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3.0 out of 5 stars
Focus and energy make for a purposeful manager, April 13, 2002
This review is from: Beware the Busy Manager (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition) (Digital)
Heike Bruch is Professor of Leadership at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland; Sumantra Ghoshal is Professor of Strategy and International Management at the London Business School, UK. This article was published in the February 2002 issue of Harvard Business Review.
The resources managers lack most is time. But according to the authors' research only 10% of all managers spend their time in a committed, purposeful, and reflective manner. The other 90% squander their time in all sorts of ineffective manners. "... we came to the conclusion that managers who take effective action rely on a combination of two traits: focus and energy." By using a focus-energy matrix the authors identify four types of behavior. (1) Some 30% of managers suffer from low levels of both energy and focus. Although these managers dutifully perform routine tasks, they fail to take initiative. The authors term these type of managers as procrastinators. (2) The disengaged are the 20% of managers that exhibit high focus but have low levels of energy. These managers have strong reservations about their jobs and as a result perform them half heartedly. (3) The distracted are the 40% of managers which are those "well-intentioned, highly energetic but unfocused people who confuse frenetic motion with constructive action." (4) Finally, there are the 10% of purposeful managers who are highly energetic and highly focused. "Not only do such managers put in more effort than their counterparts, but they also achieve critical, long-term goals more often." So how can you prevent your managers from losing energy or focus (or both)? According to the authors this "can only happen with vision, oversight, and commitment from the top." Top management should provide managers with both challenges and choices which will point managers in the right direction.
In this article, professors Bruch and Ghoshal report on the conclusion of their research into managerial work. Although it is an interesting subject I am somewhat disappointed about this article. First, I believe that others have covered the subject of managerial work better. Secondly, the authors could have spend more space on explaining the task for top management. Therefore I recommend readers to go for Henry Mintzberg's article on managerial work ('The Manager's Job: Folkore and Fact', 1975); William Oncken's classic on time management ('Management's Time: Who's Got the Monkey?', 1974); Jim Collins' article on goal-setting ('Building Your Company's Vision', 1996); and Daniel Goleman on leadership styles ('What Makes a Leader?', 1998). Like all Harvard Business Review articles, the article is written in simple business US-English.
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