What did we do before we had color printers? I can remember when color printers first started to make their appearances in the office. They were big. They were expensive. They were only supposed to be used for specific documents. They were aggressively guarded by the administrative assistants that had responsibility for them and they couldn’t be used without special permission. That is obviously no longer the case. Color printer sizes and prices have come down to the point where the old black and white only printers are now a thing of the past. Color is so ubiquitous on both our screens and our printing that we appear to have become fully dependent on color to convey our information. While I do utilize color in my documents and presentations, I can’t help but feel that many managers may have now become so dependent on the color code of information that they may no longer feel the requirement to understand the actual underlying values of the information. It seems that what was once provided to management as data is now provided as colors. Instead of quantifying a performance issue, we are now providing a “traffic light” condition sound bite. It is now condition “red” for issues and adverse situations, condition “yellow” for potential problems, and situations where there are no imminent threats – condition “green”. I understand the need to distill down information to make it more manageable, but I don’t think you can properly run a business based on the colors of a traffic light. I am concerned that we are now into the same thirteen second sound bite mentality for managing our businesses as we are in when we watch the 5:00 news on television. It is a long leap from the proliferation of color printers and presentations to indicting business leadership for seemingly removing themselves from the detail associated with the running a business and its management process. I have stated in the past that metrics, be it tabulated data or color codes, only point you in the direction of the issues and more importantly point you in the direction of the potential solutions. Three-color metrics would seem to only point you at the issue without the value add of any direction toward a potential solution. As an example, with all the other inputs that are required to drive a car, a successful trip anywhere would be doubtful if traffic lights were your only source of information.
This “just give me the high points” three-color approach to management has a tendency to indicate to the team that the desire of management is not to get too deeply engaged in the issues of the business. It appears that management is becoming interested only in the performance of the business, not in how the business is running. If the team feels that management doesn’t want to be too deeply engaged in the business, it will not be long before that sentiment is reflected throughout the team as well.
Some of my first experiences in management were working for an executive who was extremely knowledgeable about the businesses that he had responsibility for. As such, he demanded that his management team know at least as much, if not more about the business than he did, if they were to be value add to both the business and management chain. As such these businesses were relatively well run and profitable. An in depth understanding of the issues, data, finances and how the business worked was required in order to maintain the high level of performance of the business.
With a “three-color” approach to management, leaders are communicating that they in fact do not want to know as much about the business as the management team and all that they are really interested in is “stop”, “go” and “caution” status of the business. Where in the past it was required that the management team have a greater in depth knowledge of the business than the knowledgeable leadership team to provide value add to the business, the three-color management approach now calls into question the value add of an unknowledgeable leadership to the business.
I guess I am still of the old school that good business leadership requires a leader that is well versed and knowledgeable about the business they are leading. A good leader needs to understand not only the performance of the business, but how the business works. To extend the traffic light – automobile analogy a little further, a leader may not need to know how the car works in order to drive it, but a leader will definitely need to know how it works if they are ever going to be called on to fix it.
