The managers of the future

Posted in seccion blog - Blog

As the scandals are destroying the confidence in the high-management and an inactive world economy makes the level of income and benefits fall, it is clear that the world of business is facing big challenges and a new environment.

Let's consider these tendencies in the managerial environment:

• In spite of the current recession, the evolution of the labour market and the competitive tensions keep on pointing at how important it is to win the war of the talent. The companies that are the best in the capitalization of their human resources will acquire competitive advantages.

• The values of the workpeople have changed. People who have just started working and professionals with experience in the area of activity of the company are looking for opportunities to have a complete life and also an excellent work. People are less disposed to sacrifice the first aspect for the second one.
• Now the organizations are less hierarchic, with wider area of control that means that the staff makes more decisions. The managerial leadership does not limit itself only with managers; it takes place at every level.
• New forms of organization as the alliances and associations - some of them exceeding the regional and national borders - force managers to deal with ambiguous relations and diverse interests of different interested groups.
• The credibility of the corporate managers is under close scrutiny in view of the last managerial scandals, due to which there was made an appeal to integrity and responsibility to the society.
• Hard-working parents need new sources and supports to be able to take good care of their children. Those belonging to the generation of the baby boom who are approaching their retirement need new forms of assistance to take care of their children and also of their parents.
• There exists a renewed interest to making significant contributions to the society, to take care of the world.
• Internet and the new mass media are virtually transforming every aspect of our lives. New skills are needed to work in an environment of 24 hours a day and 7 days a week where a person can work at any time and in any place.
• Borders no longer exist in the world of business.

So what are these skills that a manager needs to face this sum of challenges without any precedents that are supposed to govern our future?First of all, we must remember that being a manager does not mean being a leader. The manager of the XXIst century must be a leader. In the interview with Harvard Business Ideacast (June, 2009), Dave Ulrich, considered as a guru in the field of the Human resources, spoke about five essential points of leadership. A leader has to:

• To be a strategist to be able to model the future. It is important to look ahead to direct the present tasks and position them in the future.
• To be an executive to make sure that things are happening. To achieve the fulfilment of tasks and targets, to materialize ideas allowing them to turn into facts, making decisions and taking responsibilities according to the obtained results.
• To be a recruiter to seize the best possible talent. Due to the situation on the labour market, the talent is always a scarce good and it is a responsibility of the leader to provide the organization with the external talent that would guarantee growth and prosperity of the organization.
• To be a developer of human capital to construct the next generation of the company. The leader must compromise the talent that already exists in the organization; there are multiple formulas to do so: starting with compensation à la carte, style of positive leadership, creating a favourable climate for it, etc.; and, also, he must contribute to its development with the purpose of creating future leaders.
• To invest in personal progress. It is necessary to make investments in oneself to develop leadership skills, since without them it is almost impossible to satisfy other points. It is necessary to make investments on different levels: physical, like worrying about the nourishment and exercise in order to help the manager to have a better control of the frustration and to avoid possible depressions; social, in terms of developing a supportive network , so that there are people who worry about the manager as a person; emotional, regarding the knowledge of his own fortitude and weaknesses; intellectual, since the development of mental agility is an important value; spiritual, for in order to find the meaning and purpose of work in life.

We can say that, in general, there exists an agreement concerning the skills that a manager of the future must develop; skills that would allow him to feel comfortable in a globalized environment, dominated by new technologies, full of uncertainty and subject to continuous changes that we have mentioned in the beginning of this article.

To have a strategic vision

According to William C. Steer, Jr., the forces that are determining the future are the increasing globalization of the world economy, deregulation or new ways of regulation in majority of sectors, the competitive challenge of emergent companies and the intensive rate of the technological progress. This way, the author tells that the manager will have to possess a strategic vision that would allow him to see beyond the present situation, with a wider range of experience and will have to think that decisions cannot center on the summit.

To have flexibility and facility to adapt to changing situations

John W. Work thinks that managers of the future must have skills to be comfortable with dynamic socioeconomics and rates of changes that are higher than the present ones. He will have to use the change in a socially beneficial form, accepting the following challenges: to commit himself completely to the effective employment of diversified manpower, and to create a company where it would be working, that would be productive and would develop new markets and maintain the current ones.

To become an inspirer, promoter, facilitator

In the opinion of Ken Blachard, in a traditional hierarchic organization, the chief is the person in charge, and the others report to him. But in the inverted pyramid, it is just the opposite thing, that is, the chiefs must be those who help their collaborators to reach their targets. All in all, the manager of the future must be an excellent inspirer, promoter and facilitator.

To be cosmopolite and integrator

For Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the managers of the future , first of all, will have to be cosmopolites, which will allow them to be integrators, overcoming the differences between organizations, and will have to be diplomats, who could transport them better from one place to other, and creative, to offer new possibilities.

Stewart D. Friedman, Professor of Management in Wharton, tells us about a new age for the managers in business and proposes an approach, which he names "total leadership". Its aim is to create a more rapid and agile way to achieve the best managerial results. This can only happen if the managers are authentic, have integrity and are creative in their work, in their family life and in their relations with the community.

The authenticity arises when managers act in consonance with their scale of values. Managers must define and structure future in a way that it would include diverse values and life styles of all employees..

Their daily actions must be in concordance, not only with personal values but also with the main values of the company. They have to delegate to obtain confidence constructed on fortitude, and to increase the commitment with the common targets by means of an authentic dialogue with the main groups that are interested in all aspects of life.

The integrity arises when different aspects of life fit in a coherent and consistent form. They must be responsible for seizing synergies using all the aspects of their lives: work, home, community and themselves, in their health, spiritual growth and free time.

They must obtain balance and synergies, overcoming the stage of conciliation and reaching the integration

The creativity arises when managers call in question the traditional assumptions and are continuously experiencing the way things are done, promoting actively and even initiating the change.

They must have less trust in the traditional methods of work, as well as in the present time, using the resources in a more intelligent, constructing a climate of confidence and making use of flexibility and control that provide the media of virtual communication.

The same author, in his work The World is Flat (2007), mentions that the manager of the future, the manager of the flat world, "knows and uses technology, communicates simply and efficiently, directs according to an example, conceives the company as a network in continuous expansion, possesses general knowledge, thinks that the distance is not a barrier, believes in quality life, stays focused on the mission and vision and, also, he adds, he is cheerful".

What is undoubtedly clear is that the new technologies are going to affect our future to a great extent. In fact, we are already speaking about Leadership 2.0.

As Manuel Castell says we are in the beginning of a new type of Society Network, the Age of Massive Collaboration generated by the web 2.0., with new models of creation of value, the wikinomia and the long tail economy, new spaces of communication and collective learning... In this sense, Professor Cabrera, proposes the Getting Real philosophy as a guide in the exploration of new forms of leadership:

• Experimenting with the reality.
• Cultivating simplicity as a value.
• Concentrating on the essential things and rejecting the superfluous things.
• Creating agile organizations.
• Hiring professionals with passion for their work. Avoiding "passion killers". Working by means of iterations.
• Adjusting the fulfilment of projects, maintaining the deadlines and the budget.
• Working by means of iterations.
• Making small and agile teams.
• Avoiding the temptation of the organizational growth on its own.
• Testing ideas in real conditions, with real clients and on real markets. It is necessary to know how to listen and to improve.
• Not allowing the old ideas to annihilate our capacity of innovation.

Each time there are more and more studies that demonstrate the direct impact of some suitable managing skills on the account of results of the company. In fact, Professor Friedman is speaking about significant percentages of growth of income and reduction of costs. Considering such background, we should question ourselves: are we prepared for the future?

María Luisa Riobóo

Directora Selección y Desarrollo

PSICOTEC

(Artículo publicado en el mes de Julio en la revista Calidad.)