> I think that's a pretty narrow definition of management, esp. things like "communicating messages from top to bottom".
I agree. In my opinion, the biggest and hardest part of management is to take a direction provided from above and turn it into actionable points for those below. Distinctly different from directing communication.
A CEO typically says "we need to increase sales in X vertical". It's up to his VPs to turn that into "focus our software's next features on X's needs", "hire more sales people devoted to X", and "target our marketing more on X". Then the managers look at "focus our software's next features on X's needs" and turn that into "identify X's needs", "create a set of features", and "execute on developing those features based on employee's strengths".
Expecting an employee to turn the "increase sales" message into "develop this feature" is a bit too much to expect, not to mention nearly impossible to scale. Also, expecting the CEO to transform their own directions into individual actionable tasks is going to eat into time they could better spend on other tasks (like talking to customers, speaking at conferences, determining new direction, etc).
Well, it is definitely reasonable to expect some employees to turn the "increase sales" message into "develop this feature"... and the argument is that those employees are (probably) managers. (Or rock stars, if you buy into that.)
I'd hope the CEO instructions might be able to be a little more detailed than "increase sales". Otherwise, the CEO is at risk of seeming to not add any value, direction or vision.
Or technical product owners, who in lots of companies, especially large ones, are "promoted" into management roles simply because they are directing traffic and coordinating activities of the technical staff "beneath" them (The folks also contributing to the product they govern). There are a lot of ways to deal with this that don't involve flattening the whole org.
I agree. In my opinion, the biggest and hardest part of management is to take a direction provided from above and turn it into actionable points for those below. Distinctly different from directing communication.
A CEO typically says "we need to increase sales in X vertical". It's up to his VPs to turn that into "focus our software's next features on X's needs", "hire more sales people devoted to X", and "target our marketing more on X". Then the managers look at "focus our software's next features on X's needs" and turn that into "identify X's needs", "create a set of features", and "execute on developing those features based on employee's strengths".
Expecting an employee to turn the "increase sales" message into "develop this feature" is a bit too much to expect, not to mention nearly impossible to scale. Also, expecting the CEO to transform their own directions into individual actionable tasks is going to eat into time they could better spend on other tasks (like talking to customers, speaking at conferences, determining new direction, etc).