Summary: The Wrong Manager by Marce Fernandez

Every­body com­mits errors, includ­ing your­self, yet that does­n’t imply you can’t enhance your judg­ment capa­bil­i­ties. In this cap­ti­vat­ing man­u­script, man­age­ment advi­sor Marce Fer­nán­dez explains how to track “hints” that lead to wise selec­tions and evade suc­cumb­ing to your pre­dis­po­si­tions. Some choic­es, such as what to order for lunch, are incon­se­quen­tial; how­ev­er, sig­nif­i­cant deci­sions that veer off course can harm or jeop­ar­dize your pro­fes­sion or your busi­ness. Imag­ine the sce­nario of the record exec­u­tive at Dec­ca Records who reject­ed sign­ing The Bea­t­les in 1962 or the deci­sion-mak­ers at Excite.com who opt­ed not to pur­chase Google for $750,000. You can per­form bet­ter — dis­cov­er how.

Key Points

• A wide-rang­ing explo­ration delves into gen­er­al deci­sion-mak­ing, exclud­ing man­age­r­i­al deci­sions specifically.
• Cog­ni­tive pre­dis­po­si­tions esca­late flawed deci­sion crafting.
• Deci­sions stand as pref­er­ences, not gambles.
• Avert con­flat­ing data with knowledge.
• Dis­tur­bances to the sta­tus quo fre­quent­ly man­date dif­fi­cult choices.
• In the con­tem­po­rary volatile, ambigu­ous, intri­cate and uncer­tain world, deci­sion-mak­ing is con­sis­tent­ly challenging.
• An excess of alter­na­tives com­pli­cates the process of man­age­r­i­al decision-making.
• Take note of the “hints” direct­ing you towards astute selections.
• Cor­po­rate deci­sion for­mu­la­tion usu­al­ly comes down to one individual.

Abstract

An in-depth exploration deals with general decision-making, leaving out managerial decision processes.

Super­vi­sors com­mit blun­ders. Occa­sion­al­ly, these mis­steps in deci­sion cre­ation are mon­u­men­tal, busi­ness-end­ing, career-wreck­ing errors. Oth­er times, inac­cu­rate judg­ments are minor in scale — just mun­dane dai­ly oper­a­tional lapses.

“By scru­ti­niz­ing the ulti­mate cir­cum­stances that induced busi­ness inac­cu­ra­cies, we will grasp how to side­step them, hence boost­ing the out­comes and the stand­ing of our establishments.”

Schol­ars have thor­ough­ly scru­ti­nized deci­sion craft­ing and deci­sion hypothe­ses, yet few of their for­mal dis­cov­er­ies dis­crete­ly per­tain to exe­cut­ing man­age­r­i­al-lev­el deci­sions with­in a cor­po­ra­tion. Addi­tion­al­ly, indi­vid­u­als who inves­ti­gate deci­sion-mak­ing notice that many are hes­i­tant to own up to their blun­ders, thus the lessons drawn from tri­al and error don’t always come to light.

Cognitive predispositions escalate flawed decision crafting

Nadia Papamichail, a senior deci­sion-sys­tems lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter, high­lights that cog­ni­tive pre­dis­po­si­tions, includ­ing ego­cen­tric bias and con­fir­ma­tion bias, exac­er­bate faulty judg­ment assembly.

“We can define cog­ni­tive pre­dis­po­si­tions as sys­tem­at­ic devi­a­tions from ratio­nal verdict.”

Ego­cen­tric bias denotes indi­vid­u­als’ incli­na­tion to assess their own deeds and choic­es from a self-cen­tered view­point. Con­fir­ma­tion bias stands for the propen­si­ty to per­ceive evi­dence that upholds your selec­tions and to dis­re­gard con­tra­dic­to­ry evi­dence. Addi­tion­al cog­ni­tive pre­dis­po­si­tions encompass:

1. “The sto­ry fal­la­cy” — Indi­vid­u­als habit­u­al­ly assume an illu­so­ry causal rela­tion­ship influ­ences their data.
2. “The avail­abil­i­ty-mis­weigh­ing ten­den­cy” — Peo­ple tend to believe that exist­ing knowl­edge about a prob­lem suffices.
3. “The over­con­fi­dence effect” — Igno­rance fre­quent­ly fos­ters con­fi­dence, yet acquir­ing gen­uine knowl­edge serves as a more depend­able con­fi­dence booster.

Decisions stand as preferences, not gambles

When mak­ing a deci­sion, you are opt­ing between choic­es — not wager­ing. Gam­bles involve chance, which should nev­er play a role in astute cor­po­rate deci­sion for­mu­la­tion. Enter­pris­es aren’t gam­bling houses.

“If you’re not confident…envisioning the artic­u­la­tion of the deci­sion to your peers or asso­ciates, it’s advis­able to reconsider.”

Deci­sions hinge on knowl­edge, not intu­itions, there­fore arm your­self with as much per­ti­nent infor­ma­tion and knowl­edge as pos­si­ble. Dis­cern pre­cise­ly what you neces­si­tate understanding.

Avert conflating data with knowledge

Data and knowl­edge both play piv­otal roles in deci­sion-mak­ing, though they aren’t syn­ony­mous. Grasp­ing how data and knowl­edge inte­grate into the over­all deci­sion-mak­ing pro­gres­sion com­mences with reflec­tion, that is, con­tem­plat­ing and dis­sect­ing your circumstance.

“Deci­sion mak­ers con­sis­tent­ly make incor­rect choices…address the unsuit­able dilemmas…and can’t man­age uncer­tain­ty.” (deci­sion stud­ies lec­tur­er Nadia Papamichail)

Estab­lish the cri­te­ria essen­tial for mak­ing a saga­cious deci­sion and pin­point the infor­ma­tion resources and steps need­ed. Con­sid­er any rel­e­vant lim­i­ta­tions and circumstances.

Insti­tut­ing a “learn­ing val­ue chain” aids in shap­ing your deci­sion. Com­mence with set­ting a goal, and then amass­ing fit­ting data. Exe­cute the essen­tial analy­sis to con­vert this data into valu­able infor­ma­tion. Sub­se­quent­ly, ana­lyze the infor­ma­tion to glean the most valu­able knowl­edge. Trans­late this knowl­edge into wis­dom that you can uti­lize to make your deci­sion. Fol­low this process:

1. Com­pre­hend the chal­lenges you face.
2. Delin­eate your aim.
3. Secure the top-lev­el knowl­edge to eval­u­ate and strate­gize your approach.
4. Iden­ti­fy all plau­si­ble alternatives.
5. Choose the most suit­able alter­na­tive as your pre­ferred choice.

This rig­or­ous yet val­i­dat­ed deci­sion-mak­ing route hinges on clear access to sys­tem­at­ic, refined information.

Disruptions to the status quo often mandate tough decisions

In the cor­po­rate realm, cat­a­lysts of change and dis­rup­tions in the estab­lished order often neces­si­tate prompt deci­sions by man­agers. For instance, prof­it mar­gins dwin­dle. Rivals arise as for­mi­da­ble new com­peti­tors in the mar­ket. It becomes imper­a­tive for the com­pa­ny to expe­di­tious­ly onboard addi­tion­al per­son­nel. Busi­ness part­ners engage in conflicts.

“Strat­e­gy has become more intri­cate than ever, where­as human-resources con­cerns are more intri­cate as well, along­side sales, cus­tomer ser­vice, finance, oper­a­tions, mar­ket­ing, or technology.”

To steer you away from what you must avoid doing, learn from these real-life instances of cor­po­rate man­agers’ poor judgments.

• A man­ag­er sanc­tions the kick-off of a major fresh oper­a­tion with­out pri­or com­pre­hen­sive analy­sis. The new enter­prise per­forms inadequately.
• A man­ag­er recruits a new employ­ee who ulti­mate­ly proves to be com­plete­ly inappropriate.
• Man­agers neglect to com­mu­ni­cate with all rel­e­vant employ­ees and oth­er affect­ed par­ties con­cern­ing the rad­i­cal reor­ga­ni­za­tion of a com­pa­ny’s divisions.
• A man­ag­er endors­es the acqui­si­tion of new soft­ware that com­pli­cates the com­pa­ny’s oper­a­tions and fails to resolve inter­nal issues.
• Exclu­sive­ly focus­ing on tech­ni­cal aspects, man­agers green-light their com­pa­ny’s for­ay into a new — and rel­a­tive­ly unfa­mil­iar — for­eign mar­ket. They over­look local tax­es or the reg­u­la­to­ry landscape.

In the contemporary volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, decision-making is consistently challenging

Man­agers are — or should be — advo­cates of deci­sion-mak­ing. Deci­sion-mak­ing is fun­da­men­tal­ly what man­age­ment revolves around, yet cru­cial deci­sions are nev­er effort­less to arrive at. This rings par­tic­u­lar­ly true in the present volatile, uncer­tain, intri­cate, and ambigu­ous (VUCA) milieu. In such an envi­ron­ment, indi­vid­u­als often must select cours­es of action amidst unnerv­ing uncertainty.

“Deci­sion-mak­ing remains the pri­ma­ry endeav­or of any manager…Decision-making is a con­stant activ­i­ty where choic­es are made in var­i­ous forms and sig­nif­i­cance; whether they are sim­ple or intri­cate choic­es, indi­vid­ual or col­lec­tive decisions.”

Many admin­is­tra­tors lack a for­mal deci­sion-mak­ing blue­print, frame­work, or method­ol­o­gy which leads them to repeat­ed­ly make the same errors. These mis­takes can be clas­si­fied into three groups:

1. “Most fre­quent­ly occur­ring” — Deci­sions that are intri­cate and pertinent.
2. “Mod­er­ate­ly occur­ring” — Deci­sions that are chal­leng­ing and involve crit­i­cal situations.
3. “Infre­quent” — Deci­sions that touch on mat­ters of “man­age­able sig­nif­i­cance” or present clear-cut options, yet still impact cru­cial matters.

Having an excessive number of alternatives complicates the process of managerial decision-making

Arriv­ing at the cor­rect deci­sion typ­i­cal­ly entails eval­u­at­ing more than two dis­tinct paths. Admin­is­tra­tors often find them­selves hav­ing to choose from a mul­ti­tude of per­plex­ing options.

“The vari­ables that influ­ence any man­age­r­i­al deci­sion have mul­ti­plied sig­nif­i­cant­ly in recent decades.”

Even after mak­ing their ini­tial deci­sions, man­agers find them­selves in sit­u­a­tions where the deci­sion-mak­ing process is far from over. Con­sid­er­ing mul­ti­ple alter­na­tives expos­es them to mul­ti­ple mis­takes. Real-life, sub­stan­tial errors include:

1. When Stephen Woz­ni­ak, work­ing as a com­put­er engi­neer at HP in 1970, cre­at­ed a per­son­al com­put­er on his own time and mon­ey. HP’s CEO and sub­se­quent­ly its board rebuffed the chance to mar­ket his inven­tion. Woz­ni­ak left HP and lat­er found­ed Apple with Steve Jobs.
2. In 1975, Pep­si intro­duced the “Pep­si Chal­lenge,” a taste test between Pep­si and Coca-Cola. Pep­si emerged as the win­ner, prompt­ing Coca-Cola to change its beloved for­mu­la. How­ev­er, con­sumers strong­ly opposed the move, lead­ing Coke to revert to its tra­di­tion­al recipe.
3. In 1993, bond trad­er John Meri­wether estab­lished Long Term Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment (LTCM). Despite hir­ing top tal­ent, includ­ing a for­mer Fed­er­al Reserve vice pres­i­dent and two Nobel lau­re­ates, the firm made cat­a­stroph­ic invest­ment deci­sions in 1998, result­ing in sig­nif­i­cant loss­es. The US Fed­er­al Reserve inter­vened to pre­vent dis­rup­tion to the glob­al finan­cial system.

Pay attention to the “hints” guiding intelligent choices

Intel­li­gent deci­sion-mak­ing relies on the ratio­nal, clever, dis­ci­plined appli­ca­tion and fusion of knowl­edge, analy­sis, and team­work. Mak­ing the right deci­sion also hinges on fol­low­ing a dynam­ic process.

“His­to­ry is rife with poor deci­sions, yet in the cor­po­rate realm, dis­tin­guish­ing between good and bad deci­sions may not be so straightforward.”

Ini­tial­ly, allo­cate ade­quate time to pon­der over all rel­e­vant issues and influ­enc­ing fac­tors. Rather than view­ing your con­sid­er­a­tions as part of a for­mal or rigid deci­sion-mak­ing process, per­ceive each ele­ment as “clues” lead­ing to an effec­tive deci­sion-mak­ing approach and out­come. Con­sid­er the following:

- Will your deci­sion have sig­nif­i­cant ram­i­fi­ca­tions, or will its effects be rel­a­tive­ly triv­ial? In the lat­ter sce­nario, opt­ing for a “quick and sat­is­fac­to­ry solu­tion” or the “ini­tial viable choice” may suffice.
— When mak­ing deci­sions, many indi­vid­u­als tend to focus on promi­nent issues rather than the over­all sce­nario, sys­tem, or con­text. Con­cen­trat­ing sole­ly on the most appar­ent fac­tors is short-sight­ed and perilous.
— Deci­sion-mak­ers must­n’t regard their stat­ed deci­sion-mak­ing objec­tives as infal­li­ble cer­tain­ties. Instead, mull over, refine, and enhance the con­text of your decision-making.
— Assess whether the over­all con­text in which the deci­sion must be made is “cer­tain or uncer­tain.” Con­tex­tu­al cer­tain­ty invari­ably involves “implic­it or explic­it data.” Deci­sion-mak­ers may sim­pli­fy their deci­sion-mak­ing issues through uncom­pli­cat­ed math­e­mat­i­cal reasoning.
— Regard­less of the crit­i­cal­i­ty of the issues or the time pres­sure, refrain from has­ten­ing decisions.
— In gen­er­al, eschew the most evi­dent solution.
— The more intri­cate the sit­u­a­tion, the greater the num­ber of per­ti­nent ele­ments involved. Dis­re­gard no aspects.
— When chart­ing your course, weigh all cri­te­ria to stream­line your thought process. Dis­re­gard intuition.
— Deci­sion-mak­ing con­sti­tutes a process. How you car­ry out your deci­sions is equal­ly vital. Many might argue that the exe­cu­tion of deci­sions holds more sig­nif­i­cance than the deci­sions them­selves. If you strug­gle to envi­sion clear meth­ods to imple­ment your deci­sions, recon­sid­er them.
— Doubts about your deci­sions aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly detri­men­tal. Doubts can prompt reassess­ment, poten­tial­ly lead­ing to improved decisions.

Corporate decision-making often hinges on one individual

Most cor­po­ra­tions oper­ate in hier­ar­chies, where CEOs reside at the pin­na­cle, senior exec­u­tives under­neath, man­agers fur­ther down, and employ­ees and oth­er staff at the base of the orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­ture. Typ­i­cal­ly, one senior fig­ure at each lev­el of exec­u­tive author­i­ty will make the final plan­ning deci­sion. How­ev­er, on occa­sion, deci­sions are arrived at by teams or groups with­in the cor­po­rate framework.

“Opt­ing to do every­thing is not a viable option.”

Irre­spec­tive of their posi­tion or lev­el with­in the orga­ni­za­tion, cor­po­rate deci­sion-mak­ers need to think clear­ly and log­i­cal­ly. This neces­si­tates that exec­u­tives, man­agers, and orga­ni­za­tion­al thinkers strive to main­tain healthy, stress-free lifestyles. Mak­ing pru­dent deci­sions becomes con­sid­er­ably more chal­leng­ing if one is con­tin­u­al­ly fatigued, anx­ious, or unwell.

About the Author

A man­age­ment con­sul­tant focus­ing on strat­e­gy, Marce Fer­nán­dez is an MBA educator.

Review

In his book “The Wrong Man­ag­er: Man­age­ment mis­takes and how to avoid them” Marce Fer­nán­dez aims to enlight­en busi­ness lead­ers and aspir­ing man­agers about the preva­lent mis­takes made by man­agers and ways to avert repli­cat­ing them.

The book is struc­tured into 11 chap­ters, each address­ing a dis­tinct man­age­ment mis­take or pit­fall. Fer­nán­dez uti­lizes real-world exam­ples and anec­dotes from his con­sult­ing expe­ri­ence to illus­trate each error. For every chap­ter, he offers clear and spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tions for man­agers aim­ing to steer clear of the pitfalls.

One of the ini­tial chap­ters spot­lights the error of pri­or­i­tiz­ing incor­rect met­rics and key per­for­mance indi­ca­tors (KPIs). Fer­nán­dez argues that many man­agers become fix­at­ed on quan­ti­ta­tive out­puts like sales fig­ures, prof­it mar­gins, or task com­ple­tion rates when they should be con­cen­trat­ing more holis­ti­cal­ly on cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion, employ­ee morale, and long-term busi­ness via­bil­i­ty. He advo­cates for a bal­ance of “hard” and “soft” met­rics to obtain a com­pre­hen­sive view of orga­ni­za­tion­al health.

Sub­se­quent chap­ters delve into oth­er preva­lent pit­falls such as exces­sive micro­man­age­ment, fail­ure to set trans­par­ent expec­ta­tions, author­i­tar­i­an­ism, favoritism, absence of self-aware­ness, and inept change man­age­ment. Fol­low­ing a thor­ough dis­sec­tion of each mis­take, spe­cif­ic reme­dies are pro­vid­ed. For instance, the author sug­gests that man­agers tran­si­tion from direct­ing work to coach­ing team mem­bers, artic­u­lat­ing expec­ta­tions in writ­ing, and blend­ing firm­ness with empathy.

Rotat­ing tasks and assign­ments to lessen biases.

Fer­nán­dez also dis­cuss­es peo­ple-relat­ed mis­takes like bul­ly­ing sub­or­di­nates, sub­par hir­ing deci­sions, and inad­e­quate onboard­ing process­es. He sug­gests meth­ods for fos­ter­ing respect in the work­place through empa­thy, con­duct­ing thor­ough inter­views, and set­ting new hires up for suc­cess in their respec­tive roles. Clear indi­ca­tors of tox­ic behav­iors are pre­sent­ed to assist man­agers in rec­og­niz­ing issues with­in their own lead­er­ship styles.

More­over, the book delves into sys­temic mis­takes such as insuf­fi­cient com­mu­ni­ca­tion, inad­e­quate del­e­ga­tion of duties, and neglect­ing employ­ee devel­op­ment. Fer­nán­dez argues that these errors often arise from man­agers attempt­ing to han­dle too many tasks them­selves instead of empow­er­ing their teams. He stress­es the impor­tance of trans­par­ent infor­ma­tion shar­ing, account­abil­i­ty across all lev­els, and con­tin­u­ous skills development.

Case stud­ies and inter­views with man­agers are inter­spersed through­out the chap­ters, rein­forc­ing Fernández’s views on com­mon sources of mis­takes and how lead­ers can fos­ter high-per­form­ing, uni­fied work­places alter­na­tive­ly. The anec­dotes dri­ve home lessons learned from both tri­umphs and set­backs. Man­agers from diverse indus­tries will find it easy to relate to the sce­nar­ios depicted.

Over­all, the book offers a thor­ough exam­i­na­tion of preva­lent man­age­ment blun­ders dis­tilled from Fernández’s exten­sive advi­so­ry expe­ri­ence across mul­ti­ple indus­tries. Each chap­ter fol­lows a prob­lem-solu­tion struc­ture for straight­for­ward imple­men­ta­tion of rec­om­men­da­tions. While man­agers with vary­ing lev­els of expe­ri­ence and per­son­al­i­ty traits may iden­ti­fy with cer­tain mis­takes more than oth­ers based on their strengths and weak­ness­es, the broad scope ensures all read­ers can extract rel­e­vant insights.

Fernández’s infor­mal, direct writ­ing style ensures read­abil­i­ty, although some may per­ceive the anec­do­tal exam­ples as overused at times. Nonethe­less, the ground­ing in real-world sce­nar­ios enhances effec­tive learn­ing. Both new lead­ers and sea­soned vet­er­ans can ben­e­fit from the book’s delin­eation of pit­falls along­side spe­cif­ic, action­able solu­tions sup­port­ed by research and case studies.

Strengths:

• Relat­able illus­tra­tions: Fer­nán­dez employs real-life exam­ples to elu­ci­date each point, facil­i­tat­ing under­stand­ing and con­nec­tion for readers.
• Prag­mat­ic guid­ance: The book offers action­able advice for man­agers at all lev­els, from entry-lev­el to exec­u­tive positions.
• Well-struc­tured: The book is seg­ment­ed into clear sec­tions, aid­ing in ease of com­pre­hen­sion and navigation.

Weak­ness­es:

• Lack of depth: Some top­ics receive only cur­so­ry cov­er­age, leav­ing read­ers desir­ing more information.
• Rep­e­ti­tious: Cer­tain points are reit­er­at­ed through­out the book, poten­tial­ly mak­ing the con­tent seem repetitive.

Key Insights:

• Effi­cient com­mu­ni­ca­tion is vital: Effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion is cru­cial for suc­cess­ful man­age­ment. Man­agers must be adept at active lis­ten­ing, inquir­ing effec­tive­ly, and pro­vid­ing explic­it directives.
• Del­e­gate respon­si­bil­i­ties pro­fi­cient­ly: Man­agers must mas­ter the art of entrust­ing tasks to their team mem­bers, grant­i­ng them auton­o­my to com­plete assign­ments and advance professionally.
• Set a prece­dent: Man­agers should lead by exam­ple, dis­play­ing the con­duct and val­ues they expect from their team members.

Rec­om­men­da­tion:

“The Wrong Man­ag­er” proves to be a valu­able asset for any­one keen on enhanc­ing their man­age­ment skills or aim­ing to evade com­mon man­age­ment pit­falls. Fernández’s prac­ti­cal coun­sel and relat­able illus­tra­tions make the book both engag­ing and infor­ma­tive. Though some sub­jects may feel reit­er­at­ed, the book’s strengths over­shad­ow its weak­ness­es. I whole­heart­ed­ly endorse “The Wrong Man­ag­er” for indi­vid­u­als striv­ing to become more adept managers.

In con­clu­sion, “The Wrong Man­ag­er: Man­age­ment mis­takes and how to avoid them” serves as an invalu­able hand­book for any man­ag­er aspir­ing to hone their inter­per­son­al skills and evade com­mon lead­er­ship pit­falls that impede pro­fes­sion­al and orga­ni­za­tion­al advance­ment. Fer­nán­dez astute­ly dis­sects a broad spec­trum of errors and offers prac­ti­cal solu­tions to help man­agers lever­age their strengths and bypass poten­tial weak­ness­es. This book mer­its a spot on the shelves of both fledg­ling and sea­soned busi­ness lead­ers com­mit­ted to per­pet­u­al self-betterment.