Recognising the 'seagull' style of management isn't difficult when you are on the receiving end, but the manager who has just 'dropped by' is often unaware of the disastrous effect their trip has had...

"Business travellers were always seen as 'strangers', local staff talked about 'seagull management' The business travellers were seen as flying in, screaming around, having lunch, 'dropping something' and flying out". (Global Effectiveness)

According to intercultural specialists Global Effectiveness, they are the bane of every expatriate – head office honchos, or seagull manager. A manager who only interacts with employees to criticise their work or when a problem arises), who pay lightening visits to their subsidiary locations, usually staying just long enough to ruffle feathers and create unnecessary tension, worry and work. Not only does their presence stop productivity in its tracks, the need to justify these expensive tours requires needless 'process improvements' and 'reorganisation platforms'. Yes, a steaming pile is usually left behind as they fly off to parts unknown.

Management guru Ken Blanchard first coined the term 'seagull management' in his bestseller, The One Minute Manager, and management nemesis Dilbert has also made use of it, to great hilarity.

Once the laughter has died down, however, it somehow no longer seems as amusing for many expatriate managers, addressing as it does one of the dreaded realities of every expatriate's overseas experience: the Head Office visit. Part supervision and inspection, part patronising self-promotion and part gin-soaked junket, the whirlwind tour is not only expensive, but instead of contributing to productivity it actually undermines it with effects that can last for months.

Bob (not his real name) has been attached to the Singapore office of a large multinational distillery for the past 18 months. In this time he has had to host visits from his Netherlands-based employer on no fewer than seven different occasions. "Not surprisingly," says Bob, "the majority of these visits were in the European winter season."

And what is the usual agenda for these visits? According to Bob, they have to find a plausible reason to justify the trip. "It has been, variously: communicating a worldwide reorganisation plan (which could have been done by email); staff training (absolutely could have been better-arranged internally); 'correcting' a perceived management audit error (they were wrong); preparing for the year-end financial report (our staff knew more than they did) and, my personal favourite, my own annual performance review (they could have flown me to Europe instead!)”.

In times of economic prosperity these lightening visits are viewed as fairly benign time-wasters. In a period of belt-tightening and recession, however, it is almost impossible to explain to one's local staff why it is acceptable to make these expensive international visits on the flimsiest of pretexts — hence the 'screaming around' and 'dropping' aspects of the visit. It is imperative that there appear to be justification for the trip.

Seagull managers are not renowned for contributing positively to the subsidiary's operation: indeed, another popular definition is 'manager who comes in, makes a lot of noise, eats all the sandwiches and flies out, leaving s**t everywhere'. And guess who gets to clean up? Says Bob, "it usually takes a few weeks to calm everyone down after these visits, and I've even had staff members who were so offended that they quit shortly afterwards."

What can be done to eliminate the toxic effects of this remnant from the past? These visits could, indeed, serve a useful purpose, but that positive reinforcement element is often missing from the equation.

According the guru Blanchard, "the most frequent response people get to their performance is no response at all. Then a mistake or screw-up happens, and the manager swoops in with a vengeance."

Also, if you have a reputation as a seagull manager, according to Blanchard, "you can't just say, 'you know, I just realised I've been a seagull manager. I'd like to create an environment where we can catch people doing things right and accent the positive'. If you suddenly start praising people, they'll think 'I wonder what he wants'."

Smart managers first request truly risk-free 360-degree feedback from their employees, and then act on their recommendations and suggestions. According to Bob, "All they have to do is include us in the planning."

So what is the right way to do it? Author Scott Clark in 'the Miracle of Morale-Building' notes, "When operating in (seagull) mode, executives focus on finding people to criticise but never balance their efforts with finding an equal number of employees to praise.

Counteract this tendency by spending time trying to catch employees in the act of doing something right, and praise them accordingly. This will improve morale for all your workers. If you focus only on being a seagull manager, your employees will cringe at the sight of you, will do only the minimum effort to get by and will tell all their friends to avoid your business."

September 2004

Mary van der Boon is Managing Director of global tmc international in the Netherlands. She is online faculty for the University of British Columbia's Certificate in Intercultural Studies, and a member of the European Institute for Managing Diversity.