By Dan
McCarthy
Most managers are rationale, logical, practical problem solvers
when they first get promoted. Then, through organizational conditioning, they
learn to play silly games. They are like the frog in a pan of
boiling water. The change is so gradual; these silly games
eventually begin to feel like “real world management.”
How many of these silly management
games do you play? More importantly, do you have the courage to speak up and
stop the insanity?
We’ll start with some silly
budgeting games:
1.
“Use it
or lose it budgeting.” This is
when you are getting close to the end of the year and your budget is running
under your forecast. In previous years, when you under spent, your next year’s
budget was set based on that year’s actual. So, in order not to have your
budget cut again, you go on a shopping spree — buying stuff you really don’t
need or stocking up just in case you might need it.
2.
“Lowballing your forecast.” This one is kind of the opposite of No. 1. In
this game, the idea if to “sandbag,” or undercommit to what you think you can
actually do. That way, then the powers above ask you to increase your goal, you
know you can do it. Then, you look even better for exceeding your target.
3.
“The shell game.” This is when orders are given to cut expenses
in one category, i.e., travel, so you increase spending in another catalog,
i.e., conferences, and bury the costs. Or, management says to reduce money
spent on postage, so you spend more money on bike couriers. There is a net gain
of zero, perhaps even an increase in spending.
Human resources’ silly games (a category with infinite
possibilities!):
4.
“Pass the trash.” This is when you “encourage” an
underperforming employee to apply for other jobs within the company. When you
are asked for a reference, you give glowing reviews, or use code word phrases
like “Oh, Wally is a great guy! He just needs an opportunity to leverage his
skills in a new environment more suited to his strengths.”
5.
“A warm body is better than no
body.” Hiring
freezes bring out a lot of silly management gamesmanship. This one is when you
have an underperforming employee, but you won’t take action because you’re
afraid you won’t be able to replace the headcount. So the rest of your
employees get to suffer the consequences.
6.
“Gladiators.” This is when you ask two employees to work on
the same problem. Let ‘em duke it out and let the best solution emerge!
Organizational silly games:
7.
“Risk” (empire building). “Risk”
is the game of conquest, where one army invades another country and captures
the land in order to build up an empire. I’ve heard managers also call this
game “a land grab.” The idea is to lobby to your boss and anyone that will
listen that your department can do the other department’s job better than they
can, so you should take it over.
8.
“Shaking the bird cage.” Some employees call frequent, questionable
reorganizations “shaking up the bird cage.” You get a lot of noisy chaos and
ruffled feathers flying, and at the end of the day, the same bunch are sitting
on different perches, albeit a little dizzy from all of the cage-rattling.
Nothing else seems to change.
Strategy silly games:
9.
“Trivial Pursuit.” This is when the company has no strategy, so
the manager keeps everyone busy fighting day-today fires, jumping from one hot
priority to the next.
10.
“Clue.” This is when the company does have a strategy,
but it’s such a secret or so high level and vague that the manager has to guess
what it is or make up their own.
How about you? Any to add to the list?
Source Courtesy: http://smartblogs.com/
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