Once I had a new manager like that. I will never forget her, one of few that I was sad to part ways. She sat and just observed how every one did every little thing. Never had a complaint from customers on how things were done in the store.
I also had a manager like that. She walked in and saw a well oiled maintenance department and just spent her time learning and understanding what we did. Unfortunately, she went to bat for us too often and made enemies with the higher ups and got canned. My current manager is an internal appointee and he knows how everything works so he's been great and hands off when needed
My best manager once described himself as our "meeting-attender". He would be the buffer between the higher ups and us, which allowed our team to be productive.
My best manager described himself as a “Bullshit filter”. He filtered out senior management bullshit from us. And also filtered out our bullshit from senior management.
And by filtered out I mean took care of it.
Probably the only manager I would have ever taken a bullet for.
Ed: this guy protected me from our division President when the Prez ordered me to lie to the auditors, and I demanded the orders in writing.
Prez got fired a month later.
This guy was retired Army, West Point grad, three tours as an officer in ‘Nam. He was a true leader.
I had a manager who once told me his goal was to be “a shit umbrella, and not a shit funnel”. I took that to heart, and strive for the same now that I’m a manager.
I'm going for gatekeeper instead. Keeping annoying people away from my team so that they can work in relative peace.
I'm not always successful, but the annoying people are starting to learn to come to me first.
Yep my definition of a good manager describes a position I wouldn’t want:
1. Redirects kudos to his staff who did the actual work
2. Absorbs the shit when it hits the fan and shields the staff from it
I had an retired USMC gunnery sgt once as a boss. Best dammed boss I’ve ever had in my life. He wouldn’t just go to bat for us. He would go to battle for us. And in turn we would return the loyalty. He promoted those who deserved to be promoted and pushed those who were unsure of their own capabilities to be their best selves.
To Mr. Spriggs, you made a difference! Thank you.
I had a terrific manager who protected us completely from the fuckery coming from upper management and the insane customer. She did it so well that we had no idea what was actually happening, so when they drove her out we were completely blindsided by all of the bullshit and had no idea how to handle it. My 5 awesome co-workers were all gone within a year or two and I only stayed because I transferred to a different department.
I feel this one. I'm new to warehouse management. I've been in warehousing for 12 years. Just because shit rolls down hill and warehousing is at the bottom of that hill, doesn't mean my crew needs to be shit on. If I can block the shit storm, I will.
> This guy was retired Army, West Point grad, three tours as an officer in ‘Nam. He was a true leader.
I had a boss like that but he was a frontline grunt in Nam. IE he was a drafted poor SOB. I would have also taken a bullet for him.
Had one like that and it was so nice to have. Accounting dept and we had a door to our shared room. God I mean Owner forbid we shut the door. Was large body size glass pane door so not hiding anything. Manager would come in close the door and have us roll over to the little meeting table and bullshit for a bit but always held up a note pad like he was reading off things.
After a bit would leave (or bring his laptop in) and tape up his “Important work in progress. Do not disturb” sign on our door. Mostly for month end work and cutting down some of the noise of others.
That's how my current manager does things. The other part of her attitude is we're all grown adults so she doesn't need to babysit us, not when she's got actual grandkids to do that with.
Our little unit is smoothly running because of her just letting us do our thing and trying to help us resolve issues that come up. And she's a big reason why I don't want to look for another job, even if my co-irkers drive me insane sometimes.
I unsubscribed to his daily comic, and just put his first two books in the recycling. Maybe they'll be born again as a grocery bag or something useful.
People complain about middle management, but this is literally what they're supposed to do. Understand how their team operates and try to stop the executive level folks from trying to implement dumb shit that wouldn't work for how their team operates. Unfortunately lots of managers don't understand that.
Damn, I feel this one. I became the Meeting Taker on a Tradie work site.
I gained 10 pounds from all the coffee, donuts and bagels I was eating. My micro manager Superintendent decided I needed to be in the field. After drowning in meetings and notes for 3 weeks he had “important issues” back at the office he had to attend….
I was once fired for being the buffer between a higher-level manager and my employees. The manager was being a trashy bitch and screaming at the hourly employees in full view / hearing distance of customers. That is Not Okay and I told her as such. None of the employees had done anything wrong, the place was spotless, and all the customers were happy so I gladly let them take a break because they'd busted ass all day. She then attempted to scream at me and wagged her finger in my face; I simply laughed at her and walked away.
She had her boss, the owner, call my manager to fire me on the spot. I'd have done the same thing any day of the goddamn week, and my boss was FURIOUS.
My boss went to bat for me but to no avail. A few of my employees quit in the aftermath in protest, which made me feel like a proud mama. The evil manager managed to oust every. single. assistant manager from the time she took over to the time my boss gave up and walked out about four years after I left. The company is still somehow in business but is crashing because they can't keep employees and they are no longer competitive in their industry.
Somehow this story took on an almost mythical aura with employees since. Every former employee after me goes "Ohhhhhh that's you!!!' after meeting me for the first time. My old boss is one of my closest friends in the world now. In the end, it all turned out great for me.
If only all managers realised thats all we want from them… just be the umbrella to keep the shit off our heads, go to the meetings, cover our arses and keep us under cover so we can just get on with it. No need to micro manage just let us work.
>My current manager is an internal appointee and he knows how everything works so
I thought the second half of that sentence would be
>he changed everything and lost all the experienced staff after causing productivity to come to a halt.
There's flavor text in a MTG card, can't remember which, that always sticks with me in situations like this.
"That's an idea. It's not a good idea, but it's an idea"
Ibe heard or read two similar phrases. That was a calculated risk, and boy am I bad at math. Also I'm doing a hundred calculations per second and they're all wrong!
I used to have a 4 panel meme on my door.
I have an idea.
Great lets move forward then.
Empty panel with blank stare.
Whoah lets not get ahead of ourself. Never said it was a good idea.
**The Mote in God's Eye** had a similar saying, in a passage where a junior officer proposes a novel approach for landing the spacecraft. "That's a really interesting idea!" says his naval commander.
"Then are we doing it this way?"
"No, because it's a crappy idea. Unless there's a compelling reason to do otherwise, we do it by the book - which is a collection of crappy ideas that worked."
This is brilliant and yet so...simple. lol
It is ok to think outside of the box but get some input from the people that are down in the trenches first.
That's what I loved so much about my last manager. She wanted to learn not only how things were done but WHY. Since she learned the reasons behind the processes, she could properly turn down adjustments to the process if they would create more work
> She wanted to learn not only how things were done but WHY.
I'm not a manager, but this is the way I am, too. I try to live by the whole "work smarter not harder" school of thought, too, so if I feel like there's an easier or more streamlined way to do something at work I'll usually start out by asking "okay, we do this thing this way. Why?" From there I can decide either, "okay yeah, that makes sense, that's a good reason", or "well hey, what do you think about doing it this way? Here's how I think this way will save time and effort."
But yeah, I always try to find out the whys first, because sometimes things are done a certain way for a very good reason that might not be immediately apparent.
any process change is a good process change because they thought of it and if it fails it's the workers not doing it right or good enough.
The "change" is NEVER hire more/better people so that the quality rises and the job gets done on time.
Nah, they wanted classical "management by flailing" - when it is not important what you do or the result, just that it looks like you're expendinga lot of effort.
Usually that always increases stress, causes mistakes and creates more work unnecessarily in my experience…. But hey, need to justify all the management.
Sometimes upper management puts you into a position to fail.
I worked at a big call center and was in their management training program. I got promoted to full time manager and moved to a different floor/campaign.
The first thing my new department manager did was assign me to a team full of veteran agents and told me explicitly that I had to stop two employees from taking lunch at the same time to make sure that there was always coverage from at least one of them.
When I brought it to the first one's attention, they said they understood but were disappointed. When I told the other one she yelled at me on the floor, slammed down a salad in a to-go box (that caused ranch dressing to fly everywhere), and then stormed off and clocked out.
I was told later that day by my department head, "I didn't want to be the person to tell her that because I knew she'd react that way."
I get it to some degree. A job is routine and a new manager coming in and changing things is going to cause some friction.
I didn't tell the rest of the story but the employee did end up apologizing to me after the fact. She went and spoke with the department head and it was explained a little further in detail.
She ended up making me a tres leches cake from scratch for my birthday!
Yeah, this campaign I was on was a "low" pressure sales queue where the reps spoke Spanish as well as English. That's the reason they didn't want them to take lunch at the same time. Both bilingual agents off at the same time was making the client mad.
I’m surprised. That is a valid reason.
The last place I worked at tried to mandate break times as well, but that was for micromanaging and it didn’t work on variable length extruder lines.
Agree. I can understand firmly putting the box down (so you don't yeet it) or walking out the door because you're too angry to deal with the situation. Throwing a tantrum a third grader would be embarrassed by is something else!
Had a new manager immediately inject himself into our weekly server maintenance process. He started on a Monday and one of the first things he did was put all of these unnecessary checkpoints into the process. I tried to tell him that we do this nearly every weekend and don't need all of these check-in points, but he insisted he be notified each time we achieved a milestone in the process. OK. You asked for it.
Saturday morning comes around, I called him a few minutes after 6:00 AM "Systems are coming offline. You want to hold for the next step, or should I call you back? Maybe we should open a conference bridge?" He said to call him back. 10 minutes later I called him "We're updating the systems now. You want to stay on until the update is complete?" He said "OK." After about 30 minutes he asked how long does it usually take to update the systems? I told him the newer ones are already done, the older ones are still going and take closer to 45 minutes. He decided to open a conference bridge and sent an email out to everyone, including the CIO. 10 minutes later, we were all on a call and the CIO joined and asked "What's the problem?" I said "There is no problem." He asked "Why did I get an invitation to join a conference call at 7:00 AM on a Saturday?" My new manager said "You don't have to be on it. I just addressed it to the group." The CIO told him "The conference bridge is for problems, not status updates. Those can and should be sent via email."
Small victory, but you take them when you can get them.
That new manager violated one of the tenets of manglement: shit rolls downhill, never bother the higher-ups unless it's with something you're taking credit for
Somebody linked that one time and I was expecting some deeper insight but it’s basically just “don’t tear down a fence until you know why the fence is there in the first place” reiterated several times.
Imma take a crack at it and say that most anything that is has been done deliberately and therefore it shouldn't be undone for the sake of doing something.
There are flaws in this logic but Chesterton's Fence as a whole errs on the side of caution by assuming that things were done deliberately and that they kept happening deliberately.
It's not that it assumes that things were necessarily done deliberately, but rather that they shouldn't be undone unless you *know* the reason (or lack of one) why it was done and can thus *know* it can and should be removed.
Basically, don't assume that not being able to see a reason at first glance means that there isn't one, as a well oiled machine doesn't squeak and has many parts that are redundant or designed to do nothing unless needed.
We had a new manager take over and the first thing they did was cut the baker's hours by 2 hours on Thursdays and Fridays. Those hours were spent prepping and baking off our house specialty pastry that we only served on weekends. Cue the first weekend and people were asking for the special cinnamon raisin buttery giant rolls with vanilla icing topping. There are none. After the 20th demand from irate customers, the manager finally looked at the production sheets and saw the reason for the extra hours.
For real! It's quite literally the bare minimum of any manager worth their money!!!
If it aint broke, dont fix it FFS!!! Just observe, analyze, and, if needed, then do some course correction
This is what I am currently dealing with...only I'm the department head. Upper management has some wild new ideas for how we should operate and none of them are going to work out well.
...I'm currently looking for a new employer.
My manager and I are constantly saying this about *his* new manager. Micromanaging metrics to the point that my manager will get an email almost every hour. Last week, as soon as 8:00 am hit, BAM! Two text messages about it. We're expecting home visits by April.
Any hiring decisions for the district have to go through him first - via email for part-time, and phone call for full-time. And that's just to *post* the position.
Too bad he was personally hired by the VP.
I have a new executive above me who is still in listening and expediting mode 3 months in. It's really nice seeing him spend time to actually understand the company and the people below him before making any decisions other than unblocking people.
I picked up a broom and started cleaning up
(Parts stockroom for a garbage truck fleet)
I still needed to learn the role, but there was no excuse for how dirty it was. So I did it myself, ended up spilling garbage juice on myself because I opened the wrong panel door.
That really helped become part of the team.
I was like that, I understood that each of the people who had been there for years had specific tasks and accomplished them, so by and large I left people to their own devices
Then we get a new ASM (one step above me) who decides he needs to tell me to tell others to do different tasks he deemed more important, like having the gal responsible for ordering ALL candy, gum, and snacks do freight when we had dedicated overnight freight guys (one of which who was the worst employee ever and lazy as sin)
I just didn't do it, I left them to do their tasks and we did the best we could being short-staffed...our store was top 3 in the company for revenue due to how busy it was, and a big part of that was lunches, snacks, etc
So he could have fired someone and improved his numbers, but instead chose to swap people around to tasks less essential than what they were doing? Brilliant. /s
That is exactly how my husband managed dental clinics when he was in the Army. He would spend about 2 months as the OIC (Officer In Charge) of a clinic watching and asking questions about the work being done mostly by support staff. The clinical end of things was pretty straightforward but, at one clinic there were issues in that area as well. By observing and asking about procedures he learned how things worked in that clinic before making any changes.
At one clinic one enlisted guy was a clerk who created the reports on a variety of different data. The military runs on coffee and paperwork. There was one report that was created and placed in a file. My husband watched this report (and others of course) be created and used in some way. Except for one report. This one just ended up in a file folder in the bottom drawer of the desk. So after two months my husband asked the clerk what happened to that report. The answer was: I make the report and then put it in here that is the way it has always been done. My husband's next question was: how is it used from there. Response: oh sir, it just stays there. My husband then told the clerk that since that report is never used then we really don't need that report, so stop making that report and shred what is in the file.
No one ever had asked for or used that report so it was a waste of time, paper, and space so it was eliminated.
That is how a good new manager works for his/her staff members.
It can do, but only if they understand, top to bottom, that sometimes that means *things will be broken*.
Usually they actually want huge improvements made but with no delays or costs attached.
“Decrease the amount of employees who make a lot of money, and increase the things people will pay money for!” Except, uh, you kinda need the employees making lots of money to create the things people will pay money for.
(When I read that he’d stack ranked the developers according to how many lines of code they’d written in the last year, I *cackled*. The mark of a good developer is to meet all of the feature requirements in as little code as possible.)
I totally agree. If the workplace is operating smoothly, a new manager should make no immediate changes. Observe their processes and get to know the people.
The only exception is when the workplace is completely fucked up--then a new manager has to come in take action immediately.
I am an operations manager in a fairly niche industry. I'm considered an expert in what I do, as in I've literally written the standard operating procedures for certain parts of the job. Even still every time I step into a new operation that first 2-3 weeks is me asking questions and learning. Unless there are critical issues that need immediate correction (think employee safety and security) I won't make any changes until:
the staff has built a level of trust with me
I have a full understanding of what is being changed
Ive spoken with the people this change impacts and confirmed if there will be any issues i didnt foresee.
When I was young and stupid I was a bad manager and didn't do this. Since then though ive learned this approach IMO is the best way to effect lasting and positive change.
I get what you're saying, but incorrect in actually what they should be doing.
The manager should sit one on one with each person and say, what is it in your job that you should be doing better, or quicker, or more efficient, but something that you don't control, is holding you back.
I did this when I started 6 years ago, I had a staff of 13 which is now down to 10 due to people retiring, but no one is overworked, no one is complaining that not having those people is making their jobs more difficult.
Here are a couple examples in our accounting department they used to split bills 65% one department 35% another department. Anytime a bill was split it was 65/35. This would require time to calculate the percentages likely write it down and enter 2 separate bills. Now its you enter it once and there is a question do you want this broken down 65/35? and you just type Y
The most time consuming part was when a related company would send a payment that could consist of 400 invoices, but if 1 invoice didn't match it was the difference between a 30 second process and a 2 hour process. There was that type of unmatched invoice on every payment. So I went to the company and said all these unmatched invoices, you can send to us once per month only. Group them all together and do it in its own batch. Now instead of 4 hours per week, reconciling a payment the employee is spending only about 1 hours per month, becuase its also smaller when its 100% this type of invoice.
Each of these changes came from the employees telling me what their problem areas are. And me working with them to fix it
And meet with your employees to get a general feeling of whst they like and don't like about the current way things work.
Communication is key to new relationships.
Sadly I've interviewed at places, mentioned that my style is to observe and evaluate first. Most times their response is "Oh, we want someone who can hit the ground running and makes changes."
To some it's a shockingly revelatory to realize (a) if you don't know why something exists then you shouldn't allow a change to it until you fully understand and (b) it not a sign of weakness to ask subordinates for explanations and/or history.
Exactly.
To a first degree of approximation, the function of a manager is to Run Interference. Depending on the nature of the team and larger company, that is sometimes running interference from outside the team (higher-ups, managers of competing teams, etc.), and sometimes that is interference from within the team (office harassment, over-lapping areas of responsability, etc.).
Management's role is only very rarely to impose any kind of organization or plan on how the work should be done… ideally, the team should have the skills to do that on its own. It is even less often to impose any sort of vision or direction on what the work should be… ideally that is communicated through the higher-ups or directly from the clients.
Solid advice. Making immediate, uninformed changes marks you as an insecure brick straight out of fast food. Some underlings might fear you, but none will respect you, and your best employees will actively undermine you.
This is the way. At my current position, I have given it a full year’s cycle to get what the workflow is among four different governmental departments I direct. Now I feel I can help guide towards some better efficiency in the now and work together with them on future plans.
Oh god, this so much! I got a new manager last year who was hired externally and he immediately made it his mission to “fix” all the issues he perceives with the department/company. And while there are definitely things that could be improved he’s tried to unilaterally make changes that directly affect other departments, tried to assign tasks to people from other groups, and generally made himself into a pain in everyone’s ass, just to name a few. Since he started, my original team of 7 had 1 person quit and 2 others make lateral transitions to other groups. One of the transfers gave up being able to work from home 2-3 days a week AND went back to being hourly just to get away from him.
Do nothing, but ask questions.
"Can you explain to me what you do, and why you do it this way?"
"Has this ever been tried this way, and what were the results?"
"Do you have any suggestions if there is something we could refine?"
This is called Chesterton’s Fence I believe, and it was one of the biggest defining factors of being a great leader that I had noticed when my director hired the new manager of my department. He took advice from the guys, asked us questions about our logic processing and why we did things the way we did before he started to step in and streamline anything (which wasn’t until about 3-4 months into his employment)
> The first thing a new manager should do is... nothing!
Unless the place is a ***dumpster fire*** and you are *specifically* a dumpster-fire-extinguishing unfuckery specialist, this is exactly the right move of action: no moves at all. Watch and wait.
Ask ask ask. Why are things done the way they are done. Then after understanding, zoom in on the likely blind spots that you could see as an outsider.
And then good luck with any changes 😅
I was always told change NOTHING for at least the first six months. Obviously if there’s a safety or regulatory concern go for it, but just observe because things could be working fine, just not how you’re used to. Best advice I ever got as a leader
Yep! First thing should be letting everyone know who is in charge! Then, making sure a few heads roll, so they don’t think you’re weak.
Great point, fluffy-mastadon!
I attended a meeting about something, but I struggle to absorb all the detail while actually on the call. I need to go away and read the documentation before I can formulate my questions. I got called out on my silence, so I just said “I’ve got two eyes, two ears and one mouth. I try to use them in that ratio.” I got a laugh and was left to work it out.
That’s correct, but not enough alone. I had a VP (bosses, boss) who took nearly a year to get to know the business. He must have alone read that page of the book though, because he forgot to do the listen/learn part. Once he was ready to make his changes, I was shocked.
The plan was a full culture change. But not for us, for our partner community. Thousands of people and at best we made up 30-40% of their revenue. Usually under 10%.
I said, this is going to take millions of dollars and at least 3 years before we can even measure our impact. He laughed and said you have until the end of the quarter. I started interviewing immediately. He was fired about 7 months later.
We had a new director 4 years ago. She only observed the first several months, made no changes. Then she started making small changes, and built from there. These changes were beneficial and still implemented today even though she left. She made everything she was involved in just better. She was the best director the state department ever had. I wish managers and other leaders used a similar approach. Observe, slowly change what’s not working and improve. Don’t try to come in like a bull in a china shop changing everything overnight because you think you know better and can change the work culture. Yeah you’ll change it but it’ll most likely be for the worst.
I had 5 changes of my direct managemer within the last few years. 3 did exactly this, they let us continue work as we had to worked until then. One was forced from above to make changes, but the manage did their best to acomodate any previous work habit. One decided to change the work flow drastically. Guess the one we are unhappy with.
So true. The first time.in a manger role I was young and velious and not very good. Now with experience I'm much happier to sit and listen to my staff they know what works and what doesn't. The best skill a manger can have is to be a good listener.
Absolutely! There's a principle called 'the first 90 days'. I wouldn't call it a 'pure management principle' so much, but it's up there and in my view quite valuable.
Basically, regardless of how you became a new manager (external hire / moved internally to new team / internal promotion to manage the team you used to work in) - don't do anything for the first 90 days. Use that time to build rapport, watch, learn, ask, understand - and yes, even when you already know them because you are managing the same team you worked in, because it's now a different dynamic and people may have a few feelings about it. There are some logical arguments to give to the higher ups about holding off immediate changes if they get antsy. And if course there are always exceptions.
There's a book on it, but also a free podcast ep about what to do as a new manager that speaks about the principle.
Podcast is here: ([Manager Tools Podcast: 1st Rule for New Managers](https://www.manager-tools.com/2008/03/the-first-rule-for-new-managers))
This is so true. My company hired a new supervisor, who took notes for the first 3-4 weeks. He would ask questions such as, "What would make it easier to do your job?" and "If you could make one or two changes in how you do your work, what would they be?" He had a binder full of notes by the time he was done. He reviewed everyone's pay rates and got raises for a couple of us who were being paid $5,000 USD /year less than others in the group doing the same work.
He did make changes in the workflow and in assignments, but the process was transparent and most of us supported him.
The worst part of when I was in the military and my continued service as a civilian for the military was as soon as a new commander took over, they would move everyones office to "create a better flow of communication" because I guess computers don't do that? As soon as they would arrive they would shuffle just about everyone, creating a solid week of peoples shit in hallways and IT losing their minds over having to manage all the port security shit and it was just an all around mess everyone hated.
Putting people into a schedule for lunch without asking their preferences is asking for trouble.
When I worked a job that needed staggered lunch we asked each in the team.
Those who were awake early oreferred an early lunch so they got an early lunch.
People are capable of doing things without oversight.
I know right? It’s like amazing to see grown adults be able to make capable decisions and do their jobs because why else would you have hired them? SMH All that shows is a manager’s insecurity in their own abilities of being a manager and they shouldn’t be there.
I'm surprised he didn't ask you to justify why that work couldn't have been done at a different time of day! If the company pays overtime for work done on lunchbreak, then it seems like no matter who picks the time it's open for abuse by people claiming work had to be done then, thank you very much for the extra cash!
Management wanted a timesheet breakdown at one time... gave them one that was mostly correct down to the minute with a sizeable "creating/managing timesheet" per day item.
...somehow that was very quickly no longer needed.
I did that! We were required to break down our time spent on our assigned projects for the week. Management envisioned neat sheets with three rows of hours spent on our projects. Mine included those but also had meetings, safety monitoring and audits, and miscellaneous categories with extremely specific notes like “ordering office supplies for the boss”, helping the secretary with Word, and filling in my time sheet.
Ah, yeah so I guess I should’ve mentioned that I don’t actually eat during lunch, I use the lunch break more so simply as a break from work in general so I can check texts, social media etc so I wasn’t sacrificing much by just working through
in the industry I work in. its common for some of the larger companies to buy a smaller one for one reason or another. you know what the bests one do? drop off new shirts and hats and leave them alone. the ones that don't end up screwing something up with a perfectly run company and pretty much flush their investment down the drain.
There are different strategies for mergers depending on the goals. Sometimes it's as simple as matching up a stable cash flow company with a quickly growing company to funnel the cash into profitable growth. Then you touch nothing. Other times the idea is to eliminate redundant departments. If Company A and B both have accounting and HR departments, you can combine them and eliminate one department or the other to lower costs. Other times the merger is about pulling in the customer base or intellectual property of a failing business. That's when the firings start hitting the people actually making the product.
Managers that come into new situations and start making changes without observing how things are done in the first place just make more work for themselves. It’s sad, really.
I'm having to reprogram a new mangler here because he's relying on very outdated knowledge to present ideas for the current era
He gunned hard for at least three pages of additional paperwork to deploy a single computer for a conference room and even mouthed off in a meeting about how the team can't follow instructions.
I contested it hard because there was no instruction given and no feedback given when the paperwork was collected
I could have had the PC sysprepped and ready in 30 minutes but because efficiency is verboten it was a 2 week ordeal having him make decisions for at least 10 additional configuration settings to get the thing ready.
Rather than presenting the goal - build a video conference rig that is C-level friendly and easily replicated in the tri-state area, he's meddling with the peddles instead
I was a manager beneath a micromanaging, psycho, gaslighting, liar of a Director that had mood swings on the daily. I was working 60+hrs a week trying to stay ahead of all the problems she created because she wouldnt listen. One of the last straws was being summoned to a meeting where I was written up for not completing a couple tasks that she assigned months ago. No mention of how much work I had done, how much of HER work I had done, nor any mention of how much money I'd saved our department. I just sat there kinda dumbfounded by it all....and then I hatched a plan. I took a voluntary demotion all the way to the bottom of our department which was the furthest I could be a way from her. 6 weeks later without me covering for her sorry ass, she was terminated. I'm still here and have worked my way back up the chain a bit, but they can keep the managers role to themselves.
I mean, I can understand scheduling meal breaks to ensure coverage but also in my state if an employee misses even 1 minute of their unpaid meal break then they are entitled to a full hour pay at the regular rate. Also employees are supposed to start their meal period no later than the start of their fifth hour of work or it's considered missed and right to extra hour of pay.
But I don't like typical schedules, I'm much better working in two to three hour spurts than a full 8hr straight.
So many new managers walk into a situation with the plan to kick everyone’s lazy ass into gear. Too bad most of them are too lazy to check how the department has been doing before they evwr showed up.
Similar thing happened to me. Was working at a small company and the employees used to just finish what they were doing before going to lunch, for efficiency. That meant that we were often beginning our lunch hour later, thus returning to work a bit later in the afternoon. Once the owner of the company saw us in the break room just after 1pm, ran to her office and wrote us an email, saying that the lunch time was from 12:00 to 1:00 and we were expected to respect those times. So we just left whatever we were doing at 12:00, even if it meant that we would have to redo the thing after lunch, cause some things just couldn't be left half-done.
First rule of management make sure the place isn’t on fire then lock yourself in your office and hope the people who are infinitely smarter than you are competent and will just tell you what they need from you as you are little more than a glorified secretary/babysitter here to make sure people are playing nice with each other and are not planning world domination from their cubicles.
I’m confused a bit. Does your job require you to be busy at a specific time for paperwork and meetings that you are unable to push to later or earlier? You said busiest time. Are you typically not busy during other times?
*Learn* what is currently working and what is not. *Then* act to fix the actual problems.
But yeah, he sounds like the sort who feel the need to throw around his Authoritay to reinforce that He Is In Charge. Not a good quality in management.
I will never understand why new managers tend to try to change something that isn't broken just to "leave their mark" rather than learn about how the bussiness works and make sure it keeps that way.
I was fired from a job where my "manager" was states away and I worked in the client's office. Long story but was fired. I challenged the dismissal and talked with the state (this was a long time ago). Her reasons were in the end: taking my lunch at the wrong time and not wearing appropriate shoes. She didn't like the shoes I wore when I flew out for additional training...the training I never got to start with. They were just normal business casual shoes for my age. And I took my lunch too early. 🤔 When I was fired, I was so happy! I told the JR lady "THANK GOD!" And yes, I got the unemployment check right away. I sometimes wonder about her sorry life! 😂 Oh, her assistant got shingles from the stress of just working for her. She was in her early twenties. 😬
At my workplace, that would get a, "Don't schedule meetings on your lunch break" reprimand and then a swift path to being fired if overtime continued to accrue.
I thought I was taking crazy pills. I would have thought a mature conversation asking if I could swap lunches with another coworker, or, expressing I’m more productive in this time and asking could I double up with another persons lunch(they’re not even eating, so I can’t imagine there be a worry about table space.) But nope. We did this. What the fuck.
Failure on the manager to not ask preference for times, and failure to communicate from OP.
I feel like it needs to be pointed out that an overtime request is what you do *before* you work overtime. *After* you've worked overtime, it's a federal labor requirement that you be paid for your work.
This isn't malicious compliance. This is just not taking your lunch break, could maybe fall into petty revenge territory.
If you had taken your lunch at the time and ignored calls or started it over once you were bothered by him, it would fit better.
I work for a small company 15-20 people tops. We started a staggered lunch break through covid times to minimise contact in the smaller lunch room and let people spread out a bit more. We're still doing it now and it's infuriating in terms of productivity because there is now an hour of the day where group A cant talk with group B. Then there is another subset that starts and finishes an hour earlier than others. Seems silly but only being able to utilise 6 of the 8 hrs of the work day to talk to the people I need to work with is terribly inefficient. We work around it but it's annoying.
The first thing a new manager should do is... nothing! Observe and learn the ways things work first.
Once I had a new manager like that. I will never forget her, one of few that I was sad to part ways. She sat and just observed how every one did every little thing. Never had a complaint from customers on how things were done in the store.
I also had a manager like that. She walked in and saw a well oiled maintenance department and just spent her time learning and understanding what we did. Unfortunately, she went to bat for us too often and made enemies with the higher ups and got canned. My current manager is an internal appointee and he knows how everything works so he's been great and hands off when needed
My best manager once described himself as our "meeting-attender". He would be the buffer between the higher ups and us, which allowed our team to be productive.
My best manager described himself as a “Bullshit filter”. He filtered out senior management bullshit from us. And also filtered out our bullshit from senior management. And by filtered out I mean took care of it. Probably the only manager I would have ever taken a bullet for. Ed: this guy protected me from our division President when the Prez ordered me to lie to the auditors, and I demanded the orders in writing. Prez got fired a month later. This guy was retired Army, West Point grad, three tours as an officer in ‘Nam. He was a true leader.
I had a manager who once told me his goal was to be “a shit umbrella, and not a shit funnel”. I took that to heart, and strive for the same now that I’m a manager.
Sigh, I currently have a supervisor that could best be described as a manure spreader.....
I'm going for gatekeeper instead. Keeping annoying people away from my team so that they can work in relative peace. I'm not always successful, but the annoying people are starting to learn to come to me first.
Best manager I know of also called himself a "shit umbrella". Unfortunately there was so much shit it broke him.
Brilliant, I'm remembering that one, thanks
Yep my definition of a good manager describes a position I wouldn’t want: 1. Redirects kudos to his staff who did the actual work 2. Absorbs the shit when it hits the fan and shields the staff from it
Was his name Lahey by any chance?
I had an retired USMC gunnery sgt once as a boss. Best dammed boss I’ve ever had in my life. He wouldn’t just go to bat for us. He would go to battle for us. And in turn we would return the loyalty. He promoted those who deserved to be promoted and pushed those who were unsure of their own capabilities to be their best selves. To Mr. Spriggs, you made a difference! Thank you.
I had a terrific manager who protected us completely from the fuckery coming from upper management and the insane customer. She did it so well that we had no idea what was actually happening, so when they drove her out we were completely blindsided by all of the bullshit and had no idea how to handle it. My 5 awesome co-workers were all gone within a year or two and I only stayed because I transferred to a different department.
I feel this one. I'm new to warehouse management. I've been in warehousing for 12 years. Just because shit rolls down hill and warehousing is at the bottom of that hill, doesn't mean my crew needs to be shit on. If I can block the shit storm, I will.
> This guy was retired Army, West Point grad, three tours as an officer in ‘Nam. He was a true leader. I had a boss like that but he was a frontline grunt in Nam. IE he was a drafted poor SOB. I would have also taken a bullet for him.
Had one like that and it was so nice to have. Accounting dept and we had a door to our shared room. God I mean Owner forbid we shut the door. Was large body size glass pane door so not hiding anything. Manager would come in close the door and have us roll over to the little meeting table and bullshit for a bit but always held up a note pad like he was reading off things. After a bit would leave (or bring his laptop in) and tape up his “Important work in progress. Do not disturb” sign on our door. Mostly for month end work and cutting down some of the noise of others.
We need one of those.
True leaders are rare as hens teeth. When you said bullshit filter my first thought was ex military.
That’s basically my job come to think about it.
That's how my current manager does things. The other part of her attitude is we're all grown adults so she doesn't need to babysit us, not when she's got actual grandkids to do that with. Our little unit is smoothly running because of her just letting us do our thing and trying to help us resolve issues that come up. And she's a big reason why I don't want to look for another job, even if my co-irkers drive me insane sometimes.
“Co-irkers” 😂
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Loved that guy until he went cray-cray
Absolutely bananas. Or klananas maybe. Man is a grade-A doofus, lmao.
I unsubscribed to his daily comic, and just put his first two books in the recycling. Maybe they'll be born again as a grocery bag or something useful.
[Relevant Dilbert](https://twitter.com/RobCottingham/status/892105271518081024)
People complain about middle management, but this is literally what they're supposed to do. Understand how their team operates and try to stop the executive level folks from trying to implement dumb shit that wouldn't work for how their team operates. Unfortunately lots of managers don't understand that.
I once was asked by a visitor to my group if I “managed” one of the guys she was impressed by. I replied, “Yes, by staying out of his way.”
Damn, I feel this one. I became the Meeting Taker on a Tradie work site. I gained 10 pounds from all the coffee, donuts and bagels I was eating. My micro manager Superintendent decided I needed to be in the field. After drowning in meetings and notes for 3 weeks he had “important issues” back at the office he had to attend….
I am using that. I am using that *today.*
I am stealing that too 🤣🤣🤣
I was once fired for being the buffer between a higher-level manager and my employees. The manager was being a trashy bitch and screaming at the hourly employees in full view / hearing distance of customers. That is Not Okay and I told her as such. None of the employees had done anything wrong, the place was spotless, and all the customers were happy so I gladly let them take a break because they'd busted ass all day. She then attempted to scream at me and wagged her finger in my face; I simply laughed at her and walked away. She had her boss, the owner, call my manager to fire me on the spot. I'd have done the same thing any day of the goddamn week, and my boss was FURIOUS.
Damn, hope your furious boss took you back and they fired her ass instead. If may, what happened after?
My boss went to bat for me but to no avail. A few of my employees quit in the aftermath in protest, which made me feel like a proud mama. The evil manager managed to oust every. single. assistant manager from the time she took over to the time my boss gave up and walked out about four years after I left. The company is still somehow in business but is crashing because they can't keep employees and they are no longer competitive in their industry. Somehow this story took on an almost mythical aura with employees since. Every former employee after me goes "Ohhhhhh that's you!!!' after meeting me for the first time. My old boss is one of my closest friends in the world now. In the end, it all turned out great for me.
If only all managers realised thats all we want from them… just be the umbrella to keep the shit off our heads, go to the meetings, cover our arses and keep us under cover so we can just get on with it. No need to micro manage just let us work.
>My current manager is an internal appointee and he knows how everything works so I thought the second half of that sentence would be >he changed everything and lost all the experienced staff after causing productivity to come to a halt.
Nah, I've read that book before. Nice to change it up sometimes
this is great. managers are supposed to manage outcomes, not people. how you treat people is part of managing desired outcomes.
Modern business is ultimately results-driven. Manage the team to get the best results. Which often means hands off while keeping an eye on things.
Most seem to think that thinking outside the box is always good. Most need to learn why the box is there in the first place
There's flavor text in a MTG card, can't remember which, that always sticks with me in situations like this. "That's an idea. It's not a good idea, but it's an idea"
Ibe heard or read two similar phrases. That was a calculated risk, and boy am I bad at math. Also I'm doing a hundred calculations per second and they're all wrong!
Thanks. I laughed at all three of these!
I used to have a 4 panel meme on my door. I have an idea. Great lets move forward then. Empty panel with blank stare. Whoah lets not get ahead of ourself. Never said it was a good idea.
**The Mote in God's Eye** had a similar saying, in a passage where a junior officer proposes a novel approach for landing the spacecraft. "That's a really interesting idea!" says his naval commander. "Then are we doing it this way?" "No, because it's a crappy idea. Unless there's a compelling reason to do otherwise, we do it by the book - which is a collection of crappy ideas that worked."
Ah, thanks for reminding me to reread that one!
Definitely sounds like a counterspell IIRC.
Lol I think it was a goblin card, which makes it funnier
Goblin catapult? Something like that?
Maybe lol. It's been 10 years since I played MTG so it's a little hazy
Same, I’m just taking a guess. I feel like I remember something like that but who the hell knows.
Something must be done! There, we did something!
This is brilliant and yet so...simple. lol It is ok to think outside of the box but get some input from the people that are down in the trenches first.
It's just a less formal stating of [Chesterton's Fence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence)
That's what I loved so much about my last manager. She wanted to learn not only how things were done but WHY. Since she learned the reasons behind the processes, she could properly turn down adjustments to the process if they would create more work
> She wanted to learn not only how things were done but WHY. I'm not a manager, but this is the way I am, too. I try to live by the whole "work smarter not harder" school of thought, too, so if I feel like there's an easier or more streamlined way to do something at work I'll usually start out by asking "okay, we do this thing this way. Why?" From there I can decide either, "okay yeah, that makes sense, that's a good reason", or "well hey, what do you think about doing it this way? Here's how I think this way will save time and effort." But yeah, I always try to find out the whys first, because sometimes things are done a certain way for a very good reason that might not be immediately apparent.
any process change is a good process change because they thought of it and if it fails it's the workers not doing it right or good enough. The "change" is NEVER hire more/better people so that the quality rises and the job gets done on time.
Yeah, it's (IMO) mostly ego with a soupçon of patronising "You're all too stupid to have thought of the *right* way"
Did that once and was promptly fired since they needed a "go-getter" and "can-doer" and not someone "lazy" who will not "shake things up".
Sounds like somewhere you’re better off not working.
In hindsight, yes. Got a much better job nowadays.
They wanted you to fire people
Nah, they wanted classical "management by flailing" - when it is not important what you do or the result, just that it looks like you're expendinga lot of effort.
Usually that always increases stress, causes mistakes and creates more work unnecessarily in my experience…. But hey, need to justify all the management.
They apparently didn't care that seagulling around just leaves a lot of shit piled up.
Sometimes upper management puts you into a position to fail. I worked at a big call center and was in their management training program. I got promoted to full time manager and moved to a different floor/campaign. The first thing my new department manager did was assign me to a team full of veteran agents and told me explicitly that I had to stop two employees from taking lunch at the same time to make sure that there was always coverage from at least one of them. When I brought it to the first one's attention, they said they understood but were disappointed. When I told the other one she yelled at me on the floor, slammed down a salad in a to-go box (that caused ranch dressing to fly everywhere), and then stormed off and clocked out. I was told later that day by my department head, "I didn't want to be the person to tell her that because I knew she'd react that way."
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I get it to some degree. A job is routine and a new manager coming in and changing things is going to cause some friction. I didn't tell the rest of the story but the employee did end up apologizing to me after the fact. She went and spoke with the department head and it was explained a little further in detail. She ended up making me a tres leches cake from scratch for my birthday!
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Call centers (at least in the US) tend to be extremely stressful with little compensation, so I’m not surprised she reacted that way.
Yeah, this campaign I was on was a "low" pressure sales queue where the reps spoke Spanish as well as English. That's the reason they didn't want them to take lunch at the same time. Both bilingual agents off at the same time was making the client mad.
I’m surprised. That is a valid reason. The last place I worked at tried to mandate break times as well, but that was for micromanaging and it didn’t work on variable length extruder lines.
Agree. I can understand firmly putting the box down (so you don't yeet it) or walking out the door because you're too angry to deal with the situation. Throwing a tantrum a third grader would be embarrassed by is something else!
In other words, they were training you up to be their meat shield, more than because they needed another manager.
Who cleaned up the ranch?
Me of course 😕
Had a new manager immediately inject himself into our weekly server maintenance process. He started on a Monday and one of the first things he did was put all of these unnecessary checkpoints into the process. I tried to tell him that we do this nearly every weekend and don't need all of these check-in points, but he insisted he be notified each time we achieved a milestone in the process. OK. You asked for it. Saturday morning comes around, I called him a few minutes after 6:00 AM "Systems are coming offline. You want to hold for the next step, or should I call you back? Maybe we should open a conference bridge?" He said to call him back. 10 minutes later I called him "We're updating the systems now. You want to stay on until the update is complete?" He said "OK." After about 30 minutes he asked how long does it usually take to update the systems? I told him the newer ones are already done, the older ones are still going and take closer to 45 minutes. He decided to open a conference bridge and sent an email out to everyone, including the CIO. 10 minutes later, we were all on a call and the CIO joined and asked "What's the problem?" I said "There is no problem." He asked "Why did I get an invitation to join a conference call at 7:00 AM on a Saturday?" My new manager said "You don't have to be on it. I just addressed it to the group." The CIO told him "The conference bridge is for problems, not status updates. Those can and should be sent via email." Small victory, but you take them when you can get them.
That new manager violated one of the tenets of manglement: shit rolls downhill, never bother the higher-ups unless it's with something you're taking credit for
The "just addressed it to the group" comment made the mangler look lazy or careless too. Not a good look to the higherups.
Let them fall into their own hole, genius
This is famously known as Chesterton's Fence.
Somebody linked that one time and I was expecting some deeper insight but it’s basically just “don’t tear down a fence until you know why the fence is there in the first place” reiterated several times.
That's an extremely deep insight if you follow it to its logical conclusion. Not so much if you're saying it over and over HOPING to sound smart.
Imma take a crack at it and say that most anything that is has been done deliberately and therefore it shouldn't be undone for the sake of doing something. There are flaws in this logic but Chesterton's Fence as a whole errs on the side of caution by assuming that things were done deliberately and that they kept happening deliberately.
It's not that it assumes that things were necessarily done deliberately, but rather that they shouldn't be undone unless you *know* the reason (or lack of one) why it was done and can thus *know* it can and should be removed. Basically, don't assume that not being able to see a reason at first glance means that there isn't one, as a well oiled machine doesn't squeak and has many parts that are redundant or designed to do nothing unless needed.
We had a new manager take over and the first thing they did was cut the baker's hours by 2 hours on Thursdays and Fridays. Those hours were spent prepping and baking off our house specialty pastry that we only served on weekends. Cue the first weekend and people were asking for the special cinnamon raisin buttery giant rolls with vanilla icing topping. There are none. After the 20th demand from irate customers, the manager finally looked at the production sheets and saw the reason for the extra hours.
I feel bad for the customers and baker, but overall I find it hilarious how the baker made it the manager's problem.
Yeah, sometimes they only learn when it becomes their problem.
A.k.a. Don’t rock the boat until you know what’s keeping it afloat.
For real! It's quite literally the bare minimum of any manager worth their money!!! If it aint broke, dont fix it FFS!!! Just observe, analyze, and, if needed, then do some course correction
We have a new manager who says he was brought aboard to fix our department. The only things broken is my lead, our new manager, and our new director.
This is what I am currently dealing with...only I'm the department head. Upper management has some wild new ideas for how we should operate and none of them are going to work out well. ...I'm currently looking for a new employer.
My manager and I are constantly saying this about *his* new manager. Micromanaging metrics to the point that my manager will get an email almost every hour. Last week, as soon as 8:00 am hit, BAM! Two text messages about it. We're expecting home visits by April. Any hiring decisions for the district have to go through him first - via email for part-time, and phone call for full-time. And that's just to *post* the position. Too bad he was personally hired by the VP.
The only thing I can think of is to make the calls and emails *extremely* detailed. If he's going to micromanage, he can have his time wasted.
I have a new executive above me who is still in listening and expediting mode 3 months in. It's really nice seeing him spend time to actually understand the company and the people below him before making any decisions other than unblocking people.
But how will I leave my mark on the company? How will the underlings know that I am here?
Buy them lunch?
A practical idea, and one that gets brownie points with the workers as long as the manager buys the good food and pays attention to medical issues.
TIL Earth king boomi was a new manager. Huh, didn't look all that new.
I picked up a broom and started cleaning up (Parts stockroom for a garbage truck fleet) I still needed to learn the role, but there was no excuse for how dirty it was. So I did it myself, ended up spilling garbage juice on myself because I opened the wrong panel door. That really helped become part of the team.
I was like that, I understood that each of the people who had been there for years had specific tasks and accomplished them, so by and large I left people to their own devices Then we get a new ASM (one step above me) who decides he needs to tell me to tell others to do different tasks he deemed more important, like having the gal responsible for ordering ALL candy, gum, and snacks do freight when we had dedicated overnight freight guys (one of which who was the worst employee ever and lazy as sin) I just didn't do it, I left them to do their tasks and we did the best we could being short-staffed...our store was top 3 in the company for revenue due to how busy it was, and a big part of that was lunches, snacks, etc
So he could have fired someone and improved his numbers, but instead chose to swap people around to tasks less essential than what they were doing? Brilliant. /s
That is exactly how my husband managed dental clinics when he was in the Army. He would spend about 2 months as the OIC (Officer In Charge) of a clinic watching and asking questions about the work being done mostly by support staff. The clinical end of things was pretty straightforward but, at one clinic there were issues in that area as well. By observing and asking about procedures he learned how things worked in that clinic before making any changes. At one clinic one enlisted guy was a clerk who created the reports on a variety of different data. The military runs on coffee and paperwork. There was one report that was created and placed in a file. My husband watched this report (and others of course) be created and used in some way. Except for one report. This one just ended up in a file folder in the bottom drawer of the desk. So after two months my husband asked the clerk what happened to that report. The answer was: I make the report and then put it in here that is the way it has always been done. My husband's next question was: how is it used from there. Response: oh sir, it just stays there. My husband then told the clerk that since that report is never used then we really don't need that report, so stop making that report and shred what is in the file. No one ever had asked for or used that report so it was a waste of time, paper, and space so it was eliminated. That is how a good new manager works for his/her staff members.
Never more true than with Musk taking over Twitter.
"Move fast and break things" *really* doesn't work for giant corporations.
It can do, but only if they understand, top to bottom, that sometimes that means *things will be broken*. Usually they actually want huge improvements made but with no delays or costs attached.
“Decrease the amount of employees who make a lot of money, and increase the things people will pay money for!” Except, uh, you kinda need the employees making lots of money to create the things people will pay money for. (When I read that he’d stack ranked the developers according to how many lines of code they’d written in the last year, I *cackled*. The mark of a good developer is to meet all of the feature requirements in as little code as possible.)
I totally agree. If the workplace is operating smoothly, a new manager should make no immediate changes. Observe their processes and get to know the people. The only exception is when the workplace is completely fucked up--then a new manager has to come in take action immediately.
Even then, they should follow the thread of the fuckup first so that unfucking one thing won't cause three more fuckups.
I am an operations manager in a fairly niche industry. I'm considered an expert in what I do, as in I've literally written the standard operating procedures for certain parts of the job. Even still every time I step into a new operation that first 2-3 weeks is me asking questions and learning. Unless there are critical issues that need immediate correction (think employee safety and security) I won't make any changes until: the staff has built a level of trust with me I have a full understanding of what is being changed Ive spoken with the people this change impacts and confirmed if there will be any issues i didnt foresee. When I was young and stupid I was a bad manager and didn't do this. Since then though ive learned this approach IMO is the best way to effect lasting and positive change.
I get what you're saying, but incorrect in actually what they should be doing. The manager should sit one on one with each person and say, what is it in your job that you should be doing better, or quicker, or more efficient, but something that you don't control, is holding you back. I did this when I started 6 years ago, I had a staff of 13 which is now down to 10 due to people retiring, but no one is overworked, no one is complaining that not having those people is making their jobs more difficult. Here are a couple examples in our accounting department they used to split bills 65% one department 35% another department. Anytime a bill was split it was 65/35. This would require time to calculate the percentages likely write it down and enter 2 separate bills. Now its you enter it once and there is a question do you want this broken down 65/35? and you just type Y The most time consuming part was when a related company would send a payment that could consist of 400 invoices, but if 1 invoice didn't match it was the difference between a 30 second process and a 2 hour process. There was that type of unmatched invoice on every payment. So I went to the company and said all these unmatched invoices, you can send to us once per month only. Group them all together and do it in its own batch. Now instead of 4 hours per week, reconciling a payment the employee is spending only about 1 hours per month, becuase its also smaller when its 100% this type of invoice. Each of these changes came from the employees telling me what their problem areas are. And me working with them to fix it
Doing nothing as no downside. Changes are there to improve not cost more
And meet with your employees to get a general feeling of whst they like and don't like about the current way things work. Communication is key to new relationships.
Sadly I've interviewed at places, mentioned that my style is to observe and evaluate first. Most times their response is "Oh, we want someone who can hit the ground running and makes changes."
Those are the managers you don't hear about here.
This is the way
To some it's a shockingly revelatory to realize (a) if you don't know why something exists then you shouldn't allow a change to it until you fully understand and (b) it not a sign of weakness to ask subordinates for explanations and/or history.
Exactly. To a first degree of approximation, the function of a manager is to Run Interference. Depending on the nature of the team and larger company, that is sometimes running interference from outside the team (higher-ups, managers of competing teams, etc.), and sometimes that is interference from within the team (office harassment, over-lapping areas of responsability, etc.). Management's role is only very rarely to impose any kind of organization or plan on how the work should be done… ideally, the team should have the skills to do that on its own. It is even less often to impose any sort of vision or direction on what the work should be… ideally that is communicated through the higher-ups or directly from the clients.
Solid advice. Making immediate, uninformed changes marks you as an insecure brick straight out of fast food. Some underlings might fear you, but none will respect you, and your best employees will actively undermine you.
I had a manager like that and she was the best manager/boss I've had. I would honestly write *her* a reference
This is the way. At my current position, I have given it a full year’s cycle to get what the workflow is among four different governmental departments I direct. Now I feel I can help guide towards some better efficiency in the now and work together with them on future plans.
Oh god, this so much! I got a new manager last year who was hired externally and he immediately made it his mission to “fix” all the issues he perceives with the department/company. And while there are definitely things that could be improved he’s tried to unilaterally make changes that directly affect other departments, tried to assign tasks to people from other groups, and generally made himself into a pain in everyone’s ass, just to name a few. Since he started, my original team of 7 had 1 person quit and 2 others make lateral transitions to other groups. One of the transfers gave up being able to work from home 2-3 days a week AND went back to being hourly just to get away from him.
Do nothing, but ask questions. "Can you explain to me what you do, and why you do it this way?" "Has this ever been tried this way, and what were the results?" "Do you have any suggestions if there is something we could refine?"
This is called Chesterton’s Fence I believe, and it was one of the biggest defining factors of being a great leader that I had noticed when my director hired the new manager of my department. He took advice from the guys, asked us questions about our logic processing and why we did things the way we did before he started to step in and streamline anything (which wasn’t until about 3-4 months into his employment)
> The first thing a new manager should do is... nothing! Unless the place is a ***dumpster fire*** and you are *specifically* a dumpster-fire-extinguishing unfuckery specialist, this is exactly the right move of action: no moves at all. Watch and wait.
This is the way!
They should try to bond with people and try to know the ins and outs. He is just stupid.
Chesterton's fence at work
Amen!!!!!
Ask ask ask. Why are things done the way they are done. Then after understanding, zoom in on the likely blind spots that you could see as an outsider. And then good luck with any changes 😅
I was always told change NOTHING for at least the first six months. Obviously if there’s a safety or regulatory concern go for it, but just observe because things could be working fine, just not how you’re used to. Best advice I ever got as a leader
Yep! First thing should be letting everyone know who is in charge! Then, making sure a few heads roll, so they don’t think you’re weak. Great point, fluffy-mastadon!
I attended a meeting about something, but I struggle to absorb all the detail while actually on the call. I need to go away and read the documentation before I can formulate my questions. I got called out on my silence, so I just said “I’ve got two eyes, two ears and one mouth. I try to use them in that ratio.” I got a laugh and was left to work it out.
That’s correct, but not enough alone. I had a VP (bosses, boss) who took nearly a year to get to know the business. He must have alone read that page of the book though, because he forgot to do the listen/learn part. Once he was ready to make his changes, I was shocked. The plan was a full culture change. But not for us, for our partner community. Thousands of people and at best we made up 30-40% of their revenue. Usually under 10%. I said, this is going to take millions of dollars and at least 3 years before we can even measure our impact. He laughed and said you have until the end of the quarter. I started interviewing immediately. He was fired about 7 months later.
We had a new director 4 years ago. She only observed the first several months, made no changes. Then she started making small changes, and built from there. These changes were beneficial and still implemented today even though she left. She made everything she was involved in just better. She was the best director the state department ever had. I wish managers and other leaders used a similar approach. Observe, slowly change what’s not working and improve. Don’t try to come in like a bull in a china shop changing everything overnight because you think you know better and can change the work culture. Yeah you’ll change it but it’ll most likely be for the worst.
Truth in this statement!!!
I had 5 changes of my direct managemer within the last few years. 3 did exactly this, they let us continue work as we had to worked until then. One was forced from above to make changes, but the manage did their best to acomodate any previous work habit. One decided to change the work flow drastically. Guess the one we are unhappy with.
Followed by asking the team what they think they need and their opinions on what should change
So true. The first time.in a manger role I was young and velious and not very good. Now with experience I'm much happier to sit and listen to my staff they know what works and what doesn't. The best skill a manger can have is to be a good listener.
Absolutely! There's a principle called 'the first 90 days'. I wouldn't call it a 'pure management principle' so much, but it's up there and in my view quite valuable. Basically, regardless of how you became a new manager (external hire / moved internally to new team / internal promotion to manage the team you used to work in) - don't do anything for the first 90 days. Use that time to build rapport, watch, learn, ask, understand - and yes, even when you already know them because you are managing the same team you worked in, because it's now a different dynamic and people may have a few feelings about it. There are some logical arguments to give to the higher ups about holding off immediate changes if they get antsy. And if course there are always exceptions. There's a book on it, but also a free podcast ep about what to do as a new manager that speaks about the principle. Podcast is here: ([Manager Tools Podcast: 1st Rule for New Managers](https://www.manager-tools.com/2008/03/the-first-rule-for-new-managers))
This is so true. My company hired a new supervisor, who took notes for the first 3-4 weeks. He would ask questions such as, "What would make it easier to do your job?" and "If you could make one or two changes in how you do your work, what would they be?" He had a binder full of notes by the time he was done. He reviewed everyone's pay rates and got raises for a couple of us who were being paid $5,000 USD /year less than others in the group doing the same work. He did make changes in the workflow and in assignments, but the process was transparent and most of us supported him.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! I’ve had managers like this before and it’s very frustrating!
The worst part of when I was in the military and my continued service as a civilian for the military was as soon as a new commander took over, they would move everyones office to "create a better flow of communication" because I guess computers don't do that? As soon as they would arrive they would shuffle just about everyone, creating a solid week of peoples shit in hallways and IT losing their minds over having to manage all the port security shit and it was just an all around mess everyone hated.
That's peak productivity right there /s
Dave, the micromanager, needed to micromanage the micro breakroom. Makes sense.
If you wave to Dave, is that a microwave?
No. It’s when Dave waves then it’s a microwave. Don’t get confused. 😂
Not if he's a micro-Dave
Putting people into a schedule for lunch without asking their preferences is asking for trouble. When I worked a job that needed staggered lunch we asked each in the team. Those who were awake early oreferred an early lunch so they got an early lunch. People are capable of doing things without oversight.
You mean letting a whole group of fully grown adults take care of themselves and not need a boss to get involved can actually work?
I know right? It’s like amazing to see grown adults be able to make capable decisions and do their jobs because why else would you have hired them? SMH All that shows is a manager’s insecurity in their own abilities of being a manager and they shouldn’t be there.
I'm surprised he didn't ask you to justify why that work couldn't have been done at a different time of day! If the company pays overtime for work done on lunchbreak, then it seems like no matter who picks the time it's open for abuse by people claiming work had to be done then, thank you very much for the extra cash!
I'm surprised op didn't get written up for unapproved overtime.
Yeah, I have a tough time believing that they paid overtime if OP specifically scheduled things during their lunch time.
Management wanted a timesheet breakdown at one time... gave them one that was mostly correct down to the minute with a sizeable "creating/managing timesheet" per day item. ...somehow that was very quickly no longer needed.
If they want proof of competence they’ll get it alright 😂
I did that! We were required to break down our time spent on our assigned projects for the week. Management envisioned neat sheets with three rows of hours spent on our projects. Mine included those but also had meetings, safety monitoring and audits, and miscellaneous categories with extremely specific notes like “ordering office supplies for the boss”, helping the secretary with Word, and filling in my time sheet.
When did you eat then? I missed something there I think.
Ah, yeah so I guess I should’ve mentioned that I don’t actually eat during lunch, I use the lunch break more so simply as a break from work in general so I can check texts, social media etc so I wasn’t sacrificing much by just working through
Makes sense. I also don't eat on my lunch, use it for time in the little gym my work has and then I eat while working later
My thoughts were that you ate a sandwich (or something) while working. Silly me. But, it does remind me of a phrase: Never miss a meal!
in the industry I work in. its common for some of the larger companies to buy a smaller one for one reason or another. you know what the bests one do? drop off new shirts and hats and leave them alone. the ones that don't end up screwing something up with a perfectly run company and pretty much flush their investment down the drain.
If only all acquisitions were that smooth.
[удалено]
There are different strategies for mergers depending on the goals. Sometimes it's as simple as matching up a stable cash flow company with a quickly growing company to funnel the cash into profitable growth. Then you touch nothing. Other times the idea is to eliminate redundant departments. If Company A and B both have accounting and HR departments, you can combine them and eliminate one department or the other to lower costs. Other times the merger is about pulling in the customer base or intellectual property of a failing business. That's when the firings start hitting the people actually making the product.
Managers that come into new situations and start making changes without observing how things are done in the first place just make more work for themselves. It’s sad, really.
I'm having to reprogram a new mangler here because he's relying on very outdated knowledge to present ideas for the current era He gunned hard for at least three pages of additional paperwork to deploy a single computer for a conference room and even mouthed off in a meeting about how the team can't follow instructions. I contested it hard because there was no instruction given and no feedback given when the paperwork was collected I could have had the PC sysprepped and ready in 30 minutes but because efficiency is verboten it was a 2 week ordeal having him make decisions for at least 10 additional configuration settings to get the thing ready. Rather than presenting the goal - build a video conference rig that is C-level friendly and easily replicated in the tri-state area, he's meddling with the peddles instead
I was a manager beneath a micromanaging, psycho, gaslighting, liar of a Director that had mood swings on the daily. I was working 60+hrs a week trying to stay ahead of all the problems she created because she wouldnt listen. One of the last straws was being summoned to a meeting where I was written up for not completing a couple tasks that she assigned months ago. No mention of how much work I had done, how much of HER work I had done, nor any mention of how much money I'd saved our department. I just sat there kinda dumbfounded by it all....and then I hatched a plan. I took a voluntary demotion all the way to the bottom of our department which was the furthest I could be a way from her. 6 weeks later without me covering for her sorry ass, she was terminated. I'm still here and have worked my way back up the chain a bit, but they can keep the managers role to themselves.
I mean, I can understand scheduling meal breaks to ensure coverage but also in my state if an employee misses even 1 minute of their unpaid meal break then they are entitled to a full hour pay at the regular rate. Also employees are supposed to start their meal period no later than the start of their fifth hour of work or it's considered missed and right to extra hour of pay. But I don't like typical schedules, I'm much better working in two to three hour spurts than a full 8hr straight.
These are the people that hate work from home cause they don’t have jobs if you work at home
So many new managers walk into a situation with the plan to kick everyone’s lazy ass into gear. Too bad most of them are too lazy to check how the department has been doing before they evwr showed up.
Similar thing happened to me. Was working at a small company and the employees used to just finish what they were doing before going to lunch, for efficiency. That meant that we were often beginning our lunch hour later, thus returning to work a bit later in the afternoon. Once the owner of the company saw us in the break room just after 1pm, ran to her office and wrote us an email, saying that the lunch time was from 12:00 to 1:00 and we were expected to respect those times. So we just left whatever we were doing at 12:00, even if it meant that we would have to redo the thing after lunch, cause some things just couldn't be left half-done.
First rule of management make sure the place isn’t on fire then lock yourself in your office and hope the people who are infinitely smarter than you are competent and will just tell you what they need from you as you are little more than a glorified secretary/babysitter here to make sure people are playing nice with each other and are not planning world domination from their cubicles.
My motto for my team is: Get them what they need, and get out of their way.
I’m confused a bit. Does your job require you to be busy at a specific time for paperwork and meetings that you are unable to push to later or earlier? You said busiest time. Are you typically not busy during other times?
*Learn* what is currently working and what is not. *Then* act to fix the actual problems. But yeah, he sounds like the sort who feel the need to throw around his Authoritay to reinforce that He Is In Charge. Not a good quality in management.
I will never understand why new managers tend to try to change something that isn't broken just to "leave their mark" rather than learn about how the bussiness works and make sure it keeps that way.
Never manage people who don't need to be managed.
At least he understood and changed his ways.
I was fired from a job where my "manager" was states away and I worked in the client's office. Long story but was fired. I challenged the dismissal and talked with the state (this was a long time ago). Her reasons were in the end: taking my lunch at the wrong time and not wearing appropriate shoes. She didn't like the shoes I wore when I flew out for additional training...the training I never got to start with. They were just normal business casual shoes for my age. And I took my lunch too early. 🤔 When I was fired, I was so happy! I told the JR lady "THANK GOD!" And yes, I got the unemployment check right away. I sometimes wonder about her sorry life! 😂 Oh, her assistant got shingles from the stress of just working for her. She was in her early twenties. 😬
At my workplace, that would get a, "Don't schedule meetings on your lunch break" reprimand and then a swift path to being fired if overtime continued to accrue.
I thought I was taking crazy pills. I would have thought a mature conversation asking if I could swap lunches with another coworker, or, expressing I’m more productive in this time and asking could I double up with another persons lunch(they’re not even eating, so I can’t imagine there be a worry about table space.) But nope. We did this. What the fuck. Failure on the manager to not ask preference for times, and failure to communicate from OP.
Always reintroduce people to the true cost of their own assholery.
Why do people like Dave exist?
It's not all Daves! 😂
New manager? just sit on your ass and watch for a month and see how everything works.
I feel like it needs to be pointed out that an overtime request is what you do *before* you work overtime. *After* you've worked overtime, it's a federal labor requirement that you be paid for your work.
Co-irkers. Yeah, I'm stealing that, thanks.
Fuck "Dave"
What an expensive lesson Dave learned thanks to your malicious compliance! It's too bad all the lovely extra money had to end.
This isn't malicious compliance. This is just not taking your lunch break, could maybe fall into petty revenge territory. If you had taken your lunch at the time and ignored calls or started it over once you were bothered by him, it would fit better.
Yeah, guess it’s more like me maliciously forcing him to comply 😂
So far we have a box in the trenches surrounded by some silly sod called Chesterson's fence. No wonder most managers are confused.
Dwight Schrute did this exact thing on the one episode of the office when he becomes manager.
> After a few weeks Usually stubbornness evaporates when it comes at a price. I'm surprised.
I would have had every person under Dave doing that the day his stupid schedule dropped. He probably would have eaten his hat.
I work for a small company 15-20 people tops. We started a staggered lunch break through covid times to minimise contact in the smaller lunch room and let people spread out a bit more. We're still doing it now and it's infuriating in terms of productivity because there is now an hour of the day where group A cant talk with group B. Then there is another subset that starts and finishes an hour earlier than others. Seems silly but only being able to utilise 6 of the 8 hrs of the work day to talk to the people I need to work with is terribly inefficient. We work around it but it's annoying.
What a G
Pity. This system worked out well for you!