‘Management is 10% work and 90% people’

By Victor Lipman

Think ‘we’, not ‘I’. How important is empathy to successful management? It’s only 10% work and 90% people.

The management balance

What others think about this ‘10/90’ idea. Management requires balance, to be sure. No doubt you need technical expertise (the 10% ‘work’ component). Without the ability to demonstrate a solid level of competence in the field you’re managing, you may well lack ‘street cred’, which can impede your management success. 

You need the respect of those you manage, and part of that is earned by how well you know your business – whatever that may be.

But on the other hand you also need the ‘people’ element, since management of course at its core is all about accomplishing work through others. Other people, that is. Not other cattle, dogs, cats or horses. But it does require a consistent level of working with other humans... collaborating, motivating, and plain old forming productive working relationships. And making those humans willing to come back day after day and do the same thing all over again.

High tech, low touch

It’s no secret to tilt to the ‘people management’ side. Often in own career hires made who were heavy on technical competence and light on interpersonal skills, and usually this was a recipe for problems. When managers have difficulty relating well to the people they manage, it generally leads to issues with communication, recognition, motivation, morale... and ultimately productivity and retention.

So what are the right percentages in this 10%-90% construct? Should they be 10-90... or perhaps 20-80, 30-70...or maybe even 5-95? That’s probably an impossible question to answer. Other than to say I believe it would be above 50-50 (weighted more to the people side), it’s pretty hard to be too precise one way or another. Depends on the nature of the job and the business.

‘The leaders who work most effectively, ‘never say ‘I’. And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say ‘I’. They think ‘we’; they think ‘team’. They understand their job is to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but ‘we’ gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.’

The words may be a little different, it’s true, but the sentiment seems very close to the ‘10-90’ thinking of a former colleague’s successful old manager.