Came across a term called Middle Manager (MM)- and instantly it sounded something as fundamental as 'Knowledge Worker' termed by Peter Drucker in 1990s and which paved way for a new era and people realising the significance of the change business was facing.
As per Collins dictionary; Middle Managers have been described as ‘executives or senior supervisory staff in charge of the detailed running of an organization or business and reporting to top management.
Why middle manager so important suddenly.. this was a role which was vulnerable to all the offshoring discussions, all the recession stories and eventually to younger generation who will do it at half the cost what the experienced middle manager will do stories?. It certainly wasnt a group which was positioned as powerful or seemed to be achieving bargaining power in todays market place.
Things seems to be changing. The arche-typal portrayal of middle managers as fathers struggling to keep up with the increasing costs of young family and ever threatened by prospects of losing his middle class jobs seems to be changing for a more favourable image. This is not just in developed countries, but also in the relatively under developed countries like india, philippines and Brazil.
The increasing outsourcing engagements require people who make the contractual terms and the financial commitments come to life day by day. The traditional jobs which deal with design / develop / implement of software systems needs to be changed to be more cross organisational engagement and most cases cross country to get it done outside organisation boundaries. The skills this situation demands can not be produced in factories or educational institutions. It needs to be gained out of experience in multi supplier environments, targeted training and coaching from senior management . Organisations are struggling to cope with the demand for this multi skilled robots with human minds.. they are so less to find and so difficult to train upon in quick time. MMs are storages of organisational experience (where you have outsourced competencies and retained the most distilled understanding), they are interfaces to the wide number of suppliers in the function they operate (need tact and discipline to engage them). They create relationship chemistry with suppliers and they also protect the organisation interests and obligations at the same time.
They need to be good at
Delivery competency sees the supplier providing a cost-effective, improved service performance against contractual terms and conditions and metrics.
Transformation competency is needed where a supplier has agreed to deliver radically improved services in terms of cost and quality.
Relationship competency is essential. A customer wants to engage the supplier‟s capacity and expects the supplier to align itself with the customer's values, goals and needs to support long-term, critical business direction and change.
Middle managers need to work with suppliers to ensure that the vision behind the outsourcing initiative comes true and business case potenital is reached. This demands middle mangers not just in clients but also suppliers. Both sides need to work in collaboration,understand the priority set by management and compromise / adapt on situation where conflicts exist. The bed rock of outsourcing engagement success are these fellas who takes management calls far from the 'top'
management especially on multi year deals.
Accroding to the paper published by Professor Leslie Willcocksis Professor of Technology Work and Globalization at London School of Economics and Political Science, the middle managers need to be capable of specialising in some areas and general skills in most areas. he organises them into 9 key areas,
1. Leader–identifies and delivers success. In practice, leadership is required at middle as well as top management levels because modern outsourcing is full of adaptive challenges requiring experiments, discoveries, adjustments and innovations from many different parts of the organizations involved.
2.Business manager –delivers in line with service agreements and business plans.
3.Domain expert –retains and applies professional knowledge. Needs experience and knowledge not just of call centre work, but also of the industrial sector e.g. insurance, and the specific client organization e.g. Allianz, Royal Insurance.
4. Behaviour manager –motivates and inspires people to deliver high-level service. Responsible for transitioning staff to the supplier and recruiting and retaining new staff.
5. Sourcing Specialist –accesses resources, for example technology, people, other suppliers as needed.
6. Process engineer –designs and incorporates improvements to client processes and procedures.
7. Technology exploiter –swiftly and effectively deploys new technology on the client‟s behalf.
8. Programme manager –delivers a series of interrelated projects.Customer developer –helps customers make informed decisions.Planner & contractor –delivers „win/win‟ results for customer and supplierOrganizational designer –designs and implements successful organizational arrangements.
9. Governance specialist –tracks and measures performance.
So many outsourcing deals dont realise the potential or original goals because of the human element that need to implement these changes and keep the origanisation gears meshing and moving. Look at the plethora of skills.. this is not just about a 'knowledge worker' and special expertise. Its more that we need the deal makers needed. I dont think lot of managers will be required, but so diverse are the skills market will always be ready to pay premium for them.
So com'on middle managers life is just changing for you, dont be so broody, just wake and spread your eyes its all opportunities everywhere :-)
The original paper from Leslie Willcock in the below link.
http://www.purplecowmedia.net/download-files/middle_manager_essay_1278944295.pdf.
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