Do My Job

One school of thought among management theorists and practitioners holds that we can optimize organizational performance by focusing on only three factors: defining each job carefully, hiring people who have demonstrated success in previous similar positions, and finally providing people the resources we think they need to succeed. Then all we need do is have supervisors ensure that their subordinates do their jobs.

Or so the theory goes. In practice, things sometimes work out a bit differently.

For example, some supervisors require not that their subordinates do their own jobs; rather, they require that the subordinate perform some part of the supervisor's job as well. In effect, the message from supervisor to subordinate isn't, "Do your job." Instead, it's, "Do my job." When this happens, trouble is inevitable.

An intra-organizational scenario

Here's an example of a do-my-job scenario involving players who all work in the same organization.

Consider a supervisor — call him Kukla — who suspects that a subordinate — call her Fran — might be revealing still-confidential product development plans to favored members of the sales force. The revelations happen out of the supervisor's awareness, but not out of awareness of other subordinates. So Kukla approaches another subordinate — call him Ollie — and directs Ollie to report on Fran's transgressions. And Kukla tells Ollie that he (Kukla) has asked other subordinates to report on Fran also, so if Kukla hears about Fran's misbehavior from others, but not from Ollie, he (Kukla) will not be happy.

Ollie is now in a bind. He and Fran were friends. Ollie now avoids Fran, because he doesn't want to be present when she talks with sales people. If he is present, and if Fran reveals secrets, Ollie will need to report on his friend. Meanwhile, Fran detects Ollie's new coolness, and their friendship is in peril.

That's just the beginning. It gets really ugly when Ollie witnesses one of Fran's transgressions.

In the above Some supervisors require not only that
their subordinates do their own jobs;
rather, they require that the subordinate
perform some part of the supervisor's jobscenario, Kukla is requiring Ollie to do what is more properly Kukla's job. Supervisors who use this ploy must endure the consequences of fractured relationships among the people they supervise. But some of them do this anyway because they're uncomfortable with the difficult conversations that would otherwise be necessary.

A multi-organizational scenario

Avoiding difficult conversations is just one reason why supervisors require subordinates to shoulder some supervisory responsibilities. Offloading political risk is another. Consider this scenario:

As part of a reorganization, all product development teams have been matched with sales and marketing teams to ensure that the products developed match customer needs. Kukla, the technical Director for the Time Travel product line, has been directed to work closely with Fran from Marketing and Ollie from Sales. But neither Fran nor Ollie have been cooperative. They've told Kukla, "Just you do your job, and we'll do ours." So Kukla delegated his collaboration responsibility to his subordinate, Max, saying, "Make it work with Fran and Ollie."

Now Max, who is subordinate to Kukla, is even less likely to succeed than Kukla, because Fran and Ollie outrank Max. But Kukla was reluctant to press Fran or Ollie, so he offloaded this entire nasty mess to poor Max. Essentially, Kukla's message to Max was, "Do my job."

Here Kukla is delegating to Max work that is properly Kukla's. Kukla does that because of the political risk associated with calling out Fran or Ollie for being uncooperative when all three have been directed to collaborate. Max is even less likely to succeed, not only because he's outranked, but also because of the message the delegation sends to Fran and Ollie. They will assume, rightly, that Kukla is unlikely to stand up for Max if Max tries to report Fran or Ollie as non-cooperative.

Last words

If you notice one of your subordinates running the "do-my-job" play, or if you're on the receiving end yourself, be aware that these scenarios rarely turn out well. The Maxes of the world tend to view these plays as opportunities to perform. That is one possible outcome. Here's another: Kukla can claim that delegating the work to Max was Kukla's very own brilliant idea, and that Max would not have succeeded without Kukla's steadfast support. If Kukla does this, Max gets little credit for his work.  Top    Next Issue

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Microdelegation is a style of delegation in which the delegator unintentionally communicates the task to the subordinate in such detail and so repetitively that the subordinate is offended. As a result of this delegation style, many subordinates feel distrusted or suspected of fraud or goldbricking. Available here and by RSS on July 23.

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