Middle management.
In most companies, there are workers and managers. If the company is big enough, there are two tiers of managers: middle management and upper management. It's tough to be in middle management. You try to make the uppers happy, but sometimes those things make the workers less happy. You promise things to the workers, but the uppers decide they can't be done.
Moreover, the consumers usually don't see much higher in the company than the middle managers. When something goes wrong, or something that should happen doesn't, the middle managers get the blame. When often it's the upper management that made the decision to go in that direction.
If you're a brand manager or even the VP of marketing with a great plan for selling the new product, full of special promotions and events, when it gets shot down by upper management, you get all the blame. Even though it's not your lack of vision that's the problem, it's the fact that upper management decided to put the money that would have been spent for your marketing plan somewhere else.
When upper management makes bad decisions, middle management gets a lot of the heat. That's probably the way that upper management likes it. But it's really unfair to the middle managers, who get all the responsibility and none of the authority.
Link
25 comments:
Well, not all companies are "responsibility without empowerment" at that level. That was a symptom of the "cirlce of friends" management evaluation at the company you used to work for.
Or to say it another way, the management technique of "if you aren't one of the big four, what the fuck do you know?"
The answer to that, of course, is that you might have known how to sell or market games for gamers, but the company wasn't all that interested in that...now they are interested in the "how the fuck to we make payroll this week?" management technique.
Yea...thanks for the insider info Hickey. Maybe next time you'll get someone that doesn't live in Oregon to comment in the story
Sigh. Do I have to disallow anonymous comments? Doesn't anybody sign anything any more?
I turned off the anonymous comments on mine some time ago. If someone doesn't want to identify themselves, I don't want them posting on my blog.
I believe Mr. Anonymous #1 was talking about the awful "Good Ol' Boy System." And, to correct him, they are likely concerned with making payroll every two weeks, which isn't quite as exhausting.
I thought the article was poorly researched and even more poorly written.
Sounds like the perfect plot for a new card game.
YAK!
Geez! Erika is STILL editing!!
:)
I'm not an editor, and I completely agree with Erika. The topic is interesting, but the article is meandering and doesn't go deep.
I wrote essays in college better than this slop.
I don't know why this seemed relevant to the conversation.
The Boing Boing article is much more interesting than the page it links to, but YMMV.
And call me dumb, but I still don't get the Oregon reference in the second comment.
So, I was talking with Tuttle, and he asked me if it was I who posted on Kallenbach's blog. I asked what he was talking about, and he supplied me the link.
I saw the different threads, and clicked on this one as I asked him, "what am I looking for?". Of course, I found this nice accusation in the second posting.
I've never posted to an ex-decipherian blog before now. Whoever thinks it was I who posted, I'd like to see you post your real name. Until then, leave me out of any of these conversations. I'm not part of this high school jocks table.
Regards,
Charles Hickey
I'm not part of this high school jocks table.
Well, if you didn't post here, or read anything here, maybe you wouldn't be.
I thought the article was poorly researched and even more poorly written.
Never underestimate the pressure of working in a boring town and having to provide business news. The reporter certainly tried to interview some of the involved (or at least wounded) parties, but they wouldn't give up the info.
Furthermore, the more astute of you will realize that when I spoke of anonymous comments that (a) I knew how to turn them off and (b) I didn't, which simply means I'm fishing for information. Which kind of worked and kind of didn't, and batting .500 is good enough for me. I hate to turn off the anonymous comments because (1) it means you have to sign up for Blogger to comment and (2) it means that someone who wants to comment anonymously (even if they might not normally do so) can't.
Wow, and I thought I came here to get away from flame wars.
Comments:
1) The article was very poorly written, I ain't gonna lie about that.
2) The article basically brings some dirt without being able to tell Decipher's side, due to the lack of anyone to talk to.
3) Radiologist? Daddy, is Warren the Hulk?
4) Anonymous posting is kinda lame, but sometimes, some people want to post, but don't want people to know their posting. How else can you expect to get insider dirt to blog if you don't protect your sources?
Plus, some of us don't have Blogger accounts to log into. :)
Yes, I do want dirt, and please note that anonymous posting was on and is still is on for my blog. So feel free to dish the straight poop and keep your identity secret, just like the Fantastic Four. Okay, maybe more secret than that.
What? No reaction to Warren's post on Fan.. Deci... whatever the hell it's called?
Ah well, seems that everything is okay now. Move along, nothing to see here.
I'm only an anonymous commentator when I forget to be an other commentator. I'm grateful to Chuck for still allowing me to post here and can't quite understand why I need to create a blogger account and sign up for some of the others. *shrug*
Sometime middle management are stuck between a rock and a hard place and get the blame for everything. They're often also (to some extent) the creators of their own predicament as they are too enamoured of the greasy pole to be really effective.
Wow, I thought I came here to get away from greasy pole as well...
My God, man, what is this "greasy pole" you speak of? My mind reels with possible connotations, each more horrific than the last. Please elucidate or, failing that, tell us more.
Saly this has little to do with well-oiled pole dancers, but rather the greasy pole to the top of the hierarchy. You scramble to get up it but you have to devote all your energy to keeping your grip and climbing, otherwise your slip inexorably downwards to oblivion, failure, and maybe real work.
And all this without a g-string in sight. Sorry to disappoint Chuck, but see what you'd miss if you didn't have anonymous comments!
Have you seen the printed article? There's a picture of the front door?? And a pic of Warren.
At my new job the president came over to my desk with the paper in hand and laughingly asks "Damn, you and Mike leave the company and go spill the beans?" I reply nope, they were already spilt.
He then goes on to say what a shame that it's happening and how much he respected the company for what it had accomplished and how this area needs more companies like Decipher.
It's funny but I've found that alot of people (non-gamers) around this area were aware of Decipher's goings on and they seem to be somewhat in "awe" of what was going on there. In my area of employment it's great for the resume :-)
Sad stuff though.
I have to note, the kids I went to high school with would laugh their asses off at the idea of me being at the jocks' table.
Not that this is neither here nor there at this late date.
Post a Comment