A Manager’s Val(YOU) +

This is related to the previous post in this category in some way. If you have reached that stage in your career, where you are preparing the content of presentations to be made to external teams/senior management, you would know what I am talking about. The mandate that one starts with is to make a presentation that brings out your work and puts your views across, while we engage in a dialogue with ‘them’ to further our efforts into real action. Then you spend countless hours regurgitating facts, grinding theories, crucifying opinions, posing mind benders, culling out the solution, and posing actionables. If one had spent 3-4 weeks in working through the idea before it germinated into something worthy of showcasing at the higher level, another 3-4 days is spent in putting this ‘adorable’ ppt (Hail Microsoft) together. After all this, what catches the eye of your manager when she/he wants to ‘value-add’ to your work?
-Isnt that font a little too small or archaic to be shown on a bigger canvas
-How about replacing that mundane round bullet, with a flashy square blue button with a hole.
-Why are there very few slides in the Appendix? Did we not do more than this?
-Great and easy to understand process flow diagram – but do not demystify everything we do.
-Arent the colours a little too bright for the late evening presentation that we want to have?

(The Slide Master used was the same as the one used by the Manager, centuries ago(OSO style))

Deliverable – Urgent: Before 00:00 hours today

If you are a manager, then you would know this trick by now. Several times, circumstances demand that you get meaningless work done out of your team. Not all the work you do, is going to find some use somewhere. There are also times when there is absolutely no work at all. What does one do in such times, one can’t let the team rust away..one can’t let the team harbor ugly thoughts that can hurt the organization in the long run( like wanting to move to seemingly greener pastures)…so keep them busy with work that may or may not see the light of the day.

One is subject to this misery more often when one is a junior level team member..but then it is bliss at that point of time as very few people understand the difference between work and ‘real’ work at this point.

The next level of misery is when you are a reasonably senior member in the team and is privy to the real deliverables that affect the team. Here the situation gets tricky, as by now, one knows that the work given is just a tactic used by the manager, but a skilful manager can mask it under the shroud of secrecy or how important it is to lead to a bigger better project in the coming few months.

But the best is when the same treatment is meted out to your managers; they end up working late for a supposed meeting and it then gets cancelled at the last minute..whoa, what pleasure!