Office-Office: Management by Instruction

(Picture Source: www.dilbert.com )

Ever noticed how slick the emails from your boss read. “Share marketing plan for next 6 months in the next 30 minutes.” No, don’t look through the inbox. This is the first time the vocabulary has ever been used.

“Submit report by 2 a.m.” That may just be a conservative estimate considering the monstrosity you may have to deal with. Rest assured the boss will get his sleep and not read the report until during presentation time.

The King of Slick emails is the one that The Butterfly sent the wide-eyed-wonder and non-conformist: “We (yes, she has multiple personality disorder) had a call today with the Super Boss and he wants to bring out a newsletter. Please brainstorm and share your ideas”.

There are two messages deeply embedded in this crisp email – “Call with Super Boss” and “Brainstorm and share your ideas”.

Let me illustrate the reactions of the two affected parties.

Case 1 – The wide-eyed wonder: Oh! Ok. But why does he want a newsletter? Let me brainstorm.

Case 2 – The non-conformist: You had the call. You storm your brain and give the idea. In any case leave me out of it? By the way I think you should tell Super Boss the ground reality and get it over with -- Newsletter or no we are f*****.

And just for kicks let us see how the Mustachioed Young man would have reacted to this

Case 3 - Interesting. The mail is addressed only to me (the others are only in CC). If I give two ideas, that will translate into two hours on the time sheet spent on this effort. Multiply that by four and I could bill myself for a whole day without doing any real work……..

Eventually all send responses:

Wide-eyed wonder: Maybe we should have some interesting links on the newsletter.

Non-Conformist: Half a page with 10 bullet points listing the possible contents adding “would appreciate a de-brief on the call and request to be included on the next call.”

Mustachioed Young Man: Request if you can send sample newsletter.

Who wins? The Mustachioed Young Man, without doubt. Years of having the same designation and seeing all his colleagues shoot ahead has taught him one thing: Management works by instruction.

When some one sends you an instruction to carry out, return the favor by sending them a bigger, more unachievable instruction. What’s more, generate employee delight by marking at least 4 people on the CC list. If nothing at least your reputation for kindness will spread through the organization. And if you get really lucky you may receive an email addressing you by name (which is a very big thing considering the sea of persons marked on CCs these days) that says: “Please Call now.”

Office-Office: Sloth

(Picture source: www.dilbert.com)

I am not talking about the bears in Dalal Street or the native Himalayan variety found in most zoos. I am talking about the corporate sub-culture.

Crudely defined as an invisible force (rather the absence of it) where no one does any meaningful work, sloth is best explained through the situation below:

Day T-15 (15 days before event): Non Conformist writes to The Butterfly: “What activities are we planning for publicizing T0, T+15 and T+30?”

Day T-7: Butterfly writes an email to everyone involved (yes, suddenly everyone is involved) post office hours on a Friday evening: “Please share suggestions on how to publicise event”.

Day T-4: Non-conformist sends communication plan to Butterfly asking feedback and action steps.

Day T-3: Butterfly replies “we should discuss this” without specifying time and date.

Day T-2: Super Boss responds: “we should do blah and blah”. Small problem – Blah and blah are not part of the plan.

Day T-1: Everybody waits for ACTION.

What happened? Sloth happened.

Sloth is identified by inaction, lack of meaningful communication (suitable excuses) and is notoriously prevalent upwards of the middle management levels. The more senior you are, the more slothful you become.

Business moves on speed. While deliberation helps, it cannot go on indefinitely. Results of sloth in the above case:

 The company doesn’t get the desired publicity.
 Non-conformist loses drive to work and his/ her perception of the Butterfly now touches -20 on the IQ scale.
 Every one gives lip sympathy (perhaps we should use other body parts for better impact) on what could have been done.

For the intelligentsia who feel this is not a result of sloth, but lack of planning, I have the next post - Project Management.