Friday, October 03, 2008

 

Do you want to have your boss' job...

I have been noticing an interesting trend amongst enterprise architects that isn't discussed much. I have been asking folks whether they would want their boss' job and the vast majority of folks nowadays say no. I wonder what factors are at play...



I don't know of a single person who doesn't believe that they can do a better job than their boss, but this isn't a factor in why folks don't want to be their boss. The challenge as I see it is that nowadays in large enterprises, the ability to manage is based less and less on fact driven intelligence and more on fictitious perception driven management. Folks feel that taking their boss' job at many levels is a trap.

OK, so your boss makes more money but is it enough to offset the additional pain you will have to go through in managing perception? Now that we are on the same page, we need to be thoughtful as to how this reality is detrimental to the long term success of our enterprise and how we must become savage in the elimination of perception management as part of the culture.

For an enterprise to be sustainable, it requires strong succession planning. If one and only one person can do the job or even worse wants the job then what happens if someone gets hit by the proverbial bus?

Succession planning as part of management 101 is about helping others become you while perception management is all about throwing others under the bus. While perception management is important, elimination of perception management is more important...






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