Relationship and Task Management
There are many management styles, ranging from delegative to paternalistic.
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However, there are two management styles that align easily with AI-driven patterns. Task management focuses on the primary reason why a team exists. Usually, this is a clear goal to achieve or a set of repetitive tasks to carry out every day. Relationship management, on the other hand, focuses on maintaining and realigning the hierarchy in line with changing requirements and personnel changes.
The most advanced teams I have ever worked with did not need much management, requiring only a basic delegative style. What makes a team advanced? Usually, these are professionals who possess strong on-the-job skills, whether gained through experience or certification. Such unified knowledge allows them to interact seamlessly. Such teams usually draw from a large enough community that team members can be selected somewhat randomly. This allows for easy switching of roles or locations, making everyday work a passion instead of a necessity. A job type with a broad market brings stable wages and less reliance on other perks.
Our economic approach shows concerns regarding relationship-style-based management. Economies of scale oftentimes necessitate larger organizations for complex products, such as app store platforms. Building a hierarchy involves a collaboration cost, reducing the potential wages compared to a purely random selection of employees. Some employee roles are dedicated to facilitating communication and decision-making. Simply raising a salary above the average can provide motivation to align with organizational goals. The potential cost of losing the role helps ensure loyalty.
Oftentimes, the niche nature of a product disallows high compensation, as is sometimes the case in manufacturing. A few high-tech companies opt for the kind of automation and robotics. Others replace monetary compensation with stock options, a common best practice. Stock options and bonuses provide incentives for positive behavior that aligns with company goals. This is oftentimes better than pure cash compensation or short-term incentives.
The age of digital assets highlights other issues with using titles and badges as compensation. Titles and ranks used to be the de facto standard for motivation. They are cheap, represent a different work environment, and can even be used to find a new job outside the company. Titles also support continuous learning. Learning is change, and emotions accompany change.
Our analysis showed that learning is closely related to emotions. Emotions drive us to learn more or less, or to spare time to consume and organize what we have learned. Attaching emotions to titles supports on-the-job learning. The caveat is that this often replaces monetary compensation. Learning becomes a form of virtual security, with expectations of future cash rewards.
This is oftentimes a myth, similar to situations in traditional security markets, especially concerning cryptocurrencies. Consequently, relationship management carries a higher risk associated with these titles and perks. Each expectation has an associated risk. Employees who rely too much on long-term results are oftentimes prone to burnout. This occurs when they face reality.
This brings us to a model similar to AI training. Imagine a training process where team members answer questions until they learn a concept. Team members will slowly progress along a curve until they reach a level where they become contributing members of the team. Allow insufficient time for a team to ramp up, and team cohesion will suffer; the members will be underfit relative to each other. Task execution slows down. This is an issue that task management addresses.
Relationship management goes further when the team spends more time together. As questions arise, such as 'What is the team color?' or 'What is our mascot?', the team starts to diverge from the general public. An emotionally overfit team will answer questions collectively, such as identifying last quarter's successful project or naming an external employee they dislike. This is when professional management needs to remain alert.
Both relationship and task management deal with team cohesion issues. They can do a lot of good or harm if not exercised well.