Don't Let "CRAM" Cripple Your Management Culture

Don’t Let "CRAM" Cripple Your Management Effectiveness

Anyone who has studied Management Development for any length of time, has seen the “CRAM” effect— Competence = Rapid Advancement to Management. This means that employees who are highly skilled or competent at the production level are promoted to management roles quickly. While the acronym may be a bit cheesy, this phenomenon has been exacerbated with the current talent shortage in the workforce nationally. Organizations are desperately trying to fill management roles to help cope with change and rapid growth. Problems arise, however, when the newly-promoted managers have not had the opportunity to develop basic management skills.

An article published in Harvard Business Review, “Why Good Managers Are So Rare” reports that when Gallup researchers “asked U.S. managers why they believed they were hired for their current role, they commonly cited their success in a previous non-managerial role or their tenure in their company or field.” This type of selection is causing a lack of basic leadership skills among corporate management especially in area of workplace communications. Sound communications is fundamental to operations, clear direction, employee engagement, and retention.

An Interact/Harris poll also published in the Harvard Business Review indicated that “91% of employees say communication issues can drag executives down.” The same article said that “employees called out the kind of management offenses that point to a striking lack of emotional intelligence among business leaders, including micromanaging, bullying, narcissism, indecisiveness, and more.” This lack of basic management skill is disturbing, but not necessarily surprising as we see reports of discrimination, litigation, and employee complaints resulting from poor management.

Fortunately, business leaders have options in dealing with this lack of management talent.

Selection. Ensure people selected for supervisor and manager roles have demonstrated proficiency in communications and interpersonal skills. These can be identified in some basic assessments or, at least, in behavioral interviewing techniques.

Training. Ensure new managers have the opportunity to train in key areas such as performance management, positive confrontation, coaching, expectations setting, and accountability. Get this training done as soon as possible.

Mentoring. A new manager workshop group with a skilled facilitator can help air out real-life situations and provide this cohort with the tools to manage successful. It also serves to follow up on formal training.

Employee surveys. Surveying employees periodically to reinforce successes and pinpoint problem areas helps to keep a finger on the pulse of manager skill levels. However, the information collected is only effective if it receives followup. Finding problem areas does no good if you're not willing to address them.

As one thought leader once told us, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”