In a recent article published in the Wall Street Journal, the future of management was highlighted, beginning in the lower corner of the front page. At least according to one company, whose efforts have been underway at automating management tasks throughout the organization in an attempt at a more perfect management solution. The article showcased a hedge-fund firm, Bridgewater Associates LP, whose leader, Ray Dalio, has built the firm into one of the largest, and most profitable, among it’s competitors, managing $160 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.  The success of the company can be attributed to the development of algorithms that automatically track millions of data points and execute trades based on those automation schemes. According to the paper, the firm was able to analyze data so well that it warned, in 2006, of the looming financial crisis that would come to topple markets and the economy and take years to recover! It’s with similar logic that the systems and routines Bridgewater Associates was built upon, the same reasoning that has given way to their financial success, that their team of programmers, led ultimately by Dalio, is now writing code to automate the routines of management.

Can Management be Automated?

It’s incredible to think that the everyday routines and tasks of managers around the business world can really be automated. Just think of the effortless decisions that can be made and the perfection of those thought processes, always following the logic that was programmed. The power of freeing up thought to more important tasks at hand, while computers flawlessly execute thousands of lines of code to arrive at their logical decisions, let alone the savings that can be had by vastly minimizing the number of managers needed in business. It’s almost something from the Jetsons!

However, management will never ever truly be automated! There’s just no way to evaluate all the permutations and possibilities that go into complex decision making. While often managers are asked to eliminate emotion from decision making, there’s no way to get around the human aspect and consideration that goes into fully executing effective managerial tasks. Programming the algorithms alone take people to define the logic and thought processes that go into the desired decision making. However, even those algorithms prove worthless at the first signs of a deviation from the criteria and conditions the algorithm was designed for. In the Army, there was a saying that plans never survive the first contact of battle, because the conditions and the information change from minute to minute, events transpire that were not exactly as anticipated, and yet leaders must process that information and make important life and death decisions so quickly that no algorithm could ever be prepared to tackle with such quickness and ease. So too, attempts to completely automate management routines will never be able to efficiently tackle the changes that happen in real life.

The Three Ps

Since management can never really be truly automated to a set of coded decisions that can be executed according to the logic programmed, what is a manager to do to still be effective? There are a lot of thought leaders out there on the topic of managing others and a lot of sound advice on how to manage effectively to deliver results. Here’s what I’ve learned over my career. It’s a simple framework I call the Three Ps. For those Lean practitioners out there, the Three Ps should not be confused with the 3Ps, the production preparation process, a Lean methodology for achieving breakthrough or transformational change. Instead what I call the Three Ps is a framework to successful management and effective execution in a fluid world.

People

In a presentation I shared last month at the 2016 American Aerospace & Defense Summit I shared the Three Ps framework as a means to effectively execute in today’s business environment. It is the underpinning of a mindset towards continuously improving your business and delivering results. And it all starts with people. That is, having the right people on your team. As I’ve stated before, and throughout my career, having the right people on your team is critical, perhaps the most critical decision you can make as a leader and manager. Once you have the right people, with the right skillsets, and the right attitudes and behaviors, then you find the right role for those people to serve in to maximize the performance of your team. Unfortunately you can’t shortcut the process. You will not achieve what is possible by simply putting any available person on the team toward the tasks that you have, let alone your most critical tasks. You must have the right person on the task for maximum effectiveness.

Process

Throughout my career I’ve always sought to continuously improve the organizations I’ve been a part of, from my roles in the military in line combat units to my roles as a General Manager of high-technology Business Units. I’ve been a student and practitioner of Lean and Six Sigma methodologies and have found their toolsets and thought processes to be quite effective in delivering significant results. Regardless of whether you’re more of a fan of one methodology over the other (or even yet another continuous improvement methodology), one thing they all have in common is the concept of process. Everything we do is a process, from waking in the morning, getting your early workout in and getting ready for the workday, to developing and delivering a strategic plan, to delivering a package to an end customer. They are each a series of steps, a series of decisions to be made, a series of actions to be taken. Effective management is about having the right people managing with an understanding of their processes and managing through processes. Tied to the first P of the Three Ps, People, remember that great people will always find a way to execute your processes to achieve great results! People first, then process.

Performance

The final P of the Three Ps framework is what I refer to as performance. With the right people in place, with an understanding of their processes and working through deliberate processes, you achieve the desired results by having in place, and measuring frequently, the right performance measures. The right performance measures are those that drive the processes you aim to deliver, not simply the outcomes of those processes. In Six Sigma, a fundamental lesson taught is that Y = f(x). We are all interested in the Y, the outcomes and results of the process, so we measure them endlessly. But let’s not forget about the process variables, the Xs, and evaluate those measures as well and their effect on the Ys.

When used collectively, you will find the Three Ps to work well whatever the situation may be, whether managing a sales team to drive revenues, by managing an engineering team to develop the best products on-time and at cost, or to managing an operations team intent on meeting the highest levels of on-time delivery to customers. Find the right people for your team. Ensure they are process minded, both in terms of understanding the processes they manage and manage by process. Measure your processes to gauge your progress toward achieving your desired outcomes, and be sure to keep in mind those important in-process variables that drive your process results. That’s it. It’s as simple as that. The Three Ps.