释放一线管理人员的潜力（Release the potential of line managers）A retail manager is responsible for an annual turnover of over $80 million, an airline manager manages annual passenger volume of over $160 million, and a bank manager handles more than 7 million customer inquiries annually. They are not corporate headquarters executives, they are behind the line employees, but very important managers.In almost every company there is a line of managers who are particularly important in industries that have distributed networks, offices, and staff. These industries - such as infrastructure, travel and logistics, manufacturing, medical and retail industries, including restaurants and retail banks - account for more than half of the global economy. Their regional or regional managers, shop managers, field or factory managers, and line managers lead up to 2/3 of staff; and the part of the work they are responsible for usually determines the quality of the customer experience. Most of the time, however, these managers are like some of the smallest gear in the enterprise operating system, and they have limited flexibility and little room for innovation when making decisions.In most of the companies we have met, the job of a line manager is to manage only a limited number of direct subordinates, who usually act as organizational coordination roles and convey information from the upper levels to their employees. Such managers stare at specific matters, carry out plans and policies, report operational results, and report promptly if problems or problems arise. In other words, their job is to convey the decision, rather than making decisions, is to ensure that policies are adhered to, rather than the use of judgment or discretion, and certainly not the policy is to supervise the implementation of improvement measures, rather than with ideas, they are not even the implementation of improvement measures to improve the measures implemented by the workers.According to our experience, this operating mechanism reduces the productivity, flexibility and profitability of an enterprise. However, the situation is likely to change. Flexibility and productivity have produced strong financial returns in companies that have succeeded in delegating to front-line managers. In a convenience store retailers, for example, the company will work in time reduced by 19% to 25% at the same time, increasing the total sales of nearly 10%. of the convenience store is to achieve this performance through the following measures: the store manager in administrative affairs spend half the time; re adjust store manager and staff the work will focus on the most relevant and customer field, for example, store cleanliness and Cashier additional sales; the development of performance indicators are easy to understand, and ensure the store manager on a daily basis have enough time for staff guidance on these indicators.The key is that the work adjustment of first-line managers, the special case of time, have the ability to solve in shops, factories or mines, and anticipate problems before problems occur, to eliminate, and encourage employees to seek opportunities for self improvement. In the economic downturn, improving employee productivity is more important than usualCurrent situation of line managementFor all the ability to release the team, any level managers must spend a lot of time in the following two tasks: one is to help the team to understand the significance of the companys development direction and the direction of the development of team members, two is to guide the team in terms of performance. In the current line of management, these two tasks have been done very little. In various industries, first-line managers have 30% 60% of the time spent on administrative affairs and conference, 10% to 50% of the time spent on non management activities, for example, travel, training, vacations, special projects, directly engaged in customer service or sales person etc. They actually spend only 10% to 40%. on managing front-line employees, such as direct coaching staffEven at these times, managers are often not really mentoring front-line employees. For example, our survey of retail regional managers shows that much of the time they spend on front-line employees is actually spent on auditing, meeting standards or solving urgent problems. In some of the companies we surveyed, regional managers spent only 4% to 10% on the coaching team, only 10 minutes a day. In other words, retail regional managers spend only 1 hours each month working on the next level of staff, the store managers important position.In our experience, neither business nor its front-line managers usually have higher expectations. What about coaching? says a regional manager of a professional retailer with thousands of stores Good shop managers should know exactly what to do. Thats why we hired them. A shop manager at a global convenience store retailer told us