Before the manager's code asks him for anything toward his people, it asks him to understand where the group is headed. A manager who lacks that will run his business very well toward nowhere in particular, and no other clause can save him.
The first clause is about understanding
The source gives three written codes: one for a member of a group, one for a manager, and one for a person facing himself. The second, the manager's code, is the subject of this chapter. Its opening line puts everything after it in order and says what a manager needs in order to be effective and successful. The first item is this: “Understand as fully as possible the goals and aims of the group he manages.”
The same clause adds that he must be able to picture the goal fully achieved, and take that picture on as his own.
Two terms matter here. A goal is the long-term direction of the group, and a purpose is a smaller aspiration that belongs to one specific activity or area. The ideal is the picture of the goal fully reached, with everything working.
Look at what heads the list: understanding. People and money come later, and every other clause rests on this one.
In a business of ten people or fewer this can sound unnecessary, since you know where you are going. The catch is that sometimes only you know.
Suppose a studio owner asks three employees where the business is headed. He gets three different answers, and one of them is surviving. Or a clinic owner who knew exactly where she was going and never once said it out loud. Two years later she discovers her staff have been building entirely different plans. After she writes one sentence and pins it up in the break room, two decisions get more efficient that month, without her involvement in either.
The gap that always exists
Here is the phrase that keeps the chapter from turning into a sermon on perfection. According to the source, the manager must be able to tolerate and better the practical attainments his group and its members are capable of. And he must strive always to narrow “the ever-existing gulf between the ideal and the practical.”
The gap never goes away, so the source asks for two things together: tolerate what exists today, and narrow the distance. If he only tolerates, he has given up. If he only narrows, he burns people out.
This is one of the most useful lines in the code for a small-business owner, because it lets him work with an imperfect team without dropping the standard.
Suppose a kitchen manager knows the diners won't notice the difference and fixes the sauce anyway. He doesn't fire the person who made it.
Or the owner of a moving company who inherits an average crew and decides to improve one thing every month. A year later the crew is good and nobody has been replaced.
The reverse is an owner who demanded the full standard on day one and lost two employees within three months. The standard held, and the business didn't.
Interpret honestly, and believe
What does a manager do with that understanding? Two more clauses answer. The first says a primary mission of his is the full and honest interpretation of the ideal, the ethic and their goals and aims, to his subordinates and to the group. The second says he must lead his subordinates, the group itself and each individual in it toward those goals, creatively and persuasively.
The words full and honest close off the two usual ways this goes wrong. A partial interpretation happens when the manager tells the team only the comfortable parts. A dishonest one happens when he sells them a vision he doesn't believe in himself.
Another clause closes the loop. The manager must have faith in the goals and faith in himself, and no less faith in the group itself.
Suppose an owner explains to his crew exactly why he is giving up a major client. Two people disagree, and everyone understands why it happened.
Or a manager presents a kitchen target that he privately thinks is unrealistic. The team feels it within two weeks, and the target dies before it starts.
And an owner who tells her staff openly that she isn't sure this will work and wants to try it for two months. It works, and the next time they trust her more.
What the booklet has on this
The chapter this article draws on includes two exercises, the sentence and the gap. It also has a self-check, and it belongs to a booklet that helps you write your own code in five to ten lines.
Before your next demand of the team, it is worth asking one question: what would they answer if you asked them where the business is headed?