8 PRODUCER MANAGERS: HOW CONTINUED FOCUS ON BANKING…
147
It is a characteristic of many producer managers that they never seem to have enough time. The enormity and variety of tasks facing producer managers can be overwhelming. They have their position because they are very good at their job, certainly at the production side. So they are much in demand, internally and externally. They never have enough time. And if they do not have enough time, they have to prioritise, consciously or unconsciously. And production gets priority because that is where the money is, for the bank and the banker. The bankers leading the large deals are generally producer managers, responsible for managing anything from their own small teams to large divisions and even country operations. The time conflict within each producer manager strongly favours the production, and it is common that management is done last, if at all. Any requirements from clients have an immediacy that management requirements often lack. The short-term timing requirements can be so overwhelming that even the toughest investment banker finds it hard to also carry out the medium-term, significantly less time-sensitive management tasks. If a banker does not win a deal, the bank’s top executives will hear about it and react. If the annual assessment of the banker’s team is late, human resources is likely to chase. There is no comparison in the seriousness of these two reactions for the producer manager. The internal conflicts on how to prioritise time become particularly acute in times of crisis, when clients’ needs are likely to be at their most intense. This is also when the management requirements are at their most demanding, such as leadership and setting an example for younger, less experienced people, let alone taking strategic decisions for the bank. So while a producer manager is the only type of manager that is credible to other professionals, this is of little value if the production responsibilities prevent the very best management in times of crises. This is where the producer manager approach can cause absent management at the most critical moment. The need to pay attention to short-term client and market production issues also means that medium- and long-term strategy may not get the attention required. The discussion within Salomon, for close to a decade, to improve the incentive plans to take account of risk, had never been implemented. The low priority for this complicated management task was probably a reason for this lack of implementation. Another reason production tends to win the most attention from the producer manager is client focus. The importance of client focus is often paramount in all types of professional management service firms, and
