Frank Shipper has a sure-fire way managers can tell if they have good management skills: If the office runs smoother or production increases when you're not there, then you probably don't.
"If you want to be an effective manager, then you need to forget the popular advice many managers receive and start working on mastering management behaviors," says Shipper, a professor of management at Salisbury State University in Salisbury, MD.
Shipper notes that popular advice often assumes that the greater the frequency of appropriate managerial-subordinate contacts, the greater the performance of the subordinates. This assumption, Shipper says, is implicit in advice given to managers such as having an "open- door policy," becoming a "one minute manager," and managing by "walking around."
"Frequency of behavior is not the same as mastery of behavior. Frequency measures may simply be measures of how often a manager engages in that behavior," says Shipper. "In other words, if you don't know how to communicate well, then you're certainly not going to do an effective job communicating with your subordinates in one minute or less. If you try to manage your office by "'walking around" but lack the skills, then it's just wandering around. Having an open-door policy without management skills just makes it more apparent to your subordinates that you don't have the skills to be a manager."
Managers need to learn how to set goals, how to provide feedback, how to reinforce, and how to coach, says Shipper. He recently coauthored a study on the topic, "Mastery, Frequency, and Interaction of Managerial Behaviors Relative to Subunit Effectiveness," that appeared in the January 1999 issue of Human Relations, a professional journal. He coauthored the study with Charles White, a professor at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.
"We've all seen managers where the best thing they could do to improve productivity was stay at home. The results of our study show that increasing frequency of interaction without improving mastery can sometimes be detrimental," says Shipper.
Shipper notes that employees will sit politely through a meeting the first time to hear an ineffective manager outline the goals; the second time they'll fidget; and the third time they'll be hostile.
"Listening one more time to ineffective managers trying to clarify goals is painful. It's like going to piano recitals for children. People will tolerate children playing music badly because they are not expected to be good. They are intolerant of ineffective managers because they are supposed to be good."
Managers who don't develop management skills become "aversive stimuli," warns Shipper.
"That means that your employees learn to avoid you. They look forward to when you are out-of-town. They try to avoid meetings with you. One other true sign is that the office runs smoother when you aren't there," says Shipper.
In the study, 662 employees of two organizations responded to a structured questionnaire which was used to measure the mastery and frequency of managerial behaviors. The results of the study suggest that mastery of managerial behavior is independent of its frequency. The results contradict the often heard advice that to improve managers should increase the frequency of their contact with subordinates, and suggest that to improve, managers should concentrate on improving their mastery of managerial behaviors.
"The way for managers to improve subordinate success is to concentrate on improving mastery of managerial behaviors such as goal setting, planning, soliciting input, providing feedback, and reinforcing good performance while at the same time improving frequency. Mastery and practice seem to go hand in hand," says Shipper.
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Editors: If you'd like more information on the study, you can reach Dr. Shipper at 410-543-6333 (office). His e-mail address is [email protected]. White's e-mail address is [email protected]. Please contact Steve Infanti of Dick Jones Communications at 814-867- 1963 or [email protected] if you'd like a copy of the study.
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