The Three-Tier Management System

Three-Tier Management System

In order to ensure that work gets done, organizations need a systematic approach to managerial leadership that clarifies the accountabilities for every managerial leader (anyone who manages people) in the organization and helps them ensure that every role holder is accountable for their work and outputs. We call this system the three-tier management system. In our experience, many organizations assume that everyone who is in a managerial leadership role understands and can execute on their managerial leadership accountabilities. Generally speaking, nothing could be further from the truth.

Without such a shared and consistent organization-wide approach, what emerges is a mix of managerial practices (some managerial leaders do the work, some don’t) that leads to a breakdown in accountability at the individual role holder level. This breakdown surfaces in a number of ways—all of which interfere with productivity and organizational effectiveness, and many of which contribute to disengaged and unhappy employees.

In this article we will elaborate on our approach to implementing a managerial leadership system throughout any organization. Our approach is based on a number of connected ideas that “come with the territory” of any organization that is set up as a managerial hierarchy—which almost every contemporary organization is.

These main concepts are:

1. Some people in organizations have employees who report to them. We call these people Managers. Managers delegate work to the employees in their part of the organization (the Employees) and Managers (this is important!) retain the accountability for the quality and timeliness of the outputs of the Employees they delegate work to;
2. Managers are themselves often reporting to someone, who has delegated work to them—Managers have their own Managers;
3. There is a relationship between “my Manager” and the employees who report to me. We call this relationship Manager-once-Removed (MoR). MoR’s have a distinct set of managerial leadership accountabilities that serve to ensure the long-term sustainability of the organization.

Taken together, these concepts define three-tier management. Three tier management exists in all hierarchical organizations with more than three layers. It includes employees, their managers, and the manager of their managers, and is made up of the managerial leadership work required to achieve the organization’s goals.

Three-tier managerial leadership work can be summarized as follows:

• supporting employees in their current roles and preparing them for future roles.
• providing employees with interesting challenging work and opportunities for growth and advancement.
• Ensuring managers provide effective leadership and coaching to achieve the business’s objectives.
• Supporting and sustaining the capability of the current organization ensuring and preparing the organization itself for the future.

Three-Tier Management System: A concept is not a system

A three-tier management system formalizes this managerial leadership work into accountabilities to ensure it is done consistently across an organization. Three-tier management systems encompass the three layers of accountability and includes a manager-once-removed (MoR), managers, and employees-once-removed (EoRs).

 

While each role has its own unique accountabilities and related outputs there are some fundamental accountabilities which are often believed to be understood—but which frequently are not. They need to be made explicit in order for the management system to operate effectively. These accountabilities can be found in the three roles inherent in every three-tier system—the Employee, the Manager, and the MoR.

When we work with our clients to implement their organization, we ensure that they are, at the same time, building these accountabilities into the appropriate roles. This requires education and coaching—it is a critical part of our implementation and change management process.

Employee

The generic accountabilities apply and should be made explicit to all employees from the frontline to the executive suite.

• Always doing my best.
• Supporting company values and goals.
• Working cooperatively with others.
• Carrying out assigned work.
• Informing my manager if progress on tasks is better or worse than expected.
• If in doubt, ask my manager to clarify expectations.

These six accountabilities are fundamental building blocks in moving from organizational structure to management system. The employee is not accountable for outputs (see manager accountabilities below) but is accountable for doing their best and keeping their manager informed of progress better or worse than planned. When all employees can be called to account for their behaviours related to these accountabilities then the organization has a foundation for trusting work environment.

Manager

Along with their specific direct outputs managers have two separate but essential functions in organizations — to manage resources ($, assets) and lead people, including making those resources available to the people to use in the most effective way possible. The generic accountabilities which enable a manager to do this work include:

• Direct reports’ outputs at the appropriate level.
• The result or impact of my direct reports’ behaviour.
• Building and sustaining an effective team capable of producing required outputs.
• Providing the work team with effective managerial leadership, including:
  • Holding regular team meetings.
  • Setting context for work.
  • Planning.
  • Assigning work effectively.
  • Appraising team members’ personal effectiveness.
  • Carrying out merit reviews.
  • Coaching.
• Selecting and inducting team members.
• When appropriate, deselecting team members from a role.
• Continually improving processes.

These accountabilities are not optional, and they are not “extra work”. They are a central part of every manager’s job, and managers should be assessed on how well they are carrying out this important work.

Manager Once Removed

The third generic role in the management system is the manager-once -removed (MoR). All MoR role holders are also Employees and Managers. MoR accountabilities encompass specific accountabilities for the outputs of direct reports (as both managers and employees) and to the employees two levels lower in the organization—their employees once removed (EoR). The MoR is accountable for the quality, effectiveness, and viability of the entire three-tier system. To fulfill this accountability MoRs must:

• ensure EoRs receive sound leadership and fair and equitable treatment from their managers—managers are held to account for effective leadership.
• ensure EoRs are placed appropriately in roles, compensation bands, and job grades—EoRs are treated fairly within the compensation and benefits plan adopted by their organization.
• know their EoRs’ capabilities and ensure succession for roles one level down—they must create opportunities to see the EoRs in action and spend enough time to fairly assess the EoRs current and future capability.
• develop a talent pool and provide mentoring opportunities for EoRs—this is a simple task once EoR capabilities are understood.
• provide context for significant organizational changes via three-tier meetings—EoRs view the MoR as the senior role in the company which has a direct impact on them and look to the MoR to be a trustworthy source of context and information.
• ensure managers establish effective cross-boundary relationships for E0Rs—this is a critical and under applied practice. MoRs have the accountability to ensure their work system is capable of delivering outputs it is required to deliver (reliable system). This accountability includes ensuring E0Rs have critical cross boundary authorities they require to perform their roles.

Instituting MoR practices in an organization provides a formal mechanism to encourage communication, openness, and trust across multiple levels. Additionally, these roles help to sustain the efficacy of the organization structure and the management system. When distinct levels of work are implemented in an organization where each level adds value to the one below, the three tier management system has the greatest impact.

 

 

This blog is part of our ongoing series Organizations that Work. To see all of the blogs in the series that have been posted so far, click here.

Every Tuesday over the next few months, we will be posting blogs that take you from the pain of poor organization design, to identifying the root causes, to the benefits of undertaking strategic organization review. We will discuss the steps needed to effectively align your structure and work with your strategy, and we’ll discuss the processes that take out the guess work and help you to get it done. Through it all we will discuss how to lead the change from start to finish. 

If you’d like to speak with us about how we can help you on your journey to an organization that works, please follow us on LinkedIn or book a call directly with one of our partners.

This blog was written by Ed McMahon. Ed is the managing partner with Core International, and specializes in creating organization designs structured to deliver strategy and improve performance.

Our approach draws on several bodies of work including Stratified Systems Theory, the work of Dr. Elliott Jaques. For more on Dr. Jaques and his work visit the Requisite Organization International Institute at ROII Requisite – ROII Requisite.