Next to the Cannon
I am not a manager, but I am happy to work on a team or manage projects. To me, being a manager means I have a direct report and am responsible for their hiring or firing. That has always been an idea that fills me with anxiety, though I couldn’t explain why until I read this great essay that I saw pop up in a few places weeks ago. Read it and let me know if it resonates with you, too. I’ll wait.
I love this: “Whether or not you think about the cannon, the cannon is there. Good managers are aware of the cannon. Great managers are aware of the cannon and aware that their reports are aware of the cannon.”
I think the cannon idea applies to many facets of life, most notably work because the power dynamic is clear. But there are smaller cannons in other places, too, whenever there is privilege or power. You can’t always explode someone else’s life. Still, you can explode their day or their feelings, and being mindful of the cannon is part of being an excellent human who builds trust by preparing people before a cannon goes off (or that it will not go off without ample warning). It means understanding how we have the potential to impact other people and moving carefully and clearly.
1 comment
I like this idea, especially as you extend it to our lives in general. Being mindful of how things look to others is always important.
I’ve certainly seen an example when a manager was aware of the cannon, their report was aware of it, but they both just talked around it, without addressing the key issues. (It got booted upstairs, and I had to deal with it. Argh. Lucky me!)
Another example showed that, as a manager, sometimes you can do everything right, and the cannon still rules everything. Years ago, I asked for a salary review of a particular role that I managed, because it seemed drastically and historically underpaid given its responsibilities (for personnel, financially, etc) and recent growth. Whilst the incumbent said they understood, they still found it very stressful, even when I emphasised that they would not find their role would be in any way affected detrimentally (I had the authority to ensure that). All they could see was the cannon, and it didn’t matter what I said, no matter how careful I was. In the end, they were happy with the results, could see that what I had said would happen – it would be consultative, open, beneficial, etc – is what did happen, and that they had worried unnecessarily. Still, that damn cannon had loomed over them. So I’m even more aware of it now.
(Oops, sorry for the long-winded waffle!)
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