Task Relevant Maturity is a concept that helps the leader to understand how much they should monitor their subordinate and guide them.
“How often you monitor should not be based on what you believe your subordinate can do in general, but on his experience with a specific task and his prior performance with it — his task-relevant maturity… as the subordinate’s work improves over time, you should respond with a corresponding reduction in the intensity of the monitoring.” —Andy Grove, High-Output Management
One of the mistakes I made (not a big one but an operational mistake) was giving one of the team members work they had never done before and leaving them alone there while thinking that they were working as senior engineers and should be able to work autonomously and drive the project forward. Even though they delivered projects before, their task-relevant maturity (TRM) was low. They never worked on projects with ambiguous business analyses. Most of the things they worked on were clearly defined and scoped, and all they had to do was ensure it got done; most of the tasks were on the technical implementation, not on figuring out the business rules. In the new project, their TRM was low, and they needed more guidance from me, their manager. Yet, I didn’t adjust my working style according to this and let them struggle. At first, this was unclear to me as we still get to know each other. However, there were many signs that told me to be more involved.
My learning from this situation is to adjust your involvement according to the TRM of the person. If they are the master of similar work and have done it many times, then I don’t need to be involved. However, if the work is new to them, I should try handholding in the beginning and reduce the amount of involvement later on.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach at any given time to lead team members. Instead, careful planning considering people’s TRM is a must. The leader should play on people’s strengths, give them tasks that they are using those strengths, and occasionally give them work where their TRM is low and ensure that they get good support while learning it. Playing to people’s strengths will help with morale, and they will better learn and grow.
The last piece of the puzzle is adjusting one-on-ones. When people’s TRM is low, handholding requires more frequent one-on-ones and changing the content of the one-one-one to a more guiding mode. If the TRM is medium on the task the engineer is working on, the one-one-one frequency can be much lower, conversations can go more bidirectional, and the emphasis can be on support and mutual reasoning. When the TRM is high, the manager’s involvement should be minimal, and the engineer can do most of the talking while the manager helps to establish objectives and how to monitor goals.
- Related Note(s):
- 3: Being a Team Manager and Manager’s Job;
- 4: Monitoring Work of Direct Reports;
- 5: Managing Promotions;
- 12: Engineer Autonomy;
- 14: Experiences are like compound interest on money;
- 24: Strong teams are motivated by goals;
- 22: Cross-Cultural Communication;
- 33: Elevating Others Around You;
- 37: Setting Organizational Goals and Processes;
- 56: Structuring Teams in Organizations;
- 61: What to delegate?;
- Mektup #53;
- Source(s): Task Relevant Maturity Management Concept Great Leaders use;
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