Fire Hydrant Syndrome

A new dog comes into the neighborhood and has to mark all the fire hydrants in the territory so the other dogs will know he is there. A new manager comes into the department and makes changes to the style of doing business so the department will know he/she/it is there. This is understandable, because no manager wants to tell his boss that he succeeded by following his predecessor’s plans.
 Vanity of vanities all is vanity and there is nothing new under the sun.
                    —Slightly misquoted from Ecclesiastes

Essentially there are management styles and leadership styles. Management styles rely on rules and procedures. Leadership styles rely on constant manipulation of situations and allocation resources. Managers read their metrics, leaders read the situation and their people. Over 40 years of living in the work place, I have seen or read about most management and leadership styles. Theee are the patterns that stand out: Centralize or distribute, empower or control, follow the procedures or think outside the box—and there is nothing new under the sun. The names change but it comes down to do you trust your procedures or your people.

Six Sigma, one of many versions of a quality improvement program that is nothing more than incremental improvement and sound engineering practices with decisions based on facts rather than feelings.

The thing is I have seen very different methods succeed and the techniques used by one person successfully have failed in the hands of another. I will say that leaders are more successful than managers. Leaders adapt.

I have only once seen a new supervisor come in to a new section and look to see what worked and what didn’t before he made changes. His method for making changes was to call the concerned people together, point out the problems and ask for possible solutions [Trojan-Horse]. He was a warrant officer who took over a section with a poor reputation. Within 3 months of his assignment, his section was considered the best in the unit. And he didn’t have to get rid of a single person!