I vividly remember one general manager who astonished subordinates by rejecting a plan that showed nice profits on a good sales gain for the third year in a row. This doesn’t mean arbitrary, unrealistic goals that are bound to be missed and motivate no one, but rather goals that won’t allow anyone to forget how tough the competitive arena is. The best GMs establish goals that force the organization to stretch to achieve them. This means making conscious decisions about what tangible measures constitute superior performance where your company stands now and whether you’re prepared to make the tough calls and take the steps required to get from here to there.Ĭlearly one of the most important standards a GM sets is the company’s goals. High standards are thus the principal means by which top general managers exert their influence and leverage their talents across the entire business.įor this reason, unless your company or division already has demanding standards-and very few do-the single biggest contribution you can make to immediate results and long-term success is to raise your performance expectations for every manager, not just for yourself.
If the GM’s standards are low or vague, subordinates aren’t likely to do much better. If the general manager sets high standards, key managers will usually follow suit. Of these three, performance standards are the single most important element because, broadly speaking, they determine the quality of effort the organization puts out. Three elements dictate a company’s work environment: (1) the prevailing performance standards that set the pace and quality of people’s efforts (2) the business concepts that define what the company is like and how it operates and (3) the people concepts and values that prevail and define what it’s like to work there. And that’s as true in small- and medium-sized companies as it is in giants like General Motors and General Electric. But whatever the environment a general manager inherits from the past, shaping-or reshaping-it is a critically important job. Shaping the Work EnvironmentĮvery company has its own particular work environment, its legacy from the past that dictates to a considerable degree how its managers respond to problems and opportunities. It helps you define the scope of the job, set priorities, and see important interrelationships among these areas of activity. What makes it important is its status as an organizing framework for the vast majority of activities general managers perform. This list shouldn’t be surprising the fundamentals of a general manager’s job should sound familiar after all. And they do that by focusing on the six key tasks that constitute the foundations of every general manager’s job: shaping the work environment, setting strategy, allocating resources, developing managers, building the organization, and overseeing operations. But their priority is avoiding that kind of situation. Sure, they’ll take such sweeping actions if they’re in a situation where that’s necessary or desirable. They know that sustained superior performance can’t be built on one-shot improvements like restructurings, massive cost reductions, or reorganizations. Great general managers do the same thing. Great coaches stress fundamentals-the basic skills and plays that make a team a consistent winner.