This morning for example, one of my team members, Anthony, said that he was "feeling not very enthusiastic about working on Project Alpha". Now, I would very much have liked to say that I couldn't care less about his feelings and he'd better get on with it, unless he'd feel perhaps more enthusiastic about being unemployed.

 

But that's not management. Or at least is not good management.

What I do instead is I tell Anthony that this is a very high-profile project and it will look great on his resume. I ask him to tell me his specific concerns, and we work through some solutions. And I impress on him what a good job he is doing.

And that's what management is really about. Handing out accountability, encouragement, generating "buy-in", building morale and that sort of thing. It's tedious and time-consuming and difficult.

But there is one place where they have this problem sorted, and that's the military.

If you are a member of the armed forces and your manager (who is probably called something much more authoritative and intimidating like your "commanding officer") tells you to do something, I'm pretty sure you go ahead and do it.

And this remains the case despite the fact that you may very well be asked to do something that involves a fairly high chance of your or someone else's death.

I can only dream of having that kind of authority over my team. For one thing I'd have a lot more time on my hands if I didn't have to do so much empowering and communicating and listening when I want my staff to do something.

For example, last week I asked an associate, Sandy, to put together some data on the trading parameters for north Asian telecom companies. "Can you give me some background on why we are looking at telecoms data?" was her immediate response.

Now if we were soldiers I imagine I would be at that point entitled to stand an inch away from her face and yell at the top of my lungs: "Trading parameters for north Asian telecom companies, NOW!" In response to which, she would be obliged to say, "Yes, sir" and then rush off and search Bloomberg for my data.

Banks do need people who are capable of independent thought, and Sandy's desire to understand the job at hand more deeply is not necessarily a bad thing. But I suppose in the army there is some degree to which inquisitive minds are not quite so useful, particularly where everybody is short on time. I can easily imagine that, "Can you give me some background on why we are planning to climb out of this trench and run towards those machine guns?" would not be something the "managers" would want to discuss.

But what a joy it must be for the managers in the military to walk into their workplaces and have everyone leap to their feet and salute. I can only dream of having that sort of power. When I arrive at the office there will be one or two heads that poke up above their cubicles and nod, but that's the most I can expect.

Bankers standing at attention and yelling "Good morning Mr Alanson, sir" and then leaping into action at the sound of commands like: "Financial model results for Project Alpha!", "Marketing presentation for infrastructure privatisation!", or "Coffee!" would make me grin with delight. Well, at least until my own boss showed up.

And that's pretty much where my fantasy ends. Without the ability to talk my own manager out of his most pointless of ideas, and without the expectation that even if I do disobey a direct order the worst I can expect is to hear: "Oh, well I would really like to see the results of that project as soon as possible", things would be pretty tough for me.

When my manager asks me to put together a memo for him on what the team is doing so that he can look like he knows what he is talking about, if my only option was to do it or face a court martial, I don't know if I could get up in the morning and come into work. Actually, I wouldn't have a choice about that either I suppose. And I wouldn't get to choose my own tie.