Stop Managing, Start Leading | Hamza Khan | TEDxRyersonU

My name is Hamza and there are three things you should know about me: one, I was born in 1987: I love hip-hop and three, I am a horrible boss. I am a horrible boss because I used to be a horrible employee, apart from During my time in the Canadian Armed Forces, I have never fully cooperated with the rules of my traditional workplaces. The Monday to Friday 9 to 5 routine just isn't for me. I'll never forget the last time I got called for being late. At work it was very early in my career and I remember showing up one morning at 9:15am. m.

I casually walked in and found my boss standing next to my desk with his arms crossed tapping his watch and disapproving of Hamzah, this is unacceptable. I don't remember the last time you were here before 9:00, damn, good morning to you too, sir. Did I miss something now? Of course, I knew better. I've been connected to my work in a dozen different ways. I checked my calendar the night before. It had been on my email all morning, I had my notifications on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp or the internal messaging system. If my clients or my team wanted to contact me, they would have already done so and that's when my boss hit me with this Hamzah.

The stock market opened 15 minutes ago. What does my job have to do with the stock market? This was a marketing agency. I was doing graphic design. I saw what was happening. I was being sacrificed on the altar of office discipline. So I asked a rhetorical question. I did something. something happened that I should know about and of course they knew nothing had happened. I was on Twitter all morning and looking at the trending topics and the only thing newsworthy was that Kanye West and Kim Kardashian attended a Jay-Z concert the night before and That's when my boss hit me with this Hamzah, being late It's bad for morale, looks like you weren't doing your best around here ooh, that one stung, that one hurt and that was the moment I decided to drop the hint that it wasn't.

Producing because he wasn't physically tied to my desk was too much for my pride. Anyone who knows me knows that I am very productive. I'm an accomplished team player, but I apparently didn't look the part instead I went out with a dramatic bang. I left with a sneaky little whimper during my last two weeks at work. He arrived early every morning at 8:55 a.m. m. and I would sit at my desk and do one thing and Only one thing: I do movie marathons, yeah, naturally, I

start

ed with The Godfather, a great place to

start

. I got into Star Wars and what marathon would be complete without the extended version of The Lord of the Rings, of course, now every day I would leave at 5:00 p.m.

I

stop

ped by his desk at 5:00 p.m. and Hamzah said like this, great job. I literally sat there for eight hours and watched movies. I didn't do anything but that was enough for my boss and I swore from that moment on that I would never be managed again and managers have tried and managers have done it. They failed, had to modify their management strategies and approaches with me, and left me struggling with the following paradox: organizations that are growing and achieving scale require management; however, people, myself, don't like to be managed which begs the question Ken Millennials be managed or better yet should millennials be managed now I mentioned that I was born in 1987 and that places me firmly within the Generation And critics of my generation have been quick to dismiss me as a lot of things titled lazy disloyal unmotivated selfish and considering I quit my job over the fact that I couldn't be 15 minutes late every day, I guess you could say that some of those stereotypes They are true, but here's the thing: Generation Y now represents more than 50 percent of the global workforce, but we are made for the workplace of tomorrow because we grew up in an increasingly flat and connected world we were much more resourceful innovators agile entrepreneurs dexter agile I have buzzwords for Daisy the whole way we work and why we work is not fundamentally in sync with the expectations of the traditional workplace e.g.

I don't have just one employer, I have a portfolio of work, I don't have just one specialization, I have many, I don't stay in one place for long, I do duty shifts, I don't need in an office I'm connected to my work anywhere I can get Wi-Fi, so why do many of us still We are managed as if we worked in factories now if echoes of this particular configuration of workplaces go back a long time? It could quite well end in factories the Industrial Revolution this time in our history saw organizations achieve scale to manage this growth we have to choose managers well in fact the entire eight hour work day has its roots in this era social reformer Robert Owen proposed that we divide our work into three equal parts during a day, instead of three equal parts, eight hours of work, eight hours of recreation, eight hours of rest, as a way to regain balance between personal and work life, because at that time we were experiencing an adversarial relationship with our employers in the early 1900s management had been widely accepted and in the mid-20th century we began, for better or worse, perfect management, we began to develop theories about it and one of Those theorists named Peter Drucker began to notice something that was a paradigm shift.

He saw that we were moving away from the mere production of goods and the provision of advanced services to the use and manipulation of information. He coined the phrase knowledge work. was the one who said the most A valuable asset of a 21st century institution, whether corporate or non-corporate, will be its knowledge workers in their productivity and, therefore, what we need is a new management contract because, if considered That when all the value of an organization goes out the door, every night, the old command and control mentality is no longer going to work. The existing model does not make any sense.

It doesn't make sense for creative agencies. It doesn't make sense for startups. It doesn't make sense for think tanks. Has no sense. It makes sense for publishing, it doesn't make sense for any place where the next generation is trying to do creative work, business work, or information-based work, so why are we doing it well because of tradition? Tradition is easy. Tradition is comforting. Tradition is ultimately limiting. Innovation is doing things because that's how it's always been done, but let me tell you that doing things because that's how it's always been done is a horrible reason to continue doing anything, so it's up to managers to do it next. generation develop an approach to management with a distinctive Theory Y approach to understand and appreciate Theory Y, you must first understand and appreciate Theory They don't really like work, it's kind of like when your parents gave you chores when you were young or you cleaned the lawn, washed the dishes and you'd rather be doing other things.

The theory assumes just the opposite. Theory Y assumes that employees are ambitious, motivated, exercise self-control, and truly enjoy their physical and mental duties, and that, given the right conditions, an employer will operate within the framework of Theory Y and actually help. your employees achieve the hardest-to-reach part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that little dot at the top. of the triangle of self-actualization, but all of that happens under the right conditions, so what do those right conditions look like? Well, let me tell you how I operate my ships. I start from a place of one hundred percent confidence.

I provide my teams with their areas of responsibility they have their goals they have their deadlines and I assume that they are here for the right reason and that they want to work and that they will do a good job I provide them with physical space and otherwise now we have an office if you don't know physically wait for you to be there you can work from the office you can work from home you can be in Bermuda with your shorts on for all I care as long as the work is done on time and to a high degree of quality why what is there?

Any need for me to track your hours is dehumanizing, it's degrading, and I believe in co-creation. I believe in building things together. I'm just NOT going to assign you something. I hope you do it, much less do a good job. I would rather invest emotionally in the process of producing whatever we are producing and then I believe in leadership, this is something I have resisted for a long time, but my teams have told me time and time again that we need someone to be there . there is a delegate who will guide us and who will insulate us from the harsher realities of the organization and the industry, frankly, and I believe in the culture.

I think people want to show up at a workplace that doesn't feel like a workplace. that feels more like a community where you can be among friends where you can work with your whole being, something that I really learned and appreciated during my time at Ryerson sa and I think we need to create work that is conducive, create a workplace. that is conducive to doing excellent work and when all these right conditions are met, what happens? we do work we are proud of we are more creative we discover meaning and satisfaction we achieve a work-life blend and I hope we eventually achieve happiness I am optimistic about the next generation because not only can we break the cycle, but I believe we will break the cycle of doing things the way they have always been done and this will come from understanding a fundamental difference between results and products and this.

The quote in particular reminds me of this, it underlines these ideas very well. Antoine de saint-exupéry said that if you want to build a ship, do not call people to collect wood, do not assign them tasks or work, but rather teach them to yearn for the infinite immensity of the sea a focus on results over mere results now I managed my first creative team at the age of 21 and this is a particularly difficult team to manage, it was made up of student staff and anyone who has managed student staff and knows what a herculean task is to get them to part with their time, energy and attention, they have so much going on in their lives, the rigors of academia, the trials and tribulations of being a student, family, friends, co-curricular activities, other job opportunities and, if you are not careful to involve them intentionally what you get is a diminished capacity and therefore I intentionally had to become the lazy and fair manager that I am today, without any formal training or education or in fact I defer to the closest thing. blueprint available to me at that time the teachings of a man named Sean Carter some of you may know him as uh jay-z I have listened to all of his music I have read interviews I have seen interviews I have read books talks about him and I have always been amazed at the way that he has built Rock Nation, one of the most successful labels over time, he is a leader who leads other leaders, he leads people like Kanye West, Rihanna, Jay Cole, the list goes on and he does it with a focus distinctive in people, he doesn't just see the sun, he sees people, he sees a team of artists, people who are unique, have their own ambitions and want to be successful on their own terms, and he nurtures them and creates an environment. that he has all the conditions mentioned above, like Jay.

I work with people who want to make classic albums. I work with people who want to win Grammy Awards. I work with people who want to move forward and push limits. I work with people who are genuinely encouraged. From his work, I guess you could say I started the game on hard mode. One of the first people I had to manage was significantly older than me, more skilled and wiser, and naturally I was intimidated. He was 21 years old at the time. I barely could. handle myself how I was going to handle this person and that's how I handled it the best way I knew how I didn't tell him you're an adult and you're perfectly capable of handling yourself all I can really do is handle your flow. work and your priorities and if you don't agree with that, we can do amazing things together and that gave me the tailwind to manage my next creative team at the age of 24 at Ryerson University.

I managed Sigma. I managed a team of students that was significantly larger than my first team, in fact, it was so large that I don't remember a single meeting where we were all physically present. Sometimes I had to do the same meeting two or three times and each time there were disembodied heads around. at the table dialing in via FaceTime and Google Hangout and it was at that time that I really had to embrace using technology to foster a sense of community and collaboration and at 28 years old nothing has really changed. I am now

managing

a full-time staff. and imagine exactly the same

managing

them in exactly the same way I manage my part-time staff, my stay staff: recognizing their unique behaviors and expectations and not just meeting them halfway, meeting them all the way, modifying the way I work to adapt to them versus the other way around, now you're wondering if it's worked humza, this seems too good to be true, it's some kind of utopian YouTube workplace.

I mean, it's not without its pitfalls, but yeah, it works. I'm now on my fifth creative team. who have worked for me instead of with me, I have graduated and worked in places that are reputable organizations, large agencies,

leading

publications, media companies, we have won regional and national awards and, on the agency front, we have worked with clients from the beginning than some agencies. Don't continue until four or five years later, so yes, it works, but it begs the question of how it works. How did everything happen? With a lot of training, a lot of support and a lot of guidance from a man like Jay I. raise the bar I believe that if you want to do your best work if you want your team to do their best work you have to get the best out of yourself to get the best out of your team you have you get the best out of yourself i Don't stand behind my team and say "let's go." I stand in front of them and say "let's go." I think you have to fight for your team when people work with you, they want to know that they are working with someone who has their back who is going to stand up for them no matter what training and mentoring they provide.

I believe that if you are not learning you are stagnating and that is why I am always on the case of my team to develop myself personally, professionally and academically, and even if they exceed my wisdom and even if they exceed what I can offer them. I don't get territorial about it. I push them in the right direction. I help them find other mentors and other opportunities to grow and provide them with time and space. and resources I believe that your best work happens when a manager is not breathing down your neck and I offer you demanding projects.

These are these big bold projects that scare you and push you out of your comfort zone and I think that's where real growth happens. outside your comfort zone, that's where the real magic happens and last but not least I step aside, once I've empowered and motivated these teams I step back and watch them take flight and a particular quote from Jay Cole about his JZ men really helps underline that J never compromised or interfered with my creative process. There was never a moment where he was like, "I need to come in and play a big brother and show you how to do this.

He let me figure it out and it feels better to win like this now I want everyone to do something for me I want them to think of a leader in their life a manager a coach a teacher friend a family member someone who would call them for advice someone who would call them tonight and ask you for a favor they want your help with a project a task something you would do for them yes you would you would give them your best effort absolutely in fact I think you would go above and beyond the call of duty for them why because there is something about your relationship with this person that has put you in the right mental space to tell them something about yourself, something about you and about them that has put you in in the right conditions to do excellent work and now let's review the management paradox once again Growing organizations require management, but people don't like to be managed, so I ask what is the role of management for. the next generation if organizations existed in the era of execution to produce goods and acquire skills and if they existed in the era of experience, let's provide Advanced Services Why do they exist now?

Why do they exist in 2015? Why will they continue to exist? I maintain that they exist to provide complete and meaningful experiences not only for the end user, not only for customers, but also for you and me. teams, that's why I maintain that we are in a completely new era, the end of management and a refocusing on leadership at all levels, so what is the role of management for the next generation, absolutely nothing, how are we doing to get out of this. Catch-22 How will we dismantle this paradox? How will we

stop

doing things the way they have always been done?

We'll just stop managing completely and I guess this way yeah, I'm a horrible boss. I'm a horrible boss because I'm not a boss at all, I'm just a friend, I'm a mentor, I'm a comrade, I'm a resource, I'm a cheerleader and I'm a coach, and coaches don't play, they motivate and empower their teams to let them win championships and then stand back and watch them do it, so I challenge each and every one of you, everyone who has the privilege of managing the next generation, please don't manage leadership because you manage things and you get together . thank you people