Mission Contract Replaces Micromanagement

"Gary Klein, in his seminal work, Sources of Power (another book, which along with his next, Intuition at Work, should be in every manager’s and strategist’s desk drawer), illustrates the intuitive / implicit nature of a business contract (drawing on Karl Weick’s version of a conversation between a boss and a team member): •   Here’s what I think we face •   Here’s what I think we should do, and why •   Here’s what we should keep our eye on •   Now, talk to me132   The only thing needed to make this into a mission order is to look your subordinate right in the eyes and say, •   Here’s what I want you and your team to accomplish. Will you do it? Bill Lind, who played a key role in introducing maneuver warfare into the Marine Corps, and whom we met in chapter III, suggests that every mission order actually contains an explicit or implied “in order to.” In a business setting, this might look like: Susan, I need you to go down and take charge of sales in the Northeast and increase revenue by at least 25% in order to avoid factory shut downs that could start as early as July."

"the greatest value of viewing responsibility as a contract is that it provides an alternative to over-control. Micromanaging is simply not allowed: Once he or she accepts the contract, the subordinate has total freedom within the constraints of the contract as to how to proceed."

"Do not prescribe how to accomplish the job. The less said about the how, the better. If you don’t have a strong belief, grounded in past experience, that Susan can think of ways to accomplish this mission (whether she realizes it yet or not), you should not be assigning it to her: Mutual trust / cohesion / unity yet one more time."

"A mission order can be thought of as a virtual contract between superior and subordinate. If I am your superior, and I order you to disrupt and delay enemy forces east of XYZ River, you have two choices. You can accept, in which case enemy forces east of XYZ River are disrupted and delayed. There is no excuse for anything else, even if you and all your people get killed trying. Note that how you accomplish the mission is up to you, within any constraints that I put into the order. Your other choice, if you believe that you do not have the resources to carry out the order, or that it is just plain dumb,…"