Manageability

Peter Drucker once described the management task as "to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant". Even though Drucker's observation was made many years ago, it is still the essence of management responsibility. However the speed and dynamic nature of business has radically increased the scale of the challenge.

Integrating a management team of diverse disciplines and personalities, and dealing with the day-to-day business pressures is a big task. Pulling the whole mix into a slick, responsive, unified entity that could be almost joystick driven is an even bigger one. It is enormously difficult to achieve and sustain without a supporting structure. Manageability provides that structure.

In reality the management style of a business is determined by a number of elements. These break into two groups. The first group establishes the management terrain. It includes how the business plans, the nature of operational communications, the quality and relevance of its data, and the availability of management time. The elements in the second group are the mechanics of management. This group consists of the way the operational facts are used, how decisions are made, how autonomy and accountability are established and reinforced. It also includes the attitude towards visibility and control, the nature of operational review, and the perceived performance standards.

The combination of the terrain and mechanics establishes the management mindset and habits. For the mindset to change, and for that change to stick, the terrain and the mechanics must be altered. Manageability is the systematic approach to this alteration in order to bring clarity, certainty and immediacy to every aspect of management activity.

Terrain

Mechanics

Mindset