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How common is out there to managers who have large teams underneath and whilst to their bosses above they might be doing a reasonable job but to their team members they add no value, generally don't really know too much about what is going on, and people in their team would not notice of they took 3 months off in fact it might just be easier without having to go via them.
I have always thought the purpose of a good manager is too add some value, and make the sum of the parts greater than the whole, too look for things that are inefficient , being a bit smarter than their employees, standardise, procedurise, create a department - in addition coach, motivate and direct or have some sort of vision.
How managers come into a new job trying to look important, that they have some grand vision, promising the world - only too end up a few years later remote, distant and leaving early most days, rarely speaking to their team, and stuck at meetings all day with no communication to their team, or any kind of guidance - just more of the same firefighting, chaos and dysfunction.
It just frustrates the hell out of me when you have good people who want to pull together their resources, be more efficient and improve their performance are stuck under these people.
There are far too managers out there who try to promote themselves as some sort"big picture" player who is very wise, or that their incredibly intellligent and that all the silence, lack of communication and lack of any management skills, or adding any value to their team - is all part of some cunning great master plan they will unveil some day.
But I have seen the pattern so many times, they have no plan, no vision - there just keeping themselves in a job, and they probably have the Resume's out and are looking for another job at this very moment. They simply want to pick up their salary and do as little as they can get away with, and there is no accountability.
Its high time some of the middle/upper level management scam artists that add absolutely no value to their team were shown the same ruthlessness they would be shown as lower level employee.
How can you deal with them, you can't realistically complain to their boss too much, you could say at an Exit interview, but a little too late.
Should companies seek feedback from their employees to root out lazy, do nothing, BS, parasitic style of management that seems to infect corporate offices.
Is it any wonder western economies are going downhill with this style of corporate management mostly interested in gleaning as much as cash as possible, and doing as little as possible is encouraged and promoted.
Last edited by mikeyking; 11-27-2012 at 11:15 AM..
Not sure what you mean?, Do you mean they want employees to run around and manage everything for them.
The question is pretty simple. In your field, what do you expect a manager to do?
Managers are there to make decisions and rely on their supervisors to ensure the job is done. They help determine where the company is going and listen to their director/vp, they funnel that mission to their supervisor who ensures the staff completes the work.
So what "value" do you perceive they should bring?
I also think that a lot of times, people decide that the managers are not doing anything because they do not "see" it.
I once remember I was in the back during my office hour. I completed 2 weeks of schedules, 2 reviews, a conference call, and finished the filing my store manager didn't do. And one employee complained that I was not doing anything because I was not "on the sales floor" so I agree that often it is the perception of the person saying the manager is doing nothing.
A manager has a different job description than a lower level employee...yet often when the lower level employees comment on this, they forget that this may not be an issue...
I also think that a lot of times, people decide that the managers are not doing anything because they do not "see" it.
This is a good point because it goes both ways. I usually have the experience that most managers I have had don't truly know how much their employees are really doing to keep things running and they promote the wrong people sometimes. In my case I am the kind of worker who does my job and most of the other guy's job, but the guy has been there for a long time, so I guess he gets a free pass to be lazy. I've made complaints, offered advice and ways to make things more equal so we work as a team, but management doesn't seem to care and I'm stuck picking up slack of another lazy employee. I have just adapted to the fact that nobody cares, and this is the sign of bad managment to treat employees differently like this.
Bunny, you are correct that many people do not see a lot of a manger's work and think they don't do much. I have worked with low level people in construction that do not understand how much work a foreman does keeping crews coordinated and work schedules flowing or how he has solutions when someone hits a brick wall.
Mikey, you are correct that many managers have not a clue. I find this true particularly in the corporate world. I have worked a lot across the board, white collar and blue collar environments. Does a manger need to be an expert in every corner of the business? No, that would be unrealistic in any large operation. However, a manager should have knowledge and experience in at least a few of the functions of his dept. In construction and similar trades, most managers have come from the ranks and they know a good deal about the work they supervise. They can pitch in if needed or if they need a few hours away from the desk.
Many corporate managers are smart capable people but know nothing of their dept functions. I spent over 10 years in a corporate office. At one time we were doing the service team concept. We had 3 top managers and 1 assistant. The chief manager was seldom in the office, was traveling back & forth to parent co. She was our figurehead. Nice person & intelligent but had not a clue what we did or how to do it. She had come from corporate HQ. Next in line was also a guy from HQ. He was likable and very talented in his field, which was finance. Again, he had no clue about any of our functions. I asked him a time or 2 how he would get a difficult transaction through the system. He gave a blank stare & said "geez, I don't know". He was a fierce advocate of cross training...... for everyone else. He had no intention of doing it himself. We could be running a skeleton crew with only a few of us in the office, phones ringing off the hook & he would not help cover things. He would not know how either. He once heard I was going to a meeting on procedures. Asked me to suggest that the co. quit filing certain documents, as file space was too expensive. I asked if he even knew what the documents were used for. He did not. I explained how lost we would be without them. They were unique to each file and not easily reproducible in the future. "Oh, I never thought of that". I did find him useful on occasions where a customer called & wanted to know our stock price, D&B rating or things like that, areas most of us did not deal with. I would have gladly had him invest $ for me too, if I had any to invest. He was totally out of his area of expertise and did not want to expand his knowledge. The 3rd guy had been a field man. He at least was good with decisions affecting our procedures with the field offices. Still had no clue how to work our systems though. The assistant was a person who came through the ranks. She had the best knowledge of our systems and how to make things work, how to handle complications. Yet she was the lowest of the managers. That was totally upside down.
The co. once hired a group of consultants to evaluate our functions and come up with a better business model. They came in and followed batches of work from dept to dept, analyzing how long each batch spent in each dept. They walked right past people trying to print file documents from machines that had been malfunctioning for years. I'm talking micro fiche machines that dated back to the mid 1960's. Machines long past the junk stage that printed illegible documents. Project was taking place in the early 90's. We were still using typewriters then too, & many of them dated back to the 70's, a few to the 60's. So the consultants made all kinds of recommendations that we route documents this way & that, etc. I cornered a guy one day & showed him the condition of our equipment. He just laughed as if it were the biggest joke he had ever heard. He had no clue that broken down machines slowed our work down so much.
When the phone co. used to go on strike, I recall their managers ran their office. We never went on strike, were not union. Good thing, as most of our managers would not have known how to run the office for a day.
I am asking you what your job is. The real job not the one that says in your job description. As employees, we all have the same job.
Sorry it all sounds a bit cryptic to me - if what you saying is you have work without a job spec, keep you head down don't ask questions, unquestionably trust those above and have some real purpose to your job that know one really knows, without any guidance or direction.
If what you saying is your expected to be some sort of ambassador for the company, and hide all the non management and inaction - as long as the Business keeps coming in and your still employed.
To be honest you sound the type who is so desperate to keep their job they will tolerate anything, and is totally spineless - far too many people like this corporate jobs destined to spend their underpaid careers in dysfunctional hell holes.
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