What Managers Know

There tend to be three distinguishable perspectives in organisations:

• The perspective of top management
• The middle management perspective
• The perspective of supervisors

The differences in these perspectives account for many of the problems in organisations: difficulties in communication, delays in implementation, and disagreements on organizational fundamentals, such as culture.

The respective roles at these three levels in the organisation are the cause of the differences in perspective.

The role of top management involves the development of the organisation: where is it going? Why? How will it get there? This group of employees is concerned about the Mission/Vision and Strategy of the organisation. They are generally not familiar with the actual tasks completed at the ‘working level', nor do they have a good understanding of how the processes (series of tasks) actually work. Top management understands the purposes of the tasks and processes, but if a director were asked to fill the shoes of a shop floor employee, engineer, salesman or accountant for a day, s/he would likely find the work quite daunting.

The role of the supervisor means that s/he is quite familiar with the tasks of his/her team: what is to be done, how it is done, and who is particularly good (or not so good) at doing it. The supervisor has little reason to be concerned, directly and personally, about the Vision and Strategy of the organisation. The supervisor would like to know there is a Vision and Strategy, and that s/he can have confidence in the senior people who have devised these things, and are directing their implementation.

The middle manager tends to be the expert in the organisation on what works and what doesn't work. S/he is best with the more complex problems which supervisors cannot quickly fix, and which top management has not yet understood. These are process problems, people problems, financial problems, customer problems, etc. Most middle managers have a pretty good understanding of what goes on in related departments, because s/he has worked with that other department for some time.

The middle manager will be interested in Vision and Strategy, because they will want to understand it and agree that it will work, but they usually have no strong desire to develop the Vision and Strategy. The middle manager has a general knowledge of how the work is done, but s/he doesn't have the in-depth understanding of the supervisor. Similarly, the supervisor has that in-depth knowledge of the work in his/her area, but s/he doesn't have the middle manager's knowledge of ‘how things fit together'. Finally, top managers often think they understand organisational problems, what works and what doesn't, but usually the understanding is somewhat superficial.

In summary, if you want to understand where an organisation, as a whole, is going, ask a top manager. If you want to learn about the hurdles/challenges/problems the organisation faces, ask a middle manager. And, if you want to know how the work is really done, ask a supervisor.

What are the implications of these differences in perspective? First, it is important for managers, generally, to recognise that these perspectives act as a kind of optical filter: we see what we expect to see / want to see. It is therefore very important to keep these filters in mind when we, as managers at one level, want to communicate with managers at a different level. Top managers should not assume that Vision and Strategy (the ‘big picture') are inherently of interest to subordinate managers. Middle managers will want to discuss how Strategy, in particular, will affect the problems they face daily. And, based on their experience, how feasible will it be to implement this Strategy? Supervisors will focus on how Vision will affect the work of their teams. Will tasks change? Will skills change? Will people change?

Similarly, when middle managers present a proposal to top management, it is best presented in the context of how the proposal will support the Vision and Strategy, rather than how the proposal will resolve a particular problem. (One should not assume that because the Vision and Strategy have not been articulated that they do not exist. They exist by implication, perhaps as a variation on the status quo.)

Finally, these differences in perspective argue strongly in favour of Management by Walking Around (MBWA). The reality is that managers at lower levels are not thinking the same thoughts as top managers. Engaging these managers on their own turf, and looking at the world through their optical filters is essential to gaining an understanding of what is really going on and what is possible.