the thing is …


good cadence: 8 december

So we’re now at five days in with the new overlord (we’ll call him Bobs).

Day 1, he met with his 10 direct reports in a group – told us a bit about himself, his management philosophy (big, big on teamwork) and then asked for comments … Heather leapt into the increasingly uncomfortable silence, said a little, threw to me and I spoke for a while on our recent successes and challenges, Knut-the-treacherous spoke … crickets … I spoke again … and again. Everyone else just sat there and stared – what the hell is wrong with people?

Then we each had a 30 minute one-on-one. Naturally, I went into this prepared with a couple of key organisational documents, a pretty sexy summary of what my area does and a good idea of what I wanted to talk about (having a pretty good idea of his mandate1, I tailored it to that). Knut was similarly prepared for his – and the other 8 managers? Well, they took nothing, had no discussion points and the meetings took less than 15 minutes. Again, what the hell is wrong with people?

I’m definitely not any sort of management guru, but why wouldn’t you want to give your new boss a great first impression? Because, you know, HE IS YOUR BOSS!

Bobs and I have met several times since, he keeps telling me how dazzled he is by the quality of our reporting, has told senior peeps how impressed he is by me, he loves my attitude and “wants to bring me inside the tent” for the mandate1 stuff.

ZOMGWTFBBQ! This is like some beautiful, crazy dream! I’m incredibly excited by the opportunity, but I keep waiting for him to realise he has made some a terrible mistake.

So of course I think he is great! Knut is like-wise on board the Bobs train, some are lukewarm and others are afraid of him, worried he will “change things” (well yes, of course he will!) and terribly worried about their futures.

At times like these I give thanks MrT, who while often quite (very) unhinged, really reinforced the importance of preparation, professionalism, explaining complex things simply and coherently (executive summaries for everyone!) and management 101 stuff in general. And to anyresemblance who compelled me to buy all the boden dresses – because I really think that looking the goods has contributed a great deal!

This could be REALLY good – so good that I have even offered to cancel my leave in January, because the timeline is very tight.

1 code for organisational efficiencies – and we all know what that is code for.

1 thought on “the thing is …

Leave a Reply to anyresemblance Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.