31 Micro-managing your staff

I had a discussion the other day with a management expert who lectures in American institutes and claims to be advising the new Modi government (in India) on good practices. One of the things he was talking about was that as a tax-payer, he had the right to know where the government  bureaucrats who were being paid through his taxes (the secretaries in the central ministries, no less) were at any moment. He has, accordingly, advised the government to set up biometric checking in and monitoring facilities in the ministries.

I had to hide a smile. I did tell him, though, that I also had started off in my own career in the forest service with this sort of conviction. I took the daily attendance register very seriously, and got it to my table precisely fifteen minutes after opening time and checked off the late comers, and forced them to apply for casual leave (if they turned up) and threatened them with disciplinary action if their late arrival was chronic. And so on…

You can guess that much of my time and energy was consumed pursuing attendance. Similar close supervision was extended to other parts of the organization. After some period experimenting, and once I got into the saddle, so to speak, it transpired that there were so many things to do, and so many people and agencies to maneuver through and around, that it dawned on me that working this system entailed much more that putting in hours. I graduated to a different approach, where I tended to leave a long and lax rope, insisting mainly on work output and quality rather than hours and punctuality. The fact is that working to rule is simply not going to get results. Let me try to pick out the weak links in my friend’s argument. 

Firstly, the fact that we pay taxes counts for very little. If we actually strike a balance in our accounts, we will realize that a great many things are actually being subsidized in our daily lives. Our taxes are only a tiny part of it. In any case, my taxes (after all, even civil servants pay taxes!) will entitle me to a very miniscule part of our secretary’s time. Just because we pay taxes, that doesn’t mean that the secretary has a billion supervisors.

Secondly, it’s poor management practice to harp on these minor things. It is easy to hold the bureaucrat to account for his attendance, but it will cramp his functioning. Often, the bureaucrat has to be absent from the office part of the day, so that the normal work of the staff can be taken forward. If the boss is sitting around all the time, they will be sure to keep calling the office staff and getting in the way. Too much interference with the office doesn’t allow the work to go forward, and too much control on the bureaucrat also is likely to be similarly counter-productive.

Next, the secretary’s job doesn’t mean constant availability. In fact, no private company will keep their senior executives available all the time to the public. It will hamstring the civil servant from doing his job in a free and fair manner. Even the political boss has to be insulated to a certain extent, and in fact we need institutions and procedures which will take the onus of decisions off the chief executive’s back in the interests of his or her health and sustainability. If everything is short-circuited to his table, there will surely be a burn-out or physical collapse.

Finally, the actual work of public administration calls for ceaseless activity outside of office hours and beyond the call of the written codes and procedures. Work-to-rule simply does not work. Ordinary people rise to the demands of situations and deliver to the best of their abilities in challenging situations. They even put their lives at risk in certain circumstances. This sort of work ethics is fostered, not by nit-picking, but by developing an ‘esprit-de-corps’, a sense of being part of a special community (uniforms and dress codes are a part of this), of mutual regard and unquestioned loyalty. Nobody should ever think that they have single-handedly achieved anything (except maybe poets!), and the simplest achievement still demands the assistance, support and who knows what else from a long chain of persons and agents.

There are a couple of other facets to this problem of extracting work. One is the inevitable 20:80 “rule” (see post 11), which implies that a most of the work is going to be carried forward by a minority of the staff and resources in any organization. Related to that is the “rule” of fives (see post 12), which says that out of every five people, two will be highly effective, two will be uninterested or actively hostile, and there may be one in the middle who may swing either way depending on how you treat him and where he sees his (or her!) advantage.  Issuing memos and scolding will probably push him into the anti-camp. So it is your choice, as leader, to choose where you will expend the maximum energy. I have heard too many stories about (and from!) officers who embarked on a battle royale with individuals they considered bad eggs, to recommend this approach. It saps the leader’s energy, clouds his vision for the larger organization, leaves the hard working ones feeling neglected, and generally shrinks the organization’s stature and image. It is a classic example of a lose-lose strategy. Especially in government, where the time given to an individual in any position or organization is limited to a couple of years or so, it would be strategically wise to work on the strengths rather than try to set right the deficiencies. Let the last percentage points go!

I am so glad I retired before this biometric monitoring became main-stream. I let my staff also manage their schedules, as long as it did not hinder the work or the requirements of the public. I had no problem all the years I was head of institutions… and I like to think that their time also was made pleasant by the absence of clock-watching and nit-picking on my part. So my suggestion to the advisors would be to focus on the work, the procedures, and the output, and leave the details of attendance and discipline to the internal organization.