Ohhhhh the fun of managers...(Or, BIG tip for Directors & Shareholders, at the end...)

SCENARIO: Imagine you've done a job to comply with formally defined process and principles, and worked-out the kinks, interpretative, and practical issues over 5ish years, cooperating with 2+ managers, many meetings with them after their discussions with other departments, directly with other departments, and even much input to correct (and correctly interpret) the formal documents (such as "oh, since these things are defined, but they are defined in ISO standards we are subject to, we have to read them a certain way unless we revise them or add formal definitions before the content). 

Now imagine a new guy who has been there a few months and keeps mis-reading things keeps "documenting" your "issues" and "problems", that is, for...following what you've worked-out with prior management, auditors, and been told to do. Then, when he learns you're doing them because that is what prior managers required and understood with you, he responds with, "well, I'M the manager now!" (and doesn't realize the 20+ odd year people in the department next door are eye-bulging as he says this since he is a Supervisor, not a Manager, there is a difference, and the people above him--VERY smart people--DO respect and care about that difference) "From now on you will..." 

Then he writes you up anyway as though you were violating one of his orders/expectations (as though you could know...as you were doing things as you had worked-out with all his predecessors to...strictly comply with the formally defined, audited, government-required processes...) 

Imagine he...literally has no clue. e.g. "you need to open EVERY THING and count and..." (Yeah, let's touch the possible satellite parts, without federal certification, requirement in the job descriptions and standards, and with the eye-popping HE WHAT!? response from the actual inspectors when you tell him he is demanding this).

Imagine he keeps telling you how he's going to "make sure everyone is receiving the same way" (across locations that handle DIFFERENT things and exist for different purposes, with VERY varied levels of training and experience) "so we don't have a problem with the auditors" (and you're a friend with a former auditor who literally knows this stuff in-and-out because you just had to ask...and you have let him know this--and offered to give him the former-auditor's information to verify... and did I mention the mis-reading/non-understanding of those very requirements the auditors rely on!?). 

SCENARIO: Imagine he pulls you aside for yet another implied-threat "documenting this" session and goes on to tell you how "you don't need to be 'creative'" (one the various adjectives he'll apply in this conversation to steps/actions you take in "processing" in order to...be compliant, but he doesn't understand this because HE NEVER ASKS AND 'TAKES CHARGE' AS THAT GREAT NEW GUY WHO JUST KNOWS 'I'M THE BOSS!') and proceeds with further remarks like "look, you don't need to go on solving all the problems around here--you stay in your box, and if you do, over time I'll add things to that box, but it's not your job to fix things, **I** do that"... Imagine he says that and doesn't even know that four years prior the company had an engineering shadowing you in another role to figure-out how to document everything in that work to stand-up a new department, resulting in that engineer (1) reporting "He is a walking encyclopedia of information about the company, process--even that others don't know exist" and (2) adding you to the SIX SIGMA CONTINUOUS PROCESS-IMPROVEMENT CONTACTS for the company. (For which various levels of people from lower managers to admins to Directors occassionally calling you up or scheduling meetings to get information, suggestions, clarification, etc.) 

Imagine he goes on "and that um...'notepad' thing you have--it's not authorized. Stop using it NOW! If an auditor came through and saw it, it would be different from what others are doing, and be a big problem..." Of course, that's an IT-approved tool running a loop that takes scanned input of tracking #'s and saves it to...a text file. FOR TRACEABILITY COMPLIANCE. Something you can do with actual-MS- Notepad... or with Excel. Both apporoved tools (as well) with which neither IT, nor the auditors, have any problem (unless they're arresting people at all the big firms that the government relies upon for this newfangled "Excel" thingy!) AND it's something...that prior manager (there for TWENTY YEARS AND WHO WROTE THE PROCESS DOCUMENTATION) was shown and know about...and that IT/security have both been shown...not just any monkey in IT, but a PRINCIPAL (title, not that they're really a Lord-King in the org, ha!) of IT.

The troubling bit isn't that HE JUST DOESN'T ASK (or harassment when you're just sullen/frustrated with the endless behavior that comes from this guy comparable to an assumption I'M A MANAGER, AND LIKE RETAIL, I ORDER PEOPLE AROUND, OR ELSE! Like telling you how you're going to properly yada yada and you're like "yeah so, did you spend several years in training with the inspectors and working-out problems across all these departments more than I did? Cool...") . Yeah, let's keep modifying things TO PLEASE PEOPLE IN OTHER DEPARTMENTS WITH VASTLY DIFFERENT INTERESTS, PROCESS, INCENTIVES... IN OTHER WORDS WHO AREN'T RELEVANT TO YOUR DECISIONS TO **NOT** SCREW-UP PROCESS IN YOUR OWN AREA! **WHICH ISN'T SIMPLE STUFF.**

Of course, the more it goes on, the more it's troubling from other angles: toxic workplace, actual harassment, [...], telling you "you shall not" (while policy requires otherwise up to and including in areas where in the past Directors have had to publish threatening letters)...

But American firms anymore...seem to suffer egregiously from the principal-agent problem. So you never really know who to go to in order to get help: instead of having proper, independent channels (I don't mean those stupid ethics hotlines, since these things often aren't ethics issues anyway, just internal matters of "hey, this guy is ****ing with requirements and has an ego so massive we'll lose extraordinary talent and important people if someone doesn't stop him ASAP...or anyone treated like me with far less patience could begin bringing lawsuits), you have a mess of weird alliances of middle managers, hierarchies where the people who are supposed to be supervising always tell people "if you have a problem, report THROUGH YOUR MANAGER OR SUPERVISOR UP THROUGH THE CHAIN OF COMMND." You know, like if your manager or supervisor IS the problem (and like, not just for you, but to insure critical functions and materials are NOT put at risk because he can't formulate proper instructions due to lack of enough details--and then rolls his eyes back in his head and breathes deeply like he's about to have a psychological break if you, in a perfectly friendly manner, say "oh, so just so you know relevant to that..." and fill him in). 

It's no wonder the guy walks around telling people "have you considered therapy..." As he himself later adds "I've done therapy...it really helped." 

But I do not understand how it is people with these sorts of personality issues are getting into leadership. I certainly know that given my traits of being "meticulous" and "beyond analytic"  (quoting others telling me what they noticed) that I DO NOT ASPIRE TO TRYING TO LEAD/MANAGE PEOPLE! And I try NOT to get angry if someone fills me in on a "need to know" matter that I'm wrong/in deficit about: not bottling-up a potential explosion and then... doubling-down on the "I know best" positions etc. I try to be accommodating because...well the more you learn (not just facts, but of the world as you experience, and about yourself as you experience), the more you realize this is just a reeeeeaaaaally good idea. 

Though you start to realize "maybe I should be mad" once you realize...you're literally just being screwed with.

+ + +

Firms and people today though... supposedly they wonder why they can't save money, get ideas, Six Sigmas kinda-sorta (but not really) takes-off... people like this STRANGLE the people around them with their "bright" thinking and "My way..." ... ... 

... "thinking."

"I know you think...but I AM THE MANAGER" (um...you're literally not, you are A SUPERVISOR--subject just as much to standards...that you're not allowed to change (especially not you), and you're new, and you're putting things at risk, and contradicting more than 60 years of combined experience of your predecessors, and keep citing the wrong segments of the process reqs at me, and writing me up FOR DOING MY JOB, and implicitly threatening me with statements like "I have to document this, and I'm not saying that documentation will lead to termination, but...")

Given what these kinds of folks do to your company's economic potential, return on capital, efficiencies, willingness of anyone to contribute, however... well, you again (I've mentioned this in prior posts) "put more money into stock here, or crypto?" 

If I actually had a lot of money (sad reality: I don't), it would be the latter. :\ 

A fun thought (and valuable): Directors of companies are among that upper-echelon that may actually really try sometimes...but everyone is filtering-out all that "bad" info before it can reach them. 

They're also those people supposedly acting on behalf of shareholders to insure max utilization of talents and capital for returns....

Sometimes they get wise and force middle-managers "reapply for your own jobs" to subject them to review (and in the interrim, have people investigate by scrutinizing the subordinates for intel). 

A fun one is this:

    "Each and every month you've been here, how many--exactly--creative ideas have you humbly noted from subordinates to have implemented in process, insured was properly credited to them for the EVA calculations so we can pay their bonuses..." 


That would be a BIG signal to them: it's not like the people in the trenches do not actually know how to VASTLY improve things--nor that their lives are so wonderfully awesome and satisfying already that they wouldn't fall over themselves to tell any manager that asked who was (a) serious and (b) powerful and willing to insure they were crushed for telling. This question even works, nearly immediately, for those "new" people (there for a month or two). 

The next step? You go (unannounced, simultaneously and separately) to interview subordinates... 

Edit: after this edit, archiving so this is third-party date-stamped and a verifiable record. In case of further hostilities, misbehavior, toxic behavior, ada violations, etc. by this manager.