The Middle Really Does Matter

In this week's Twinning Strategy special episode, our guest was Jeff Sigel, our co-host and author of the new book The Middle Matters: A Toolkit for Middle Managers. As siblings, we often want to encourage and support, but can also be judgmental. In this case, I have no hesitation in pitching Jeff's book as the one I needed, and still need now, as I advance in my career. Managing people is not easy. Our egos as managers, as colleagues and as employees are an important factor, even more so that these roles are tied into our identities, our financial security, and our ambition. Providing a bit of help as leaders develop wouldn't seem to be such a difficult decision for companies, but as Jeff points out, the number of people in the middle is huge and the cost to provide one on one training is often prohibitive. Jeff's book provides a huge range of lessons and stories that, in many cases, he personally has learned from for a lot less than providing or hiring your own coach (Amazon paperback $15.99, e-book $6.99 is a bargain for the wisdom that can unstick your career or reduce your stress). 

Jeff presents the middle as the intersection of 3 separate roles--the Doer, the Leader and the Influencer. As we have grown through our careers, we intuitively understand that we need to interact with our line management, our reports and our peers. Jeff puts this into a clear framework. What is more, Jeff puts this into the context of the notion that we can only control one factor in any situation, our own reaction (a.k.a. we only control the R in the equation E(vent)+R(eaction) = O(utcome)). In the episode, we discuss the micromanger problem as a common example of a workplace challenge. In my conversations with Jeff, he has pointed to this theme from his group coaching classes where his students are asked regarding micromanaging whether it is a 'Doer', 'Leader, or 'Influencer' problem. The gut response is often that it is a 'Leader' problem--i.e. My Leader is micromanaging me. But this formulation takes the onus off of you and places it on your boss. Jeff's point, it is in fact a 'Doer' problem based on the credibility that you (rightly or wrongly) have not yet established. As he describes it, your boss is the 'Hero of their own story', where they need to knock it out of the park for their boss. They want to know that your work will make them look good, or at least not make them look bad. Counterintuitively, Jeff says to lean into the micromanagement, flood your boss with details so that they fundamentally see that you have the details under control. The worst approach is to pushback, complain, or go around your bosses back to their manager--now you have failed to execute and made them look bad on the management skills level. 

Leader roles require the finesse of understanding that your reports are people with goals and frustrations and growth of their own to do. Jeff says the 1 on 1 is the most meeting of the week. But, as he points out, the meeting is usually geared to the wrong goals--i.e. focusing on the details of 'doing'. The 1 on 1 best serves the supervisor-supervisee relationship as a coaching session, where the manager is asking questions that lead their report to their own 'right' answer. With the 'Influencer' role, we need to embrace the politics, the bureaucracy, and complexity by learning to build the relationships that will ultimately be the foundation of success. Going it alone, against the grain of a powerful upper manager is likely to end up costing political capital with little to show for it. 

The Middle Matters is a quick and accessible book with an enormous amount of material that will warrant reading it multiple times--I have already read it 2.5 times as it was being written and edited, and I will read it again. Need a gift idea for your team at the end of the year, get them a copy! Maybe buy one for your boss too, if you can manage to be subtle enough.