Executive Summary: Charl had to ask himself the question: “what is my legacy?” when he moves on as mine manager? He realised the answer for him was not for the hire-and-fire practises which seems to be inevitable in the harsh environment of a platinum mine. He changed his style to a MAA-frame (Means-Ability-Accountability) based on the Care and Grow leadership principles developed by Etsko Schuitema. Part 1 of this article reviewed his change of intention: giving unconditionally; caring for people; forming a legitimate relationship of power; and in faith the inevitable reward to him personally and his career.
Features in Charl’s Care and Grow Leadership Style (Part 2 of 2). See Part 1 here.
1) Implementing the MAA-frame with principles like “care”, “unconditional giving,” and “empowerment” does not mean “being nice” and trying to win a popularity contest. It demands consistent discipline from everybody. Four features need mentioning:
One, the highest standard for work in the mine overrides everything: safe production. One right, appropriate way to work. One standard of work, even though two words. “Safe” implies one single clear standard and does not involve a gradient to improvement as in “safer.” This strong demand of safety resulted in a decline in LTI’s over the past 6 months.
- “Safe production” is the result of caring for each other in the workplace; growing people by empowering them (leading at work is about growing people); holding people accountable with the appropriate response to their performance (acknowledge on-standard; praise better-than-standard; coach when below standard; discipline when consistently below standard and ensure means and ability.)
- Holding people accountable is an immediate response to their work performance. Coaching, when needed, like any other work discussion, is about getting the work done to standard: why, what, how, and enquiring about the MAA. Accountability is the essence of dealing with the consequences of one’s action. “Consequence management” is what Charl calls this.
- In discussions and questions there is a persistent anchoring of the message about “safe production”. “Some managers or supervisors are not comfortable speaking to their groups. We will then go and facilitate the process while the individual does the communication , this empowers the supervisor to do it himself next time ” says Charl. There is no let up or leeway given to the work intent of safe production.
2) Who would the reader say is responsible for achieving production targets in a mine? If you said the mine worker, you are correct. Charl is accountable, and he is very aware of the role himself, the managers and the supervisors have in ensuring the results. The coach does not play the game, they train and empower the player to win. Therefore, the role of the hierarchy is to lead and manage the direct subordinate by enforcing the care and growth principles. This growing, or empowerment, of people down the line takes on two distinct characteristics:
- It requires a mutual trust-trustworthy relationship. Senior people do not delegate when they don’t trust. To trust, people need consistent information in order for them to realise that we are consistent in our message and ; that it is a win-win interaction. To earn the subordinates trust, the focus remains on management, as they apply the specifics of the MAA principles: ensure means, ability and accountability are in place!. Empowerment is a graded process based on evidence that both parties can trust and is trustworthy to the other. Trust comes from observing and experiencing the appropriate behaviour, not from words.
- The “go-to”-person is the one you report to. That person who you report to, that is the source of MAA that will make your success possible, and lays the foundation of “care.” This is also an issue of role responsibility: being too quick to send the subordinate to HR for instance or the union , is missing the opportunity to demonstrate care. Management not listening feeds the adversarial relationship between management and its workforce and allows for the organised labour to become “surrogate managers” which is debilitating and counter intuitive .No disrespect to organised labour but the only person empowered by the company to make the lives of our employees better is line supervision.
3) Brace yourself for the decisive factor: “Workers are not there for management, management is there for the workers.” How does Charl sustain this “inverse” and counter-intuitive way of leading his teams to success? Charl’s answer was: “I sustain it through guiding subordinates to constantly look for ways to give feedback to its workforce to ensure they remain well informed. This communication can be both positive reinforcement and punitive, as long as it constantly happens. This gives a fresh spin on the top-down idea of the senior person giving an order to make the next person down the line effective and prosperous without expecting anything back .
Care and Grow leadership style is “not for sissies,” to use a local expression. It takes courage, it takes commitment, it demands consistency and balance. Mostly, it requires an internal conviction that I am here for the other, full stop