Inverted Pyramid

This is a common question asked "What exactly is my boss's job other than picking on my fault?"

Actually, rephrasing the question: "Why should there a boss when I do most of the work, and get criticized?"

Or, "Why on earth the #%* with the boss?"

The below story illustrate that frustration.

Sam worked for a friend who took him in like a partner. Many moons later the business went well and they expanded. Soon they realized they needed more people so he took the initiative to lead the sales team. They expanded to twenty people where Sam became the supervisor, and his friend the major owner and proprietor.

Soon enough he elevated a good salesperson to be his assistant manager, and before he could realize, they wanted a marketing department and this assistant got promoted to Marketing Manager while Sam remained as Sales Manager.

His team went bigger and later, his friend decided that they expand to another business segment. Hence, the Marketing Manager being a lady, seemed to be suitable for the post thus being made the Business Unit Head. She decided to employ a specialist Sales Person who is also a woman, and convinced the boss (Sam's friend) to make her the Sales and Marketing Planning Manager overseeing the entire operation, including Sam's area. By now, she has elevated to the position of Business Unit Director.

So, now you realized Sam's is to report to his friend - the Boss, the Business Unit Director, the Sales and Marketing Planning Manager and he remained as Sales Manager. In fact, he graciously declined a promotion to "Senior Group Sales Manager" as he thought there was no point taking the title but doing the same job. Moreover, he was told that he has been paid beyond market rate, and there could not be anymore pay increase with the title. It was so generous for the company to 'promote' Sam even-though he declined.

In short, he still carried on with what he has been doing, and the bosses more aggressive in brain storming and did all the talking in meetings! Sometimes they even brain-stormed the whole day without having any solution to the market problems. Indeed, it is really tedious to go through all the meetings with nothing solid coming out of it!

Months and years had passed. Sam asked himself why were there Bosses when most of the work was done by him and his team? So, you see his question became a confusion as the pyramid became inverted. Why I say so?

In the old days, the army went to war with a general who led the army. The general went in front, challenging the opponent's general. You have watched the movie "Troy"? Brad Pit acted as 'Achilles' and he headed the combat, fighting the opponent.

The tip of the pyramid carried the most weight!

Now, it is inverted! The bosses push down the duties to the people below. The president, the generals and the leaders are behind giving directives and ideas, without themselves doing the chores!

Reflection

It is an Art to be in management! The role of bosses is sometimes irrelevant. It is never the leadership but the managerialship. Most of the work of the bosses is politicking in the board room or selling the ideas to the ground staff (or in blank truth - police the staff) to carry out works.

When the job becomes tougher, the bosses would employ middle managers to do all that "police the staff" job, releasing themselves from the burden. Then, these middle management will give excuses to have more middle lower managers to do the dirty jobs. This way, they can elevate themselves to higher management, in doing so releasing themselves with more freedom and quality of life (QoL).

So, if you ask what do bosses do? Well, they most likely just push on the lower level to do their jobs, in short they 'cascade down' their duties as messengers. Therefore, in real life they are just "messengers of the higher bosses"!

The only critical issue here is that there are eventually more messengers than the message. But, then again, more would be happier than not, and the company gets fatter and ineffective.

An inverted Pyramid!

And, do you think this inverted pyramid is able to sustain its balance? It will topple in no time!

That is why so many big companies eventually collapse!