The “Do Nothing” Manager

An article written by a dearest friend of mine, JA. The ownership, copyright, etc. of this article is his and his alone.

The “Do Nothing” Manager

A personal account of working directly for a do nothing manager over a period of five years

Introduction

I have worked for over fourteen years in the technical department; maintaining and developing products for the company. Over this time we have had several managers of the department, leaving myself with a lot of experience dealing with management. I decided to write this personal account of the last five years of management practice, primarily to help myself analyse the situation and help explain to others my perspective. The title “Do Nothing” manager is my summary of the effectiveness of the management over this time, and below is my explanation as why I have come to this conclusion.

Maintaining the status quo

If the manager is doing nothing, what is happening?

During my time in the department actually not that much has changed, there have remained several stalwarts within the company and the general effort and direction from management is to maintain and enhance the current products, incremental innovation has thus been the major focus.

i.e The department actually runs itself.
(The technical people in the company are very competent and have been doing the business for a long time and are set in their ways they need very little oversight. The technicians are used to getting their way and making the necessary technical decisions. Their attitude towards management tends towards enduring and ignoring their incompetence.)

Over the last five years I struggle to think of changes / improvements introduced by our manager, I can think of several things that were tried and failed but even these are few.
(see the appendix 1 for items I can recall)

Talk the facts

Overtime I have become to realise that the management style is very similar to a politician. I believe he has gained respect for stating very clearly the basic facts and re-iterating his view point similar to a politician. This is probably his strongest characteristic and at times can help clear up common miss-understandings, but like all politicians or at least the common perception of a politician fails to ensure plans are well communicated, implemented and refuses to listen to issues and adjust plans. 

Brutal

From my own experience I can only describe the strong management style as brutal; the tough decision making can be done rashly without any collaboration. The manager himself somewhat proudly refers to this as necessary ruthlessness to get tough decisions done. In my experience this is standard behaviour i.e strongly stating facts as he sees them (usually over simplifying the issues), with no room for discussion and strong statements something like “Do I make myself clear”.

Unfortunately very important actions are taken rashly, this behaviour has created an atmosphere of fear and people comply even if they disagree.
This same behaviour is also common for minor or small issues; however I have noticed that it is easy to dodge or ignore these. I have noticed others using these similar tactics:
1. No actions were documented, ignore it and it will probably be forgotten
2. If it is brought up again, either delay or explain some reason why it couldn’t proceed.
3. Argue the point strongly, from my observations the manager will always back down!

Negativity

Everything is no. From my own observation I believe strongly that 99% of change or suggestions will be treated negatively, a reason will be identified why the idea possibly won’t work. The first issue raised by someone will be enough to stall the issue. The do nothing style of management means that any kind of change is nearly impossible to occur. Only ideas from the manager himself will half-heartily be moved forward as it isn’t approached collaboratively but forced strongly by authority.
This is difficult to explain, but the importance of positive approach from the boss cannot be under estimated and the damage of negativity and resistance to change are major factors.

Never approve anything

I personally tried to get approval to start a project, emails went un-answered. We drafted a form that required management signature for a project to begin, but ended up proceeding without approval. I have been screamed at and told to stop all work that is unapproved! Something difficult when nothing is approved, i.e that is no process has
No Process – No Accountability
During the five years of management there has been very little change, no formal process has been established or followed, with no process there can be no accountability. While there was definitely a clear intention and several attempts to create process and procedures for whatever reason they have never been implemented adequately.

Gigantic Mistakes

Inter-department friction
The obvious friction between departments that was maintained across the five years has been very damaging, the other departments have no trust or idea what the technology department does, this has meant the department has become isolated and introspective.

Investment in infrastructure
A giant unnecessary investment in technology infrastructure.

Focus on non-revenue producing projects
There was no system to select or conduct projects based upon revenue potential
Placing the largest project on hold
Innovation on the largest product with the greatest revenue stream was put on hold for an extended period of time, without any plan or urgency to develop an alternative strategy.

Failed projects
It became accepted that projects would run over time, budget and scope, with little customer involvement, it has simply become not the manager responsibility to ensure projects succeed.

Maintaining an effective shield

Surprisingly people have followed the bad precedents set by this manager and copied his style of management, by doing so they have received a lot of support from the manager.  He has effectively mentored several people and authoritarian rule has become the accepted way to conduct business in the department.

The Communication Void

The last five years can be characterized by a lack of communication. We can only assume there was adequate communication happening up to the managing director and the board; we have no knowledge of any strategy or communications to or from the board/managing director. Over four years ago the manager showed me a power point presentation that he gave to the board, it has never been shown to the team and I’ve never seen it again. Each year a budget is submitted for the department but nobody has any input or any knowledge of its contents.

Excel in firing

The manager is very competent in getting rid of people, in a company which has an informal policy of never removing anyone; he is particularly harsh in assessing people as inappropriate or suggesting they should be made redundant.

Managing suppliers

During his time as manager he personally handled all purchases from suppliers for any technology procurement; he on his own omission was a very tough customer, ensuring we squeeze each supplier on price to the extreme. Proving the statement “The Customer is always right” isn’t true.

Wasted Opportunities

The last five years can only be looked upon as a series of wasted opportunities as poor practice and poor management result in huge in-efficiencies and waste, and no new opportunities were attempted.

Looking after No 1.

Training
He received lots of expensive training, and many trips to conferences. This has only lead me think of the saying… “You cannot train a donkey to win a race. You must select a race horse with promise and train it, if you hope to win”.

Overseas trips
He traveled overseas to international offices, we heard a lot about the shopping and travel but no other outcome.

Hardware
He had all the latest hardware, and gadgets. People in the department don’t.

Salary
He ensured he was on very high pay. People in the department aren’t.

Promotion
He was the senior person in the department and promoted himself to more senior position with new title.

Background
He has no background or experience that would make him a suitable manager for the technology department with no university education or other qualification.

New Ideas
He promoted his own ideas with no collaboration or co-operative dialogue to bring new ideas into reality; they simply failed with no support. After that he stopped trying to introduce changes and maintained that status quo.

Why?
I have been asked by many of my colleagues why the manager behaves in this fashion. Honestly the answer eludes me. I have no experience in psychiatry or any ability to psycho analyses the actions of someone, I can only surmise a few points from my perspective.

1) Lack of experience in management
2) Lack of confidence from the Managing director
3) Fear, uncertainty and doubt

The Giant Excuse

The Managing director told me so.
This surprisingly seems to have some reasoning behind, as I would suggest that the managing director hired the wrong person for the job. He most likely realised this after hiring the person, as it became apparent that the person wasn’t the right person for the job. And as he suggested changes that were clearly unsuitable I believe the managing director made it clear that he didn’t expect anything but to follow the status quo.