How to Manage Clever People - those on whom your future prosperity depends
Mac Mackay - Managing Partner: dawlaw
Here's how to harness the talents of your best people.
Let's start with an obvious fact: organisations that are well led will have a higher chance of surviving these difficult times. However, firms that will really prosper harness the talents of those people that make their living from their know-how. In fact, the only sustainable competitive advantage that your firm will have is the ability to learn faster than another competing for that finite market out there.
Retaining and leading the clever people in your organisation is a critical challenge. However, in this recession with a focus on cost cutting, head-count control and dwindling markets, some orgainsations are becoming miserable places to work. Low morale and job insecurity are rife. Innovation - a better thing to do or a better way to do it - is getting crushed.
Smart organisations realise that squeezing more out of people isn't going to work - the challenge is to make your organisation attractive to 'clever' people who already know how valuable they are.
So, who are the 'clever' people? Not just with high IQ's they are the highly experienced and talented individuals with the potential to create disproportionate amounts of value from the resources that your oganisation makes available to them. I don't mean those clever people that do it on their own (artists, solo musicians, free agents and the like) but those 'clever people' that need an organisation to achieve their full potential.
What 'clever' people do depends on the organisation: scientists in pharmaceutical companies do research and produce ideas for new medicines, top lawyers and accountants solve complex client problems, and in advertising agencies they craft highly innovative communications. But whatever they do, they do it extraordinarily.
So, here's a list of characteristics that you may be able to identify with - and perhaps add to:
1 Being clever is what they are
Central to their identity is what they do - they are defined by their passion, not the orgainsation they work for. They may not see themselves as dependent on other people. While recognising this, the leader must make them aware of their interdependence within the company - this symbiosis is critical to both the individual and the organisation.
2 You'll not easily replicate their skills
This is why 'clever' people are a scarce commodity - when you manufacture a product you can make it better, faster, or cheaper. And you'll be copied. But people - and the teams they create - are unique. So, the knowledge they accumulate is tacit and embedded. Are you nurturing their development - are you investing in it?
3 They know their value
That they know their knowledge and their part of the professional networks they create are hard to copy means they know their worth. This shifts power in the organisation. Confident in their value and ability, clever people exert pressure on their leaders. Sceptical about the relevance of leadership, managers need to demonstrate their own contribution. And don't overburden them with administrative tasks that distracts from their key value-adding activities. Remove the barriers, keep red tape at bay, and let them prove their worth.
4 They ask hard questions
That they are passionate enough to sit and argue a point illustrates that, knowing their worth, they challenge their leaders. So, are you prepared for that with robust support for your ideas?
5 They know the organisation
It is naive to think that clever people are too preoccupied to bother with office politics. They are human - and clever! They find the organisational contexts where their interests will be generously funded - by all resources and not just cash. When that dries up they'll use their skills to seek further funding to indulge their interests or move on to where resources are plentiful - possibly a competitor!
6 Corporate hierarchies will not impress
They don't want to be led - and certainly not managed. Having a thinly disguised disdain of corporate hierarchy, you'll need to use influencing skills and knowledge, not your title. Clever people need space to innovate, large enough to allow them to express themselves but with boundaries to focus their effort - one without the other is dangerous and ultimately unproductive.
7 They expect instant access
The ideas of clever people are so all-consuming for them that they cannot always understand why they might not also be important to the leader as well. They think that if they do not get access to the very top of the organisation they will think the organisation does not take their work seriously. Leaders need to balance open access with what might be regarded as interference.
8 They want to be connected to other clever people
Just as your organisation needs clever people to be effective, they need to be connected to other clever people - and organisations- to achieve their full potential For them, networking is beyond a social pursuit but a source of perpetual improvement and bright ideas. Networks enable clever people to question assumptions and to recognise and make previously unacknowledged links. Prestigious peer and client recognition wins over praise from the boss - go for quality recognition, not quantity, every time.
9 They won't thank you
Even if you are leading them well, clever people may be unwilling to recognise your leadership. Measure your success by your ability to remain on their radar - and you are a success if you hear them say that you don't get in the way too much! Not recognising good leadership means they often make lousy leaders themselves - and sometimes poor team members as they may not recognise the characteristics of shared objectives and interdependencies enjoyed by successful team players.
10 Don't tell them what to do
Clever people react badly when you try to tell them what to do - it undermines their self-esteem. Try to persuade them instead, making the most of your expertise and experience. Using your job title is both dangerous and self-defeating. Expert power wins over hierarchical power every time. Over optimistic 'everything is possible' doesn't work either. Clever poeple are at their most productive when faced with real, hard questions that they must resolve within meaningful constraints - they like the challenge. Miaximise the opportunities for failure, because they tend to respond best to difficult, stretching tasks that test their talents to the limits.
While there are only ten ideas given here, exploring more about managing your clever people might just make the difference to the prosperity of your orgainsation - as said, the only sustainable competitive advantage is the ability to learn faster than the competition - and that definitely includes improving the skills of all the managers around you.
Perhaps it might be a good moment to call us to discuss how we might make that happen.
Talk to us.
Mac Mackay
Management Tutor
Retaining and leading the clever people in your organisation is a critical challenge. However, in this recession with a focus on cost cutting, head-count control and dwindling markets, some orgainsations are becoming miserable places to work. Low morale and job insecurity are rife. Innovation - a better thing to do or a better way to do it - is getting crushed.
Smart organisations realise that squeezing more out of people isn't going to work - the challenge is to make your organisation attractive to 'clever' people who already know how valuable they are.
So, who are the 'clever' people? Not just with high IQ's they are the highly experienced and talented individuals with the potential to create disproportionate amounts of value from the resources that your oganisation makes available to them. I don't mean those clever people that do it on their own (artists, solo musicians, free agents and the like) but those 'clever people' that need an organisation to achieve their full potential.
What 'clever' people do depends on the organisation: scientists in pharmaceutical companies do research and produce ideas for new medicines, top lawyers and accountants solve complex client problems, and in advertising agencies they craft highly innovative communications. But whatever they do, they do it extraordinarily.
So, here's a list of characteristics that you may be able to identify with - and perhaps add to:
1 Being clever is what they are
Central to their identity is what they do - they are defined by their passion, not the orgainsation they work for. They may not see themselves as dependent on other people. While recognising this, the leader must make them aware of their interdependence within the company - this symbiosis is critical to both the individual and the organisation.
2 You'll not easily replicate their skills
This is why 'clever' people are a scarce commodity - when you manufacture a product you can make it better, faster, or cheaper. And you'll be copied. But people - and the teams they create - are unique. So, the knowledge they accumulate is tacit and embedded. Are you nurturing their development - are you investing in it?
3 They know their value
That they know their knowledge and their part of the professional networks they create are hard to copy means they know their worth. This shifts power in the organisation. Confident in their value and ability, clever people exert pressure on their leaders. Sceptical about the relevance of leadership, managers need to demonstrate their own contribution. And don't overburden them with administrative tasks that distracts from their key value-adding activities. Remove the barriers, keep red tape at bay, and let them prove their worth.
4 They ask hard questions
That they are passionate enough to sit and argue a point illustrates that, knowing their worth, they challenge their leaders. So, are you prepared for that with robust support for your ideas?
5 They know the organisation
It is naive to think that clever people are too preoccupied to bother with office politics. They are human - and clever! They find the organisational contexts where their interests will be generously funded - by all resources and not just cash. When that dries up they'll use their skills to seek further funding to indulge their interests or move on to where resources are plentiful - possibly a competitor!
6 Corporate hierarchies will not impress
They don't want to be led - and certainly not managed. Having a thinly disguised disdain of corporate hierarchy, you'll need to use influencing skills and knowledge, not your title. Clever people need space to innovate, large enough to allow them to express themselves but with boundaries to focus their effort - one without the other is dangerous and ultimately unproductive.
7 They expect instant access
The ideas of clever people are so all-consuming for them that they cannot always understand why they might not also be important to the leader as well. They think that if they do not get access to the very top of the organisation they will think the organisation does not take their work seriously. Leaders need to balance open access with what might be regarded as interference.
8 They want to be connected to other clever people
Just as your organisation needs clever people to be effective, they need to be connected to other clever people - and organisations- to achieve their full potential For them, networking is beyond a social pursuit but a source of perpetual improvement and bright ideas. Networks enable clever people to question assumptions and to recognise and make previously unacknowledged links. Prestigious peer and client recognition wins over praise from the boss - go for quality recognition, not quantity, every time.
9 They won't thank you
Even if you are leading them well, clever people may be unwilling to recognise your leadership. Measure your success by your ability to remain on their radar - and you are a success if you hear them say that you don't get in the way too much! Not recognising good leadership means they often make lousy leaders themselves - and sometimes poor team members as they may not recognise the characteristics of shared objectives and interdependencies enjoyed by successful team players.
10 Don't tell them what to do
Clever people react badly when you try to tell them what to do - it undermines their self-esteem. Try to persuade them instead, making the most of your expertise and experience. Using your job title is both dangerous and self-defeating. Expert power wins over hierarchical power every time. Over optimistic 'everything is possible' doesn't work either. Clever poeple are at their most productive when faced with real, hard questions that they must resolve within meaningful constraints - they like the challenge. Miaximise the opportunities for failure, because they tend to respond best to difficult, stretching tasks that test their talents to the limits.
While there are only ten ideas given here, exploring more about managing your clever people might just make the difference to the prosperity of your orgainsation - as said, the only sustainable competitive advantage is the ability to learn faster than the competition - and that definitely includes improving the skills of all the managers around you.
Perhaps it might be a good moment to call us to discuss how we might make that happen.
Talk to us.
Mac Mackay
Management Tutor
