The One Knob Managers Never Turn – But Should

Here’s a little tip you can use with your frontline managers.

This KPI dashboard is the kind of thing they look at all day long. You can see what all they have to keep up with.

And this is just one KPI dashboard. They’re probably also looking at dozens of others.

And every other manager in your company is also looking at dozens of others.

And the big bosses are also looking at their own simplified versions of the dozens of dozens of others.

And all of this dashboard monitoring is on top of all the meetings all day long where they gather around and look at all of these together.

Every single KPI dashboard is simply an output measurement. And they’re important to these folks because they tell them two things:

1. Here’s what’s already happened.
2. Given that, here’s what we need to make happen going forward.

So when they tell you they don’t have time to communicate with their employees, you can kinda understand why, right? I mean, just look at what all they’re responsible for.

But you’re a smart cookie. You understand there’s nothing you or anybody else can do about #1. What matters now is the second.

Every single manager in your company wants better numbers, better outputs. And to get better outputs, they need better inputs.

Here’s their problem. Nearly every other input in the production process is fixed:

• The laws of nature dictate how much/fast electricity flows.
• They have a set number of parts and components that only fit together one way
• They only have so many machines that can only run so fast.

On and on and on…

They all wish they could turn some kinda special knob and “communicate” with these fixed inputs to get better outputs. But they can’t. These inputs are fixed. They can’t “communicate” with them.

Here’s where you come in. When they tell you they don’t have time to communicate with their employees, you tell them that every single number on that dashboard is there solely because of their employees. Dozens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of employees are the ones who are actually making those numbers show up on those dashboards.

And if they want better outputs, the only non-fixed input they have is to make sure their employees are crystal clear about what they’re doing, how they’re doing it and, critically, why they’re doing it.

You’re basically telling them they actually do have one special knob they can turn to get better outputs. And it’s the knob that activates the only non-fixed input they have at their disposal: people.

Given that, don’t you think they’d be incredibly eager and excited to communicate with their employees to get the better outputs they want? The better outputs all their employees want, as well?

Like I said, you’re a smart cookie. You know the answer to that question. Now you can help them be smart cookies, too.

Written by Jason Anthoine, SVP, Managing Director of Arketi Inside
Jason Anthoine is Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Arketi Inside, Arketi Group’s internal communications offering dedicated to workforce communications and change management. Anthoine helps organizations engage and inspire employees to build thriving cultures. He has worked with hundreds of companies to transform workforce communications, strengthen the employee-employer relationship, and create more resilient organizations.