Middle Management Meltdown: Are They Breaking?

Middle managers get blamed for everything, yet we keep setting them up to fail. 

Kieran Gilmurray and Laura Lawless  promote smart, capable people into leadership roles, then pile on performance management, feedback, meetings, reporting, and “just one more responsibility” without ever teaching the fundamentals or redesigning the job. No wonder even experienced managers admit they avoid the hard conversations until they absolutely have to.

TL;DR / At a Glance

• why capable managers avoid performance and feedback conversations
• defining what a manager is responsible for now
• reframing “soft skills” as operating skills that make work work
• why “better communication” often means clearer thinking and decisions
• AI changing the value of writing versus judgement
• moving from one-off workshops to practice loops and habits
• HR shifting from process owner to capability builder
• the time problem and the case for slowing down to speed up
• strategic subtraction using technology to remove low-value work
• three practical takeaways for leaders and HR teams

Kieran Gilmurray and Laura Lawless  unpack what a manager is actually for today: getting work done through other people, developing the team, and removing obstacles rather than being the hero-doer. 

From there, they dig into the skills that really move performance, engagement and retention. “Better communication” sounds obvious, but we challenge it: more messages do not fix unclear priorities, vague decisions, or inconsistent expectations. 

As generative AI starts drafting emails and feedback, the human edge becomes clearer thinking, sound judgement, and the courage to be direct.

Then Kieran Gilmurray and Laura Lawless get practical about leadership development and HR transformation. They argue for replacing tick-box training with operating standards for meetings, feedback and decision making, plus simple practice loops that build habits in real work. Kieran Gilmurray and Laura Lawless  also debate time, coaching culture, and strategic subtraction: if AI can do the admin, managers should not be doing it, and HR should stop being the fixer and start building capability across the business.

If you know the pain of meeting overload and constant “more”, this conversation will help you see what to remove, what to standardise, and what to practise so managers can lead well again. 

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Transcript

Why Middle Managers Feel Crushed

Kieran Gilmurray 0:03

Last time we talked, we talked about retiring the term HR. This time we're going to talk about middle managers. Now, maybe there's the initial challenge if we're expecting middle managers to be here. We may be slightly mistaken. Only on the basis that we seem to be putting a tremendous amount of pressure on is it underprepared, undercooked, overcooked, overworked middle managers? Where are that group sitting today, Laura?

SPEAKER_00 0:28

And I think that's that's the key word for me, Kieran, is the overworked or certainly the perception or feeling of being overworked. And we have continued, you know, this isn't a new phenomenon. We continue to expect people to lead, communicate, prioritize, you know, manage performance, give feedback. But the reality continues to be is that most people were never actually taught how to do any of these things. And we surprisingly have a we never taught people how to work properly problem. You know, I was working recently with a really, really great group of middle managers. They were super capable, really bright, really experienced, technically really, really strong in their area. And we got into a conversation about performance management, which, as we all know, and certainly from my own experience, as soon as the term performance management is so much as referenced, people have the ick. The back is up, people don't want to know about it. But we don't we weren't talking about the system, we were talking about the actual conversations, and people tend to get kind of hooked up on the systems, and that's what they focus on. But in talking about the conversations, one of these middle managers said really openly, I avoid these conversations unless I really absolutely have to. And it's not because they didn't care or because they weren't capable, but nobody had really shown them how to do it really, really well. And when we dug into it, it wasn't just performance conversations, it was prioritizing, giving feedback, running meetings, all the things that actually make work work. And Kieran, you and I have spoken about this before, where you know, we're certainly in the the my clients that that often it can feel for me that that it's very basic, the kind of skills and the kind of information that we share with people, and they lap it up. They want to know more about it. And and it does come down to that because those things that make work work, we haven't been teaching people how to do. And it really struck me, you know, we promote people, we expect a huge amount from them, but we rarely stop and say, Have we equipped them with the fundamentals to do that really well? And it is that word, fundamentals, and often we can perceive that as I suppose the dirty part of work, right? It's not that people aren't capable, but it's we're expecting a capability from them that was never built. So when we talk about performance issues, engagement, or even you know, leadership gaps, it is the question what's wrong with people, or is it what have we never actually taught them?

Kieran Gilmurray 2:50

Have we hired the wrong people? Like dig go back a little bit here because again, I worry that we're now having to uh mother or parent or father or they uh a group of highly paid adults who should know these things or should they?

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Well, organizations don't teach these skills for that assumption, they assume adults already have those skills. You know, so you're experienced, you've been promoted, you've been hired based off uh you know an amazing job description, uh an amazing capability framework or core skills. You should know how to do this. But the reality is that most people were never taught how to give feedback, they were never taught how to have difficult conversations, how to manage time reactively, and that can confuse activity with effectiveness. So we promote people into leadership roles and expect capabilities that were never really developed. You know, so should they be developed, or are we hiring people on the assumption that that skill set is there without actually measuring or checking that it is?

What A Manager Is For

Kieran Gilmurray 3:53

Well, we we've jumped in. So let's step back a little bit. What should what is a manager? If uh God forbid we have to go back to the very fundamentals, but what is a manager? What do we expect them to do? Because this middle management group have had a kicking for years, you know, the the the best thing ever, because we got the board and then we got the front line and we need someone to interpret it the worst thing ever because they're getting in the way of of the instruction and the actual real work. So draw back a little bit. What is a middle manager? What are we saying they're doing? And then what are we saying the skills they need are in 2026 to 2020 thirty? Because I'll I'll talk about World Economic Forum and what I think they need, but let's draw back a little bit before we kick them any further.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Okay, well, I think you know, in a very, very simple version, when we look at what a manager is and defining what it is, a manager is or should be someone responsible for getting work done through other people.

Kieran Gilmurray 4:54

So are we just very people? Are we well let's let's stay a little bit on that. So it a manager today won't know all the things that their team knows. And therefore, when I take it from a digital and AI perspective, I have leaders all the time who haven't got a clue what the word vibe coding means, what a prompt is, and therefore, if they're getting work done through their team, they're telling them what they should be doing in 2023, not 2026. And uh the second thing is the proposition that a manager is there, you know, to mind a team, grow a team, develop a team, coach a team, you know, remove obstacles, but not actually do the work themselves. Is that not something as well? Because that's maybe the conflicting bit. Because do I know what it means to be a manager? In other words, what's expected of me? Maybe that's not clear here at all.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah, but do I need to be told what that is and what the expectations are, or should I innately know that? And I think that's the argument that that we we are having and that we need to be having because the assumptions are being made without those questions being asked. And we know that, like if we look at research from Deloitte, you know, we could you mentioned coaching, coaching and developing people is now one of the most critical capabilities of managers. It really affects performance, it directly affects indeed performance, engagement, and retention. So managers are not no longer judged by just what they deliver, but it's how well their people perform and grow. So to your point there, that's that is part of the expectation or the the new or current definition of what a manager is. But are we telling people?

Kieran Gilmurray 6:23

Well, go back to what you're saying there, because I've seen, and maybe this is slightly biased experience, because I adore coaching, I'm a qualified executive coach, I made sure I was. Uh, when the rubber hits the road, it's can you please stop coaching and just get more output? You know, I I see a lot of that. And and we're talking about soft skills here, or what was traditionally called soft skills. Are we talking about still needing soft skills? Are we talking about operational skills? What are what are the skills that we think managers need today to allow them and their teams to be successful? And ultimately the organization.

Skills That Make Work Work

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Well, I think we need to reframe how we define those skills because historically we've always referred to those types of skills as soft skills or core skills. And they've become, in a lot of particularly bigger organizations, what we would describe as like off-the-shelf training programs where, you know, aligned to a core skills program, we have you know communication skills and delegating skills, and and I select to attend one of those, I tick that box, and that's great. I now have that skill, but we're not actually measuring any of those skills. So, in terms of the bigger picture and what matters to the organization, if we can't track those skills or we can't measure those skills, are they really important? So I think moving forward when we're looking from you know 2026 and beyond, you know, the coaching piece and people development, that's one of the critical skills that we will need. The also basic skills around communication and difficult conversations. Difficult conversations are one of the biggest gaps, and they've been identified as one of the biggest gaps for managers. And if we're looking at, say, that that concept that you mentioned at the start, the dirty world of work, you know, the most basic leadership skill of all is conversation, and it's still the least developed. So that is a skill that we will require going into 2026 and beyond, but it's a skill that we need to think about how we are turning the dial on that skill. So instead of having those off-the-shelf training programs, we look, we need to look at how we can embed that skill development into our day-to-day practices. And you know, we know that people say attention span has reduced significantly. So, what are we doing to amend our interventions in order to get the most bang for our book? You know, and a lot of organizations are turning to bite-sized modules, whereby you're looking at on-the-job training for 60 to 90 minutes or online bite-sized pieces of training that people can digest at a time that suits them. The other areas that we look at are the likes of decision making. And, you know, we know that our middle managers are they've been getting it kicking for years. They are drowning in meetings and reporting and admin. You know, the McKinsey report that was released there recently shows that they spend up to, I think it was about 35 to 40 percent of their time on non-people related tasks. So it's not just like basic time management, it's deciding what actually matters and stopping the rest and having the scope or the being given the permission almost to stop doing that the rest and focus on what actually matters. And it's something that that goes on.

Kieran Gilmurray 9:39

So let me challenge you. And again, that's my role in this. I know, I know. That's my role in this protocol. You bring the brains every challenges and the offerness.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

I don't know if we've got this balance right yet, Kieran.

Kieran Gilmurray 9:52

Yeah, we have. So we mentioned a moment ago, we need to teach people communication skills. Really? You're you're telling me that I need to teach a manager to talk. And the second one was we then need to assess it. What why the hell am I assessing this at all? I've given you the training, go and do the training. If I have to tell you and check in that you're doing the training, it becomes very parent child. You know, whereas if I put the right individual in the first place who uh I hope can communicate effectively in some shape, form, or other, I give them guidance and training. They should do it themselves without me having to check. And ultimately, you know, you control whether you're in the meetings or not. Elon Musk says if you're not adding value, just walk out. Then surely we need to take a lot more responsibility here for actually taking what we've learned and putting it into shape without HR having to go back and check that we've actually done it, because that that now becomes parent-child. The second thing is it's up to you to construct your own working week to make sure that you're actually delivering things that add value, not putting yourself into meetings and other routines that fill the week and feel comfortable because that's called activity, it's not called you know directed action or outcome-based.

Clarity Beats Polished Communication

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Uh, I love how you frame that. Despite your challenging uh position, I I I love how you frame that because you used, and I don't know if you noticed, you used the word should pretty regularly.

Kieran Gilmurray 11:17

I don't even listen to me, so I'm not expecting anybody else to, so don't worry.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Okay, uh my my uh antenna went up for the word should because you you did refer to that quite a lot. And yes, absolutely, they should be taught communication because we know that it underpins performance, collaboration, trust, all that great stuff that we need to have. But yet the research still tells us that it's one of the top drivers of disengagements. So we know that managers who communicate will drive higher performance and retention. So if this you know, the standard answer is always going to be of course we need communication skills. Everything runs through conversation. We know that, but maybe the problem isn't communication, it could be the clarity because you'll often hear things like, oh, we need better communication. But what we actually mean is maybe priorities are unclear, decisions are vague, you know, expectations are inconsistent or haven't actually been made clear. So people communicate more, great, but nothing really improves. So more communication doesn't necessarily necessarily fix for poor thinking. So a lot of training focuses on, you know, and I've delivered training on this myself around tone, phrasing, and you know, frameworks, more frameworks and more models, but avoids maybe saying the hard thing or being direct or making clear decisions. So we ultimately end up with polite conversations and a lack of clarity. And, you know, it can be sometimes a courage gap. People don't have the courage to speak up. They should have, but they don't, you know, and that I think is probably where AI is also, and I know we weren't going to maybe mention that, but AI is changing what good communication looks like as well, because AI can now, and we we've all been on the receiving end, or we've all been on the attempted drafting. I love when you talk AI because you lose me completely, but we've all attempted to use AI to draft emails or to structure feedback and suggest wording, you know, and the value might shift to how well you can write or phrase to how clearly you can think. And then the judgment piece that we mentioned last week, that then comes into play. So do we need communication skills? Yes, but not in the way we've traditionally taught them. It's not more polished, it's clearer thinking, okay, and better judgment.

Kieran Gilmurray 13:30

In defense of the AI club, uh, everybody notices really poor communication when it comes to AI. Funny, they don't call it out with people. And and uh, why I see some of that what you might call AI slop communication, so just doing it wrong. Because we have to remember, and this is a bit uh not in defense of machines, because I adore people more than technology. Uh, 34% of us are emotionally intelligent. Notice I put me in that as well, just to get me in. But I put all my content through my emails through through an engine to make sure that I'm not upsetting anyone. Uh, and therefore, you know, the the AI is the chance if we code it right and prompt it right and build it right, that will actually help all the things that you're actually describing, you know, structure a message, make it simple, focus on the audience and everything else. You know, so again, it it's it's in there and helping. But it is extraordinary that we're having to explain to people how to communicate with each other. And remember, now we're we're in a multi-generational workplace as well. Where you mentioned, you know, we need to verbally communicate when actually we do and we don't. I think that's where communication falls down, is that we're taught a framework of how to communicate. But actually, that we're becoming robots then. We're becoming the AI in the human machine because we're delivering it in a very standardized, formulaic way. Whereas the generation that's coming through to work actually don't talk to me. And it's not that I'm not communicating, it's just my communication style is different. It's called texting and it's called whatever. And it's different generations are going, why don't you just talk to me? And that generation's going, Why do we have to have a meeting? Because I've told you everything you need to know in an in a WhatsApp, in a in a text message. So I I challenge us uh with frameworks for a start, and that's why I worry. You know, we go back to what we said last week. Do we need to change HR? What you're describing to me is that the fundamentals are still the same. We need to communicate, we need to organize people, we need to manage people, we need to be, you know, we need, we need, we need. But somehow all of this is still not working. So if I push you a little bit and say, look, what how do we get what are the skills? Because I hear about agility, flexibility, analytical thinking, data, AI literacy. I also think people should have basic financial literacy at a level. But you know, I also hear about systems thinkers and I hear about self-awareness and I hear about incredible curiosity, all these things that are going to help us survive. You know, and all of a sudden I'm going, oh my God, even when I'm saying that, I'm thinking that's a lot in one beastie. And then you see a lot of organizations who, rather than using technology to allow great people to achieve more with more, more tech, more, more and better people, more and better outcomes, we're still making all the same fundamental mistakes that we've been making for years and we're still not moving forward. And now what you can do, by the way, this is the great one, is now we're going to give you more autonomy. You can now do your own HR, you can now do your own procurement, you can now do your own finance, and you go, okay, so when I do all that, at what stage of the day can I do the work that I was actually employed to do? Let's imagine this technology or something, and now I need 20 skills because the World Economic Forum have decided what those look like, I'm exhausted. So, so how are we going to help people that are listening into this podcast go, oh my God, I I I feel this pain, and and hopefully I'll listen to this on unless back because I'm too busy. So, what how do we actually train people and how do we actually structure these roles or businesses to allow managers to be really effective and to create organizations that work for everyone, particularly when we're talking about the change of pace, the change of agility that's required to meet uh multi-generational needs internally inside of the business, but make sure we're actually delivering a product or service that someone wants to consume in a new and digital way and communicate with them effectively to make sure the whole machine works itself.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Yeah, and it it's it's no challenge there, by the way. There's about there's about 20 questions there. You've got three minutes. Um well, I I I you know I I you know I love the generational topic, and you know I love to discuss ad nauseum the the I thought I'd give you the bone.

Kieran Gilmurray 17:38

I thought give me the bone.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

I'm not gonna go for it, I'm not gonna go for it. I I I've got too much um bashing over talking about the younger

Replace Training With Practice Loops

SPEAKER_00 17:46

generation. So all of those elements that you've just mentioned, I could discuss ad nauseum. And I think for coming from uh a training, a learning and development background, you know, the issue isn't just that we don't teach the skills, it's that I think currently looking at it, it's we continue to teach treat them as training topics. So we need better communication. You need to go into communication skills. We need better listening, you'll go into listening skills. We're continuing to treat them as training topics. So we haven't moved on for any generations in terms of moving away from that training topic approach and looking at it from a daily practice and separating them from, I suppose, real work because we're not actually embedding them in how the work actually happens. So if, you know, I and I come from the background where we had the soft skills, we had the core skills, I think we need to reframe how we actually define that skill set that we aspire to and those skills that we want to identify in the future organization. So, you know, more progressive organizations are reframing them as operating skills, i.e., how work actually gets done. So, what I would encourage listeners to do is to think about what they're doing and defining standards for running the dreaded meetings. As basic as it sounds, it is looking at the standards for running meetings, look at the standards for giving feedback, and look at the standards for decision making and build them into onboarding, build them into your promotion criteria, build them into your leadership expectations and tell people about it. You know, define what good looks like for three of those things, you know, a good meeting, a good feedback conversation, a good one-to-one, making it visible and making it expected. But again, it's it's the follow-through and it's the embedding piece, Kieran, that's different to what organizations have traditionally been doing, is that we we look for that movement in what people are doing and we hold people account. You know, you you mentioned earlier that we're accountable for our own, developing our own career. There is still that expectation of my organization telling me what to do and telling me what good looks like. And maybe we need to meet people in the middle here and make it visible, make it expected, but also hold people account. You know, so replace training with you know practice loops or habits. You know, we're moving away from workshops, and I'm doing myself out of work and saying this, but we need to move away from that workshop one-off training sessions. You know, often with clients that I work with, I will say unless there's follow-through or unless there's actually impact or value add here, I'm not going to engage in a tick-the-box exercise. We need to practice embedding into real work. And what that actually looks like, you know, is weekly practice. Okay. Give one piece of developmental feedback this week, run one meeting using a structured agenda and reflect afterwards what worked, what didn't work. I know it sounds basic, I know it sounds a little bit boring, but they are all practices that if we can embed them into our day-to-day interactions, they become the more the norm. They are the things that are gonna move that dial and have that operational impact, not that one-off training workshop. You'll case it.

Kieran Gilmurray 20:54

So who's gonna do that though? Because at worst here, Laura, I'm hearing I need a tick box that says this is what a good meeting looks like. Then I'm gonna go into a room, then I'm gonna assess you against those ticks to make sure you're doing it. And I know that's not what you're suggesting. So bring it to life for me because someone's gonna sit here and go, okay, I I love that feedback. Because I love feedback, mentorship, uh, coaching. I absolutely adore it. Others are more defensive, you know, and that could be just personal history, it could be the environment they're in. But bring it to life. I I'm now turning our HR people into executive coaches who are going to sit with me and and then feedback at the end of every meeting, is that what we're saying?

SPEAKER_00 21:31

I think in a real world, that that's that's not necessarily practical, you know, but it's looking at moving. It's

HR As Capability Builder Not Fixer

SPEAKER_00 21:40

not saying HR is the process owner, it's saying HR is the capability builder. So if you think of HR as having that coaching mindset, but it's not to, I suppose the key is making it real, and that's what you're supposed to alluding to there. But we're looking at a mindset, mindset shift. So we're advised. Peep-on-people issues, we're moving from that to coaching leaders through them. So it's providing leaders with executive coaching opportunities and changing how HR shows up in conversation. So instead of us giving them the answers, drafting the responses, fixing the issues, you know, providing them with that tick-the-box exercise, you know, we want to move from towards what outcomes are you trying to achieve? What conversations have you had so far? What's stopping you from addressing it directly? You know, one thing I've seen organizations do, which I think works really well, is having people champions within the business. So instead of having your HRBP or your HR exec coach, you have people champions within the business that are provided with that support, guidance, and coaching that can then live that in the business, show the business what good looks like and ask those more challenging questions. You know, giving a very simple coaching flow to them that wouldn't be like training heavy, you know. But if we think of like, and you've probably heard the phrase the coaching spine, where we're looking at clarifying the issue, creating ownership and committing to action. Allow your people champion to have responsibility for that within the business and stop HR doing the work for leaders, which we mentioned last week. We're looking at how we can build that capability within the business opposed to providing the solutions from HR. But do we have time?

Kieran Gilmurray 23:26

Do we have time? Because I I say this we've now got coaching champions, we've now got data champions, we've now got risk and governance champions, we've now got automation champions, we've now got you know when am I getting to do my job? I mean, that's and and by the way, folks, we want you to do all this in addition to your role. We're not carving out 20% so you can drive everyone else.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Most organizations will continue to struggle with, you know, fix it yourself. It's it's just faster today. Coaching or providing that kind of gentle guidance and input, it is slower today, but it will be faster in the long term. And the question then becomes are we prepared to slow down now to build capability that reduces workload later? And I think that's a question that organizations will have to ask themselves where they prioritize building that capability at that level to enable work to get done more effectively down the road. You know, and some HR teams don't have that time because they haven't stopped doing the work that shouldn't sit with us anymore, as we discussed last week. You know, that the elements that can be moved out of the HR remit and where you know we can add that value via the coaching approach, you know, HR may need to step in more directly, but coaching can still happen alongside alternative interventions or even traditional interventions. We don't have time not to coach, would be my line on it. We just haven't made that shift.

Kieran Gilmurray 24:56

Yeah, but here we're going back to so now I'm sure HR professionals listening into this and going, when am I going to get to do coaching? When am I going to get to create? I think this is a fundamental problem with organizations today. Notice

Strategic Subtraction With AI

Kieran Gilmurray 25:07

you and I haven't talked about any taking anything out. Uh and I am a massive fan before we put anything more into business to do something called strategic subtraction, which is we celebrate when we add more in, more AI champions, more business partners, more data champions, more, more, more. And all we're doing is layering and layering and layering on to an already exhausted workforce. Whereas this is the bit where I am a huge proponent of technology and the change management piece. So I think we'd need to redefine HR's role from administrators to if you're going to expect me to coach, okay, well, how are you assessing me? How do we assess our managers? All that needs to come into play. But I think you can use a lot of technology. And this isn't me removing the people. This is using brilliant technology to allow people to achieve more. So, for example, when I go into businesses, they all want the AI strategy. What I talk about is strategic subtraction about what is we're going to take away. How do we free up another seven hours a week? And everybody goes, You're never going to get a seven hour. I can get you an easy 10. It's it's not a problem using technology. So, for example, as I'm coaching someone, I can get AI in real time or post-event to give me an indication of how well I coached or didn't coach. I don't even need to do the coaching. Now, again, this is a very personal thing. I'm not sending you put technology at it, but I can put an agentic AI into your hand, and that agentic AI agent can watch everything you're doing, can give you, you know, feedback on every aspect of your role, and can provide that feedback as much or as often as you want. I can automate and digitize a whole load of roles to get those seven hours a week. I can teach you basic behavioral things, for example, how to optimize your working week in your diary, when are your best times and most productive times, how not to switch tasks and whatever. You know, so I'm a tremendous fan of doing that first before we start adding in champions here, champions there, champions the other. But notice even by giving you the seven and a half, ten hours back a week, not a problem, folks. It then comes down to, you know, the culture of the organization. Have we got a coaching culture? You know, it then comes down to, well, how are we then going to assess our HR colleagues? How do we get our HR colleagues to learn how to coach and mentor in the first place? And then when it comes to, you know, when you're talking about real life skills, well, coaching and mentorship is one thing, but how do I teach client centricity? How do I teach colleague centricity? How do I uh teach problem solvers? How do I teach people work ethic? Because let's be honest, you need a strong work ethic. And if you don't have it, I can't coach it into you. You know, you either will or you won't. How do I teach emotional intelligence? How do I teach AI, data analytics, financial literacy? You know, the the things I think the Swiss Army knife manager that we're expecting to have in place today plus run faster than ever before without taking something out means that I've ran my engine oil out about 200 miles ago, kilometers, if you're listening in from America, anywhere else, and now I want you to do more. So I I think we need a more fundamental rethink of HR. I think we need a fundamental rethink of management and structures. I think we need a fundamental rethink of how we're judging success. Otherwise, we're tinkering at the edges still, regardless of tech or whatever else. We're still tinkering at the edge edges in an age where we're demanding more. And I don't mean the good more, which is achieve more with more and better tech and more and better coaching and more and better leadership. So I still don't think we're actually solving anything for anyone so far. We've just said, here's more, folks.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Well, I would challenge you on that because I think when last week when we spoke about this and we talked about the idea of the traditional versus the future-focused HR, and we did land on the space of AI removing admin, for example, from HR that we continue to do. You know, that's certainly one space where AI is going to enable HR and is already enabling HR to free up time to focus on the value add, to focus on the coaching, to start building capability and step back. I do think that there is accountability here for HR because we are still holding on to those elements, despite the fact or the potential fact of AI removing those elements, we still have an innate need to hold on to those things. And we have a responsibility here to remove ourselves from ownership. And it's only HR that can remove that dependency. And we're still fixing it, we're actually going to be that bottleneck. So I actually would disagree with you in that that the space we have provided space for AI to take on, you know, writing feedback, managing everyday people issues, being uh exclamation points for everything. We cannot keep doing all of that. We need to start building the capability, but we need to relinquish the control. So we I think certainly a takeaway would be to question your position and question are you holding on to those elements that really we need to relinquish control of? You know, we can use AI to generate responses, but it can't replace judgment. So use AI where it makes sense, but we need to stop spending time on what I should do, summarize this policy. You know, AI can give us the words, but we need the judgment. So I would say to our listeners, is are you continuing to hold on to elements of HR that is no longer a value added, is no longer where you're building capability, and it is where AI or generative AI, whatever, whatever support is suitable in your position, can come in and take that away and free up your time to do what makes the difference. You know, we can continue to use AI to do the same thing and do it faster, well done, but nothing is going to change. If we can use AI to stop doing the wrong work altogether, everything is going to change. So I think that we are in a space where we need to educate ourselves as a HR population as to where AI can free us up, not where AI can keep doing the same work faster, because that is not going to bring any change. It's what can I suppose I I just really there's there we're banging our heads against a brick wall in so many ways because we know all of the things that we need to do, we know all of the things that spaces that we should be spending time on, and we will always revert to that. I don't have time to do this, I don't have time to do that. We do have time to do it if we can use tools like AI to remove those functions that we should no longer be responsible for and push responsibility back to the business for people leadership and support them in building capability.

Kieran Gilmurray 31:48

Yeah, I think I think that comes down to the fundamental piece, isn't it? That and again, I I always sort of oscillate between this a little bit. Uh and let me explain what I mean. I'm not a huge fan of making faster crap. In other words, you just put in to do the same old stuff. You've just done it a little bit faster. You can get home at night earlier, do whatever. In the over the long term. Now, in the short term, you know, to redesign what you're doing. So let's be honest, this is all going to take a little bit of time. You know, I need to go away and learn how to coach and mentor. I need to redesign our onboarding programs. I need to spend time, you know, not 20 hours doing admin, but I actually need to spend 20 hours working with management, my leadership team, coaching and mentoring those, you know, all the better. And again, I should be using AI to record the calls, to write up the notes, or more importantly, let the manager write up their own notes, take their own commitments, because again, I'm not doing that for you. But but in the long term, we need to redesign how we actually operate, you know, and I think that uh is not just uh HR, I think it's finance. Because I've heard the same thing coming from finance professionals, which is look, we're gonna give you more power, aka, we're gonna shrink our team because we're under pressure centrally at the budget. And I'm gonna say, yeah, we had 30 in finance, now we've only got 15. But what they've done is taken the 15 people's roles or work and handed to a manager who now needs to do their own payment, their own budget, all the things that they, you know, that is traditionally with a finance team. Now, I expect everybody to financial literacy when you're at a at a management level, but over the long term, I want an entire redesign of the operating system. Because if we're expecting 2020 firms to deliver in 2026, then it isn't just the technology, it isn't just the functions and departments that operate within those companies, but we need different ways of actually being constructed. So for me, instead of your traditional HR business, which typically for many is people services, HR business partner, COE, you know, I do want to use tech and AI as one tech to help people business problem solve, to make a business impact. And then that means fundamental reshaping roles like service managers, uh, problem solvers, product managers, uh, as the role of HR, because that's the series we're talking about at the moment, to allow the business to have the greatest impact, to free those individuals to have the biggest impact, to allow the organization to work in a way that it really needs to come into 2026 and 2027. And if we don't start to take action now, all of a sudden, businesses, which I think tend to, unless it's heavy, heavy construction where you do need to invest over years, have roughly got 18 month strategic cycles. And therefore it's going to take 18 months to get all of these you know new roles in place, like your vibe growth, market manager, your your you know, your people.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

You have used those terms again on me, the vibe coach.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 34:47

And I'm jumping on that because you know, I think you know, if for listeners, you know, is there is there a potential here to remove the term manager entirely? You know, some organizations are moving towards you know, capability leads because manager implies control, which we would have defined at the outset, not development. You know, is is there, you know, could our listeners today say, do you know what? Is there one thing that I could take away? What one thing could I take away from my managers this month?

Kieran Gilmurray 35:14

Yeah, but but this this goes well. I love that subtraction piece, which is look, how can I take something out to free the time? Now, again, I think here, look, we need to use technology to free people up to do the stuff that really matters. I'm a huge fan of well-trained, well-capable managers. I do think people have been put into roles that they're not suited to. But again, it's up to us to career path people, not just land them in a role because they've been there two years and we can't think of anything else to do. We'll chuck them a bit of skill, we'll give them a bit of finance work, we call that increased responsibility, uh, and claim it as job enrichment when in fact it's job enlargement. But how do we what are we going to send people away with to today? What is those two or three things that they need to do?

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Well, you know, I I like to think in threes. So

Three Takeaways And Closing

SPEAKER_00 36:00

for me, the three things would be if the role is broken, stop training it. Stop sending your managers on courses instead of fixing the job you've designed. Okay. Managers don't need more skills. We know that they need less to do. Overload is the real performance issue, not capability. If AI can do it, managers shouldn't be doing it.

Kieran Gilmurray 36:24

Unless it's emotional, if it's recording meeting notes and doing all that type of stuff that AI is bred to do, then we can free up time to allow managers to achieve more.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Yeah, we we didn't design the manager role, but we've just kept adding to it.

Kieran Gilmurray 36:40

Massively agree. So we take stuff out, we practice subtraction. Again, that may involve other teams taking things back, finance taking things back, procurement taking the role and roll back, HR taking, you know, whatever. I know, radical here to free them up. Let me try and summarize where we got to. So, like poor middle managers have a lot going on, probably far too much. Use the technology where it makes sense, but we need a fundamental redesign of roles, managers and the others to allow us to actually free people up to do the job that matters. I do think at some stage we probably need to sit down and and ask the audience, you know, what what are the skills that you think you need in managerial roles and how would you go about getting them? You know, managers who are people coaches, who are highly emotionally intelligent, who have a wide range of skills, they're the thing that's actually going to make the difference in the organization.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

And do you know that they want to be in that role?

Kieran Gilmurray 37:36

Ah, and that's and not the they need to be because of promotion. And my one is this, and I've said this many a time before, and it'll seem odd as an absolute business technologist. I I fundamentally position myself as that. Only like tech that works. I wish we prepared our managers. I wish we spent as much time talking about our managers, I wish we celebrated great management, great coaching, great leadership, as much as we do technology. If only we invested a fifth of what we're putting in AI into creating great people to give them the skills that they need, then for me, managers are 10x multipliers, some teams are more. Here, here train one manager, you'd be amazing. Give them the tools, the training, the capability, skills, whatever else they need and want and should have, and let them loose. And imagine then what your organization is going to be. Because this is an age of AI. Not that AI is the age of the defining thing, it's an age where AI is getting a lot of attention. The skill and the capability that's being enabled by that is absolutely fantastic. But we're still talking about all the fundamentals. Great leaders make great teams, we make great businesses, and that's the bit we need folks to concentrate on. Thank you very much for listening in. Next week we'll cover off intergeneration, and we might use the word intergenerational conflict and then tear that apart ourselves as well. Laura, until next week.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

We're looking forward to seeing you next week. Thanks, Amelia. Take care.

Kieran Gilmurray 38:59

Thanks, everyone.