The role of a manager

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What role should you have?
To begin with, we need to understand the fundamental principle that each person is driven by certain pairs of forces pulling them in one direction or another. Depending on how these forces are applied, the roles of individuals within a group are primarily shaped.
There can be many pairs of forces, for example, there are the forces of: Actor vs. Audience (Everyone desires the attention of those around them while also wanting to observe others), Greedy vs. Generous (Each person, depending on the circumstances, is ready to share what they have, yet at the same time, will not give up something important to them for anything), and so on.
However, from the perspective of labor productivity, as Kras Boklandt pointed out, two pairs of forces are important:

The first pair of forces:Independence and Sociality. Every person wants to feel like an individual in relation to others. Everyone has their own personal goals and achievements that highlight their uniqueness. Each person strives to maintain their connections with the surrounding world at a certain level, so they can have a personal life, and at times, everyone wants to be alone. At the same time, everyone wants to assess their position in relation to others. People also feel the need to help those around them achieve their goals and derive satisfaction from it. These two forces work against each other while simultaneously supporting one another. You cannot be part of society without being an independent member of it. However, to be independent, you must be able to accept or reject the opinions or judgments of others, or even their help, at your discretion. On the other hand, any social activity requires, to some extent, distancing oneself from personal interests and desires, accepting help from others, or providing assistance to them.

The second pair of forces:Leadership and Followership. Every person has two simultaneous desires: to lead others and to be led. We all want to showcase our knowledge, skills, understanding of the issue, and personal involvement in the matter to others. At the same time, we need the knowledge and skills of other people. Their support and their understanding of where to go next are essential. Even those individuals whose personalities are entirely focused on leading others, as well as those who feel most comfortable when told what to do, sometimes secretly wish to be led themselves, just as they may also want to lead others. However, these desires are often quite hidden from those around them.

I am very concerned that it may seem like I am adopting a sort of “buddy-buddy” leadership style. Absolutely not. There should be a distance, and it must be maintained. However, this should not involve artificial gestures, such as addressing you by your full name or referring to myself in the third person and by my title (we, the General Director, have decided…).

Distance is established independently of you and your subordinates when the flow of benefits from you to your subordinates exceeds the flow of benefits from your subordinates to you. Think about why children listen to and respect their parents. You must never pander to the people who work for you. They do not love you, or if they do, it is only because you are their boss. They work primarily for themselves, not for you. If they are working for your company, it means you have managed to link their personal success with the success of the company and their personal problems with the company’s issues. You should not place bets or pin hopes on specific individuals—there are no irreplaceable people. Treachery and deceit will always accompany you in life, just as loyalty and integrity will. You must not create favorites or outcasts. You should not even think about calling someone to action or using slogans.

If you are the owner of a stable and wash your horses every morning, bring them food, and monitor their health, then you are still the owner of the stable, not a hotel maid. Although it may seem from the outside that your work is less appealing—after all, a maid shouldn’t have to clean up after guests every day. If your horse falls ill, it looks to you for help. If you don’t know the illness, call a doctor. If you were to shoot every horse that stumbled, you wouldn’t have any left. The same goes for sales organizations; the most “wise” instruction you can give to a salesperson who has lost their former enthusiasm is: “Sell more!” They already know that; the question is how to do it. Your team is always waiting for that answer from you. And you should either know the answer personally or have hired an external consultant who does.

Every employee plays a certain “role” in your team. By understanding their role, you can anticipate their next steps without having to install cameras in the locker room. For instance, a person at work might take on the role of a principled truth-seeker.

However, you may never truly know what is going on in his head. What’s important is to understand the role he plays in the performance called “your company” and to comprehend him within that role. Of course, people tend to gravitate towards their own roles.

However, if the “fool” niche is already occupied, and the only remaining one is the “hero lover,” then the new employee— the “fool”— will either move into an unoccupied niche or contest their right to the already occupied one. This will give the former “fool” the opportunity to choose a new niche, and so on. After some upheaval related to the movement of people within their niches, the team will return to normal.

At this time, when there are people in the team whose roles are not defined, situations of unpredictable and unexpected behavior may arise. A lost “tragic” figure might try to take on the role of a “schemer,” for example. Or, conversely, the others, seeing that the role of the “tragic” is already occupied, might try to impose a role on the person without a defined role, interpreting their behavior based on these subconscious assumptions.

What role should you have?

Earlier, we talked about two pairs of forces.
The balance of these two pairs of forces determines the roles within the team. According to Cuvelier, we have the following six roles:

• Social + Leader = “Gives.” This is a field where people take initiative, lead or manage events, and encourage others to work with them.
• Social + Follower = “Receives.” Here we see people who yield initiative, follow the chosen direction, and carry out instructions.
• Independent + Leader = “Attacks.” This is where those who criticize, demand change, and claim leadership have gathered.
• Independent + Sequential = “Resists.” This includes those who reject any offers, say “no,” and become disconnected from the group.
• Independent/Social + Leader = “Closes off.” This is where those who no longer want to give or receive find themselves. People who rely solely on themselves for their own development.
• Independent/Social + Sequential = “Letting things take their course.” This refers to those who allow external events to control them, without participating in decision-making or taking on any responsibility.

Let’s move on. For now, this is just botany (that is — classification )..

Now, an interesting consequence.
In any lively and productive team, roles are filled by people, and individuals understand the “zone” in which a particular person operates when making decisions. Additionally, in such teams, members have considerable freedom in choosing their roles and can even switch roles depending on the circumstances or tasks at hand.

However, there are ineffective teams where certain roles are “closed” or considered “taboo.” For example, “resistance” or “attack” may be prohibited. The inefficiency of such teams arises from the fact that people’s natural inclinations will manifest even in the face of prohibitions, but in this case, it leads to unpleasant distortions of the overall picture.

Additionally, the team’s effectiveness declines if several people are in the same role and cannot (or do not want to) leave it. Since changes in any one role immediately affect the other roles, either strengthening or weakening them, one person can impact the overall effectiveness of the team.

It is already becoming clear what role the sales team manager should take on. This is the role of a “giver,” as has been mentioned several times in this blog.

Interestingly, if the roles within a team are somehow “frozen” and there is a lack of dynamics, the behavior of team members may exhibit extreme or even pathological traits. Such phenomena are quite typical, for example, among participants in polar expeditions:

• he who “gives” becomes a dictator
• He who “takes” becomes a slave.
• the one who “resists” starts to sabotage
• he who “attacks” destroys
• Those who “let things slide” will face the destruction of their identity.
• The one who “closes off” becomes unavailable.

There is another way to build behavioral diagrams, and it is very effective for assessing employee behavior. It is said that the accuracy of diagnosis using this method is 85%. On one hand, this seems appealing; on the other hand, 15% is a significant enough margin to avoid making hasty decisions when faced with unexpected evaluations.

Research in the field of behavior indicates that the most successful people are those who know themselves, including both their strengths and weaknesses. Based on this self-awareness, they can develop their own behavioral strategies that best align with the demands placed on them by their environment.

The behavior of an individual is an inherent characteristic. In other words, a significant part of our behavior is innate (stemming from our “nature”), while another part is influenced by upbringing. This is the universal language of our actions or the observable behavior of a person.

The method for assessing behavior in question is called DISC, and it is said to be based on the fundamental theoretical research of Jung (C.G. Jung) and Marston (W. M. Marston).

The name has this meaning partly because the behavioral diagram is shaped, surprise surprise, like a disk, and on the other hand, it is interpreted as:

• Dominance (D) – Dominance
• Influence (I) — Influence
• Steadiness (S) — Consistency
• Compliance © – Compliance (Adherence)

That is, it is being evaluated,
How a person reacts to problems and difficulties. (D — Dominance)
How he influences others. (I — Influence)
How does he react to changes? (S — Consistency)
How does he respond to the rules and procedures established by others? (C – Compliance)

A person’s behavior style also depends on several factors.
First pair: Introvert — Extrovert
Second pair: Rational — Sensual

They form the “coordinate axes” on that very disk. In other words, Dominance corresponds to the “rational extrovert,” while Steadiness corresponds to the sensory introvert.

Also:

• On the vertical axis, the styles of behavior correspond to the environment in which people feel comfortable working. Aggressive vs. Friendly.
• Horizontally, there is a correspondence between human behavior in the environment—Passive or Active.

That is, a person who behaves passively in an aggressive environment is “C.”
And a person who behaves actively in a friendly environment is “I.”

The DISC assessment system is based on testing through multiple-choice questions. There is a methodology that allows for the evaluation of a person’s natural behavior style and their adaptive behavior style.

The values of such an assessment can include:

• Effective communication involves focusing on what is significant to the other person. This is crucial for effective management of people.
• Making more informed decisions in human resource management based on assessments rather than subjective impressions of “will manage/will not manage.”
• Reducing stress levels. I will explain further how this method allows for managing group dynamics.
• Getting more from the people you work with and interact with.
• Increasing one’s self-confidence through an accurate self-assessment.

Next, I will tell you:

• On Adaptive and Natural Behavior
• How to determine in advance which candidate is suitable for an open position.
• About how to track and manage group dynamics using methodology.
• About how I use this method in my work and what it provides for my clients. (How could I not include some product placement? 😉)

Natural and adaptive behavior

Surprise, surprise! Every person has natural and adaptive behavior.
There is a testing system that separates the natural profile from the adaptive one, based on the idea that a person, from the selected answer options, most sincerely chooses the one that is least characteristic of them. In this case, the option that they choose as most characteristic of themselves reflects their adaptive behavior, meaning the behavior they consider to be correct.

This does not mean that when answering questions, a person is lying. They respond sincerely (especially since there are “reality checks” in surveys), but their answer reflects the value system they are currently in. An adaptive profile is characterized by its susceptibility to change and “drifting” depending on the team the person works with, the tasks they need to perform, and the profile of the formal and informal leaders within that team.

For example, let’s assume there is a question in the survey like this:
Choose the statement that best describes you:

• I am bright.
• I am affectionate.
• I am tough.
• I am optimistic.

A person will prioritize being optimistic. This will be part of the overall assessment of their adaptive profile.
Similarly, by asking a different question but this time requesting to choose what is least characteristic, I provided the following options:

• I’m murky.
• I am arrogant.
• I am soft.
• I am pessimistic.

If a person chooses “I’m murky,” it means that according to their natural profile, they are definitely not murky 🙂.

In general, the natural profile is characterized by:

• the true “I” of a person
• unconscious behavior
• the foundation “embedded” in the first 6 years of upbringing

An adaptive profile is characterized by:

• the mask of a person
• reaction to the current circumstances
• conscious behavior.

The entire profile is viewed as a combination of four factors to determine this person’s position on the DISC diagram.

The closer the adaptive profile is to the natural one, the more comfortable a person feels. The further the adaptive profile is from the natural one, the more a person adapts to the circumstances. In this example, we see that the natural profile is close to the adaptive one. The same positions of these two profiles are reflected on the DISC diagram.

Next, I will tell you:

• How to determine in advance which candidate is suitable for an open position.
• About how to track and manage group dynamics using methodology.
• About how I use this method in my work and what it provides for my clients. (How could I not include some product placement? 😉)

Let’s assume we have an open position and we need to determine what kind of person we need for it. It’s worth noting that you should only trust formal methodologies when you are unable to assess a person based on your own life experience and understanding of people. In other words, if you are under 40 and lack significant experience in managing others. 🙂. Any “formal” methodology, from fighter pilot training rules to candidate selection for a job, serves as an acceptable crutch; however, it does not work in 100% of possible situations and generally fails in non-standard scenarios. So, if you need an unconventional person who should also be clearly “stronger” than you, then the methodology becomes not a tool, but a system of justifying the decision made.

But I’m still talking about the methodology. So, as I mentioned earlier, I described the technique for assessing personnel based on DISC. Surprise, surprise, it turns out that this method can also be used to evaluate a job vacancy before we find a candidate for it. How can we do this? We can gather a group of experts from the company who understand the role, the skills, and the requirements for the candidate, who can envision the candidate and can “play” their role. We will ask them to answer the DISC questionnaire as a potential candidate would, and then we will compile the results and hope that they are similar. In other words, we want them to at least fall into similar sectors of the diagram, rather than being diametrically opposed.

If the results turned out to be contradictory, it means that the expert group does not have a clear, unified opinion on what the candidate for the position should be like. This is also a good thing — it’s very good — to understand the discrepancies in evaluation before candidates are called for interviews. Recruiters often face this problem — someone among the interviewers is constantly “cutting” the candidate. But, most likely, this happens due to an inconsistent vision of this candidate for the position.

One way or another, work is being done to achieve agreed-upon results for the job profile, after which candidates can be selected and assessed using the DISC method to determine if they are suitable for the position or not.

This methodology allows us to “sift through” the existing staff during performance reviews or regular evaluations, which should be conducted consistently. In other words, we assess not only the individuals themselves but also compare their evaluations with the profile of their position. Often, we can optimize the team’s performance by changing the roles of some members instead of firing and hiring new people who are struggling with their work simply because it “doesn’t suit them.”

It is important to remember that no evaluation system is absolutely reliable. One should avoid hasty conclusions if, based on the assessment, a person “does not fit” their position, yet they are performing well and feel quite happy in their role.