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Don't Trust Management

Entry 96, on 2004-12-03 at 15:00:08 (Rating 3, News)

I read in the Herald this morning, that a survey done by recruitment consultants, of 2000 employees in New Zealand, found that 61% of them didn't trust their managers. Dislike for managers was the most widely reported negative factor in their employment - ahead of low salary, stress, and lack of appreciation of their work. And for 91% the quality of management was the most important thing they look for in a new job.

Because there is a lack of skilled employees in New Zealand currently, you would expect that managers would be more oriented to being fair and honest with their staff, so maybe this represents one of the better results possible.

I have never had much regard for management. I think the whole structure of modern organisations is a mess. I don't think a pyramid model - with a CEO at top, then senior managers, then junior managers, then section heads, then workers - is appropriate at all.

The workers are the ones who really know what is happening at the "front line", but they have no realistic way to advise the person who makes the real decisions, usually the CEO, because of all the levels of useless middle management in between who are generally incapable of sending messages further up the chain unless they are saying what they think the next level wants to hear.

Most middle managers seem to be endlessly busy with producing reports for, and attending meetings with, other managers. It as if there is a whole self-sustaining class of people there for the sole purpose of feeding each other with largely useless information.

I think its time for a whole new look at how organisations (including businesses) are structured. We need a system which has fewer layers, and one which provides immediate benefits to the people at the bottom who are doing the real work. Then maybe people will become more trustful.

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