Skipping Acknowledgement of Your Contributions
I'd like to think that I'm not a fool. I know that capitalism is all about the smart, strong, clever, industrious, getting more from their efforts than others. It's Darwinism in business. So I'm not one to expect a lot of day-to-day patting on the back from the people I work with - or for. Every now and then a Thank You would be nice, and I get them often enough for me at the Shop. Yet today something happened that really upset me - and something I foresaw about two and a half years ago.
The CTO decided that he needed to have a Harvard Business School Org Chart for his part of the Shop. Why? Because he didn't want to have someone they are interviewing for his replacement look at the way things are now, and say "What kind of horrible manager are you?" Which to me begs the question of "I'm leaving, what do I care what you think?" or maybe even "The kind of horrible manager that instills great loyalty and affection in his troops, what kind are you that needs a Harvard Business School Org Chart to run an organization?" But I digress.
This Harvard Business School Org Chart acknowledges the alignment of the business into three pillars, and correctly identifies the technology leaders for each pillar. The org chat then takes a left turn there into the land of what might be, but isn't, and says that the pillar I'm in is then divided into three groups: development, production, and something else I can't remember for now so I'll call it 'candy canes'. Further, the head of development - because we have to have a head of an org chart box, is an old friend of the CTO and head of the pillar.
First, when they brought in this old friend two and a half years ago, I told my wife this was going to happen. When the going got tough, and they laid off tons of folks, they asked me to handle all the infrastructure of the pillar. Understandable, and I did it. Now they have a little breathing room and they want to put me back into a little box as if that's where I always was in the first place. Not so, Mr. Magoo.
The business isn't aligned like this. I do not sit completely in development - or production, or candy canes. I cover all three - and they want me to. They count on the fact that I cover all three and yet when they come to the Harvard Business School Org Chart, they don't want to draw it as it is - they want to draw it as they wished it were.
The truth is that we are aligned more by application in the pillars than by anything else. That makes the most sense in a small organization - who's responsible for what? That means doing everything for that project - soup to nuts. That's how it's really run. Putting in these mythical org charts about how they think it should be is just the caving into pressure to try t make a place that's unconventional look conventional.
Trust me, you may want to make this place look conventional, but the people in it are far from conventional, and like it that way.
So I was asked what I thought about this new org chart, and I told him it trivialized my accomplishments and daily contribution and sacrifice. He didn't expect me to react so personally, but when I reminded him that I take everything personally, and that's part of the reason I'm so good as my job, he knew I was right. This is a sham. I've got nothing against the guy that's now the Head of Development... he's a decent guy. He's just not my manager in any sense of the word. And putting it on paper in a Visio diagram is not going to make it so.
In fact, they don't want me to change how I do things. They want to leave things working just like they are - they just want a new org chart. Which comes back to the appearances factor. Trying to look like a cow when you're a horse. Silly. Dumb. And ultimately, disrespectful of those people that work very hard for you to make you a success.