Who’s It For? What’s It For?

“Who’s it for? What’s it for?”

I could hear Seth Godin in my head. He challenges us to ask those two questions of ourselves and the work we do frequently, especially in his podcast, Akimbo. They are great questions. I am glad that he asks them and that he asks us to ask them. I find myself coming back to these questions often these days, and I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of them when talking to others. Internally, those two questions are on high rotation.

It’s no surprise that they come to mind when I overhear conversations, especially in corporate environments. So many times, it seems to me that a lot of what goes on happens without a clear understanding of who it’s for and what it’s for. I’m not implying that nobody knows the answer to those questions, but I think that, more often than not, the people doing the work are unclear as to what those answers are. It makes it hard to do the job and do it well when the who and the what are unclear. It seems unforgiveable to me that most people don’t know because it’s their manager’s job to make sure those answers make sense to the people they are entrusted by the organization to lead.

Decades of experience and research have taught me something that I am heartened to see appearing in popular business literature with greater frequency now: the employee’s experience in the workplace is largely dependent on their manager. We’ve known this for years, but the language today is clear and the research to back up the idea is plentiful. In May 2019, Gallup released the book It’s the Manager by Jim Clifton and Jim Harter. Gallup’s research has shown for years that there is a relationship between manager quality and employee engagement, organizational effectiveness, and business performance. They are not the only ones, either. The idea is not novel.

And yet…and yet here we are. If Gallup is supporting a book on the subject, the market must be there. If the market is there, it’s likely because, collectively, we still have an issue. Managers matter, and we still can’t figure out what to do with that.

Who’s it for? What’s it for?

Managers need to be able to answer those questions, and they need to be able to answer them for more than just themselves. From their direct reports to their customers to even their peers, leaders should know who it’s for and what it’s for. Whatever “it” is, the mystery should never, ever exist in the manager’s mind. If it does, then something is wrong.

Answer the questions, and you’ll probably wind up finding the answers to a lot of other questions.