A Manager Cannot Manage What He Cannot See
A Manager Cannot Manage What He Cannot See
There have been meetings where I raised my voice.
Some managers thought it was performance pressure.
Some thought it was a demand for reports.
What I was really trying to say was much simpler.
I am blind.
I have been made blind.
You are preventing me from seeing.
For a manager, the most dangerous situation is not that a mistake has been made.
It is not that a problem has occurred.
It is not that a target has been missed.
These can be seen.
They can be measured.
They can be managed.
The real danger is when management becomes unable to see.
Because a manager cannot manage what he cannot see.
He cannot prevent a risk he cannot see.
He cannot solve a problem he cannot see.
He cannot capture an opportunity he cannot see.
He cannot stop a loss he cannot see.
That is why, for me, one of the most important performance criteria of a department manager is visibility.
Not bringing me good news.
Making the truth visible.
Because some managers cannot solve problems.
But some managers are more dangerous.
They make problems invisible.
This is often where companies begin to lose money.
Sales have started to decline.
But it does not appear in the reports.
Collections have started to deteriorate.
But nobody brings it to the table.
A customer is being lost.
But it has not yet been explained.
Production is being disrupted.
But the problem does not move upward before it grows.
And one day, when management looks at the table, it sees the problem for the first time.
But the problem is not new.
It simply had not been made visible.
That is why, when I try to understand a new structure, I look at this question:
How quickly do the facts become visible in this company?
When a problem appears, what happens?
Does it come to the table immediately?
Or is it first hidden?
Is it covered up?
Is it postponed?
Is it softened?
Is it filtered?
Because the quality of an organization is not measured only by its successes.
It is also measured by how quickly it can make reality visible.
In some companies, bad news cannot move upward.
Because people are afraid of the reaction.
In some companies, the person who names the problem is treated as the person creating the problem.
In some companies, the numbers are not corrected.
The interpretation is corrected.
The reality does not change.
Only the way it is explained changes.
At that point, management begins to lose its ability to see.
And organizations that lose their ability to see usually notice the problem too late.
A problem noticed too late is more expensive to solve.
For me, a reporting system is not merely an information flow.
It is the company's system of sight.
Meetings are not merely coordination spaces.
They are the company's eyes.
Department managers are not merely process managers.
They are management's field-level reflex for seeing.
That is why visibility is not a luxury for me.
It is a management requirement.
Because management can be supported by intuition.
But it cannot be done in blindness.
That is why I do not try to manage a structure I have not yet understood.
First, I listen to what people say.
Then I look at the numbers.
Then I read the organization.
Then the decisions.
Then the flow of information.
And then I try to understand this:
How quickly can this company see the truth?
Because a manager cannot manage what he cannot see.
And a company's most expensive problem is often not the problem it is experiencing, but the problem it failed to see in time.