Manage to outcomes; do not manage hours.
principle — attributed to Dr. Wayne Pernell
Pernell's approach to managing the work, derived from focus on the shared outcome, is operational. Identify the deliverables and the dependencies between them. The dependency is that this deliverable gets completed before anything else can happen. Management (from manos, the Latin word for hand) is hands-on in terms of achieving a deliverable date. Beyond that, the manager does not care how the work gets done. Log in at four in the morning if that is the working time. Log in late and work until two in the morning. The discipline matters in the era of remote work. Managers who try to manage hours fail. Managers who manage deliverables and dependencies succeed regardless of where or when the team works.
For managers, executives, and HR leaders thinking about how to manage distributed and hybrid teams. The principle is most useful as a corrective when management has defaulted to tracking presence rather than tracking output.
deliverables, outcomes, remote-work, management