William H. Peace worked at Dictus Consulting as an independent consultant of management when he wrote this article. The article “The Hard Work of Being a Soft Manager” was written in 1991, but the conclusions the author of the article do remain up-to-date now.
The article under consideration represents the reader with the work of Soft Manager, his responsibilities and obligations, the difficulties which occur in the work of Soft Manager. The author starts the article with the definition of what the notion “Soft Management” means. We get to know that Soft management is not so simple a job as it could be imagined. Soft manager “takes the heat for difficult decision and give unhappy subordinates a chance to unburden themselves at their expense” (Peace).
The author tells about his personal experience as the Soft Manager in the article. The given examples, the Piece’s stories told by him, help the reader to understand the idea of Soft Managing deeper.
The first story is about lay-offs when Peace worked as a manager of the Synthetic Fuels Division of Westinghouse. There were some problems and the company had to discharge people on grounds of staff reduction The example represents the reader with Peace’s desire to meet all the employees and tell them the bad news. Peace wanted to tell the true financial position of the company and to allow everybody to ask him why they were discharged, to give people the opportunity to show their anger and disagreement to their employers.
The very work under the lay-off list was hard, and the meeting with those people worse. When all was done, Piece recollected in his mind the reaction of discharged people for a long time. But Piece was sure that it was important to tell that news personally.
When the time passed and the company was able to hire new people, Peace turned to those employees who were discharged, and they returned. Some of them even gave up their jobs. So, Pease understood that personal communication is very important in the work of a Soft Manager.
The author gives the example of his boss, Gene Cattabiani, who gained some success in his sphere with the help of his ability to get along with people. During his work, the union was organized, which “represented the entire hourly workforce” (Peace). This union was very unfriendly and refused to come into negotiations when the time dictated some conditions, the costs should have been cut. Gene decided to provide a strategy of respect, honesty, and openness. Lots of people did not believe in that strategy, but it worked.
So, the author concludes that openness and vulnerability should be the essential parts of the character features of the Soft Manager. He emphasizes that not all people could accept vulnerability as part of their character and tried to get rid of this feature. Peace thought that absolute control and complete charge of the situation could be very uncomfortable in the communication with people.
Peace had a great experience of communicating with people and knew for sure that the ability to listen to the opponent’s arguments and complaints, the understanding is much better than total control within the relations between employees and employers. Personal qualities are very important in the work of a Soft Manager.
Works Cited
Peace, William H. “The Hard Work of Being a Soft Manager”.