit to how much remolding they can do to someone” and not focus on making people into something that they are not. Further, instead of bemoaning the fact that people’s talents and fundamental personality are enduring, they should capitalize on this. That is what great managers do — they capitalize on the uniqueness of each individual rather than trying to change it.

Another implication of the fact that talent is enduring is that you need to hire people on the basis of talent (defined in this sense — not in the sense of “a very gifted individual”) rather than first skills or experience. Knowledge and skills can change and be added to; but talent cannot be changed, and therefore you have to hire it in. As with the theatre, “the secret is in the casting.”

3. Each person’s greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength[3]

This follows from the fact that talents are enduring. Conventional wisdom, on the other hand, says that we should grow by fixing our weaknesses. This belief is so prevalent that it is even built in to the language—for example, one’s weaknesses are often labeled “areas of opportunity.”

But when you realize that talents are enduring, this doesn’t make sense. Now, a person might be weak in an area simply because of lack of knowledge; the underlying talent might be there, and it just needs knowledge and skill added to be turned in to a strength. But when the underlying talent is not there, no amount of knowledge or skill will make the person strong in that area. Focusing efforts on such a weakness will yield little results compared to the effort.

Further, focusing on weakness is demotivating — it is not motivating to have to continually turn your attention to what weakens you. Focusing on a person’s strengths, however, yields great results and is motivating. To motivate a person and help them grow most effectively, you have to focus on their strengths.

4. The purpose of the manager is to unleash each employee’s talents for the performance of the organization

This follows from the fact that talent is enduring and therefore the manager must capitalize on how each individual is unique. The manager plays a catalyst role. Employees have the ability to contribute, and the organization has aims it needs to achieve. But the connection between an individual’s potential and the organization’s goals is not always automatic; and even when it is, it needs to be sped up. This is the role of the manager.

Further, his catalyst role of the manager — speeding up the reaction between the employee’s talents and the organization’s goals — is essential in powering the performance of the organization. Therefore, the role of the manager is critically important. It is not the case that “it is the work of leadership” that really matters, and that managers are simply mini-executives waiting for the truly important work of leadership to be thrust upon them. Rather, the roles of the manager and leader are different and both are critical.[4] We need effective leaders and effective managers. And while it is possible for the same person to excel in both, it is not necessary. Managers do not need to feel the pressure to be leaders, and leaders do not need to feel bad if they are not strong at the management role.[5]

5. This catalyst role of the manager is played most effectively by turning four keys

These four keys are: selecting for talent rather than just experience and skills, setting expectations by defining the right outcomes rather than detailing the steps, motivating by focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses, and developing people by finding the right fit rather than simply the next rung on the ladder.

These four keys correspond to four systems that we develop in other documents in this section:

1. Strengths-based hiring [link]
2. Strengths-based quarterly performance planning [link]
3. Annual strengths interview [link]
4. Career discovery [link] and role tweaking [link]

[1] Note: I am not saying that moral change and sanctification is not possible, of course. I am talking about the non-moral features of our personality. These features can be used for sin or righteousness, of course, but in themselves are simply basic, good features of creation. And this insight that talents are recurring is not unique to Buckingham and the Gallup study they did. Lloyd-Jones himself said “when we become Christians, the fundamental features of our personality do not change.” Our values, goals, and treasure changes; but the features that God designed in do not—they are not intended to.

[2] First, Break All the Rules, 56.

[3] These second and third principles are articulated best in Marcus Buckingham’s book Now, Discover Your Strengths, pp. 5-10.

[4] Marcus Buckingham has some excellent words on this that are worth quoting at length: “Conventional wisdom tells us that the manager role is no longer very important. Apparently managers are now an impediment to speed, flexibility, and agility. Today’s agile companies can no longer afford to employ armies of managers to shuffle papers, sign approvals, and monitor performance. They need self-reliant, self-motivated, self-directed work times. No wonder managers were first against the wall when the reengineering revolution came.

“Besides, continues conventional wisdom, every ‘manager’ should be a ‘leader.’ He must seize opportunity, using his smarts and impatience to exert his will over a fickle world. In this world, the staid little manager is a misfit. It is too quick for him, too exciting, too dangerous. He had better stay out of the way. He might get hurt.

“Conventional wisdom has led us all astray. Yes, today’s business pressures are more intense, the changes neck-snappingly fast. Yes, companies need self-reliant employees and aggressive leaders. But all this does not diminish the importance of managers. On the contrary, in turbulent times the manager is more important than ever.

“Why? Because managers play a vital and distinct role, a role that charismatic leaders and self-directed teams are incapable of playing. The manager role is to reach inside each employee and release his unique talents into performance. This role is best played one employee at a time: one manager asking questions of, listening to, and working with one employee. Multiplied a thousandfold, this one-by-one-by-one role is the company’s power supply. In times of great change it is this role that makes the company robust—robust enough to stay focused when needed, yet robust enough to flex without breaking” (First, Break All the Rules, pp. 58-59).

[5] Marcus Buckingham does a good job explaining the main difference between the role of the manager and of the leader in his book The One Thing You Need to Know. He notes that the role of the manager is to turn talent into performance. He does this by recognizing what is unique about each individual and capitalizing on it. The role of the leader, on the other hand, is to rally people to a better future. The leader does this by recognizing what is universal to everybody and capitalizing on that. The functions of managers and leaders also differ, as John Kotter has explained very effectively in his article “What Leaders Really Do.” Managers decide what needs to be done by planning and budgeting. Leaders, on the other hand, decide what needs to be done by setting direction. Managers develop the capacity to achieve by staffing and organizing. Leaders develop the capacity to achieve by aligning people. And finally, managers ensure that things have been done by monitoring and controlling (in the sense of comparing results to actual, not in the negative sense of control), whereas leaders do this by motivating people to persevere through obstacles. The role of the leader is looser, whereas the role of the manager is tighter and more directly involved.

We have seen that the role of the manager is important and critical because managers serve a catalyst role in turning talent in to performance. We will look at the specific tools through which managers do this shortly. At this point we are going to look at another critical result of effective management: creating a strong work environment.

What is a Great Work Environment?

Every organization, including Next, aims to be a “great work environment.” These are not simply lofty words that have no real meaning. On the contrary, to say that an organization has a great work environment is actually another way of saying that the organization has high employee engagement and that it is a strong workplace. In other words, a “great work environment” is not a fluffy term with no substance. It means having a workplace with high engagement.

Having “employee engagement” in an organization means that people are emotionally connected to their work. It matters to them. They care about it. And therefore they are willing to put in the extra effort between compliance and commitment which is the key to any organization’s effectiveness.

Great Work Environments are Built

Having employee engagement and a strong workplace doesn’t have to simply be left to good intentions and wishful thinking. There are specific things that you can do to build these things into your organization. Strong workplaces are built.

A strong workplace not only can be built, but must be built. It must be built first of all because it serves the employees. Since management is a form of ministry and is about developing people through tasks, rather than merely getting things done through others, it matters whether the workplace is an environment where people are engaged in what they are doing. A strong workplace must also be built because it is necessary to the health of the organization. The only way to advance the mission effectively is to “build the kind of work environment that attracts, focuses, and keeps talented employees.” That is, to create strong workplace where people are engaged in their work.

How to Create a Great Work Environment

The 12 Questions

But how do create and measure the strength of a workplace? The Gallup Organization did a multi-million dollar study on this question and identified that there are twelve core components to building a strong workplace. These components are captured in “Twelve Questions” to be asked of each employee. These questions “measure the core elements need to attract, focus, and keep the most talented employees.”[1]

What The 12 Questions Are

The 12 Questions are:

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
12. This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

These questions “are the simplest and most accurate way to measure the strength of a workplace” and are based on a multi-million dollar study by the Gallup Organization.[2]

The Structure of the Questions

In order to utilize them correctly, we first must understand their structure. As mentioned above, the role of the manager is to secure a “yes” from each of these questions. To do this, however, it must be recognized that the questions are hierarchical. That is, the order is important.

Buckingham calls the first two questions “base camp.” They ask: “What do I get?” They focus on having what you need. Questions 3-6 are camp 1, and ask: “What do I give?” They focus on individual contribution. Questions 7-10 are camp 2 and ask: “Do I belong here?”

Finally, questions 11-12 are camp 3 and ask: “How can we all grow? These questions are the most advanced stage—people want to make things better, learn, grow, and innovate. The important thing, however, is that you can only do these things after you have climbed the earlier stages—you must have the right expectations, confidence in your own expertise, and be aware of how your new ideas will be accepted or rejected by those around you before you can move up to the higher questions.

Why Disengagement Can Exist Even in Organizations with a Strong Mission

The reason that it is crucial to understand this hierarchical sequence is that “the longer your lower level needs remain unmet, the more likely it is that you will burn out, become unproductive, and leave. To be answering positively to camps 2 and 3 but negatively to the questions lower down is a very precarious positions. Deep down you are disengaged. You have mountain sickness—like if you just helicoptered to the last part of a climb. If you just jump in at camp 3 mountain sickness will sap your energy and slow your progress to a crawl.” (get exact quote.)

This is why things like mission statements, diversity training, self-directed work teams, continuous improvement, learning organizations, etc. were all well-conceived but withered. “They aimed too high, too fast. Managers were encouraged to focus on complex initiatives without spending time on the basics. If an employee doesn’t know what is expected of him as an individual (base camp), then you shouldn’t ask him to get excited about playing on a team (camp 2). Don’t helicopter in at 17,000 feet or your people will die on the mountain.”[3]

Hence, “the key to building a strong, vibrant workplace lies in meeting employees’ needs at base camp and camp 1. Focus your time and energy there, or everything else along the journey is irrelevant.”

The Role of the Manager

Manage in a Way that Leads to a Positive Answer to the 12 Questions (or at least the top 6)

The 12 Questions do not do anything on their own. Rather, they become effective in the hands of a companies managers.

The job of the manager is to secure a positive “yes” to all of these questions from each of his or her employees. As Buckingham writes, “if you can create the type of environment where employees answer positively to all questions, then you will have built a great place to work.” (As mentioned earlier, though, the most important thing is to meet people’s needs at base camp and camp 1—the first six questions—because they serve as the foundation for everything else.)

Why People Leave Companies with Strong Missions and Talented Leadership

What is so significant about this discovery is not simply the identification of the specific components that lead to employee engagement, but the realization of the critical role of the manager. For it is each employee’s manager that is most directly responsible for bringing about the conditions reflected in the 12 Questions.

This is so significant, in fact, that one of the most starling conclusions from the Gallup study is that people leave managers, not companies. Buckingham explains:

Our research yielded many discoveries, but the most powerful was this: Talented employees need great managers. The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.[4]

So employee engagement serves the employee and the organization not only by making the work more satisfying and the employee more productive, but also by resulting in greater retention of talented employees. And it is the manager who plays the vital link in creating employee engagement.

Which sheds light on the importance of avoiding a truly unfortunate disconnect: an organization can have a compelling and meaningful mission, and even excellent leadership at the top, but if it lacks effective managers throughout the organization, people will be likely to be disengaged in their work and will leave. Worse, this can lead to disillusionment as the employee feels the disconnect in the experience “I love what this company stands for, but it is not doing me good to work here.”

The Four Keys for Building a Strong Workplace

But how do you secure positive answers to the top six questions (the top six, you’ll recall, are the primary focus)? Buckingham outlines four keys the manager turns in order to do this.

1. Selecting for talent (rather than first skills or experience)
2. Setting expectations by defining the right outcomes (rather than the right steps)
3. Motivating by focusing on strengths (rather than trying to overcome weaknesses)
4. Developing the employee by finding the right fit (rather than simply the next rung)

We have worked these four keys in to our management systems. They keys have been translated into our overall mindsets and five specific systems, each of which are outlined in their respective documents:

1. Strengths-based hiring [link]
2. Performance management, which consists of four systems:
   1. Strengths-based quarterly performance planning,
   2. The annual strengths interview
   3. Career discovery
   4. Role tweaking

Notes

[1] First, Break All the Rules, 28.

[2] For more details on this study and how these questions were arrived at, see First, Break All the Rules pp. 25-29.

[3] Note also that the 12 questions relate to the 4 critical roles of the manager. To secure “strongly agree” to question 3, for example, you must know how to select. Which means you must know difference between talent, skill, and knowledge and how to identify them in interviews. For questions 1 and 2, you must be able to set accurate performance expectations and know how to balance need for standardization and efficiency with the need for flair and originality. For questions 4 and 5, you must be able to motivate. And question 6 pertains to ability to develop people.

[4] First, Break All the Rules, pp. 11-12.

Why Managers Matter

We’ve seen that managers are critically important for several reasons.

First, managers are the key to helping each employee turn their talent into the most effective performance for the organization.

Second, managers trump companies. Even if someone loves the mission and vision of an organization and resonates with its top leadership, if their immediate manager is poor, their job satisfaction will be diminished and their effectiveness will be reduced.[1]

Third, managers themselves become more effective when they have great managers. If we were to ask “what do great managers need?,” the answer would be: “Great managers.” Great managers need great managers.

The Importance of Creating a Climate for Great Managers

But over all this, great managers exist within the context of the overall organization. Thus, the organization plays a substantial role in producing and retaining great managers by creating a climate that will be more conducive or less conducive to this.

In particular, an organization creates a climate that is either favorable or disfavorable to great managers through its web of policies, practice, and language.

Policies that are restrictive, for example, work against the manager who aims to liberate and empower his employees. Policies that affirm the fundamental value of autonomy, on the other hand, reinforce and further the efforts of great managers. The efforts of great managers are amplified or diminished by the overall company environment.

How to Create a Climate for Great Managers

Marcus Buckingham outlines four things that senior management can do to create a climate for great managers.[2] I will outline his four and then add two of my own.

1. Keep the focus on outcomes

Buckingham writes: “The role of the company is to identify the desired end. The role of the individual is to find the best means possible to achieve that end. Therefore strong companies become experts in the destination and give the individual the thrill of the journey.”[3]

He then gives the following practical suggestions for keeping the focus on outcomes:

• Define each role in outcome terms as much as possible.
• “Find a way to rate, rank, or count as many of these outcomes as possible. Measurement always improves performance.”
• For roles relating to customers, “the four most important outcomes for a customer are accuracy, availability, partnership, and advice.”
• “Hold managers accountable for their employees’ responses to the twelve questions.” (See the document “Employee Engagement” for the list of the twelve questions and their meaning.)

2. Value world-class performance in every role

Every role that is performed at excellence deserves respect and has its own nobility. In order to create heroes in every role, consider:

• Setting up graded levels of achievement in as many roles as possible. “Identify specific criteria for moving up from one level to the next.” “Take every level seriously.”
• Creating broad banded compensation plans.
• Celebrating “personal bests.” “Many people like to compete with themselves. Design a system so that each person can keep track of his or her performance monthly or quarterly. Use this system to celebrate monthly or quarterly ‘personal bests,’ as and when they occur. A growing number of ‘personal bests’ means a growing company.”

3. Study your best

“Strong companies learn from their very best. Internal best practice discovery is one of their most important rituals.”

• Consider building a talent profile for each role, based on studying your best in each role.
• “Revise all training to incorporate what you have learned about excellence in each role.”
• “Set up an internal ‘university.’ The main function of this university should be to provide a forum for showcasing how your best, in every role, do what they do. As far as is possible, every employee should be exposed to the thinking, the actions, and the satisfactions of your best, in every role.”

4. Use the language of great management

“Language affects thinking. Thinking affects behavior. Companies must change how people speak if they are to change how people behave. Strong companies turn the language of great managers into the common language.”[4]

• “Teach the Four Keys of great managers. In particular emphasize the difference among skills, knowledge, and talents. Make sure people know that all roles, performed at excellence, require talent, that a talent is any recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior, and that talents are extraordinarily difficult to teach.”
• “Change recruiting practices, job descriptions, and resume qualifications to reflect the critical importance and the broader definition of a talent.”
• “Revise all training content to reflect the differences among skills, knowledge, and talents. A great company is clear about what can be trained and what cannot.”
• “Remove the remedial element from training. Send your most talented people to learn new skills and knowledge that can complement their talents. Stop sending less talented people to training classes to be ‘fixed.’”
• “Give every employee the benefit of feedback….[But] stop using [any specific tools] if they are focused on identifying what needs to be fixed.”
• “Start the great managers performance management routine.”

5. Teach on the nature of management

This is an extension of Buckingham’s third and fourth points. We should teach managers specifically what it means to be strengths-based, what management is at its core (turning talent into performance), and how to implement the four keys.

6. Create systems and structures that embody these principles

The principles of strengths-based, effective management need to be woven in to the fabric and systems of the organization.

In this regard, some of the key systems that we are seeking to implement at Next include: Strengths-based hiring, strengths-based performance management, strengths-based career development, talent profile, strengths based training, etc.

Notes

[1] See Buckingham, First, Break All the Rules, pp. 32; 34-36.

[2] See First, Break All the Rules, pp. 236 – 238. Buckingham points out convention wisdom, which holds that

[3] First, Break All the Rules, 236.

[4] First, Break All the Rules, p. 237.