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The Rise of The Hot Potato Manager!

Management is a diverse field and filled with stories of amazing feats of accomplishment as well as failure. To achieve success in management, various strategies and styles have been studied over the years. Many theories have been formulated, the pros and cons of each weighed, the results of studies deconstructed, reconstructed, remodeled, restructured, updated and applied.

The efforts are to find new ways of managing work, people, processes, organizations for better output, less costs, more production, better production, bigger sales, bigger profits, and eventually bigger houses, flashier cars and for the ultra successful their private jets and luxury yachts.

One of the concepts that has become popular is delegation. The concept is that managers will be able to achieve more if they can delegate their powers and authorities or their tasks to others so they can free up more of their time for more productive tasks. In theory, the tasks are forwarded to people who are better able to manage specific areas of the task and therefore they are able to achieve more in a more efficient manner. The theory also is that by doing this the manager is able to develop their teams by allowing them to flex their mental faculties and display their management prowess.

In practice though, delegation works quite differently. With the popularity of delegation, a new kind of manager has arisen in the corporate environment. This is the “Hot Potato Manager”. The Hot Potato Manager receives a task and immediately passes it on to his or her subordinates or even to their peers for action. There is no value addition or any processing done. The manager simply acts as a medium for the task to be passed on. The team then completes the required tasks and hands in their report to the manager who immediately passes it on to the person requiring the report. In this manner the Hot Potato Manager is able to reap the benefits of delegation by freeing up their time, while reaping the benefits of delegation through having the task done. Another advantage they reap through this practice is that if there are any shortcomings in the task, they can immediately place the blame on the person who took the time and effort to do the job (without their guidance or support). Words like ‘careless’, ‘unmotivated’, and even ‘incompetent’ are used to describe the behavior of the person who has done the task, while they themselves present themselves as efficient at having used a popular management tool.

If the task turns out well though, they are able to present the case so that their own efficient management of the task shines through. They are good team leaders employing the latest techniques to motivate and drive their team members while accomplishing other tasks as well. They are able to do this as, having delegated their tasks, they have enough free time on their hands to fine tune their scripts. That is the only job they do and having free time on their hands allows them the freedom to employ their faculties to this task.

The poor subordinates though are swamped with work. They have no time to devote to polishing any scripts as they are too busy doing the work which they consider will help the company. The boss of course keeps piling them with work. If they do complain sometime that they are swamped, they are immediately given a lecture on the benefits of delegation and how they must learn to delegate their tasks for better management. The problem lies in the fact that they do not have anyone to delegate the task to. The boss is fully aware of that, however, this fact is brushed aside with a comment, “You need to learn to manage!” Whatever that means.

A quality of the Hot Potato Manager, and the reason for their survival, is that they have honed their skills to the point that they never end up holding the potato when the music stops. The potato is always held by some poor staffer who spent 10 hours a days trying to fulfill the boss’s demands. However, since they did not learn to pass the potato soon enough, they are out of the game. The Hot Potato Manager meanwhile is still playing, making sure the potato spends as little time in their possession as possible. They enjoy their time of leisure, playing golf with other Hot Potato Managers and discussing the inefficiencies of those to whom the potato has been passed. It doesn’t matter that the company, the sales, the profits and the membership fees of the golf club are through the efforts of the people holding the potatoes at that time. They have not learnt the game so they are confined to windowless offices.

One of the favorite tools of the Hot Potato Manager these days is e-mail. How they were able to manage without this is unfathomable. E-mail gives the Hot Potato Manager the ability to pass the potato at any time and any place. The staff would be looking to call it a day after 10 hours of work and then the Hot Potato Manager would e-mail that a particular task has to be completed the same day. The task requires another 3 maybe 4 hours of work, however as the Hot Potato Manager has no idea about this, they are unconcerned. If they had taken the time to look into the task they could have seen the amount of work required and maybe negotiated a better time frame for the completion of the job. However, when the potato landed in their lap, their first order of business was to get rid of it. Study, thought and negotiation require time, which they do not have. They are efficient managers delegating their tasks to their team.

What do you say? Does your organization have a Hot Potato Manager?

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