A while ago, I posted about how hard it is to be a manager. It was a kind of introspective, philosophical post rather than an in-depth analysis of management. I was doing an off-the-cuff look at the conflict between being a manager and a leader. The two are different, but unless you happen to have an administrative manager and a…leader manager, you often have to be both. Someone took it rather personally, though. The specific comment was:
“Since when did managers “lead”? Their job appears to be to punish creativity.”
This was an incredibly harsh reaction to my post, though I think more indicative of the contributor’s experiences than the content of my post, to be honest. But it does get at a very key thing – if the key responsibility of a manager is to control resources, doesn’t that stifle creativity to some extent? How much freedom can a manager provide when that person is looking at whether we can afford this, or whether this falls within a certain policy, etc? Managers tend to look at boundaries – it’s an inherent part of the job.
However, it need not be the ruling philosophy, and I am actually quite opposed to an approach that looks at limits rather than opportunities. I think that if one looks only at the boundaries and thinks first about policy then there is less rather than more organization, and certainly less creativity. So I do not at all agree with the comment quoted above – I do think it’s possible to be a manager, and encourage creativity.
I don’t quite formalize things like Google does, where employees are asked to spend a certain amount of time each week thinking of “new ideas,” but I do put the responsibility of thinking of new concepts or new ways of doing things on the staff in my department. I want to be able to trust them not only to do their jobs, but to approach those jobs with an eye towards thoughtfulness, thoroughness, and creativeness. So I want everyone to think about what is being done, whether all the bases have been covered (documentation, informing people, etc – yes, this can create more structure than allow creativity), but then to ask “is this the best way?”
Even if it seems to be the only clear method, I encourage staff to then posit “there is another way. What is it, and is it better?” I hope that they will come to me with those ideas. Yes, I will have to think about costs, because we don’t have an unlimited budget. But I also budget each year for “random things we’ll try because they are cool,” and I hope that staff will take advantage of that.
Management need not stifle creativity. Management should, in fact, encourage it. Maybe crossing the line to leadership is another whole ball of beans (messier than just a can of beans, no?), but at the very least a good manager should leave room for creativity.
My biggest fear, by the way, as I write this is that someone that knows me and my management style will read this and immediately think “Allan doesn’t manage like that at all. He’s a dictator and control-freak, not one that encourages creative thinking.” I try not to think about that.