March 28; We Are All Equal Under Our Creator and Under the Law; We Are Not Equal to Each Other
MANAGEMENT BY THE BOOK:
365 Daily Bible Verse &
One-Minute Management Lessons For The Busy Faithful

Chapter Three: Execution; 28 March

Have [men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain] serve as judges

for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you;

the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter,…

Exodus 18:22a

Pyramid

Peter Drucker said that all managers do the same two things:

1) Make human strengths productive, and

2) Make human weaknesses irrelevant.

Our business schools teach that structure follows strategy. And this big stuff is important to know. But it’s people that actually get stuff done—not an organizational chart.

However, the CEO should have an understood -order (let’s not call it pecking-) for his immediate direct reports. What is the organization’s most common company-structure challenge to get things done? How can we maximize the strengths and minimize weaknesses of our people and where do we put them?

Confusion is structural and is built-in in today’s businesses. In this egalitarian new-age of Aquarius, we are all equal to each other and the boss considers the individual input of each of her employees to be the equal of her own or anybody else.

After all, we are all family here.

This, of course, is nonsense.

The disorderly advocates shun all hierarchy and limited spans of control. These egalitarians demand the wagon wheel arrangement. This would have the boss in the center with the many, many spokes coming directly to him, the hub. The spokes are the employees, each with a direct line to the boss. This is not good.

Your management team — let’s not call them cronies and boot-lickers — is bypassed and ignored. Why talk with the first line supervisor? When the entry-levels and interns can walk through The Big Guy’s Open Door and shoot the breeze and advise on strategy. As if we all were equal to each other.

As If.

The amateur boss soon becomes an armature spinning in circles.

Companies should be designed on the old-fashioned hierarchical organizational chart so that praise can easily flow up. (And let’s not say that the heart-burn can flow easily down…)

The CEO must remember that he might not be the center of the universe—but he certainly should not be in the center of a wheel; not part of a hub and spoke arrangement where anyone can bother the boss. Where every employee is a spokes-person.

This is intended not to block-out staff as much as to give the manager blocks of uninterrupted time.

Let us elevate, in a sense, the harried manager away from the center of the circle to the top of the triangle.

The hierarchal shape is easy: the manager’s inner circle should be a triangle. The best management structure for most organizations is a pyramid, not a wagon wheel.

This is a pyramid with the CEO at the tippy top with a few, no more than ten, direct reports. The employee wanting to bother and waste the time of the boss will have to crawl over layers of managers before getting to the CEO.

If any manager has bought into or inherited the big wheel, here is a three step guide to moving from the hub and spoke to the triangular pyramid.

First. Appoint a deputy. A second in command or a chief of staff whose job is the management of your most valuable resource: your discretionary management time. It could be your secretary. Right-hand man or Girl Friday — (also serves as your hatchet person).

Second. Put each business function in a box. Every action and process goes in to a rectangle with a discrete description. An organization chart box with hard edges with one single line going out and up. And if it’s a management box, it should have no more than 10 lines going down and out. Then,

Third. Put employees in a box with a label. But remember they are not just any commodity which/who could be easily replaced. Be nice. They make your load lighter.

As Exodus 18:22a says, Have [men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain] serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter,…

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