The Undecider

Some people hate to make decisions. When asked to decide something, they may:

1.     Ask for more information, delaying the need to decide.

2.     Insist that the decision be endorsed by others, sharing the blame.

3.     Say that they’ll take it up with higher management, delegating upward.

4.     Say they’ll think about it, meaning it will be ignored as long as possible.

One boss I knew specialized in excuse number 1. No matter how much information we provided, Kenny could always think of something else to ask for. Most of my colleagues just decided and acted, operating on the well-known “Don’t Tell” principle that it’s easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. That made Kenny happy, since if something went wrong he simply claimed ignorance and the blame slid over him and on to us. It worked but let him off the hook.

My friend Mary refused to play that game. Instead, she would charge into Kenny’s office and say, “Unless you order me not to, I’m going to …” followed by the action she wanted to take. Kenny would grow pink with frustration. Telling her to not do something was a decision, and it was to be avoided. It might also make her mad and Kenny was afraid of Mary. Even nodding and allowing her to go ahead was a decision he didn’t want to make, but it was the path of least resistance, so he nearly always took it. But he couldn’t claim ignorance.

It was a great method, but Mary gave it up and returned to the Don’t Tell approach. She said, “Kenny suffers too much. I don’t mind taking the heat for my decisions and I don’t want him to have a heart attack.”

Pointy-Haired Bosses

The characters in Scott Adams’ Dilbert cartoons vividly display super-stereotypes of workplace denizens. Among them is Dilbert’s selfish, clueless, pointy-haired boss, who destroys morale and impedes progress.

We may encounter bosses who occasionally remind us of Dilbert’s pointy-haired guy, but my experience suggests that only a few self-employed business owners and a lot of tenured professors behave that badly and get away with it. Most supervisors are decent sorts who genuinely want to do a good job. They will have faults, as we all do. They will make mistakes, as we all do. Mainly what they do is supervise in their own style, doing the things that are most comfortable.

We can talk about good supervisory styles later. Some typical bad supervisory styles include micro-manager, fearful non-decider, over-delegator, under-delegator, over-demander, smoke blower, and screamer. You may enjoy some of these if your work preferences match your supervisor’s styles. For example ….

Steven sat staring at the graph paper on his desk. I could see that he had plotted one, and only one, point on the graph paper since I left him an hour ago. That was enough time for him to have completed the simple task of plotting the data table I had left him, but it was barely started. He said, “I’m ready for you to check my work.” He wanted me to check every plotted point before he went on to the next one. That day and the next, no matter how often I told Steven to do the whole job before asking me to check it, he needed affirmation of every step.

Sherri was Steven’s complete opposite. I’d sketch out the big picture for her, give her instructions for the first few steps, and off she went. When she came back, usually much sooner than expected, the task was complete, including detailed steps we hadn’t even discussed yet. Sometimes Sherri overlooked some detail that needed fixing but she got it done.

Sherri flourished under my supervision and went on to a great career. After two days, Steven went back to his old job, saying he couldn’t work for me. He was right.

It takes talent, knowledge, and effort to supervise people, resources, and projects. Good supervisors adjust their approach to account for each employee’s personality and ability. If an employee lacks the ability or self-confidence to work independently, the supervisor must provide detailed instructions, regular check-ins, and affirmation or correction. Steven, obsessed with avoiding mistakes, needed that kind of micro-managing from me. Sherri was capable, self-confident, and enjoyed getting things done with minimal supervision. She needed the freedom to work it out herself.

If I were a great supervisor, I would have given Steven the constant monitoring and affirmation that he craved. But I’m not, and I didn’t. Sherri and I worked well together, not because I was a great supervisor, but because her work style matched perfectly with my preferred supervisory style.

Next time we’ll continue an examination of bosses and look at how to manage them.