Narrative Translation as a Function of Management
A critical role played by management in an
effective organization is that of narrative
translator. At one end of the employee spectrum
you have the individual contributors, those
employees that actually fulfill the promises of
the organization to deliver goods and services.
At the other end, you find the executives, the
President, the CEO, or within a division or
location, the Vice President. These are the
individuals that create and define the promises
that the organization makes, and wrap them up in
a story that defines the organization.
In between, you find supervisors, superintendents, managers, and directors, which for the sake of discussion we will call 'middle managers'. These middle managers have jobs which look like scheduling, planning, allocating resources, attending meetings, and so forth. But apart from the job description, there are several roles the middle managers must fill.
One of these roles is that of narrative translator. The leaders of the organizations, the executives, are responsible for the story of the company. They craft the narrative that ties the organization together, that tells the customer and the share-holder what the company is about, and focuses the employees on fulfilling the promises inherent in that particular story. But the story of the company is too broad, too imprecise, and necessarily too global to be of much help to the individual contributor, who has to decide what he must do each day to fulfill the promises of the organization.
The middle manager then must assume the role of translator, converting the story of the organization as told by the level of management above them into a more specific narrative and accompanying course of action for their direct reports. This is a continuous responsibility at all levels of middle management.
For example, the CEO says we have to produce a certain return on our investments to satisfy or 'create value' for the shareholders. The Vice-President then translates that into a story that makes sense to the Director of Maintenance that sounds like "we are going to spend less than X dollars on maintenance this quarter and we will do that by reducing our outage downtime." This may make sense to the Director, but will more than likely escape the individual contributor, so the Director translates for his Manager, "We need to reduce scope so we can shorten the outage, I need you to identify work that can be done before the plant is shut down, so we can get it out of the outage." The Manager goes to the supervisor and translates, "give me a list of electrical maintenance items previously conducted during the outage that could be done with the plant at power." The supervisor gathers his direct reports and says something like, "Brainstorming session, what items are you working in the outage that could be done pre-outage?"
For an organization to function effectively, it must be competent at translation. The story of the CEO has to be translated into something that is "actionable", that can be acted on by the individual contributor.
A common observation is that management fails to translate, and merely 'parrots' or repeats the story of the executive leadership. "The boss said we have to produce value for the shareholder, so you guys get out there and start producing some value."
It should be obvious that the average individual contributor cannot produce action based on that kind of input. The resulting disfunctional organization flounders, and the individual employees are blamed for not producing value for the shareholder.
There appears to be a loose correlation between the degree to which translation does not occur and the overall dysfunction or non-performance of the organization. Poor narrative translation results in less actionable work direction and therefore, poor performance. On the other hand, effective translation is revealed by effective action at all levels in the organization.
A middle manager who ignores the role of narrative translation puts his people and his organization at risk.
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This article and incorporated images are ©2005 Brad Williamson All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted for reproduction not for profit in its entirety including this copyright notice.
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In between, you find supervisors, superintendents, managers, and directors, which for the sake of discussion we will call 'middle managers'. These middle managers have jobs which look like scheduling, planning, allocating resources, attending meetings, and so forth. But apart from the job description, there are several roles the middle managers must fill.
One of these roles is that of narrative translator. The leaders of the organizations, the executives, are responsible for the story of the company. They craft the narrative that ties the organization together, that tells the customer and the share-holder what the company is about, and focuses the employees on fulfilling the promises inherent in that particular story. But the story of the company is too broad, too imprecise, and necessarily too global to be of much help to the individual contributor, who has to decide what he must do each day to fulfill the promises of the organization.
The middle manager then must assume the role of translator, converting the story of the organization as told by the level of management above them into a more specific narrative and accompanying course of action for their direct reports. This is a continuous responsibility at all levels of middle management.
For example, the CEO says we have to produce a certain return on our investments to satisfy or 'create value' for the shareholders. The Vice-President then translates that into a story that makes sense to the Director of Maintenance that sounds like "we are going to spend less than X dollars on maintenance this quarter and we will do that by reducing our outage downtime." This may make sense to the Director, but will more than likely escape the individual contributor, so the Director translates for his Manager, "We need to reduce scope so we can shorten the outage, I need you to identify work that can be done before the plant is shut down, so we can get it out of the outage." The Manager goes to the supervisor and translates, "give me a list of electrical maintenance items previously conducted during the outage that could be done with the plant at power." The supervisor gathers his direct reports and says something like, "Brainstorming session, what items are you working in the outage that could be done pre-outage?"
For an organization to function effectively, it must be competent at translation. The story of the CEO has to be translated into something that is "actionable", that can be acted on by the individual contributor.
A common observation is that management fails to translate, and merely 'parrots' or repeats the story of the executive leadership. "The boss said we have to produce value for the shareholder, so you guys get out there and start producing some value."
It should be obvious that the average individual contributor cannot produce action based on that kind of input. The resulting disfunctional organization flounders, and the individual employees are blamed for not producing value for the shareholder.
There appears to be a loose correlation between the degree to which translation does not occur and the overall dysfunction or non-performance of the organization. Poor narrative translation results in less actionable work direction and therefore, poor performance. On the other hand, effective translation is revealed by effective action at all levels in the organization.
A middle manager who ignores the role of narrative translation puts his people and his organization at risk.
-----------
This article and incorporated images are ©2005 Brad Williamson All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted for reproduction not for profit in its entirety including this copyright notice.
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