The issue of role definition for senior, middle, and junior levels

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This post was last edited by lovelife1997 on 2019-11-27 at 14:55. The issue of role definitions for senior, middle, and junior managers: Managers at different levels make different contributions to a company. Senior managers contribute to the company’s growth and long-term development, middle managers contribute to the company’s stability and efficiency, while junior managers contribute to the company’s costs, quality, and short-term performance. Consequently, the responsibilities of managers at each level also differ. Only when managers at every level carry out their duties properly can the entire organization function efficiently, and the company’s development can proceed more smoothly and rapidly! In the process of business development, there are three pairs of contradictions that must be addressed, and planning management serves to unify and coordinate these three pairs of contradictions by setting goals. Plan management holds that senior managers are responsible for strategic (company) goals, which include the company’s long-term development, return on investment, and an increase in market share. From this, we can see that senior managers are responsible for the long term and for change; in other words, whether a company has a future and whether it can keep evolving depends on its senior managers. Plan management holds that middle managers are responsible for functional goals, including medium-term development, productivity levels, and human resource development. From this, it is clear that middle managers are accountable for the stability and efficiency of the company; in other words, whether a company is efficient and has the right team of employees depends on the competence of its middle managers. Plan management holds that frontline managers are responsible for daily operational goals, including short-term development, work scheduling (task-oriented), sales targets, cost control, and productivity standards. From this, we can conclude that frontline managers are responsible for short-term results and efficiency; in other words, whether a company is capable of generating profits, reducing costs, and maintaining quality depends on the abilities and competence of these frontline managers. The main reason why many companies fail to strike a balance between the long term and the short term, between change and stability, and between efficiency and effectiveness is that they fail to utilize the functions of planning management. Instead, all responsibilities are placed on senior managers – whether it’s issues related to costs, quality, profitability, human resource management, or efficiency – with no clear division of responsibilities and goals among different managers. We even made an extremely serious mistake without realizing it, and that mistake is this: our senior managers are doing the work of middle managers and even lower-level managers, constantly focusing on costs, quality, and efficiency. They fail to drive change, pay attention to return on investment, or consider the future of the company. This is the current state of management in China. I often communicate with many senior managers and even business owners, but frequently the topics raised with me are those related to management efficiency and human resources; issues of internal organizational friction are also discussed. In fact, whether a company can develop its employees, make the most of human resource management, and maintain stability requires the efforts of middle managers. It can be understood more directly as follows: human resource management is a responsibility of all middle managers, rather than just the HR department. The HR department is responsible for task allocation, while the task of developing and selecting employees falls on the middle managers themselves. As for this aspect related to people, that is, human resource management, it is not carried out by the HR department; rather, it is done by the middle managers throughout the company. The reason why human resources tasks are handled by middle managers rather than senior managers is that it is only middle managers who come into contact with all employees of the company; senior managers have limited access to employees. It is the middle managers who interact with a wide range of employees, and the main functions of human resources management involve leveraging everyone’s capabilities, as well as training and assigning people to various roles. At the same time, if middle managers are able to train many people, it is certain that the company will be stable; therefore, the most important contribution of middle managers is to the stability and efficiency of the company. The same situation applies to quality and cost targets – when we encounter issues such as poor quality, uncontrolled costs, or failure to meet targets, it is definitely the grassroots managers who are at fault; either their capabilities are insufficient or they lack the necessary focus. Therefore, it is important at such times to pay attention to the training and development of these grassroots managers. However, in daily management, this area has the most problems, and quality issues are often raised by senior management. The requirements and standards for costs are also set by the company’s senior management. It is correct for a company to regard cost and quality as important aspects of management. The mistake lies in the fact that cost and quality control, which are the most crucial tasks in a company’s management, should be the responsibility of frontline managers rather than senior managers, as senior managers are unable to handle these issues effectively. No matter how capable senior managers may be, it is the frontline managers who determine quality and cost; only by ensuring that these managers pay attention to these issues and are willing to make efforts in this regard can cost and quality be controlled. However, in real-world management, I observe the exact opposite: it is usually the senior managers who are aware of costs and quality, while the frontline managers lack such awareness. I once witnessed an interesting phenomenon: while talking with the owner of a company, he showed me several pages of paper. I was deeply impressed because he had printed them on waste paper and told me that the back side of those sheets was not useful, which helped save paper. I really appreciated what this boss did. In the afternoon, I happened to need to print some documents for this boss to see, and I needed his secretary to help type them out and print them. What I saw was the opposite: the secretary was someone who types and prints documents every day, but whenever she made even the slightest mistake, she would discard the entire sheet and start over with a new one. I’m surprised by this phenomenon: a boss who rarely prints on his own values every sheet of paper highly, while someone who prints every day shows no regard for it at all. Therefore, the key to solving this problem is that responsibility for cost and quality management must lie with frontline managers; otherwise, no matter how much the company emphasizes it or how much senior managers lead by example, the results will not be good. As long as frontline managers take on this role, costs and quality can definitely be controlled. Therefore, as a senior manager, although great emphasis is placed on cost and quality, it doesn’t have direct significance, as senior managers do not make a direct contribution to these aspects; it is the junior managers who do. Hence, it is essential to train junior managers to develop an awareness of cost and quality. If costs get out of control, quality is insufficient, or profits cannot be achieved, it is definitely because the junior managers are not competent enough. Senior managers contribute to the growth and long-term development of a company, middle managers contribute to its stability and efficiency, while junior managers contribute to the company’s costs, quality, and short-term performance. When all managers are able to contribute, the three pairs of contradictions in a company’s development can be harmonized, allowing the company to achieve stable and sustained growth – and this is the advantage of planned management. It is extremely important to fulfill the functions of plan management. In practice, the responsibilities of senior, middle, and junior managers cannot be substituted for one another; moreover, senior managers should not be expected to take on all the responsibilities. On the surface, this may seem like senior managers are very responsible, but in reality it does harm to the company. The most common mistake we make is to assign senior management the responsibility for achieving all objectives: costs, training, talent development, quality, management efficiency, etc. As a result, middle-level and junior managers end up acting like ordinary employees, earning the same salaries as them while doing the same tasks. In such a situation, these middle-level and junior managers also feel frustrated; they lack a sense of achievement and it seems as though they haven’t done anything at all, which is truly not worth it.