A general manager assigns tasks, but none of the middle managers offer any support – they don’t prepare meeting minutes nor report on their work. What’s going on here?
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A general manager who has been with the company for many years; he previously served as the head of safety and environmental affairs for nearly 10 years. Before the previous general manager retired, he was promoted to assistant general manager, and after that retirement, he assumed the role of general manager. But in daily work management, many problems have arisen. First and foremost is the issue of bypassing proper hierarchical structures; aside from having a good understanding of safety and environmental matters, he is not very familiar with other aspects of work, as well as production processes and equipment on site. As a result, he often has to manage team leaders or frontline employees. At one of the middle-management meetings, he said, “I went to the site and saw that certain areas were not up to standard; I told the workers there to fix them right away, but they just walked away – they really don’t take me, the general manager, seriously at all.” At another meeting, he said, “You never report back on the tasks I assign to you. If I don’t ask, you don’t tell me anything. How am I supposed to manage things like this? No one even takes the time to write down the minutes of these meetings.”
When the work assigned by the leader isn’t done, there are usually two reasons: first, there’s no benefit to doing it; second, there are no consequences for not doing it. Or rather, the benefits are not attractive enough, and the consequences are not deterrent enough. It’s also possible that the subordinates are unwilling to obey their leaders and want to test whether those leaders have the ability to use violence to suppress them, as well as the ability to use incentives to unite them. In some systems, subordinates have a status that prevents leaders from taking action against them; they can still receive their salaries even if they don’t work, and their lack of physical strength means that their deterrence power is limited. Some leaders are unable to deliver on their real promises; they can only make empty assurances and end up breaking their word. As a result, subordinates don’t want to work with them, and it’s impossible to achieve unity among them. That’s how a commander with no troops ends up like that
This situation is indeed quite tricky; the problem with the general manager described by the original poster is that he shifted suddenly from a specialized role to one involving overall management, without adapting to this change in role. The analysis in the follow-up post is quite accurate – the key point is that \"there are no benefits to doing it, but no consequences either if not done\" – but there is one thing that is easily overlooked: bypassing hierarchical structures directly undermines the authority of middle managers; when they feel that their teams are being ignored and that their ability to implement tasks is undermined, they naturally lose the motivation to cooperate. It is recommended to make adjustments from three aspects: rebuilding trust among middle managers—first have one-on-one conversations with key middle managers, admit that one’s communication style was inadequate when not familiar with the business, and clearly state that in the future respect for the hierarchical structure will be upheld, with their opinions sought before making decisions. Clarify division of tasks and feedback mechanisms—agree on specific deadlines for tasks and the format for reporting (such as a written summary every Monday), and tie the benefits of carrying out these tasks to as well as the consequences of not doing so to compensation or performance evaluations; even small incentives are better than no incentive at all. Fill in the gaps in operational capabilities – if one is not familiar with the processes and equipment, a technical expert can be appointed as a temporary advisor; it’s important to clarify the standards before going to the site each time, to avoid giving incorrect instructions. Of course, if the company’s structure is rigid and middle managers have secure positions backed by powerful allies, it may be difficult for the general manager alone to make changes; higher-level intervention is needed to adjust management powers or evaluation systems. Additionally, what I have here is just based on empirical analysis; the specific approach will need to take into account your company’s interpersonal dynamics and institutional environment.
Actually, only by being in that situation did I realize that it doesn’t really matter whether you do it or not; as they said downstairs, \"There are no benefits to doing it, and no consequences for not doing it.\" This has been a habit over the years. It’s not about challenging authority either, as this person doesn’t really have any authority. He makes promises to others but then goes against them later on. For example, I heard from a colleague that the manager told him privately that he would receive the highest bonus for a certain project this year, more than anyone else. But a month later, in a meeting with middle managers, he talked about how fair he was, bringing up that same project again and saying that both he and *** had put in a lot of effort, and that those two people would get the highest bonuses. It seems he wasn’t even aware of what he was saying. Another colleague said that he allocated the departmental bonuses according to the company’s rules (with a fixed total amount). When the general manager saw his allocation plan, he said that such and such a bonus could not exceed a certain amount, while for someone else’s allocation he thought it was fine and suggested that more consideration should be given. Such situations are common.
Actually, those of us in the middle management level don’t have any backing. We’ve tried to discuss this with our managers, but it’s been useless; their approach is to \"as the general manager, I need to know everything, be able to control everyone, and understand all the details\", rather than defining roles, responsibilities, or standards. In such a situation, we can only go to the boss and explain the specific circumstances and facts. The boss’s response was that everyone has their own management style and approach, and all we need to do is cooperate well. So from now on we just need to cooperate. Since he’s already interfering with our subordinates and frontline employees, all we can do is wait. :'(To be honest, our approach to work isn’t right (the boundaries between different tasks aren’t clear). Every time a problem arises, we have to hold meetings; there’s no clear responsible person for the work, and no standards or deadlines are set. This only leads to an accumulation of problems, with everyone claiming it’s not their responsibility. Colleagues shift blame on each other, resulting in more and more disputes. Work-related issues become increasingly difficult to resolve, and progress is hindered. At present, sales performance is still okay, but if the company reaches a bottleneck, it can easily lead to serious problems that will quickly undermine the company.)