A manager isn't in the business to be the nice one, and not to be the busiest one either. According to the source, a manager is there to make sure the team turns out what it is supposed to turn out, in a quantity it can keep up, and without flawed work.

What the word itself says

The source opens with where the word comes from, and insists this isn't decoration. The word means to follow through to the end. In other words, “to get something DONE!”

That sounds simple, and it moves the whole question. A manager's job isn't measured by how many hours he put in, how many meetings he sat through or how much the team likes him. It's measured by one thing: did things get done.

The reason is economic. The source says that in any business or production organization, prosperity depends on getting things done. Work that is almost finished brings in no money, however much effort went into it.

Three conditions in one definition

The source's definition holds three conditions in a single line.

  • People produce, which means they turn out a result, not just show up.
  • They produce in a viable quantity, which means an amount they can sustain next month and the month after.
  • And they produce with no overt products. An overt product is one that looks fine on the surface but is actually flawed, the kind of output that only passes if nobody looks closely.

The common mistake is to hit one condition and treat it as the whole job. A manager who gets only the first one burns his people out. A manager who gets only the third one never reaches the volume the business needs.

Suppose a business owner closes a record month, and right after it two employees quit. The quantity was reached, but it couldn't be sustained.

Or a studio owner who demands perfection on every project. The work comes out excellent, and the revenue doesn't cover it.

Now the other way. The same studio owner defines, for each type of job, what counts as finished. The quality stays where it was, and the work takes a third less time.

Why the nice manager hurts the team

This is the hard part of the chapter, and the source doesn't soften it. A person who doesn't produce, it says, doesn't only cut his own throat. He also drags the whole team down.

Output here means the result a person actually delivers from his work, not the effort he puts in. And from that claim it follows that demanding output isn't harshness. It's an obligation.

Letting it slide isn't a kindness to the employee. The manager is only passing the cost along. First to the rest of the team, who cover for that person, and in the end to the business, which can't afford it.

In a small business this can't stay hidden. Everyone else feels it right away when one person isn't producing, and they know it well before you do.

Suppose a team of five covers for a sixth person for two years. Eventually two of the five leave, and the sixth stays.

Or a business owner keeps an unproductive employee on because he is going through a hard time at home. The intention is kind. The rest of the team reads a different message: nobody here gets measured.

And the opposite, with the same owner. He defines a narrower role for that employee, one the employee can actually handle. The employee starts producing, and the team relaxes. Demanding output doesn't mean giving up on a person. It means giving him something he can produce.

Coordination, the second angle

A different volume of the source answers the same question from another direction, and calls coordination the essence of management. Coordination means directing the efforts of the different parts of a business so they combine into a single flow that reaches the shared goal.

When it's missing, every part works and nobody connects the parts to each other. About that gap, the source says: “THAT is what a manager is for.”

Suppose a business where every department does excellent work on its own, and customers still get lost between the departments. Nobody owns the seam, the point where work passes from one pair of hands to the next.

This definition doesn't contradict the earlier ones. The source separates caring, the disposition without which there is no manager, from coordination, the action a manager actually performs. Caring without coordinating makes you anxious. Coordinating without caring makes you a clerk.

What the booklet has on this

The chapter this article draws on includes two exercises: The three conditions, and The seam. It also has a self-check, and it sits inside a full booklet about what the manager's job really requires.

If at the end of a day you wonder what you did as a manager, the question isn't how hard you worked. The question is what got done, in a quantity you can keep up, and without flaws.

The booklet is general knowledge about managing people, not legal advice on employment law.