What is Slow Management?

Henry Mintzberg: “I’m not a human resource, I’m a human being!”

Slow Management is a reaction to the cold, Anglo-Saxon management style, aimed at maximizing shareholder profit, supported by model-driven optimization, output maximization, cost-cutting, and short-term goals.

Slow management advocates a new form of management that emphasizes quality, job satisfaction, trust, creativity, and authenticity. Slow management promotes a way of working with attention to craftsmanship, autonomy for the professional, encouragement of diversity, and respect of the human individual. The term Slow Management is derived from Slow Food. Slow Food is an alternative to mass-produced fast food. Like Slow Food, Slow Management focuses on quality, authenticity, human scale, and natural form of being. In Fast Management organizations, the employees are obedient to the system/organization; human resource management is part of the toolkit of the managers. Within Slow Management, the organization supports the professionals; the professionals are setting the pace and tone of the organization. That’s the key difference.

Traditional management methodology is failing

Traditional organizational structures and management methodologies are failing. This is not surprising, since the fundamentals of traditional management are still based on “Principles of Scientific Management” (Taylor, 1911). This method reduced humans to one of the resources needed to produce goods and services. In this theory, the goal of Human Resource Management is to maximize the output of these resources. Just as factory farming (intensive animal farming) has resulted in negative effects on quality, safety, and animal welfare, intensive human farming has resulted in low work quality, uninspired working morale, burnout, and disconnection to common working morale. The office cubicle is the most visible excess of human Factory Farming.

The only way to survive in these Anglo-Saxon organizations is to maximize profit by standardizing working methods. The economy of scale is the way forward, and more management layers are introduced. A vast number of procedures are implemented to make sure all activities are executed according to their design. Guidelines are enforced to account for all tasks. And finally, all activities produce metrics to support vigorous reporting and performance indicators. These models are constantly failing; the origin of the economic crisis is the best proof of this. Office workers find it difficult to see the added value of their own activities or even refuse to deliver the input for the requested metrics. This model is broken and needs to be replaced by something more sensible.

Slow Management as the basis for new economic models

Current economic conditions require a new form of management that helps organizations to be agile enough to change with the fast-changing market demands. A new method supports the growing need for creativity, work ownership, and corporate entrepreneurship of the individual workers. Also consider Slow Management in the light of the rising demand for creative, highly skilled professionals. These workers are not only motivated by the financial aspect of their work. They also consider personal appreciation, recognition, creativity, fun, purposeful work, and some form of spirituality important when choosing an employer. Organizations practicing Slow Management are more likely to entice and keep these valuable talents.

What is the basis of Slow Management?

In practice, there are 9 valuable principles behind Slow Management. Let’s explain them in a bit more detail below:

1. People are the most important factor

You are working with humans, also when you are a manager. Humans are able to make or break your day. Do not consider them as resources. As a manager, you have to value them as the most important aspect of your work. The workers you employ are smart (otherwise you had not employed them) enough to think about the most optimal way of organizing their own work and think about improvements. Make sure the people in your company have purpose and meaning in their work. As a manager, you have to inspire them with your vision and focus on outcomes, not on a finely detailed process.

2. Focus on quality

Quality is more important than quantity. Quality makes people happy, makes your customers value your product, and makes your employees proud of their work. Most of the focus on today’s processes is on quantity. This produces high-volume, low-cost products. And if the product is rubbish at least it is cheap rubbish. Most management metrics are based on quantity and this is also reflected in the management actions. Steering on quality will focus on a whole different set of competencies and outcomes. Take as an example the vision of Steve Jobs when he wanted to create the “best mobile phone”. Quality is not limited to the product; it also applies to the process and environment. The production process must be designed to enforce quality in the product. Consciously ask yourself “is this the quality I want to offer to my customers or to myself? “. This might result in surprising observations and results.

3. Support the power of the professional

Support people in their professional expertise. Within your company, they are the most knowledgeable people in their field. Make sure you empower them with the means to make decisions about their own work and respect the outcome. The most common mistake is to hire an external expert to resolve an internal issue. This consultant delivers a costly report with, best-case scenario, the same advice you could have gotten for your own employees. Invest, support, respect, coach, and train them to be the best professionals in their field.

4. Freedom and entrepreneurship

Give your workers the freedom to make their own decisions in how to execute their work. Let them decide how to spend the budget on, for example, training, tools, or marketing. Encourage them to be entrepreneurial in their decisions and let them be creative in their way of working. Give them enough freedom and empowerment to make business decisions about their work. Coach them to be more entrepreneurial and respect their decisions. Be amazed at what you will get in return.

5. Focus on long-term value creation

Aim your focus on long-term value creation and not on maximizing short-term profit. This does not mean it is not important to make money, but you have to be able to make money in the future aswell. Invest in things that make your company better, and invest in things that make your co-workers like the things you do. Focus on sustainable value creation. Activities exhausting your business environment (both natural, social, and economic) will eventually backfire on your business.

6. Rules are supportive, not controlling

Deregulation is essential for creating a stimulating workplace. The only rules should support the work, instead of preventing creativity and entrepreneurship. Controlling rules that do not add value to your business are only costing you money and frustrating your employees. Make sure the active rules are supportive of Slow Management. This can be limited to some basic rules to organize the day-to-day business, and some rules necessary to maintain a safe work environment. Take a close look at the current set of enforced rules and envision what will happen when they disappear. In most cases, there will be no difference or even relief and rise in productivity. Less is more.

7. Trust each other

Trust the people you are working with. Trust them to do their best work. In the past decades, we have learned to trust in processes and work instructions by experts and not in our own judgment. This makes workers somewhat helpless. With trust, you can activate thinking in the workplace. This makes people more conscious about their work and more responsible for the end result. And for all managers: let go of your tendency to micro-manage, sit on your hands and be amazed at the end result.

8. Spirituality in the workplace

We need to create direction, significance, purpose, and meaning of the day-to-day work. Try to make it not only about the end result and give it more meaning. Give the work more spirituality. Leave the “what” and “how” of the day-to-day work and focus on the why. Organizations giving a sense of spirituality to their long-term goal will radiate this on all of their products, customers, and employees. This is a very powerful means of communication and marketing. Make sure this is honest and truthful.

9. Show the way, walk the talk

And finally, as a manager, you have to be the “Slow Leader”. Walk the talk and lead by example. Show what you mean and make sure you are the example for the whole organization. Give room for experiments, entrepreneurship, and even some errors. Your interpretation of the norms of the organization is to be perceived as the minimum to comply with. Take the time to appreciate, respect, and value your employees. Make sure you are exemplary in this and show the way to go forward.

It is my opinion that the theory of Slow Management is the way to implement sensible management in the 21st century. But there is a lot to do to empower new and upcoming leaders with this insight to organize work on a human scale. This is quite difficult since most of the management education and trainee programs are still based on scientific principles from 100 years ago. I want to urge future managers not to see their colleagues as resources but as humans. And act accordingly. It is definitely worth it.

You will know when you apply this in practice. You have to manage slow to go fast!

Parts of this article are inspired by the Dutch Slow Management movement (www.slowmanagement.nl) and Jaap Peters, Slow Management Ambassador (www.jaappeters.nl). Image from Jacques Tati’s Playtime.