Negative Management Techniques of our Corporate World.

Staffing

• Hire the best employees you can possibly afford then ignore their input, micro-manage them and second guess their decisions.

• Recognize employees who develop new or extend existing skills by putting others in charge of related projects.

• Keep staffing levels critically low.

• Hire consultants to "relieve" the workload. Temporary employees do not raise head count and rumors of exorbitant hourly rates will engage staff as their new co-workers "come up to speed".

• Criticism must be public to be effective.

• Reward successful and overachieving employees with increased workloads. reduce the milieu of other staff accordingly.

• Reward poor employees, beyond keeping them on the payroll, by offering them the same education and advancement opportunities as your stars.

• Choose your subordinate managers carefully. Skilled, savvy people with good interpersonal and organizational skills can threaten your position; never promote these employees and they will leave under their own accord. 

Cooperation

• Lay claim to areas serviced by other divisions and departments.

• Never give up something no matter how badly you're doing ("If you've got it, hold it!").

• Build dysfunctional teams by forcing motivated, knowledgeable employees to work closely with underachievers and the inept.

• Cultivate an adversarial relationship to other departments and divisions.

• Insist upon skill-sharing and cross-training without allocating time or reducing workloads.

• Encourage "round-table" discussions then dominate them and dismiss disagreement.

• Break down social and personal barriers by intruding upon unproductive time such as trips to the restroom, meals, sleep and family visits. 

Project Management

• Prioritize all tasks and projects equally.

• Delay action on major and minor projects then make snap decisions.

• Set arbitrary deadlines and stick to them.

• Keep "top level" information to yourself and deluge staffers with innumerable details.

• Publish standard operating procedures that are neither standard nor the procedure.

• Define "corporate goals" near mid-year.

• Use your investment portfolio as a handy guide for decision making.

• Involve subordinates in the decision-making process by having them attend a merry-go-round of unrelated meetings.

• Establish a corporate Project Management Office then ignore it. 

Corporate Culture

• Maintain an atmosphere of crisis.

• Recognize best practices by ignoring them, they'll go away.

• Define "opportunities" in terms of additional work.

• Require non-critical work to be performed after-hours, on weekends and over holidays.

• Stratify management and encourage bureaucracy.

• Create a "culture of meetings".

• Base critical decisions upon incomplete or inaccurate information.

• Encourage sub-committees.

• Embrace the status quo. Decay is preferable to change.

• Lavish praise on minor accomplishments.

• Buck the trend by curtailing perks.

• Silently live by the motto,"No policy is the best policy."

• Keep the rumor trade busy by not stating objectives.

• Publish costly, colorful, and content-free internal bulletins. 

Management August 23, 2017