When Senior Managers Become the Placebo Button
Repeatedly pressing the lift button does not make the lift arrive any faster. Yet some senior managers behave as though repeatedly asking for something will make it happen sooner. Ask for the report again. Ask whether the problem has been solved. Ask what is being done about it. Ask for an update. Then ask for another update.
The intervention may not make anything happen faster. But it can provide something else: the reassurance of activity.
I have experienced this as a senior manager working in several large and complex organisations. I have also learnt that an anxious senior manager can easily come across as a demanding one.
One example involved an end-of-year financial report. A Director approached me and said, “Are you aware that the end-of-year financial report is showing an overspend of £1 million?” It was clear he thought this was unacceptable.
“No,” I said. “The report isn't due until the end of the week.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
I said I would clarify the position with the head of finance. The head of finance confirmed that the figures were still being worked on. The full picture would not be available until the end of the week. He was confident that, once all the reports had been taken into account, the overspend would be relatively small. Less than half a million pounds.
There was nothing more I could usefully do to bring the final figure forward. But I cancelled a training course that day and stayed visible in the office.
As I was leaving, the Director said, “I see you cancelled attending that course today to sort out the budget report.”
“Yes,” I said. I also told him I was confident that the final overspend would be below half a million pounds.
The budget was around £100 million and we had already been asking for a carry-forward because of increased pressure. An overspend of less than half a million was therefore manageable. At the end of the week, the final report showed an overspend of less than half a million pounds.
The Director was satisfied. His intervention had not changed the financial position. The finance team still needed until the end of the week to complete the figures. But my visible response to his concern appeared to reassure him. The Director had pressed the button. I had supplied the reassurance. I had become his placebo button.
Another example involved the monthly wider management team meeting. The Director changed it from monthly to fortnightly because he wanted things to move faster.
I had put an agenda item forward to alert the group to a growing issue. The Director had just delivered a tirade about excuses and unacceptable delays. He wanted a full report at the next meeting.
I explained that this would not give me enough time to consult managers properly and produce a report with useful recommendations. I suggested putting it on the agenda four weeks later. He was insistent, so I produced the report for the next meeting.
It contained little more than the same issue explained in greater detail. The Director was satisfied. He had made his point. Something had happened. But had anything actually moved faster?
These experiences made me recognise a pattern. The Director was not necessarily accelerating anything. He was looking for reassurance that something was happening.
The problem is that reassurance has to come from somewhere. Usually, it comes from managers further down the organisation. They cancel planned work. They produce reports before there is enough information to make them useful. Meetings become more frequent. Priorities are reshuffled. People spend time demonstrating that they are doing something rather than doing the work that matters most.
One unnecessary report is hardly a crisis. But repeated across a large organisation, the cost becomes significant. There is another consequence. Managers learn to manage upwards. They start asking, “What does the Director want to see?” rather than, “What does the organisation actually need?”
That is when senior-management anxiety becomes an organisational habit.
The irony is that the senior manager can become trapped by the same behaviour. The more often they intervene, the more they need evidence that their intervention is producing results. Activity becomes proof that they are managing.
Senior managers do not need to press every button. Sometimes leadership means tolerating the uncomfortable period when nothing can be done yet.
The lift is coming. Pressing the button again does not make it arrive any faster.
blairmcpherson.co.uk
